Competition, Conflict and Change of Mind: A Role of GABAergic Inhibition in the Primary Motor Cortex

Deciding between different voluntary movements implies a continuous control of the competition between potential actions. Many theories postulate a leading role of prefrontal cortices in this executive function, but strong evidence exists that a motor region like the primary motor cortex (M1) is also involved, possibly via inhibitory mechanisms. This was already shown during the pre-movement decision period, but not after movement onset. For this pilot experiment we designed a new task compatible with the dynamics of post-onset control to study the silent period (SP) duration, a pause in electromyographic activity after single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation that reflects inhibitory mechanisms. A careful analysis of the SP during the ongoing movement indicates a gradual increase in inhibitory mechanisms with the level of competition, consistent with an increase in mutual inhibition between alternative movement options. However, we also observed a decreased SP duration for high-competition trials associated with change-of-mind inflections in their trajectories. Our results suggest a new post-onset adaptive process that consists in a transient reduction of GABAergic inhibition within M1 for highly conflicting situations. We propose that this reduced inhibition softens the competition between concurrent motor options, thereby favoring response vacillation, an adaptive strategy that proved successful at improving behavioral performance.

A Finite-Time Speed and Direction Control for Four-Wheel Drive System

With the rapid use of the Four-Wheel Drive System (FWDS) worldwide, the necessity of having an adequate control system to control speed and direction in FWDS is extremely required. For this purpose, several control schemes are available in the literature to control the speed and direction in FWDS which should be fast convergence of the control, continuous control performance, and solving external disturbances. In latest years, finite-time controllers (FTC) have gained more consideration from many researchers in the control area, who have expressed applications in several procedures and systems. This research provides a major review of the FTC approaches via both input and output feedbacks for controlling FWDS.

Extracting Function-Driven Tracing Characteristics for Optimized SVM Classification

Due to its openness and simplicity, Modbus TCP has wide applications to facilitate the actual management and control in industrial wireless fields. However, its potential security vulnerabilities can also create lots of complicated information security challenges, which are increasingly threatening the availability of industrial real-time traffic delivery. Although anomaly detection has been recognized as a workable security measure to identify attacks, the critical step to successfully extract data characteristics is an extremely difficult task. In this paper, we focus on the continuous control mode in industrial processes and propose a control tracing feature algorithm to extract the function-driven tracing characteristics from Modbus TCP data traffic. Furthermore, this algorithm can flexibly integrate the time factor with critical functional operations and adequately describe the dynamic control change of technological processes. To closely cooperate with this algorithm, one optimized SVM (support vector machine) classifier is introduced as the practicable decision engine. By designing one applicable attack mode, we develop an in-depth and meticulous analysis on the decision accuracy, and all experimental results clearly explain that the extracted features can strongly reflect the changing pattern of continuous functional operations, and the proposed algorithm can effectively cooperate with the optimized SVM classifier to distinguish abnormal Modbus TCP data traffic.

Eyes-Free Tongue Gesture and Tongue Joystick Control of a Five DOF Upper-Limb Exoskeleton for Severely Disabled Individuals

Spinal cord injury can leave the affected individual severely disabled with a low level of independence and quality of life. Assistive upper-limb exoskeletons are one of the solutions that can enable an individual with tetraplegia (paralysis in both arms and legs) to perform simple activities of daily living by mobilizing the arm. Providing an efficient user interface that can provide full continuous control of such a device—safely and intuitively—with multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs) still remains a challenge. In this study, a control interface for an assistive upper-limb exoskeleton with five DOFs based on an intraoral tongue-computer interface (ITCI) for individuals with tetraplegia was proposed. Furthermore, we evaluated eyes-free use of the ITCI for the first time and compared two tongue-operated control methods, one based on tongue gestures and the other based on dynamic virtual buttons and a joystick-like control. Ten able-bodied participants tongue controlled the exoskeleton for a drinking task with and without visual feedback on a screen in three experimental sessions. As a baseline, the participants performed the drinking task with a standard gamepad. The results showed that it was possible to control the exoskeleton with the tongue even without visual feedback and to perform the drinking task at 65.1% of the speed of the gamepad. In a clinical case study, an individual with tetraplegia further succeeded to fully control the exoskeleton and perform the drinking task only 5.6% slower than the able-bodied group. This study demonstrated the first single-modal control interface that can enable individuals with complete tetraplegia to fully and continuously control a five-DOF upper limb exoskeleton and perform a drinking task after only 2 h of training. The interface was used both with and without visual feedback.

Analysis of a High-Dimensional Mathematical Model for Plant Virus Transmission with Continuous and Impulsive Roguing Control

Roguing and replanting are the most common strategies to control plant diseases and pests. How to build the mathematical models of plant virus transmission and consider the impact of roguing and replanting strategies on plant virus eradication is of great practical significance. In the present paper, we propose the mathematical models for plant virus transmission with continuous and impulsive roguing control. For the model with continuous control strategies, the threshold values for the existences and stabilities of multiple equilibria have been given, and the effect of roguing strategies on the threshold values is also addressed. Furthermore, the model with impulsive roguing control tactics is proposed, and the existence and stability of the plant-only and disease-free periodic solutions of the model are investigated by calculating several threshold values. Moreover, when selecting the design control strategy to minimize the threshold, we systematically analyze the existence of the optimal times of roguing infected plants within a replanting cycle, which is of great significance to the design and optimization of the prevention and control strategy of plant virus transmission. Finally, numerical investigations are given to reveal the main conclusions, and the biological implications of the main results are briefly discussed in the last section.

Wheel drive with integrated differential

The performance indicators of wheeled arable machine-tractor units, which are accelerated on the working gear, depend on the operating modes of the wheels during this period. When the wheel is skidding, soil lumps break down in the contact spot, the soil structure is destroyed. Based on the system analysis of the wheels operation, the method of their improvement is justified by continuous control of the eccentric point of application of the driving torque and external load. As a result of the analysis for the first time, a soil-sparing wheel mover with the properties of a differential, a tangential force regulator and clearance regulator was developed. In the case of an eccentric application of a vertical load and a longitudinal pushing force, one of the satellites of the wheeled planetary gearbox is the leading and bearing one. The purpose of the article is to analyze the factors influencing the automatic adaptation of the wheel drive to changing operating conditions. It is established the relationship between the driving moment and the rolling resistance moment, the moments of inertia of the wheel and the drive gear of the integrated differential.

Analysis and Assessment of Controllability of an Expressive Deep Learning-Based TTS System

In this paper, we study the controllability of an Expressive TTS system trained on a dataset for a continuous control. The dataset is the Blizzard 2013 dataset based on audiobooks read by a female speaker containing a great variability in styles and expressiveness. Controllability is evaluated with both an objective and a subjective experiment. The objective assessment is based on a measure of correlation between acoustic features and the dimensions of the latent space representing expressiveness. The subjective assessment is based on a perceptual experiment in which users are shown an interface for Controllable Expressive TTS and asked to retrieve a synthetic utterance whose expressiveness subjectively corresponds to that a reference utterance.

POTENTIOMETRIC STUDY OF KINETICS AND MECHANISM FORMATION OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES STABILIZED BY SYNTHETIC FULVATES

Silver nanoparticles are actively studied due to their unique properties and wide use in various fields. In this study, silver nanoparticles were obtained by reacting Ag+ ions with synthetic fulvic acids derived from quercetin. Synthetic fulvic acids perform a dual function: a reducer of silver ions and a stabilizer of the formed nanoparticles The presence of silver nanoparticles in the solution is confirmed by the presence of a maximum in the absorption spectrum at 400 nm, which is due to the phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance. The parameters of the crystal lattice were established using the X‑ray diffraction method. The average nanoparticle size calculated by the Scherrer formula is 28 nm. The kinetics and mechanism formation of silver nanoparticles were studied by potentiometry, which allows direct and continuous control of the consumption of silver ions in the synthesis process. It is established that the mechanism of the process depends on the pH of the medium. In particular, at high pH values of the reaction medium there is a heterogeneous mechanism, while at low – homogeneous. The heterogeneous mechanism of formation of silver nanoparticles is characterized by the presence of three stages, in particular: 1) formation of Ag2O microparticles after mixing reagents, 2) reduction of Ag+ ions by synthetic fulvic acids from quercetin on the surface of formed Ag2O microparticles, which are heterogeneous nucleation centers. 3) reduction of Ag+ ions from solution on the surface of silver nanoparticles after complete dissolution of Ag2O microparticles (this process is described by first-order kinetics by Ag+). Activation parameters for different stages of silver nanoparticle formation using quercetin fulvic acids were calculated. A potentiometric study of the influence of the degree of aeration of the medium on the kinetics of changes in the pAg system was performed.