Une signalétique accusatoire : les pratiques d’identification judiciaire au XVIIIe siècle

À Genève au XVIIIe siècle trois registres judiciaires dessinent les prémices de la culture signalétique. Pensés dans un souci de contrôle de la population bannie, ils conjuguent une peine archaïque avec les techniques modernes d’enregistrement et de signalement. Aux notices nominales sont parfois ajoutés les circonstances du délit, les liens de complicité, ou les signes d’apparence. Ces indications informent sur la dangerosité du criminel, et permettent également d’identifier un banni récidiviste. Dès 1775, un chirurgien se rend aux prisons visiter les futurs bannis. Instauré pour contrer les pratiques de déguisement, cet exercice de lecture des traces corporelles ouvre sur des données biographiques et comportementales et annonce le discours expert.In 18th century Geneva, three judiciary registers lay down the basis of research for criminal sketch culture. Created with a wish to keep in check banned people, they show both the archaic punishment of banning alongside modern techniques of holding record and description. To the nominal information are sometimes added the circumstances of the offense, complicity ties or general appearance. These indications inform on the dangerosity of any given criminal and also allow to identify a banned recidivist. As from 1775, a doctor would visit the criminals that had yet to be banished in prison. Set to discourage disguise, this practice of reading body marks introduces biographical and behavioral data announcing expert speech

Fast oscillatory activity in the anterior cingulate cortex: dopaminergic modulation and effect of perineuronal net loss.

Dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in cognitive function such as working memory, attention and planning. Dopamine exerts complex modulation on excitability of pyramidal neurons and interneurons, and regulates excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission. Because of the complexity of this modulation, it is difficult to fully comprehend the effect of dopamine on neuronal network activity. In this study, we investigated the effect of dopamine on local high-frequency oscillatory neuronal activity (in β band) in slices of the mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We found that dopamine enhanced the power of these oscillations induced by kainate and carbachol, but did not affect their peak frequency. Activation of D2R and in a lesser degree D1R increased the oscillation power, while activation of D4R had no effect. These high-frequency oscillations in the ACC relied on both phasic inhibitory and excitatory transmission and functional gap junctions. Thus, dopamine released in the ACC promotes high-frequency synchronized local cortical activity which is known to favor information transfer, fast selection and binding of distributed neuronal responses. Finally, the power of these oscillations was significantly enhanced after degradation of the perineuronal nets (PNNs) enwrapping most parvalbumin interneurons. This study provides new insights for a better understanding of the abnormal prefrontal gamma activity in schizophrenia (SZ) patients who display prefrontal anomalies of both the dopaminergic system and the PNNs

Plastic Surgery After Gastric Bypass Improves Long-Term Quality of Life

Background: Excess skin after massive weight loss impairs patient's health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Therefore, body-contouring surgeries can be proposed. However, few data exist concerning the effect of body contouring after bariatric surgery on HRQoL, including control group with a long-term follow-up. Methods: In a prospective study, 98 consecutive patients who had body contouring after gastric bypass for obesity (BMI > 40) were included (group A). A matched control-group containing 102 patients who had only gastric bypass was selected (group B). HRQoL was measured by Moorehead-Ardelt questionnaire before (group A1) and after (A2) body contouring, and at different time points for group B until 8years post-gastric bypass. To evaluate the effect of body contouring by two parallel methods, HRQoL was compared between groups A1 and A2, and between A2 and B. Results: We found that body contouring procedures improved significantly patients' HRQoL, in comparison to those who had only gastric bypass. Of the patients who had body contouring (group A2), 57% evaluated their HRQoL "much better” in comparison to only 22% of patients before body contouring (group A1) or those who never had body contouring (group B) (p < 0.001). The improvement was significant in all sub-domains of HRQoL: self-esteem, social life, work ability, sexual activity and physical activity (p < 0.001), and remained stable over time. Conclusions: Our study confirms the important role of plastic surgery in treatment of patients after massive weight loss. We demonstrated that body contouring, despite important scars, significantly improves satisfaction and HRQoL of patients after gastric bypass. Therefore, the treatment of morbid obesity should not be deemed achieved unless plastic surgery has been considere

Imaging criteria for assessing tumour response: RECIST, mRECIST, Cheson

AbstractMost methods define a limited number of “target” lesions to be measured and other “non-target” lesions to be evaluated qualitatively. RECIST criteria are the most widely used although other criteria have been proposed that are derived from them based on size alone, or size and attenuation. Modified RECIST (mRECIST) criteria only concern hepatocellular carcinoma and only take into account the viable portion (enhanced after injection during the arterial phase). Cheson criteria are more complex as target lesions are defined differently depending on the organ (lymph nodes, liver or spleen, other organs), and involve both CT and PET scans, as well as the clinical examination and bone marrow biopsy

Ion Current Rectification and Long-Range Interference in Conical Silicon Micropores

Fluidic devices exhibiting ion current rectification (ICR), or ionic diodes, are of broad interest for applications including desalination, energy harvesting, and sensing, amongst others. For such applications a large conductance is desirable which can be achieved by simultaneously using thin membranes and wide pores. In this paper we demonstrate ICR in micron sized conical channels in a thin silicon membrane with pore diameters comparable to the membrane thickness but both much larger than the electrolyte screening length. We show that for these pores the entrance resistance is not only key to Ohmic conductance around 0 V, but also for understanding ICR, both of which we measure experimentally and capture within a single analytic theoretical framework. The only fit parameter in this theory is the membrane surface potential, for which we find that it is voltage dependent and its value is excessively large compared to literature. From this we infer that surface charge outside the pore strongly contributes to the observed Ohmic conductance and rectification by a different extent. We experimentally verify this hypothesis in a small array of pores and find that ICR vanishes due to pore-pore interactions mediated through the membrane surface, while Ohmic conductance around 0 V remains unaffected. We find that the pore-pore interaction for ICR is set by a long-ranged decay of the concentration which explains the surprising finding that the ICR vanishes for even a sparsely populated array with a pore-pore spacing as large as 7 $\mu$m.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures, Supplementary Information: 13 pages, 9 figure

Dysconnection Topography in Schizophrenia Revealed with State-Space Analysis of EEG

BACKGROUND: The dysconnection hypothesis has been proposed to account for pathophysiological mechanisms underlying schizophrenia. Widespread structural changes suggesting abnormal connectivity in schizophrenia have been imaged. A functional counterpart of the structural maps would be the EEG synchronization maps. However, due to the limits of currently used bivariate methods, functional correlates of dysconnection are limited to the isolated measurements of synchronization between preselected pairs of EEG signals. METHODS/RESULTS: To reveal a whole-head synchronization topography in schizophrenia, we applied a new method of multivariate synchronization analysis called S-estimator to the resting dense-array (128 channels) EEG obtained from 14 patients and 14 controls. This method determines synchronization from the embedding dimension in a state-space domain based on the theoretical consequence of the cooperative behavior of simultaneous time series-the shrinking of the state-space embedding dimension. The S-estimator imaging revealed a specific synchronization landscape in schizophrenia patients. Its main features included bilaterally increased synchronization over temporal brain regions and decreased synchronization over the postcentral/parietal region neighboring the midline. The synchronization topography was stable over the course of several months and correlated with the severity of schizophrenia symptoms. In particular, direct correlations linked positive, negative, and general psychopathological symptoms to the hyper-synchronized temporal clusters over both hemispheres. Along with these correlations, general psychopathological symptoms inversely correlated within the hypo-synchronized postcentral midline region. While being similar to the structural maps of cortical changes in schizophrenia, the S-maps go beyond the topography limits, demonstrating a novel aspect of the abnormalities of functional cooperation: namely, regionally reduced or enhanced connectivity. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The new method of multivariate synchronization significantly boosts the potential of EEG as an imaging technique compatible with other imaging modalities. Its application to schizophrenia research shows that schizophrenia can be explained within the concept of neural dysconnection across and within large-scale brain networks

Beyond Provenance: New Approaches to Interpreting the Chemistry of Archaeological Copper Alloys

For the last 180 years, scientists have been attempting to determine the ‘provenance’ (geological source) of the copper used in Bronze Age artefacts. However, despite advances in analytical technologies, the theoretical approach has remained virtually unchanged over this period, with the interpretative methodology only changing to accommodate the increasing capacity of computers. This book represents a concerted effort to think about the composition of Bronze Age metal as the product of human intentionality as well as of geology. It considers the trace element composition of the metal, the alloying elements, and the lead isotopic composition, showing how a combination of these aspects, along with archaeological context and typology, can reveal much more about the life history of such artefacts, expanding considerably upon the rather limited ambition of knowing where the ore was extracted. Beyond Provenance serves as a ‘how-to handbook’ for those wishing to look for evidence of human intentionality in the chemical patterning observed in bronzes

Timely N-Acetyl-Cysteine and Environmental Enrichment Rescue Oxidative Stress-Induced Parvalbumin Interneuron Impairments via MMP9/RAGE Pathway: A Translational Approach for Early Intervention in Psychosis.

Research in schizophrenia (SZ) emphasizes the need for new therapeutic approaches based on antioxidant/anti-inflammatory compounds and psycho-social therapy. A hallmark of SZ is a dysfunction of parvalbumin-expressing fast-spiking interneurons (PVI), which are essential for neuronal synchrony during sensory/cognitive processing. Oxidative stress and inflammation during early brain development, as observed in SZ, affect PVI maturation. We compared the efficacy of N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) and/or environmental enrichment (EE) provided during juvenile and/or adolescent periods in rescuing PVI impairments induced by an additional oxidative insult during childhood in a transgenic mouse model with gluthation deficit (Gclm KO), relevant for SZ. We tested whether this rescue was promoted by the inhibition of MMP9/RAGE mechanism, both in the mouse model and in early psychosis (EP) patients, enrolled in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of NAC supplementation for 6 months. We show that a sequential combination of NAC+EE applied after an early-life oxidative insult recovers integrity and function of PVI network in adult Gclm KO, via the inhibition of MMP9/RAGE. Six-month NAC treatment in EP patients reduces plasma sRAGE in association with increased prefrontal GABA, improvement of cognition and clinical symptoms, suggesting similar neuroprotective mechanisms. The sequential combination of NAC+EE reverses long-lasting effects of an early oxidative insult on PVI/perineuronal net (PNN) through the inhibition of MMP9/RAGE mechanism. In analogy, patients vulnerable to early-life insults could benefit from a combined pharmacological and psycho-social therapy

Imaging of response to anti-angiogenic drugs

Les nouveaux traitements, comme les molécules antiangiogéniques, agissent sur des cibles spécifiques. Leur effet sur la taille tumorale est parfois absent ou retardé. De nouvelles techniques d’imagerie fonctionnelle s’intéressent à une caractéristique physiologique plutôt que la taille tumorale, et pourraient mettre en évidence des modifications en réponse au traitement apparaissant plus précocement. L’imagerie dynamique de la microcirculation suit la biodistribution d’un agent de contraste, et analyse la vascularisation tumorale. L’imagerie par résonance magnétique pondérée en diffusion permet de distinguer l’eau libre, de l’eau restreinte dans les tissus, reflétant la cellularité tumorale. L’imagerie par résonance magnétique par effet BOLD reflète l’oxygénation tissulaire en quantifiant le rapport déoxy/oxyhémoglobine. Les études testant ces techniques sont cependant préliminaires et nécessitent des études à grande échelle pour évaluer leur rôle dans la réponse aux traitements ciblés en oncologie.New therapies, such as anti-angiogenic drugs, target specific molecules. Their effect on tumor size is sometimes absent or delayed. New techniques of functional imaging do not detect changes in size, but rather a physiological characteristic, and could reveal changes in response to treatment which arise earlier. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) imaging follows the biodistribution of a contrast agent and analyzes tumor vascularization. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging quantifies restriction to diffusion of water in tissues, reflecting tumor cellularity. BOLD magnetic resonance imaging reflects tissue oxygenation by quantifying the ratio between deoxygenated and oxygenated hemoglobin. Studies testing these techniques are still preliminary. It is therefore necessary to organize large scale studies to evaluate their potential role in response to targeted therapies in oncology