Trung Ngo - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Trung Ngo
2014 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence, Nov 1, 2014
A bio-inspired mechanism to optimize infor- mation foraging in modular robotics is presented. In ... more A bio-inspired mechanism to optimize infor- mation foraging in modular robotics is presented. In this context, information exchange between robotic modules are performed through intercommunication of neighbour- ing robotic modules with limited hardware resources. In- spired from real ant colony research, we propose vir- tual pheromone as a metric for parameters selection to improve communication quality in modular robotic sys- tems. Experiment results on real robotic platforms illus- trate properties of proposed method.
Jcca Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association Journal De L Association Chiropratique Canadienne, Jun 1, 2013
Objective:Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant c... more Objective:Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of morbidity if undiagnosed and untreated. The following is a case of a young male patient presenting with low back pain and radicular symptoms caused by myxopapillary ependymoma.Clinical Features:A nineteen year old male presented to an orthopaedic surgeon with a long history of back pain. He was initially diagnosed with soft tissue injuries and discharged. He began to experience erectile and bowel dysfunction two years later and was re-referred to the orthopaedic surgeon by his family physician but was lost to follow-up. The patient did not present to the surgeon until two years after his symptom profile changed. At that point, MRI examinations revealed a large myxopapillary ependymoma extending from T12 to L4 that was confirmed by a pathologist.Intervention and Outcome:The tumour was surgically resected with subsequent adjuvant radiotherapy. After one year, the patient required continued catheterization and had poor anal tone. His back and leg complaints were almost normal. Follow-up MRI examinations revealed no disease progression or new spinal lesions at 4 years after the initial diagnosis.Conclusion:The clinical presentation of primary spinal cord tumours is non-specific and can easily be missed. In cases of chronic back pain, signs and symptoms should be regularly monitored for changes indicative of progressive neurological compromise such as sensory, motor and bowel/bladder dysfunction. If there is deterioration of clinical signs and symptoms, a spinal tumour should be considered in the list of differential diagnoses. Delayed diagnosis and treatment of these rare causes of back pain could lead to poor outcomes; therefore, a referral to a surgeon should be done immediately with proper follow up to ensure continuity of care.
5th Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology (BICET 2014), 2014
EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2014
We consider the problem of route selection and optimization for a mobile sensor network, which in... more We consider the problem of route selection and optimization for a mobile sensor network, which involves two nodes transferring information over a large area using a number of intermediate routers in the presence of noise, path loss, multipath fading, and interference. The communication-and position-aware reconfigurable (COMPARE) route optimization framework is proposed to improve the end-to-end throughput of the routes in the realistic communication environment. Initially, a communication-aware route selection strategy selects the optimal route by integrating the routing decisions with the link quality. The quality of the wireless link is characterized by the reception probability, i.e., the probability of successfully receiving packets over a realistic communication link. The selected route is reconfigured by exploiting the multipath fading, position information, and the mobility of the nodes during the phase of position-aware optimization. The optimal position for a router is heuristically found using a priori information about fading channels and the positions of transmitting and interfering nodes. The router is guided to the optimal position using the feedback mobility control, and only the route selected by the COMPARE framework is used for data transmission between the source and destination node. We illustrate through simulations that the proposed framework provides routes with considerably better performance than conventional route selection metrics, in terms of the end-to-end throughput.
This paper describes a solution to the T-joint problem in matching 2D fragments of an object. Mat... more This paper describes a solution to the T-joint problem in matching 2D fragments of an object. Matching fragments of an object is useful for solving puzzles or reassembling archaeological fragments. Many factors, such as the number of pieces and the complex shapes of pieces make this a difficult problem. Various approaches to this problem exist. This paper presents an approach
The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 2013
Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of mo... more Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of morbidity if undiagnosed and untreated. The following is a case of a young male patient presenting with low back pain and radicular symptoms caused by myxopapillary ependymoma. A nineteen year old male presented to an orthopaedic surgeon with a long history of back pain. He was initially diagnosed with soft tissue injuries and discharged. He began to experience erectile and bowel dysfunction two years later and was re-referred to the orthopaedic surgeon by his family physician but was lost to follow-up. The patient did not present to the surgeon until two years after his symptom profile changed. At that point, MRI examinations revealed a large myxopapillary ependymoma extending from T12 to L4 that was confirmed by a pathologist. The tumour was surgically resected with subsequent adjuvant radiotherapy. After one year, the patient required continued catheterization and had poor anal tone. Hi...
Psychological Medicine, 2003
Background. The rate of binocular rivalry has been reported to be slower in subjects with bipolar... more Background. The rate of binocular rivalry has been reported to be slower in subjects with bipolar disorder than in controls when tested with drifting, vertical and horizontal gratings of high spatial frequency.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010
Binocular rivalry occurs when conflicting images are presented in corresponding locations of the ... more Binocular rivalry occurs when conflicting images are presented in corresponding locations of the two eyes. Perception alternates between the images at a rate that is relatively stable within individuals but that varies widely between individuals. The determinants of this variation are unknown. In addition, slow binocular rivalry has been demonstrated in bipolar disorder, a psychiatric condition with high heritability. The present study therefore examined whether there is a genetic contribution to individual variation in binocular rivalry rate. We employed the twin method and studied both monozygotic (MZ) twins (n = 128 pairs) who are genetically identical, and dizygotic (DZ) twins (n = 220 pairs) who share roughly half their genes. MZ and DZ twin correlations for binocular rivalry rate were 0.51 and 0.19, respectively. The bestfitting genetic model showed 52% of the variance in binocular rivalry rate was accounted for by additive genetic factors. In contrast, nonshared environmental influences accounted for 18% of the variance, with the remainder attributed to measurement error. This study therefore demonstrates a substantial genetic contribution to individual variation in binocular rivalry rate. The results support the vigorous pursuit of genetic and molecular studies of binocular rivalry and further characterization of slow binocular rivalry as an endophenotype for bipolar disorder.
Neuroethics, 2013
Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferen... more Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral-and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decisionmaking. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour.
Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2009
RESULTS: 39 consecutive patients with 59 bone metastases were included. There were no major compl... more RESULTS: 39 consecutive patients with 59 bone metastases were included. There were no major complications but transient nerve injury in one patient (2.5%). The mean maximumdiameter of bone metastasis was 4.7Ϯ2.3cm (range, 1.0-12.0cm). Pain relief was achieved in all but one patient with painful bone metastases (96%, 27/ 28). The 1-, 2-and 3-year survival rates were 36.5%, 22.5%, and 7.9%, respectively, with a median survival time (MST) of 7.5 months. A stepwise cox-proportional hazard model showed bone lesion number (pϽ0.02; hazard ratio, 3.0, 95% CI, 1.3-7.2), control of intrahepatic lesions (pϽ0.0001; hazard ratio, 11.5, 95% CI, 3.6-36.4), and alpha-fetoprotein levels (pϽ0.001; hazard ratio, 6.8, 95% CI, 2.4-20.0) were significantly independent prognostic factors. The 3-year survival rates and the MST were 18.5 % and 17 months in 16 patients with single bone metastasis, 22 % and 25 months in 17 patients with controlled intrahepatic lesions, and 20% and 17.5 months in 16 patients with negative alpha-fetoprotein levels, respectively.
Journal of Power Sources, 2013
ABSTRACT Many researchers have studied the influence on fuel cell (FC) performance of the dielect... more ABSTRACT Many researchers have studied the influence on fuel cell (FC) performance of the dielectric constants (ε values) of the dispersion solvents of catalyst ink solutions in the fabrication of Nafion-based gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs). They have reported that Nafion forms colloidal particles in dispersion solvents possessing ε = 3–10, making these solvents suitable for fabricating GDEs with excellent FC performance. In this paper, we study the dependence of both the Nafion ionomer morphology in the catalyst layers and the FC performance of the GDEs on ε and the solubility parameter δ of the alcohol (i.e., methanol and isopropyl alcohol)/water dispersion mixture. The dispersion solvents of the catalyst ink solutions contain 20–100 wt.% alcohol with 23.4 > δ > 11.3 and 78.4 > ε > 19.9. By plotting the FC performance against the ε and δ values of the alcohol/water dispersion solvent mixture, we demonstrate that the FC performance increases with increasing ε and δ values of the catalyst ink dispersion solvents. ε and δ are determined to be better parameters than the compositions of the solvent mixtures for describing GDE performance.
Der Internist, 2005
ler III. Me di zi ni sche Kli nik, Uni ver si täts kli ni kum Groß ha dern der LMU Mün chen 29-jä... more ler III. Me di zi ni sche Kli nik, Uni ver si täts kli ni kum Groß ha dern der LMU Mün chen 29-jäh ri ge Pa ti en tin mit Pneu mo nie und gro ßen ab do mi nel len Lymph kno ten In ter nist 2005 · 46:917-922
Current Biology, 2000
in E2 binding [17]. The equivalent position typically contains an aromatic or hydrophobic residue... more in E2 binding [17]. The equivalent position typically contains an aromatic or hydrophobic residue in the RING fingers and particularly in the U box, where it is almost invariably aromatic ). The structural models show that this aromatic residue in the RING fingers and in the U-box domain is exposed ( ) and could directly contribute to E2-ubiquitin binding via hydrophobic or aromatic stacking interactions. Thus, the RING finger and the U box in E4 proteins are likely to activate ubiquitination and multi-ubiquitination, respectively, in a similar fashion, namely by facilitating the interaction between E2 proteins and their substrates.
Brain Research Reviews, 2007
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) are safe ... more Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) are safe methods for selectively modulating cortical excitability and activation, respectively, which have recently received increased interest regarding possible clinical applications. tDCS involves the application of low currents to the scalp via cathodal and anodal electrodes and has been shown to affect a range of motor, somatosensory, visual, affective and cognitive functions. Therapeutic effects have been demonstrated in clinical trials of tDCS for a variety of conditions including tinnitus, post-stroke motor deficits, fibromyalgia, depression, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
Brain Research Bulletin, 2008
Functional brain-imaging studies of house-face binocular rivalry and Rubin's vase-faces illusion ... more Functional brain-imaging studies of house-face binocular rivalry and Rubin's vase-faces illusion have consistently reported face perceptiondependent activity in the right fusiform gyrus. Here we use Rubin's illusion and report that activation of the left hemisphere by caloric vestibular stimulation increases the predominance of the faces percept in a substantial number of test subjects. While partially supporting the brain-imaging lateralization reports, our findings also challenge these studies by suggesting that neural mechanisms of Rubin's illusion cannot be limited to extrastriate perception-dependent processing. In accordance with our previously proposed interhemispheric switch model, the present findings support the notion that perceptual rivalry engages high-level cortical structures that mediate unihemispheric attentional selection.
Using complex knowledge of reconfigurable modular robotic systems, we have approached the light o... more Using complex knowledge of reconfigurable modular robotic systems, we have approached the light of context-aware systems in pervasive computing environment by using intelligent building blocks (I- BLOCKS) (1) as modules in the system. This paper describes early scientific researches related to technical design, applicable experiments and evaluation of experimental developments of I-BLOCKS allowing users easily and fast to develop modular
Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 2007
Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clin... more Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy Miller SM, Ngo TT. Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy.
Human perception, and consequently behavior, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case... more Human perception, and consequently behavior, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case of rivalry, where attention alternates between competing percepts, such dynamics can be measured and their determinants investigated. A recent study in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, now shows that the origins of attentional rivalry may be quite ancient. Furthermore, individual variation exists in the rate of attentional rivalry in both humans and flies, and in humans this is under substantial genetic influence. In the pathophysiological realm, slowing of rivalry rate is associated with the heritable psychiatric condition, bipolar disorder. Fly rivalry may therefore prove a powerful model to examine genetic and molecular influences on rivalry rate, and may even shed light on human cognitive and behavioral dysfunction.
2014 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence, Nov 1, 2014
A bio-inspired mechanism to optimize infor- mation foraging in modular robotics is presented. In ... more A bio-inspired mechanism to optimize infor- mation foraging in modular robotics is presented. In this context, information exchange between robotic modules are performed through intercommunication of neighbour- ing robotic modules with limited hardware resources. In- spired from real ant colony research, we propose vir- tual pheromone as a metric for parameters selection to improve communication quality in modular robotic sys- tems. Experiment results on real robotic platforms illus- trate properties of proposed method.
Jcca Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association Journal De L Association Chiropratique Canadienne, Jun 1, 2013
Objective:Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant c... more Objective:Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of morbidity if undiagnosed and untreated. The following is a case of a young male patient presenting with low back pain and radicular symptoms caused by myxopapillary ependymoma.Clinical Features:A nineteen year old male presented to an orthopaedic surgeon with a long history of back pain. He was initially diagnosed with soft tissue injuries and discharged. He began to experience erectile and bowel dysfunction two years later and was re-referred to the orthopaedic surgeon by his family physician but was lost to follow-up. The patient did not present to the surgeon until two years after his symptom profile changed. At that point, MRI examinations revealed a large myxopapillary ependymoma extending from T12 to L4 that was confirmed by a pathologist.Intervention and Outcome:The tumour was surgically resected with subsequent adjuvant radiotherapy. After one year, the patient required continued catheterization and had poor anal tone. His back and leg complaints were almost normal. Follow-up MRI examinations revealed no disease progression or new spinal lesions at 4 years after the initial diagnosis.Conclusion:The clinical presentation of primary spinal cord tumours is non-specific and can easily be missed. In cases of chronic back pain, signs and symptoms should be regularly monitored for changes indicative of progressive neurological compromise such as sensory, motor and bowel/bladder dysfunction. If there is deterioration of clinical signs and symptoms, a spinal tumour should be considered in the list of differential diagnoses. Delayed diagnosis and treatment of these rare causes of back pain could lead to poor outcomes; therefore, a referral to a surgeon should be done immediately with proper follow up to ensure continuity of care.
5th Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology (BICET 2014), 2014
EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2014
We consider the problem of route selection and optimization for a mobile sensor network, which in... more We consider the problem of route selection and optimization for a mobile sensor network, which involves two nodes transferring information over a large area using a number of intermediate routers in the presence of noise, path loss, multipath fading, and interference. The communication-and position-aware reconfigurable (COMPARE) route optimization framework is proposed to improve the end-to-end throughput of the routes in the realistic communication environment. Initially, a communication-aware route selection strategy selects the optimal route by integrating the routing decisions with the link quality. The quality of the wireless link is characterized by the reception probability, i.e., the probability of successfully receiving packets over a realistic communication link. The selected route is reconfigured by exploiting the multipath fading, position information, and the mobility of the nodes during the phase of position-aware optimization. The optimal position for a router is heuristically found using a priori information about fading channels and the positions of transmitting and interfering nodes. The router is guided to the optimal position using the feedback mobility control, and only the route selected by the COMPARE framework is used for data transmission between the source and destination node. We illustrate through simulations that the proposed framework provides routes with considerably better performance than conventional route selection metrics, in terms of the end-to-end throughput.
This paper describes a solution to the T-joint problem in matching 2D fragments of an object. Mat... more This paper describes a solution to the T-joint problem in matching 2D fragments of an object. Matching fragments of an object is useful for solving puzzles or reassembling archaeological fragments. Many factors, such as the number of pieces and the complex shapes of pieces make this a difficult problem. Various approaches to this problem exist. This paper presents an approach
The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 2013
Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of mo... more Primary spinal cord tumours are rare causes of low back pain but can be a significant cause of morbidity if undiagnosed and untreated. The following is a case of a young male patient presenting with low back pain and radicular symptoms caused by myxopapillary ependymoma. A nineteen year old male presented to an orthopaedic surgeon with a long history of back pain. He was initially diagnosed with soft tissue injuries and discharged. He began to experience erectile and bowel dysfunction two years later and was re-referred to the orthopaedic surgeon by his family physician but was lost to follow-up. The patient did not present to the surgeon until two years after his symptom profile changed. At that point, MRI examinations revealed a large myxopapillary ependymoma extending from T12 to L4 that was confirmed by a pathologist. The tumour was surgically resected with subsequent adjuvant radiotherapy. After one year, the patient required continued catheterization and had poor anal tone. Hi...
Psychological Medicine, 2003
Background. The rate of binocular rivalry has been reported to be slower in subjects with bipolar... more Background. The rate of binocular rivalry has been reported to be slower in subjects with bipolar disorder than in controls when tested with drifting, vertical and horizontal gratings of high spatial frequency.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010
Binocular rivalry occurs when conflicting images are presented in corresponding locations of the ... more Binocular rivalry occurs when conflicting images are presented in corresponding locations of the two eyes. Perception alternates between the images at a rate that is relatively stable within individuals but that varies widely between individuals. The determinants of this variation are unknown. In addition, slow binocular rivalry has been demonstrated in bipolar disorder, a psychiatric condition with high heritability. The present study therefore examined whether there is a genetic contribution to individual variation in binocular rivalry rate. We employed the twin method and studied both monozygotic (MZ) twins (n = 128 pairs) who are genetically identical, and dizygotic (DZ) twins (n = 220 pairs) who share roughly half their genes. MZ and DZ twin correlations for binocular rivalry rate were 0.51 and 0.19, respectively. The bestfitting genetic model showed 52% of the variance in binocular rivalry rate was accounted for by additive genetic factors. In contrast, nonshared environmental influences accounted for 18% of the variance, with the remainder attributed to measurement error. This study therefore demonstrates a substantial genetic contribution to individual variation in binocular rivalry rate. The results support the vigorous pursuit of genetic and molecular studies of binocular rivalry and further characterization of slow binocular rivalry as an endophenotype for bipolar disorder.
Neuroethics, 2013
Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferen... more Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral-and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decisionmaking. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour.
Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2009
RESULTS: 39 consecutive patients with 59 bone metastases were included. There were no major compl... more RESULTS: 39 consecutive patients with 59 bone metastases were included. There were no major complications but transient nerve injury in one patient (2.5%). The mean maximumdiameter of bone metastasis was 4.7Ϯ2.3cm (range, 1.0-12.0cm). Pain relief was achieved in all but one patient with painful bone metastases (96%, 27/ 28). The 1-, 2-and 3-year survival rates were 36.5%, 22.5%, and 7.9%, respectively, with a median survival time (MST) of 7.5 months. A stepwise cox-proportional hazard model showed bone lesion number (pϽ0.02; hazard ratio, 3.0, 95% CI, 1.3-7.2), control of intrahepatic lesions (pϽ0.0001; hazard ratio, 11.5, 95% CI, 3.6-36.4), and alpha-fetoprotein levels (pϽ0.001; hazard ratio, 6.8, 95% CI, 2.4-20.0) were significantly independent prognostic factors. The 3-year survival rates and the MST were 18.5 % and 17 months in 16 patients with single bone metastasis, 22 % and 25 months in 17 patients with controlled intrahepatic lesions, and 20% and 17.5 months in 16 patients with negative alpha-fetoprotein levels, respectively.
Journal of Power Sources, 2013
ABSTRACT Many researchers have studied the influence on fuel cell (FC) performance of the dielect... more ABSTRACT Many researchers have studied the influence on fuel cell (FC) performance of the dielectric constants (ε values) of the dispersion solvents of catalyst ink solutions in the fabrication of Nafion-based gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs). They have reported that Nafion forms colloidal particles in dispersion solvents possessing ε = 3–10, making these solvents suitable for fabricating GDEs with excellent FC performance. In this paper, we study the dependence of both the Nafion ionomer morphology in the catalyst layers and the FC performance of the GDEs on ε and the solubility parameter δ of the alcohol (i.e., methanol and isopropyl alcohol)/water dispersion mixture. The dispersion solvents of the catalyst ink solutions contain 20–100 wt.% alcohol with 23.4 > δ > 11.3 and 78.4 > ε > 19.9. By plotting the FC performance against the ε and δ values of the alcohol/water dispersion solvent mixture, we demonstrate that the FC performance increases with increasing ε and δ values of the catalyst ink dispersion solvents. ε and δ are determined to be better parameters than the compositions of the solvent mixtures for describing GDE performance.
Der Internist, 2005
ler III. Me di zi ni sche Kli nik, Uni ver si täts kli ni kum Groß ha dern der LMU Mün chen 29-jä... more ler III. Me di zi ni sche Kli nik, Uni ver si täts kli ni kum Groß ha dern der LMU Mün chen 29-jäh ri ge Pa ti en tin mit Pneu mo nie und gro ßen ab do mi nel len Lymph kno ten In ter nist 2005 · 46:917-922
Current Biology, 2000
in E2 binding [17]. The equivalent position typically contains an aromatic or hydrophobic residue... more in E2 binding [17]. The equivalent position typically contains an aromatic or hydrophobic residue in the RING fingers and particularly in the U box, where it is almost invariably aromatic ). The structural models show that this aromatic residue in the RING fingers and in the U-box domain is exposed ( ) and could directly contribute to E2-ubiquitin binding via hydrophobic or aromatic stacking interactions. Thus, the RING finger and the U box in E4 proteins are likely to activate ubiquitination and multi-ubiquitination, respectively, in a similar fashion, namely by facilitating the interaction between E2 proteins and their substrates.
Brain Research Reviews, 2007
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) are safe ... more Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) are safe methods for selectively modulating cortical excitability and activation, respectively, which have recently received increased interest regarding possible clinical applications. tDCS involves the application of low currents to the scalp via cathodal and anodal electrodes and has been shown to affect a range of motor, somatosensory, visual, affective and cognitive functions. Therapeutic effects have been demonstrated in clinical trials of tDCS for a variety of conditions including tinnitus, post-stroke motor deficits, fibromyalgia, depression, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
Brain Research Bulletin, 2008
Functional brain-imaging studies of house-face binocular rivalry and Rubin's vase-faces illusion ... more Functional brain-imaging studies of house-face binocular rivalry and Rubin's vase-faces illusion have consistently reported face perceptiondependent activity in the right fusiform gyrus. Here we use Rubin's illusion and report that activation of the left hemisphere by caloric vestibular stimulation increases the predominance of the faces percept in a substantial number of test subjects. While partially supporting the brain-imaging lateralization reports, our findings also challenge these studies by suggesting that neural mechanisms of Rubin's illusion cannot be limited to extrastriate perception-dependent processing. In accordance with our previously proposed interhemispheric switch model, the present findings support the notion that perceptual rivalry engages high-level cortical structures that mediate unihemispheric attentional selection.
Using complex knowledge of reconfigurable modular robotic systems, we have approached the light o... more Using complex knowledge of reconfigurable modular robotic systems, we have approached the light of context-aware systems in pervasive computing environment by using intelligent building blocks (I- BLOCKS) (1) as modules in the system. This paper describes early scientific researches related to technical design, applicable experiments and evaluation of experimental developments of I-BLOCKS allowing users easily and fast to develop modular
Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 2007
Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clin... more Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy Miller SM, Ngo TT. Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy.
Human perception, and consequently behavior, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case... more Human perception, and consequently behavior, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case of rivalry, where attention alternates between competing percepts, such dynamics can be measured and their determinants investigated. A recent study in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, now shows that the origins of attentional rivalry may be quite ancient. Furthermore, individual variation exists in the rate of attentional rivalry in both humans and flies, and in humans this is under substantial genetic influence. In the pathophysiological realm, slowing of rivalry rate is associated with the heritable psychiatric condition, bipolar disorder. Fly rivalry may therefore prove a powerful model to examine genetic and molecular influences on rivalry rate, and may even shed light on human cognitive and behavioral dysfunction.