Life Sciences Commons^™

Individual Characteristics And Their Effect On Predicting Mu Rhythm Modulation, Adriane Randolph, Melody Jackson, Saurav Karmakar

Adriane B. Randolph

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer users with severe motor disabilities a nonmuscular input channel for communication and control but require that users achieve a level of literacy and be able to harness their appropriate electrophysiological responses for effective use of the interface. There is currently no formalized process for determining a user's aptitude for control of various BCIs without testing on an actual system. This study presents how basic information captured about users may be used to predict modulation of mu rhythms, electrical variations in the motor cortex region of the brain that may be used for control of a BCI. …

Connecting Through Consilience: Ecology, Society, Culture And Technology, Ruth Mirams, Alexander Hayes

Alexander Hayes Mr.

Amongst linguistic, cultural and geographic diversity, humanity is characterised by inquisitiveness, communication and a deep desire to connect with each other. Despite our advanced intelligence and technological capacity, we are creatures of nature - a species which occupies a habitat, depends on consumable resources and fragile in many ways. As a species, we currently face challenges including overpopulation, diminishing resources and habitat degradation. In essence, we are exhausting the resources we depend on. [1] Resource depletion, disruption, famine, growth and sustainability are all observable in other species and natural systems. Human societies and systems can be described through the same …

Willingness To Pay For Flood And Ecological Risk Reduction In An Urban Watershed, David Clark, Diane Novotny, Robert Griffin, Douglas Booth, Alena Bartosova, M Hutchinson

Robert Griffin

Urban watershed managers frequently must address alternative policy goals; flood control and ecological risk reduction. This study combines hydrologic models of flood control and biotic models of ecologic risk with economic models of willingness-to-pay and psychological models of risk processing and planned behavior to evaluate these two alternative policy objectives. The findings reveal that flood risk exposure, especially for those individuals who would remain outside the 100 year flood plain if the project were enacted, does influence the financial support that local residents would be willing to make to a flood control project. Other important determinants include demographic factors such …

Stratigraphic Distribution And Suggested Evolution Of Dendroid Graptolites From The Silurian Of Eastern Australia, Barrie Rickards, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Five evolutionary lineages are proposed for Silurian species of the benthic dendroid graptolite genus Dictyonema, based largely on the exceptional eastern Australian records of the genus, comprising at least 25 species. These are: A, the delicatulum lineage with bifurcating ventral autothecal apertural spines; B, the paululum lineage with single ventral apertural spines or processes; C, the elegans lineage with isolated thecal apertures ± processes; D, the sherrardae lineage with dorsal apertural processes; and E, the venustum lineage with simple autothecal apertures. Brief comments are also made on other dendroid genera occurring in Australian strata, namely: Acanthograptus, Koremagraptus, Callograptus, Dendrograptus, Stelechocladia, …

Books Published, Ashraf Mozayani

Ashraf Mozayani, Ph.D., PharmD

No abstract provided.

Factor Structure Of The Chinese Service Quality Assessment Scale, Siu-Yin Cheung, Eddie Lam, Jia-Wen Shao, Jennifer Mak

Jennifer Y Mak

The quality of service has been the major subject of interest for business and academia. The aims of this study were to investigate the service quality of fitness clubs in Hong Kong and Guangzhou and to examine the underlying factor structure of the Service Quality Assessment Scale (SQAS; Lam, Zhang, & Jensen, 2005) in the Chinese context.

Digitization Of Herbarium Specimens, A Collaborative Process, Lawrence Schmidt

Larry O Schmidt

Digital collections in museums, libraries, and other agencies are expanding rapidly. Digitization of books, maps, photographs, and other objects for both preservation and dissemination are changing the way libraries work. Librarians who have, historically, worked with collections in print formats are anxious to move toward digital content as the wave of the future. Rather than stand on the sidelines and watch as the digital movement passes by, librarians need to be proactive and create digital content using both collections within the libraries’ walls and proactively seek opportunities to work collaboratively with stakeholders outside of the libraries’ hallowed halls. The creation …

Educational Data Mining: An Advance For Intelligent Systems In Education, Ryan Baker

Ryan S.J.d. Baker

Computer-based technologies have transformed the way we live, work, socialize, play, and learn. Today, the use of data collected through these technologies is supporting a second-round of transformation in all of these areas. Over the last decades, the methods of data mining and analytics have transformed field after field. Scientific fields such as physics, biology, and climate science have leveraged these methods to manage and make discoveries in previously unimaginably large datasets. The first journal devoted to data mining and analytics methods in biology, Computers in Biology and Medicine, began publication as long ago as the 1970s. In the mid-1990s …

Effects Of Polychlorinated Biphenyl (Pcb) On Response Perseveration And Ultrasonic Vocalization Emission In Rat During Development, Howard Cromwell

Howard Casey Cromwell

The 3 major symptoms of autistic spectrum disorders include 1) social behavioral alterations, 2) problems in communication and 3) higher-order motoric deficits of perseveration and stereotyped movements. Previous work has shown that early developmental exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) alters rat pup social motivation and juvenile rat social recognition/investigation. The present work extends this previous research by examining how perinatal PCB exposure alters motoric functions and communication abilities at different stages of development. Action perseveration was examined using performance measures from a T-maze environment. Communication abilities were evaluated by monitoring ultrasound emission in rat pups during a brief isolation from …

Stimulus Induced Reversal Of Information Flow Through A Cortical Network For Animacy Perception., Sarah Shultz, Rebecca Van Den Honert, Andrew Engell, Gregory Mccarthy

Andrew Engell