Epileptic Seizures and the EEG

A study of epilepsy from an engineering perspective, this volume begins by summarizing the physiology and the fundamental ideas behind the measurement, analysis and modeling of the epileptic brain. It introduces the EEG and provides an explanation of the type of brain activity likely to register in EEG measurements, offering an overview of how these EEG records are and have been analyzed in the past. The book focuses on the problem of seizure detection and surveys the physiologically based dynamic models of brain activity. Finally, it addresses the fundamental question: can seizures be predicted? Based on the authors' extensive research, the book concludes by exploring a range of future possibilities in seizure prediction

Epileptic Seizures and the EEG

A study of epilepsy from an engineering perspective, this volume begins by summarizing the physiology and the fundamental ideas behind the measurement, analysis and modeling of the epileptic brain. It introduces the EEG and provides an explanation of the type of brain activity likely to register in EEG measurements, offering an overview of how these EEG records are and have been analyzed in the past. The book focuses on the problem of seizure detection and surveys the physiologically based dynamic models of brain activity. Finally, it addresses the fundamental question: can seizures be predicted? Based on the authors' extensive research, the book concludes by exploring a range of future possibilities in seizure prediction

Leading change beyond your classroom – Capacity building in SoTL and leadership by SaMnet

The issue: The introduction of quality standards can place delegates to the ACSME conference in the forefront of reflection on, and changes to, teaching in their school, faculty, and university. How do you make the transition from being someone who experiments and implements strategies to teach more effectively into someone who leads colleagues in doing so? Furthermore, what support can you gain in that process, both support from within your institution, as you work to help others to satisfy externally imposed standards, as well as outside your university? Approach: Development of the capability of academic staff in science and mathematics to lead change is a chief aim of the ALTC/OLT project developing the Science and Mathematics network of Australian university educators – SaMnet. We have engaged more than 100 university staff (‘SaMnet Scholars’) across 19 institutions in teams of four to pursue action-learning projects. SaMnet are supporting these teams with guidance in the scholarship of teaching and learning and in providing insight into leading organisational change. SaMnet also provides mentoring and contact with other academics who share an interest in the area of a particular project, e.g., standards, inquiry learning, or new ICTs. The effort is meant to change an individual innovation in teaching into a formally recorded experiment. A well documented experiment can not only be published; it can provide data sufficient to convince colleagues, heads of school, deans, and others that the innovation addresses their key performance indicators, such as those that result from national quality standards. This approach builds on an uneven foundation: (1) the growth in SoTL in universities; (2) a history of initiatives to improve teaching in science and mathematics that is recognised has having left little widespread impact; and (3) literature on the nature of change in organisations, in general, and on change in universities, in particular. The first set of SaMnet’s action-learning projects is approaching a mid-point, and the projects have another year to run. The ACSME conference provides an opportune moment to reflect and gain additional perspectives on the strategies being pursued. Progress: Work in progress - initial. Key questions: 1. How might insights into organisational change be relevant to your efforts in your university, particularly in relation to coming standards? 2. What do you feel that you could learn from SaMnet Scholars at this session about tailoring your efforts to gain support from your head of school and dean? 3. What are we missing? What could a national network of science and mathematics academics do for you that we might not have thought of? 4. What aspects of leading change would you like to learn about – steps and transitions in change processes (Kotter and Bridges), aspects of a new idea that spur adoption (Rogers), or surface issues and underlying issues that need to be addressed (Wilber)

Epileptic Seizures and the EEG

Analysis of medical data using engineering tools is a rapidly growing area, both in research and in industry, yet few texts exist that address the problem from an interdisciplinary perspective. Epileptic Seizures and the EEG: Measurement, Models, Detection and Prediction brings together biology and engineering practices and identifies the aspects of the field that are most important to the analysis of epilepsy. Analysis of EEG records The book begins by summarizing the physiology and the fundamental ideas behind the measurement, analysis and modeling of the epileptic brain. It introduces the EEG as a measured signal and explains its use in the study of epilepsy. Next, it provides an explanation of the type of brain activity likely to register in EEG measurements, offering quantitative analysis of the populations of neurons that contribute to both scalp and cortical EEG and discussing the limitations and effects that choices made in the recording process have on the data. The book provides an overview of how these EEG records are and have been analyzed in the past, concentrating on the mathematics relevant to the problem of classification of EEG. The authors use these extracted features to differentiate between or classify inter-seizure, pre-seizure and seizure EEG. The challenge of seizure prediction The book focuses on the problem of seizure detection and surveys the physiologically based dynamic models of brain activity. Finally, the book addresses the fundamental question: can seizures be predicted? Through analysis of epileptic activity spanning from 3 hours to 25 years, it is proposed that seizures may be predictable, but the amount of data required is greater than previously thought. Based on the authors’ extensive research, the book concludes by exploring a range of future possibilities in seizure prediction

A robust circle criterion observer with application to neural mass models

A robust circle criterion observer is designed and applied to neural mass models. At present, no existing circle criterion observers apply to the considered models, i.e. the required linear matrix inequality is infeasible. Therefore, we generalise available results to derive a suitable estimation algorithm. Additionally, the design also takes into account input uncertainty and measurement noise. We show how to apply the observer to estimate the mean membrane potential of neuronal populations of a popular single cortical column model from the literature

A circle criterion observer for estimating the unmeasured membrane potential of neuronal populations

A circle criterion observer is designed for estimating the unmeasured membrane potential of neuronal populations using the electroencephalogram (EEG) from a class of parameterised models that replicates patterns seen on the EEG. Compared to existing similar designs, we provide a less conservative linear matrix inequality (LMI) condition that is shown to be fulfilled for the neural models we consider. The designed observer is robust towards disturbances in the input and measurement, as well as model uncertainty. We show that the observer can be designed for a model that reproduces alpha rhythms in the EEG as an illustrative example

Social network perspectives reveal strength of academic developers as weak ties

Social network perspectives acknowledge the influence of disciplinary cultures on academics’ teaching beliefs and practices with implications for academic developers. The contribution of academic developers in 18 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects situated in the sciences are explored by drawing on data from a two-year national project in Australia within a case study research design. The application of a social network lens illuminated the contribution of eight academic developers as weak ties who infused SoTL knowledge within teams. Two heuristic cases of academic developers who also linked across networks are presented. Implications of social network perspective are discussed