Neurophysiological correlates of the rubber hand illusion in late evoked and alpha/beta band activity

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) allows insights into how the brain resolves conflicting multisensory information regarding body position and ownership. Previous neuroimaging studies have reported a variety of neurophysiological correlates of illusory hand ownership, with conflicting results likely originating from differences in experimental parameters and control conditions. Here, we overcome these limitations by using a fully automated and precisely-timed visuo-tactile stimulation setup to record evoked responses and oscillatory responses in participants who felt the RHI. Importantly, we relied on a combination of experimental conditions to rule out confounds of attention, body-stimulus position and stimulus duration and on the combination of two control conditions to identify neurophysiological correlates of illusory hand ownership. In two separate experiments we observed a consistent illusion-related attenuation of ERPs around 330 ms over frontocentral electrodes, as well as decreases of frontal alpha and beta power during the illusion that could not be attributed to changes in attention, body-stimulus position or stimulus duration. Our results reveal neural correlates of illusory hand ownership in late and likely higher-order rather than early sensory processes, and support a role of premotor and possibly intraparietal areas in mediating illusory body ownership

Associations of plasma fibrinogen and factor VII clotting activity with coronary heart disease and stroke: prospective cohort study from the screening phase of the Thrombosis Prevention Trial.

BACKGROUND: As with 'conventional' risk factors such as cholesterol and smoking, there is a need for large, long-term prospective studies on hemostatic factors. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prospective relationship of fibrinogen and factor VII clotting activity (FVIIc) with risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in a study with a large number of outcomes over a period of 15 years. PATIENTS/METHODS: A cohort of 22 715 men aged 45-69 years was screened for participation in the Thrombosis Prevention Trial. Men were followed up for fatal and non-fatal CHD and stroke events. There were 1515 CHD events (933 CHD deaths) and 391 strokes (180 stroke deaths). Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals are expressed per standardized increase in log fibrinogen and log FVIIc, adjusting for age, trial treatment group, conventional CHD risk factors and regression dilution bias. RESULTS: Hazard ratios for fibrinogen were 1.52 (1.37-1.70) for all CHD events, and 1.36 (1.09-1.69) for all strokes. Exclusion of events within the first 10 years showed a persistent association between CHD and fibrinogen, with an adjusted HR of 1.93 (1.42-2.64). The HRs for FVIIc, adjusting for age and trial treatment, were 1.07 (1.01-1.12) for all CHD events and 1.07 (0.97-1.20) for all strokes, and the fully adjusted HRs were, respectively, 0.97 (0.84-1.05) and 1.07 (0.85-1.33). CONCLUSIONS: The persisting association between fibrinogen and CHD beyond 10 years may imply a causal effect. There is a small effect of FVIIc on CHD, after adjustment for age and trial treatment, but no association independent of other risk factors

Multiple bottlenecks sorting criterion at initial sequence in solving permutation flow shop scheduling problem

This paper proposes a heuristic that introduces the application of bottleneck-based concept at the beginning of an initial sequence determination with the objective of makespan minimization. Earlier studies found that the scheduling activity become complicated when dealing with machine, m greater than 2, known as non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness (NP-hard). To date, the Nawaz-Enscore-Ham (NEH) algorithm is still recognized as the best heuristic in solving makespan problem in scheduling environment. Thus, this study treated the NEH heuristic as the highest ranking and most suitable heuristic for evaluation purpose since it is the best performing heuristic in makespan minimization. This study used the bottleneck-based approach to identify the critical processing machine which led to high completion time. In this study, an experiment involving machines (m =4) and n-job (n = 6, 10, 15, 20) was simulated in Microsoft Excel Simple Programming to solve the permutation flowshop scheduling problem. The overall computational results demonstrated that the bottleneck machine M4 performed the best in minimizing the makespan for all data set of problems

Digital Technology: the Effect of Connected World to Computer Ethic and Family

The development of digital technology such as smartphones, tablets and other gadgets grows very rapidly in the last decade so does the development of mobile applications for those mobile systems or smartphones. Unfortunately, those applications often do not specify the age range for their users. This is actually a problem in the world of digital technology and software development. It is not yet known whether the applications is good be used for children or not. Nowadays, parents are faced with the dilemma of allowing their children to use these modern gadgets, which often lead to serious addiction or keeping them in the dark and risk raising ignorant kids. This research shows 80% of respondents agree or strongly agree that the gadget will affect to the development of children social skill. Therefore, in this research, the framework for ethical assessment is introduced and it can be applied to digital technology included gadget and its application in order to mitigate the negative effect of digital technology and gadgets

The genetic characteristics of cephalic abnormality and its aquaculture implication in Clarias gariepinus (Burchell 1822)

Cephalic abnormality in nine mating groups involving Clarias gariepinus with cephalic abnormality, non Cephalic and Maiduguri origin were investigated to determine the level and the genetic basis of the occurrences and its aquaculture implication. The highest mean percentage survival in a Cephalic crossed with non cephalic group was 68.6% whereas the last mean percentage survival was 25.7% in the group of Maiduguri cross with Maiduguri parent. Cephalic abnormality was observed in the crosses with both female and male cephalic with a total frequency ranging from 0 % to 70.8. %. The least number of cephalic abnormality was 18.5% which involved a cross of non cephalic with cephalic, and the highest was 70.8%. This level of cephalic abnormality shows that the defect was hereditary. This result implies that, the genetic factor is a major contributor in the feature of cephalic abnormality in Clarias gariepinus

Perancangan dan Implementasi Sistem Otomatisasi Pemeliharaan Tanaman Hidroponik

Nowadays automatitation is become a trend, even though people still using manual ways to do agriculture, especially in hydroponics plantation. By using this device, people don't have to do watering and maturing hydroponics plants again, because the system will do it automatically

Papan Skor Snooker Otomatis

Now days snooker score board still using conventional score board that is made of wood. Each time a ball got in to the pocket the players has to change score manually. With Automatic score board snooker player do not have to change the score manually. This Automatic score board can detect color of the ball witch got in to the pocket then change the score according to the color that represent some value