Response latencies of neurons in visual areas MT and MST of monkeys with striate cortex lesions.

Cortical area, MT (middle temporal area) is specialized for the visual analysis of stimulus motion in the brain. It has been suggested [Brain 118 (1995) 1375] that motion signals reach area MT via two dissociable routes, namely a 'direct' route which bypasses primary visual cortex (area, striate cortex (V1)) and is specialized for processing 'fast' motion (defined as faster than 6 degrees/s) with a relatively short latency, and an 'indirect' route via area V1 for processing 'slow' motion (slower than 6 degrees/s) with a relatively long latency. We tested this proposal by measuring the effects of unilateral V1 lesions on the magnitudes and latencies of responses to fast- and slow-motion (depicted by random dot kinematograms (RDK) ) of single neurons in areas MT and medial superior temporal area (MST) of anaesthetized macaque monkeys. In the unlesioned hemisphere contralateral to a V1 lesion, response magnitudes and latencies of MT neurons were similar to those previously reported from MT neurons in normal monkeys, and there was no significant association between slow movement and long response latency (>100 ms), or between fast movement and short latency (< or =100 ms). V1 lesions led to diminished response magnitudes and increased latencies in area MT of the lesioned hemisphere, but did not selectively abolish MT responses to slow moving stimuli, or abolish long-latency responses to either slow- or fast-moving stimuli. Response magnitudes and latencies in area MST, which receives visual inputs directly from area MT and is also specialized for visual analysis of motion, were unaffected by V1 lesions (though we have shown elsewhere that directionally-selective responses in both areas were impaired by V1 lesions). Overall, the results are incompatible with the hypothesis that there are dissociable routes to MT specialized for processing separately fast and slow motion

Effective factors of treatment outcome in smear positive tuberculosis patients in Golestan province-Iran (2014)

Background and Objective: Tuberculosis (TB) is the main cause of death in the world. Half of the patient eventually will die during first 5-year of infection if they do not receive suitable treatment. According to WHO’s report, treatment success in Iran is lower than the regional and global mean. This study was conducted to identify the effective factors of treatment failure among tuberculosis patient in golestan province- Iran. Methods: This cross- sectional study was conducted on 331 new smear positive tuberculosis patients that detected in TB laboratory in in golestan province-north of Iran during 2014. Inclusion criteria included weight more than 30kg, age greater than 13 years, diabetes, immune deficiency, liver or kidney diseases. Patients were treated according to a protocol for a period of two months on the DOTS strategy. The criterion of treatment outcome was sputum smear at the end of the second month of treatment. The effect of gender, medication regiment, age, weight, smoking, addiction and severity of smear basilli load on treatment outcome was assessed. Results: 50.8% and 49.2% of patients were treated with combination and separate medicinal regiments, respectively. The conversion rate of smear positive was 67.7% at the end of the second months. According to multivariate logistic regression, the age of the patient (95% CI: 0.96-0.99, OR: 0.98, P=0.017), addiction (95% CI: 1.26-4.54, OR: 2.4, P=0.008), ethnicity (95% CI: 1.86-7.02, OR: 3.62, P=0.0001) and diagnostic smear bacilli load (P<0.0001) were the important effective variables. Conclusion: The success of two months treatment was fairly low and the important factors on treatment success during the intensive phase were patient age, smoking, addiction and diagnostic smear bacilli load

Determinants of co-contraction during walking before and after arthroplasty for knee osteoarthritis.

Background: Knee osteoarthritis patients co-contract in knee-related muscle pairs during walking. The determinants of this co-contraction remain insufficiently clear. Methods: A heterogeneous group of 14 patients was measured before and one year after knee arthroplasty, and compared to 12 healthy peers and 15 young subjects, measured once. Participants walked on a treadmill at several imposed speeds. Bilateral activity of six muscles was registered electromyographically, and cocontraction time was calculated as percentage of stride cycle time. Local dynamic stability and variability of sagittal plane knee movements were determined. The surgeon's assessment of alignment was used. Preoperatively, multivariate regressions on co-contraction time were used to identify determinants of cocontraction. Post-operatively it was assessed if predictor variables had changed in the same direction as co-contraction time. Findings: Patients co-contracted longer than controls, but post-operatively, differences with the healthy peers were no longer significant. Varus alignment predicted co-contraction time. No patient had post-operative varus alignment. The patients' unaffected legs were more unstable, and instability predicted co-contraction time in both legs. Post-operatively, stability normalised. Longer unaffected side co-contraction time was associated with reduced affected side kinematic variability. Post-operatively, kinematic variability had further decreased. Interpretations: Varus alignment and instability are determinants of co-contraction. The benefits of cocontraction in varus alignment require further study. Co-contraction probably increases local dynamic stability, which does not necessarily decrease the risk of falling. Unaffected side co-contraction contributed to decreasing affected side variability, but other mechanisms than co-contraction may also have played a role in decreasing variability

Forensic engineering analysis applied to flood control

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordFloods have various impacts, including loss of life and damage to property. Flood- management reservoirs can help mitigate floods, but their operation can also worsen flood impacts. This paper presents a novel forensic engineering approach to assess the role of reservoir operation on flood control. Fourteen criteria are employed for assessing forecast-based prereleases of water from reservoir storage to reduce the impact of flooding. The proposed approach is applied for forensic assessment of the system performance of reservoirs during the large flood of 2019 in southwestern Iran (the Great Karun Basin). The two main study areas are in the sub-basins of Karun and Dez. Results concerning two key performance criteria (the peak discharge reduction (PDR) and flood volume reduction (FVR)) show the PDR criterion in the Karun sub-basin multi-reservoir system reached about 79% (where 100% is the theoretically best performance) under historic operations (actual operating conditions in 2019), and improved from 8 to 19% if various prerelease operations were made. The FVR achieved about 33% in the historical situation and improved from 20 to 59% under prerelease operations scenarios, respectively. The PDR criterion achieved 26% under the historical scenario, but with better operation could exceed 55% in the Dez sub-basin multi-reservoir system, whereas FVR was as low as 11% in 2019 but could be raised to between 15 and 25% under prerelease operations. This forensic work's assessments establish that improved reservoir operation could be achieved by applying specialized operation approaches.Iran National Science Foundation (INSF