8,989 research outputs found
Conditional associative learning examined in a paralyzed patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using brain-computer interface technology
No full textBackground Brain-computer interface methodology based on self-regulation of slow-cortical potentials (SCPs) of the EEG (electroencephalogram) was used to assess conditional associative learning in one severely paralyzed, late-stage ALS patient. After having been taught arbitrary stimulus relations, he was evaluated for formation of equivalence classes among the trained stimuli. Methods A monitor presented visual information in two targets. The method of teaching was matching to sample. Three types of stimuli were presented: signs (A), colored disks (B), and geometrical shapes (C). The sample was one type, and the choice was between two stimuli from another type. The patient used his SCP to steer a cursor to one of the targets. A smiley was presented as a reward when he hit the correct target. The patient was taught A-B and B-C (sample – comparison) matching with three stimuli of each type. Tests for stimulus equivalence involved the untaught B-A, C-B, A-C, and C-A relations. An additional test was discrimination between all three stimuli of one equivalence class presented together versus three unrelated stimuli. The patient also had sessions with identity matching using the same stimuli. Results The patient showed high accuracy, close to 100%, on identity matching and could therefore discriminate the stimuli and control the cursor correctly. Acquisition of A-B matching took 11 sessions (of 70 trials each) and had to be broken into simpler units before he could learn it. Acquisition of B-C matching took two sessions. The patient passed all equivalence class tests at 90% or higher. Conclusion The patient may have had a deficit in acquisition of the first conditional association of signs and colored disks. In contrast, the patient showed clear evidence that A-B and B-C training had resulted in formation of equivalence classes. The brain-computer interface technology combined with the matching to sample method is a useful way to assess various cognitive abilities of severely paralyzed patients, who are without reliable motor control
Andrea Bacová
No full textAndrea Bacová focuses on research and teaching in the field of residential architecture. Her work includes systematic research on residential buildings and their urban context. She actively participates in promoting Slovak architecture and is the author of several publications and exhibitions
Supplementary_Material – Supplemental material for Brain-Machine Interface in Chronic Stroke: Randomized Trial Long-Term Follow-up
No full textSupplemental material, Supplementary_Material for Brain-Machine Interface in Chronic Stroke: Randomized Trial Long-Term Follow-up by Ander Ramos-Murguialday, Marco R. Curado, Doris Broetz, Özge Yilmaz, Fabricio L. Brasil, Giulia Liberati, Eliana Garcia-Cossio, Woosang Cho, Andrea Caria, Leonardo G. Cohen and Niels Birbaumer in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair</p
Attitudes Towards End-of-Life Decisions and the Subjective Concepts of Consciousness: An Empirical Analysis
No full textBackground: People have fought for their civil rights, primarily the right to live in dignity. At present, the development of technology in medicine and healthcare led to an apparent paradox: many people are fighting for the right to die. This study was aimed at testing whether different moral principles are associated with different attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for patients with a severe brain damage.
Methodology: We focused on the ethical decisions about withdrawing life-sustaining treatments in patients with severe brain damage. 202 undergraduate students at the University of Padova were given one description drawn from four profiles describing different pathological states: the permanent vegetative state, the minimally conscious state, the locked-in syndrome, and the terminal illness. Participants were asked to evaluate how dead or how alive the patient was, and how appropriate it was to satisfy the patient's desire.
Principal Findings: We found that the moral principles in which people believe affect not only people's judgments concerning the appropriateness of the withdrawal of life support, but also the perception of the death status of patients with severe brain injury. In particular, we found that the supporters of the Free Choice (FC) principle perceived the death status of the patients with different pathologies differently: the more people believe in the FC, the more they perceived patients as dead in pathologies where conscious awareness is severely impaired. By contrast, participants who agree with the Sanctity of Life (SL) principle did not show differences across pathologies.
Conclusions: These results may shed light on the complex aspects of moral consensus for supporting or rejecting end-of-life decisions
Viewer-, Author-, and Ownership in the Work of Andrea Zittel
No full textAndrea Zittel invites others to collapse the distinctions between artist, viewer, and collaborator by interacting with her usable works. This thesis explores the process of interacting with Zittel\u27s works, and how it affects viewer-, author- and ownership
The Lettere of Andrea Calmo: authorial artifices and historical reality
No full textopenNonostante l’edizione di Vittorio Rossi del 1888, la raccolta di "ingegnosi cheribizzi" e di "fantastiche fantasie" di Andrea Calmo è ancora avvolta da un certo mistero. L’autore, dissimulando la propria identità dietro alla “maschera” dell’umile pescatore veneziano, è stato in grado di offrire uno spaccato della cultura e della società nella Venezia cinquecentesca.
In particolare, è il quarto libro delle Lettere ad aver suscitato maggiore interesse tra gli studiosi ed i lettori: pubblicato nel 1566, a diversi anni di distanza dai primi tre, questo libro si distingue per il fatto che tutte le epistole sono indirizzate a delle donne immaginarie o realmente esistite.
In questa sede si propone, in primo luogo, uno studio della biografia del Calmo accompagnata da un’analisi del contesto storico-culturale della Venezia cinquecentesca; in secondo luogo, invece, viene proposto un commento di alcune lettere dell’ultimo libro dell’opera calmiana, che cerchi di far luce principalmente sull’aspetto linguistico e contenutistico del testo.Despite Vittorio Rossi's 1888 edition, Andrea Calmo's collection of "ingegnosi cheribizzi" and "fantastiche fantasie" is still shrouded in a certain mystery. The author, dissimulating his own identity behind the "mask" of the humble Venetian fisherman, was able to offer a cross-section of culture and society in sixteenth-century Venice.
In particular, it is the fourth book of the Letters that has aroused greater interest among scholars and readers: published in 1566, several years after the first three, this book stands out for the fact that all the epistles are addressed to women imaginary or actually existed.
Here we propose, first of all, a study of Calmo's biography accompanied by an analysis of the historical-cultural context of sixteenth-century Venice; secondly, however, a commentary on some letters from the last book of Calmo's work is proposed, which seeks to shed light mainly on the linguistic and content aspect of the text
Trusted Tales: Creating Authenticity in Literary Representations from Ex-Yugoslavia
No full textThis research deals with questions of authority and authenticity and how they are expressed, constructed, and appropriated within the Anglophone book market. It considers the body of literature written about ex-Yugoslavia since the 1990s Balkan conflicts by exiled writers from the region which has entered the international literary canon. Books’ routes from original publishers into English translation are discussed through practices of trust, one of the crucial social devices underpinning their exchange. Within these cross-cultural processes, the role of cultural brokers is crucial. Symbolic and cultural resources are specifically mobilised through their powerful author brands.
By exploring authenticity in the context of book publishing, I further look at how ideas and practices of community are employed and negotiated by writers and those who promote their books. My field is multi-sited and fluid, reflecting how different individual and national positions are enacted and performed through strategies ranging from unconscious dispositions to deliberate intentions. This research thus brings together ideas of the author as an authentic, representative voice together with exile as a position that grants them a new lease of relevancy in the post-socialist context.
Although ex-Yugoslav books occupy a ‘high end’ niche of the UK market, constrained by commercial as well as political, cultural, and institutional forces, in public discourse ideas of the ‘free market’ and ‘free speech’ are mobilised to produce various types of modernisation narratives. The (post)socialist production of literature is perceived as having to ‘evolve’ into a capitalist model: this would allow not only healthy competition and consumer choice but guarantee an individual writer ‘free speech’ as a basic human right. Therefore, the most general question this research raises is what kind of foreign literature gets translated into English, under what socio-cultural conditions and which politics of representation it serves within the project of world literature
Ms. Courtney Chartier, RWWL AUC, August 2011
No full textThis video is a conversation with Ms. Courtney Chartier. Ms. Chartier talks about her work on the "New Georgia Encyclopedia" and "Online Voter Education Project." Andrea Jackson, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
Volitional control of anterior insula activity modulates the response to aversive stimuli. A real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging study
No full textBackground: A promising new approach to cognitive neuroscience based on real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI)
demonstrated that the learned regulation of the neurophysiological activity in circumscribed brain regions can be used as an independent
variable to observe its effects on behavior. Here, for the first time, we investigated the modulatory effect of learned regulation of blood
oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) response in the left anterior insula on the perception of visual emotional stimuli.
Methods: Three groups of participants (n27) were tested: two underwent four rtfMRI training sessions receiving either specific (n9) or
unspecific feedback (n9) of the insula’s BOLD response, respectively, and one group used emotional imagery alone (n9) without rtfMRI
feedback. During training, all groups were required to assess aversive and neutral pictures.
Results: Participants able to significantly increase BOLD signal in the target region rated the aversive pictures more negatively. We
measured a significant correlation between enhanced left anterior insula activity and increased negative valence ratings of the aversive
stimuli. Control groups performing either rtfMRI training with unspecific feedback or an emotional imagery training alone were not able to
significantly enhance activity in the left anterior insula and did not show changes in subjective emotional responses.
Conclusions: This study corroborates traditional neuroimaging studies demonstrating a critical role of the anterior insula in the
explicit appraisal of emotional stimuli and indicates the adopted approach as a potential tool for clinical applications in emotional
disorders
Tribute to Andrea Infuso
No full textThis special issue of Eurosurveillance is dedicated to the memory of Andrea Infuso, a dear and respected colleague and friend, who died suddenly on 20 September 2005 at the age of 44.
Andrea was actively involved in the preparation of this special issue on vaccination and tuberculosis. As EuroTB coordinator since 2000, his knowledge of and contacts with all European experts involved in tuberculosis surveillance in Europe were very valuable in conceiving this thematic issue. The Euroroundup published in this issue, European survey of BCG vaccination policies and surveillance in children, 2005, written by Andrea as first author, is a posthumous publication.</jats:p
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