Spindle Oscillations in Sleep Disorders: A Systematic Review

Measurement of sleep microarchitecture and neural oscillations is an increasingly popular technique for quantifying EEG sleep activity. Many studies have examined sleep spindle oscillations in sleep-disordered adults; however reviews of this literature are scarce. As such, our overarching aim was to critically review experimental studies examining sleep spindle activity between adults with and without different sleep disorders. Articles were obtained using a systematic methodology with a priori criteria. Thirty-seven studies meeting final inclusion criteria were reviewed, with studies grouped across three categories: insomnia, hypersomnias, and sleep-related movement disorders (including parasomnias). Studies of patients with insomnia and sleep-disordered breathing were more abundant relative to other diagnoses. All studies were cross-sectional. Studies were largely inconsistent regarding spindle activity differences between clinical and nonclinical groups, with some reporting greater or less activity, while many others reported no group differences. Stark inconsistencies in sample characteristics (e.g., age range and diagnostic criteria) and methods of analysis (e.g., spindle bandwidth selection, visual detection versus digital filtering, absolute versus relative spectral power, and NREM2 versus NREM3) suggest a need for greater use of event-based detection methods and increased research standardization. Hypotheses regarding the clinical and empirical implications of these findings, and suggestions for potential future studies, are also discussed

Tri-axis convective accelerometer with closed-loop heat source

In this paper, we report the details and findings of a study on tri-axis convective accelerometer, which is designed with the closed-loop type heat source and thermal sensing hotwire elements. The closed-loopheat source enhances the convective flow to the central part where a hotwire is placed to measure the vertical component of acceleration. The simulation was conducted using numerical analysis, and the devicewas prototyped by additive manufacturing. The device, functioning as a tilt sensor and an accelerometer,was tested up to acceleration of 20 g. The experiments were successfully conducted and the experimental results agreed reasonably with those obtained by numerical analysis. The results demonstrated that the closed-loop heat source could reduce the cross effect between the acceleration components. The scalefactor and cross-sensitivity had the values of 0.26 micro�V/g and 1.2%, respectively. The cross-sensitivity andthe effects of heating power were also investigated in this study

TYPES OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES AND DEGREES OF POLITENESS PERFORMED BY ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN REQUESTING FOR HELP

In social interaction, people need to pay attention to the face of others to maintain relationships and avoid losing their faces. To do this, people should use politeness strategies in communication. This study aims to investigate which type of politeness strategies are mostly used and the level of politeness shown by English major students in the High Quality Program in requesting help. This study is based on the theory of Brown and Levinson (1987). Based on the analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaire, negative politeness strategies were applied the most. This also performs a high degree of politeness. It shows that students majoring in English studies (High Quality Program) had an awareness of using politeness strategies in requesting help.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0704/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p&gt

Sleep deprivation reveals altered brain perfusion patterns in somnambulism

BACKGROUND: Despite its high prevalence, relatively little is known about the pathophysiology of somnambulism. Increasing evidence indicates that somnambulism is associated with functional abnormalities during wakefulness and that sleep deprivation constitutes an important drive that facilitates sleepwalking in predisposed patients. Here, we studied the neural mechanisms associated with somnambulism using Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) with 99mTc-Ethylene Cysteinate Dimer (ECD), during wakefulness and after sleep deprivation. METHODS: Ten adult sleepwalkers and twelve controls with normal sleep were scanned using 99mTc-ECD SPECT in morning wakefulness after a full night of sleep. Eight of the sleepwalkers and nine of the controls were also scanned during wakefulness after a night of total sleep deprivation. Between-group comparisons of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) were performed to characterize brain activity patterns during wakefulness in sleepwalkers. RESULTS: During wakefulness following a night of total sleep deprivation, rCBF was decreased bilaterally in the inferior temporal gyrus in sleepwalkers compared to controls. CONCLUSIONS: Functional neural abnormalities can be observed during wakefulness in somnambulism, particularly after sleep deprivation and in the inferior temporal cortex. Sleep deprivation thus not only facilitates the occurrence of sleepwalking episodes, but also uncovers patterns of neural dysfunction that characterize sleepwalkers during wakefulness

A Multitask Data-Driven Model for Battery Remaining Useful Life Prediction

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have recently been used widely in moving devices. Understand status of the batteries can help to predict the failure and improve the effectiveness of using them. There are some lithium-ion information that define the battery health over time. These are state-of-charge (SOC), state-of-health (SOH), and remaining-useful-life (RUL). Normally, a LIB is working under charging and discharging cycles continuously. In this paper, we will focus on the data dependency of different time-slots in a cycle and in a sequence of cycles to retrieve RUL. We leverage multi-channel inputs such as temperature, voltage, current and the nature of peaks cross the cycles to improve our prediction. Comparing to existing methods, the experiments show that we can improve from 0.040 to 0.033 (reduce 17.5%) in RMSE loss, which is significant

Liquid pumping and mixing by PZT synthetic jet

In this paper, a PZT synthetic jet that can function as both an efficient pumping and mixing device is developed. Compare with the conventional design where the practice of controlling the internal flow is undertaken by microvalves structure, this approach promotes the durability and allows the device to work with different liquids at high Reynold number without losing of backflow from the diffuser, therefore provides efficient mixing. The pumping performance is applicable for commercialized counterparts while the homogeneous medium was obtained at downstream in the experiments, which was further confirmed by simulation. Notably, the chaotic mixing feature of the device is also applicable for immiscible liquids with the micro-droplet formation result at the outlet

Structural Brain Alterations Associated with Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder in Parkinson’s Disease

Characterized by dream-enactment motor manifestations arising from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is frequently encountered in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Yet the specific neurostructural changes associated with RBD in PD patients remain to be revealed by neuroimaging. Here we identified such neurostructural alterations by comparing large samples of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans in 69 PD patients with probable RBD, 240 patients without RBD and 138 healthy controls, using deformation-based morphometry (p < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons). All data were extracted from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative. PD patients with probable RBD showed smaller volumes than patients without RBD and than healthy controls in the pontomesencephalic tegmentum, medullary reticular formation, hypothalamus, thalamus, putamen, amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex. These results demonstrate that RBD is associated with a prominent loss of volume in the pontomesencephalic tegmentum, where cholinergic, GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons are located and implicated in the promotion of REM sleep and muscle atonia. It is additionally associated with more widespread atrophy in other subcortical and cortical regions whose loss also likely contributes to the altered regulation of sleep-wake states and motor activity underlying RBD in PD patients

Immunohistochemical expression of anaplastic lymphoma kinase in neuroblastoma and its relations with some clinical and histopathological features

Background Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations have been identified as a prominent cause of some familial and sporadic neuroblastoma (NB). ALK expression in NB and its relationship with clinical and histopathological features remains controversial. This study investigated ALK expression and its potential relations with these features in NB. Methods Ninety cases of NB at the Department of Pathology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam from 01/01/2018 to 12/31/2021, were immunohistochemically stained with ALK (D5F3) antibody. The ALK expression and its relations with some clinical and histopathological features were investigated. Results The rate of ALK expression in NB was 91.1%. High ALK expression (over 50% of tumor cells were positive with moderate-strong intensity) accounted for 65.6%, and low ALK expression accounted for 34.4%. All the MYCN-amplified NB patients had ALK immunohistochemistry positivity, most cases had high ALK protein expression. The undifferentiated subtype of NB had a lower ALK-positive rate than the poorly differentiated and differentiated subtype. The percentages of ALK positivity were significantly higher in more differentiated histological types of NB (p = .024). There was no relation between ALK expression and: age group, sex, primary tumor location, tumor stage, MYCN status, clinical risk, Mitotic-Karyorrhectic Index, prognostic group, necrosis, and calcification. Conclusions ALK was highly expressed in NB. ALK expression was not related to several clinical and histopathological features. More studies are needed to elucidate the association between ALK expression and ALK gene status and to investigate disease progression, especially the oncogenesis of ALK-positive NB

Some chalcones derived from thio-phene-3-carbaldehyde: synthesis and crystal structures.

The synthesis, spectroscopic data and crystal and mol-ecular structures of four 3-(3-phenyl-prop-1-ene-3-one-1-yl)thio-phene derivatives, namely 1-(4-hydroxy-phen-yl)-3-(thio-phen-3-yl)prop-1-en-3-one, C13H10O2S, (1), 1-(4-meth-oxy-phen-yl)-3-(thio-phen-3-yl)prop-1-en-3-one, C14H12O2S, (2), 1-(4-eth-oxy-phen-yl)-3-(thio-phen-3-yl)prop-1-en-3-one, C15H14O2S, (3), and 1-(4--bromophen-yl)-3-(thio-phen-3-yl)prop-1-en-3-one, C13H9BrOS, (4), are described. The four chalcones have been synthesized by reaction of thio-phene-3-carbaldehyde with an aceto-phenone derivative in an absolute ethanol solution containing potassium hydroxide, and differ in the substituent at the para position of the phenyl ring: -OH for 1, -OCH3 for 2, -OCH2CH3 for 3 and -Br for 4. The thio-phene ring in 4 was found to be disordered over two orientations with occupancies 0.702 (4) and 0.298 (4). The configuration about the C=C bond is E. The thio-phene and phenyl rings are inclined by 4.73 (12) for 1, 12.36 (11) for 2, 17.44 (11) for 3 and 46.1 (6) and 48.6 (6)° for 4, indicating that the -OH derivative is almost planar and the -Br derivative deviates the most from planarity. However, the substituent has no real influence on the bond distances in the α,β-unsaturated carbonyl moiety. The mol-ecular packing of 1 features chain formation in the a-axis direction by O-H⋯O contacts. In the case of 2 and 3, the packing is characterized by dimer formation through C-H⋯O inter-actions. In addition, C-H⋯π(thio-phene) inter-actions in 2 and C-H⋯S(thio-phene) inter-actions in 3 contribute to the three-dimensional architecture. The presence of C-H⋯π(thio-phene) contacts in the crystal of 4 results in chain formation in the c-axis direction. The Hirshfeld surface analysis shows that for all four derivatives, the highest contribution to surface contacts arises from contacts in which H atoms are involved