Search results for: auditory stimuli
53 Evaluating the Role of Multisensory Elements in Foreign Language Acquisition
Authors: Sari Myréen
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of multisensory elements in enhancing and facilitating foreign language acquisition among adult students in a language classroom. The use of multisensory elements enables the creation of a student-centered classroom, where the focus is on individual learner’s language learning process, perceptions and motivation. Multisensory language learning is a pedagogical approach where the language learner uses all the senses more effectively than in a traditional in-class environment. Language learning is facilitated due to multisensory stimuli which increase the number of cognitive connections in the learner and take into consideration different types of learners. A living lab called Multisensory Space creates a relaxed and receptive state in the learners through various multisensory stimuli, and thus promotes their natural foreign language acquisition. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in two questionnaire inquiries among the Finnish students of a higher education institute at the end of their basic French courses in December 2014 and 2016. The inquiries discussed the effects of multisensory elements on the students’ motivation to study French as well as their learning outcomes. The results show that the French classes in the Multisensory Space provide the students with an encouraging and pleasant learning environment, which has a positive impact on their motivation to study the foreign language as well as their language learning outcomes.
Keywords: Foreign language acquisition, foreign language learning, higher education, multisensory learning, pedagogical approach, transcultural learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 137152 Saliva Cortisol and Yawning as a Predictor of Neurological Disease
Authors: Simon B. N. Thompson
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Cortisol is important to our immune system, regulates our stress response, and is a factor in maintaining brain temperature. Saliva cortisol is a practical and useful non-invasive measurement that signifies the presence of the important hormone. Electrical activity in the jaw muscles typically rises when the muscles are moved during yawning and the electrical level is found to be correlated with the cortisol level. In two studies using identical paradigms, a total of 108 healthy subjects were exposed to yawning-provoking stimuli so that their cortisol levels and electrical nerve impulses from their jaw muscles was recorded. Electrical activity is highly correlated with cortisol levels in healthy people. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Yawning Susceptibility Scale, General Health Questionnaire, demographic, health details were collected and exclusion criteria applied for voluntary recruitment: chronic fatigue, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart condition, high blood pressure, hormone replacement therapy, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. Significant differences were found between the saliva cortisol samples for the yawners as compared with the non-yawners between rest and post-stimuli. Significant evidence supports the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis that suggests rises in cortisol levels are associated with yawning. Ethics approval granted and professional code of conduct, confidentiality, and safety issues are approved therein.
Keywords: Cortisol, Diagnosis, Neurological Disease, Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis, Yawning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 153451 Comparison of Developed Statokinesigram and Marker Data Signals by Model Approach
Authors: Boris Barbolyas, Kristina Buckova, Tomas Volensky, Cyril Belavy, Ladislav Dedik
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Background: Based on statokinezigram, the human balance control is often studied. Approach to human postural reaction analysis is based on a combination of stabilometry output signal with retroreflective marker data signal processing, analysis, and understanding, in this study. The study shows another original application of Method of Developed Statokinesigram Trajectory (MDST), too. Methods: In this study, the participants maintained quiet bipedal standing for 10 s on stabilometry platform. Consequently, bilateral vibration stimuli to Achilles tendons in 20 s interval was applied. Vibration stimuli caused that human postural system took the new pseudo-steady state. Vibration frequencies were 20, 60 and 80 Hz. Participant's body segments - head, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and little fingers were marked by 12 retroreflective markers. Markers positions were scanned by six cameras system BTS SMART DX. Registration of their postural reaction lasted 60 s. Sampling frequency was 100 Hz. For measured data processing were used Method of Developed Statokinesigram Trajectory. Regression analysis of developed statokinesigram trajectory (DST) data and retroreflective marker developed trajectory (DMT) data were used to find out which marker trajectories most correlate with stabilometry platform output signals. Scaling coefficients (λ) between DST and DMT by linear regression analysis were evaluated, too. Results: Scaling coefficients for marker trajectories were identified for all body segments. Head markers trajectories reached maximal value and ankle markers trajectories had a minimal value of scaling coefficient. Hips, knees and ankles markers were approximately symmetrical in the meaning of scaling coefficient. Notable differences of scaling coefficient were detected in head and shoulders markers trajectories which were not symmetrical. The model of postural system behavior was identified by MDST. Conclusion: Value of scaling factor identifies which body segment is predisposed to postural instability. Hypothetically, if statokinesigram represents overall human postural system response to vibration stimuli, then markers data represented particular postural responses. It can be assumed that cumulative sum of particular marker postural responses is equal to statokinesigram.Keywords: Center of pressure (CoP), a method of developed statokinesigram trajectory (MDST), a model of postural system behavior, retroreflective marker data.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 74850 Legal Arrangement on Media Ownership and the Case of Turkey
Authors: Sevil Yıldız
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In this study, we will touch upon the legal arrangements issued in Turkey for prevention of condensation and for ensuring pluralism in the media. We will mention the legal arrangements concerning the regulatory and supervisory authority, namely the Radio and Television Supreme Council, for the visual and auditory media. In this context; the legal arrangements, which have been introduced by the Law No 6112 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and Their Media Services in relation to the media ownership, will be reviewed through comparison with the Article 29 of the repealed Law No 3984.
Keywords: Media ownership, legal arrangements, the case for Turkey.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 160949 Speaker Identification by Atomic Decomposition of Learned Features Using Computational Auditory Scene Analysis Principals in Noisy Environments
Authors: Thomas Bryan, Veton Kepuska, Ivica Kostanic
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Speaker recognition is performed in high Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) environments using principals of Computational Auditory Scene Analysis (CASA). CASA methods often classify sounds from images in the time-frequency (T-F) plane using spectrograms or cochleargrams as the image. In this paper atomic decomposition implemented by matching pursuit performs a transform from time series speech signals to the T-F plane. The atomic decomposition creates a sparsely populated T-F vector in “weight space” where each populated T-F position contains an amplitude weight. The weight space vector along with the atomic dictionary represents a denoised, compressed version of the original signal. The arraignment or of the atomic indices in the T-F vector are used for classification. Unsupervised feature learning implemented by a sparse autoencoder learns a single dictionary of basis features from a collection of envelope samples from all speakers. The approach is demonstrated using pairs of speakers from the TIMIT data set. Pairs of speakers are selected randomly from a single district. Each speak has 10 sentences. Two are used for training and 8 for testing. Atomic index probabilities are created for each training sentence and also for each test sentence. Classification is performed by finding the lowest Euclidean distance between then probabilities from the training sentences and the test sentences. Training is done at a 30dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Testing is performed at SNR’s of 0 dB, 5 dB, 10 dB and 30dB. The algorithm has a baseline classification accuracy of ~93% averaged over 10 pairs of speakers from the TIMIT data set. The baseline accuracy is attributable to short sequences of training and test data as well as the overall simplicity of the classification algorithm. The accuracy is not affected by AWGN and produces ~93% accuracy at 0dB SNR.
Keywords: Time-frequency plane, atomic decomposition, envelope sampling, Gabor atoms, matching pursuit, sparse dictionary learning, sparse autoencoder.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 156148 Gamification as a Tool for Influencing Customers' Behaviour
Authors: B. Zatwarnicka-Madura
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The objective of the article was to identify the impacts of gamification on customers' behaviour. The most important applications of games in marketing and mechanisms of gamification are presented in the article. A detailed analysis of the influence of gamification on customers using two brands, Foursquare and Nike, was also presented. Research studies using auditory survey methods were carried out among 176 young respondents, who are potential targets of gamification. The studies confirmed a huge participation of young people in customer loyalty programs with relatively low participation in other gamificationbased marketing activities. The research findings clearly indicate that gamification mechanisms are the most attractive.
Keywords: Customer loyalty, games, gamification, social aspects.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 239447 Internet of Things Applications on Supply Chain Management
Authors: B. Cortés, A. Boza, D. Pérez, L. Cuenca
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The Internet of Things (IoT) field has been applied in industries with different purposes. Sensing Enterprise (SE) is an attribute of an enterprise or a network that allows it to react to business stimuli originating on the Internet. These fields have come into focus recently on the enterprises, and there is some evidence of the use and implications in supply chain management, while finding it as an interesting aspect to work on. This paper presents a revision and proposals of IoT applications in supply chain management.Keywords: Internet of Things, Sensing Enterprises, Supply Chain Management, Industrial, Production Systems, Sensor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 540646 The Effects of an Information Delivery Modality on Psychology of E-learning Students
Authors: Eunil Park, Angel P. del Pobil
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Does a communication modality matter in delivering e-learning information? With the recent growth of broadcasting systems, media technologies and e-learning contents, various systems with different communication modalities have been introduced. In accordance with these trends, this study examines the effects of the information delivery modality on psychology of students. Findings from an experiment indicated that the delivering information which includes a video modality elicited higher degrees of credibility, quality, representativeness of content, and perceived suitability for delivering information than those of auditory information. However, there is no difference between content liking and attitude. The Implications of the findings and the limitations are discussed.
Keywords: Communication modality, e-learning, multimodality, students.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 175645 Bioclimatic Principles and Urban Open Spaces: The Case of Xanthi
Authors: Maria Giannopoulou
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Open urban public spaces comprise an important element for the development of social, cultural and economic activities of the population in the modern cities. These spaces are also considered regulators of the region-s climate conditions, providing better thermal, visual and auditory conditions which can be optimized by the application of appropriate strategies of bioclimatic design. The paper focuses on the analysis and evaluation of the recent unification of the open spaces in the centre of Xanthi, a medium – size city in northern Greece, from a bioclimatic perspective, as well as in the creation of suitable methodology. It is based both on qualitative observation of the interventions by fieldwork research and assessment and on quantitative analysis and modeling of the research area.Keywords: Bioclimatic principles, Quantitative analysis, Sustainability, TownScope III, Urban open spaces
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 277344 A Simplified Solid Mechanical and Acoustic Model for Human Middle Ear
Authors: Adarsh Venkataraman Ganesan, Sundaram Swaminathan, Rama Jayaraj
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Human middle-ear is the key component of the auditory system. Its function is to transfer the sound waves through the ear canal to provide sufficient stimulus to the fluids of the inner ear. Degradation of the ossicles that transmit these sound waves from the eardrum to the inner ear leads to hearing loss. This problem can be overcome by replacing one or more of these ossicles by middleear prosthesis. Designing such prosthesis requires a comprehensive knowledge of the biomechanics of the middle-ear. There are many finite element modeling approaches developed to understand the biomechanics of the middle ear. The available models in the literature, involve high computation time. In this paper, we propose a simplified model which provides a reasonably accurate result with much less computational time. Simulation results indicate a maximum sound pressure gain of 10 dB at 5500 Hz.Keywords: Ear, Ossicles, COMSOL, Stapes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 266843 Mikrophonie I (1964) by Karlheinz Stockhausen - Between Idea and Auditory Image
Authors: Justyna Humięcka-Jakubowska
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Background in music analysis: Traditionally, when we think about a composer’s sketches, the chances are that we are thinking in terms of the working out of detail, rather than the evolution of an overall concept. Since music is a “time art,” it follows that questions of a form cannot be entirely detached from considerations of time. One could say that composers tend to regard time either as a place gradually and partially intuitively filled, or they can look for a specific strategy to occupy it. It seems that the one thing that sheds light on Stockhausen’s compositional thinking is his frequent use of “form schemas,” that is often a single-page representation of the entire structure of a piece. Background in music technology: Sonic Visualiser is a program used to study a musical recording. It is an open source application for viewing, analyzing, and annotating music audio files. It contains a number of visualisation tools, which are designed with useful default parameters for musical analysis. Additionally, the Vamp plugin format of SV supports to provide analysis such as for example structural segmentation. Aims: The aim of paper is to show how SV may be used to obtain a better understanding of the specific musical work, and how the compositional strategy does impact on musical structures and musical surfaces. It is known that “traditional” music analytic methods don’t allow indicating interrelationships between musical surface (which is perceived) and underlying musical/acoustical structure. Main Contribution: Stockhausen had dealt with the most diverse musical problems by the most varied methods. A characteristic which he had never ceased to be placed at the center of his thought and works, it was the quest for a new balance founded upon an acute connection between speculation and intuition. In the case with Mikrophonie I (1964) for tam-tam and 6 players Stockhausen makes a distinction between the “connection scheme,” which indicates the ground rules underlying all versions, and the form scheme, which is associated with a particular version. The preface to the published score includes both the connection scheme, and a single instance of a “form scheme,” which is what one can hear on the CD recording. In the current study, the insight into the compositional strategy chosen by Stockhausen was been compared with auditory image, that is, with the perceived musical surface. Stockhausen’s musical work is analyzed both in terms of melodic/voice and timbre evolution. Implications: The current study shows how musical structures have determined of musical surface. The general assumption is this, that while listening to music we can extract basic kinds of musical information from musical surfaces. It is shown that interactive strategies of musical structure analysis can offer a very fruitful way of looking directly into certain structural features of music.Keywords: Automated analysis, composer's strategy, Mikrophonie I, musical surface, Stockhausen.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 192942 Application of an in vitro Alveolus Model in Evaluating the Alveolar Response to Pressure- Induced Injury
Authors: Divya D. Nalayanda, William B. Fulton, Tza-Huei Wang, Fizan Abdullah
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In an effort to understand the preliminary effects of aerodynamic stress on alveolar epithelial cells, we developed a multifluidic cell culture platform capable of supporting alveolar cultures at an air-liquid interface under constant air flow and exposure to varying pressure stimuli on the apical side while providing nourishment on the basolateral plane. Our current study involved utilizing the platform to study the effect of basement membrane coating and addition of dexamethasone on cellular response to pressure in A549 and H441 alveolar epithelial cells.
Keywords: Aerodynamic stress, Air-liquid interface, Alveolar, Dexamethasone.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 147741 Development of Multimodal e-Slide Presentation to Support Self-Learning for the Visually Impaired
Authors: Rustam Asnawi, Wan Fatimah Wan Ahmad
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Currently electronic slide (e-slide) is one of the most common styles in educational presentation. Unfortunately, the utilization of e-slide for the visually impaired is uncommon since they are unable to see the content of such e-slides which are usually composed of text, images and animation. This paper proposes a model for presenting e-slide in multimodal presentation i.e. using conventional slide concurrent with voicing, in both languages Malay and English. At the design level, live multimedia presentation concept is used, while at the implementation level several components are used. The text content of each slide is extracted using COM component, Microsoft Speech API for voicing the text in English language and the text in Malay language is voiced using dictionary approach. To support the accessibility, an auditory user interface is provided as an additional feature. A prototype of such model named as VSlide has been developed and introduced.
Keywords: presentation, self-learning, slide, visually impaired
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 155840 Concurrent Testing of ADC for Embedded System
Authors: Y.B.Gandole
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Compaction testing methods allow at-speed detecting of errors while possessing low cost of implementation. Owing to this distinctive feature, compaction methods have been widely used for built-in testing, as well as external testing. In the latter case, the bandwidth requirements to the automated test equipment employed are relaxed which reduces the overall cost of testing. Concurrent compaction testing methods use operational signals to detect misbehavior of the device under test and do not require input test stimuli. These methods have been employed for digital systems only. In the present work, we extend the use of compaction methods for concurrent testing of analog-to-digital converters. We estimate tolerance bounds for the result of compaction and evaluate the aliasing rate.Keywords: Analog-to Digital Converter, Embedded system, Concurrent Testing
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 160439 An Electronic and Performance Test for the Applicants to Faculty of Education for Early Childhood in Egypt for Measuring the Skills of Teacher Students
Authors: Ahmed Amin Mousa, Gehan Azam
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The current study presents an electronic test to measure teaching skills. This test is a part of the admission system of the Faculty of Education for Early Childhood, Cairo University. The test has been prepared to evaluate university students who apply for admission the Faculty. It measures some social and physiological skills which are important for successful teachers, such as emotional adjustment and problem solving; moreover, the extent of their love for children and their capability to interact with them. The test has been approved by 13 experts. Finally, it has been introduced to 1,100 students during the admission system of the academic year 2016/2017. The results showed that most of the applicants have an auditory learning style. In addition, 97% of them have the minimum requirement skills for teaching children.Keywords: Electronic test, early childhood, skills, teacher student.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 86038 Speech Enhancement of Vowels Based on Pitch and Formant Frequency
Authors: R. Rishma Rodrigo, R. Radhika, M. Vanitha Lakshmi
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Numerous signal processing based speech enhancement systems have been proposed to improve intelligibility in the presence of noise. Traditionally, studies of neural vowel encoding have focused on the representation of formants (peaks in vowel spectra) in the discharge patterns of the population of auditory-nerve (AN) fibers. A method is presented for recording high-frequency speech components into a low-frequency region, to increase audibility for hearing loss listeners. The purpose of the paper is to enhance the formant of the speech based on the Kaiser window. The pitch and formant of the signal is based on the auto correlation, zero crossing and magnitude difference function. The formant enhancement stage aims to restore the representation of formants at the level of the midbrain. A MATLAB software’s are used for the implementation of the system with low complexity is developed.
Keywords: Formant estimation, formant enhancement, pitch detection, speech analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 163037 Audio Watermarking Based on Compression-expansion Technique
Authors: Say Wei Foo, Qi Dong
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A novel robust audio watermarking scheme is proposed in this paper. In the proposed scheme, the host audio signals are segmented into frames. Two consecutive frames are assessed if they are suitable to represent a watermark bit. If so, frequency transform is performed on these two frames. The compressionexpansion technique is adopted to generate distortion over the two frames. The distortion is used to represent one watermark bit. Psychoacoustic model is applied to calculate local auditory mask to ensure that the distortion is not audible. The watermarking schemes using mono and stereo audio signals are designed differently. The correlation-based detection method is used to detect the distortion and extract embedded watermark bits. The experimental results show that the quality degradation caused by the embedded watermarks is perceptually transparent and the proposed schemes are very robust against different types of attacks.Keywords: Audio watermarking, Compression-expansion, Stereo signals, Robustness.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 163536 Robust Features for Impulsive Noisy Speech Recognition Using Relative Spectral Analysis
Authors: Hajer Rahali, Zied Hajaiej, Noureddine Ellouze
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The goal of speech parameterization is to extract the relevant information about what is being spoken from the audio signal. In speech recognition systems Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Relative Spectral Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (RASTA-MFCC) are the two main techniques used. It will be shown in this paper that it presents some modifications to the original MFCC method. In our work the effectiveness of proposed changes to MFCC called Modified Function Cepstral Coefficients (MODFCC) were tested and compared against the original MFCC and RASTA-MFCC features. The prosodic features such as jitter and shimmer are added to baseline spectral features. The above-mentioned techniques were tested with impulsive signals under various noisy conditions within AURORA databases.
Keywords: Auditory filter, impulsive noise, MFCC, prosodic features, RASTA filter.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 231235 An Approach for Blind Source Separation using the Sliding DFT and Time Domain Independent Component Analysis
Authors: Koji Yamanouchi, Masaru Fujieda, Takahiro Murakami, Yoshihisa Ishida
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''Cocktail party problem'' is well known as one of the human auditory abilities. We can recognize the specific sound that we want to listen by this ability even if a lot of undesirable sounds or noises are mixed. Blind source separation (BSS) based on independent component analysis (ICA) is one of the methods by which we can separate only a special signal from their mixed signals with simple hypothesis. In this paper, we propose an online approach for blind source separation using the sliding DFT and the time domain independent component analysis. The proposed method can reduce calculation complexity in comparison with conventional methods, and can be applied to parallel processing by using digital signal processors (DSPs) and so on. We evaluate this method and show its availability.Keywords: Cocktail party problem, blind Source Separation(BSS), independent component analysis, sliding DFT, onlineprocessing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 162734 Effects of Mobile Phone Generated High Frequency Electromagnetic Field on the Viability and Biofilm Formation of Staphylococcus aureus
Authors: Zaini Mohd-Zain, Mohd-Saufee A.F. Mohd-Ismail, Norlida Buniyamin
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Staphylococcus aureus, one of the microflora in a human external auditory canal (EAC) is frequently exposed to highfrequency electromagnetic field (HF-EMF) generated by mobile phones. It is normally non-pathogenic but in certain circumstances, it can cause infections. This study investigates the changes in the physiology of S. aureus when exposed to HF-EMF of a mobile phone. Exponentially grown S. aureus were exposed to two conditions of EMF irradiation (standby-mode and on-call mode) at four durations; 15, 30, 45 and 60 min. Changes in the viability and biofilm production of the S. aureus were compared between the two conditions of exposure. EMF from the standby-mode has enhanced the growth of S. aureus but during on-call, the growth was suppressed. No significant difference in the amount of biofilm produced in both modes of exposure was observed. Thus, HF-EMF of mobile phone affects the viability of S. aureus but not its ability to produce biofilm.Keywords: Electromagnetic field, mobile phone, biofilm, Staphylococcus aureus
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 199933 Self-Supervised Pretraining on Paired Sequences of fMRI Data for Transfer Learning to Brain Decoding Tasks
Authors: Sean Paulsen, Michael Casey
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In this work, we present a self-supervised pretraining framework for transformers on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. First, we pretrain our architecture on two self-supervised tasks simultaneously to teach the model a general understanding of the temporal and spatial dynamics of human auditory cortex during music listening. Our pretraining results are the first to suggest a synergistic effect of multitask training on fMRI data. Second, we finetune the pretrained models and train additional fresh models on a supervised fMRI classification task. We observe significantly improved accuracy on held-out runs with the finetuned models, which demonstrates the ability of our pretraining tasks to facilitate transfer learning. This work contributes to the growing body of literature on transformer architectures for pretraining and transfer learning with fMRI data, and serves as a proof of concept for our pretraining tasks and multitask pretraining on fMRI data.
Keywords: Transfer learning, fMRI, self-supervised, brain decoding, transformer, multitask training.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11932 Continuum-Based Modelling Approaches for Cell Mechanics
Authors: Yogesh D. Bansod, Jiri Bursa
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The quantitative study of cell mechanics is of paramount interest, since it regulates the behaviour of the living cells in response to the myriad of extracellular and intracellular mechanical stimuli. The novel experimental techniques together with robust computational approaches have given rise to new theories and models, which describe cell mechanics as combination of biomechanical and biochemical processes. This review paper encapsulates the existing continuum-based computational approaches that have been developed for interpreting the mechanical responses of living cells under different loading and boundary conditions. The salient features and drawbacks of each model are discussed from both structural and biological points of view. This discussion can contribute to the development of even more precise and realistic computational models of cell mechanics based on continuum approaches or on their combination with microstructural approaches, which in turn may provide a better understanding of mechanotransduction in living cells.Keywords: Cell mechanics, computational models, continuum approach, mechanical models.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 294231 The Impact of Dialectal Differences on the Perception of Japanese Gemination: A Case Study of Cantonese Learners
Authors: Honghao Ren, Mariko Kondo
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This study investigates the perceptual features of Japanese obstruent geminates among Chinese learners of Japanese, focusing on the dialectal effect of the checked-tone, a syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop, which is similar to Japanese obstruent geminates phonetically. In this study, 41 native speakers of Cantonese are divided into two groups based on their proficiency as well as learning period of Japanese. All stimuli employed in this study are made into C[p,k,s]+V[a,e,i] structure such as /apa/, /eke/, /isi/. Both original sounds and synthesized sounds are used in three different parts of this study. The results of the present study show that the checked-tone does have the positive effect on the perception of Japanese gemination. Furthermore, the proportion of closure duration in the entire word would be a more reliable and appropriate criterion in testing this kind of task.
Keywords: Dialectal differences, Cantonese learners of Japanese, acoustic experiment, closure duration.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 62830 Goal Based Episodic Processing in Implicit Learning
Authors: Peter A. Bibby
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Research has suggested that implicit learning tasks may rely on episodic processing to generate above chance performance on the standard classification tasks. The current research examines the invariant features task (McGeorge and Burton, 1990) and argues that such episodic processing is indeed important. The results of the experiment suggest that both rejection and similarity strategies are used by participants in this task to simultaneously reject unfamiliar items and to accept (falsely) familiar items. Primarily these decisions are based on the presence of low or high frequency goal based features of the stimuli presented in the incidental learning phase. It is proposed that a goal based analysis of the incidental learning task provides a simple step in understanding which features of the episodic processing are most important for explaining the match between incidental, implicit learning and test performance.Keywords: Episodic processing, incidental learning, implicitlearning, invariant learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 143129 Development of an Artificial Ear for Bone-Conducted Objective Occlusion Measurement
Authors: Yu Luan
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The bone-conducted objective occlusion effect (OE) is characterized by a discomforting sensation of fullness experienced in an occluded ear. This phenomenon arises from various external stimuli, such as human speech, chewing, and walking, which generate vibrations transmitted through the body to the ear canal walls. The bone-conducted OE occurs due to the pressure build-up inside the occluded ear caused by sound radiating into the ear canal cavity from its walls. In the hearing aid industry, artificial ears are utilized as a tool for developing hearing aids. However, the currently available commercial artificial ears primarily focus on pure acoustics measurements, neglecting the bone-conducted vibration aspect. This research endeavors to develop an artificial ear specifically designed for bone-conducted occlusion measurements. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) modeling has been employed to gain insights into the behavior of the artificial ear.
Keywords: Artificial ear, bone conducted vibration, occlusion measurement, Finite Element Modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15228 Inferring the Dynamics of “Hidden“ Neurons from Electrophysiological Recordings
Authors: Valeri A. Makarov, Nazareth P. Castellanos
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Statistical analysis of electrophysiological recordings obtained under, e.g. tactile, stimulation frequently suggests participation in the network dynamics of experimentally unobserved “hidden" neurons. Such interneurons making synapses to experimentally recorded neurons may strongly alter their dynamical responses to the stimuli. We propose a mathematical method that formalizes this possibility and provides an algorithm for inferring on the presence and dynamics of hidden neurons based on fitting of the experimental data to spike trains generated by the network model. The model makes use of Integrate and Fire neurons “chemically" coupled through exponentially decaying synaptic currents. We test the method on simulated data and also provide an example of its application to the experimental recording from the Dorsal Column Nuclei neurons of the rat under tactile stimulation of a hind limb.Keywords: Integrate and fire neuron, neural network models, spike trains.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 133127 Transferring of Digital DIY Potentialities through a Co-Design Tool
Authors: Marita Canina, Carmen Bruno
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Digital Do It Yourself (DIY) is a contemporary socio-technological phenomenon, enabled by technological tools. The nature and potential long-term effects of this phenomenon have been widely studied within the framework of the EU funded project ‘Digital Do It Yourself’, in which the authors have created and experimented a specific Digital Do It Yourself (DiDIY) co-design process. The phenomenon was first studied through a literature research to understand its multiple dimensions and complexity. Therefore, co-design workshops were used to investigate the phenomenon by involving people to achieve a complete understanding of the DiDIY practices and its enabling factors. These analyses allowed the definition of the DiDIY fundamental factors that were then translated into a design tool. The objective of the tool is to shape design concepts by transferring these factors into different environments to achieve innovation. The aim of this paper is to present the ‘DiDIY Factor Stimuli’ tool, describing the research path and the findings behind it.
Keywords: Co-design process, digital DIY, innovation, toolkit.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 63626 A Virtual Electrode through Summation of Time Offset Pulses
Authors: Isaac Cassar, Trevor Davis, Yi-Kai Lo, Wentai Liu
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Retinal prostheses have been successful in eliciting visual responses in implanted subjects. As these prostheses progress, one of their major limitations is the need for increased resolution. As an alternative to increasing the number of electrodes, virtual electrodes may be used to increase the effective resolution of current electrode arrays. This paper presents a virtual electrode technique based upon time-offsets between stimuli. Two adjacent electrodes are stimulated with identical pulses with too short of pulse widths to activate a neuron, but one has a time offset of one pulse width. A virtual electrode of twice the pulse width was then shown to appear in the center, with a total width capable of activating a neuron. This can be used in retinal implants by stimulating electrodes with pulse widths short enough to not elicit responses in neurons, but with their combined pulse width adequate to activate a neuron in between them.
Keywords: Electrical stimulation, Neuroprosthesis, Retinal implant, Retinal Prosthesis, Virtual electrode.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 177925 Indonesian Store Loyalty Factors for Modern Retailing Market
Authors: Lina Salim
Abstract:
Modern retailers such as hypermarket/supermarket need to be more customer-oriented in order to survive in today-s competitive business world. As a result, the investigation of determinant factors of store loyalty becomes important issue for modern retailing players. This study suggests that consumers- store loyalty in the modern retailing market (hypermarkets and supermarkets) is influenced by environmental factors (such as store image, store personnel). Using a model of stimulus-organismresponse (S-O-R), this research examines S-R relationship of store loyalty. S-O-R framework is derived from the existence literature and tested empirically based on Indonesian consumers- experience. The stimuli for this study are store image, store personnel, satisfaction and culture factors. Affect, or the consumers- liking to modern retailing stores, mediates the chosen environmental factors on consumer-s store loyalty. The findings showed that store image, store satisfaction and culture have significant positive relationship to store loyalty via affect.Keywords: Affect, Culture, Store Image, Store Loyalty, StorePersonnel, Store Satisfaction
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 249224 Real Time Acquisition and Psychoacoustic Analysis of Brain Wave
Authors: Shweta Singh, Dipali Bansal, Rashima Mahajan
Abstract:
Psychoacoustics has become a potential area of research due to the growing interest of both laypersons and medical and mental health professionals. Non invasive brain computer interface like Electroencephalography (EEG) is widely being used in this field. An attempt has been made in this paper to examine the response of EEG signals to acoustic stimuli further analyzing the brain electrical activity. The real time EEG is acquired for 6 participants using a cost effective and portable EMOTIV EEG neuro headset. EEG data analysis is further done using EMOTIV test bench, EDF browser and EEGLAB (MATLAB Tool) application software platforms. Spectral analysis of acquired neural signals (AF3 channel) using these software platforms are clearly indicative of increased brain activity in various bands. The inferences drawn from such an analysis have significant correlation with subject’s subjective reporting of the experiences. The results suggest that the methodology adopted can further be used to assist patients with sleeping and depressive disorders.
Keywords: OM’ chant, Spectral analysis, EDF Browser, EEGLAB, EMOTIV, Real time Acquisition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3563