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Numerous studies indicated the physical benefits of regular exercise, but the neurophysiological mechanisms of regular exercise in elders were less investigated. We aimed to compare changes in brain activity during exercise in elderly people and in young adults with and without regular exercise habits. A total of 36 healthy young adults (M/F:18/18) and 35 healthy elderly adults (M/F:20/15) participated in this study. According to exercise habits, each age group were classified into regular and occasional exerciser groups. ECG, EEG, and EMG signals were recorded using V-AMP with a 1-kHz sampling rate. The participants were instructed to perform three 5-min bicycle rides with different exercise loads. The EEG spectral power of elders who exercised regularly revealed the strongest positive correlation with their exercise intensity by using Pearson correlation analysis. The results demonstrate that exercise-induced significant cortical activation in the elderly participants who exercised regularly, and most of the p-values are less than 0.001. No significant correlation was observed between spectral power and exercise intensity in the elders who exercised occasionally. The young participants who exercised regularly had greater cardiac and neurobiological efficiency. Our results may provide a new exercise therapy reference for adult groups with different exercise habits, especially for the elders.

Introduction: Cerebral palsy (CP) is the leading cause of childhood-onset physical disability. Children with CP often have impaired upper limb (UL) function. Constraint-induced therapy (CIT) is one of the most effective UL interventions for children with unilateral CP. However, concerns about CIT for children have been repeatedly raised due to frustration caused by restraint of the child’s less-affected UL and lack of motivation for the intensive protocol. Virtual reality (VR), which can mitigate the disadvantages of CIT, potentially can be used as an alternative mediator for implementing CIT. Therefore, we developed a VR-based CIT program for children with CP using the Kinect system.Aims: The feasibility of the Kinect-based CIT program was evaluated for children with unilateral CP using a two-phase study design.Materials and Methods: In phase 1, ten children with unilateral CP were recruited. To confirm the achievement of the motor training goals, maximal UL joint angles were evaluated during gameplay. To evaluate children’s perceptions of the game, a questionnaire was used. In phase 2, eight children with unilateral CP were recruited and received an 8 weeks Kinect-based CIT intervention. Performance scores of the game and outcomes of the box and block test (BBT) were recorded weekly.Results: In phase 1, results supported that the design of the program was CIT-specific and was motivational for children with unilateral CP. In phase 2, game performance and the BBT scores began showing stable improvements in the fifth week of intervention.Conclusion: It suggested the Kinect-based CIT program was beneficial to the motor function of the affected UL for children with unilateral CP. According to the results of this feasibility study, larger and controlled effectiveness studies of the Kinect-based CIT program can be conducted to further improve its clinical utility.Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02808195; Comparative effectiveness of a Kinect-based unilateral arm training system vs. CIT for children with CP

To provide the significantly increased number of devices and demands in bandwidth for various applications, the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is considered as an approach. Further, the domain proxy is integrated into a self-organized networking (SON) server to assist Citizens Broadband Radio Service Devices (CBSDs) following CBRS protocol to communicate with Spectrum Access System (SAS) for 3.5 GHz spectrum access. In this paper, we design and implement a domain proxy following the CBRS communication protocol to proxy a CBSD for spectrum acquisition and relinquishment. The communication protocol can be presented in two state machines, and the state transition is performed according to the data transmission relationship between the SAS and the CBSD, indicating the use of the 3.5 GHz spectrum. Further, the implemented communication protocol is verified by the SAS simulator published by WInnForum. In the future, we will develop and integrate a dynamical spectrum allocation algorithm in domain proxy to arrange the acquired spectrum for CBSDs according to different scenarios.

We present a novel and highly efficient superpixel extraction method called ultra-fast superpixel extraction via adaptive sampling from quantized regions (USEAQ) to generate regular and compact superpixels in an image. To reduce the computational cost of iterative optimization procedures adopted in most recent approaches, the proposed USEAQ for superpixel generation works in a one-pass fashion. It first performs joint spatial and color quantizations and groups pixels into regions. It then takes into account the variations between regions, and adaptively samples one or a few superpixel candidates for each region. It finally employs maximum a posteriori estimation to assign pixels to the most spatially consistent and perceptually similar superpixels. It turns out that the proposed USEAQ is quite efficient, and the extracted superpixels can precisely adhere to boundaries of objects. Experimental results show that USEAQ achieves better or equivalent performance compared with the state-of-the-art superpixel extraction approaches in terms of boundary recall, undersegmentation error, achievable segmentation accuracy, the average miss rate, average undersegmentation error, and average unexplained variation, and it is significantly faster than these approaches. The source code of USEAQ is available at https://github.com/nchucvml/USEAQ .

Sleep is important for the restoration and renewal of the human body. Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), which is caused by repetitive episodes of partial or complete upper airway obstruction during sleep, is the most common type of sleep apnea. The sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis has been an important tool to investigate brain activity. In this study, we used the spectral analysis and fuzzy entropy to analyze the EEG signals collected from the OSAS patients and normal control. Results obtained from the EEG power spectrum and fuzzy entropy with and without principal component analysis (PCA) process were used as the features and fed into four different classifiers, namely, linear Support Vector Machines (SVM), Liner Discriminant Analysis (LDA), subspace k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) and subspace discriminant analysis, to differentiate these two groups. Our results demonstrated that the feature resulted from power spectrum with PCA process and subspace discriminate method using 5-fold cross-validation produces the superior classification rate which is 89 ± 3.74%.

We propose a novel superpixel extraction method named USEQ to generate regular and compact superpixels. To reduce the computational burden of iterative optimization procedures used in most recent approaches, the spatial and color quantizations are performed in advance to represent pixels and superpixels. Maximum a posteriori estimation in both pixel and region levels is then adopted to aggregate pixels into spatially and visually coherent superpixels. The resultant superpixels are extremely efficient to generate and can more precisely adhere to object boundaries. Compared to the state-of-the-art approaches to superpixel extraction, USEQ can achieve better or competitive performance in terms of boundary recall, undersegmentation error and achievable segmentation accuracy, and is significantly faster than these approaches.

Few studies have investigated changes in brain activity during exercise. It is still unclear how exercise affects the brain cortical activity. The aim of this study is to investigate different physiological features during a sustained cycling exercise. We recorded Electrocardiography (ECG) and Electroencephalography (EEG) from participants before, during, and after exercise. We investigate the correlation between heart rate and other physiological parameters such as EEG spectral power and EEG complexity. Forty-four healthy subjects participated in this study. The EEG was recorded from 4 scalp sites, which were C1, C2, P1, and P2. Subjects were asked to ride the bicycle continuously for nine minutes. Signals of EEG and ECG in resting condition were recorded for four minutes before exercise and another four minutes after exercise. In addition, we recorded subjects' rating of perceived exertion (RPE) since each subject has different physical strength and tolerance of non-stopping exercise. The average-to-maximal heart rate ratio (AMHRR) was calculated for each subject, which will be used to explore the relationship between exercise workload and physiological parameters. Moreover, we employed Morlet wavelet and Higuchi's fractal dimension analysis methods on EEG signals. Finally, we use regression analysis to examine the relationship between the various physiological parameters and AMHRR. Results indicate that RPE had a linearly correlation with AMHRR, which allows us to investigate the changes of EEG objectively from AMHRR. We found that the EEG normalized power had a positive correlation with heart rate or with exercise workload. The highest increased in EEG normalized power occurred when the participants were in their highest heart rate. On the other hand, we observed the EEG Higuchi's fractal dimension (HFD) had a negative correlation with heart rate. It may infer that a reduction of EEG complexity during exercise may cause by the increase of neuronal synchrony. The same phenomenon, an increase in EEG power at a specific frequency, is typically observed due to a synchronized firing of neurons. In summary, these results demonstrated that the EEG can be used as a salient tool to differentiate different exercise workload.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a common tool to study the changes in brain activity during exercise. In this study, we used recorded Electrocardiography (ECG) to define an average-to-maximal heart rate ratio (AMHRR) as a gauge of relative exercise workload, and explored how the increase of AMHRR affected the brain activity. The EEG signals were recorded from forty-four healthy subjects on four scalp sites, including C1, C2, P1, and P2 during nine minutes non-stop cycling exercise. The relationships between AMHRR and EEG power spectral or EEG fuzzy entropy (FuzzyEn) were established. Results of EEG power spectral and FuzzyEn displayed similar increasing patterns with AMHRR at all electrodes. Compared with EEG power spectral, the FuzzyEn has better specificity in selecting effective frequency bands, namely theta, alpha and beta bands. The FuzzyEn method can be applied in a wearable device for human machine interface (HMI) in monitoring the EEG during exercise in the future.

In this study, we employed Morlet wavelet, sample entropy, and fractal dimension on EEG and EMG signal to extract the feature of physical fatigue in the exercise. The result may be helpful for rehabilitation in effectiveness evaluation. Twenty healthy subjects participated in cycling exercise, and their physiological signals, including EEG, EMG, and ECG were recorded. In addition, we recorded subjects' feeling of fatigue since each subject has different physical strength and tolerance of non-stopping exercise. Signals in different stages, namely, resting, early, middle and late stages of exercising, were analyzed. ECG signal was used to categorize subjects into two groups, namely, moderate fatigue and severe fatigue. In EEG results, the averaged power, sample entropy, and fractal dimension of signals indicated that resting stages before and after the exercise were distinct from exercising stage. In severe fatigue, the averaged power within each frequency band of EEG increased with the duration of exercise whereas the power ratio, denoted by (theta+ alpha)/ beta, decreased gradually from the beginning of exercise until the resting after exercise. In addition, the EEG (C3) results of SE complexity ratio and FD complexity ratio decreased gradually from resting to last session of exercise in the moderate fatigue whereas in severe fatigue these ratios increased at the late exercising stage. Our results demonstrate that different patterns between moderate fatigue and severe fatigue can be effectively extracted by using the proposed methods.

Background: Despite a long history of safe use and the incorporation of probiotics into current therapeutic guidelines, the ability of yogurt and its probiotics to colonize the gastrointestinal tract, the appropriate mode of administration in order to maximize probiotic efficacy remain uncertain. Aim: To determine the effect of daily probiotic supplementation of Lactobacillus acidophilus La5 (La5) and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp lactis BB12 (BB12) from capsules and the whole food (yogurt) form, on faecal counts of La5, BB12, and total Bifidobacteria. Methods: Following a 3-week washout period, 156 men and women over 55 y were randomized to a 6-week double-blinded parallel study. The four intervention groups were: A) probiotic yogurt plus probiotic capsules; B) probiotic yogurt plus placebo capsules; C) control milk plus probiotic capsules; and D) control milk plus placebo capsules. Results are presented as the median (IQR) number of bacteria per g feces. Results: When compared to control milk, probioti...

Since authentication is the key to access control security in Internet access for every user, therefore, how to verify a user is who he claimed to be is a very important requirement in Internet security. In some situations, users need to be re-authenticated to make sure that they are still actively engaged in real time interaction. For instance, people will be notified to dial to a specific server phone number to reconfirm his identity again before re-login using their account ID and passwords pairs. This approach has been adopted by many online game servers. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach for re-authentication protocol using personalized information with CAPTCHA.

The influence of the cathode electrode on the characteristics of pentacene/perylene derivatives based organic solar cells was analysed by means of absorption, photoluminescence, and X-ray spectroscopies. We report the characteristics of a series of organic solar cells fabricated with Al, Ag, and Au electrodes for the interface between metals and organic semiconductors, which play a central role in the physics of organic solar cells. Donor and acceptor layers of a solar cell were pentacene and N,N'-dioctyl-3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI-8C) and N,N'-ditridecyl-3,4,9,10-perylene-tetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI-13C) respectively. Two organic solar cells with pentacene/PTCDI-8C and pentacene/PTCDI-13C heterojunctions as active layers were fabricated to compare the influence of power conversion efficiency among perylene derivatives with various numbers of carbon molecules by means of J-V measurements. Under the sunlight simulator with an AM1.5G filter and power of 100 mW/cm 2 , the solar cells of the pentacene/PTCDI-13C heterojunction with the Ag cathode had J-V characteristics of short-circuit current density of 0.415 mA/cm 2 , open-circuit voltage of 0.413 V, fill factor of 0.55, and power conversion efficiency of 0.1%, which were better than those of the pentacene/PTCDI-8C heterojunction. Moreover, according to the thin film analysis, the PTCDI-13C thin film's excitons at the interface of the heterojunction for dissociation were more, and the probability of radiative recombination of the electron-hole pair was less than for the PTCDI-8C. The PTCDI-13C thin-film possessed better carrier mobility than PTCDI-8C. Therefore, we could conclude that the factors mentioned above are keys to the pentacene/PTCDI-13C-based solar cells' better power conversion efficiency. The carrier transportation mechanism of these solar cells is discussed clearly.

Blue phase liquid crystal displays (BPLCDs) have attracted considerable attention in recent years because of its many advantages. However, BPLCDs exhibit narrow temperature range, high driving voltage, and tough process. In our works, polymer-stabilized technology using newly optimized BPLC material was applied to enlarge BP temperature range. In order to overcome high driving voltage, 2D1G design was used to apply conventional source driver IC for cost. Furthermore, novel groove cell structure which could gain more effective electric field without adding special masks for the groove was successfully implemented. Finally, 10-inch BPLCDs was demonstrated by optimization of ODF process.