56 research outputs found
A new method to detect event-related potentials based on Pearson\u2019s correlation
Event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely used in brain-computer interface applications and in neuroscience.
Normal EEG activity is rich in background noise, and therefore, in order to detect ERPs, it is usually necessary to take the average from multiple trials to reduce the effects of this noise. The noise produced by EEG activity itself is not correlated with the ERP waveform and so, by calculating the average, the noise is decreased by a factor inversely proportional to the square root of N, where N is the number of averaged epochs. This is the easiest strategy currently used to detect ERPs, which is based on calculating the average of all ERP\u2019s waveform, these waveforms being time- and phase-locked. In this paper, a new method called GW6 is proposed, which calculates the ERP using a mathematical method based only on Pearson\u2019s correlation. The result is a graph with the same time resolution as the classical ERP and which shows only positive peaks representing the increase\u2014in consonance with the stimuli\u2014in EEG signal correlation over all channels. This new method is also useful for selectively identifying
and highlighting some hidden components of the ERP response that are not phase-locked, and that are usually hidden in the standard and simple method based on the averaging of all the epochs. These hidden components seem to be caused by variations (between each successive stimulus) of the ERP\u2019s inherent phase latency period (jitter), although the same stimulus across all EEG channels produces a reasonably constant phase. For this reason, this new method could be very helpful to investigate these hidden components of the ERP response and to develop applications for scientific and medical purposes. Moreover, this new method is more resistant to EEG artifacts than the standard calculations of the average and could be very useful in research and neurology. The method we are proposing can be directly used in the form of a process written in the well-known Matlab programming language and can be easily and quickly written in any other software language
EEG correlates of social interaction at distance
This study investigated EEG correlates of social interaction at distance between twenty-five pairs of participants who were not connected by any traditional channels of communication. Each session involved the application of 128 stimulations separated by intervals of random duration ranging from 4 to 6 seconds. One of the pair received a one-second stimulation from a light signal produced by an arrangement of red LEDs, and a simultaneous 500 Hz sinusoidal audio signal of the same length. The other member of the pair sat in an isolated sound-proof room, such that any sensory interaction between the pair was impossible. An analysis of the Event-Related Potentials associated with sensory stimulation using traditional averaging methods showed a distinct peak at approximately 300 ms, but only in the EEG activity of subjects who were directly stimulated. However, when a new algorithm was applied to the EEG activity based on the correlation between signals from all active electrodes, a weak but robust response was also detected in the EEG activity of the passive member of the pair, particularly within 9 – 10 Hz in the Alpha range. Using the Bootstrap method and the Monte Carlo emulation, this signal was found to be statistically significant
A structured approach to support the definition of confined space entry and working procedures in the wine industry
Data Flooding against Ransomware: Concepts and Implementations
Ransomware is one of the most infamous kinds of malware, particularly the “crypto” subclass, which encrypts users’ files, asking for some monetary ransom in exchange for the decryption key. Recently, crypto-ransomware grew into a scourge for enterprises and governmental institutions. The most recent and impactful cases include an oil company in the US, an international Danish shipping company, and many hospitals and health departments in Europe. Attacks result in production lockdowns, shipping delays, and even risks to human lives. To contrast ransomware attacks (crypto, in particular), we propose a family of solutions, called Data Flooding against Ransomware, tackling the main phases of detection, mitigation, and restoration, based on a mix of honeypots, resource contention, and moving target defence. These solutions hinge on detecting and contrasting the action of ransomware by flooding specific locations (e.g., the attack location, sensible folders, etc.) of the victim’s disk with files. Besides the abstract definition of this family of solutions, we present an open-source tool that implements the mitigation and restoration phases, called Ranflood. In particular, Ranflood supports three flooding strategies, apt for different attack scenarios. At its core, Ranflood buys time for the user to counteract the attack, e.g., to access an unresponsive, attacked server and shut it down manually. We benchmark the efficacy of Ranflood by performing a thorough evaluation over 6 crypto-ransomware (e.g., WannaCry, LockBit) for a total of 78 different attack scenarios, showing that Ranflood consistently lowers the amount of files lost to encryption
How Many Bodies Are There? Unexpected Discoveries About the Subtle Body and Psychic Body
1. Patrizio E. Tressoldi[1][1][⇑][2] 2. Luciano Pederzoli[2][3] 3. Patrizio Caini[2][3] 4. Alessandro Ferrini[2][3] 5. Simone Melloni[2][3] 6. Elena Prati[2][3] 7. Diana Richeldi[2][3] 8. Florentina Richeldi[2][3] 9. Alice Trabucco[2][3] 1. 1Universita di Padova, Italy 2. 2EvanLab, Firenze, Italy 1. Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Universita di Padova, via Venezia 8, Padova 35131, Italy. Email: patrizio.tressoldi{at}unipd.it The possibility to induce real out-of-body experiences (OBEs) using hypnotic inductions, with the opportunity to interview participants during their experience, permits to investigate in depth the characteristics of different aspects of this particular state of consciousness from a first-person point of view. In this article, six selected participants report the description of another "body" we named "subtle body," identified as an intermediate entity between the physical body (Pb) and their "Self" or "I-identity" that was named "psychic body," and their relationships and characteristics. The "subtle body" was described as a sort of white silvered cloud surrounding the Pb, with a particular enlargement of its hands and feet that could move quickly like flying from one place to another even if less easily than the "psychic body," and a vague sense of attrition was perceived when passing through walls. Similar to the "psychic body," the "subtle" one too could move forward and backward in time even if they did not seem perceiving the sense of time. The "subtle body" was referred to be connected with the physical one by a sort of white brilliant link sometimes described like a silvered string more or less visible, whereas no visible links were identified between the "subtle body" and the "psychic" one. These reports were compared with similar descriptions deriving from the Vedanta philosophy and Theosophical tradition. [1]: #aff-1 [2]: #corresp-1 [3]: #aff-
Brain-to-Brain (mind-to-mind) interaction at distance: a confirmatory study
This study reports the results of a confirmatory experiment testing the hypothesis that it is possible to detect coincidences of a sequence of events (silence-signal) of different length, by analyzing the EEG activity of two human partners spatially separated when one member of the pair receives the stimulation and the second one is connected only mentally with the first.
Seven selected participants with a long friendship and a capacity to maintain focused mental concentration, were divided into two groups located in two different laboratories approximately 190 km apart. Each participant acted both as a “stimulated” and as a “mentally connected” member of the pair for a total of twenty sessions overall.
The offline analysis of EEG activity using a special classification algorithm based on a support vector machine, detected the coincidences in the sequence of events of the stimulation protocol between the EEG activity of the “stimulated” and the “mentally connected” pairs.
Furthermore the correlation of the power spectra of the five EEG frequency bands between each of the twenty pairs of data was analyzed using a bootstrap procedure.
The overall percentage of coincidences out of 88 events was 78.4% and the statistically significant average correlations between the EEG alpha and gamma bands among the pairs of participants, confirmed the results observed in a pilot study. The examination of potential internal, external and statistical artifacts which might have caused these results, ruled out external and internal artifacts. However, the examination of potential statistical artifacts revealed a good level of coincidences in only four pairs using a new procedure to detect the sequences of silence and signal between the EEG activity of the pairs of participants, giving a mild support to the hypothesis that two brains and hence two minds can be connected at distance
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