Effects of Interactive Music Tempo with Heart Rate Feedback on Physio-Psychological Responses of Basketball Players.

This paper introduces an interactive music tempo control with closed-loop heart rate feedback to yield a sportsperson with better physio-psychological states. A total of 23 participants (13 men, 10 women; 16−32 years, mean = 20.04 years) who are professionals or school team members further guide a sportsperson to amend their physical tempo to harmonize their psychological and physical states. The self-tuning mechanism between the surroundings and the human can be amplified using interactive music tempo control. The experiments showed that listening to interactive music had a significant effect on the heart rate and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) of the basketball player compared to those listening to asynchronous music or no music during exercise (p < 0.01). Synchronized interactive music allows athletes to increase their heart rate and decrease RPE during exercise and does not require a multitude of preplanned playlists. All self-selected songs can be converted into sports-oriented music using algorithms. The algorithms of synchronous and asynchronous modes in this study can be adjusted and applied to other sports fields or recovery after exercise. In the future, other musical parameters should be adjusted in real-time based on physiological signals, such as tonality, beats, chords, and orchestration.

Development of Single-Channel Hybrid BCI System Using Motor Imagery and SSVEP.

Numerous EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems that are being developed focus on novel feature extraction algorithms, classification methods and combining existing approaches to create hybrid BCIs. Several recent studies demonstrated various advantages of hybrid BCI systems in terms of an improved accuracy or number of commands available for the user. But still, BCI systems are far from realization for daily use. Having high performance with less number of channels is one of the challenging issues that persists, especially with hybrid BCI systems, where multiple channels are necessary to record information from two or more EEG signal components. Therefore, this work proposes a single-channel (C3 or C4) hybrid BCI system that combines motor imagery (MI) and steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) approaches. This study demonstrates that besides MI features, SSVEP features can also be captured from C3 or C4 channel. The results show that due to rich feature information (MI and SSVEP) at these channels, the proposed hybrid BCI system outperforms both MI- and SSVEP-based systems having an average classification accuracy of 85.6 ± 7.7% in a two-class task.

The privatization effect of MSW incineration services by using data envelopment analysis.

This paper attempts to compare the relative efficiency across MSW incineration facilities under the three operating modes including government-owned government-operated (GOO), government-owned private-operated (GOPO), and private-owned private-operated (POPO) by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and to examine the factor in affecting the efficiency variation. The results show that technical efficiency scores are 0.7538, 0.9046 and 0.9917 for GOO, GOPO and POPO, respectively. An ANOVA is conducted and the analysis result confirms that the operating mode has significant impact on technical efficiencies. A further examination on the operating contracts signed between governments and operating firms of GOPO facilities finds that both the price protection and quantity protection also play vital roles in affecting efficiencies.

Fishery policy when considering the future opportunity of harvesting.

Free access to a common pool of resource in a country may lead to over-exploitation and sacrifice future opportunities of harvesting. As such, the protection of a common fishery resource is worth investigating. In this paper we develop a two-period model and a multi-period model to analyze the optimal inter-temporal utilization of a finite resource of stock and propose to impose a tax on the harvest rate as an efficient mechanism with an aim at economic sustainability by incorporating the future opportunity of harvesting into the models as a major component of social objectives. The sensitivity analysis of the two-period model shows that (1) labor inputs for harvesting in Period 1 should be reduced, the biomass of fishery stock will increase, but the harvesting in Period 2 should be amplified and the biomass of fishery stock in Period 2 will not be affected if the current generation owns a higher valuation on the future opportunity of harvesting; (2) a higher internal regeneration rate leads to higher harvesting in each period and a higher level of fishery stock in Period 1, but an uncertain level of fishery stock in Period 2; (3) with a higher discount rate the harvesting in Period 1 should increase, but the harvesting in Period 2 should fall and the level of fishery stock in each period will be reduced; (4) a higher fish price in Period 1 leads to higher harvesting in Period 1, but reduced harvesting in Period 2. As a consequence, the level of fishery stock in each period will be reduced; (5) the effect of a change in fish prices in Period 2 on the harvesting and the level of fishery stock in Period 1 is uncertain, but the change in fish prices in Period 2 gives a positive effect on harvesting in Period 2 and a negative effect on the level of fishery stock in Period 2; (6) higher labor wages in Period 1 lead to lower harvesting, but a higher level of fishery stock in Period 1. This encourages an increase in harvesting in Period 2 and leads to a higher level of fishery stock in Period 2; and (7) a change of the labor wage in Period 2 affects the harvesting and the level of fishery stock in Period 1 indecisively, but it gives negative effects on the harvesting in Period 2 and positive effects on the level of fishery stock in Period 2.

Liquid-liquid-liquid microextraction with automated movement of the acceptor and the donor phase for the extraction of phenoxyacetic acids prior to liquid chromatography detection.

A simple liquid-liquid-liquid microextraction with automated movement of the acceptor and the donor phase (LLLME/AMADP) technique is described for the quantitative determination of five phenoxyacetic acids in water using a disposable and ready to use hollow fiber. The target compounds were extracted from the acidified sample solution (donor phase) into the organic solvent residing in the pores of the hollow fiber and then back extracted into the alkaline solution (acceptor phase) inside the lumen of the hollow fiber. The fiber was held by a conventional 10-microl syringe. The acceptor phase was sandwiched between the plunger and a small volume of the organic solvent (microcap). The acceptor solution was repeatedly moved in and out of the hollow fiber assisted by a programmable syringe pump. This repeated movement provides a fresh acceptor phase to come in-contact with the organic phase and thus enhancing extraction kinetics leading to high enrichment of the analytes. The microcap separates the aqueous acceptor phase and the donor phase in addition of being partially responsible for mass transfer of the analytes from donor solution (moving in and out of the hollow fiber from the open end of the fiber) to the acceptor solution. Separation and quantitative analyses were then performed using liquid chromatography (LC) with ultraviolet (UV) detection at 280 nm. Various parameters affecting the extraction efficiency viz. type of organic solvent used for immobilization in the pores of the hollow fiber, extraction time, stirring speed, effect of sodium chloride, and concentration of donor and acceptor phases were studied. Repeatability (RSD, 3.2-7.4%), correlation coefficient (0.996-0.999), detection limit (0.2-2.8 ng ml(-1)) and enrichment factors (129-240) were also investigated. Relative recovery (87-101%) and absolute recoveries (4.6-13%) have also been calculated. The developed method was applied for the analysis of river water.

Development of a framework for sustainable uses of resources: more paper and less plastics?

Taiwan's EPA has implemented a new guideline called the "Plastic Products Restriction Policy", prohibiting some industries to use plastics as packaging materials for the sake of sustainable use of resources. The significant effect resulting from this policy is the substitution of plastic products with paper products. Is this policy beneficial to achieve future sustainability? I attempt to analyze the resource choice between renewable resources and exhaustible resources for production of final products and services in case of exhaustion of natural resources. In this paper, I develop a framework to examine the dynamic responsiveness of a socio-economical system in facing a continual depletion of natural resources provided by an environmental system. In this framework, the status of an environmental system in terms of carrying capacity is affected by the cumulative impacts caused from human activities, including environmental pollution and resource exploitation. Conversely, it also affects the growth of renewable resources. This framework can serve as a guideline to construct indicators to measure the status of the environmental system and the socio-economical system in order to support a policy planner that formulates an appropriate environmental policy. Based on this framework, I also develop a mathematical model to determine the optimal ratio of resources choice between renewable resources and exhaustible resources.