Automated EEG analysis and spike detection

EEG analysis of epileptic patients is extremely time consuming. Patients are monitored up to 36 hours at a time. The neurologist must visually review stacks of EEG records to determine whether they contain epileptic or artifactual activity. This process is very subjective and can vary from one neurologist to another based on his or her training and experience. The neurologist is only human and may tire or lose his or her concentration. Automated EEG analysis can efficiently reduce the amount of data and time involved in analysis. It is also more consistent and objective than human analysis. The main objective of this thesis is to develop an algorithm which will detect epileptic spikes (off-line) from EEG data. The first algorithm is based on a parametric method where the EEG signal, a stationary signal, is predicted by past signals. This autoregressive filter should remove any unexpected events (non-stationaries) such as epileptic spikes. Any large error signal (EEG signal minus the predicted signal) should represent epileptic spikes which are considered to be non-stationary events. The second algorithm is based on a mimetic approach which tries to imitate the neurologist\u27s analysis process. Decision logic, which is based on parameter thresholds and a prior knowledge of a spike, determines whether epileptic spikes exist. Six, two minute or less, EEG records were visually analyzed (epileptic spikes were scored) and used as input to the two algorithms. The EEG records were taken from patients who had been monitored for possible epilepsy. The autoregressive filter was not reliable because it did not detect epileptic spikes. Many false positives and false negatives were detected by this algorithm. It seems that the EEG signals were not stationary enough for this filter to work correctly. The mimetic approach was much more successful and did detect the epileptic spikes in the EEG records

Beyond Homo Economicus: New Developments in Theories of Social Norms

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72076/1/j.1088-4963.2000.00170.x.pd

On benevolence and love of others

Hobbes is famous for his insights into the impact of man’s fear, glory and greed on war and peace, not for his views on the bearing of men’s benevolence on the commonwealth. Are Hobbesian people even capable of love of others? In the literature, we find two main answers: one view is that Hobbes ruled out the possibility of disinterested benevolence among men; the other is that Hobbes considered actions driven by genuine benevolence possible but uncommon. After reviewing in broad outlines the two above positions, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the claim that Hobbes did not consider relevant to establish if men are capable of genuine benevolence or not, because he maintained that benevolent men can be as inept as egoists in differentiating apparent and real good for themselves and their loved ones and the effect of misguided altruism on the commonwealth is as damaging as the effect of ill-advised egoism.Postprin

Justice as mutual advantage and the vulnerable

Since at least as long ago as Plato’s time, philosophers have considered the possibility that justice is at bottom a system of rules that members of society follow for mutual advantage. Some maintain that justice as mutual advantage is a fatally flawed theory of justice because it is too exclusive. Proponents of a Vulnerability Objection argue that justice as mutual advantage would deny the most vulnerable members of society any of the protections and other benefits of justice. I argue that the Vulnerability Objection presupposes that in a justice-as-mutual-advantage society only those who can and do contribute to the cooperative surplus of benefits that compliance with justice creates are owed any share of these benefits. I argue that justice as mutual advantage need not include such a Contribution Requirement. I show by example that a justice-as-mutual-advantage society can extend the benefits of justice to all its members, including the vulnerable who cannot contribute. I close by arguing that if one does not presuppose a Contribution Requirement, then a justice-as-mutual-advantage society might require its members to extend the benefits of justice to humans that some maintain are not persons (for example, embryos) and to certain nonhuman creatures. I conclude that the real problem for defenders of justice as mutual advantage is that this theory of justice threatens to be too inclusive. </jats:p