EMU

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder which affects 0.5-1% of the world population. Its diagnosis relies both on Electroencephalogram (EEG) findings and characteristic seizure-induced body movements - called seizure semiology. Thus, synchronous EEG and (2D)video recording systems (known as Video-EEG) are the most accurate tools for epilepsy diagnosis. Despite the establishment of several quantitative methods for EEG analysis, seizure semiology is still analyzed by visual inspection, based on epileptologists' subjective interpretation of the movements of interest (MOIs) that occur during recorded seizures. In this contribution, we present NeuroKinect, a low-cost, easy to setup and operate solution for a novel 3Dvideo-EEG system. It is based on a RGB-D sensor (Microsoft Kinect camera) and performs 24/7 monitoring of an Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) bed. It does not require the attachment of any reflectors or sensors to the patient's body and has a very low maintenance lo...

Lífeðlisfræðistofnun læknadeild HÍ. Fyrirspurnir, bréfaskipti: Þór Eysteinsson, Lífeðlisfræðistofnun læknadeild Háskóla Íslands, Vatnsmýrarvegi 16, 101 Reykjavík. Netfang: thoreys@hi.is Lykilorð: sjónhimnurit, keilur, ljósaðlögun, marsvín, kanínur.

The Bird department of the Houston ~ Zoological Gardens received a ·~ newly imported pair of Crowned ll >- Hornbills Tockus alhoterminatus in ~ October 1989. This arboreal species is ~ a resident of southcentral and southeast -§ African riparian, montane, and coastal ct forests. The birds are rather plain in appearance compared to some of the other Tockus hornbill species, however, they have their own appeal. The upperparts, head and neck are a dusky brown, with the feathers of the back of the head and neck shaggy and white-tipped; it is the appearance of this feathering which presumably gives them their common name. The breast is grayish, beneath this the rest of the underparts are snow white and Weighing a chick 27 days of age. Average weight, 200 g. the tail is tipped in white (Fry, Keith, Urban, 1988). The birds can be sexed visually, primarily by their eye color. The iris of the males are red and the females a light yellow. Additionally, the male is a bit larger in overall s...

Tillandsia eizii is an epiphytic bromeliad that due to over-collection, habitat destruction, and physiological constraints has declined to near threatened status. This species exhibits high mortality in the wild, and seed are characterized by low percentages of germination. As a means to conserve this species, in vitro culture protocols were developed to enhance seed germination and seedling growth. A sterilization protocol using 70% ethanol for 2 minutes followed by 2.6% NaOCl for 40 minutes disinfested seed and promoted seedling growth. Sucrose incorporated into the culture medium had no effect on germination or growth, while NAA inhibited growth, but not germination. Cultures maintained under a 16-hour photoperiod at 22 °C exhibited greater growth than those grown at 30 °C. Seed that germinated in the dark remained etiolated and failed to develop even after transfer to light conditions. Plants grown in vitro were successfully acclimatized and transferred to the greenhouse. Over 8...

Business cycle dating, macroeconomic analysis and ex-ante policy prescription based on macroeconomic variables at annual data frequency is inadequate; as high frequency information on the state of the economy, otherwise inherent in quarterly data is averaged out at such low frequency. We use a robust method of disaggregating quarterly series from annual data, such that the aspect and information about the intervening business cycles is preserved. Extracting an orthogonal factor, which encompasses common variation (co-movements) of leading indicators of economic activity at quarterly data frequency, we use seemingly unrelated time series equation (SUTSE) model to disaggregate the annual GDP data into quarterly frequency. Utility of the quarterly GDP estimates is illustrated by (i) determining business cycle dates using a non-parametric Bry-Boschan (1971) algorithm and (ii) estimating the potential GDP and output gap for each of the 11 International Growth Center (IGC) partner countries.

Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and problem-solving. We compared the speed of learning in urban and rural female common mynas, Acridotheres tristis, using a standard visual discrimination task followed by a reversal learning phase. We also examined how quickly each bird progressed through different stages of learning, including sampling and acquisition within both initial and reversal learning, and persistence following reversal. Based on their reliance on very different food resources, we expected urban mynas to learn and reversal learn more quickly but to sample new contingencies for proportionately longer before learning them. When quantified from first presentation to criterion achievement, urban mynas took more 20-trial blocks to learn the initial discrimination, as well as the reversed contingency, than rural mynas. More detailed analyses at the level of stage revealed that this was because urban mynas explored the n...