Graph Convolutional Network with Connectivity Uncertainty for EEG-based Emotion Recognition

Automatic emotion recognition based on multichannel Electroencephalography (EEG) holds great potential in advancing human-computer interaction. However, several significant challenges persist in existing research on algorithmic emotion recognition. These challenges include the need for a robust model to effectively learn discriminative node attributes over long paths, the exploration of ambiguous topological information in EEG channels and effective frequency bands, and the mapping between intrinsic data qualities and provided labels. To address these challenges, this study introduces the distribution-based uncertainty method to represent spatial dependencies and temporal-spectral relativeness in EEG signals based on Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) architecture that adaptively assigns weights to functional aggregate node features, enabling effective long-path capturing while mitigating over-smoothing phenomena. Moreover, the graph mixup technique is employed to enhance latent connected edges and mitigate noisy label issues. Furthermore, we integrate the uncertainty learning method with deep GCN weights in a one-way learning fashion, termed Connectivity Uncertainty GCN (CU-GCN). We evaluate our approach on two widely used datasets, namely SEED and SEEDIV, for emotion recognition tasks. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our methodology over previous methods, yielding positive and significant improvements. Ablation studies confirm the substantial contributions of each component to the overall performance.Comment: 10 page

Energy Costs of Chair Sitting and Standing Video Exercises in Chinese Older Adults, Ages 60 to 89 years

International Journal of Exercise Science 16(7): 814-827, 2023. Home-based video exercise interventions improve older adults’ physiological performance and functional capacity. Little is known about the energy costs of video exercises in older adults. The Compendium of Physical Activities (PAs) has few items with PA metabolic equivalents (METs) in older adults. This study measured the energy costs of four chair and two standing exercises (sitting Tai Chi, Yoga, mobility ball, aerobics: standing, slow aerobics, and fast aerobics). Fifteen females and 14 males, 62-87 years (M ± SD, 73 ± 7.7 years), were categorized into three age groups (60-69, 70-79, 80-89). Oxygen uptake (VO2, ml.min-1.kg-1) and heart rate (HR, b.min-1) were measured by indirect calorimetry and heart rate monitor. MET values were calculated as standard- (activity VO2/3.5), rounded- (significant digit rounded to 0, 3, 5, 8), and corrected METs (individual resting metabolism). Results showed chair Yoga, Tai Chi, and mobility ball ranged from 2.0 to 2.8 rounded METs (light intensity). Chair- and standing aerobics ranged from 3.0 to 4.3 rounded METs (moderate intensity). Averaged HR ranged from 91.9 ± 12.7 b.min-1 to 115.4 ± 19.1 b.min-1 for all PAs. Corrected METs were higher than standard METs (P \u3c .05). Standard METs were similar between age groups (P \u3e .05). In conclusion, this study is unique as it measures the energy costs of sitting and standing video exercises that can be performed by older adults at home or in an exercise facility. Knowing the energy costs of PAs for older adults can provide exercises interventions to prevent sedentary lifestyles

Preparation and PEGylation of recombinant human interferon lambda3

The purpose of this study was to express recombinant human interferon lambda3 (rhIFN-λ3) in Escherichia coli, and prepare PEGylated recombinant human interferon lambda3 (PEG-rhIFN-λ3). The rhIFN-λ3 gene was inserted into pThioHisA vector after codon optimization and transformed into E. coli top10 strain, and then it was induced with isopropyl-β-D-thio-galactoside (IPTG). The recombinant protein was subjected to mPEG-ButyrALD modification after dialysis, renaturation and chromatographic purification. Subsequently, the modified product was preliminary isolated and purified for determining its activity. Results show that the recombinant protein was expressed in the form of inclusion bodies. After ion exchange, molecular sieve and other column chromatography purification, the purity of the purified rhIFN-λ3 was as high as 90% and the purity of the mono-PEGylated rhIFN-λ3 after cation-exchange chromatography was as high as 86%. The 50% effective concentration (EC50) of rhIFN-λ3 in WISH cells against vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) was 8.43 ng/mL, while the EC50 of mono-PEGylated rhIFN-λ3 was 49.19 ng/mL, which reserved 17.14% of the in vitro activity and supported further studies of this new type of investigational interferon. Further study is needed to better understand the in vivo immunogenicity, antigenicity, stability and antiviral activity of PEG-rhIFN-λ3.Keywords: Recombinant human interferon lambda3, prokaryotic expression, purification, mPEG-ButyrALD, antiviral activity

Assessment of the feasibility and coverage of a modified universal hearing screening protocol for use with newborn babies of migrant workers in Beijing

BACKGROUND: Although migrant workers account for the majority of newborns in Beijing, their children are less likely to undergo appropriate universal newborn hearing screening/rescreening (UNHS) than newborns of local non-migrant residents. We hypothesised that this was at least in part due to the inadequacy of the UNHS protocol currently employed for newborn babies, and therefore aimed to modify the protocol to specifically reflect the needs of the migrant population. METHODS: A total of 10,983 healthy babies born to migrant mothers between January 2007 and December 2009 at a Beijing public hospital were investigated for hearing abnormalities according to a modified UNHS protocol. This incorporated two additional/optional otoacoustic emissions (OAE) tests at 24–48 hours and 2 months after birth. Infants not passing a screening test were referred to the next test, until any hearing loss was confirmed by the auditory brainstem response (ABR) test. RESULTS: A total of 98.91% (10983/11104) of all newborn children underwent the initial OAE test, of which 27.22% (2990/10983) failed the test. 1712 of the failed babies underwent the second inpatient OAE test, with739 failing again; thus significantly decreasing the overall positive rate for abnormal hearing from 27.22% to 18.36% ([2990–973 /10983)]; p = 0). Overall, 1147(56.87%) babies underwent the outpatient OAE test again after1-month, of whom 228 failed and were referred for the second outpatient OAE test (i.e. 2.08% (228/10983) referral rate at 1month of age). 141 of these infants underwent the referral test, of whom 103 (73.05%) tested positive again and were referred for a final ABR test for hearing loss (i.e. final referral rate of 1.73% ([228-38/10983] at 2 months of age). Only 54 infants attended the ABR test and 35 (0.32% of the original cohort tested) were diagnosed with abnormal hearing. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that it is feasible and practical to achieve high coverage rates for screening hearing loss and decrease the referral rates in newborn babies of migrant workers, using a modification of the currently employed UNHS protocol

The fast light of CsI(Na) crystals

The responds of different common alkali halide crystals to alpha-rays and gamma-rays are tested in our research. It is found that only CsI(Na) crystals have significantly different waveforms between alpha and gamma scintillations, while others have not this phenomena. It is suggested that the fast light of CsI(Na) crystals arises from the recombination of free electrons with self-trapped holes of the host crystal CsI. Self-absorption limits the emission of fast light of CsI(Tl) and NaI(Tl) crystals.Comment: 5 pages, 11 figures Submit to Chinese Physics

Over-fitting suppression training strategies for deep learning-based atrial fibrillation detection

Nowadays, deep learning-based models have been widely developed for atrial fibrillation (AF) detection in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. However, owing to the inevitable over-fitting problem, classification accuracy of the developed models severely differed when applying on the independent test datasets. This situation is more significant for AF detection from dynamic ECGs. In this study, we explored two potential training strategies to address the over-fitting problem in AF detection. The first one is to use the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and Hanning-window-based filter to suppress the influence from individual difference. Another is to train the model on the wearable ECG data to improve the robustness of model. Wearable ECG data from 29 patients with arrhythmia were collected for at least 24 h. To verify the effectiveness of the training strategies, a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN)-based model was proposed and tested. We tested the model on the independent wearable ECG data set, as well as the MIT-BIH Atrial Fibrillation database and PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2017 database. The model achieved 96.23%, 95.44%, and 95.28% accuracy rates on the three databases, respectively. Pertaining to the comparison of the accuracy rates on each training set, the accuracy of the model trained in conjunction with the proposed training strategies only reduced by 2%, while the accuracy of the model trained without the training strategies decreased by approximately 15%. Therefore, the proposed training strategies serve as effective mechanisms for devising a robust AF detector and significantly enhanced the detection accuracy rates of the resulting deep networks

Older Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: Energy Costs of Human Activities in Adults Aged 60 and Older

Purpose: To describe the development of a Compendium for estimating the energy costs of activities in adults ≥60 years (OA Compendium). Methods: Physical activities (PAs) and their metabolic equivalent of task (MET) values were obtained from a systematic search of studies published in 4 sport and exercise databases (PubMed, Embase, SPORTDiscus (EBSCOhost), and Scopus) and a review of articles included in the 2011 Adult Compendium that measured PA in older adults. MET values were computed as the oxygen cost (VO2, mL/kg/min) during PA divided by 2.7 mL/kg/min (MET60+) to account for the lower resting metabolic rate in older adults. Results: We identified 68 articles and extracted energy expenditure data on 427 PAs. From these, we derived 99 unique Specific Activity codes with corresponding MET60+ values for older adults. We developed a website to present the OA Compendium MET60+ values: https://pacompendium.com. Conclusion: The OA Compendium uses data collected from adults ≥60 years for more accurate estimation of the energy cost of PAs in older adults. It is an accessible resource that will allow researchers, educators, and practitioners to find MET60+ values for older adults for use in PA research and practice

Nitrated α-Synuclein Induces the Loss of Dopaminergic Neurons in the Substantia Nigra of Rats

BACKGROUND: The pathology of Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the degeneration of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway, as well as the formation of intraneuronal inclusions known as Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites in the substantia nigra. Accumulations of nitrated alpha-synuclein are demonstrated in the signature inclusions of Parkinson's disease. However, whether the nitration of alpha-synuclein is relevant to the pathogenesis of PD is unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this study, effect of nitrated alpha-synuclein to dopaminergic (DA) neurons was determined by delivering nitrated recombinant TAT-alpha-synuclein intracellular. We provide evidence to show that the nitrated alpha-synuclein was toxic to cultured dopaminergic SHSY-5Y neurons and primary mesencephalic DA neurons to a much greater degree than unnitrated alpha-synuclein. Moreover, we show that administration of nitrated alpha-synuclein to the substantia nigra pars compacta of rats caused severe reductions in the number of DA neurons therein, and led to the down-regulation of D(2)R in the striatum in vivo. Furthermore, when administered to the substantia nigra of rats, nitrated alpha-synuclein caused PD-like motor dysfunctions, such as reduced locomotion and motor asymmetry, however unmodified alpha-synuclein had significantly less severe behavioral effects. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results provide evidence that alpha-synuclein, principally in its nitrated form, induce DA neuron death and may be a major factor in the etiology of PD