EEGgui: a program used to detect electroencephalogram anomalies after traumatic brain injury

BACKGROUND: Identifying and quantifying pathological changes in brain electrical activity is important for investigations of brain injury and neurological disease. An example is the development of epilepsy, a secondary consequence of traumatic brain injury. While certain epileptiform events can be identified visually from electroencephalographic (EEG) or electrocorticographic (ECoG) records, quantification of these pathological events has proved to be more difficult. In this study we developed MATLAB-based software that would assist detection of pathological brain electrical activity following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and present our MATLAB code used for the analysis of the ECoG. METHODS: Software was developed using MATLAB(™) and features of the open access EEGLAB. EEGgui is a graphical user interface in the MATLAB programming platform that allows scientists who are not proficient in computer programming to perform a number of elaborate analyses on ECoG signals. The different analyses include Power Spectral Density (PSD), Short Time Fourier analysis and Spectral Entropy (SE). ECoG records used for demonstration of this software were derived from rats that had undergone traumatic brain injury one year earlier. RESULTS: The software provided in this report provides a graphical user interface for displaying ECoG activity and calculating normalized power density using fast fourier transform of the major brain wave frequencies (Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta1, Beta2 and Gamma). The software further detects events in which power density for these frequency bands exceeds normal ECoG by more than 4 standard deviations. We found that epileptic events could be identified and distinguished from a variety of ECoG phenomena associated with normal changes in behavior. We further found that analysis of spectral entropy was less effective in distinguishing epileptic from normal changes in ECoG activity. CONCLUSION: The software presented here was a successful modification of EEGLAB in the Matlab environment that allows detection of epileptiform ECoG signals in animals after TBI. The code allows import of large EEG or ECoG data records as standard text files and uses fast fourier transform as a basis for detection of abnormal events. The software can also be used to monitor injury-induced changes in spectral entropy if required. We hope that the software will be useful for other investigators in the field of traumatic brain injury and will stimulate future advances of quantitative analysis of brain electrical activity after neurological injury or disease

A Discipline-Spanning Overview of Action Research and Its Implications for Technology and Innovation Management

The iterative and learning character of action research is particularly beneficial for exploring complex socio-technical problems in technology and innovation management (TIM). In this respect, action research allows both rigorous and relevant research due to parallel solving of real-world problems, capability building, and gaining scientific insights. However, the use of action research within TIM research is surprisingly limited. Action research also is not a homogeneous research methodology since each research discipline, such as education and organizational science, has its own action research streams, which are often only loosely linked. A systematic overview of those action research traditions and specific best practices is still missing, which complicates a systematic transfer and use of action research in TIM. This article addresses this essential gap by building a cross-disciplinary overview of action research streams based on a bibliometric analysis using Scopus. The analysis includes relevant disciplines with action research traditions, their development over time, and the most influential journals, authors, institutions, and countries. Along with this discipline-spanning analysis, the article investigates particular TIM benefits and challenges of action research. The two key contributions of this article are: 1) a discipline-spanning overview of action research and its evolution and 2) an analysis of its implications for TIM research. These contributions build the basis for strengthening the use of action research in TIM. In the medium-term, action research has the capacity to link academia and industry more closely and, in doing so, assists important endeavours of translating more of our research outcomes into practice

Equation of state of hadronic matter with dibaryons in an effective quark model

The equation of state of symmetric nuclear matter with the inclusion of non-strange dibaryons is studied. We pay special attention to the existence of a dibaryon condensate at zero temperature. These calculations have been performed in an extended quark-meson coupling model with density-dependent parameters, which takes into account the finite size of nucleons and dibaryons. A first-order phase-transition to pure dibaryon matter has been found. The corresponding critical density is strongly dependent on the value of the dibaryon mass. The density behavior of the nucleon and dibaryon effective masses and confining volumes have also been discussed.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex, 3 Postscript figures, a misprint correcte

Parametrization of nuclear parton distributions

Optimum nuclear parton distributions are obtained by analyzing available experimental data on electron and muon deep inelastic scattering (DIS). The distributions are given at Q^2=1 GeV^2 with a number of parameters, which are determined by a chi^2 analysis of the data. Valence-quark distributions are relatively well determined at medium x, but they are slightly dependent on the assumed parametrization form particularly at small x. Although antiquark distributions are shadowed at small x, their behavior is not obvious at medium x from the F_2 data. The gluon distributions could not be restricted well by the inclusive DIS data; however, the analysis tends to support the gluon shadowing at small x. We provide analytical expressions and computer subroutines for calculating the nuclear parton distributions, so that other researchers could use them for applications to other high-energy nuclear reactions.Comment: 1+11 pages, LaTeX, amsmath.sty, wrapfig.sty, graphicx.sty, ias.cls, ias.sty, pramana.sty, pmana10.sty, pbib.sty, times.sty, 9 eps figures. Invited talk given at the International Symposium on Nuclear Physics, Mumbai, India, Dec. 18-22, 2000, to be published in proceedings. Complete postscript file is available at http://www-hs.phys.saga-u.ac.jp Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

The semi-classical approach to the exclusive electron scattering

The semiclassical approach, successfully applied in the past to the inelastic, inclusive electron scattering off nuclei, is extended to the treatment of exclusive processes. The final states interaction is accounted for in the mean field approximation, respecting the Pauli principle. The impact on the exclusive cross section of the shape of the potential binding the nucleons into the nucleus and of the distortion of the outgoing nucleon wave are explored. The exclusive scattering is found to be quite sensitive to the mean field final states interaction, unlike the inclusive one. Indeed we verify that the latter is not affected, as implied by unitarity, by the distortion of the outgoing nucleon wave except for the effect of relativity, which is modest in the range of momenta up to about 500 MeV/c. Furthermore, depending upon the correlations between the directions of the outgoing and of the initial nucleon, the exclusive cross-section turns out to be remarkably sensitive to the shape of the potential binding the nucleons. These correlations also critically affect the domain in the missing energy-- missing momentum plane where the exclusive process occurs.Comment: 39 pages, latex, including 9 figures (fig.ps

Using Electron Scattering Superscaling to predict Charge-changing Neutrino Cross Sections in Nuclei

Superscaling analyses of few-GeV inclusive electron scattering from nuclei are extended to include not only quasielastic processes, but now also into the region where $\Delta$-excitation dominates. It is shown that, with reasonable assumptions about the basic nuclear scaling function extracted from data and information from other studies of the relative roles played by correlation and MEC effects, the residual strength in the resonance region can be accounted for through an extended scaling analysis. One observes scaling upon assuming that the elementary cross section by which one divides the residual to obtain a new scaling function is dominated by the $N\to\Delta$ transition and employing a new scaling variable which is suited to the resonance region. This yields a good representation of the electromagnetic response in both the quasielastic and $\Delta$ regions. The scaling approach is then inverted and predictions are made for charge-changing neutrino reactions at energies of a few GeV, with focus placed on nuclei which are relevant for neutrino oscillation measurements. For this a relativistic treatment of the required weak interaction vector and axial-vector currents for both quasielastic and $\Delta$-excitation processes is presented.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Nuclear corrections of parton distribution functions

We report global analysis results of experimental data for nuclear structure-function ratios F_2^A/F_2^{A'} and proton-nucleus Drell-Yan cross-section ratios sigma_{DY}^{pA}/sigma_{DY}^{pA'} in order to determine optimum parton distribution functions (PDFs) in nuclei. An important point of this analysis is to show uncertainties of the distributions by the Hessian method. The results indicate that the uncertainties are large for gluon distributions in the whole x region and for antiquark distributions at x>0.2. We provide a code for calculating any nuclear PDFs at given x and Q^2 for general users. They can be used for calculating high-energy nuclear reactions including neutrino-nucleus interactions, which are discussed at this workshop.Comment: 1+6 pages, LaTeX, 10 eps files, espcrc2.sty, to be published in Nucl. Phys. B Supplements, Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions in the Few GeV Region (NuInt04), Gran Sasso, Italy, March 17-21, 2004. Nuclear PDF library is available at http://hs.phys.saga-u.ac.jp/nuclp.htm

Hunting behaviour in domestic cats: an exploratory study of risk and responsibility among cat owners

ArticleThis is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The potential impact of domestic cats on wildlife is the subject of growing international interest and concern. While feral cats are often the primary focus of research and debate, in many societies a substantial proportion of domestic cats are owned by private individuals. We present a typology that classifies domestic cats in relation to varying degrees of human control over their reproduction, movement and provisioning. Understanding the perceptions and practices of cat owners will be key to identifying and mitigating any negative ecological effects of cat hunting behaviour. 2. To investigate how cat owners perceive (a) their pets’ hunting behaviour, (b) their responsibilities for managing this and (c) the mitigation strategies available, we conducted detailed interviews with a diverse sample of cat owners in the United Kingdom. 3. We identified a spectrum of views on hunting behaviour, from owners who perceived hunting as positive (for pest control, or as healthy cat behaviour) to those who were deeply concerned about its consequences for wild animals, their populations and welfare. However, hunting was widely understood as a normal, ‘natural’ component of cat behaviour, and owners rarely perceived a strong individual responsibility for preventing or reducing it. 4. Those who did wish to manage hunting perceived several barriers to this, including concern that they were unable to control behaviour effectively without compromising cat welfare; doubt about the efficacy and practicality of popular mitigation measures; and unfamiliarity with alternative options. We recommend that (a) initiatives directed at changing cat owners’ behaviour consider the multiple factors and competing priorities that inform their decision-making (particularly cat health and welfare and practicality or cost of interventions); (b) researchers work collaboratively with cat owners and veterinary, cat welfare and conservation organisations to identify effective solutions, and (c) some degree of accountability for managing problematic hunting behaviour should be promoted as a part of ‘responsible pet ownership’ initiatives