Suppression weakens unwanted memories via a sustained reduction of neural reactivation

Aversive events sometimes turn into intrusive memories. However, prior evidence indicates that such memories can be controlled via a mechanism of retrieval suppression. Here, we test the hypothesis that suppression exerts a sustained influence on memories by deteriorating their neural representations. This deterioration, in turn, would hinder their subsequent reactivation and thus impoverish the vividness with which they can be recalled. In an fMRI study, participants repeatedly suppressed memories of aversive scenes. As predicted, this process rendered the memories less vivid. Using a pattern classifier, we observed that suppression diminished the neural reactivation of scene information both globally across the brain and locally in the parahippocampal cortices. Moreover, the decline in vividness was associated with reduced reinstatement of unique memory representations in right parahippocampal cortex. These results support the hypothesis that suppression weakens memories by causing a sustained reduction in the potential to reactivate their neural representations

Spartan Daily, February 28, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 26https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9822/thumbnail.jp

The Emergence of the Article 9 Association and Reorganization of Social Movements in Contemporary Japan: A Story of Network Practice for Social Change.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

The (Re)turn to Infrastructure for Water Management?

abstract: This paper introduces the papers in this special issue and uses them as evidence through which to examine four questions. First: are we witnessing a widespread (re)turn to big infrastructure projects for water management? The evidence suggests that large-scale infrastructure development has remained largely unswayed by the 'ecological turn', or the promotion of demand management or 'soft path' thinking, despite a drop in investments observed at the turn of the 20th century. Second: do these new projects have different justifications from those of the past? The papers in this issue provide evidence that the need to justify capital-intensive infrastructure in the face of commitments to sustainability, while borrowing from the conventional grammar of project justifications, has generated a few innovative tropes and rhetorical devices. Third: what does a (re)turn (or enduring commitment) to big infrastructure tells us about the governance and wider politics of large-scale infrastructure problems? Some of the traditional interest groups are well represented in the stories told here - the corporations that demand water or compete to build pipes and dams; the large-scale irrigators that rely on water to expand their production; the engineers and consultants who seek money, prestige, career advancement or even satisfaction from 'controlling' nature; the politicians who can extract 'rents' from all this activity. Even so, the history of each particular project involves many contingencies - of the society's history, of previous rounds of infrastructure and of capital availability. Fourth: have there been changes in the scale at which water is managed within countries? In general, it seems there has been an increase in the scale of projects, generally involving a shift in power away from regional and up to multi-regional agencies of governance, such as the central state. Sometimes these shifts in scale and power have no effect on the salience of local voices - because in the past they were never heard or generally suppressed anyway. Sometimes the shifts in power and scale have been accompanied by increasing suppression of local voices of opposition. In one case - South Africa - the change in scale has seen a stand-offbetween representatives of new voices and the infrastructure-focussed engineering elite.The final version of this article, as published in Water Alternatives, can be viewed online at: http://www.water-alternatives.or

Slope stability analysis and landslide susceptibility assessment on the SE foot slopes of Mt Cameroon

Landslides are well known processes that hamper sustainable development efforts, particularly in developing countries where extreme poverty is already a household to societal scale problem. Though a worldwide issue, landslides remain enigmatic especially with regards to their geometry, causative factors, triggering mechanisms, relationship between triggering factors and landslide occurrence, and the susceptibility of any area to mass wasting phenomena. This thesis presents an inventory and thorough analysis of small–scale devastating landslides that occurred in recent years around the city of Limbe at the base of Mt Cameroon. A multidisciplinary approach was adopted in order to understand the complex and multi-phase nature of landslide processes. This involved integrating results of traditional field mapping, rainfall measurements, analyses of geotechnical properties, soil mineralogy and geochemistry to get an idea of the processes and mechanisms involved in landslide initiation and mobilisation. From these results, two conceptual models are proposed to explain the occurrence of landslides affecting areas populated by vulnerable people. The thesis thus provides first-hand field-measured geometric characteristics of landslide scars and systematically documents and quantifies for the first time the overall features of volume-limited devastating slides around Limbe. Hence, it provides constraints for modelling, monitoring and remediation efforts that might be applied in other areas affected by similar small-scale failures. Field observations, geotechnical and mineralogical characterisation suggests that slope failure within the study area is enhanced by human intervention through anarchical construction and slope undercutting whereas natural slope failure is generated as a result of fracture enhanced permeability. This implies that in the absence of external factors the slopes within the study area would generally remain stable for long periods. It also demonstrates that understanding landslide triggering processes and relationships between triggers and slide occurrence could be improved through more accurate recording of landslide events and the corresponding triggering process (intensity, magnitude and duration). This knowlegde can be used in landslide susceptibility assessment which was one of the most significant achievements of this thesis, and in the development of early-warning systems that might enable a reduction in the number of casualties and economic loss from future landslide phenomena. The findings from the present study have generic value and can be used to tackle small-scale slope instability problems elsewhere in the subtropics

Enhancing OpenStreetMap for the Assessment of Critical Road Infrastructure in a Disaster Context

Die Häufigkeit von Naturkatastrophen nimmt weltweit zu, was zu immensen Schäden an kritischer Straßeninfrastruktur und deren Funktionalität führen kann. Daher ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, die Funktionalität kritischer Straßeninfrastruktur vor, während und nach einer Katastrophe zu beurteilen. Dazu werden globale Straßendaten benötigt, die für die Routenplanung nutzbar sind. OpenStreetMap (OSM) stellt globale Straßennetzdaten zur Verfügung, die kostenlos und frei zugänglich sind. Allerdings ist die Verwendung der OSM Straßendaten für Routenplanungsanwendungen oft eine Herausforderung. Das übergeordnete Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung eines generischen, mehrskaligen Konzepts zur Analyse kritischer Straßeninfrastrukturen im Kontext von Naturgefahren unter Verwendung von OSM Daten. Dafür werden zwei aufeinander folgende Forschungsziele aufgestellt: (i) die Verbesserung der Routingfähigkeit von OSM Daten und (ii) die Bewertung kritischer Straßeninfrastruktur im Kontext von Naturgefahren. Daraus resultiert die Gliederung dieser Arbeit in zwei Hauptteile, die jeweils den Forschungszielen entsprechen. Im ersten Teil dieser Arbeit wird die Nutzbarkeit von OSM Daten für Routing Anwendungen verbessert. Zunächst wird dafür die Qualität des OSM Straßennetzwerks im Detail analysiert. Dabei werden zwei große Herausforderungen im Bereich der Anwendbarkeit von OSM Daten für die Routenplanung identifiziert: fehlende Geschwindigkeitsangaben und Fehler in der Straßenklassifizierung. Um die erste Herausforderung zu bewältigen, wird ein FuzzyFramework zur Geschwindigkeitsschätzung (Fuzzy-FSE) entwickelt, welches eine Fuzzy Regelung zur Schätzung der Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeit einsetzt. Diese Fuzzy Regelung basiert auf den Parametern Straßenklasse, Straßenneigung, Straßenoberfläche und Straßenlänge einsetzt. Das Fuzzy-FSE besteht aus zwei Teilen: einer Regel- und Wissensbasis, die über die Zugehörigkeitsfunktionen für den Ausgangsparameter Geschwindigkeit entscheidet, und mehrere Fuzzy-Regelsysteme, welche die resultierende Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeit berechnen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Fuzzy-FSE auch bei ausschließlicher Verwendung von OSM Daten eine bessere Leistung erbringt als bestehende Methoden. Die Herausforderung der fehlerhaften Straßenklassifizierung wird durch die Entwicklung eines neuartigen Ansatzes zur Erkennung von Klassifizierungfehlern in OSM angegangen. Dabei wird sowohl nach nicht verbundenen Netzwerkteilen als auch nach Lücken im Straßennetzwerk gesucht. Verschiedene Parameter werden in einem Bewertungssystem kombiniert, um eine Fehlerwahrscheinlichkeit zu erhalten. Auf Basis der Fehlerwahrscheinlichkeit kann ein menschlicher Nutzer diese Fehler überprüfen und korrigieren. Die Ergebnisse deuten einerseits darauf hin, dass an Lücken mehr Klassifizierungsfehler gefunden werden als an nicht verbundenen Netzwerkteilen. Andererseits zeigen sie, dass das entwickelte Bewertungssystem bei einer benutzergesteuerten Suche nach Lücken zu einem schnellen Aufdecken von Klassifizierungsfehlern verwendet werden kann. Aus dem ersten Teil dieser Arbeit ergibt sich somit ein erweiterter OSM Datensatz mit verbesserter Routingfähigkeit. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit werden die erweiterten OSM Daten zur Bewertung der kritischen Straßeninfrastruktur im Katastrophenkontext verwendet. Dazu wird der zweite Teil des generischen, mehrskaligen Konzepts entwickelt, das aus mehreren, miteinander verbundenen Modulen besteht. Ein Modul implementiert zwei Erreichbarkeitsindizes, welche verschiedene Aspekte der Erreichbarkeit im Straßennetzwerk hervorheben. In einem weiteren Modul wird ein grundlegendes Modell der Verkehrsnachfrage entwickelt, welches den täglichen interstädtischen Verkehr ausschließlich auf der Grundlage von OSM Daten schätzt. Ein drittes Modul verwendet die oben beschriebenen Module zur Schätzung verschiedener Arten von Auswirkungen von Naturkatastrophen auf das Straßennetzwerk. Schließlich wird in einem vierten Modul die Vulnerabilität des Straßennetzes gegenüber weiteren Schäden bei Langzeitkatastrophen analysiert. Das generische Konzept mit allen Modulen wird exemplarisch in zwei verschiedenen Regionen für zwei Waldbrandszenarien angewendet. Die Ergebnisse der Fallstudien zeigen, dass das Konzept ein wertvolles, flexibles und global anwendbares Instrument für Regionalplaner und Katastrophenmanagement darstellt, das länder- bzw. regionenspezifische Anpassungen ermöglicht und gleichzeitig wenig Daten benötigt

Microstructural and geochemical processes in long-lived reactivated crustal-scale fault zones: A case study from the Median Tectonic Line, SW Japan.

The Median Tectonic Line (MTL) is a major, crustal-scale fault in Japan that separates the low-P/high-T Ryoke metamorphic belt of mainly subduction related granitoids from the high-P/low-T Sambagawa Belt of accretionary complex metasedimentary rocks. Like many large, crustal-scale faults, the MTL has a long history of movement having been active predominantly as a strike-slip fault since the mid-Cretaceous. Fault rock exposures in the core of the MTL preserve a history of deformation at a range of mid- to shallow-crustal depths. Ryoke mylonites 1-5 km north of the main contact record deeper level, Cretaceous top-to-the-south sinistral movements. The remainder of the fault zone core is surprisingly narrow (く50 m) exhibiting a wide variety of fault rocks that illustrate both the passage and interaction of syn-tectonic fluid influx over a range of deformation conditions. Exposures of the fault core at Miyamae, Mie Prefecture display a progressive sequence in fault rock evolution from ultramylonite →cataclasite → foliated cataclasite → phyllonite→breccia/gouge. This sequence occurs because cataclasis in the vicinity of the fault core creates permeable pathways for the ingress of chemically active fluids into the fault zone. This leads to the replacement of load-bearing phases such as feldspar by fine grained, foliated aggregates of intrinsically weaker phyllosilicates and the onset of fluid associated diffusive mass transfer (DMT) in finest grained regions of the cataclastically deformed fault zone. Comparison with the findings of recent experimental studies suggest that the fault zone processes observed in the core of the MTL will lead to long-term weakening. An integrated field, microstructural and geochemical study at Miyamae and Tsukide, Mie Prefecture, has highlighted two distinctive domains: 1) the narrow fine-grained foliated fault core where strain is localised; and 2) a wider damage zone of variably fractured mylonites to the north of the fault core that progressively grade into Ryoke protolith mylonite at distances over -400 m north of the MTL central slip zone. The fine-grained foliated fault rocks within the core have experienced the most intense deformation, but show the apparently least altered geochemical signature. A model for the presence of a damage zone experiencing pervasive fluid flow and a fault core experiencing high fluid fluxes of channellized fluid flow structurally linked to a Ryoke protolith fluid reservoir is presented. A central slip zone 'seal' IS inferred to retard mixing with Sambagawa-derived fluids. The phyllonitic fault rocks in the core of the MTL posses a strong permeability anisotropy where transverse fluid flow is inhibited and focused fault-parallel fluid flow occurs. Foliated cataclasites are exceptionally well exposed in the MTL fault core at Anko, Nagano Prefecture. Processes of brittle fracture and cataclasis have led to the development of cm- to sub-mm spaced fracture systems defining a crude fabric. This fracture system established an initial architectural hierarchy that influenced the subsequent development of foliated cataclasite and gouge. Fluid influx at the onset of grain-scale brittle deformation led to precipitation of fibrous chlorite within the finest- grained sections of the fault core. This ultimately led to the development of a foliation within the ultra-cataclasite defined by an interconnected network of aligned phyllosilicate aggregates. The brittle reduction of grain-size and the ingress of a chemically active fluid phase promoted the operation of diffusive mass transfer mechanisms ('frictional-viscous creep') and reaction softening. Field and microstructural observations at Anko suggest that the foliated cataclasites are a shallower equivalent to the phyllonites found along the more deeply exhumed parts of the MTL at Miyamae

Malignant melanoma of the urethra: a rare histologic subdivision of vulvar cancer with a poor prognosis

Malignant melanoma of the urethra is a rare tumour that is difficult to diagnose and treat, resulting in a poor prognosis. In this paper, we present the case of a 65-year-old woman who was referred to a gynaecologist because of a urethral mass that mimicked a caruncle. The tumour was removed by local excision, and a pathological analysis revealed a malignant melanoma. Distal urethrectomy was performed after three months with no evidence of residual tumour. There was no evidence of disease at a six-year followup. In this paper, we compare the epidemiology, treatment, staging, and prognosis of vulvar cancer in general to malignant melanoma of the vulva in particular