Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

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This is the report on the indigenous and local knowledge dialogue workshop for the first order draft of the IPBES thematic assessment of invasive alien species and their control (the IAS assessment). Due to COVID-19, it was held online, from 29 September to 1 October 2020. The report aims to provide a written record of the dialogue workshop, which can be used by assessment authors to inform their work on the IAS assessment, and also by all dialogue participants who may wish to monitor, review and contribute to the work of the assessment moving forward. The report is not intended to be comprehensive or give final resolution to the many interesting discussions and debates that took place during the workshop. Instead, it is intended as a written record of the discussions, and this conversation will continue to evolve over the coming months and years. For this reason, clear points of agreement are discussed, but also, if there were diverging views among participants, these are also presented for further attention and discussion.

Penzenstadler, Birgit · Venter, Colin C. · van Heusden, Peter · et al.

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This template serves to help design a conceptual solution for a research question. It shows how to break down a research question into sub-questions and think about the data needed for answering it. We then look at how to model the data, and how that data gets transformed in workflow steps to get the desired outputs and answers. Please adapt the template as most useful for your particular research aim & objective.

Matthew Taiwo Oni, Oluremi Morakinyo Alao, Uchenna Kenneth Ekemezie & Adetunji Emmanuel Odedele

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Background: Despite increasing staff shortages in African higher education institutions, little empirical attention has been paid to the experiences of non-teaching staff who transition into academic careers. Objective: This qualitative study explored the identity shift, asset transfer, and self efficacy of non‑teaching administrative staff who transitioned into academic teaching roles. Objective: Three research questions guided the study: personal and professional drivers of the transition, the influence of prior administrative roles on skills and readiness, and the role of self‑confidence, writing ability and interpersonal relationships in facilitating a smoother transition. The study adopted an interpretive phenomenological design and employed snowball and purposive sampling techniques. Semi‑structured interviews were conducted with 23 staff who had converted from administrative roles to academic cadre with the instrument tagged: Career Transition Interview Schedule for Non Teaching Staff (CTIS-NTS). Participants were purposively selected from The Polytechnic Ibadan and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Results: The t hematic analysis revealed that career aspiration, exposure to opportunities, knowledge contribution desire, and personal growth drove the transition to academic cadre in higher institutions Conclusion: Prior managerial, office management, safety/security, and secretarial roles contributed transferable assets, including organisational efficiency, moral enforcement, and report‑writing skills. These assets enhanced self-confidence, writing ability, and positive interpersonal relationships, which eased classroom authority and professional adjustment. Unique Contribution: This study introduces administrative-to-academic transition as an underexplored talent channel, evidencing how transferable administrative capital strengthens academic identity and self efficacy. Key Recommendation: The study recommends that universities should establish Recognition of Prior Administrative Learning (RPAL) programmes, integrate values based professional development pathways, and mandate confidence assessment and relational capital mapping within national education frameworks to convert hidden treasure found in the non teaching to academic excellence.

Obaren Thomas Igabor & Clement Oribhabor

1 files · 59 KB · docxdeclared

Background: The increase in urbanization and population has led to an increase in solid waste generation in Nigeria. Environmental sanitation is a burden on the local governments that are charged with its responsibility. While there have been various studies done regarding solid waste management, few have considered the synthesis of evidence from environmental agency reports in order to determine the capacity of local governments. Objective: This study aimed to examine the capacity, performance, and challenges of local governments in solid waste management in Nigeria between 2015 and 2024. Method: Secondary data design was employed. 12 reports were collected from the Federal Ministry of Environment, NESREA, NBS, World Bank, and UN-Habitat on the basis of eligibility criteria between 2015 and 2024 and analysed using trends and thematic analysis approaches. Results: Urban population rose steadily in the course of time during the study period. Various institutional challenges like inadequate budget, weak environmental regulation laws, poor infrastructure for solid waste management, lack of recycling, and poor community participation were identified during the course of analysis. Conclusion: It is not the absence of policy but the institutional weakness that hampers the capability of local governments to provide efficient solid waste management services.

Geisler, Jan · Rakhimberdiev, Eldar · Boom, Michiel P. · et al.

29 files · 124 MB · csv, shapefiledeclared

1. Many migratory birds now reach their Arctic breeding grounds earlier in order to keep pace with advancing springs and shifting nutrient peaks, either by departing earlier from non-breeding grounds or by travelling faster. For dark-bellied brent geese, there is limited potential to travel faster, as their migration to the Siberian breeding grounds is already among the fastest of Arctic geese and swans. Earlier departure would require reaching departure body mass earlier, either through a faster accumulation of energy stores during spring staging or via adjustments earlier in the annual cycle. 2. We examined long-term shifts in spring staging phenology and changes in winter and spring body mass trajectories of brent geese at the population level, with particular emphasis on the effects of winter temperature on body mass and spring body mass on departure timing. 3. We used more than five decades of body mass measurements from individuals caught in the United Kingdom and France, and in the Dutch Wadden Sea to reconstruct changes in spring and winter mass trajectories, respectively. These data were combined with over five decades of migration counts in the Netherlands and more than two decades of counts in Denmark to quantify changes in spring staging phenology. 4. We found that brent geese have not shifted their spring arrival in the Wadden Sea but have advanced departure timing. Furthermore, brent geese were heavier during and after milder winters, and have changed mass trajectories over recent decades. They no longer lose mass during winter and the second spring staging phase, and fuelling rates in the first spring staging phase have declined. Annual variation in body mass was not related to annual departure timing. 5. These results suggest that milder winters have relaxed energetic constraints and improved body condition in brent geese throughout the non-breeding season. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the full annual cycle when assessing how animals with limited capacity to adjust migration timing or speed respond to global change.

Tiskus, Edvinas · Tiškuvienė, Rūta · Bučas, Martynas · et al.

37 files · 1.6 GB · hdf5, tiff, torchdeclared

This record contains the labeled data, trained models, and analysis code supporting the article "Comparing a Vision Foundation Model (DINOv3) and a Task-Specific U-Net for Mapping Emergent Aquatic Vegetation from Fused UAV Multispectral and LiDAR Data" (Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation). Contents: - masks/ : georeferenced ground-truth segmentation masks (five classes: aquatic vegetation, water, sand, other objects, background), aligned to the fused UAV orthomosaics and spanning 13 sites across nine Lithuanian waterbodies surveyed between May and August 2024. - models/ : the two final trained segmentation models, a Keras/HDF5 U-Net and a PyTorch DINOv3 model. - code/ : Python scripts for training, evaluation, the label-efficiency experiment, and full-scene prediction. The fused 9-band orthomosaics (five-band multispectral, RGB, and a LiDAR canopy height model; approximately 62 GB) are archived separately because of their size and are available from the corresponding author on request. The DINOv3 SAT-493M pretrained backbone is distributed by Meta under its own license and is not redistributed here; obtain it from the official DINOv3 release.

Hambly, Daniel

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Heuristic methods for the k-Length Trail Problem (KTP). C++ programs for executing the algorithms, together with the results of experiments on real-world street networks, planar graphs, and random graphs. The implementations of the local search heuristic, the heuristically-guided backtracking algorithm, and the evolutionary algorithm are provided in HeuristicMethodsKTP.cpp . The corresponding executable file is HeuristicMethodsKTP.exe . These files are contained in the zip file HeuristicMethodsProgramsKTP.zip . An example problem instance is provided in the text file reducedPlanarGraphKTP.txt . The results of experiments on real-world street networks, planar graphs, and random graphs are provided in the zip file HeuristicMethodsResultsKTP.zip . Instructions for compiling and executing the programs from the command line are provided in HeuristicMethodsKTPUserGuide.pdf .

Toch, Makoi Majok · Riak, Gabriel Alier

4 files · 24 MB · docx, pdf, zipdeclared

Agricultural finance policy in South Sudan has repeatedly recognised the need to transform agriculture from subsistence production into a more productive, market-oriented and food-secure sector. Yet rural farmers in Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes State continue to operate within a financial reality shaped by absent bank branches, limited collateral, short lending cycles, conflict-affected infrastructure, weak policy coordination and reliance on Community Group Saving and Lending (CGSL) mechanisms. This article maps the gap between national strategy and rural financial reality by re-analysing mixed-methods doctoral evidence collected between 2022 and 2025 among farmers, fishermen/women and pastoralists in three South Sudanese states. The quantitative component used 81 valid questionnaires from a target sample of 85, while the qualitative component used 17 interviews to interpret the institutional meaning of savings groups, lending constraints and farmer investment decisions. The findings show that CGSLs are widely perceived as accessible, member-managed and socially legitimate rural financial institutions. Respondents strongly agreed that government and donors should collaborate to offer financial services (overall mean = 4.41), that saving and loan groups are an alternative for the poor (overall mean = 4.32), and that rural finance can make a difference in agricultural productivity (overall mean = 4.58). At the same time, farmers reported a continuing gap in long-term investment capital, weak formal banking outreach, and heavy dependence on informal and NGO-supported mechanisms. Chi-square tests indicated a significant association between CGSL participation and productivity-related indicators (chi-square = 15.92, p = 0.0001), while logistic regression showed that access to CGSL credit significantly influenced farmers' decisions to invest in modern agricultural technologies (beta = 1.9459, p = 0.026). The article argues that South Sudan's agricultural finance challenge is not only a shortage of policy ambition but a failure of institutional translation: national strategies identify the need for agricultural transformation, yet rural financial systems remain too thin, short-term and fragmented to support that transformation. The study recommends a phased rural finance policy architecture that links CGSLs, cooperatives, mobile-capable records, extension services, input suppliers, agricultural insurance and formal financial institutions through a locally governed, risk-aware and long-term financing framework.

Rudenko, Valentina · Korotkov, Eugene

4 files · 49 MB · docx, zipdeclared

Supplement materials to the manuscript: "Dispersed sequences in the C. elegans genome exhibiting periodicity" by V.Rudenko and E.Korotkov. Include 3 archive files and the readme.docx file.

SECURITY, AFRICAN · ASIKHIA, FESTUS UWAKHEMEN

4 files · 16 MB · docx, pdf, zipdeclared

The escalating insecurity in Nigeria, which is a result of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, communal conflicts and organised crimes, has heightened national discussions on the establishment of state policing as a viable alternative to the current centralized policing system. Advocates have noted that decentralized policing will enhance community relations and allow for community-based responses to security issues, while opposition has noted potential for political manipulation and abuse of power, lack of funding, and negative impacts on national unity. In this article, the development of state policing in Nigeria is discussed in a qualitative study using the case study approach, and both the psychological and political aspects of the proposed reform are explored. In particular, the study examines the psychological consequences of transitioning to state policing on police officers and communities as it relates to stress, morale, officer autonomy, community trust, legitimacy, and institutional support. It also examines the political factors affecting the reform, such as federal–state relations, constitutional considerations, stakeholder interests, policy negotiation, financing, accountability, and corruption threats. The investigation is based on documentary evidence analysis of constitutional provisions, proposed legislations, judicial authorities, policy documents, government reports and scholarly literature. The article also states some of the indicators of psychological and political successes and failures of state policing reform. It finds that the successful implementation of the recommendations must address constitutional safeguards, strong accountability systems, extensive stakeholder engagement, public sensitisation, additional capacity building for state political leaders, and continued investment in police welfare and institutional capacity. The results of the findings are helping to inform the policy debate and recommendations are provided for an accountable, rights-based and community policing framework that can respond to the security issues facing Nigeria today.

Doubleday, Simon

2 files · 88 KB · docxdeclared

This monograph offers a reinterpretation of the relationship between the monarchy and the nobility in medieval Castile through a study of the Lara family. It demonstrates the transformation of the foundations of aristocratic power between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries and reassesses the role of the nobility in the construction of royal authority. ..... Monografía que ofrece una reinterpretación de las relaciones entre la monarquía y la nobleza en la Castilla medieval a partir del estudio del linaje de los Lara. Demuestra la transformación de las bases del poder aristocrático entre los siglos XI y XIV y replantea el papel de la nobleza en la construcción del poder regio.

Sarah, Chardonnens · Cettou, Anne-Christine · Mélo, Adeline

1 files · 76 KB · docxdeclared

Cet article propose une démarche de conceptualisation méthodologique d'un référentiel de compétences en éducation musicale articulé autour de deux référentiels complémentaires : l'un destiné à l'élève (REFE), l'autre à l'enseignant·e généraliste ou à l'étudiant·e en formation (REFP). Il s'appuie sur un état des lieux comparatif ciblé de documents publiquement accessibles, distinguant référentiel de compétences, curriculum, standards artistiques, référentiel métier et cadre stratégique de professionnalisation. La contribution principale consiste à expliciter une mise en relation fonctionnelle, par domaines, entre les compétences musicales et transversales attendues chez les élèves et les compétences disciplinaires et didactiques nécessaires chez les enseignant·e·s pour soutenir ces apprentissages. Le texte précise la méthode de recherche documentaire, les choix de conceptualisation, les limites de l'état des lieux, ainsi que les conditions d'une validation empirique future. Les deux référentiels élaborés dans le cadre du projet PROFéMUSIC sont reproduits en annexes comme documents de travail stabilisés.

Sarah, Chardonnens

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Professional musicians are increasingly expected to work not only as performers, but also as educators, facilitators, mediators and collaborative partners in schools and community settings. Research on musician-teacher and artist-school partnerships suggests that such collaborations can enhance pupils' engagement in music, enrich teachers' pedagogical repertoires, and create reciprocal professional learning opportunities for musicians. However, the literature remains less precise about how future professional musicians acquire the child-centred pedagogical competences needed for school contexts, and how these competences shape their collaboration with schoolteachers and their professional identity. This article presents a qualitative research plan situated in higher music education, with a focus on HEMU (Haute École de Musique de Suisse Romande). The project investigates how students and recent graduates develop competences related to child development, classroom heterogeneity, pedagogical communication, differentiation and interprofessional collaboration. It proposes a multi-sited qualitative design combining interviews, observations of training and partnership settings, and analysis of curriculum and reflective documents. The expected contribution is a theoretically grounded and empirically informed framework for preparing future musicians to collaborate with schools, without reducing their professional identity to performance alone. Note: This is a research plan / study protocol, not a completed empirical study.

Agudelo-Restrepo, Manuela · Dibouloul, Patrick · Harms, Karen · et al.

1 files · 3.6 MB · docxdeclared

Data related to structure elucidation, and phylogenetic analysis

Lampa, Maria · Papageorgiou, Nafsika · Chatzivasileiou, Dimitra · et al.

1 files · 2.5 MB · docxdeclared

Figs S1, S2, S3

Toch, Makoi Majok · Riak, Gabriel Alier

4 files · 24 MB · docx, pdf, zipdeclared

Agricultural finance policy in South Sudan has repeatedly recognised the need to transform agriculture from subsistence production into a more productive, market-oriented and food-secure sector. Yet rural farmers in Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes State continue to operate within a financial reality shaped by absent bank branches, limited collateral, short lending cycles, conflict-affected infrastructure, weak policy coordination and reliance on Community Group Saving and Lending (CGSL) mechanisms. This article maps the gap between national strategy and rural financial reality by re-analysing mixed-methods doctoral evidence collected between 2022 and 2025 among farmers, fishermen/women and pastoralists in three South Sudanese states. The quantitative component used 81 valid questionnaires from a target sample of 85, while the qualitative component used 17 interviews to interpret the institutional meaning of savings groups, lending constraints and farmer investment decisions. The findings show that CGSLs are widely perceived as accessible, member-managed and socially legitimate rural financial institutions. Respondents strongly agreed that government and donors should collaborate to offer financial services (overall mean = 4.41), that saving and loan groups are an alternative for the poor (overall mean = 4.32), and that rural finance can make a difference in agricultural productivity (overall mean = 4.58). At the same time, farmers reported a continuing gap in long-term investment capital, weak formal banking outreach, and heavy dependence on informal and NGO-supported mechanisms. Chi-square tests indicated a significant association between CGSL participation and productivity-related indicators (chi-square = 15.92, p = 0.0001), while logistic regression showed that access to CGSL credit significantly influenced farmers' decisions to invest in modern agricultural technologies (beta = 1.9459, p = 0.026). The article argues that South Sudan's agricultural finance challenge is not only a shortage of policy ambition but a failure of institutional translation: national strategies identify the need for agricultural transformation, yet rural financial systems remain too thin, short-term and fragmented to support that transformation. The study recommends a phased rural finance policy architecture that links CGSLs, cooperatives, mobile-capable records, extension services, input suppliers, agricultural insurance and formal financial institutions through a locally governed, risk-aware and long-term financing framework.

Toch, Makoi Majok · Riak, Gabriel Alier

4 files · 25 MB · docx, pdf, zipdeclared

Community Group Saving and Lending (CGSL) mechanisms are increasingly important in rural South Sudan because formal financial institutions remain thinly distributed outside urban and peri-urban markets. Yet many CGSL products still treat rural borrowers as if they face the same production calendar, risk profile and capital requirement. This article argues that credit demand in South Sudan is heterogeneous because agroecological zones differ in production potential, population density, crop and livestock systems, flood or drought exposure, market access and the timing of seasonal cash needs. Using doctoral mixed-methods field data from Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes States, the article develops an agroecological credit-demand framework for CGSL product design. The source study covered 85 administered questionnaires, 81 valid responses and 17 qualitative interviews. Descriptive evidence shows clear differences across state contexts: Eastern Equatoria was represented by Magwi County with crop production around maize and groundnuts; Jonglei by Bor County with agro-pastoral activities around cattle and sorghum; and Lakes State by Rumbek, Yirol Town and surrounding areas with pastoralism and mixed farming. The state-level evidence indicates that rural finance was perceived to matter strongly for agricultural productivity (overall mean = 4.58), that productivity gains were linked to investment (overall mean = 4.49), and that working capital remained a major constraint (overall mean = 4.68 in the technology-adoption block). Hypothesis testing confirmed significant associations between CGSL participation and transformation to market-oriented production, improved productivity through technology and access to credit for technology (chi-square = 15.92, p = .0001). Logistic regression further showed that access to credit had a significant positive effect on the probability of technology investment (beta = 1.9459, p = .026). The article concludes that CGSLs should move from one-size-fits-all lending to zone-sensitive product menus. Seasonal input loans, livestock loans, flood-recovery loans, savings-linked insurance, equipment-hire finance and harvest-aligned repayment schedules should be matched to agroecological realities. This reframes CGSLs from informal emergency finance into adaptive rural financial institutions capable of supporting agricultural transformation.

विद्यानिवास, मिश्र

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शिक्षा व्यक्ति के गुणों के विकास एवं उसके बहुआयामी व्यक्तित्व का निर्धारक मानी जाती है। इसके माध्यम से कौशलात्मक दक्षता एवं गुणों में परिवर्तन व नवीनता लायी जाती है। शैक्षिक प्रक्रिया में औपचारिक माध्यमों को महत्वपूर्ण माना गया है जिसमें उच्च स्तर को मनोदैहिक गुणों के विकास की दृष्टि से उत्कृष्ट स्तर माना गया है। इस स्तर के विद्यार्थियों से यह अपेक्षा होती है कि वे बहुआयामी चिन्तन एवं व्यापक दृष्टिकोण से पूर्ण हो। उच्च स्तर के विद्यार्थी अपने गुणात्मक विकास के लिए अनेक प्रकार के स्रोतों, माध्यमों एवं तकनीकियों का प्रयोग करते हैं। महाविद्यालयी विद्यार्थियों के ज्ञान स्तर में व्यापकता लाने हेतु पुस्तकालयी सुविधा प्रदान की जाती है किन्तु प्रायः विद्यार्थियों द्वारा इसके प्रति समुचित दृष्टिकोण एवं अनुकूलता न होने के कारण वे इसका न्यून उपयोग करते है। वर्तमान में विभिन्न कारणों से पुस्तकालयों का उपयोग निरन्तर घट रहा है जिनमें डिजिटल माध्यमों से कहीं भी, कभी भी और कोई भी जानकारी प्राप्त करने की सुविधा, विद्यार्थियांे में समय प्रबन्धन की कमी, पुस्तकालीय सेवाओं के प्रति जागरूकता की न्यूनता तथा पुस्तकालयों में समुचित सुविधा व आकर्षक वातावरण न होने से विद्यार्थी इसका कम उपयोग करते है। राष्ट्रीय शिक्षा नीति-2020 पुस्तकालयों को ज्ञान का केन्द्र मानते हुए इसके प्रति अनुकूलता लाने पर बल देती है। महाविद्यालयी विद्यार्थियों में पुस्तकालय के प्रति अनुकूलता की स्थिति जानने हेतु यह शोध प्रपत्र तैयार किया गया है। जिसमें वीर बहादुर सिंह पूर्वांचल विश्वविद्यालय, जौनपुर से सम्बद्ध विभिन्न महाविद्यालयों की पुस्तकालयी सेवा और इसका उपयोग करने वाले विद्यार्थियों की स्थिति का अध्ययन किया गया है। इसमें 5 सरकारी एवं 5 निजी महाविद्यालयों के पुस्तकालयी सेवाओं का अध्ययन कर यह विश्लेषित किया गया कि विद्यार्थियों में पुस्तकालय के प्रति अनुकूलता की स्थिति न्यून है। विद्यार्थियों में पुस्तकालय के उपयोग हेतु संसाधन एवं सुविधाओं की कमी, डिजिटल डिवाइस की न्यूनता, पारम्परिक मनोवृत्ति तथा विद्यार्थियों में महाविद्यालयी निरन्तरता न होना आदि इसके प्रति अनुकूलता की कमी के कारण है जिसके लिए अनेक सुझाव भी प्रस्तावित किये गये हैं।

Nwokeabia, Chinwendu · Lee, Olivia · Wallace, Dylan · et al.

6 files · 19 GB · docx, zipdeclared

miRPNI: A dataset of intramuscular electromyography from regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces (RPNIs) and residual muscles Dataset Contacts: Chinwendu Nwokeabia [cnwoke@umich.edu] Cynthia Chestek [cchestek@umich.edu] Deanna Gates [gatesd@umich.edu] Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R01NS105132 and T32NS115724. Dataset is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Ethical Approvals: Approval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was granted by the University of Michigan's Medical School IRB (IRB-MED) under Application No. HUM00124839 and performed in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. This is also described on clinicaltrials.gov under NCT0326040. Conflicts of Interest: P. Cederna and A. Vaskov are employed in leadership roles and hold equity in Blue Arbor Technologies, Inc., a company that makes prosthetic control systems. P. Cederna and C. Chestek are inventors of patents US10314725 and US10779963 that are related to this work. This intellectual property is held by the University of Michigan and has been optioned by Blue Arbor Technologies, Inc. These interests have been reviewed and are managed by the University of Michigan in accordance with its Conflict of Interest policy. Overview We collected data from four people with transradial limb loss who had regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces (RPNIs) created on their median, ulnar, and/or radial nerves. Up to 12 bipolar electrodes (Synapse Biomedical, Oberlin OH, USA) were placed in RPNIs and residual muscles (Table 2). Data were collected monthly while participants were enrolled in the study (up to 6.5 years to date). This dataset includes data from up to twelve sessions per participant (42 total) during their study involvement. During each session, participants mirrored a series of hand gestures displayed on a computer screen with their phantom limb while intramuscular electromyographic signals (imEMG) were recorded at 30 kHz using a neural processor (Cerberus, Blackrock Microsystems, Salt Lake City, UT, USA). Each movement was repeated up to 5 times. More detailed description of methods used for data collection/generation of can be found in [1]. Data were collected between June 2018 and May 2024 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States. Necessary Software: - Access to MATLAB and below packages - Signal Processing Toolbox - Curve Fitting Toolbox - The dataset can also be accessed via Python by importing the corresponding .txt files. The below packages are used in the plotting code (code is available on the miRPNI Github repository: https://github.com/gateslabs/miRPNI-processing): - json - ggplot (via lets-plot) - numpy - pandas - h5py - mat73 Data Overview There are up to twelve evenly spaced sessions per participant (42 files). Files are named according to the convention: ParticipantID_SessionNumber_EMG.mat Example: Participant 1's data for session 8 is in 'P1_S8_EMG.mat' A series of scripts are included to interactively explore and plot the data in MATLAB (miRPNI_plot_EMG.m/.mlx) and in Python (plot_emg.ipynb). Conversion from .mat to a Pandas DataFrame in Python can be done using mat_to_dataframe.ipynb. Data were originally sampled at 30 kHz but downsampled for space to 1 kHz. The 30 kHz data is provided for each participant for the last three sessions available for each participant (Sessions 7, 8, and 9 for P1 and P2; Sessions 10, 11, and 12 for P3 and P4). Data Structure Each .mat data file contains: 1. A single struct variable, named miDB, with the following fields, which describe the trial information: Fieldname Description trialID Identification number for an individual trial in a recording session. Included for mapping of EMG data to metadata found in the session's corresponding metadata files. TaskNumber Specific movement that was completed during a given trial. The name of the corresponding movement task can be found in movements.json TrialNumber Repetition number for the movement completed during a given trial. RestTime Time in trial when movement was not executed (in ms). HoldTime Time in trial when movement was cued (in ms). EMG30k Raw imEMG data sampled at 30,000 Hz. This field is present in threesessions for each participant. EMG1k Raw imEMG data downsampled to 1000 Hz. Raw EMG data were band-pass filtered using a 4th order Butterworth filter with a frequency band of 100-499 Hz. Data were notch filtered to remove noise at 60 Hz and its harmonics (i.e., 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360, 420, 480 Hz). This processed data is used to populate the following fields in the miDB structure: Fieldname Description EMG30kf Filtered EMG data at 30,000 Hz. This field is present in three sessions for each participant. EMG1kf Filtered EMG data at 1000 Hz. MAVs Mean absolute value data calculated on the 30 kHz data over 50 ms windows. onset_idx Movement cue start frame based on change point detection using MAVs EMG data fields (EMG30k(f)f, EMG1k(f), MAVs) are matrices where each column represents a channel or muscle, and each row is a frame of data. The EMG channel names for each participant are listed in order within each participants metadata file (PX_metadata.json), as well as in miRPNIreadme.docx and here: Channel Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 P1 EPL EDC FPL FDPI Med Uln1 Uln2 FCR P2 FDPI FCR Uln Med EDC EPL FDPS FPL P3 EDC EPL Sup Rad Pro Med2 Med4 FDPS FDPI FPL Med3 Med1 P4 EPL Sup EDC ECRL FCR Pro FDPI FPL Med2 Med1 Uln2 Uln1 Locations for intramuscular EMG electrodes for each participant. FDPI: flexor digitorum profundus index finger; FCR: flexor carpi radialis; Uln (1,2): Ulnar RPNI (1,2); Med (1,2,3,4): Median RPNI (1,2,3,4); EDC: extensor digitorum communis; EPL: extensor pollicis longus; FDPS: flexor digitorum profundus small finger; FPL: flexor pollicis longus; Sup: supinator; ECRL: extensor carpi radialis longus; Pro: pronator; Radial: Radial RPNI 2. A string array, movements, which includes the names and corresponding code number (TaskNumber) for all movements available in the entire dataset. This array is also represented as a .json file called movements.json. The miDB MATLAB structs were additionally converted into tall matrices and exported as a series of .txt files for use when analyzing the data in programs outside of MATLAB. Those .txt files are: - PX_SY_MAVs.txt: an array of MAVs that were calculated for all channels over every available trial. an array of MAVs that were calculated for all channels over every available trial. Included in each matrix is a column called WindowStartTime, a variable that denotes the start time (in seconds) of each 50ms window that the corresponding MAV value was calculated. - PX_SY_EMG1kHz.txt: the downsampled EMG data for all channels over every available trial. Included in each matrix is a column called MovementCue, a logical variable that shows the nominal rest and cue times described in the miDB fields RestTime and HoldTime The .txt files and .mat files can be mapped to the corresponding session's metadata (PX_SY_meta.json) using the shared field trialID. References 1. Vu, P. P., Vaskov, A. K., Lee, C., Jillala, R. R., Wallace, D. M., Davis, A. J., ... & Cederna, P. S. (2023). Long-term upper-extremity prosthetic control using regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces and implanted EMG electrodes. Journal of Neural Engineering, 20(2), 026039. ---------- Explanation of data processing code: The following excerpts of MATLAB code illustrate the process of filtering the data and the process of calculating MAVs Filtering and downsampling 30kHz data: numsamp = 30000; %starting out with 30k data [b(1,:), a(1,:)] = butter(2, [100, 500]/15e3, 'bandpass'); [b(2,:), a(2,:)] = butter(2, [59, 61]/15e3, 'stop'); [b(3,:), a(3,:)] = butter(2, [119, 121]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(1,:), c(1,:)] = butter(2, [119, 121]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(2,:), c(2,:)] = butter(2, [179, 181]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(3,:), c(3,:)] = butter(2, [239, 241]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(4,:), c(4,:)] = butter(2, [299, 301]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(5,:), c(5,:)] = butter(2, [359, 361]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(6,:), c(6,:)] = butter(2, [419, 421]/15e3, 'stop'); [d(7,:), c(7,:)] = butter(2, [479, 481]/15e3, 'stop'); disp('bandpass filtering 30k data') for i = 1:length(miDB) disp(['filtering for task i = ', num2str(i)]) miDB(i).EMG30kf = filter(b(1,:), a(1,:), miDB(i).EMG30k); for j = 2:3 miDB(i).EMG30kf = filter(b(j,:), a(j,:), miDB(i).EMG30kf); end for j = 1:7 miDB(i).EMG30kf = filter(d(j,:), c(j,:), miDB(i).EMG30kf); end end disp('downsampling 30k data') for i = 1:length(miDB) disp(['downsampling for task i = ', num2str(i)]) miDB(i).EMG1kf = downsample(miDB(i).EMG30kf, 30); %downsampling down all channel columns miDB(i).EMG1k = downsample(miDB(i).EMG30k, 30); %downsampling raw data, too end Calculating MAVs from 30kHz EMG data: for i = 1:numel(inDB) emg_filt = inDB(i).EMG30kf; %grabbing 30k data: should be [numsamps x numchans] n_windows = floor(size(emg_filt, 1) / win_samples); % = 160 windows (default) emg_trimmed = emg_filt(1 : n_windows * win_samples, :); numchans = size(emg_filt,2); % Reshape and compute MAV: [n_windows x numchans] emg_reshaped = reshape(emg_trimmed, win_samples, n_windows, numchans); % [1500 x 160 x 8] MAV = squeeze(mean(abs(emg_reshaped), 1)); inDB(i).MAVs = MAV; outDB = inDB; end Calculating movement onset time based on MAVs (onset_idx) for i = 1:length(inDB) cue_start_s = inDB(i).RestTime/1000; %cue appears at {RestTime} s into the trial cue_end_s = (inDB(i).RestTime + inDB(i).HoldTime)/1000; %movement expected to be complete by end of {HoldTime} % Convert to MAV window indices cue_start_win = floor(cue_start_s / (win_ms/1000)) + 1; % +1 for 1-based indexing cue_end_win = floor(cue_end_s / (win_ms/1000)); MAV = inDB(i).MAVs; %grabbing respective MAV matrix MAV_sum = sum(MAV,2); %summing MAVs across channels for a single vector % Extract MAV only within the cue window MAV_cue = MAV_sum(cue_start_win : cue_end_win, :); % [n_cue_windows x 1] % Baseline still comes from the pre-cue period baseline_wins = cue_start_win - 1; % all windows before the cue baseline_MAV = MAV_sum(1 : baseline_wins); min_thresh = 2 * std(baseline_MAV); % scaled to pre-cue noise floor if isnan(min_thresh), min_thresh = 0; end %in case there is no rest time % Change-point detection restricted to cue window ipt_cue = findchangepts(MAV_cue, ... 'Statistic', 'mean', ... 'MinThreshold', min_thresh); if ~isempty(ipt_cue) % Map local index back to full-trial index onset_window = cue_start_win + ipt_cue(1) - 1; onset_time_s = (onset_window - 1) * (win_ms / 1000); fprintf('Onset at window %d → %.3f s\n', onset_window, onset_time_s); else fprintf('No onset detected in cue window.\n'); onset_window = NaN; onset_time_s = NaN; end inDB(i).onset_idx = onset_window; end