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Investigating the suitability of neurofeedback to improve fatigue
Get PDFFatigue is an adverse subjective state occurring during demanding tasks, often coupled with vigilance decrements and changes in the associated brain signal oscillations. Surveys indicate age-related imbalances in fatigue, making older age groups a viable target to investigate fatigue in the healthy population.
In this thesis, I examined fatigue during sustained attention decline (as reflected in vigilance decrements), both behaviourally and neurally, across young and olderage groups. Electroencephalographic metrics of increases in alpha and other lower frequency oscillations, both pre-stimulus and in relation to the task, were of particular interest. These oscillations have been previously associated with vigilance decrements and used in neurofeedback interventions targeting fatigue symptoms. I also examined motivational factors potentially contributing to the age-related effects. Using different adaptations of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART), three empirical studies examined how fatigue manifests in performance and neural activity across the young and healthy older samples.
Chapter 2 demonstrated that the SART can induce subjective fatigue and that this change relates to accuracy change. However, its key finding was a higher accuracyin older adults, with only limited age-specific fatigue effects. In Chapter 3, an extended version of the SART including extensive EEG measures additionally revealed neural changes over time commonly associated with fatigue (increased pre-stimulus alpha and task-related beta synchronization), but these were correlated neither to subjective fatigue nor to a performance decline. Instead,
age again emerged as the primary drive of the behavioural and neural responsesto the task, further showing a prospective link to motivation. In Chapter 4, I thusshifted focus from time-on-task to testing possible motivational effect directly. Young and older participants were equalised to the same accuracy level by titration of task difficulty. Initially, higher motivation helped older participants match the young group's performance. Then, following an unexpected motivational initiative, young participants became motivated and showed larger accuracy improvement compared to the older group. Fatigue had little impact on
performance or age effects.
I conclude that sustaining attention over time can incur a subjective experience of fatigue, but an accompanying shift in neural oscillations is uncorrelated and likely only reflects covert changes in attentional processes. My findings thus challenge the assumption of a tight coupling of fatigue to performance declineand neural pattern changes in sustained attention. This also casts doubt on the efficacy of neurofeedback treatments of fatigue by targeting these patterns. Instead, I highlight the interplay of age and motivation as drivers of performance(and brain dynamics) during sustained attention and posit them as a more promising focus for future interventional research
Multi-omics characterisation of phosphodiesterase enzymes in colorectal cancer and bioinformatic discovery of Dengue virus disruptor peptides
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Training-efficient deep reinforcement learning for safe autonomous driving
Get PDFAutonomous driving holds the potential to transform the transportation industry, offering significant improvements in safety, efficiency, and convenience. However, traditional model-based planning approaches struggle to address the complexities and uncertainties of real-world driving environments. This thesis employs deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to achieve safe and efficient autonomous driving using realistic simulation settings and evaluation based on rational criteria.
The proposed framework integrates five key factors—driving safety, driving efficiency, training efficiency, unselfishness, and interpretability (DDTUI) to ensure reliable and optimal decision-making across various driving scenarios. The research addresses two primary applications: highway driving and autonomous racing. In highway driving, the DRL-based framework demonstrates superior performance compared to popular baseline algorithms, improving safety and efficiency. In autonomous racing, an extreme case of autonomous driving, the framework is adapted to manage high velocities and safe control, achieving fewer collisions, faster lap times, and reduced training time in comparison to benchmark algorithms.
This thesis contributes to the field by advancing RL-based planning techniques and establishing a design methodology for integrating key factors in autonomous driving. The results of this study provide evidences of the development of safer, more efficient, and interpretable autonomous driving systems. Finally, key achievements are summarized, limitations are discussed, and future research directions are proposed
Molecular and biological characterisation of the tickborne pathogen Bhanja virus
No full textAbstract not currently available
The Gregorios Manos collection of East Asian objects: connoisseurship, networks, and market dynamics in early twentieth-century Europe
Get PDFThis thesis delves into the collection of East Asian objects assembled by Greek diplomat Gregorios Manos (1850-1928), during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite never travelling outside of Europe, Manos acquired thousands of objects, primarily from Japan and China, and is today regarded as the first Greek collector-scholar of Asian art. His efforts culminated in the establishment of the Sino-Japanese Museum in Corfu, now Corfu Museum of Asian Art, which remains the only Greek institution entirely devoted to the arts of Asia and the first of its kind in the Balkan space. By tracing the trajectory of Manos’ collection from fin-de-siècle Vienna, through its transfer to Paris, and eventually its establishment on the Greek island of Corfu, this thesis aims to reconstruct its history and shed light on unknown aspects of its formation.
This involves situating Manos and his collecting endeavours within a period that witnessed the influx of East Asian objects in Europe, particularly after the opening of Japan to foreign trade following the Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1858) and the socio-political shifts surrounding the demise of the Qing dynasty in 1911. These historical events had a profound impact on the dynamics of the European art market, the gradual development of scholarship, and the formation of collecting networks. Manos’ involvement is closely analysed within this context. Particularly the roles he assumed as buyer and consignor in public auctions illuminate his taste for Japanese and Chinese objects as well as his acquisition and selling strategies. Moreover, this thesis explores a previously unknown aspect of Manos’ engagement with the institutional sphere, specifically his role as a lender to major exhibitions that contributed towards a more scholarly approach to the study of Asian art.
Drawing on a broad range of archival material, this thesis not only constructs a portrait of Manos as a collector, but also delves into the histories of individual objects that both entered and departed from his collection. The lives of Japanese and Chinese items are examined within their original context as well as within the European environments they ended up residing, prompting reflections into issues of provenance, identity, and transformed meaning. Ultimately, my thesis elucidates Manos’ legacy and underscores the significance of research into lesser-known collections
Investigation of novel anti-fungal agents for the management of Candida albicans
No full textAbstract not currently available
Elucidating a putative role of Plasmodium falciparum Nucleoside Transporter 1
No full textAbstract not currently available
Lucan’s Roman apocalypse. A trauma theory reading of Lucan’s Pharsalia
Get PDFThis thesis seeks to conduct a trauma theory informed reading of Lucan’s Pharsalia as a possible expression of individual trauma as well as a presentation of collective Roman trauma. The reading viewsLucan’s work through the lens of the sublime and specifically the
relationship between trauma and the sublime. It examines the apocalyptic nature of traumatic experience via the portrayal of apocalyptic upheaval during the civil war fought between the epic’s principal characters, Pompey and Caesar. The ways in which sublime trauma is depicted materially in relation to the body makes up the second major examination of the thesis. In studying Lucan’s use of the body - individual bodies, state bodies, and the body of Lucan’s text itself, the impact of trauma is measured
Person-centred dementia care: exploring case formulation and technological interventions
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