1,720,966 research outputs found
A Mathematical Model for Evaluating the Functional Connectivity Strongness in Healthy People
No full textThe human brain is a really complex organization of connectivity whose principal elements are neurons, synapses and brain regions. Up to now this connectivity is not fully understood, and recent impulse in investigating its structure has been given by Graph Theory. However, some points remain unclear, mainly due to possible mismatching between the Mathematical and the Neuroscientific approach. It is known that neural connectivity is classified into three categories: structural (or anatomical) connectivity, functional connectivity and effective connectivity. The point is that these categories demand different kinds of graphs, except in the case of the resting state, and sometimes topological and metrical parameters are involved simultaneously, without a specific distinction of their roles. In this paper we propose a mathematical model for treating the functional connectivity, based on directed graphs with weighted edges. The function W(i,j,t), representing the weight of the edge connecting nodes i,j at time t, is obtained by splitting the model in two parts, where different parameters have been introduced step by step and rigorously motivated. In particular, there is a double role played by the notion of distance, which, according to the different parts of the model, assumes a discrete or an Euclidean meaning. Analogously, the time t appears both from a local and from a global perspective. The local aspect relates to a specific task submitted to an health volunteer (in view of possible future applications also to subjects affected by neurological diseases), while the global one concerns the different periods in the human life that characterize the main changes in the neural brain network. In the particular case of the resting state, we have shown that W reduces to the usually employed probabilistic growth laws for the edge formation. We tested the correctness of our model by means of synthetic data, where the selection of all involved parameters has been motivated according to what is known from the available literature. It turns out that simulated outputs fit well with the expected results, which encourages further analysis on real data, and possible future applications to neurological pathologies
A Statistical Proposal for Selecting a Data-depending Threshold in Neurobiology
No full textIn this paper we propose a new methodology for introducing thresholds in the analysis of neuro- biological databases. Often, in Neuroscience, absolute thresholds are adopted. This is done by cutting the data below (or above) predetermined values of the involved parameters, without an analysis of the distribution of the collected data concerning the phenomenon under investigation. Despite an absolute threshold could be rigorously defined in terms of physic parameters, it can be influenced by many different subjective aspects, including cognitive processes, and individual adaptation to the external stimuli. A possible related risk is that, mainly in experiments also depending on personal reactions, a significant portion of meaningful data, relevant for that specific task, could be neglected. In order to reduce these deviations, we are proposing to adopt a task-dependent approach, based on the comparison between the collected data and some database concerning a different task, assumed as a baseline. After giving the necessary theoretical background, we test our methodology on real EEG data involving two subjects in a musical task. In addition to some natural results, new and unexpected neurological links can be emphasized and discussed
Graph Model Simulation of Human Brain's Functional Activity at Resting State by Means of the FD Model
No full textIt is commonly accepted that the various parts of the human brain interact as a network at macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic level. Recently, different network models have been proposed to mime the brain behavior both at resting state and during tasks: Our study concerns one of those model that consider both the physical and functional connectivity as well as topological metrics of the brain networks. We provide evidence of the soundness of the model by means of a synthetic dataset based on the existing literature concerning the active cerebral areas at the resting state. Furthermore, we consider Ruzicka similarity measure in order to stress the predictive capability of the model and provide a thresholding criterium. Some network statistics are finally provided
Exploring Resting-State Functional Connectivity Invariants Across the Life Span Using a Novel Graph Model
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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