Wearables and the Brain

The brain is the last frontier for wearable sensing. Commercially available wearables can monitor your vital signs and physical activity, but few have the ability to monitor what goes on inside your head. With the advent of new wearable and portable neuroimaging technologies, this situation might be about to change, with profound implications for neuroscience and for wearables. One of the main attractions of wearables, and wearable sensing, comes from the proximity of the devices to the human body and to the wealth of information that might be gathered from being so close. Yet when it comes to sensing the brain-and, even more so, our minds- significant difficulties arise. First among these is the inadequacy of available sensing technology. It is relatively easy to sense the movement of a person's arm, but much more difficult to gain access to the workings of their brain. Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, we still do not really know enough about how brains actually work in the real-world and outside the restrained laboratory setting-and it is hard to sense and make use of what we do not quite understand

A few-shot graph Laplacian-based approach for improving the accuracy of low-fidelity data

Low-fidelity data is typically inexpensive to generate but inaccurate. On the other hand, high-fidelity data is accurate but expensive to obtain. Multi-fidelity methods use a small set of high-fidelity data to enhance the accuracy of a large set of low-fidelity data. In the approach described in this paper, this is accomplished by constructing a graph Laplacian using the low-fidelity data and computing its low-lying spectrum. This spectrum is then used to cluster the data and identify points that are closest to the centroids of the clusters. High-fidelity data is then acquired for these key points. Thereafter, a transformation that maps every low-fidelity data point to its bi-fidelity counterpart is determined by minimizing the discrepancy between the bi- and high-fidelity data at the key points, and to preserve the underlying structure of the low-fidelity data distribution. The latter objective is achieved by relying, once again, on the spectral properties of the graph Laplacian. This method is applied to a problem in solid mechanics and another in aerodynamics. In both cases, this methods uses a small fraction of high-fidelity data to significantly improve the accuracy of a large set of low-fidelity data

Simultaneous fNIRS and thermal infrared imaging during cognitive task reveal autonomic correlates of prefrontal cortex activity

Functional Near Infrared-Spectroscopy (fNIRS) represents a powerful tool to non-invasively study task-evoked brain activity. fNIRS assessment of cortical activity may suffer for contamination by physiological noises of different origin (e.g. heart beat, respiration, blood pressure, skin blood flow), both task-evoked and spontaneous. Spontaneous changes occur at different time scales and, even if they are not directly elicited by tasks, their amplitude may result task-modulated. In this study, concentration changes of hemoglobin were recorded over the prefrontal cortex while simultaneously recording the facial temperature variations of the participants through functional infrared thermal (fIR) imaging. fIR imaging provides touch-less estimation of the thermal expression of peripheral autonomic. Wavelet analysis revealed task-modulation of the very low frequency (VLF) components of both fNIRS and fIR signals and strong coherence between them. Our results indicate that subjective cognitive and autonomic activities are intimately linked and that the VLF component of the fNIRS signal is affected by the autonomic activity elicited by the cognitive task. Moreover, we showed that task-modulated changes in vascular tone occur both at a superficial and at larger depth in the brain. Combined use of fNIRS and fIR imaging can effectively quantify the impact of VLF autonomic activity on the fNIRS signals

Anti-HIV drugs and the mitochondria

AbstractSeveral drugs are currently used that can significantly prolong the course of the infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Among these drugs, the nucleosidic inhibitors of viral reverse transcriptase can alter mitochondrial (mt) function by inhibiting the mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma (the enzyme responsible for the replication of mtDNA). Decreased mtDNA content provokes a diminished synthesis of respiratory chain enzymes, leading to alterations in mt function. These are in turn responsible for a variety of side effects frequently observed in HIV+ patients, that range from hyperlactatemia and lactic acidosis to lipodystrophy, a pathology characterized by accumulation of visceral fat, breast adiposity, cervical fat-pads, hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance and fat wasting in face and limbs. In this paper, data concerning the effects of different compounds on mitochondria, their role in the pathogenesis of lipodystrophy, and problems related to studies on the mt toxicity of antiviral drugs are reviewed and thoroughly discussed

PELAKSANAAN PENJUALAN KONSINYASI DALAM MENGEMBANGKAN USAHA PADA INDUSTRI KECIL DAN MENENGAH (IKM) PANGAN KOTA PEKANBARU DITINJAU MENURUT EKONOMI ISLAM

Skripsi ini berjudul “Pelaksanaan Penjualan Konsinyasi dalam Mengembangkan Usaha pada Industri Kecil dan Menengah (IKM) Pangan Kota Pekanbaru Ditinjau Menurut Ekonomi Islam”. Penelitian ini dilakukan di sekitar wilayah Kota Pekanbaru. Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh fenomena yang terjadi pada Industri Kecil dan Menengah (IKM), khususnya pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru. Karakteristik IKM yang minim dalam kepemilikan modal menjadi salah satu hambatan bagi IKM untuk menjalankan usahanya secara maksimal, terutama dalam memasarkan produk. Hal yang sama juga terjadi pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru. Oleh karena itu, sebagian dari pengusaha IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru memilih untuk menerapkan penjualan konsinyasi dalam memasarkan produknya. Penjualan konsinyasi memiliki kelebihan jika dibandingkan dengan sistem pemasaran lainnya, yaitu dapat memperluas wilayah pemasaran produk dengan biaya yang kecil. Pada dasarnya, ketersediaan wilayah pemasaran yang luas dapat mendorong perkembangan usaha, karena dapat meningkatkan penjualan, produksi, jumlah pelanggan, pendapatan, serta laba yang diperoleh. Dengan demikian, melalui penjualan konsinyasi, pengusaha IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru berharap dapat mengembangkan usaha meskipun memiliki modal yang minim. Namun, ternyata dalam pelaksanaan penjualan konsinyasi ini, pengusaha IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru menemui beberapa masalah yang kemudian mempengaruhi kemampuan pengusaha untuk mengembangkan usahanya secara maksimal. Berdasarkan fenomena di atas, maka penulis merumuskan 3 (tiga) permasalahan dalam penelitian ini, antara lain: bagaimana pelaksanaan penjualan konsinyasi dalam mengembangkan usaha pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru, apakah faktor- faktor yang menghambat penjualan konsinyasi dalam mengembangkan usaha pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru, serta bagaimana tinjauan ekonomi Islam terhadap pelaksanaan penjualan konsinyasi dalam mengembangkan usaha pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru. Subjek dalam penelitian ini adalah pengusaha IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru yang menerapkan sistem penjualan konsinyasi. Sedangkan objek dalam penelitian ini adalah pelaksanaan penjualan konsinyasi pada IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru. Adapun populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah pengusaha IKM Pangan Kota Pekanbaru yang menerapkan sistem penjualan konsinyasi sebanyak 48 orang. Penulis menggunakan metode total sampling, sehingga sampel dalam penelitian ini berjumlah sebanyak 48 orang. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah angket, wawancara dan dokumentasi. Adapun data dari penelitian ini terdiri dari data primer dan data sekunder yang kemudian dianalisis dengan metode analisa kualitatif