Social Institutions: Classic Understanding and Modern Approaches

The author discusses a sociological understanding of the social institution notion. Analysis of corresponding ideas by E. Durkheim, M. Weber, G. Mead, and T. Parsons reveals various meanings that were con sidered to be scientific milestones. According to classical traditions, institutions are regarded as complex mechanisms for regulation of not uniform inner social orders. Modern institutional approach to social research deals with existing institutional complexes, transform ing institutional conditions and institutional actions by individuals and groups

Вплив вітру на політ некерованих летальних апаратів

This article represents research of influence of wind on flight of uncontrollable flying devices. It is offered the method of taking into account influence of permanent wind as well as baffling wind on flight of uncontrollable aircrafts stabilized with rotation and empennageУ статті проводиться дослідження впливу вітру на політ некерованих летальних апаратів і пропонується метод обліку впливу як постійного, так і перемінного вітру на політ летальних апаратів, які стабілізуються як обертанням, так і крилам

Limited receptive area neural classifier for texture recognition of metal surfaces

The Limited Receptive Area (LIRA) neural classifier is proposed for texture recognition of mechanically treated metal surfaces. It can be used in systems that have to recognize position and orientation of complex work pieces in the task of assembly of micromechanical devices. The performance of the proposed classifier was tested on specially created image database in recognition of four texture types that correspond to metal surfaces after:milling, polishing with sandpaper, turning with lathe and polishing with file. The promising recognition rate of 99.7% was obtainedIFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice - Machine VisionRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Limited receptive area neural classifier for texture recognition of metal surfaces

The Limited Receptive Area (LIRA) neural classifier is proposed for texture recognition of mechanically treated metal surfaces. It can be used in systems that have to recognize position and orientation of complex work pieces in the task of assembly of micromechanical devices. The performance of the proposed classifier was tested on specially created image database in recognition of four texture types that correspond to metal surfaces after:milling, polishing with sandpaper, turning with lathe and polishing with file. The promising recognition rate of 99.7% was obtainedIFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice - Machine VisionRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Effects of transcranial focal electrical stimulation via tripolar concentric ring electrodes on pentylenetetrazole-induced seizures in rats

Purpose: To study the effects of noninvasive transcranial focal electrical stimulation (TFS) via tripolar concentric ring electrodes (TCRE) on the electrographic and behavioral activity from pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizures in rats. Methods: The TCREs were attached to the rat scalp. PTZ was administered and, after the first myoclonic jerk was observed, TFS was applied to the TFS treated group. The electroencephalogram (EEG) and behavioral activity were recorded and studied. Results: In the case of the TFS treated group, after TFS, there was a significant (p = 0.001) decrease in power compared to the control group in delta, theta, and alpha frequency bands. The number of myoclonic jerks was significantly different (p = 0.002) with median of 22 and 4.5 for the control group and the TFS treated groups, respectively. The duration of myoclonic activity was also significantly different (p = 0.031) with median of 17.56 min for the control group versus 8.63 min for the TFS treated group. At the same time there was no significant difference in seizure onset latency and maximal behavioral seizure activity score between control and TFS treated groups. Conclusions: TFS via TCREs interrupted PTZ-induced seizures and electrographic activity was reduced toward the “baseline.” The significantly reduced electrographic power, number of myoclonic jerks, and duration of myoclonic activity of PTZ-induced seizures suggests that TFS may have an anticonvulsant effect

Evaluation of Bipolar, Tripolar, and Quadripolar Laplacian Estimates of Electrocardiogram via Concentric Ring Electrodes

[EN] Surface Laplacian estimates via concentric ring electrodes (CREs) have proven to enhance spatial resolution compared to conventional disc electrodes, which is of great importance for P-wave analysis. In this study, Laplacian estimates for traditional bipolar configuration (BC), two tripolar configurations with linearly decreasing and increasing inter-ring distances (TCLDIRD and TCLIIRD, respectively), and quadripolar configuration (QC) were obtained from cardiac recordings with pentapolar CREs placed at CMV1 and CMV2 positions. Normalized P-wave amplitude (NAP) was computed to assess the contrast to study atrial activity. Signals were of good quality (20-30 dB). Atrial activity was more emphasized at CMV1 (NAP similar or equal to 0.19-0.24) compared to CMV2 (NAP similar or equal to 0.08-0.10). Enhanced spatial resolution of TCLIIRD and QC resulted in higher NAP values than BC and TCLDIRD. Comparison with simultaneous standard 12-lead ECG proved that Laplacian estimates at CMV1 outperformed all the limb and chest standard leads in the contrast to study P-waves. Clinical recordings with CRE at this position could allow more detailed observation of atrial activity and facilitate the diagnosis of associated pathologies. Furthermore, such recordings would not require additional electrodes on limbs and could be performed wirelessly, so it should also be suitable for ambulatory monitoring, for example, using cardiac Holter monitors.This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Human Resource Development (HRD) Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP), grants number 1622481 and 1914787 to O.M.Garcia-Casado, J.; Ye Lin, Y.; Prats-Boluda, G.; Makeyev, O. (2019). Evaluation of Bipolar, Tripolar, and Quadripolar Laplacian Estimates of Electrocardiogram via Concentric Ring Electrodes. 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IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 53(5), 926-933. doi:10.1109/tbme.2005.863887Besio, W., Aakula, R., Koka, K., & Dai, W. (2006). Development of a Tri-polar Concentric Ring Electrode for Acquiring Accurate Laplacian Body Surface Potentials. Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 34(3), 426-435. doi:10.1007/s10439-005-9054-8Besio, W., & Chen, T. (2007). Tripolar Laplacian electrocardiogram and moment of activation isochronal mapping. Physiological Measurement, 28(5), 515-529. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/28/5/006Prats-Boluda, G., Garcia-Casado, J., Martinez-de-Juan, J. L., & Ye-Lin, Y. (2011). Active concentric ring electrode for non-invasive detection of intestinal myoelectric signals. Medical Engineering & Physics, 33(4), 446-455. doi:10.1016/j.medengphy.2010.11.009Prats-Boluda, G., Ye-Lin, Y., Bueno-Barrachina, J., Rodriguez de Sanabria, R., & Garcia-Casado, J. (2016). 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Automatic food intake detection based on swallowing sounds

This paper presents a novel fully automatic food intake detection methodology, an important step toward objective monitoring of ingestive behavior. The aim of such monitoring is to improve our understanding of eating behaviors associated with obesity and eating disorders. The proposed methodology consists of two stages. First, acoustic detection of swallowing instances based on mel-scale Fourier spectrum features and classification using support vector machines is performed. Principal component analysis and a smoothing algorithm are used to improve swallowing detection accuracy. Second, the frequency of swallowing is used as a predictor for detection of food intake episodes. The proposed methodology was tested on data collected from 12 subjects with various degrees of adiposity. Average accuracies of \u3e80% and \u3e75% were obtained for intra-subject and inter-subject models correspondingly with a temporal resolution of 30 s. Results obtained on 44.1 h of data with a total of 7305 swallows show that detection accuracies are comparable for obese and lean subjects. They also suggest feasibility of food intake detection based on swallowing sounds and potential of the proposed methodology for automatic monitoring of ingestive behavior. Based on a wearable non-invasive acoustic sensor the proposed methodology may potentially be used in free-living conditions

Automatic identification of the number of food items in a meal using clustering techniques based on the monitoring of swallowing and chewing

The number of distinct foods consumed in a meal is of significant clinical concern in the study of obesity and other eating disorders. This paper proposes the use of information contained in chewing and swallowing sequences for meal segmentation by food types. Data collected from experiments of 17 volunteers were analyzed using two different clustering techniques. First, an unsupervised clustering technique, Affinity Propagation (AP), was used to automatically identify the number of segments within a meal. Second, performance of the unsupervised AP method was compared to a supervised learning approach based on Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC). While the AP method was able to obtain 90% accuracy in predicting the number of food items, the AHC achieved an accuracy \u3e95%. Experimental results suggest that the proposed models of automatic meal segmentation may be utilized as part of an integral application for objective Monitoring of Ingestive Behavior in free living conditions