Importance of databases for technology assessment.

The data indispensable for carrying out the comprehensive, multi-faceted process of medical technology assessment (MTA) should be collected from a variety of sources. The authors distinguish between type "A" general data, useful for assessment but collected without this specific aim, and type "B" data. Registries of health care procedures or of diseases, as well as clinical data bases are quoted as examples of type "B" data, specifically relating to MTA. Since demographic methods are of importance for the evaluation of long-term effects of medical technologies, examples of sources of type "A" data are presented. Their significance for health policy making is discussed.

Langage et cerveau : vingt ans d'imagerie fonctionnelle [Language and the brain: 20 years of functional imagery]

La masse considérable de travaux publiés dans le domaine de la neuroimagerie fonctionnelle concernant les fonctions ou modalités du langage (compréhension et expression de la parole, lecture) ou les différents processus linguistiques qui les sous-tendent (sémantique, phonologie, syntaxe) permet de dégager de grandes tendances en termes de substrats anatomiques. Si les « fondamentaux » issus des origines aphasiologiques du domaine n'ont pas été bouleversés, certaines spécificités non explorées par l'approche lésionnelle sont identifiables. Les méta-analyses, en regroupant les résultats de la littérature, nous procurent aujourd'hui une vision globale des substrats cérébraux du langage. Cependant la variabilité inter-individuelle reste importante en raison de multiples facteurs dont certains sont mal identifiés ; cartographier exhaustivement les fonctions du langage à l'échelle individuelle reste une gageure. La quête des images du langage est sans doute aussi inachevable que celle de l'étude du langage lui-même.

Technology transfer of an oil-in-water vaccine-adjuvant for strengthening pandemic influenza preparedness in Indonesia.

With the current enzootic circulation of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, the ability to increase global pandemic influenza vaccine production capacity is of paramount importance. This has been highlighted by, and is one of the main pillars of, the WHO Global Action Plan for Influenza Vaccines (GAP). Such capacity expansion is especially relevant in developing countries. The Vaccine Formulation Laboratory at University of Lausanne is engaged in the technology transfer of an antigen-sparing oil-in-water adjuvant in order to empower developing countries vaccine manufacturers to increase pandemic influenza vaccine capacity. In a one-year project funded by United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Vaccine Formulation Laboratory transferred the process know-how and associated equipment for the pilot-scale manufacturing of an oil-in-water adjuvant to Bio Farma, Indonesia's state-owned vaccine manufacturer, for subsequent formulation with H5N1 pandemic influenza vaccines. This paper describes the experience acquired and lessons learnt from this technology transfer project.

Frame detection over the semantic web

In the past, research in ontology learning from text has mainly focused on entity recognition, taxonomy induction and relation extraction. In this work we approach a challenging research issue: detecting semantic frames from texts and using them to encode web ontologies. We exploit a new generation Natural Language Processing technology for frame detection, and we enrich the frames acquired so far with argument restrictions provided by a super-sense tagger and domain specializations. The results are encoded according to a Linguistic MetaModel, which allows a complete translation of lexical resources and data acquired from text, enabling custom transformations of the enriched frames into modular ontology components.

Language lateralization in early and late bilinguals using an international vocabulary

In lateralized Lexical Decision Tasks (LDT), accuracy is commonly higher and reaction times are commonly faster for right visual field (RVF) than left visual field (LVF) presentations. This visual field differences are thought to demonstrate the left hemisphere's dominance for language. Unfortunately, different tasks and words are used between studies and languages making direct comparisons difficult. For example, high frequency words show a performance advantage over low frequency words. Moreover, demographic variables impact on lateralized behavior such as language knowledge (one versus several, early acquired versus late acquired). We here aim to alleviate some of these obstacles by presenting results from a lateralized LDT for which we selected words between 4 and 6 letters used in five different languages, i.e. English, French, German, Dutch and Italian. In this first study using these words, we compared performance of right- and left-handed students being either early or late bilinguals (acquired before or after the age of 6 years) from a French-speaking University in Switzerland. Results showed a left hemispheric advantage (accuracy, reaction times) for all groups, with a trend for early as compared to late bilinguals to be less accurate and taking longer in lexical decisions. These results show that the current words result in solid visual field differences, and do so irrespective of how many languages are spoken. While early bilinguals might experience a slight performance disadvantage, it was not affecting visual field differences.

Breathhold three-dimensional coronary magnetic resonance angiography using real-time navigator technology.

The acquisition duration of most three-dimensional (3D) coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) techniques is considerably prolonged, thereby precluding breathholding as a mechanism to suppress respiratory motion artifacts. Splitting the acquired 3D volume into multiple subvolumes or slabs serves to shorten individual breathhold duration. Still, problems associated with misregistration due to inconsistent depths of expiration and diaphragmatic drift during sustained respiration remain to be resolved. We propose the combination of an ultrafast 3D coronary MRA imaging sequence with prospective real-time navigator technology, which allows correction of the measured volume position. 3D volume splitting using prospective real-time navigator technology, was successfully applied for 3D coronary MRA in five healthy individuals. An ultrafast 3D interleaved hybrid gradient-echoplanar imaging sequence, including T2Prep for contrast enhancement, was used with the navigator localized at the basal anterior wall of the left ventricle. A 9-cm-thick volume, with in-plane spatial resolution of 1.1 x 2.2 mm, was acquired during five breathholds of 15-sec duration each. Consistently, no evidence of misregistration was observed in the images. Extensive contiguous segments of the left anterior descending coronary artery (48 +/- 18 mm) and the right coronary artery (75 +/- 5 mm) could be visualized. This technique has the potential for screening for anomalous coronary arteries, making it well suited as part of a larger clinical MR examination. In addition, this technique may also be applied as a scout scan, which allows an accurate definition of imaging planes for subsequent high-resolution coronary MRA.

Language Regression Associated With Autistic Regression and Electroencephalographic (EEG) Abnormalities: A Prospective Study.

We report a boy, referred at 25 months following a dramatic isolated language regression antedating autistic-like symptomatology. His sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) showed persistent focal epileptiform activity over the left parietal and vertex areas never associated with clinical seizures. He was started on adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) with a significant improvement in language, behavior, and in EEG discharges in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Later course was characterized by fluctuations/regressions in language and behavior abilities, in phase with recrudescence of EEG abnormalities prompting additional ACTH courses that led to remarkable decrease in EEG abnormalities, improvement in language, and to a lesser degree, in autistic behavior. The timely documentation of regression episodes suggesting an "atypical" autistic regression, striking therapy-induced improvement, fluctuation of symptomatology over time could be ascribed to recurrent and persisting EEG abnormalities.

Neurophysiological origin of human brain asymmetry for speech and language.

The physiological basis of human cerebral asymmetry for language remains mysterious. We have used simultaneous physiological and anatomical measurements to investigate the issue. Concentrating on neural oscillatory activity in speech-specific frequency bands and exploring interactions between gestural (motor) and auditory-evoked activity, we find, in the absence of language-related processing, that left auditory, somatosensory, articulatory motor, and inferior parietal cortices show specific, lateralized, speech-related physiological properties. With the addition of ecologically valid audiovisual stimulation, activity in auditory cortex synchronizes with left-dominant input from the motor cortex at frequencies corresponding to syllabic, but not phonemic, speech rhythms. Our results support theories of language lateralization that posit a major role for intrinsic, hardwired perceptuomotor processing in syllabic parsing and are compatible both with the evolutionary view that speech arose from a combination of syllable-sized vocalizations and meaningful hand gestures and with developmental observations suggesting phonemic analysis is a developmentally acquired process.