Electrodermal Activity: Simultaneous Recordings

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a sensitive measure of the sympathetic nervous system activity. It is used to describe changes in the skin electrical properties. This chapter aimed to show advantages of simultaneous recordings of EDA parameters at the same skin site over other recordings. The literature databases, Web of Science and Google Scholar, were searched using terms like “electrodermal activity,” “sequential recording,” “simultaneous recording,” “skin conductance,” “skin potential,” and “skin susceptance.” Articles that include sequential and/or simultaneous recording of EDA parameters were analyzed. The chapter presents a description of the oldest and current methods used for recording EDA parameters and an explanation of the newest techniques used in EDA researches. Although sequential recordings are predominant and widely spreading, much effort has been made to simultaneously record skin conductance (SC) and skin potential (SP), and recently researchers realized the capability of simultaneously recording SC, SP, and skin susceptance (SS) at the same skin site. The advantage of simultaneous over the sequence measurements is that the latter must be manually time realigned when measured by different instruments, which means it is time-consuming. Although the simultaneous measurements are used exclusively for research purposes at this stage, this may open horizons in the modern trends of psychophysiology applications in the near future

Bioelectrical impedance method for assessing later body-composition considering the influence of breastfed on gender

Purpose: to study the effect of breastfeeding on body composition in both male and female via bioimpedance analysis method. analysis methods. Methods: we determined the body composition (body fat percentage, muscle mass percentage, and bone mass percentage) by bioimpedance analysis methods in 60 adults (31 male and 29 female) who were classified as underweight, normal and overweight subjects aged 20 years old. Average BMI was 21.4 Kg/ m2 which calculated by traditional formula. Findings: The differences in %BF assessed using bipolar analyzers were significantly higher for female than male. There was a significant difference (

Optimum Tilt Angle for South Facing Flat Solar Collectors in Duhok City

One of the important parameters that affect the performance of a solar collector is its, tilt angle with the horizon. This is because of the variation of tilt angle changes the amount of solar radiation reaching the collector surface. In this paper, the global irradiation observed in Duhok from 1990 to 2007 was used to estimate the optimal tilt angle for solar collectors. The observed data are resolved into diffusion, beam and albedo components. Total solar radiation on the solar collector surface with an optimum tilt angle is computed for specific periods. It is found that the optimum tilt angle changes between 0◦ (June) and 62◦ (December) throughout the year. In winter (December, January, and February) the tilt should be 58◦, in spring (March, April, and May) 20, in summer (June, July, and August) 5◦, and in autumn (September, October, and November) 46.3◦. The yearly average of this value was found to be 32.33◦ and this would be the optimum fixed tilt throughout the year

Assessment of Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and its Quality in Student Canteens at Duhok University, 2015

Maintaining and improving the health level of college students are important aspects for higher education, where the food security becomes the foundation of the health. The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge and attitudes about food safety and to evaluate the quality of food (Physical & Operational Standards) in the student canteen at Duhok University. To achieve this goal, three questionnaires were developed. Concerning food safety knowledge and attitude for food handles (buying, storage and serving food) data was collected using these self-questionnaires. The study was conducted on (319) respondents. The obtained data were analyzed and statistically tested. The results have shown that neither age nor education levels have significant impact on the food safety knowledge. However, significant difference between male and female was found for the age >41. For food quality evaluation, the results have also shown that canteen workers lack the physical and operational standards of food safety especially taste and healthy ways of food prepared. The analysis has shown that the positive attitudes of canteen owner toward food handlers were 66.25% for buying, 31.2% for storage and 42.5% for serving food. The overall positive attitude was 46.65% which is insufficient range. Overall respondents had poor food safety knowledge. There was a significant difference between the mean score of knowledge according to gender for group >41 years. In male only, the age has to impact on safety knowledge. While educational levels had no significant impact. The untrained employees who manage the university canteen made their attitudes toward storage and serving food unwelcome

Assessment of Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and its Quality in Student Canteens at Duhok University, 2015

Maintaining and improving the health level of college students are important aspects for higher education, where the food security becomes the foundation of the health. The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge and attitudes about food safety and to evaluate the quality of food (Physical & Operational Standards) in the student canteen at Duhok University. To achieve this goal, three questionnaires were developed. Concerning food safety knowledge and attitude for food handles (buying, storage and serving food) data was collected using these self-questionnaires. The study was conducted on (319) respondents. The obtained data were analyzed and statistically tested. The results have shown that neither age nor education levels have significant impact on the food safety knowledge. However, significant difference between male and female was found for the age >41. For food quality evaluation, the results have also shown that canteen workers lack the physical and operational standards of food safety especially taste and healthy ways of food prepared. The analysis has shown that the positive attitudes of canteen owner toward food handlers were 66.25% for buying, 31.2% for storage and 42.5% for serving food. The overall positive attitude was 46.65% which is insufficient range. Overall respondents had poor food safety knowledge. There was a significant difference between the mean score of knowledge according to gender for group >41 years. In male only, the age has to impact on safety knowledge. While educational levels had no significant impact. The untrained employees who manage the university canteen made their attitudes toward storage and serving food unwelcome

Possible Role for Interleukin-5 in Asthma

Background: Asthma is an allergic disease characterized by airway obstruction as a result of cellular accumulation due to the liberation of certain mediators. Among those mediators are the cytokines such as IL-5.  Patients & Methods: Interleukin-5 concentration has been estimated in 94 sera samples of Asthmatic patients in comparison with 41 non-asthmatic bronchitis as patient controls in addition to 30 apparent healthy control group using ELISA method. Results & Conclusions: There is highly significant elevation of IL-5 in the asthmatic cases in comparison with healthy controls (P< 0.001). We conclude that this cytokine may play the major role in asthmatic attack & it may be a good marker for the disease

Association between Interleukin-5 & Body Mass Index among Iraqi Asthmatic Patients

Background: Asthma is an allergic hypersensitivity disease in which many mediators play a role in its pathogenecity. One of these etiological agents is the mediators such as Interleukin-5 (IL-5). The  aim of this study to demonstrate the association between IL-5 and obesity in asthma development.  Materials & Methods: One hundred and four sera samples for asthma cases have been studied in comparison with 41 non-asthmatic bronchitis as a patient controls beside 30 apparently healthy controls. Cytokine has been estimated using ELISA method in correlation with Body Mass Index (BMI). Results: This study revealed a significant correlation between IL-5 concentration and BMI (P<0.05), particularly among females. Conclusion: There is certain correlation between obesity and asthma accompanied by IL-5

Recognising facial expressions in video sequences

We introduce a system that processes a sequence of images of a front-facing human face and recognises a set of facial expressions. We use an efficient appearance-based face tracker to locate the face in the image sequence and estimate the deformation of its non-rigid components. The tracker works in real-time. It is robust to strong illumination changes and factors out changes in appearance caused by illumination from changes due to face deformation. We adopt a model-based approach for facial expression recognition. In our model, an image of a face is represented by a point in a deformation space. The variability of the classes of images associated to facial expressions are represented by a set of samples which model a low-dimensional manifold in the space of deformations. We introduce a probabilistic procedure based on a nearest-neighbour approach to combine the information provided by the incoming image sequence with the prior information stored in the expression manifold in order to compute a posterior probability associated to a facial expression. In the experiments conducted we show that this system is able to work in an unconstrained environment with strong changes in illumination and face location. It achieves an 89\% recognition rate in a set of 333 sequences from the Cohn-Kanade data base

Direct measurement of the mass difference between top and antitop quarks

We present a direct measurement of the mass difference between top and antitop quarks (dm) in lepton+jets top-antitop final states using the "matrix element" method. The purity of the lepton+jets sample is enhanced for top-antitop events by identifying at least one of the jet as originating from a b quark. The analyzed data correspond to 3.6 fb-1 of proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV acquired by D0 in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The combination of the e+jets and mu+jets channels yields dm = 0.8 +/- 1.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst) GeV, which is in agreement with the standard model expectation of no mass difference.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.

Search for first generation leptoquark pair production in the electron + missing energy + jets final state

We present a search for the pair production of first generation scalar leptoquarks (LQ) in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider in ppbar collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV. In the channel $LQ \bar{LQ} \rightarrow e\nu_e qq'$, where q, q' are u or d quarks, no significant excess of data over background is observed, and we set a 95% C.L. lower limit of 326 GeV on the leptoquark mass, assuming equal probabilities of leptoquark decays to eq and $\nu_e q'$.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PRD-R