Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis Surgery on a Patient with Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein Antibody-Associated Disease or Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder.

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOGAD) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) are rare central demyelinating diseases that may affect refractive surgery outcomes. Optic neuritis and brainstem syndromes affecting cranial nerves are particularly relevant to corneal refractive surgery (CRS), such as laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), photorefractive keratectomy, or small incision lenticule extraction. There is currently no existing literature concerning the outcomes of CRS in patients with MOGAD or NMOSD.

Sonic enhancement of virtual exhibits.

Museums have widely embraced virtual exhibits. However, relatively little attention is paid to how sound may create a more engaging experience for audiences. To begin addressing this lacuna, we conducted an online experiment to explore how sound influences the interest level, emotional response, and engagement of individuals who view objects within a virtual exhibit.

Human-centred mechanism design with Democratic AI.

Building artificial intelligence (AI) that aligns with human values is an unsolved problem. Here we developed a human-in-the-loop research pipeline called Democratic AI, in which reinforcement learning is used to design a social mechanism that humans prefer by majority. A large group of humans played an online investment game that involved deciding whether to keep a monetary endowment or to share it with others for collective benefit.

Potential Risks of Corneal Refractive Surgery in Patients with Ectodermal Dysplasia.

Ectodermal dysplasia (ED) involves the aberrant development of at least two ectodermal derivatives, such as skin, teeth, hair, sweat glands, and ocular tissue. The group of over 200 conditions is commonly classified into two major types: hypohidrotic/anhidrotic ED, in which sweat glands are either absent or significantly reduced, and hidrotic ED, in which sweat glands are normal. Ocular manifestations pertinent to patients undergoing corneal vision correction surgery include multifaceted dry eye syndrome, corneal pathology, such as recurrent erosions, scars, neovascularization, and limbal stem cell deficiency, and early-onset cataracts and glaucoma.

A Modification of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Comparing Cost of Telehealth and In-Person Visits.

Cost studies of telehealth (TH) and virtual visits are few and report mixed results of the economic impact of virtual care and TH. Largely missing from the literature are studies that identify the cost of delivering TH versus in-person care. The objective was to demonstrate a modified time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) approach to compare weighted labor cost of an in-person pediatric clinic sick visit before COVID-19 to the same virtual and in-person sick-visit during COVID-19.

On the use of AI for Generation of Functional Music to Improve Mental Health.

Increasingly music has been shown to have both physical and mental health benefits including improvements in cardiovascular health, a link to reduction of cases of dementia in elderly populations, and improvements in markers of general mental well-being such as stress reduction. Here, we describe short case studies addressing general mental well-being (anxiety, stress-reduction) through AI-driven music generation. Engaging in active listening and music-making activities (especially for at risk age groups) can be particularly beneficial, and the practice of music therapy has been shown to be helpful in a range of use cases across a wide age range.

On Performance and Perceived Effort in Trail Runners Using Sensor Control to Generate Biosynchronous Music.

Music has been shown to be capable of improving runners' performance in treadmill and laboratory-based experiments. This paper evaluates a generative music system, namely HEARTBEATS, designed to create biosignal synchronous music in real-time according to an individual athlete's heartrate or cadence (steps per minute). The tempo, melody, and timbral features of the generated music are modulated according to biosensor input from each runner using a combination of PPG (Photoplethysmography) and GPS (Global Positioning System) from a wearable sensor, synchronized via Bluetooth.

Neural and physiological data from participants listening to affective music.

Music provides a means of communicating affective meaning. However, the neurological mechanisms by which music induces affect are not fully understood. Our project sought to investigate this through a series of experiments into how humans react to affective musical stimuli and how physiological and neurological signals recorded from those participants change in accordance with self-reported changes in affect.

Electroencephalography reflects the activity of sub-cortical brain regions during approach-withdrawal behaviour while listening to music.

The ability of music to evoke activity changes in the core brain structures that underlie the experience of emotion suggests that it has the potential to be used in therapies for emotion disorders. A large volume of research has identified a network of sub-cortical brain regions underlying music-induced emotions. Additionally, separate evidence from electroencephalography (EEG) studies suggests that prefrontal asymmetry in the EEG reflects the approach-withdrawal response to music-induced emotion.

Directed Motor-Auditory EEG Connectivity Is Modulated by Music Tempo.

Beat perception is fundamental to how we experience music, and yet the mechanism behind this spontaneous building of the internal beat representation is largely unknown. Existing findings support links between the tempo (speed) of the beat and enhancement of electroencephalogram (EEG) activity at tempo-related frequencies, but there are no studies looking at how tempo may affect the underlying long-range interactions between EEG activity at different electrodes. The present study investigates these long-range interactions using EEG activity recorded from 21 volunteers listening to music stimuli played at 4 different tempi (50, 100, 150 and 200 beats per minute).

Affective brain-computer music interfacing.

Objective: We aim to develop and evaluate an affective brain-computer music interface (aBCMI) for modulating the affective states of its users.

Approach: An aBCMI is constructed to detect a user's current affective state and attempt to modulate it in order to achieve specific objectives (for example, making the user calmer or happier) by playing music which is generated according to a specific affective target by an algorithmic music composition system and a case-based reasoning system. The system is trained and tested in a longitudinal study on a population of eight healthy participants, with each participant returning for multiple sessions.

Music-induced emotions can be predicted from a combination of brain activity and acoustic features.

It is widely acknowledged that music can communicate and induce a wide range of emotions in the listener. However, music is a highly-complex audio signal composed of a wide range of complex time- and frequency-varying components. Additionally, music-induced emotions are known to differ greatly between listeners.

Changes in music tempo entrain movement related brain activity.

The neural mechanisms of music listening and appreciation are not yet completely understood. Based on the apparent relationship between the beats per minute (tempo) of music and the desire to move (for example feet tapping) induced while listening to that music it is hypothesised that musical tempo may evoke movement related activity in the brain. Participants are instructed to listen, without moving, to a large range of musical pieces spanning a range of styles and tempos during an electroencephalogram (EEG) experiment.

Automated identification of neural correlates of continuous variables.

Background: The electroencephalogram (EEG) may be described by a large number of different feature types and automated feature selection methods are needed in order to reliably identify features which correlate with continuous independent variables.

New Method: A method is presented for the automated identification of features that differentiate two or more groups in neurological datasets based upon a spectral decomposition of the feature set. Furthermore, the method is able to identify features that relate to continuous independent variables.

Neural correlates of emotional responses to music: an EEG study.

This paper presents an EEG study into the neural correlates of music-induced emotions. We presented participants with a large dataset containing musical pieces in different styles, and asked them to report on their induced emotional responses. We found neural correlates of music-induced emotion in a number of frequencies over the pre-frontal cortex.

Successful management of a large air embolus during an extended right hepatectomy with an emergency cardiopulmonary bypass.

Background: An air embolus is a recognized but rare complication of a partial hepatectomy. The aim of this report was to describe the diagnosis and management of a large paradoxical air embolus during hepatic resection.

Methods: Case report.