The modulation of visuospatial awareness in the human brain using transcranial magnetic stimulation

This thesis describes a series of studies, involving healthy subjects and a carefully selected stroke patient, in which the techniques of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Signal Detection Theory (SDT) were combined to explore processing in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the phenomenon of unilateral spatial neglect: 1) A new SDT-based TMS 'hunting' technique was developed and then employed successfully over the right PPC. This revealed a cortical node which could be modulated with 'online' 10Hz-TMS to exert control over subjects' visuospatial perception. 2) By targeting this 'hotspot' and an equivalent area in the left PPC with disruptive 'cTBS' (continuous 'Theta Burst' simulation), neglect-like effects in the healthy brain could be induced and alleviated. These effects were quantified using a newly developed, fully balanced, bihemifield detection paradigm 3) By using TMS to map visuospatial function over healthy right PPC, the 'hotspot' could be enlarged after exposure to excitatory, intermittent TBS (iTBS). 4) cTBS was applied to the left PPC of a patient with a right sided stroke and visuospatial neglect. In doing this, neglect and its alleviation were described for the first time in fully balanced SDT terms. 5) The cerebellum was targeted in healthy subjects with 1Hz inhibitory TMS which induced a shift in their subjective midline for 'imaginary' but not 'real' space, as measured with number or physical line bisection respectively. These TBS studies lend support to Kinsbourne's hemispheric rivalry hypothesis and suggest that the extent of 'spatially eloquent' cortex in the right PPC can be increased. Both strategies could be useful in larger therapeutic studies of patients suffering from USN after right sided brain injury. The final study opens up an additional therapeutic target for patients with imaginal neglect and, for the first time, implicates the cerebellum in number line bisection

Bio-banding in Sport: Applications to Competition, Talent Identification, and Strength and Conditioning of Youth Athletes

Bio-banding is the process of grouping athletes on the basis of attributes associated with growth and maturation, rather than chronological age. Children of the same age may vary considerably in biological maturation with some individuals maturing well in advance or delay of their peers. The timing of maturation has important implications for competition, talent identification and training. Increased awareness and interest in the subject of maturation has sparked a renewed interest in the study and application of bio-banding. This overview describes the purpose and process of bio-banding, potential benefits and limitations, and also presents some recent advances in its application in youth sports

Evaluation of an interactive music awareness program for cochlear implant recipients

The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a prototype interactive music awareness program (IMAP) for adult cochlear implant (CI) users. An unblinded, randomized, crossover design was used. Twenty-one CI users were recruited and allocated to two groups. Group 1 received the IMAP first, followed by a retention of learning phase. Group 2 were given the IMAP after 12 weeks. Participants were instructed to undertake two half-hour sessions per week at home over 12 weeks. Both groups attended appointments at the start, halfway through, and at the end of the trial. At each appointment participants completed tests of speech perception, melodic contour identification and instrument recognition, rated the sound quality of music, and indicated their music listening habits. Sixteen participants completed the study. Following training both groups showed improved instrument recognition abilities and feedback suggests further positive impact on participants’ lives. The findings suggest that the IMAP is beneficial for music perception and in particular, improved instrument recognition

Testing timed systems modeled by stream X-machines

Stream X-machines have been used to specify real systems where complex data structures. They are a variety of extended finite state machine where a shared memory is used to represent communications between the components of systems. In this paper we introduce an extension of the Stream X-machines formalism in order to specify systems that present temporal requirements. We add time in two different ways. First, we consider that (output) actions take time to be performed. Second, our formalism allows to specify timeouts. Timeouts represent the time a system can wait for the environment to react without changing its internal state. Since timeous affect the set of available actions of the system, a relation focusing on the functional behavior of systems, that is, the actions that they can perform, must explicitly take into account the possible timeouts. In this paper we also propose a formal testing methodology allowing to systematically test a system with respect to a specification. Finally, we introduce a test derivation algorithm. Given a specification, the derived test suite is sound and complete, that is, a system under test successfully passes the test suite if and only if this system conforms to the specification

Klasifikacija dojki prema gustoći izborom značajki

Mammography as an x-ray method usually gives good results for lower density breasts while higher breast tissue densities significantly reduce the overall detection sensitivity and can lead to false negative results. In automatic detection algorithms knowledge about breast density can be useful for setting an appropriate decision threshold in order to produce more accurate detection. Because the overall intensity of mammograms is not directly correlated with the breast density we have decided to observe breast density as a texture classification problem. In this paper we propose breast density classification using feature selection process for different classifiers based on grayscale features of first and second order. In feature selection process different selection methods were used and obtained results show the improvement on overall classification by choosing the appropriate method and classifier. The classification accuracy has been tested on the mini-MIAS database and KBD-FER digital mammography database with different number of categories for each database. Obtained accuracy stretches between 97.2 % and 76.4 % for different number of categories.Mamografija je rendgenska metoda koja daje dobre rezultate pri slikanju dojki koje imaju manju gustoću, dok joj osjetljivost značajno opada pri snimanju dojki veće gustoće i time može doći do lažno pozitivnih rezultata. Poznavanje gustoće dojke može biti korisno kod algoritama za automatsku detekciju zbog mogućnosti određivanja praga odluke na osnovi tog znanja. S obzirom na to da ukupni intenzitet pojedinog mamograma nije izravno povezan s gustoćom, odlučili smo se promatrati gustoću kao problem klasifikacije teksture. U ovom radu predlažemo klasifikaciju dojki prema gustoći izborom izdvojenih značajki intenziteta prvog i drugog reda za različite klasifikatore. Za određivanje prikladnih značajki koristili smo različite metode i tako dobivene značajke pokazale su bolju točnost klasifikacije za odabrane klasifikatore. Točnost klasifikacije testirali smo na bazi mamografskih slika mini-MIAS i bazi digitalnih mamografskih slika KBD-FER s različitim brojem kategorija u koje su slike bile podijeljene. Postignuta točnost klasifikacije proteže se između 97,2 % i 76,4 % za različit broj kategorija u koje su mamogrami podijeljeni

Reference Genome Assembly for Australian Ascochyta rabiei Isolate ArME14

Copyright © 2020 Mohd Shah et al. Ascochyta rabiei is the causal organism of ascochyta blight of chickpea and is present in chickpea crops worldwide. Here we report the release of a high-quality PacBio genome assembly for the Australian A. rabiei isolate ArME14. We compare the ArME14 genome assembly with an Illumina assembly for Indian A. rabiei isolate, ArD2. The ArME14 assembly has gapless sequences for nine chromosomes with telomere sequences at both ends and 13 large contig sequences that extend to one telomere. The total length of the ArME14 assembly was 40,927,385 bp, which was 6.26 Mb longer than the ArD2 assembly. Division of the genome by OcculterCut into GC-balanced and AT-dominant segments reveals 21% of the genome contains gene-sparse, AT-rich isochores. Transposable elements and repetitive DNA sequences in the ArME14 assembly made up 15% of the genome. A total of 11,257 protein-coding genes were predicted compared with 10,596 for ArD2. Many of the predicted genes missing from the ArD2 assembly were in genomic regions adjacent to AT-rich sequence. We compared the complement of predicted transcription factors and secreted proteins for the two A. rabiei genome assemblies and found that the isolates contain almost the same set of proteins. The small number of differences could represent real differences in the gene complement between isolates or possibly result from the different sequencing methods used. Prediction pipelines were applied for carbohydrate-active enzymes, secondary metabolite clusters and putative protein effectors. We predict that ArME14 contains between 450 and 650 CAZymes, 39 putative protein effectors and 26 secondary metabolite clusters

Reference genome assembly for Australian Ascochyta rabiei Isolate ArME14

Ascochyta rabiei is the causal organism of ascochyta blight of chickpea and is present in chickpea crops worldwide. Here we report the release of a high-quality PacBio genome assembly for the Australian A. rabiei isolate ArME14. We compare the ArME14 genome assembly with an Illumina assembly for Indian A. rabiei isolate, ArD2. The ArME14 assembly has gapless sequences for nine chromosomes with telomere sequences at both ends and 13 large contig sequences that extend to one telomere. The total length of the ArME14 assembly was 40,927,385 bp, which was 6.26 Mb longer than the ArD2 assembly. Division of the genome by OcculterCut into GC-balanced and AT-dominant segments reveals 21% of the genome contains gene-sparse, AT-rich isochores. Transposable elements and repetitive DNA sequences in the ArME14 assembly made up 15% of the genome. A total of 11,257 protein-coding genes were predicted compared with 10,596 for ArD2. Many of the predicted genes missing from the ArD2 assembly were in genomic regions adjacent to AT-rich sequence. We compared the complement of predicted transcription factors and secreted proteins for the two A. rabiei genome assemblies and found that the isolates contain almost the same set of proteins. The small number of differences could represent real differences in the gene complement between isolates or possibly result from the different sequencing methods used. Prediction pipelines were applied for carbohydrate-active enzymes, secondary metabolite clusters and putative protein effectors. We predict that ArME14 contains between 450 and 650 CAZymes, 39 putative protein effectors and 26 secondary metabolite clusters

Can filesharers be triggered by economic incentives? Results of an experiment

Illegal filesharing on the internet leads to considerable financial losses for artists and copyright owners as well as producers and sellers of music. Thus far, measures to contain this phenomenon have been rather restrictive. However, there are still a considerable number of illegal systems, and users are able to decide quite freely between legal and illegal downloads because the latter are still difficult to sanction. Recent economic approaches account for the improved bargaining position of users. They are based on the idea of revenue-splitting between professional sellers and peers. In order to test such an innovative business model, the study reported in this article carried out an experiment with 100 undergraduate students, forming five small peer-to-peer networks.The networks were confronted with different economic conditions.The results indicate that even experienced filesharers hold favourable attitudes towards revenue-splitting.They seem to be willing to adjust their behaviour to different economic conditions

Conditional citizens? welfare rights and responsibilities in the late 1990s

In Britain the relationship between welfare rights and responsibilities has undergone change. A new welfare 'consensus' that emphasizes a citizen ship centred on notions of duty rather than rights has been built. This has allowed the state to reduce its role as a provider of welfare and also defend a position in which the welfare rights of some citizens are increas ingly conditional on those individuals meeting compulsory responsibili ties or duties. This concentration on individual responsibility/duty has undermined the welfare rights of some of the poorest members of society. Three levels of debate are considered within the article: academic, pol itical and 'grassroots'. The latter is included in an attempt to allow some 'bottom up' views into what is largely a debate dominated by social sci entists and politicians