Probing of Brain States in Real-Time: Introducing the ConSole Environment

Recent years have seen huge advancements in the methods available and used in neuroscience employing EEG or MEG. However, the standard approach is to average a large number of trials for experimentally defined conditions in order to reduce intertrial-variability, i.e., treating it as a source of “noise.” Yet it is now more and more accepted that trial-to-trial fluctuations bear functional significance, reflecting fluctuations of “brain states” that predispose perception and action. Such effects are often revealed in a pre-stimulus period, when comparing response variability to an invariant stimulus. However such offline analyses are disadvantageous as they are correlational by drawing conclusions in a post hoc-manner and stimulus presentation is random with respect to the feature of interest. A more direct test is to trigger stimulus presentation when the relevant feature is present. The current paper introduces Constance System for Online EEG (ConSole), a software package capable of analyzing ongoing EEG/MEG in real-time and presenting auditory and visual stimuli via internal routines. Stimulation via external devices (e.g., transcranial magnetic stimulation) or third-party software (e.g., PsyScope X) is possible by sending TTL-triggers. With ConSole it is thus possible to target the stimulation at specific brain states. In contrast to many available applications, ConSole is open-source. Its modular design enhances the power of the software as it can be easily adapted to new challenges and writing new experiments is an easy task. ConSole is already pre-equipped with modules performing standard signal processing steps. The software is also independent from the EEG/MEG system, as long as a driver can be written (currently two EEG systems are supported). Besides a general introduction, we present benchmark data regarding performance and validity of the calculations used, as well as three example applications of ConSole in different settings. ConSole can be downloaded at: http://console-kn.sf.net

Commonwealth Members of Parliament who have served in war: the Second World War

Introduction This paper chronicles Commonwealth Members of Parliament (MPs) who are identified as having engaged in active service in the Australian Defence Forces during the Second World War, based on the Department of Veterans’ Affairs World War 2 Nominal Roll. The list contains 164 parliamentarians: 125 Members of the House of Representatives and 44 Senators, five of whom served in both chambers (Don Chipp, John Gorton, David Hamer, George Rankin and Keith Wilson). It includes: four future Prime Ministers (John Gorton, Harold Holt, William McMahon and Gough Whitlam) four Speakers of the House of Representatives (Archie Cameron, William Aston, John McLeay and Billy Snedden) five Presidents of the Senate (Edward Mattner, Alister McMullin, Magnus Cormack, Justin O’Byrne and Douglas McClelland) nine men who served in the war effort while at the same time sitting in Parliament (Adair Blain, Max Falstein, George Bowden, Thomas Burke, Archie Cameron, William Hutchinson, Harold Holt, George Rankin and Thomas White) and 12 MPs who were prisoners-of-war (Charles Anderson, Kenneth Anderson, Adair Blain, George Branson, John Carrick, Alexander Downer, Wilfred Kent Hughes, Justin O’Byrne, Thomas Pearsall, Reginald Swartz, Winton Turnbull and Tom Uren)

Sheperd Community Campgrounds Cabin

Students will design a small cabin building that will fit into the proposed camp near Columbus Ohio currently under consideration by Shepherd Church of the Nazarene in Gahanna Ohio. The design will include architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical design. Substantial completion of design documents is required

The Southwest Foreclosure Project

CURL worked with the Southwest Organizing Project (and their membership organizations), Neighborhood Housing Services (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park) and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions of home mortgage foreclosures in the Chicago Lawn and Gage Park neighborhoods. This project sought to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures.