Physiological and Psychological Responses to Coding Combined with Horticultural Activity

This study was conducted to determine the physiological and psychological benefits of integrating software coding and horticultural activity. Participants included 30 adults in their 20s. The subjects randomly engaged in activities—namely, connecting Arduino components, coding, planting, and a combined coding and horticultural activities. During the activity, two subjective evaluations were conducted at the end of each activity, and participants’ brain waves were measured. The spectral edge frequency 50% of alpha spectrum band (ASEF50) and ratio of sensorimotor rhythm from mid beta to theta (RSMT) were activated in the prefrontal lobe as participants performed combined coding and horticultural activities. When performing these combined activities, relative beta (RB) increased, and relative theta (RT) decreased in the prefrontal lobe. In addition, ASEF50, relative low beta (RLB), and relative mid beta (RMB) were activated during plant-based activities (planting and a combined coding and horticultural activities). The subjective evaluations revealed that the plant-based activities had a positive effect on participants’ emotions. This study shows that activities combining coding and horticulture had a positive impact on physiological relaxation and increased concentration in adults compared with other activities and was also linked with positive subjectively reported emotions.

Effects of the Essential Oils of Sweet Orange, Lavender and Amyris on EEG Activity

Purpose: This study evaluated the effects of the mixed essential oils containing sweet orange, lavender, and amyris (MEO) on human electroencephalogram (EEG) activity.Methods: EEG activity was recorded by examining the sequence of brain waves of 20 adults, aged from 20 to 30, before and during inhaling the mixed essential oils.Results: MEO showed activity centered on the frontal lobe, which is responsible for higher-order functions against external stimuli, and this result indicated that the oils acted as an intellectual effect. Additional experiments showed that the brain was relaxed and stabilized through a decrease in the absolute slow alpha (ASA) and the relative slow alpha (RSA), a decrease in the absolute beta (AB) and the absolute high beta (AHB), and an increase in the spectral edge frequency 50% of alpha (ASEF), respectively. Also, the oils induced the awakening states of the brain with a decrease in the absolute alpha (AA) and the absolute theta (AT), and increase of the spectral edge frequency 50% (SEF50). Furthermore, it was possible to confirm the state of brain immersion through the increase in the absolute fast alpha (AFA), relative fast alpha (RFA), relative mid beta (RMB), ratio of mid beta to theta (RMT), ratio of SMR to theta (RSMT), relative gamma (RG) and the spectral edge frequency 90% (SEF90).Conclusion: Taken together, these results suggest that the inhaling of MEO affect the brain to be a good condition and improves its concentration ability.

Lifshitz tails at spectral edge and holography with a finite cutoff

We propose the holographic description of the Lifshitz tail typical for one-particle spectral density of bounded disordered system in D = 1 space. To this aim the “polymer representation” of the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) 2D dilaton gravity at a finite cutoff is used and the corresponding partition function is considered as the weighted sum over paths of fixed length in an external magnetic field. We identify the regime of small loops, responsible for emergence of a Lifshitz tail in the Gaussian disorder, and relate the strength of disorder to the boundary value of the dilaton. The geometry corresponding to the Poisson disorder in the boundary theory involves random paths fluctuating in the vicinity of the hard impenetrable cut-off disc in a 2D plane. It is shown that the ensemble of “stretched” paths evading the disc possesses the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) scaling for fluctuations, which is the key property that ensures the dual description of the Lifshitz tail in the spectral density for the Poisson disorder.

Edge universality for non-Hermitian random matrices

We consider large non-Hermitian real or complex random matrices $$X$$ X with independent, identically distributed centred entries. We prove that their local eigenvalue statistics near the spectral edge, the unit circle, coincide with those of the Ginibre ensemble, i.e. when the matrix elements of $$X$$ X are Gaussian. This result is the non-Hermitian counterpart of the universality of the Tracy–Widom distribution at the spectral edges of the Wigner ensemble.

Localization in the multi-particle tight-binding Anderson model at low energy

We consider the multi-particle tight-binding Anderson model and prove that its lower spectral edge is non-random under some mild assumptions on the inter-particle interaction and the random external potential. We also adapt to the low energy regime the multi-particle multi-scale analysis initially developed by Chulaevsky and Suhov in the high disorder limit, if the marginal probability distribution of the i.i.d. random variables is log-Hölder continuous and we obtain the spectral exponential and strong dynamical localization near the bottom of the spectrum.