Single-trial analysis of EEG during rapid visual discrimination: enabling cortically-coupled computer vision

We describe our work using linear discrimination of multi-channel electroencephalography for single-trial detection of neural signatures of visual recognition events. We demonstrate the approach as a methodology for relating neural variability to response variability, describing studies for response accuracy and response latency during visual target detection. We then show how the approach can be utilized to construct a novel type of brain-computer interface, which we term cortically-coupled computer vision. In this application, a large database of images is triaged using the detected neural signatures. We show how ‘corticaltriaging’ improves image search over a strictly behavioral response

Drug Courts

Drug Courts: A New Way Forward - Presented by Dr. Paul Lucas, Department of Criminal Justic

Rainfall Variability along the Southern Flank of the Bambouto Mountain(West-Cameroon)

This paper presents the rainfall variability along the southern flank of the Bambouto mountain. Data were collected from rain gauges, while spatial variability was estimated through daily recorded data. Monthly and annual data were used to draw isohyetes via the triangular method, with linear interpolations between observation points. Results show that rainfall is highly variable along the slope. Daily rainfall amounts range from 0.1 mm to 120 mm. Mean yearly rainfall is 1918.1 mm. Rainfall amount does not have a linear relationship with altitude. Dschang is characterised by abnormally high rainfall. Following a North-South direction, rainfall decreases from Dschang to a Melang-Loung-Djuttitsa axis. From this axis, the gradient reverses as rainfall increases rapidly towards the Mélétan mountain. The existence of the relatively dry zone within the hillside seems to be due to the influence of two air masses. The first is cold and very wet which moves from the Mamfe basin to the summit zone where it starts to warm up as it flows towards Melang and Loung where temperature increases. The second comes from the south to south-east monsoon which is also impoverished during the ascension to higher altitudes. It is also likely that a third air mass from the dry harmattan is involved depending on the position of the ITCZ

The Effect of Cattle, Sheep, and Other Factors on Aspen (Populus Tremuloides) Reproduction After Clear-Cut Logging in Southern Utah

Aspen is the most widespread deciduous tree of the western United States and the aspen type is important for water, forage, and wood products. Aspen reproduction on cutover areas was thought to be hindered by browsing and other factors, therefore a study was conducted to determine the effects of livestock, pocket gophers, disease, and snowpack damage on aspen reproduction during the first three years after clear-cutting. An enclosure was constructed and divided into nine paddocks. Controlled grazing by cattle and sheep was applied to six different paddocks during three summer periods. Three paddocks were protected from grazing. Results show that sheep utilized more sprouts than cattle, but controlled grazing by sheep or cattle did not prevent adequate aspen regeneration on good sites. Pocket gophers and disease appeared to be the most important decimating factors under controlled grazing. Sheep tended to concentrate on cutover areas so proper herding is needed to prevent misuse, especially the first and second years after initial sprouting

The Effects Of Caffeine Supplementation On Vertical Jump Performance

ABSTRACT The Effects of Caffeine Supplementation on Vertical Jump Performance. Introduction: Caffeine enhances performance of many types of exercise, but its effects on vertical jump are unclear. Purpose: To investigate the effects of caffeine on vertical jump tests on a force platform. Methods: The study was a single-blind, randomized, crossover design. Participants consumed either caffeine (5 mg/kg body weight) or placebo. After a sixty-minute waiting period participants performed three squat jumps and three countermovement jumps separated by 30 seconds each while standing on a force platform. There were two minutes of rest between the two different types of jumps. Results: In comparison to placebo, caffeine increased squat jump height (34.5 ± 6.7 vs. 32.7 ± 6.2 cm; p \u3c .05) and countermovement jump height (37.9 ± 7.4 vs. 36.4 ± 6.9 cm; p \u3c .05). Squat jump time to half peak force was decreased with caffeine supplementation (0.074 ± 0.038 vs. 0.084 ± 0.041 s, p \u3c .05). Caffeine increased average rate of force development (7,229 ± 4,049 vs. 6,371 ± 3,435 N.s-1 ; p \u3c .05), peak force (12,453 ± 6,716 vs. 10,979 ± 5,029 N; p \u3c .05), S-Gradient (9,487 ± 6,342 vs. 7,995 ± 4,337 N; p \u3c .05), and A-Gradient (6,558 ± 3,253 vs. 5,813 ± 3,147 N; p \u3c .05) in countermovement jump. Discussion: Caffeine supplementation (5 mg/kg) improved vertical jump performance in NCAA Division I athletes

Advancing the Line: Increasing Empirical Literature on Justice-Involved Veterans

American veterans have long struggled with the aftereffects of combat exposure, repeated deployments to hostile countries, and extended time spent away from their families and loved ones. Historically, when veterans struggling with issues such as mental illness and substance abuse, which can be related back to their military service, came into contact with the criminal justice system, they were processed without regard to their unique military experience. Beginning in 2008, however, a new type of problem-solving court, veterans’ treatment courts (VTCs), have been increasingly adopted to target justice-involved veterans to address the distinct issues and challenges they face. VTCs are modeled after the successful drug and mental health court models and, as such, utilize therapeutic jurisprudence and effective intervention. However, they have not been subjected to the same amount of scholarly attention the aforementioned courts themselves have. This editorial introduction briefly reviews past and current research on justice-involved veterans and calls for the continued empirical assessment of VTCs to better understand both their impact and the military population they serve

Being, narrative, and ethics: A hermeneutical-phenomenological inquiry into the ontology of ethics

In Being and Time, Heidegger articulates his understanding of the ontological difference and the Being of the human-like entity, or Dasein. Dasein’s Being, as existential, consists in the care structures of projection, thrownness, and fallenness, the unitary meaning of which is grounded in the ecstatical temporalizing modes of future, Present, and having-been. However, despite his deeply insightful ontological analysis of human Being, Heidegger rejects ontical ethical manifestations of the human as constitutive of Dasein. We claim that this neglect is the result of his initial focus on fallenness as one of Dasein’s constitutive ontological structures. Thus, we seek to re-Interpret Heidegger’s ontological conception of Dasein via the human’s constitutive projection and thrownness in such a way as makes accessible genuinely ethical phenomena. We thereupon conclude that human Being is constituted by projection-continuums whose meaning is grounded in the ecstases of future going-towards, Past being-brought-here- and-attested-to, and present Being-oriented. These projections, as existentiell, we call ‘narrative [lines],’ which are the concrete manifestations of existential-Narrative-Being. These narrative lines are each constituted by a fundamental projection that automatically entails various contingent projections. In moving on to the analysis of ethics as constitutive of Narrative-Being, we consider phenomenal ‘immorality’ via its modes of antagonism and underminingness. The former consists in an Interpretation of conscience as imperativizing the human towards her existentially optimal Narrative fulfillment; the latter consists in an analysis of evil as prospectively annihilating the human’s fundamental projections, thus revealing her world as conditionally-held-open-to her optimal Narrative fulfillment. Thus, these two structures, as unitarily holding-open-and-holding-me-to-my Narrative fulfillment, constitute ontological ethos