56 research outputs found
EEG Cortical Source Feature based Hand Kinematics Decoding using Residual CNN-LSTM Neural Network
Motor kinematics decoding (MKD) using brain signal is essential to develop
Brain-computer interface (BCI) system for rehabilitation or prosthesis devices.
Surface electroencephalogram (EEG) signal has been widely utilized for MKD.
However, kinematic decoding from cortical sources is sparsely explored. In this
work, the feasibility of hand kinematics decoding using EEG cortical source
signals has been explored for grasp and lift task. In particular, pre-movement
EEG segment is utilized. A residual convolutional neural network (CNN) - long
short-term memory (LSTM) based kinematics decoding model is proposed that
utilizes motor neural information present in pre-movement brain activity.
Various EEG windows at 50 ms prior to movement onset, are utilized for hand
kinematics decoding. Correlation value (CV) between actual and predicted hand
kinematics is utilized as performance metric for source and sensor domain. The
performance of the proposed deep learning model is compared in sensor and
source domain. The results demonstrate the viability of hand kinematics
decoding using pre-movement EEG cortical source data
Molecular diversity analysis in selected fodder and dual purpose oat (Avena sativa L.) genotypes by using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)
Genetic variability among 15 oat genotypes comprising fodder and dual purpose oat varieties from different geographical regions was analyzed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker method in Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (G.B.P.U.A. & T.), Pantnagar. The results show appreciably high genetic diversity among the oat genotypes studied. Fifteen (15) primers selected from 20 RAPD primers could amplify 259 clear and identifiable bands, of which 250 bands were polymorphic, accounting for 96.52% genetic polymorphism. All the oat genotypes studied could be distinctly divided into two major groups with the genetic distance level at 0.46 by cluster analysis based on the Jaccard’s coefficient of similarity. The cluster break indicated sufficient genetic variability among the genotypes. Clustering pattern of the varieties appeared such that it can be grouped in the genotypes suitable for the fodder purpose and the dual purpose varieties separately. Several polymorphic bands were also found in different genotypes which helped in molecular diversity analysis of these genotypes. The results found are encouraging and indicate that RAPD technique is an easy, quick and reliable technique used for molecular diversity analysis for preliminary selection.Keywords: Oats, RAPD, genetic diversity, polymorphism.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(22), pp. 3425-342
Comparative genetic diversity analysis of oat (Avena sativa L.) by microsatellite markers and morphological rainfed expressions
Equivalence was appraised between phenotypic and molecular markers (ISSR) to analyze the genetic diversity of 20 high yielding genotypes representing different geographical zones of the world. A moderate range of genetic similarity (0.84 to 0.20) was observed on the basis of 20 inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) markers, where it was found high (0.995 – 0.204) on the basis of 7 primary morphological rainfed expression. Genotypes in morphological character based dendogram were clustered into their respective geographic groups, while a random grouping was observed in dendogram based on the ISSR markers. A negative correlation (r = -0.186) was found among morphological and molecular marker systems, but the latter was found effective in distinguishing the genotypes using specific band positions for them. The genotypic classification agreed closely with the grouping observed in ISSR based 3D analysis.Keywords: Avena sativa, diversity, inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR), morphology, oat, relationshipAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(22), pp. 3414-342
Brain Connectivity Features-based Age Group Classification using Temporal Asynchrony Audio-Visual Integration Task
The process of integration of inputs from several sensory modalities in the
human brain is referred to as multisensory integration. Age-related cognitive
decline leads to a loss in the ability of the brain to conceive multisensory
inputs. There has been considerable work done in the study of such cognitive
changes for the old age groups. However, in the case of middle age groups, such
analysis is limited. Motivated by this, in the current work, EEG-based
functional connectivity during audiovisual temporal asynchrony integration task
for middle-aged groups is explored. Investigation has been carried out during
different tasks such as: unimodal audio, unimodal visual, and variations of
audio-visual stimulus. A correlation-based functional connectivity analysis is
done, and the changes among different age groups including: young (18-25
years), transition from young to middle age (25-33 years), and medium (33-41
years), are observed. Furthermore, features extracted from the connectivity
graphs have been used to classify among the different age groups.
Classification accuracies of and are obtained for the Audio
and Audio-50-Visual stimuli cases with a Random Forest based classifier,
thereby validating the efficacy of the proposed method
Insights into Age-Related Functional Brain Changes during Audiovisual Integration Tasks: A Comprehensive EEG Source-Based Analysis
The seamless integration of visual and auditory information is a fundamental
aspect of human cognition. Although age-related functional changes in
Audio-Visual Integration (AVI) have been extensively explored in the past,
thorough studies across various age groups remain insufficient. Previous
studies have provided valuable insights into agerelated AVI using EEG-based
sensor data. However, these studies have been limited in their ability to
capture spatial information related to brain source activation and their
connectivity. To address these gaps, our study conducted a comprehensive
audiovisual integration task with a specific focus on assessing the aging
effects in various age groups, particularly middle-aged individuals. We
presented visual, auditory, and audio-visual stimuli and recorded EEG data from
Young (18-25 years), Transition (26- 33 years), and Middle (34-42 years) age
cohort healthy participants. We aimed to understand how aging affects brain
activation and functional connectivity among hubs during audio-visual tasks.
Our findings revealed delayed brain activation in middleaged individuals,
especially for bimodal stimuli. The superior temporal cortex and superior
frontal gyrus showed significant changes in neuronal activation with aging.
Lower frequency bands (theta and alpha) showed substantial changes with
increasing age during AVI. Our findings also revealed that the AVI-associated
brain regions can be clustered into five different brain networks using the
k-means algorithm. Additionally, we observed increased functional connectivity
in middle age, particularly in the frontal, temporal, and occipital regions.
These results highlight the compensatory neural mechanisms involved in aging
during cognitive tasks
Predicting Multi-Joint Kinematics of the Upper Limb from EMG Signals Across Varied Loads with a Physics-Informed Neural Network
In this research, we present an innovative method known as a physics-informed
neural network (PINN) model to predict multi-joint kinematics using
electromyography (EMG) signals recorded from the muscles surrounding these
joints across various loads. The primary aim is to simultaneously predict both
the shoulder and elbow joint angles while executing elbow flexion-extension
(FE) movements, especially under varying load conditions. The PINN model is
constructed by combining a feed-forward Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with a
joint torque computation model. During the training process, the model utilizes
a custom loss function derived from an inverse dynamics joint torque
musculoskeletal model, along with a mean square angle loss. The training
dataset for the PINN model comprises EMG and time data collected from four
different subjects. To assess the model's performance, we conducted a
comparison between the predicted joint angles and experimental data using a
testing data set. The results demonstrated strong correlations of 58% to 83% in
joint angle prediction. The findings highlight the potential of incorporating
physical principles into the model, not only increasing its versatility but
also enhancing its accuracy. The findings could have significant implications
for the precise estimation of multi-joint kinematics in dynamic scenarios,
particularly concerning the advancement of human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for
exoskeletons and prosthetic control systems
SCLAiR : Supervised Contrastive Learning for User and Device Independent Airwriting Recognition
Airwriting Recognition is the problem of identifying letters written in free
space with finger movement. It is essentially a specialized case of gesture
recognition, wherein the vocabulary of gestures corresponds to letters as in a
particular language. With the wide adoption of smart wearables in the general
population, airwriting recognition using motion sensors from a smart-band can
be used as a medium of user input for applications in Human-Computer
Interaction. There has been limited work in the recognition of in-air
trajectories using motion sensors, and the performance of the techniques in the
case when the device used to record signals is changed has not been explored
hitherto. Motivated by these, a new paradigm for device and user-independent
airwriting recognition based on supervised contrastive learning is proposed. A
two stage classification strategy is employed, the first of which involves
training an encoder network with supervised contrastive loss. In the subsequent
stage, a classification head is trained with the encoder weights kept frozen.
The efficacy of the proposed method is demonstrated through experiments on a
publicly available dataset and also with a dataset recorded in our lab using a
different device. Experiments have been performed in both supervised and
unsupervised settings and compared against several state-of-the-art domain
adaptation techniques. Data and the code for our implementation will be made
available at https://github.com/ayushayt/SCLAiR
ImAiR: Airwriting Recognition framework using Image Representation of IMU Signals
The problem of Airwriting Recognition is focused on identifying letters
written by movement of finger in free space. It is a type of gesture
recognition where the dictionary corresponds to letters in a specific language.
In particular, airwriting recognition using sensor data from wrist-worn devices
can be used as a medium of user input for applications in Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI). Recognition of in-air trajectories using such wrist-worn
devices is limited in literature and forms the basis of the current work. In
this paper, we propose an airwriting recognition framework by first encoding
the time-series data obtained from a wearable Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)
on the wrist as images and then utilizing deep learning-based models for
identifying the written alphabets. The signals recorded from 3-axis
accelerometer and gyroscope in IMU are encoded as images using different
techniques such as Self Similarity Matrix (SSM), Gramian Angular Field (GAF)
and Markov Transition Field (MTF) to form two sets of 3-channel images. These
are then fed to two separate classification models and letter prediction is
made based on an average of the class conditional probabilities obtained from
the two models. Several standard model architectures for image classification
such as variants of ResNet, DenseNet, VGGNet, AlexNet and GoogleNet have been
utilized. Experiments performed on two publicly available datasets demonstrate
the efficacy of the proposed strategy. The code for our implementation will be
made available at https://github.com/ayushayt/ImAiR
Impacts of coal mine water and Damodar River water irrigation on soil and maize (Zea mays L.) in a coalfield area of Damodar Valley, India
The present investigation was carried out to assess the environmental and biochemical impacts due to irrigation of coal mine water and Damodar River water on Kharif crop, maize (Zea mays L.) in a coalfield area of Damodar Valley, India. Coal mine water and Damodar River water samples were collected for the monitoring of its quality from a coalfield area of Damodar Valley. The samples were analyzed for various parameters and compared with prescribed standard, which revealed that the total suspended solids of coal mine water were higher as Damodar River water. A pot experiment with Z. mays was conducted to study the suitability of this coal mine water for irrigation. The plants of Z. mays in the pots were irrigated with coal mine water and Damodar River water in two concentrations (100% and 50% dilution with double distilled water) and pure double distilled water was used for control. There was 100% germination of Z. mays in all the treatments. The plant growth, chlorophyll content of Z. mays and soil quality parameters were significantly better in coal mine water and Damodar River water treated pots. However, the Damodar River water and coal mine water could be successfully used for irrigation. In general, coal mine water and Damodar River water can be used after mixing with good quality of water has shown better growth of Z. mays
Seed treatments for sustainable agriculture-A review
Seed treatment refers to the application of certain agents physical, chemical or biological to the seed prior to sowing in order to suppress, control or repel pathogens, insects and other pests that attack seeds, seedlings or plants and it ranges from a basic dressing to coating and pelleting. Introduction and ban of arsenic (used from 1740 until 1808) is the key milestones in the history of modern seed treatment till then a continuous research and advancement in this technology is going on. The technological advancement prepared a roadmap for refiningexisting seed treatment technologies and future work on technologies like fluid drilling as a way to sow germinated seeds where gel can also serve as a delivery system for other materials, seed priming advances the early phase of germination without redicle emergence. Another advanced technology, solid matrix priming (SMP) has been evaluated as a means to advances the germination of seeds and serve as a carrier for useful material too. Physical and biological seed treatments alone an alternative to chemicals or in combination with a chemical treatment are being used worldwide because of their environmental safety and socioeconomic aspects. Biological seed treatments are expected to be one of the fastest growing seed treatment sectors in the near future, in part because they are easier to register at Environment Protection Agency (EPA). Lack of awareness to seed treatments at farmer’s level is one of the limiting factors in disease management and hence, efforts should be made at farmer’s level to adopt the technology. Keeping the all above facts in mind, selected seed treatment technologies with their improvement and significance will be discussed in this review
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