Assessing REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder: From Machine Learning Classification to the Definition of a Continuous Dissociation Index

Objectives: Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behaviour Disorder (RBD) is regarded as a prodrome of neurodegeneration, with a high conversion rate to α–synucleinopathies such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD). The clinical diagnosis of RBD co–exists with evidence of REM Sleep Without Atonia (RSWA), a parasomnia that features loss of physiological muscular atonia during REM sleep. The objectives of this study are to implement an automatic detection of RSWA from polysomnographic traces, and to propose a continuous index (the Dissociation Index) to assess the level of dissociation between REM sleep stage and atonia. This is performed using Euclidean distance in proper vector spaces. Each subject is assigned a dissociation degree based on their distance from a reference, encompassing healthy subjects and clinically diagnosed RBD patients at the two extremes. Methods: Machine Learning models were employed to perform automatic identification of patients with RSWA through clinical polysomnographic scores, together with variables derived from electromyography. Proper distance metrics are proposed and tested to achieve a dissociation measure. Results: The method proved efficient in classifying RSWA vs. not-RSWA subjects, achieving an overall accuracy, sensitivity and precision of 87%, 93% and 87.5%, respectively. On its part, the Dissociation Index proved to be promising in measuring the impairment level of patients. Conclusions: The proposed method moves a step forward in the direction of automatically identifying REM sleep disorders and evaluating the impairment degree. We believe that this index may be correlated with the patients’ neurodegeneration process; this assumption will undergo a robust clinical validation process involving healthy, RSWA, RBD and PD subjects.

On the Connections between Thermodynamics and General Relativity

<p>In this thesis, the connections between thermodynamics and general relativity are explored. We introduce some of the history of the interaction between these two theories and take some time to individually study important concepts of both of them. Then, we move on to explore the concept of gravitationally induced temperature gradients in equilibrium states, first introduced by Richard Tolman. We explore these Tolman-like temperature gradients, understanding their physical origin and whether they can be generated by other forces or not. We then generalize this concept for fluids following generic four-velocities, which are not necessarily generated by Killing vectors, in general stationary space-times. Some examples are given. Driven by the interest of understanding and possibly extending the concept of equilibrium for fluids following trajectories which are not generated by Killing vectors, we dedicate ourselves to a more fundamental question: can we still define thermal equilibrium for non-Killing flows? To answer this question we review two of the main theories of relativistic non-perfect fluids: Classical Irreversible Thermodynamics and Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics. We also take a tour through the interesting concept of Born-rigid motion, showing some explicit examples of non-Killing rigid flows for Bianchi Type I space-times. These results are important since they show that the Herglotz–Noether theorem cannot be extended for general curved space-times. We then connect the Born-rigid concept with the results obtained by the relativistic fluid’s equilibrium conditions and show that the exact thermodynamic equilibrium can only be achieved along a Killing flow. We do, however, introduce some interesting possibilities which are allowed for non-Killing flows. We then launch into black hole thermodynamics, specifically studying the trans-Planckian problem for Hawking radiation. We construct a kinematical model consisting of matching two Vaidya spacetimes along a thin shell and show that, as long as the Hawking radiation is emitted only a few Planck lengths (in proper distance) away from the horizon, the trans-Plackian problem can be avoided. We conclude with a brief discussion about what was presented and what can be done in the future.</p>

On the Connections between Thermodynamics and General Relativity

<p>In this thesis, the connections between thermodynamics and general relativity are explored. We introduce some of the history of the interaction between these two theories and take some time to individually study important concepts of both of them. Then, we move on to explore the concept of gravitationally induced temperature gradients in equilibrium states, first introduced by Richard Tolman. We explore these Tolman-like temperature gradients, understanding their physical origin and whether they can be generated by other forces or not. We then generalize this concept for fluids following generic four-velocities, which are not necessarily generated by Killing vectors, in general stationary space-times. Some examples are given. Driven by the interest of understanding and possibly extending the concept of equilibrium for fluids following trajectories which are not generated by Killing vectors, we dedicate ourselves to a more fundamental question: can we still define thermal equilibrium for non-Killing flows? To answer this question we review two of the main theories of relativistic non-perfect fluids: Classical Irreversible Thermodynamics and Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics. We also take a tour through the interesting concept of Born-rigid motion, showing some explicit examples of non-Killing rigid flows for Bianchi Type I space-times. These results are important since they show that the Herglotz–Noether theorem cannot be extended for general curved space-times. We then connect the Born-rigid concept with the results obtained by the relativistic fluid’s equilibrium conditions and show that the exact thermodynamic equilibrium can only be achieved along a Killing flow. We do, however, introduce some interesting possibilities which are allowed for non-Killing flows. We then launch into black hole thermodynamics, specifically studying the trans-Planckian problem for Hawking radiation. We construct a kinematical model consisting of matching two Vaidya spacetimes along a thin shell and show that, as long as the Hawking radiation is emitted only a few Planck lengths (in proper distance) away from the horizon, the trans-Plackian problem can be avoided. We conclude with a brief discussion about what was presented and what can be done in the future.</p>

Moving people: Proper distance and global news coverage of migration in 2019

Moving people comprise both a subject of news reports (of refugees, migrants and other people-on-the-move) and a way of reporting on the issues involved. Viewers can be moved and placed in a discursive relation to the displaced when news stories construct what Arendt called ‘proper distance’. This possibility is explored in the article, which compares coverage of migration issues in 2019 on four global television news channels: Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and RT. The results provide evidence of approaches that differ in striking and thought-provoking ways, giving global television news consumers different resources for making sense of a complicated global crisis.

PMMA Application in Piezo Actuation Jet for Dissipating Heat of Electronic Devices

The present study utilizes an acrylic (PMMA) plate with circular piezoelectric ceramics (PC) as an actuator to design and investigate five different types of piezo actuation jets (PAJs) with operating conditions. The results show that the heat transfer coefficient of a device of PAJ is 200% greater than that of a traditional rotary fan when PAJ is placed at the proper distance of 10 to 20 mm from the heat source, avoiding the suck back of surrounding fluids. The cooling effect of these five PAJs was calculated by employing the thermal analysis method and the convection thermal resistance of the optimal PAJ can be reduced by about 36%, while the voltage frequency, wind speed, and noise were all positively correlated. When the supplied piezoelectric frequency is 300 Hz, the decibel level of the noise is similar to that of a commercial rotary fan. The piezoelectric sheets had one of two diameters of 31 mm or 41 mm depending on the size of the tested PAJs. The power consumption of a single PAJ was less than 10% of that of a rotary fan. Among the five types of PAJ, the optimal one has the characteristics that the diameter of the piezoelectric sheet is 41 mm, the piezoelectric spacing is 2 mm, and the length of the opening is 4 mm. Furthermore, the optimal operating conditions are a voltage frequency of 300 Hz and a placement distance of 20 mm in the present study.

Spherically Symmetric Exact Vacuum Solutions in Einstein-Aether Theory

We study spherically symmetric spacetimes in Einstein-aether theory in three different coordinate systems, the isotropic, Painlevè-Gullstrand, and Schwarzschild coordinates, in which the aether is always comoving, and present both time-dependent and time-independent exact vacuum solutions. In particular, in the isotropic coordinates we find a class of exact static solutions characterized by a single parameter c14 in closed forms, which satisfies all the current observational constraints of the theory, and reduces to the Schwarzschild vacuum black hole solution in the decoupling limit (c14=0). However, as long as c14≠0, a marginally trapped throat with a finite non-zero radius always exists, and on one side of it the spacetime is asymptotically flat, while on the other side the spacetime becomes singular within a finite proper distance from the throat, although the geometric area is infinitely large at the singularity. Moreover, the singularity is a strong and spacetime curvature singularity, at which both of the Ricci and Kretschmann scalars become infinitely large.

Extracting Hawking radiation near the horizon of AdS black holes

We study how the evaporation rate of spherically symmetric black holes is affected through the extraction of radiation close to the horizon. We adopt a model of extraction that involves a perfectly absorptive screen placed close to the horizon and show that the evaporation rate can be changed depending on how close to the horizon the screen is placed. We apply our results to show that the scrambling time defined by the Hayden-Preskill decoding criterion, which is derived in Pennington’s work (arXiv:1905.08255) through entanglement wedge reconstruction is modified. The modifications appear as logarithmic corrections to Pennington’s time scale which depend on where the absorptive screen is placed. By fixing the proper distance between the horizon and screen we show that for small AdS black holes the leading order term in the scrambling time is consistent with Pennington’s scrambling time. However, for large AdS black holes the leading order Log contains the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a cell of characteristic length equal to the AdS radius rather than the entropy of the full horizon. Furthermore, using the correspondence between the radial null energy condition (NEC) and the holographic c-theorem, we argue that the screen cannot be arbitrarily close to the horizon. This leads to a holographic argument that black hole mining using a screen cannot significantly alter the lifetime of a black hole.

Vacuum fermionic currents in braneworld models on AdS bulk with a cosmic string

We investigate the effects of a brane and magnetic-flux-carrying cosmic string on the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the current density for a charged fermionic field in the background geometry of (4+1)-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime. The brane is parallel to the AdS boundary and the cosmic string is orthogonal to the brane. Two types of boundary conditions are considered on the brane that include the MIT bag boundary condition and the boundary conditions in Z2-symmetric braneworld models. The brane divides the space into two regions with different properties of the vacuum state. The only nonzero component of the current density is along the azimuthal direction and in both the regions the corresponding VEV is decomposed into the brane- free and brane-induced contributions. The latter vanishes on the string and near the string the total current is dominated by the brane-free part. At large distances from the string and in the region between the brane and AdS horizon the decay of the brane-induced current density, as a function of the proper distance, is power-law for both massless and massive fields. For a massive field this behavior is essentially different from that in the Minkowski bulk. In the region between the brane and AdS boundary the large-distance decay of the current density is exponential. Depending on the boundary condition on the brane, the brane-induced contribution is dominant or subdominant in the total current density at large distances from the string. By using the results for fields realizing two inequivalent irreducible representations of the Clifford algebra, the vacuum current density is investigated in C - and P -symmetric fermionic models. Applications are given for a cosmic string in the Randall-Sundrum-type braneworld model with a single brane.

Moving Object Detection Using Ultrasonic Radar with Proper Distance, Direction, and Object Shape Analysis

Background: In its early development, radar (radio detection and ranging) was primarily used by the navy, the military, and the aviation services, as well as space organizations for security and monitoring purposes. Nowadays, the demand of radar is expanding. Research has been conducted to overcome the limitations of radar.Objective: One of the current limitations to detect moving object. The current paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by using a radar system in the identification of moving object, capturing the distance, direction, radar pulse duration and object shape simultaneously. Velocity or the object’s speed towards or away from the radar was determined by using an algorithm to obtain the precision.Methods: The accuracy of distance measurement and angle is ensured by comparing the real values and the values obtained by the radar. The objects under study consist of metal and non-metal. Novelty of this work is the accurate detection of moving objects with suitable algorithms using only one Arduino UNO and one ultrasonic sensor.Results: The experiment design yielded much better efficiency than previous works. The proposed method predicted the exact speed of the object detected by the radar system. The experiment has successfully proven the accuracy of moving object sensor.Conclusion: Besides proper distance and velocity, a large set of data was taken to find the accuracy of the radar for objects of different shapes. For a cylindrical object, the radar provided 100% efficiency in a constant environment when the object was 5 cm away. The accuracy decreased to 30% when the distance was 17 cm away. The limitation of this system is that it was unable to detect small object or if the object was very close (1 cm).

Revisiting the minimum length in the Schwinger–Keldysh formalism

The existence of a minimum length in quantum gravity is investigated by computing the in-in expectation value of the proper distance in the Schwinger–Keldysh formalism. No minimum geometrical length is found for arbitrary gravitational theories to all orders in perturbation theory. Using non-perturbative techniques, we also show that neither the conformal sector of general relativity nor higher-derivative gravity features a minimum length. A minimum length scale, on the other hand, seems to always be present when one considers in-out amplitudes, from which one could extract the energy scale of scattering processes.