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A novel recognition and classification approach for motor imagery based on spatio-temporal features
Get PDFMotor imagery, as a paradigm of brain- machine interfaces, holds vast potential in the field of medical rehabilitation. Addressing the challenges posed by the non-stationarity and low signal-to-noise ratio of EEG signals, the effective extraction of features from motor imagery signals for accurate recognition stands as a key focus in motor imagery brain-machine interface technology. This paper proposes a motor imagery EEG signal classification model that combines functional brain networks with graph convolutional networks. First, functional brain networks are constructed using different brain functional connectivity metrics, and graph theory features are calculated to deeply analyze the characteristics of brain networks under different motor tasks. Then, the constructed functional brain net- works are combined with graph convolutional networks for the classification and recognition of motor imagery tasks. The analysis based on brain functional connectivity reveals that the functional connectivity strength during the both fists task is significantly higher than that of other motor imagery tasks, and the functional connectivity strength during actual movement is generally superior to that of motor imagery tasks. In experiments conducted on the Physionet public dataset, the proposed model achieved a classification accuracy of 88.39% under multi-subject conditions, significantly outperforming traditional methods. Under single-subject conditions, the model effectively addressed the issue of individual variability, achieving an average classification accuracy of 99.31%. These results indicate that the proposed model not only exhibits excellent performance in the classification of motor imagery tasks but also provides new insights into the functional con- nectivity characteristics of different motor tasks and their corresponding brain regions
ERP correlates of agency processing in joint action.
Get PDFIn the Ouija board phenomenon, the lack of agency experienced by the players leads them to attribute the movement of the planchette to spirits. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in generating the sense of agency in such a joint action context. Two players (a participant and a confederate) jointly moved a Ouija board-style planchette containing a wireless mouse. This, in turn, moved a digital board on the screen. Participants reported a greater sense of agency in the condition where they had complete control of the planchette (the 'self' condition), and least agency when they passively held the planchette while it was moved by the confederate ('other' condition), with the two 'joint' action conditions in between. While the N1 peak did not differ between conditions, the early part of the N1 differentiated between the joint action conditions, and the solo action conditions. In contrast, the Tb and P2 components differed between the 'other' condition and the 'self' and 'joint' conditions. These findings are discussed with reference to motor-prediction and attentional mechanisms
Examining the connection between position-based power and social status across seventy cultures
Get PDFAbstract
Even in the most egalitarian societies, hierarchies of power and status shape social life. However, power and received status are not synonymous—individuals in positions of power may or may not be accorded the respect corresponding to their role. Using a cooperatively collected dataset from 18,096 participants across 70 cultures, we investigate, through a survey‐based correlational design, when perceived position‐based power (operationalized as influence and control) of various powerholders is associated with their elevated social status (operationalized as perceived respect and instrumental social value). We document that the positive link between power and status characterizes most cultural regions, except for WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and Post‐Soviet regions. The strength of this association depends on individual and cultural factors. First, the perceived other‐orientation of powerholders amplifies the positive link between perceived power and status. The perceived self‐orientation of powerholders weakens this relationship. Second, among cultures characterized by low Self‐Expression versus Harmony (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan), high Embeddedness (e.g., Senegal), and high Cultural Tightness (e.g., Malaysia), the association between power and status tends to be particularly strong. The results underline the importance of both individual perceptions and societal values in how position‐based power relates to social status.</jats:p
The application of an ecological dynamics approach to the athletic development of youth basketball players: the use of parkour to develop fundamental movement skills
Get PDFYouth athletic development models emphasise the development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) in preadolescent children before sports specific skills (SSS). However, in sports such as basketball, FMS and SSS are not necessarily separate. An alternative perspective, based on the ecological dynamics framework, suggests that sports can be used to develop transferable FMS and SSS concurrently. Parkour has been proposed as a donor sport to enhance movement skills and capabilities transferable to team sports athletes like basketball, although further research is needed. This research investigates parkour’s potential as a donor sport for youth basketball players from an ecological dynamics perspective. Based upon a meta-analysis of bodyweight-only neuromuscular training programmes on motor control in youth athletes aged 8-18 years and basketball coaches’ perceptions of FMS, a narrative review explored parkour’s role in developing adaptable movement skills. A cross-sectional study compared the biomechanical properties of the parkour tic-tac skill and the basketball lay-up shot, revealing that the parkour action resulted in significantly higher maximum acceleration, suggesting it could enhance propulsive capabilities of the lower limb. Two intervention studies examined parkour’s effects on youth basketball players, revealing that although parkour did not outperform conventional athletic development training, it promoted greater engagement and enjoyment. Thus, parkour may effectively increase movement skills and physical capabilities whilst keeping young players motivated. Parkour offers a diverse repertoire of movement, which may be particularly beneficial for preadolescent players, potentially reducing the risks of single-sport specialisation while enhancing basketball-specific performance. For adolescent basketball players, parkour-based exercises could be included into strength and conditioning (S&C) programmes to improve transferable physical capabilities. By adopting the ecological dynamics framework, organisations and governing bodies responsible for the long-term development of youth basketball players can create more effective training strategies that combine motor learning, performance, and athletic development
Half a century of public sector accounting research through bibliometric analysis: Looking back to move forward
Get PDFThis literature review aims to highlight the themes and the developments of public sector accounting (PSA) research over the last five decades (1970–2019), analyzing 2187 papers though a combination of bibliometric (co-word) analysis and qualitative insights into the selected papers. The review shows that PSA scholarship has grown in significance over the last few decades giving rise to a vibrant and variegated scientific community, flourishing at the intersection among but also increasingly spanning across, different disciplines. Moreover, it reveals that traditional themes such as budgeting, performance measurement, and accountability remained at the core of the literature across most of the decades, attracting attention from multiple communities and journals. Other themes, such as accruals accounting, accounting standards, reporting, and auditing experienced varied interest over the decades and reflected the interests of more specialized, or “niche” communities of scholarship. By looking at the trends of PSA over time, the paper shows how accounting systems and calculative practices have come to reflect and affect the multiple values and the need for quantifying techniques of an ever-evolving public sector. A call for more attention toward accounting for multiple and plural values is advanced, with suggestions for future research avenues
The effects of pulmonary rehabilitation on frailty in patients with respiratory disease and post-COVID syndrome
Get PDF1. Introduction: Frailty has emerged as a key concern in the management of chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs), including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the relatively recent post-COVID syndrome (Long COVID). Defined as a decline in physiological reserves, frailty renders individuals vulnerable to acute stressors, leading to adverse clinical outcomes such as increased hospitalizations, reduced mobility, and overall diminished quality of life. While pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) has been widely recognized as an effective intervention for COPD, its role in addressing frailty, particularly within post-COVID populations, remains underexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the progression of this research, necessitating modifications in methodology due to disruptions in healthcare services. Initially focused on frailty in COPD, the study expanded to include post-COVID syndrome as an emerging area of interest. The overarching hypothesis posits that frailty is a clinical symptom within the spectrum of post-COVID syndrome and that pulmonary rehabilitation can serve as an effective intervention. 1.1 Research Problem: Despite the well-documented benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation in improving exercise capacity and reducing hospital readmissions in COPD, its effectiveness in reversing or mitigating frailty remains uncertain. Frailty has been linked to higher hospitalisation rates, increased mortality risk, and functional decline in patients with chronic respiratory conditions. Given the recent emergence of post-COVID syndrome, there is an urgent need to explore whether frailty should be recognised as part of its clinical presentation and whether pulmonary rehabilitation can effectively mitigate frailty-related complications. 1.2 Objectives: The study aimed to: 1. Determine the prevalence of frailty among individuals with post-COVID syndrome. 2. Assess changes in frailty status following a six-week pulmonary rehabilitation program. 3. Evaluate alterations in standard clinical outcomes used in pulmonary rehabilitation. 4. Compare the clinical characteristics of individuals hospitalized for COVID-19 with those who managed their illness at home. [...] 6. Conclusion and Recommendations: This study highlights frailty as a prevalent concern in both COPD and post-COVID syndrome, emphasising pulmonary rehabilitation as a viable intervention. Key findings demonstrate that PR can reduce frailty, improve functional capacity, and enhance quality of life in both populations. However, long-term strategies must be developed to maintain these benefits. Future research should expand sample sizes and explore long-term rehabilitation models for frail populations. This thesis underscores the urgent need to integrate frailty assessments in clinical practice for COPD and post-COVID patients and recommends the wider implementation of tailored pulmonary rehabilitation programs
“Actively anti-racist—not just in our minds, in our hearts”: Engaging with and implementing anti-racist professional development in educational psychology
Get PDFEducational Psychology has a history of perpetuating bias and racial inequality, which influences how Educational Psychologists (EPs) practice at present. EPs work within institutionally racist systems that oppress certain groups of children, young people, and their families. Against this context, this study adopts a CR paradigm to foreground the socio-political and personal dimensions of anti-racist work. A mixed-methods design was used to explore, at a national level, the nature of anti-racist continuing professional development (CPD) in the EP profession. It aimed to address the types of anti-racist CPD engaged with at the service level, how EPs perceive its impact, and the barriers and facilitators to implementation. Forty-two qualified EPs working within local authorities in England completed an online questionnaire on the types of service-level anti-racist CPD they had engaged with. This was then followed up with seven individual semi-structured interviews that explored experiences of receiving anti-racist CPD and their application to practice. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively, while qualitative data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Findings revealed a variation in the types of anti-racist CPD offered at the service level. This variation was also noticeable in the frequency and topics covered within taught training. EPs’ experiences of implementing anti-racist practice generated five themes: CPD as a catalyst for critical awareness, stronger together, the EP role, factors influencing CPD implementation, and making change for all. These themes reflect the potential of CPD as a transformative tool and the complexity of implementing anti-racist practice. This study highlights the need for regular structured CPD within services to support active and sustained anti-racist practice. Implications for EP practice, service development, and future research are discussed, contributing to ongoing discussions about anti-racism, social justice, equity, and transformative systemic change within educational psycholog
Automated reasoning for proving non-orderability of groups
Get PDFWe demonstrate how a generic automated theorem prover can be applied to establish the non-orderability of groups. Our approach incorporates various tools such as reasoning from the first principles, positive cones, torsions, generalised torsions and cofinal element
SCARLETT: Towards scalable, structured and resource-efficient harvesting of lettuce with collaborative biomimetic robots
Get PDFIn recent years, there has been a significant shortage of labour in agriculture, particularly in manual and repetitive tasks that require a high level of dexterity, task-specific adaptivity and cognition. Robotic automation in such environments can have a multidimensional impact- from mitigating labour shortage, increasing productivity and efficiency in the harvesting workflows. This thesis focuses on scalable robotic harvesting of Lettuce in state-of-the-art deepwater pool hydroponic farm. The primary contributions of this thesis are 1) development of deep learning based 2D/3D perception system for precise identification/localization of plants in varying growing stages, picking/placing points in floats of different dimensions in noisy/unstructured conditions; 2) development of an ANN based adaptive motion controller to coordinate the CR5 and CR10 Cobot arms to automate three critical harvesting tasks- seedling transplantation, float handing and harvesting; 3) Embedding of the robotic framework into the farm operation taking into account food safety, scalability and human-robot collaboration. The SCARLETT framework has been evaluated in the state-of-the-art 1.1Ha hydroponic farm of JEPCO, producing 1.95 million plants annually. While this thesis focuses specifically on Lettuce, the framework itself is adaptable to other ‘crop types, tasks and growing environments’, hence opening further opportunities for robotics in Smart Farming
Asymmetric Estimation for Varying-Coefficient Additive Model with Functional Response in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space
Get PDFFunction-on-scalar regression models are extensively utilized in applications involving longitudinal or functional responses. Prior literature has established the minimax optimal bounds for both mean and quantile regression. This paper explores expectile regression as a natural extension to mean regression, particularly for modeling potential heteroscedasticity in data. We propose an expectile function-on-scalar regression model that focuses on asymmetrical regression of functional responses based on scalar predictors. Employing the structure of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS), we have developed a statistically efficient expectile estimator. This estimator comes with theoretical backing, derived from the minimax rates of convergence in both random and fixed design contexts. Our extensive simulations demonstrate the robust performance of the proposed methods across various settings. Additionally, we present an empirical analysis using quality of life data from a breast cancer clinical trial, showcasing the practical utility of our method