No Arabic abstract
Human Augmentation (HA) spans several technical fields and methodological approaches, including Experimental Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychophysiology, and Artificial Intelligence. Augmentation involves various strategies for optimizing and controlling cognitive states, which requires an understanding of biological plasticity, dynamic cognitive processes, and models of adaptive systems. As an instructive lesson, we will explore a few HA-related concepts and outstanding issues. Next, we focus on inducing and controlling HA using experimental methods by introducing three techniques for HA implementation: learning augmentation, augmentation using physical media, and extended phenotype modeling. To conclude, we will review integrative approaches to augmentation, which transcend specific functions.
What happen in the brain when human beings play games with computers? Here a simple zero-sum game was conducted to investigate how people make decision via their brain even they know that their opponent is a computer. There are two choices (a low or high number) for people and also two strategies for the computer (red color or green color). When the number selected by the human subject meet the red color, the person loses the score which is equal to the number. On the contrary, the person gains the number of score if the computer chooses a green color for the number selected by the human being. Both the human subject and the computer give their choice at the same time, and subjects have been told that the computer make its decision randomly on the red color or green color. During the experiments, the signal of electroencephalograph (EEG) obtained from brain of subjects was recorded. From the analysis of EEG, we find that people mind the loss more than the gain, and the phenomenon becoming obvious when the gap between loss and gain grows. In addition, the signal of EEG is clearly distinguishable before making different decisions. It is observed that significant negative waves in the entire brain region when the participant has a greater expectation for the outcome, and these negative waves are mainly concentrated in the forebrain region in the brain of human beings.
Simple memorizing tasks have been chosen such as a binary code on a matrix. After the establishment of an appropriate protocol, the codified matrices were individually presented to 150 university students who had to memorize them. A computer simulation for a similar task is available which uses a perceptron on which an algorithm was implemented allowing for some degree of globality (technically referred to as entropic nonextensivity within a current generalization of the usual, Boltzmann-Gibbs, statistical mechanics). Our main observation is that, for the very specific learning task on which we focus here, humans perform similarly to slightly nonextensive perceptrons.
We evaluated the cognitive status of visually impaired patients referred to low vision rehabilitation (LVR) based on a standard cognitive battery and a new evaluation tool, named the COGEVIS, which can be used to assess patients with severe visual deficits. We studied patients aged 60 and above, referred to the LVR Hospital in Paris. Neurological and cognitive evaluations were performed in an expert memory center. Thirty-eight individuals, 17 women and 21 men with a mean age of 70.3 $pm$ 1.3 years and a mean visual acuity of 0.12 $pm$ 0.02, were recruited over a one-year period. Sixty-three percent of participants had normal cognitive status. Cognitive impairment was diagnosed in 37.5% of participants. The COGEVIS score cutoff point to screen for cognitive impairment was 24 (maximum score of 30) with a sensitivity of 66.7% and a specificity of 95%. Evaluation following 4 months of visual rehabilitation showed an improvement of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (p = 0 004), National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire (p = 0 035), and Montgomery-{AA}sberg Depression Rating Scale (p = 0 037). This study introduces a new short test to screen for cognitive impairment in visually impaired patients.
The biomolecules in and around a living cell -- proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates -- continuously sample myriad conformational states that are thermally accessible at physiological temperatures. Simultaneously, a given biomolecule also samples (and is sampled by) a rapidly fluctuating local environment comprised of other biopolymers, small molecules, water, ions, etc. that diffuse to within a few nanometers, leading to inter-molecular contacts that stitch together large supramolecular assemblies. Indeed, all biological systems can be viewed as dynamic networks of molecular interactions. As a complement to experimentation, molecular simulation offers a uniquely powerful approach to analyze biomolecular structure, mechanism, and dynamics; this is possible because the molecular contacts that define a complicated biomolecular system are governed by the same physical principles (forces, energetics) that characterize individual small molecules, and these simpler systems are relatively well-understood. With modern algorithms and computing capabilities, simulations are now an indispensable tool for examining biomolecular assemblies in atomic detail, from the conformational motion in an individual protein to the diffusional dynamics and inter-molecular collisions in the early stages of formation of cellular-scale assemblies such as the ribosome. This text introduces the physicochemical foundations of molecular simulations and docking, largely from the perspective of biomolecular interactions.
The CamCAN Lifespan Neuroimaging Dataset, Cambridge (UK) Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, was acquired and processed beginning in December, 2016. The referee consensus solver deployed to the Open Science Grid was used for this task. The dataset includes demographic and screening measures, a high-resolution MRI scan of the brain, and whole-head magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings during eyes closed rest (560 sec), a simple task (540 sec), and passive listening/viewing (140 sec). The data were collected from 619 neurologically normal individuals, ages 18-87. The processed results from the resting recordings are completed and available online. These constitute 1.7 TBytes of data including the location within the brain (1 mm resolution), time stamp (1 msec resolution), and 80 msec time course for each of 3.7 billion validated neuroelectric events, i.e. mean 6.1 million events for each of the 619 participants. The referee consensus solver provides high yield (mean 11,000 neuroelectric currents/sec; standard deviation (sd): 3500/sec) high confidence (p < 10-12 for each identified current) measures of the neuroelectric currents whose magnetic fields are detected in the MEG recordings. We describe the solver, the implementation of the solver deployed on the Open Science Grid, the workflow management system, the opportunistic use of high performance computing (HPC) resources to add computing capacity to the Open Science Grid reserved for this project, and our initial findings from the recently completed processing of the resting recordings. This required 14 million core hours, i.e. 40 core hours per second of data.