Mindfulness Practice with a Brain-Sensing Device Improved Cognitive Functioning of Elementary School Children: An Exploratory Pilot Study

This is the first pilot study with children that has assessed the effects of a brain–computer interface-assisted mindfulness program on neural mechanisms and associated cognitive performance. The participants were 31 children aged 9–10 years who were randomly assigned to either an eight-session mindfulness training with EEG-feedback or a passive control group. Mindfulness-related brain activity was measured during the training, while cognitive tests and resting-state brain activity were measured pre- and post-test. The within-group measurement of calm/focused brain states and mind-wandering revealed a significant linear change. Significant positive changes were detected in children’s inhibition, information processing, and resting-state brain activity (alpha, theta) compared to the control group. Elevated baseline alpha activity was associated with less reactivity in reaction time on a cognitive test. Our exploratory findings show some preliminary support for a potential executive function-enhancing effect of mindfulness supplemented with EEG-feedback, which may have some important implications for children’s self-regulated learning and academic achievement.

Shared Gene Expression and Immune Pathway Changes Associated with Progression from Nevi to Melanoma

There is a need to identify molecular biomarkers of melanoma progression to assist the development of chemoprevention strategies to lower melanoma incidence. Using datasets containing gene expression for dysplastic nevi and melanoma or melanoma arising in a nevus, we performed differential gene expression analysis and regularized regression models to identify genes and pathways that were associated with progression from nevi to melanoma. A small number of genes distinguished nevi from melanoma. Differential expression of seven genes was identified between nevi and melanoma in three independent datasets. C1QB, CXCL9, CXCL10, DFNA5 (GSDME), FCGR1B, and PRAME were increased in melanoma, and SCGB1D2 was decreased in melanoma, compared to dysplastic nevi or nevi that progressed to melanoma. Further supporting an association with melanomagenesis, these genes demonstrated a linear change in expression from benign nevi to dysplastic nevi to radial growth phase melanoma to vertical growth phase melanoma. The genes associated with melanoma progression showed significant enrichment of multiple pathways related to the immune system. This study demonstrates (1) a novel application of bioinformatic approaches to aid clinical trials of melanoma chemoprevention and (2) the feasibility of determining a gene signature biomarker of melanomagenesis.

Vagal flexibility to negative emotions moderates the relations between environmental risk and adjustment problems in childhood

Neurobiological and social-contextual influences shape children’s adjustment, yet limited biopsychosocial studies have integrated temporal features when modeling physiological regulation of emotion. This study explored whether a common underlying pattern of non-linear change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across emotional scenarios characterized 4–6 year-old children’s parasympathetic reactivity (N = 180). Additionally, we tested whether dynamic RSA reactivity was an index of neurobiological susceptibility or a diathesis in the association between socioeconomic status, authoritarian parenting, and the development of externalizing problems (EP) and internalizing problems over two years. There was a shared RSA pattern across all emotions, characterized by more initial RSA suppression and a subsequent return toward baseline, which we call vagal flexibility (VF). VF interacted with parenting to predict EP. More authoritarian parenting predicted increased EP two years later only when VF was low; conversely, when VF was very high, authoritarian mothers reported that their children had fewer EP. Altogether, children’s patterns of dynamic RSA change to negative emotions can be characterized by a higher order factor, and the nature by which VF contributes to EP depends on maternal socialization practices, with low VF augmenting and high VF buffering children against the effects of authoritarian parenting.

Capturing Change in Balance Confidence over 30 Days: Insights Gained from a Micro-Longitudinal Study

Balance confidence reflects one’s estimate of their ability to maintain balance and avoid falls. Extensive literature has shown the relationships between balance confidence, functional limitations, and falls in later life. However, change in balance confidence, especially within short timescale, remains largely unknown and deserves further research. In this study, we aimed to investigate how older adults’ balance confidence would change over 30 days and explore whether baseline characteristics would explain the individual differences in change. We used data from the Daily Balance Project that employed intensive-repeated measurements to examine the dynamics of subjective and objective fall risk across a month. Twenty-one participants (age=78.6±5.8, 48%female) were enrolled, and individual characteristics were measured upon recruitment. Throughout the study, participants self-reported their daily balance confidence using the Activity-Specific Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale. We performed growth modeling techniques to examine change within a multilevel framework. Our results showed that overall, ABC scores were high (79.9±17.4) at first, but the linear change was non-significant (b=0.03, SE=0.21, p=.89) on average. However, we found that balance confidence increased in individuals with higher educational attainment (b=0.37, SE=0.13, p<.01) and decreased among those with greater physical fall risk (b=-0.18, SE=0.07, p<.01) and accurate understanding of fall risk at baseline (b=-0.24, SE= 0.12, p=.04). Although ABC scores were stable within the period of one month, our study highlights the distinction of individual characteristics in the process of balance confidence appraisal. We suggest that these nuances should be taken into account when developing more fine-grained fall risk assessments and interventions.

Temporal dynamics of change of polycrystalline component of bioctisses and blood of death from poisoning by alcohol and carbon with different time since death

The article contains the results of a study of the effectiveness of forensic medical determination of the prescription of death by the method of differential Müller-matrix polarization-phase tomography, which is implemented by multichannel probing of rhizopolarization with laser beams of histological sections of the brain, myocardium, adrenal glands, liver and blood of the deceased and multichannel polarization filtration series images with algorithmic reproduction (reconstruction) of coordinate distributions (tomograms) of the average linear birefringence (LD) of polycrystalline networks. Aim of the work. Efficiency study by the method of differential Müller-matrix polarization-phase tomography for determining the duration of death. Materials and methods. The object of the study was the histology of samples of human internal organs (brain, myocardium, adrenal glands, and liver) with different duration of damage from 6 hours to 48 hours (we used BT samples from those who died from alcohol poisoning and carbon monoxide poisoning). For control, we used BT samples from those who died from ischemic heart disease with different duration of damage from 6 hours to 48 hours. The studies were carried out using the method of differential Muller-matrix polarization-phase tomography. Results. The range of linear change in the magnitude of the higher-order statistical moments, and accordingly the analytical determination of the DNS, lies in the range from 20 hours to 48 hours. The accuracy of determining the DNS is also significantly improved and amounts to 0.5 hours. Conclusion. The high efficiency of Muller matrix algorithmic reproduction of maps of average values of birefringence of the optically anisotropic component of biological preparations of the deceased was revealed.

Sistem Pengaturan Pulse Width Modulation Motor Pada Robot Pembawa Makanan atau Minuman Menggunakan Joystick

Teknologi robotika kini sudah semakin berkembang pesat, hal ini ditunjukkan banyak sekali penggunaan teknologi robot yang digunakan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari untuk membantu pekerjaan manusia. Robot pengantar makanan atau minuman juga menjadi salah satu teknologi robotika yang kini semakin marak dikembangkan. Banyak peneliti yang sudah mulai mengembangkan robot sebagai alat pembantu pekerjaan manusia untuk pengantar makanan dan minuman. Pada robot tersebut, proses untuk mengatur kecepatan roda penggeraknya dapat menggunakan kontrol langsung atau kontrol tidak langsung. Pada penelitian ini, pengontrolan secara tidak langsung dilakukan menggunakan joystick untuk mengatur masukan pulse width modulation yang kemudian dikonversikan menjadi kecepatan robot. Pengaturan ini dibantu dengan mikrokontorller ATMEGA 328P sebagai alat untuk komputasi dan eksekusi jari program. Sehingga kecepatan robot dapat diatur dengan sempurna. Berdasarkan hasil pengujian diperoleh bahwa perubahan PWM awal pada saat robot dari kondisi diam menuju berjalan dengan perubahan kecepatan yang linier terhadap perubahan sinyal analog dari joystick, sehingga pergerakan robot lebih stabil. Nowdays, robotics was growing rapidly, it is widely used in everyday life to help human work. Food or beverage delivery robots are also one of the robotics technologies that are increasingly being developed today. Many developers has started to develop food or beverage delivery robots. In order to adjust the speed of the robots, we can use direct or indirect control. This study uses indirect control using joystick as a regulator of pulse width modulation which is converted to robot speed. Furthermore,, we used ATMEGA 328P microcontroller for computing and finger execution of the program. So that the speed of the robot can be adjusted perfectly. The result show that the initial PWM changes when the position of robot is rest to walking has linear change in speed to changes in the analog signal from the joystick, so that the robot's movement is more stable.

Design of Smoke Alarm Disperser Based on Single-chip Microcomputer

With the rapid development of society and economy, various laboratories have become more complete in number and equipment, but subsequent laboratory accidents frequently occur. Therefore, it is imperative to construct a laboratory safety management system to ensure the safety of laboratory personnel and complete equipment. This article intends to design a smoke alarm, which mainly includes measuring the sensitivity of the smoke sensor to the concentration of smoke in the air, and the linear change of the sensor converting the corresponding analog signal into a digital signal. By designing the fan speed to be controlled by the change of smoke density, the speed of the motor is adjusted. And the alarm module can sound an alarm when the smoke concentration is certain, and at the same time, it can automatically cancel the alarm when the smoke concentration decreases. Finally, a simulation experiment is designed to simulate the effect of the sound alarm of the smoke alarm disperser on the dispersal of smoke under different working environments.

Development of an Advanced Sham Coil for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Examination of Its Specifications

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) neurophysiology has been widely applied worldwide, but it is often contaminated by confounders other than cortical stimulus-evoked activities. Although advanced sham coils that elaborately mimic active stimulation have recently been developed, their performance is not examined in detail. Developing such sham coils is crucial to improve the accuracy of TMS neurophysiology. Herein, we examined the specifications of the sham coil by comparison with the active coil. The magnetic flux and click sound pressure changes were measured when the stimulus intensity was varied from 10% to 100% maximum stimulator output (MSO), and the changes in coil surface temperature over time with continuous stimulation at 50% MSO for each coil. The magnetic flux change at the center of the coil showed a peak of 12.51 (kT/s) for the active coil, whereas it was 0.41 (kT/s) for the sham coil. Although both coils showed a linear change in magnetic flux as the stimulus intensity increased, due to the difference in coil winding structure, the sham coil took less than half the time to overheat and had 5 dB louder coil click sounds than the active coil. The sham coil showed a sufficiently small flux change at the center of the coil, but the flux change from the periphery of the coil was comparable to that of the active coil. Future use of high-quality sham coil will extend our understanding of the TMS neurophysiology of the cortex at the stimulation site.

Closing the Social Distance

The following paper is centered around the potential for organizational change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper argues that the disruption of “business as usual” during the COVID-19 pandemic provides opportunities to both highlight gendered organizational practices during remote work and explore how organizational actors might contribute to a more equitable restructuring of gendered communication practices once employees return to in-person work. First, the paper contextualizes the COVID-19 pandemic at the time of writing. Next, the literature review examines the notion of organizations as inherently gendered, the history of organizational change from Lewinian Planned Change to models of non-linear change, and bureaucratic organizational structures using a feminist lens. The discussion section then argues that complexity theories offer significant opportunities for improvement due to the destabilization of current workplace practices. This argument is followed up by examples of how organizations can successfully engage complexity theories to reduce gender inequality in the post-pandemic world. The paper concludes that by emphasizing consensus and autonomy, improvements to network communication and the merging of public and private spheres should be the first steps towards the ultimate goal of reducing gender inequality through the deconstruction of bureaucracies.

Maternal and paternal depression and child mental health trajectories: evidence from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

Background The relationships between offspring depression profiles across adolescence and different timings of parental depression during the perinatal period remain unknown. Aims To explore different timings of maternal and paternal perinatal depression in relation to patterns of change in offspring depressive mood over a 14 year period. Method Data were obtained from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Parental antenatal depression (ANTD) was assessed at 18 weeks gestation, and postnatal depression (PNTD) at 8 weeks postpartum. Population-averaged trajectories of offspring depressive symptoms were estimated using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) on nine occasions between 10 and 24 years of age. Results Full data were available for 5029 individuals. Offspring exposed to both timings of maternal depression had higher depressive symptoms across adolescence compared with offspring not exposed to ANTD or PNTD, characterised by higher depressive symptoms at age 16 (7.07 SMFQ points (95% CI = 6.19, 7.95; P < 0.001)) and a greater rate of linear change (0.698 SMFQ points (95% CI = 0.47, 0.93; P = 0.002)). Isolated maternal ANTD and to a lesser extent PNTD were also both associated with higher depressive symptoms at age 16, yet isolated maternal PNTD showed greater evidence for an increased rate of linear change across adolescence. A similar pattern was observed for paternal ANTD and PNTD, although effect sizes were attenuated. Conclusions This study adds to the literature demonstrating that exposure to two timings of maternal depression (ANTD and PNTD) is strongly associated with greater offspring trajectories of depressive symptoms.