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Brain computer interface (BCI) based on speech imagery can help people with motor disorders communicate their thoughts to the outside world in a natural way. Due to being portable, non-invasive, and safe, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is preferred for developing BCIs. Previous BCIs based on fNIRS mainly relied on activation information, which ignored the functional connectivity between neural areas. In this study, a 4-class speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS is presented to decode simplified articulation motor imagery (only the movements of jaw and lip were retained) of different vowels. Synchronization information in the motor cortex was extracted as features. In multiclass (four classes) settings, the mean subject-dependent classification accuracies approximated or exceeded 40% in the 0-2.5 s and 0-10 s time windows, respectively. In binary class settings (the average classification accuracies of all pairwise comparisons between two vowels), the mean subject-dependent classification accuracies exceeded 70% in the 0-2.5 s and 0-10 s time windows. These results demonstrate that connectivity features can effectively differentiate different vowels even if the time window size was reduced from 10 s to 2.5 s and the decoding performance in both the time windows was almost the same. This finding suggests that speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS can be further optimized in terms of feature extraction and command generation time reduction. In addition, simplified articulation motor imagery of vowels can be distinguished, and therefore, the potential contribution of articulation motor imagery information extracted from the motor cortex should be emphasized in speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS to improve decoding performance.

Brain computer interface (BCI) based on speech imagery can help people with motor disorders communicate their thoughts to the outside world in a natural way. Due to being portable, non-invasive, and safe, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is preferred for developing BCIs. Previous BCIs based on fNIRS mainly relied on activation information, which ignored the functional connectivity between neural areas. In this study, a 4-class speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS is presented to decode simplified articulation motor imagery (only the movements of jaw and lip were retained) of different vowels. Synchronization information in the motor cortex was extracted as features. In multiclass (four classes) settings, the mean subject-dependent classification accuracies approximated or exceeded 40% in the 0-2.5 s and 0-10 s time windows, respectively. In binary class settings (the average classification accuracies of all pairwise comparisons between two vowels), the mean subject-dependent classification accuracies exceeded 70% in the 0-2.5 s and 0-10 s time windows. These results demonstrate that connectivity features can effectively differentiate different vowels even if the time window size was reduced from 10 s to 2.5 s and the decoding performance in both the time windows was almost the same. This finding suggests that speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS can be further optimized in terms of feature extraction and command generation time reduction. In addition, simplified articulation motor imagery of vowels can be distinguished, and therefore, the potential contribution of articulation motor imagery information extracted from the motor cortex should be emphasized in speech imagery BCI based on fNIRS to improve decoding performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phase synchronization can aid in understanding the dynamics of underlying systems. In an electric substation, disconnect, failures mostly occur due to overheating. In this work using the Hilbert transform to assess the phase synchrony of a disconnect temperature and its relationship with meteorological variables and disconnect current can be helpful in understanding temperature influences and composition. Statistical methodologies, including entropy analysis, correlation, Kalman filter, Fast Fourier Transform, Augmented Dickey–Fuller test, and Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin test, were employed. One of the differentials of this study is the use of the median filter, which was able to access the phase synchrony of the variables with disconnect temperature. An important result is that current is not the most correlated variable with disconnect temperature, instead, air temperature exhibits the highest correlation, and the highest phase synchronization is only obtained when disconnect current and air temperatures are combined. This study contributes to the advancement of power substation operations, advocating for continuous monitoring and analysis to ensure a reliable electricity supply obtaining better predictive maintenance. [Display omitted] • The median filter facilitates access to phase synchronization information. • The combination of air temperature and current demonstrates the highest level of synchronization information. in the disconnect temperature. • Solar incidence decreases synchrony. • The disconnect temperature, disconnect current, and air temperature share the same frequency modules. • Night-time phase synchrony is higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]