13 research outputs found
A thalamocortical pathway for fast rerouting of tactile information to occipital cortex in congenital blindness
In congenitally blind individuals, the occipital cortex responds to various nonvisual inputs. Some animal studies raise the possibility that a subcortical pathway allows fast re-routing of tactile information to the occipital cortex, but this has not been shown in humans. Here we show using magnetoencephalography (MEG) that tactile stimulation produces occipital cortex activations, starting as early as 35 ms in congenitally blind individuals, but not in blindfolded sighted controls. Given our measured thalamic response latencies of 20 ms and a mean estimated lateral geniculate nucleus to primary visual cortex transfer time of 15 ms, we claim that this early occipital response is mediated by a direct thalamo-cortical pathway. We also observed stronger directed connectivity in the alpha band range from posterior thalamus to occipital cortex in congenitally blind participants. Our results strongly suggest the contribution of a fast thalamo-cortical pathway in the cross-modal activation of the occipital cortex in congenitally blind humans
Low incidence of SARS-CoV-2, risk factors of mortality and the course of illness in the French national cohort of dialysis patients
Contre-cultures Ă Berlin de 1960 Ă nos jours
International audienceLa critique de la culture dominante joue un rôle majeur dans les mouvements de protestation de 1968, qui fournissent le terminus a quo pour ce volume, dont l’architecture croise les entrées thématiques (par exemple, les contre-cultures face aux institutions ou l’intervention socio-politique à travers le cinéma, le cabaret et les chansonniers) et la progression chronologique. D’une manière générale, les contributions permettent de clarifier la notion de « contre-culture », montrant qu’il était plus pertinent de la réserver aux pratiques ayant pour objectif une émancipation politique et sociale à l’égard des formes de culture dominante. Dans ce sens, la contre-culture est une subversion de l’ordre social établi, visant à modifier les consciences par des actions culturelles et artistiques qui ne sont pas seulement vecteurs de contenus politiques, mais remettent radicalement en cause le fonctionnement du système culturel et les valeurs qui le sous-tendent pour prôner d’autres valeurs comme le décentrement, la proximité, la démocratie de base. C’est cela qui la distingue des subcultures, davantage à la marge de la société, qui ne partagent pas cette remise en cause générale et radicale, et permet de définir la contre-culture au sens propre comme une culture « alternative », aspirant à réformer en profondeur l’État et la société. Au travers de ses différents visages Berlin, se dessine comme une capitale culturelle qui pratique une « culture de la contre-culture théâtrale » depuis la seconde moitié du XIXème siècle, surtout dans l’orbe du mouvement ouvrier. Le concept de « renversement » (observable au plan dramaturgique à partir des rapports du théâtre à l’histoire et aux classiques) paraît le plus opératoire pour décrire la contre-culture des années 1970 en RFA. Quant à la RDA, le Mur une fois tombé, le paradoxe de sa contre-culture théâtrale semble être de camper sur son héritage patrimonial : forme d’« ostalgie » peut-être mais surtout, à l’exemple de Castorf, contre-mouvement à la logique d’effacement des traces de l’existence d’un État et de sa culture que certains (Günther Grass, Christa Wolf) ont pu dire « annexés »
Artificial Intelligence at the JRC: 2nd workshop on Artificial Intelligence at the JRC, Ispra 5th July 2019
This document presents the contributions discussed at the second institutional workshop on Artificial Intelligence
(AI), organized by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. This workshop was held on 05th
July 2019 at the premises of the JRC in Ispra (Italy), with video-conference to all JRC's sites. The workshop aimed
to gather JRC specialists on AI and Big Data and share their experience, identify opportunities for meeting EC
demands on AI, and explore synergies among the different JRC's working groups on AI.
In comparison with the first event, according to the JRC Director General VladimĂr Ĺ uchav, the activities and
results presented in this second workshop demonstrated a significant development of AI research and
applications by JRC in different policy areas. He suggested to think about replicating the event at the premises of
diverse policy DGs in order to present and discuss the clear opportunities created by JRC activities.
After the opening speech by the JRC Director General VladimĂr Ĺ uchav, the research and innovation presentation
were anticipated by two presentations by Alessandro Annoni and Stefano Nativi. The first presentation dealt with
the results of one year of AI@JRC and six months of fully operational AI&BD community of practice1. The second
presentation reported the results of the AI competences survey at JRC.
The research and innovation contributions consisted in flash presentations (5 minutes) covering a wide range of
areas. This report is structured according to the diverse domain areas addressed by the presenters.
While the first part of the workshop was mainly informative, in the second part we collectively discussed about
how to move on and evolve the AI&BD community of practice.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom
Low incidence of SARS-CoV-2, risk factors of mortality and the course of illness in the French national cohort of dialysis patients
International audienceThe aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 disease in the French national population of dialysis patients, their course of illness and to identify the risk factors associated with mortality. Our study included all patients on dialysis recorded in the French REIN Registry in April 2020. Clinical characteristics at last follow-up and the evolution of COVID-19 illness severity over time were recorded for diagnosed cases (either suspicious clinical symptoms, characteristic signs on the chest scan or a positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) for SARS-CoV-2. A total of 1,621 infected patients were reported on the REIN registry from March 16th, 2020 to May 4th, 2020. Of these, 344 died. The prevalence of COVID-19 patients varied from less than 1% to 10% between regions. The probability of being a case was higher in males, patients with diabetes, those in need of assistance for transfer or treated at a self-care unit. Dialysis at home was associated with a lower probability of being infected as was being a smoker, a former smoker, having an active malignancy, or peripheral vascular disease. Mortality in diagnosed cases (21%) was associated with the same causes as in the general population. Higher age, hypoalbuminemia and the presence of an ischemic heart disease were statistically independently associated with a higher risk of death. Being treated at a selfcare unit was associated with a lower risk. Thus, our study showed a relatively low frequency of COVID-19 among dialysis patients contrary to what might have been assumed