Rapidly Progressing Neurocognitive Disorder in a Male with FXTAS and Alzheimer's Disease.

Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a neurodegenerative disorder that usually begins in the early 60s and affects carriers of premutation expansion (55-200 CGG repeats) of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene. Additional disorders can co-occur with FXTAS including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here we discuss a case report of a male with 67 CGG repeats in FMR1 who had mild late-onset FXTAS symptoms followed by neurocognitive disorder symptoms consistent with AD. The patient has developed tremor and ataxia that are the two characteristic symptoms of FXTAS. In addition, he shows rapid cognitive decline, brain atrophy most substantial in the medial temporal lobe, and decreased metabolism in the brain regions that are the characteristic findings of AD. The purpose of this study is to describe a patient profile with both diseases and review the details of an overlap between these two diseases

Neurocognitive effects of binge drinking on verbal episodic memory. An ERP study in university students

Background: Verbal memory may be affected by engagement in alcohol binge drinking during youth, according to the findings of neuropsychological studies. However, little is known about the dynamics of the neural activity underlying this cognitive process in young, heavy drinkers. Aims: To investigate brain event-related potentials associated with cued recall from episodic memory in binge drinkers and controls. Methods: Seventy first-year university students were classified as binge drinkers (32: 17 female) or controls (38: 18 female). The participants completed a verbal paired associates learning task during electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. ERPs elicited by old and new word pairs were extracted from the cued-recall phase of the task by using Principal Component Analysis. Subjects also performed a standardized neuropsychological verbal learning test. Results: Two of the three event-related potentials components indicating old/new memory effects provided evidence for anomalies associated with binge drinking. The old/new effects were absent in the binge drinkers in the two subsequent posterior components, identified with the late parietal component and the late posterior negativity The late frontal component revealed similar old/new effects in both groups. Binge drinkers showed similar behavioural performance to controls in the verbal paired associates task, but performed poorly in the more demanding short-term cued-recall trial of a neuropsychological standardized test. Conclusion: Event-related potentials elicited during a verbal cued-recall task revealed differences in brain functioning between young binge drinkers and controls that may underlie emergent deficits in episodic memory linked to alcohol abuse. The brain activity of binge drinkers suggests alterations in the hippocampal - posterior parietal cortex circuitry subserving recognition and recollection of the cue context and generation of the solution, in relation to verbal information shallowly memorised.This work was supported by grants PID 2020-113487RB-100, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; PSI2011-22575, funded by MCIN, and GRC ED431C 2021/08, funded by the Department of I + D of the Regional Government, Xunta de GaliciaS

Computing Competencies for Undergraduate Data Science Curricula: ACM Data Science Task Force

At the August 2017 ACM Education Council meeting, a task force was formed to explore a process to add to the broad, interdisciplinary conversation on data science, with an articulation of the role of computing discipline-specific contributions to this emerging field. Specifically, the task force would seek to define what the computing/computational contributions are to this new field, and provide guidance on computing-specific competencies in data science for departments offering such programs of study at the undergraduate level. There are many stakeholders in the discussion of data science – these include colleges and universities that (hope to) offer data science programs, employers who hope to hire a workforce with knowledge and experience in data science, as well as individuals and professional societies representing the fields of computing, statistics, machine learning, computational biology, computational social sciences, digital humanities, and others. There is a shared desire to form a broad interdisciplinary definition of data science and to develop curriculum guidance for degree programs in data science. This volume builds upon the important work of other groups who have published guidelines for data science education. There is a need to acknowledge the definition and description of the individual contributions to this interdisciplinary field. For instance, those interested in the business context for these concepts generally use the term “analytics”; in some cases, the abbreviation DSA appears, meaning Data Science and Analytics. This volume is the third draft articulation of computing-focused competencies for data science. It recognizes the inherent interdisciplinarity of data science and situates computing-specific competencies within the broader interdisciplinary space

ROLE OF INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS ON USE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES BY MEDICAL STUDENTS IN LAGOS STATE

Background: This paper investigates the role of information literacy skills on use of information resources by medical students in Lagos state. Objectives: Find out the types of information resources available, level of availability and the skills for accessing them, level of information resources used, is there a significant relationship between information literacy skills and use of information resources. Methods: The study adopted a survey research design. Total enumeration sampling technique was employed. Self-structured questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics while Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) to test the hypothesis. Results: The study found out that print newspapers, textbooks and e-resources were mostly available to the Medical students. Conclusion: the study concludes that adequate attention should be given to information literacy by ensuring that medical students acquire relevant competencies which are essential for information search

Decreased event-related theta power and phase-synchrony in young binge drinkers during target detection: An anatomically-constrained MEG approach

Background: The prevalence of binge drinking (BD) has been on the rise in recent years. It is associated with a range of neurocognitive deficits among adolescents and young emerging adults who are especially vulnerable to alcohol use. Attention is an essential dimension of executive functioning and attentional disturbances may be associated with hazardous drinking. The aim of the study was to examine the oscillatory neural dynamics of attentional control during visual target detection in emerging young adults as a function of BD. Method: Fifty-one first-year university students (18±0.6 years) were assigned to light drinking (LD, N=26), and BD (N=25) groups based on their alcohol consumption patterns. High-density magnetoencephalography (MEG) signal was combined with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in an anatomically-constrained MEG model to estimate event-related source power in theta (4-7 Hz) frequency band. Phase-locked co-oscillations were further estimate between the principally activated regions during task performance. Results: Overall, the greatest event-related theta power was elicited by targets in the right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC) and it correlated with performance accuracy and selective attention scores. BDs exhibited lower theta power and dysregulated oscillatory synchrony to targets in the rIFC which correlated with higher levels of alcohol consumption. Conclusions: These results confirm that a highly interactive network in the rIFC subserves attentional control, revealing the importance of theta oscillations and neural synchrony for attentional capture and contextual maintenance. Attenuation of theta power and synchronous interactions in BDs may indicate early stages of suboptimal integrative processing in young, highly functioning BDsThis study was supported by the projects SPI/2010/134 and SPI/2010/051 from the Spanish Ministry of Health and Social Politics (National Plan of Drugs), and the National Institutes of Health, US, (R01-AA016624)S

Longitudinal study of the neuropsychological consequences of binge drinking in university students: six-year follow-up

In the present thesis, the neuropsychological performance in working memory, episodic memory and decision making in university students with a pattern of intensive alcohol consumption over a six-year period (from 18-19 to 24-25) has been evaluated. The results showed that a stable BD trajectory was associated with difficulties in working memory and episodic verbal memory. Both sexes showed similar performance. The abandonment of this pattern was associated with an improvement in cognitive functioning. The results are consistent with the particular vulnerability of prefrontal and temporomedical networks to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol

Undifferenced and Uncombined GNSS Time Transfer and its Space Applications

This thesis presents a framework for developing a state-of-the-art undifferenced and uncombined (UDUC) time transfer technique for space applications. It addresses challenges in GNSS time transfer, such as multi-frequency signal modelling, satellite clock estimation, and hardware delay variations. The thesis introduces the UDUC POD method for GNSS time transfer in space and explores the feasibility of constructing a LEO-based space-time reference. This PhD dissertation is among the first to investigate the UDUC GNSS time transfer

Study on Information need and Seeking Behavior of the Health Science Students of an Indian Deemed University

Objective: The objective of this study was to find out the study habit of health science students by using library of SIKSHA ‘O’ ANUSANDHAN University, Bhubaneswar. Methods: All the information are collected form students of four health science institutions of this University (N=420). All data were analyzed with the help of SPSS 20 software. Results: This study found the use of e-resources for information retrieval by the students regularly or daily through internet /e-library which is higher than other retrieval process. Text, reference books and e-journals are also cited frequently by the students. Conclusions: Though popular, ordinal rankings cannot adequately describe the multidimensional nature of health science students’ attitude on seeking information. This study provides statistics that can be used in conjunction with other sound methodologies to provide a more authentic view on this matter. The large variance of the collected data suggests that refining seeking behavior by discipline, peer groups, or journal information may provide a more precise assessment