Power consumption is one of the major issues associated with deploying a wireless sensor to monitor natural environments in the real world. It is not practical to frequently replace the battery of a ...sensor that is located in a remote mountainous area. While considering to save valuable energy, the sensor must be able to detect a particular event in a timely manner and report data. To satisfy these requirements, in this paper, we present a wireless sensor system, termed SMARTCONE, which is designed to monitor the slope movement and minimize the standby power consumption, while remaining active to detect events. Multiple SMARTCONEs need to synchronously change their operation modes to collect the physical parameters and transmit raw vibration data simultaneously. SMARTCONE is consuming a power of only 0.05 mA at 3.6 V in standby mode, which is significantly less than that consumed by the previous design. As far as we know, SMARTCONE is an unprecedented instrument for the monitoring of slope movement; no other instruments can achieve such a low-energy consumption while being triggered by external vibration and managed remotely. These complicated issues are considered while designing the SMARTCONE, whose performance is then evaluated. In order to prevent redundant effort and to reduce the entry-level knowledge required by the users who wish to design a system, and to promote the use of this design for monitoring natural environments, we would like to open source the design of SMARTCONE for the public. It can be modified for use in other applications to satisfy their requirements without the need to build from scratch.
This systematic review aimed to evaluate AI chatbot characteristics, functions, and core conversational capacities and investigate whether AI chatbot interventions were effective in changing physical ...activity, healthy eating, weight management behaviors, and other related health outcomes.
In collaboration with a medical librarian, six electronic bibliographic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and IEEE) were searched to identify relevant studies. Only randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental studies were included. Studies were screened by two independent reviewers, and any discrepancy was resolved by a third reviewer. The National Institutes of Health quality assessment tools were used to assess risk of bias in individual studies. We applied the AI Chatbot Behavior Change Model to characterize components of chatbot interventions, including chatbot characteristics, persuasive and relational capacity, and evaluation of outcomes.
The database search retrieved 1692 citations, and 9 studies met the inclusion criteria. Of the 9 studies, 4 were randomized controlled trials and 5 were quasi-experimental studies. Five out of the seven studies suggest chatbot interventions are promising strategies in increasing physical activity. In contrast, the number of studies focusing on changing diet and weight status was limited. Outcome assessments, however, were reported inconsistently across the studies. Eighty-nine and thirty-three percent of the studies specified a name and gender (i.e., woman) of the chatbot, respectively. Over half (56%) of the studies used a constrained chatbot (i.e., rule-based), while the remaining studies used unconstrained chatbots that resemble human-to-human communication.
Chatbots may improve physical activity, but we were not able to make definitive conclusions regarding the efficacy of chatbot interventions on physical activity, diet, and weight management/loss. Application of AI chatbots is an emerging field of research in lifestyle modification programs and is expected to grow exponentially. Thus, standardization of designing and reporting chatbot interventions is warranted in the near future.
International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO): CRD42020216761 .
Size and duration of the neuroplastic effects of tDCS depend on stimulation parameters, including stimulation duration and intensity of current. The impact of stimulation parameters on physiological ...effects is partially non-linear. To improve the utility of this intervention, it is critical to gather information about the impact of stimulation duration and intensity on neuroplasticity, while expanding the parameter space to improve efficacy. Anodal tDCS of 1-3 mA current intensity was applied for 15-30 minutes to study motor cortex plasticity. Sixteen healthy right-handed non-smoking volunteers participated in 10 sessions (intensity-duration pairs) of stimulation in a randomized cross-over design. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-induced motor-evoked potentials (MEP) were recorded as outcome measures of tDCS effects until next evening after tDCS. All active stimulation conditions enhanced motor cortex excitability within the first 2 hours after stimulation. We observed no significant differences between the three stimulation intensities and durations on cortical excitability. A trend for larger cortical excitability enhancements was however observed for higher current intensities (1 vs 3 mA). These results add information about intensified tDCS protocols and suggest that the impact of anodal tDCS on neuroplasticity is relatively robust with respect to gradual alterations of stimulation intensity, and duration.
Circadian rhythms have natural relative variations among humans known as chronotype. Chronotype or being a morning or evening person, has a specific physiological, behavioural, and also genetic ...manifestation. Whether and how chronotype modulates human brain physiology and cognition is, however, not well understood. Here we examine how cortical excitability, neuroplasticity, and cognition are associated with chronotype in early and late chronotype individuals. We monitor motor cortical excitability, brain stimulation-induced neuroplasticity, and examine motor learning and cognitive functions at circadian-preferred and non-preferred times of day in 32 individuals. Motor learning and cognitive performance (working memory, and attention) along with their electrophysiological components are significantly enhanced at the circadian-preferred, compared to the non-preferred time. This outperformance is associated with enhanced cortical excitability (prominent cortical facilitation, diminished cortical inhibition), and long-term potentiation/depression-like plasticity. Our data show convergent findings of how chronotype can modulate human brain functions from basic physiological mechanisms to behaviour and higher-order cognition.
Neuroplasticity, which is the dynamic structural and functional reorganization of central nervous system connectivity due to environmental and internal demands, is recognized as a major physiological ...basis for adaption of cognition, and behavior, and thus of utmost importance for normal brain function. Pathological alterations of plasticity are increasingly explored as pathophysiological foundation of diverse neurological and psychiatric diseases. Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS), such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), are able to induce and modulate neuroplasticity in humans. Therefore, they have potential to alter pathological plasticity on the one hand, and foster physiological plasticity on the other, in neuropsychiatric diseases to reduce symptoms, and enhance rehabilitation. tDCS is an emerging NIBS tool, which induces glutamatergic plasticity via application of relatively weak currents through the scalp in humans. In the last years its efficacy to treat neuropsychiatric diseases has been explored increasingly. In this review, we will give an overview of pathological alterations of plasticity in neuropsychiatric diseases, gather clinical studies involving tDCS to ameliorate symptoms, and discuss future directions of application, with an emphasis on optimizing stimulation effects.
•tDCS induces neuroplasticity in the human brain.•Pathological plasticity is involved in numerous neuropsychiatric diseases.•tDCS reduces pain and tinnitus symptoms.•tDCS might be valuable for treatment of depression, and other psychiatric diseases.•New stimulation protocols might enhance therapeutic efficacy of tDCS.
In the recent two decades, three global viral infectious diseases, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS), and coronavirus disease (COVID-19), have occurred ...worldwide. SARS occurred in November 2002, causing 8096 infected cases, as well as 774 deaths. MERS occurred in June, 2012, causing 2519 confirmed cases, along with 866 associated deaths. COVID-19 occurred in December 2019, as of 30 April 2020, a total of 3,024,059 clinical cases have been reported, including 208,112 deaths. Healthcare workers (HCWs) need to be in close contact with these virus-infected patients and their contaminated environments at work, thus leading to be infected in some of them, even a few of them are died in line of duty. In this review, we summarized the infection status of HCWs during the outbreak of SARS, MERS and COVID-19, with in-depth discussion, hoping to provoke sufficient attention to the HCWs infection status by more people.
Coming together: A generally applicable strategy for convergent chemical synthesis of proteins from multiple peptide segments is developed on the basis of the ligation of peptide hydrazides. The ...peptide hydrazide intermediates can be made at low cost and the new strategy is used in the synthesis of the 142 residue model protein RpS25 from six peptide segments. PG=protecting group.
The method by which high-technology product manufacturers balance profits and environmental performance is of crucial concern for governments and enterprises. To examine the environmental performance ...of manufacturers, the present study applied Fuzzy-DEMATEL model to examine environmental performance of the PCB industry in Taiwan. Fuzzy theory was employed to examine the environmental performance criteria of manufacturers and analyse fuzzy linguistics. The fuzzy-DEMATEL model was then employed to assess the direction and level of interaction between environmental performance criteria. The core environmental performance criteria which were critical for enhancing environmental performance of the PCB industry in Taiwan were identified and presented. The present study revealed that green design (a1), green material procurement (a2), and energy consumption (b3) constitute crucial reason criteria, the core criteria influencing other criteria, and the driving factors for resolving problems.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) non-invasively induces polarity-dependent excitability alterations in the human motor cortex lasting for more than an hour after stimulation. Clinical ...applications with encouraging results have been reported in several pilot studies, but the optimal stimulation protocols remain to be determined. This is also important because the efficacy and directionality of tDCS effects follow non-linear rules regarding neuroplastic effects for the stimulation parameters duration and intensity. In this study, we systemically explored the association between tDCS, these parameters and induced after-effects on motor cortex excitability. Cathodal tDCS was applied in four different intensities (sham, 1, 2 and 3 mA) and three durations (15, 20 and 30 mins) in 16 young healthy subjects and the after-effects were monitored with TMS-induced motor evoked potentials (MEP) until the next day evening after stimulation. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA conducted to disentangle the effects of tDCS intensity and duration show a main effect of intensity in which 1 mA and 3 mA stimulation induced a reduction of MEP amplitudes, but 2 mA resulted in excitability enhancement. The results of a secondary ANOVA conducted to compare if active stimulation effects differ from those of sham stimulation revealed a significant main effect of tDCS condition in which 1 mA–15 min, 1 mA–30 min and 3 mA–20 min cathodal tDCS induced LTD-like plasticity, while LTP-like plasticity was observed after 2 mA–20 min stimulation. Our study thus provides further insights on the dependency of tDCS -induced neuroplasticity from the stimulation parameters, and therefore delivers crucial information for future applications.
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