Complex Information Processing Research Articles

Support Vector Machine Optimized by Genetic Algorithm for Data Analysis of Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Sensors.

Near-infrared (NIR) spectral sensors deliver the spectral response of the light absorbed by materials for quantification, qualification or identification. Spectral analysis technology based on the NIR sensor has been a useful tool for complex information processing and high precision identification in the tobacco industry. In this paper, a novel method based on the support vector machine (SVM) is proposed to discriminate the tobacco cultivation region using the near-infrared (NIR) sensors, where the genetic algorithm (GA) is employed for input subset selection to identify the effective principal components (PCs) for the SVM model. With the same number of PCs as the inputs to the SVM model, a number of comparative experiments were conducted between the effective PCs selected by GA and the PCs orderly starting from the first one. The model performance was evaluated in terms of prediction accuracy and four parameters of assessment criteria (true positive rate, true negative rate, positive predictive value and F1 score). From the results, it is interesting to find that some PCs with less information may contribute more to the cultivation regions and are considered as more effective PCs, and the SVM model with the effective PCs selected by GA has a superior discrimination capacity. The proposed GA-SVM model can effectively learn the relationship between tobacco cultivation regions and tobacco NIR sensor data.

Microsaccadic behavior when developing acomplex dynamical activity.

Microsaccade are sensitive to changes of perceptual inputs as well as modulations of cognitive states. There are just a few works analyzing microsaccade while subjects are processing complex information and fewer when doing predictions about upcoming events. To evaluate whether contextual predictability would change microsaccadic behavior, we evaluated microsaccade of twenty one persons when reading 40 regular sentences and 40 proverbs. Analysis of microsaccade during reading proverbs and regular sentences revealed that microsaccade rate on words before maxjump, during maxjump and words after maxjump varied depending on the kind of sentence and on the word predictability. Maxjump was defined as the word with the largest difference between the cloze predictability of two consecutive words. Low and high predictable words demanded less or more microsaccade on words previous, during and on maxjump depending of the semantic context and of the readers' predictions of upcoming words.In summary, the present study shows that microsaccade' rate evidenced significant differences when reading proverbs and regular sentences. Hence, evaluation of microsaccade during reading sentences with different contextual predictability might provide information about specific effect of cue attention on complex task.

Nudges that hurt those already hurting – distributional and unintended effects of salience nudges*

Nudges are becoming increasingly popular policy tools. Yet, distributional effects of nudges are largely unknown. We first design an economic laboratory experiment to examine the incidence of an opportunity cost reminder nudge (a salience nudge) designed to curb spending, while accounting for heterogeneity in emotional responses – specifically the pain of paying. Pain of paying is optimal for ‘unconflicted’ consumers, but too low for ‘spendthrifts’ and too high for ‘tightwads’, causing sub-optimal spending. Our empirical results imply the nudge increases pain of paying for tightwads, thereby reducing spending by tightwads, who already spend too little, while it entirely fails to reduce the spending of those who would have benefited from a spending reduction (spendthrifts). Overall, the nudge therefore might reduce consumer welfare. We next examine if the adverse impact of the opportunity cost reminder nudge is explained by a general tendency for all nudges to exacerbate peoples’ underlying spending preferences. We specifically test whether a salience nudge designed to boost spending correspondingly adversely affects spendthrifts? We unexpectedly find that subjects perceive the spending booster nudge as a “spending reminder”, which again, reduces spending by tightwads only, while not affecting spending by the other consumer types. Our results highlight two important aspects of salience nudges – given the complexity of consumer emotions and information processing, salience nudges can have undesired welfare effects, and the direction of their impact may be the opposite of what was intended.

Loss of white matter connections after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its relationship to social cognition

Adults with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often suffer poor social cognition. Social cognition is complex, requiring verbal, non-verbal, auditory, visual and affective input and integration. While damage to focal temporal and frontal areas has been implicated in disorders of social cognition after TBI, the role of white matter pathology has not been examined. In this study 17 adults with chronic, severe TBI and 17 control participants underwent structural MRI scans and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) was used to assess their ability to understand emotional states, thoughts, intentions and conversational meaning in everyday exchanges. Track-based spatial statistics were used to perform voxelwise analysis of Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD) of white matter tracts associated with poor social cognitive performance. FA suggested a wide range of tracts were implicated in poor TASIT performance including tracts known to mediate, auditory localisation (planum temporale) communication between nonverbal and verbal processes in general (corpus callosum) and in memory in particular (fornix) as well as tracts and structures associated with semantics and verbal recall (left temporal lobe and hippocampus), multimodal processing and integration (thalamus, external capsule, cerebellum) and with social cognition (orbitofrontal cortex, frontopolar cortex, right temporal lobe). Even when controlling for non-social cognition, the corpus callosum, fornix, bilateral thalamus, right external capsule and right temporal lobe remained significant contributors to social cognitive performance. This study highlights the importance of loss of white matter connectivity in producing complex social information processing deficits after TBI.

Комплексная обработка информации в интегрированном радиоэлектронном комплексе летательного аппарата при оценивании координат и параметров движения воздушных объектов в лучевой системе координат.

Комплексная обработка информации в интегрированном радиоэлектронном комплексе летательного аппарата при оценивании координат и параметров движения воздушных объектов в лучевой системе координат.

Designing Plasmonic Eigenstates for Optical Signal Transmission in Planar Channel Devices

On-chip optoelectronic and all-optical information processing paradigms require compact implementation of signal transfer for which nanoscale surface plasmons circuitry offers relevant solutions. This work demonstrates the directional signal transmittance mediated by 2D plasmonic eigenmodes supported by crystalline cavities. Channel devices comprising two mesoscopic triangular input and output ports and sustaining delocalized, higher-order plasmon resonances in the visible to infra-red range are shown to enable the controllable transmittance between two confined entry and exit ports coupled over a distance exceeding 2 $\mu$m. The transmittance is attenuated by > 20dB upon rotating the incident linear polarization, thus offering a convenient switching mechanism. The optimal transmittance for a given operating wavelength depends on the geometrical design of the device that sets the spatial and spectral characteristic of the supporting delocalized mode. Our approach is highly versatile and opens the way to more complex information processing using pure plasmonic or hybrid nanophotonic architectures.

A Multitude of Neural Representations Behind Multisensory "Social Norm" Processing.

Humans show a unique capacity to process complex information from multiple sources. Social perception in natural environment provides a good example of such capacity as it typically requires the integration of information from different sensory systems, and also from different levels of sensory processing. Here, instead of studying one isolate system and level of representation, we focused upon a neuroimaging paradigm which allows to capture multiple brain representations simultaneously, i.e., low and high-level processing in two different sensory systems, as well as abstract cognitive processing of congruency. Subjects performed social decisions based on the congruency between auditory and visual processing. Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we probed a wide variety of representations. Our results confirmed the expected representations at each level and system according to the literature. Further, beyond the hierarchical organization of the visual, auditory and higher order neural systems, we provide a more nuanced picture of the brain functional architecture. Indeed, brain regions of the same neural system show similarity in their representations, but they also share information with regions from other systems. Further, the strength of neural information varied considerably across domains in a way that was not obviously related to task relevance. For instance, selectivity for task-irrelevant animacy of visual input was very strong. The present approach represents a new way to explore the richness of co-activated brain representations underlying the natural complexity in human cognition.

Editors’ Comments: Should Management Theories Take Uncertainty Seriously?

Editors’ Comments: Should Management Theories Take Uncertainty Seriously?

How cognitive and reactive fear circuits optimize escape decisions in humans

Flight initiation distance (FID), the distance at which an organism flees from an approaching threat, is an ecological metric of cost-benefit functions of escape decisions. We adapted the FID paradigm to investigate how fast- or slow-attacking "virtual predators" constrain escape decisions. We show that rapid escape decisions rely on "reactive fear" circuits in the periaqueductal gray and midcingulate cortex (MCC), while protracted escape decisions, defined by larger buffer zones, were associated with "cognitive fear" circuits, which include posterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, circuits implicated in more complex information processing, cognitive avoidance strategies, and behavioral flexibility. Using a Bayesian decision-making model, we further show that optimization of escape decisions under rapid flight were localized to the MCC, a region involved in adaptive motor control, while the hippocampus is implicated in optimizing decisions that update and control slower escape initiation. These results demonstrate an unexplored link between defensive survival circuits and their role in adaptive escape decisions.

Slowing Down Fast Thinking to Enhance Understanding

Stress can make the comprehension of complex information more difficult, yet patients and their family members often must receive, process, and make decisions based on new, complex information presented in unfamiliar and stressful clinical environments such the intensive care unit. Family members may be asked to make decisions regarding the donation of organs and genetic tissue soon after the death of a loved one, based on new, complex information, under tight time limits. How can we assist patients and families better process complex information while under stress, and to make better decisions for themselves or for a loved one?

Effect of L, T and N-Type Calcium Channels on Retinal Ganglion Cells

Eye is a complex electro-optical image processing system which provides vision, a complex information processing which relies on the neural processing in the retina through electrical synapses enacted through the gap junctions. Light incident on the retina which is sensible to light, generates a series of electrical and chemical synapses producing the nerve impulses. The light entering the pupil gets converged by the lens and focused as an inverted image to the photoreceptors, the rods and cones. Neural signals from the rods and cones are processed in the Retinal Ganglion Cells(RGCs) with their axons forming the optic nerve. These nervous messages are mostly related with an electrical change known as the action potential. An all active Fohlmeister–Coleman–Miller(FCM) model adapted with seven non-linear ion channels is designed for the RGC with a gap junction conductance(G) between the RGCs. No models have analysed the RGCs with active membrane properties including the Calcium channels and gap junction conductances in between the RGCs. The simulations were performed for the adapted FCM model and their ionic currents are measured. The action potential of the designed RGCs and the ionic currents are measured by the model simulation to analyse the effect of different types of Calcium currents and gap junction conductances in RGC apoptosis.

Control of aggregative stability of the oils during their mixing

Abstract The problem of operational control of oil transportation and maintaining its aggregative stability during the mixing of various types of crude oils and a system of integrated process monitoring consisting of an information processing complex and an analytical measuring unit based on the flow spectrometric technique (DLS, UV, FTIR), flow meters, density and viscosity of oil, shut-off devices installed on pipelines are considered.

Dynamic Reconfiguration of the Supplementary Motor Area Network during Imagined Music Performance.

The supplementary motor area (SMA) has been shown to be the center for motor planning and is active during music listening and performance. However, limited data exist on the role of the SMA in music. Music performance requires complex information processing in auditory, visual, spatial, emotional, and motor domains, and this information is integrated for the performance. We hypothesized that the SMA is engaged in multimodal integration of information, distributed across several regions of the brain to prepare for ongoing music performance. To test this hypothesis, functional networks involving the SMA were extracted from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data that were acquired from musicians during imagined music performance and during the resting state. Compared with the resting condition, imagined music performance increased connectivity of the SMA with widespread regions in the brain including the sensorimotor cortices, parietal cortex, posterior temporal cortex, occipital cortex, and inferior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Increased connectivity of the SMA with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex suggests that the SMA is under cognitive control, while increased connectivity with the inferior prefrontal cortex suggests the involvement of syntax processing. Increased connectivity with the parietal cortex, posterior temporal cortex, and occipital cortex is likely for the integration of spatial, emotional, and visual information. Finally, increased connectivity with the sensorimotor cortices was potentially involved with the translation of thought planning into motor programs. Therefore, the reconfiguration of the SMA network observed in this study is considered to reflect the multimodal integration required for imagined and actual music performance. We propose that the SMA network construct “the internal representation of music performance” by integrating multimodal information required for the performance.

Integrative executive function training in chronic stroke—A case example

Cognitive and functional impairments are common sequelae following stroke, often resulting in significant disabilities that persist years post‐stroke. While the degree of impairments varies with pathology and location of stroke, it is widely understood that executive dysfunction including disturbances of attention, complex information processing, inhibition, reasoning, and flexible thinking underlie a majority of the impairments. Existing rehabilitation approaches predominantly focus on mitigating targeted cognitive deficits (e.g., language disturbance, neglect of one side of the body, memory). Remediation approaches to address executive dysfunction in chronic stages of recovery post‐stroke are limited. The Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training (SMART) that teaches strategies to improve higher order reasoning skills has proven to enhance executive functions, strengthen brain networks and improve participation in daily life activities in adults with traumatic brain injury. The current case example, part of an ongoing larger study, discusses post‐SMART performance of a 57‐year‐old female stroke survivor, who sustained a left middle cerebral artery infarct in July 2015. The participant showed gains in executive functions and participation in leisure pursuits following 10 SMART sessions. These preliminary findings prove feasibility of the training approach and offer promise of neuroplasticity during chronic stages of recovery.

The Multi-Parameter Wireless Sensing System (MPwise): Its Description and Application to Earthquake Risk Mitigation.

The Multi-Parameter Wireless Sensing (MPwise) system is an innovative instrumental design that allows different sensor types to be combined with relatively high-performance computing and communications components. These units, which incorporate off-the-shelf components, can undertake complex information integration and processing tasks at the individual unit or node level (when used in a network), allowing the establishment of networks that are linked by advanced, robust and rapid communications routing and network topologies. The system (and its predecessors) was originally designed for earthquake risk mitigation, including earthquake early warning (EEW), rapid response actions, structural health monitoring, and site-effect characterization. For EEW, MPwise units are capable of on-site, decentralized, independent analysis of the recorded ground motion and based on this, may issue an appropriate warning, either by the unit itself or transmitted throughout a network by dedicated alarming procedures. The multi-sensor capabilities of the system allow it to be instrumented with standard strong- and weak-motion sensors, broadband sensors, MEMS (namely accelerometers), cameras, temperature and humidity sensors, and GNSS receivers. In this work, the MPwise hardware, software and communications schema are described, as well as an overview of its possible applications. While focusing on earthquake risk mitigation actions, the aim in the future is to expand its capabilities towards a more multi-hazard and risk mitigation role. Overall, MPwise offers considerable flexibility and has great potential in contributing to natural hazard risk mitigation.

Enhancement of INS/GNSS integration capabilities for aviation-related Applications

Two methods for construction and use of integrated inertial and satellite systems are considered, taking into account the specific features of aviation-related applications, namely, alignment correction, and autocalibration. Alignment correction is performed during aircraft maneuvering on the airfield. Autocalibration of strapdown inertial navigation systems (SINS) is based on using the estimations of instrumental errors of inertial sensors, which had been obtained by the complex information processing (CIP) algorithm in a number of previous flights of the aircraft. The results of numerous flight tests of laser SINS designed by PAO MIEA for civil and military applications are provided as an evidence of high efficiency of the information integration methods proposed herein.

Socratic Seminar with Data: A Strategy to Support Student Discourse and Understanding.

A Socratic seminar can be a powerful tool for increasing students' ability to analyze and interpret data. Most commonly used for text-based discussion, we found that using Socratic seminar to engage students with data contributes to student understanding by allowing them to reason through and process complex information as a group. This approach also provides teachers with insights about student misconceptions and understanding of concepts by listening to the student-driven discussion. This article reports on Socratic seminar in the context of a high school type 2 diabetes curriculum that explores gene and environment interactions. A case study illustrates how Socratic seminar is applied in a classroom and how students engage with the process. General characteristics of Socratic seminar are discussed at the end of the article.

Feedforward Chemical Neural Network: An In Silico Chemical System That Learns xor.

Inspired by natural biochemicals that perform complex information processing within living cells, we design and simulate a chemically implemented feedforward neural network, which learns by a novel chemical-reaction-based analogue of backpropagation. Our network is implemented in a simulated chemical system, where individual neurons are separated from each other by semipermeable cell-like membranes. Our compartmentalized, modular design allows a variety of network topologies to be constructed from the same building blocks. This brings us towards general-purpose, adaptive learning in chemico: wet machine learning in an embodied dynamical system.

Erythropoietin for Cognitive Deficits Associated with Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Major Depression: A Systematic Review.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the efficacy and safety of adjunctive erythropoietin (EPO) in treating cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression based on randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Two evaluators independently and systematically searched and selected studies, extracted data, and conducted quality assessment. Four RCTs with 144 patients (71 in the EPO group and 73 in the placebo group) met the study entry criteria. Adjunctive EPO could improve schizophrenia-related cognitive performance. In patients with bipolar disorder, EPO could also enhance sustained attention, recognition of happy faces, and speed of complex information processing across learning, attention, and executive function when compared with placebo. In addition, EPO could enhance verbal recall, recognition, and memory in patients with major depression. This preliminary study found that adjunctive EPO appears to be effective in treating cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression without major adverse effects observed. Further higher quality RCTs with larger samples are needed to confirm the findings. CRD42017058094.

Parallel Interactive Processing as a Way to Understand Complex Information Processing: The Conjunction Fallacy and Other Examples.

Parallel interactive processing (PIP) represents an approach in which specific context generates interactive relationships between general attributes. This article summarizes previous research that demonstrates how such relationships influence inference making in categorization. This is followed by evidence that the approach can be extended to other areas of cognition, including probability judgments. PIP was successful in fitting data that revealed the prevalence of the conjunction fallacy as well as other probability estimation data. PIP provided better fits overall than the signed summation model and the configural weighted average model. The quantum probability model provided good fits for the conjunction fallacy data but not for other probability judgments.