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Purpose This study aimed to calculate and analyze the differences in electroencephalogram (EEG) between major depression disorder (MDD) patients and healthy controls using the method of brainwave music to provide evidence of physiological parameters for clinical diagnosis of MDD. Methods We translated the 5-minute resting EEG data of 20 MDD patients and 20 healthy controls, which were collected by Peking University Sixth Hospital, into brainwave music; and calculated the pitch, volume, duration and corresponding scaling exponents to analyze the differences between MDD patients and healthy people. Then combined the analysis methods of nonlinear dynamics and brain network structure to verify the validity of the proposed method. Results The pitch, volume, and Lemple-Ziv complexity (LZC) in the frontal lobe of MDD patients were higher than those of healthy people. In the central, occipital, and temporal regions of the left hemisphere, the scaling exponents, degrees, and clustering coefficient of MDD patients were lower than those of healthy people (P

The purging of deleterious alleles has been hypothesized to mitigate inbreeding depression, but its effectiveness in endangered species remains debatable. To understand how deleterious alleles are purged during population contractions, we analyzed genomes of the endangered Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus), which is the only surviving species of its family and currently isolated into small populations. Population genomic analyses revealed four genetically distinct conservation units and sharp declines in both effective population size and genetic diversity. By comparing the relative genetic load across populations and conducting genomic simulations, we discovered that seriously deleterious alleles were effectively purged during population contractions in this relict species, although inbreeding generally enhanced the genetic burden. However, despite with the initial purging, our simulations also predicted that seriously deleterious alleles will gradually accumulate under prolonged bottlenecking. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of maintaining a minimum population capacity and increasing the functional genetic diversity in conservation efforts to preserve populations of the crocodile lizard and other endangered species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a single-machine resource allocation scheduling problem with deteriorating jobs. Under a group technology environment, the actual processing times of jobs are a convex resource allocation function of their starting time and the amount of resource allocation. The objective is to minimize the weighted sum of makespan and resource allocation cost. For two special cases, it is proved that the problem can be solved in polynomial time. For the general case of the problem, heuristic and branch-and-bound procedures are developed to solve the problem. Computational experiments are also performed to examine the effectiveness and the efficiency of the algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers a single machine group scheduling problem with deteriorating jobs and resource allocation (controllable processing times). The objective is to have the resource availability limited within a given range, and to minimize the maximum completion time (i.e. the makespan). For two special cases, it is proved that the problem can be solved in polynomial time. For the general case, an heuristic algorithm and a branch-and-bound algorithm are proposed. Computational results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm is generally effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]