Search results for " potential"
showing 10 items of 2713 documents
ERP denoising in multichannel EEG data using contrasts between signal and noise subspaces
2009
Abstract In this paper, a new method intended for ERP denoising in multichannel EEG data is discussed. The denoising is done by separating ERP/noise subspaces in multidimensional EEG data by a linear transformation and the following dimension reduction by ignoring noise components during inverse transformation. The separation matrix is found based on the assumption that ERP sources are deterministic for all repetitions of the same type of stimulus within the experiment, while the other noise sources do not obey the determinancy property. A detailed derivation of the technique is given together with the analysis of the results of its application to a real high-density EEG data set. The inter…
Assessment of Energy and Economic Effectiveness of Photovoltaic Systems Operating in a Dense Urban Context
2013
A methodology that permits testing the level of integration of the photovoltaic technology in urban areas is presented. The percentage of coverage of the electricity demand of grid-connected photovoltaic systems installed on the roofs of buildings were investigated in a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily). After classifying roofs according to their shape, orientation and pitch by means of satellite images provided by Google Earth, the ratio of the productivity of the PV systems and the consumption of electricity of the households was analysed. The results of the energy assessment have been screened considering the economic feasibility of grid-connected photovoltaic systems: the energy …
Inhibition by cellular vacuolar ATPase impairs human papillomavirus uncoating and infection.
2014
ABSTRACT Several viruses, including human papillomaviruses, depend on endosomal acidification for successful infection. Hence, the multisubunit enzyme vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase), which is mainly responsible for endosome acidification in the cell, represents an attractive target for antiviral strategies. In the present study, we show that V-ATPase is required for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and that uncoating/disassembly but not endocytosis is affected by V-ATPase inhibition. The infection inhibitory potencies of saliphenylhalamide, a proven V-ATPase inhibitor, and its derivatives, as well as those of other V-ATPase inhibitors, were analyzed on different HPV types in relevant cell l…
Sources of Financing for Social Entrepreneurship
2021
The following chapter discusses the main forms of financing for social entrepreneurship. The ultimate goal of social entrepreneurship is to create social value. To this end, financial means act as intermediaries to achieve this goal. These means must be aligned with the mission, vision, and values of the new venture. Therefore, there must be certain parallelism in the modus operandi of the entrepreneurial companies and the institutions supporting their launch in the market with economic resources. Since social entrepreneurship arises as a new paradigm to create the business, its financing sources represent a new method to obtain economic resources. Ethical banking is the core concept of the…
Reward and punishment: investigating cortico-bulbar excitability to disclose the value of goods
2013
A continuing challenge for neuroscientists is to develop new conceptual tools and methodologies for understanding, predicting and modelling the influences of rewarding/punishing outcomes on human behaviour and decision making. Reinforcement shapes behaviours from the most primitive (fight/flight, ingest/regurgitate, approach/avoid) to complex (buy/sell). Understanding the neural processes underlying reinforcement is critical for understanding economic and social decision-making. Moreover, comprehension of deranged processing and responses to reinforcing stimuli is crucial across a range of psychology fields and society as a whole, including psychiatric and neurological illness, eating disor…
A critical role for VEGF and VEGFR2 in NMDA receptor synaptic function and fear-related behavior
2016
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known to be required for the action of antidepressant therapies but its impact on brain synaptic function is poorly characterized. Using a combination of electrophysiological, single-molecule imaging and conditional transgenic approaches, we identified the molecular basis of the VEGF effect on synaptic transmission and plasticity. VEGF increases the postsynaptic responses mediated by the N-methyl-D-aspartate type of glutamate receptors (GluNRs) in hippocampal neurons. This is concurrent with the formation of new synapses and with the synaptic recruitment of GluNR expressing the GluN2B subunit (GluNR-2B). VEGF induces a rapid redistribution of Glu…
A method of desingularization for analytic two-dimensional vector field families
1991
It is well known that isolated singularities of two dimensional analytic vector fields can be desingularized: after a finite number of blowing up operations we obtain a vector field that exhibits only elementary singularities. In the present paper we introduce a similar method to simplify the periodic limit sets of analytic families of vector fields. Although the method is applied here only to reduce to families in which the zero set has codimension at least two, we conjecture that it can be used in general. This is related to the famouss Hibert's problem about planar vector fields.
A second strain gradient elasticity theory with second velocity gradient inertia – Part I: Constitutive equations and quasi-static behavior
2013
Abstract A multi-cell homogenization procedure with four geometrically different groups of cell elements (respectively for the bulk, the boundary surface, the edge lines and the corner points of a body) is envisioned, which is able not only to extract the effective constitutive properties of a material, but also to assess the “surface effects” produced by the boundary surface on the near bulk material. Applied to an unbounded material in combination with the thermodynamics energy balance principles, this procedure leads to an equivalent continuum constitutively characterized by (ordinary, double and triple) generalized stresses and momenta. Also, applying this procedure to a (finite) body s…
Multi-domain Feature of Event-Related Potential Extracted by Nonnegative Tensor Factorization: 5 vs. 14 Electrodes EEG Data
2012
As nonnegative tensor factorization (NTF) is particularly useful for the problem of underdetermined linear transform model, we performed NTF on the EEG data recorded from 14 electrodes to extract the multi-domain feature of N170 which is a visual event-related potential (ERP), as well as 5 typical electrodes in occipital-temporal sites for N170 and in frontal-central sites for vertex positive potential (VPP) which is the counterpart of N170, respectively. We found that the multi-domain feature of N170 from 5 electrodes was very similar to that from 14 electrodes and more discriminative for different groups of participants than that of VPP from 5 electrodes. Hence, we conclude that when the …
15. Functional mapping of monaural auditory brainstem responses
2012
Background and aims: The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a new deep brain stimulation (DBS) target, thought to be particularly for useful in ameliorating gait disturbance in Parkinson’s disease. Recent evidence shows a prominent theta (4–7 Hz) rhythm in the PPN (Tsang et al., Neurology, 2010; Simon et al., J. Neurophysiol., 2010; Shimamoto et al., JNNP, 2010). Given that theta activity is modulated by vestibular signals elsewhere in the brain, e.g. hippocampus, (Shin, Synapse, 2010; Chen et al., Neuroimage, 2010), we assessed whether vestibular signals modulate PPN theta activity. Methods: We recorded local field potentials (LFPs) in three patients with implanted bilateral subthalamic nuc…