The concept of temporal 'plus' epilepsy.

The concept of temporal 'plus' epilepsy (T+E) is not new, and a number of observations made by means of intracerebral electrodes have illustrated the complexity of neuronal circuits that involve the temporal lobe. The term T+E was used to unify and better individualize these specific forms of multilobar epilepsies, which are characterized by electroclinical features primarily suggestive of temporal lobe epilepsy, MRI findings that are either unremarkable or show signs of hippocampal sclerosis, and intracranial recordings which demonstrate that seizures arise from a complex epileptogenic network including a combination of brain regions located within the temporal lobe and over closed neighbouring structures such as the orbitofrontal cortex, the insulo-opercular region, and the temporo-parieto-occipital junction. We will review here how the term of T+E has emerged, what it means, and which practical consideration it raises.

Left temporal lobe epilepsy revealing left posterior cortical atrophy due to Alzheimer's disease.

Seizures can be an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and can precede cognitive decline. Early epilepsy in AD can mimic transient epileptic amnesic syndrome (TEAS) or epileptic amnesic syndrome. We report the case of a patient who started a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-proven AD with partial seizures and TEAS that secondarily became a cortical posterior atrophy syndrome. CSF biomarkers showed a high amyloid production, amyloidopathy, and high level of total tau and p-Tau. This observation adds data to the complex AD-early epilepsy interactions and illustrates that atypical AD can cause a TEAS. Possible red flags for an underlying neurodegenerative process in TEAS are discussed.

Moment Operators of Observables in Quantum Mechanics, with Applications to Quantization and Homodyne Detection

The questions studied in this thesis are centered around the moment operators of a quantum observable, the latter being represented by a normalized positive operator measure. The moment operators of an observable are physically relevant, in the sense that these operators give, as averages, the moments of the outcome statistics for the measurement of the observable. The main questions under consideration in this work arise from the fact that, unlike a projection valued observable of the von Neumann formulation, a general positive operator measure cannot be characterized by its first moment operator. The possibility of characterizing certain observables by also involving higher moment operators is investigated and utilized in three different cases: a characterization of projection valued measures among all the observables is given, a quantization scheme for unbounded classical variables using translation covariant phase space operator measures is presented, and, finally, a mathematically rigorous description is obtained for the measurements of rotated quadratures and phase space observables via the high amplitude limit in the balanced homodyne and eight-port homodyne detectors, respectively. In addition, the structure of the covariant phase space operator measures, which is essential for the above quantization, is analyzed in detail in the context of a (not necessarily unimodular) locally compact group as the phase space.

APOE status modulates the changes in network connectivity induced by brain stimulation in non-demented elders.

Behavioral consequences of a brain insult represent an interaction between the injury and the capacity of the rest of the brain to adapt to it. We provide experimental support for the notion that genetic factors play a critical role in such adaptation. We induced a controlled brain disruption using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and show that APOE status determines its impact on distributed brain networks as assessed by functional MRI (fMRI).Twenty non-demented elders exhibiting mild memory dysfunction underwent two fMRI studies during face-name encoding tasks (before and after rTMS). Baseline task performance was associated with activation of a network of brain regions in prefrontal, parietal, medial temporal and visual associative areas. APOE ε4 bearers exhibited this pattern in two separate independent components, whereas ε4-non carriers presented a single partially overlapping network. Following rTMS all subjects showed slight ameliorations in memory performance, regardless of APOE status. However, after rTMS APOE ε4-carriers showed significant changes in brain network activation, expressing strikingly similar spatial configuration as the one observed in the non-carrier group prior to stimulation. Similarly, activity in areas of the default-mode network (DMN) was found in a single component among the ε4-non bearers, whereas among carriers it appeared disaggregated in three distinct spatiotemporal components that changed to an integrated single component after rTMS. Our findings demonstrate that genetic background play a fundamental role in the brain responses to focal insults, conditioning expression of distinct brain networks to sustain similar cognitive performance.

Progresso temporal da ferrugem e fungicidas para controle das doenças foliares do pessegueiro

O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar o progresso da ferrugem do pessegueiro e a eficiência de fungicidas no controle de da ferrugem e do furo-de-bala em pomares da região metropolitana de Curitiba-PR. Os ensaios foram conduzidos em pomar comercial com o delineamento experimental em blocos ao acaso, Cultivar Chimarrita, com quatro tratamentos (mancozebe, tiofanato metílico, clorotalonil e testemunha, sem pulverização) e quatro repetições, nas safras de 2004/2005 e 2005/2006. Cada fungicida foi pulverizado oito vezes, com intervalo de 15 a 20 dias entre as aplicações. A avaliação do progresso da epidemia de ferrugem e a eficiência dos fungicidas no controle das doenças foram feitas com base na incidência e severidade da doença nas folhas e na porcentagem de desfolha das plantas. A taxa de progresso da doença e o inóculo inicial na testemunha não diferiram significativamente entre os anos. Todos os fungicidas reduziram a desfolha e a severidade da ferrugem, mas o clorotalonil foi melhor e também reduziu a incidência em ambos os anos. Os fungicidas mancozebe e tiofanato metílico reduziram a incidência de furo-de-bala.

Modelling the curing process in magneto-sensitive polymers: Rate-dependence and shrinkage

This paper deals with a phenomenologically motivated magneto-viscoelastic coupled finite strain framework for simulating the curing process of polymers under the application of a coupled magneto-mechanical road. Magneto-sensitive polymers are prepared by mixing micron-sized ferromagnetic particles in uncured polymers. Application of a magnetic field during the curing process causes the particles to align and form chain-like structures lending an overall anisotropy to the material. The polymer curing is a viscoelastic complex process where a transformation from fluid. to solid occurs in the course of time. During curing, volume shrinkage also occurs due to the packing of polymer chains by chemical reactions. Such reactions impart a continuous change of magneto-mechanical properties that can be modelled by an appropriate constitutive relation where the temporal evolution of material parameters is considered. To model the shrinkage during curing, a magnetic-induction-dependent approach is proposed which is based on a multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient into a mechanical and a magnetic-induction-dependent volume shrinkage part. The proposed model obeys the relevant laws of thermodynamics. Numerical examples, based on a generalised Mooney-Rivlin energy function, are presented to demonstrate the model capacity in the case of a magneto-viscoelastically coupled load.

Environmental Structural Decomposition Analysis of Italian Emissions, 1995-2005

[spa] El estudio analiza la evolución de los gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) y las emisiones de acidificación para Italia durante el periodo 1995-2005. Los datos muestran que mientras las emisiones que contribuyen a la acidificación han disminuido constantemente, las emisiones de GEI han aumentado debido al aumento de dióxido de carbono. El objetivo de este estudio es poner de relieve cómo diferentes factores económicos, en particular el crecimiento económico, el desarrollo de una tecnología menos contaminante y la estructura del consumo, han impulsado la evolución de las emisiones. La metodología propuesta es un análisis de descomposición estructural (ADE), método que permite descomponer los cambios de la variable de interés entre las diferentes fuerzas y revelar la importancia de cada factor. Por otra parte, este estudio considera la importancia del comercio internacional e intenta incluir el “problema de la responsabilidad”. Es decir, a través de las relaciones comerciales internacionales, un país podría estar exportando procesos de producción contaminantes sin una reducción real de la contaminación implícita en su patrón de consumo. Con este fin, siguiendo primero un enfoque basado en la “responsabilidad del productor”, el ADE se aplica a las emisiones causadas por la producción nacional. Sucesivamente, el análisis se mueve hacia un enfoque basado en la “responsabilidad del consumidor" y la descomposición se aplica a las emisiones relacionadas con la producción nacional o la producción extranjera que satisface la demanda interna. De esta manera, el ejercicio permite una primera comprobación de la importancia del comercio internacional y pone de relieve algunos resultados a nivel global y a nivel sectorial.

Impact of model complexity on cross-temporal transferability in Maxent species distribution models: An assessment using paleobotanical data

Maximum entropy modeling (Maxent) is a widely used algorithm for predicting species distributions across space and time. Properly assessing the uncertainty in such predictions is non-trivial and requires validation with independent datasets. Notably, model complexity (number of model parameters) remains a major concern in relation to overfitting and, hence, transferability of Maxent models. An emerging approach is to validate the cross-temporal transferability of model predictions using paleoecological data. In this study, we assess the effect of model complexity on the performance of Maxent projections across time using two European plant species (Alnus giutinosa (L.) Gaertn. and Corylus avellana L) with an extensive late Quaternary fossil record in Spain as a study case. We fit 110 models with different levels of complexity under present time and tested model performance using AUC (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) and AlCc (corrected Akaike Information Criterion) through the standard procedure of randomly partitioning current occurrence data. We then compared these results to an independent validation by projecting the models to mid-Holocene (6000 years before present) climatic conditions in Spain to assess their ability to predict fossil pollen presence-absence and abundance. We find that calibrating Maxent models with default settings result in the generation of overly complex models. While model performance increased with model complexity when predicting current distributions, it was higher with intermediate complexity when predicting mid-Holocene distributions. Hence, models of intermediate complexity resulted in the best trade-off to predict species distributions across time. Reliable temporal model transferability is especially relevant for forecasting species distributions under future climate change. Consequently, species-specific model tuning should be used to find the best modeling settings to control for complexity, notably with paleoecological data to independently validate model projections. For cross-temporal projections of species distributions for which paleoecological data is not available, models of intermediate complexity should be selected.