Specific Commands Research Articles

Arduino based mobile robot controlled by voluntary eye-blinks using LabVIEW GUI & NeuroSky Mindwave Mobile Headset

This paper proposes an experimental system of a brain-computer interface aimed to use the voluntary eye-blinks detected across the EEG signal acquired from a NeuroSky headset to control the movement directions of a mobile robot. Bluetooth protocol was used to achieve the communication between a LabVIEW application and a program uploaded in an Arduino Mega board which controls the movement direction of a mobile robot. Three parallel algorithms were implemented using LabVIEW, one for the voluntary eye-blinks counting, one for switching across buttons and one for selection of a certain command. Transition across commands (stop, go forward, go backward, turn left, turn right) is executed by one voluntary eye-blink, while two intentional eye-blinks determine the selection of a specific command.

Work Is Love Made Visible: A Meditation on Grace

AbstractHow work is understood and undertaken is a function of particular philosophical and theological assumptions. A meditation on work from the perspective of Catholic social thought must begin with the key articles of the Christian faith, namely, belief in the Trinity and belief in the Incarnation. Human dignity is profoundly grounded in this divine reality. Human persons are made in the image of a triune God and are given a particular vocation to fulfill. The Christian life is a summons to perfect love. Christians are called to love God above all things and to love all others and all of creation for the sake of God. God’s grace elevates Christian disciples to a new level of being, providing them with the supernatural help they need to be co‐creators with him. This mandate is specified more finely by examining the specific commands Jesus gives as to the work that must be done. Jesus sends his followers to reproduce and take care of creation, to be holy, to bear fruit that will last, to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, and to evangelize. In this way, the political economic order is formed according to God’s plan for the world and takes a considerably different shape from the structures that arise from dominant secular premises.

Understanding the security of app-in-the-middle IoT

In recent years IoT platforms and smart-home systems have rapidly grown. Meanwhile, mobile apps have been widely accepted as user interfaces in these consumer IoTs, allowing users to retrieve processed data and issue specific commands. We notice that these companion apps are also used as gateways, providing Internet connectivity for resource-constrained devices, and its mobility advantage over static gateways further promotes applications of this kind. In this paper, we extracted this pattern into a new architecture called app-in-the-middle IoT. We provided a holistic view of what app-in-the-middle IoT is and introduced its attack surface by comparing it with two well-studied IoT architectures, which we refer to as cloud-in-the-middle IoT and trigger-action platform IoT. We detailed the similarities and differences between the three architectures, derived security goals of app-in-the-middle IoT, and drew the key to analyzing it from authentication, access control, and availability aspects. We adopted a method of building an abstract model and extracting the concept of token from the working process. To achieve security goals, the token needs to own these properties: mutual authentication, unforgeability, and resistance to replay attacks. We argue that the role the app plays is critical to the working process, which affects how the properties of the token are satisfied. During analysis, we find that the application scenarios significantly influence the role of the app. Therefore, we discussed the security of different situations separately. For each scenario, we indicated how the token should be generated and distributed to meet the security goals, and summarized several security rules. We analyzed several practical cases, which demonstrate that violating these rules can lead to severe consequences, such as unauthorized access, information leakage, irrevocable authorization, and device hijack.

APPLICATIONS OF CONSTRUCTION AN EOG TELEVISION CONTROL MODEL

Speaking and writing are two common easiest mediums of communication for human. However, they are not applicable when it comes to handicapped who has hearing or speaking inability. Handicapped often encounter a hard time in expressing their feelings and thoughts to others. Furthermore, there are abundant of product in the market, which uses eye movement, light reflection theory and electrooculogram (EOG) as the input of their control system. These implication aims to ease the disabled to use modern devices. Therefore, a research is done on constructing an EOG Television Control Model to help the disabled to have remote on the television. By using the eye’s electrical signal obtained via vertical and horizontal motion, user can easily control television by rolling or blinking their eyes.
 Motivation/Background: The main motivation for this research is to look for an alternative solution to help patients especially those with physical disabilities to control television using eyes motions without difficulties. Moreover, selection for the best television monitoring method among all possible solution is also one of the research progress.
 Method: The most important method being used in this research is by using EOG to detect eyes motion and convert each and every unique motion into a specific command for television monitoring action. Wireless communication device is an additional to allow long range television control using EOG signal.
 Results: It is shown that the EOG signal for left and right and up and down motion of eyeballs differ with each other. Using the motion and by setting a threshold value to quantized the signal, a better quality television monitoring command is generated.
 Conclusions: EOG signal allow user especially those with physical disabilities to monitor television with ease by performing unique eye rolling motion.

Experience-Dependent Coding of Time-Dependent Frequency Trajectories by Off Responses in Secondary Auditory Cortex.

Time-dependent frequency trajectories are an inherent feature of many behaviorally relevant sounds, such as species-specific vocalizations. Dynamic frequency trajectories, even in short sounds, often convey meaningful information, which may be used to differentiate sound categories. However, it is not clear what and where neural responses in the auditory cortical pathway are critical for conveying information about behaviorally relevant frequency trajectories, and how these responses change with experience. Here, we uncover tuning to subtle variations in frequency trajectories in auditory cortex of female mice. We found that auditory cortical responses could be modulated by variations in a pure tone trajectory as small as 1/24th of an octave, comparable to what has been reported in primates. In particular, late spiking after the end of a sound stimulus was more often sensitive to the sound's subtle frequency variation compared with spiking during the sound. Such “Off” responses in the adult A2, but not those in core auditory cortex, were plastic in a way that may enhance the representation of a newly acquired, behaviorally relevant sound category. We illustrate this with the maternal mouse paradigm for natural vocalization learning. By using an ethologically inspired paradigm to drive auditory responses in higher-order neurons, our results demonstrate that mouse auditory cortex can track fine frequency changes, which allows A2 Off responses in particular to better respond to pitch trajectories that distinguish behaviorally relevant, natural sound categories.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A whistle's pitch conveys meaning to its listener, as when dogs learn that distinct pitch trajectories whistled by their owner differentiate specific commands. Many species use pitch trajectories in their own vocalizations to distinguish sound categories, such as in human languages, such as Mandarin. How and where auditory neural activity encodes these pitch trajectories as their meaning is learned but not well understood, especially for short-duration sounds. We studied this in mice, where infants use ultrasonic whistles to communicate to adults. We found that late neural firing after a sound ends can be tuned to how the pitch changes in time, and that this response in a secondary auditory cortical field changes with experience to acquire a pitch change's meaning.

Intelligent vehicle knowledge representation and anomaly detection using neural knowledge DNA

The knowledge expression and anomaly detection of the intelligent vehicle are studied. Firstly, an Intelligent Vehicle Knowledge Management Framework (IVKMF) is proposed to describe the whole knowledge of Intelligent vehicle in a unified structure. Then, the detection rules are divided into simple rules based on features or statistical characteristics and complex sequence rules based on neural networks. The former can effectively detect the specific CAN command and flooding, replay attacks, the latter uses neural networks to learn the characteristics of CAN commands, which can effectively detect the complex attacks. The simple detection rules are standardized by SOEKS knowledge expression and the complex detection rules storage in Neural Knowledge DNA framework. With this unified knowledge expression, the detection rules can be shared and inherited easily. A secure gateway for intelligent vehicle is also designed. The gateway is placed between the external network and the vehicle bus network and it prevent all suspicious external data. The simulations of real car data prove the feasibility of the methods.

Topological manifold‐based monitoring method for train‐centric virtual coupling control systems

Train-centric virtual coupling is one of the promising techniques available to increase the capacity of the railway, and is much more complex than the existing train control systems. The safety issue for the system needs to be addressed since virtually coupled trains are allowed to run closer than under the traditional fixed/moving block principle. In this study, the authors proposed a topological manifold-based monitoring method to guarantee the safety of the train-centric virtual coupling systems. The basic signalling equipment and dynamic train behaviour are described as topological elements and manifolds. Based on that, several safety monitoring theorems are proved to ensure the safety of the virtual coupling control logic. The theorem for the verification of trains running information is proved, along with theorems for the correctness of the virtual coupling control strategy. The trains' dynamic behaviour under specific control commands can also be supervised by a safety theorem. Finally, a case study is performed to illustrate the proposed method. The results show that the method is feasible for monitoring the train-centric virtual coupling control systems.

Multiple Rhythm-Generating Circuits Act in Tandem with Pacemaker Properties to Control the Start and Speed of Locomotion

In vertebrates, specific command centers in the brain can selectively drive slow-explorative or fast-speed locomotion. However, it remains unclear how the locomotor central pattern generator (CPG) processes descending drive into coordinated locomotion. Here, we reveal, in adult zebrafish, a logic of the V2a interneuron rhythm-generating circuits involving recurrent and hierarchical connectivity that acts in tandem with pacemaker properties to provide an ignition and gear-shift mechanism to start locomotion and change speed. A comprehensive mapping of synaptic connections reveals three recurrent circuit modules engaged sequentially to increase locomotor speed. The connectivity between V2a interneurons of different modules displayed a clear asymmetry in favor of connections from faster to slower modules. The interplay between V2a interneuron pacemaker properties and their organized connectivity provides a mechanism for locomotor initiation and speed control. Thus, our results provide mechanistic insights into how the spinal CPG transforms descending drive into locomotion and align its speed with the initial intention.

A concept of sub-bands event related potentials to increase classes of brain computer interface system

Event related potential (ERP) based brain computer interfacing (BCI) achieves significant stability. Changes in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals related to various tasks have been significantly observed. However, each ERP related to particular task can be only exploited as one-to-one relation with specific command or operation. This limits the variability of BCI system and increases the amount of work to identify task related accurate pattern changes in EEG. In this paper, sub-band analysis of detected ERP is proposed in order to factorise one-to-one relation into one-to-many for increasing the variability of BCI system. First, the hypothesis based on analysis of event related spectral perturbation (ERSP) is stated, and then the hypothetical concept is generalised with sub-bands decomposition of ERP, followed by culminative power estimation. Results show that the proposed technique can be easily implemented as a method of combined factorised feature extraction (CFFE) to execute multiple commands from single ERP.

Operability Evaluation System and Comparison Experiment of Gesture Operation and Button Operation of Robot Manipulator

Robot manipulators are now widely used in manufacturing industries. When programmed to perform required movements via a process called teaching, they can accomplish a wide variety of complex tasks. In conventional teaching processes, a teaching pendant (TP), which is a tethered controller with which the operator inputs specific movement commands, is used. However, such devices normally have so many buttons that operators often experience difficulty in programming operations intuitively, so the teaching process consumes significant amounts of time and effort. To solve this problem, intuitive operation methods in which human body motions (such as hand gestures) are used as input to the robot have been studied. However, no quantitative comparisons between those new gesture-based and conventional teaching methods have yet been made. With that point in mind, the present paper proposes a virtual space-based evaluation system in which operators control the position and orientation of a six-degree-of-freedom virtual robot hand in order to evaluate and compare TP- and gesture-based operation methods. The experimental results show that when compared to TP-based methods, gesture-based operation methods achieved higher evaluations in terms of time and psychological aspects. In addition, four types of gesture-based operating methods were proposed in order to consider different ways in which position changes and orientation changes could be handled. The operability levels of the four gesture types were also compared quantitatively using the proposed evaluation system, and the obtained experimental results suggest that such differences can affect the cognitive burden imposed on the operator.

Development of Consumer Preference based Demand Response Model for Home Energy Management

Demand response has become an effective method for energy saving and to reduce the energy cost. By adjusting the residential loads, it reacts quickly for the mismatches of supply and demand. In this paper, the Internet of Things (IoT) based Demand Response (Load scheduling method) methodology is proposed to mitigate the energy waste and tariff. Two different alarm provisions are made at the consumer side to indicate the normal and demand modes operated by the supplier. The consumer is provided with a controller that read the market signal and answers with consumer preferences. Whenever demand mode arises, the consumer is completely free to change the load setting; also the developed system will propose the load pattern. The demand mode will be given during peak hour and the tariff will be high at that time and normal mode will consist of the minimum tariff. The consumer may control their load through cloud-MQTT by giving a specific command or from the MQTT dashboard android app. Based on the tariff, the consumption profile could be reduced

An Electromagnetic Lock Actuated by a Mobile Phone Equipped with a Self-Made Laser Pointer

The main purpose of this study was to create an acousto-optic control lock device to convert electrical signals with a specific sound command using an acousto-optic conversion module, thereby improving the reliability and safety of opening or closing remote controlled door locks, such as car central locks or rolling doors. We used music playing through a smart phone speaker to create a special laser pointer to connect with the smart phone‘s auxiliary input. The laser pointer (wavelength of 630–650 nm and maximum output of 5 mw) lights up when the smart phone’s music starts playing at a music frequency matching the light frequency. When the solar panel receives light, it converts the frequency of the light signal into an electrical frequency signal. The current is amplified using the power amplifier and then the amplified current flows to the sound recognition module. The sound recognition module performs audio comparison on the set sound signal, and once the comparison is correct, the output voltage activates the electromagnetic switch on the door to open or close it.

Cost-Effective Vision based Obstacle Avoidance System integrated Multi Array Ultrasonic sensor for Smart Wheelchair

A smart wheelchair (SW) is a power wheelchair (PW) consist of microcontroller, actuators, sensor, and implement the assistive technology in system architecture. Users with severe motor impairment may realize the difficulty to operate a wheelchair when they are in a tight space such as passing a doorway or when avoiding obstacles since, they are unable to control the wheelchair. This project embarked on an obstacle avoidance system of a wheelchair. This project developed a cost-effective system that alarmed the user to avoid obstacle on its path. The prototype includes a Kinect camera and ultrasonic sensors. Kinect camera was placed at the right side of the wheelchair for real time video obstacle detection. Four of the ultrasonic sensors was used to detect obstacle at the front and one ultrasonic sensor for rear obstacle detection. Any obstacle detected by the ultrasonic sensors triggered the buzzer. Obstacle detected by Kinect camera was displayed with specific command for the user in attempt for obstacle avoidance. The performance of the obstacle avoidance system was tested indoor to detect obstacles in a controlled environment. The accuracy of the ultrasonic system was tested at a specific distance of 20mm to 200mm at 20mm intervals. Real time video received from the Kinect Camera was used to analyse the depth of the environment and the location of the object.

A Case Study for 3D Modeling Process Analysis based on BIM Log File

Building Information Modeling (BIM) design becomes popular with the growing needs of enhancing construction efficiency. During the design process, 3D Modeling is the foundation of generating and analyzing building information. The modeling tool, Autodesk Revit, automatically creates log files, which can record all design activities. This paper investigates and analyzes the operation data from unstructured temporal Revit log files. These data were recorded when executing the general and external command to build a 3D model of a typical residential two-story building. The objectives of this analysis were to figure out the influence elements of producing a good framing model and to give some suggestions for improving modeling efficiency. In order to extract the useful specific commands, the information in the text journal file was transferred to an excel file, before reading by a data mining tool, RapidMiner. It generated a pie chart to show the repetition amount of modeling activities. Analyzing the reasons of repeating some commands frequently, this paper contributes the possibility to reduce the useless repetition for building a good 3D model.

Neuroprosthetic Devices: i-HAND

Millions of people are paralyzed or have suffered an amputation. Although these people can still see the object they may want to reach, for example a glass of wine, and can still process in their brains the specific commands to pursue this goal, the action cannot be completed due to, for example, a spinal cord injury or due to the fact that the arm has been amputated. Given that in most cases the brain of these persons is intact, the possibility of reading brain signals would allow the development of Neuroprosthetic devices, such as a robot arm that is driven by neural activity. These technological and scientific advances connect the amputee more intimately with their prosthetic limb, meaning we can now focus more on how the prosthesis is embodied. In other words, to what extent does the prosthetic limb feel like part of the biological body? Does your brain treat it as such? We have a good understanding of how our body is mapped in our brain. Both our motor cortex – the movement control centre, if you like – and the somatosensory cortex where we process a wide range of touch sensations are organisedsomatotopically. This means each area of our body corresponds to a specific area of the primary motor and sensory cortices. Importantly, this mapping does not disappear after the loss of a limb. This means we have an opportunity to connect prostheses, through muscles and peripheral nerves, to the parts of the brain that would have controlled and sensed the biological body part. But it may also allow us to measure embodiment, how successfully the brain accepts the prosthesis as part of the body. Ultimately this line of research, bringing together cognitive neuroscience and biomedical engineering, is not only important for designing better prostheses. It is a unique window for understanding how our brain creates and maintains the image of our bodies – mechanisms that apply equally to amputees and non-amputees.

Developing a Physical Model of HigB Toxin and its Endonuclease Cleavage Mechanism

The CREST (Connecting Researchers, Educators, and STudents) team at Nova Southeastern University created a physical model depicting the mechanism of endonuclease cleavage by the HigB protein as described in the literature. The proteins, toxin HigB and antitoxin HigA, are part of a type II toxin‐antitoxin system that cleaves ribosome‐bound mRNAs in bacteria. Chemical or physical stresses, such as extreme temperatures and lack of nutrients, lead to antitoxin degradation that releases HigB. Temporary inhibition of growth by HigB allows cells to more efficiently utilize current resources. Although HigB is referred to as a toxin, it is not inherently detrimental and can be beneficial to cellular survival. Bacteria that use this mechanism include Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Proteus vulgaris. As such, HigB is of clinical interest due to its contribution in prolonging bacterial infections through antibiotic tolerance (persistence). When cells are not in a stressed state, HigA binds to and inactivates HigB, allowing growth and translation to proceed. Details of HigB in complex with the ribosome as well as residues important for mRNA cleavage were found in the Protein Data Bank file, 4ZSN, and imported into Jmol, a protein visualization software. The 4ZSN file consisted of several nucleic acid and protein bundles; Bundle 1 was examined in more detail. Specific program commands were developed to manipulate the original file into a format that was later 3‐D printed to create an instructional molecular model, which was funded in part by NSF‐DUE 1725940 for the CREST Project. This model highlights the ribosomal proteins, ribosomal RNA, and HigB along with its residues that are essential for mRNA cleavage. The N and C termini of the HigB protein were also indicated. This molecular model can be used to explain how ribosome‐dependent proteins (HigB) target ribosome‐bound mRNAs in bacterial systems. Providing a 3‐D tool allows students to engage actively in understanding the complex process of endonuclease cleavage.Support or Funding InformationThe development of this 3‐D molecular model was funded in part by NSF‐DUE 1725940 for the CREST (Connecting Researchers, Educators, and STudents) Project.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Mingle: A Command Line Utility for Merging Multi-fasta Files

Massively parallel sequencing (MPS) has become a standard technique in molecular biology whose application has spread from the analysis of the human genome to that of virtually all other organisms. MPS requires reference genomes to be performed and, in some cases, multiple genomes need to be handled as a single unit to carry out genetic analysis. Nucleic acid sequences are typically stored in "fasta" files, which can contain multiple genomes ("multi-fasta"). Although it is possible to convert a multi-fasta file into a single sequence using specific computer commands, the resulting file will not keep track of the boundaries of the original sequences, making it difficult to determine to what genome read obtained from MPS belong to. In this study we introduce mingle, a shell script that can be used to create custom reference genome by merging multi-fasta files while providing a list of boundaries of the individual genomes that can be used for downstream analysis.

Preventing Error in the Operating Room: Five Teaching Strategies for High-Stakes Learning

BackgroundEffective communication in the operating room between the attending and resident surgeon is necessary to prevent surgical errors. Yet, existing studies do not describe what successful intraoperative teaching looks like and how it prevents errors. Our objective was to identify strategies for successful intraoperative teaching by comparing perspectives of the learner and teacher for the same moments. Material and methodsWe conducted a naturalistic inquiry by filming five live surgical teaching cases and analyzing more than 250 teaching exchanges, centered on steps with high likelihood for error. We interviewed each attending and resident, who separately viewed cued video clips, and asked how they made their teaching more visible. We compared answers, looking for common understandings of the same moment. Answers were coded, compared to each other, refined, and combined into larger themes. ResultsWe identified five successful strategies for communicating avoidance of intraoperative errors: augmenting verbal instruction with small physical actions, pausing the surgical procedure to explain the larger picture, querying the residents’ knowledge about specific steps, creating memorable coined names, and issuing highly specific commands. Strikingly, we found a significant example of miscommunication between the attending surgeon and resident that was a near-miss uterine perforation during a dilation and curettage. ConclusionsAttending surgeons are strategic in their intraoperative communications with learners, resulting in a scarcity of surgical errors when the resident is operating. We present real examples of five successful intraoperative teaching strategies. Successful intraoperative teaching relies heavily on tacit information, necessitating that attending and resident share a common understanding about the next step of the case.

Breakdown of Neural Function under Isoflurane Anesthesia: In Vivo, Multineuronal Imaging in Caenorhabditis elegans.

WHAT THIS ARTICLE TELLS US THAT IS NEW: BACKGROUND:: Previous work on the action of volatile anesthetics has focused at either the molecular level or bulk neuronal measurement such as electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging. There is a distinct gulf in resolution at the level of cellular signaling within neuronal systems. The authors hypothesize that anesthesia is caused by induced dyssynchrony in cellular signaling rather than suppression of individual neuron activity. Employing confocal microscopy and Caenorhabditis elegans expressing the calcium-sensitive fluorophore GCaMP6s in specific command neurons, the authors measure neuronal activity noninvasively and in parallel within the behavioral circuit controlling forward and reverse crawling. The authors compare neuronal dynamics and coordination in a total of 31 animals under atmospheres of 0, 4, and 8% isoflurane. When not anesthetized, the interneurons controlling forward or reverse crawling occupy two possible states, with the activity of the "reversal" neurons AVA, AVD, AVE, and RIM strongly intercorrelated, and the "forward" neuron AVB anticorrelated. With exposure to 4% isoflurane and onset of physical quiescence, neuron activity wanders rapidly and erratically through indeterminate states. Neuron dynamics shift toward higher frequencies, and neuron pair correlations within the system are reduced. At 8% isoflurane, physical quiescence continues as neuronal signals show diminished amplitude with little correlation between neurons. Neuronal activity was further studied using statistical tools from information theory to quantify the type of disruption caused by isoflurane. Neuronal signals become noisier and more disordered, as measured by an increase in the randomness of their activity (Shannon entropy). The coordination of the system, measured by whether information exhibited in one neuron is also exhibited in other neurons (multiinformation), decreases significantly at 4% isoflurane (P = 0.00015) and 8% isoflurane (P = 0.0028). The onset of anesthesia corresponds with high-frequency randomization of individual neuron activity coupled with induced dyssynchrony and loss of coordination between neurons that disrupts functional signaling.

Effectiveness analysis of an IoT mechanism in support of monitoring Chinese white dolphins by simulation model

The population of the Chinese white dolphin is claimed to be critically endangered and is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red list. It is estimated that there are fewer than 100 individuals in the East Taiwan Strait, and the number is falling. The dolphin’s habitat has been seriously impacted by man-made pollution, such as industry contamination, fishing, and noise. To prevent extinction of the species, conservative action is vital. Prior to any such action, data on the dolphin are essential for decision makers. The current method of observing dolphins is the man-on-boat-watch approach, which is heavily dependent on manpower. Its performance is seriously affected by the weather, fatigue of those on board, and it is also risky and costly. An Internet of things (IoT) data collection mechanism concept is proposed for the purpose of observing dolphins with close watch. It consists of off-the-shelf products such as hydrophones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a specific command and control in search/detection for carrying out the observation task. A Monte Carlo simulation model was developed to analyze the effectiveness of the feasible alternatives, in which some factors are considered and analyzed for their significance. The simulation result showed that the IoT mechanism has an 8.5 times greater chance of availability in operation and at least 2 times more contact than the man-on-boat-watch method. The significant factor affecting the IoT mechanism’s effectiveness is the number of hydrophones and UAVs in the scenario. The great contribution made by this study is that it is the first analytical paper to reveal the effectiveness of an IoT mechanism in benefitting the observation of Chinese white dolphin. The limitation is that it uses off-the shelf products for the IoT mechanism instead of high-end products which could be more effective.