Reorganization of language centers in patients with brain tumors located in eloquent speech areas – A pre- and postoperative preliminary fMRI study

Introduction The aim of this study was to determine in pre- and postsurgical fMRI studies the rearrangement of the Broca's and Wernicke's areas and the lateralization index for these areas in patients with brain tumors located near speech centers. Impact of the surgical treatment on the brain plasticity was evaluated. Materials and methods Pre- and postoperative fMRI examinations were performed in 10 patients with low grade glial, left-sided brain tumors located close to the Broca's (5 patients) or Wernicke's area (5 patients). BOLD signal was recorded in regions of interest: Broca's and Wernicke's areas, and their anatomic right-sided homologues. Results In the preoperative fMRI study the left Broca's area was activated in all cases. The right Broca's area was activated in all the patients with no speech disorders. In the postoperative fMRI the activation of both Broca's areas increased in two cases. In other two cases activation of one of the Broca's area increased along with the decrease in the contralateral hemisphere. In all patients with temporal lobe tumors, the right Wernicke's area was activated in the pre- and postsurgical fMRI. After the operation, in two patients with speech disorder, the activation of both Broca's areas decreased and the activation of one of the Wernicke's areas increased. Conclusions In the cases of tumors localized near the left Broca's area, a transfer of the function to the healthy hemisphere seems to take place. Resection of tumors located near Broca's or Wernicke's areas may lead to relocation of the brain language centers

Spektroskopia rezonansu magnetycznego w wewnątrzczaszkowych nowotworach pochodzenia glejowego

Background and purpose To determine in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) characteristics of intracranial glial tumours and to assess MRS reliability in glioma grading and discrimination between different histopathological types of tumours. Material and methods Analysis of spectra of 26 patients with glioblastomas, 6 with fibrillary astrocytomas, 4 with anaplastic astrocytomas, 2 with pilocytic astrocytoma, 3 with oligodendrogliomas, 3 with anaplastic oligodendrogliomas and 17 control spectra taken from healthy hemispheres. Results All tumours’ metabolite ratios, except for Cho/Cr in fibrillary astrocytomas (p = 0.06), were statistically signiflcantly different from the control. The tumours showed decreased Naa and Cr contents and a high Cho signal. The Lac-Lip signal was high in grade III astrocytomas and glioblastomas. Reports that Cho/Cr ratio increases with glioma's grade whereas Naa/Cr decreases were not confirmed. Anaplastic astrocytomas compared to grade II astrocytomas had a statistically significantly greater ml/Cr ratio (p = 0.02). In pilocytic astrocytomas the Naa/Cr value (2.58 ± 0.39) was greater, whilst the Cho/Naa ratio was lower (2.14 ± 0.64) than in the other astrocytomas. The specific feature of oligodendrogliomas was the presence of glutamate/glutamine peak Glx. However, this peak was absent in two out of three anaplastic oligodendrogliomas. Characteristically, the latter tumours had a high Lac-Lip signal. Conclusions MRS in vivo cannot be used as a reliable method for glioma grading. The method is useful in discrimination between WHO grade I and WHO grade II astrocytomas as well as oligodendrogliomas from other gliomas.Wstęp i cel pracy Ustalenie charakterystyki spektroskopii magnetycznego rezonansu jądrowego (magnetic resonance spectroscopy – MRS) u chorych z nowotworami wewnątrzczaszkowymi pochodzenia glejowego oraz ocena przydatności tego badania w diagnostyce różnicowej typów histologicznych glejaków. Materiał i metody Przeprowadzono analizę widm MRS nowotworów u 26 chorych z glejakami wielopostaciowymi, 6 z gwiaździakami włókienkowymi, 4 z gwiaździakami anaplastycznymi, 2 z włosowatokomórkowymi, 3 ze skąpodrzewiakami, 3 ze skąpodrzewiakami anaplastycznymi oraz 17 widm kontrolnych pochodzących ze zdrowych półkul mózgu. Wyniki Wszystkie wskaźniki metaboliczne w przypadkach nowotworów, z wyjątkiem Cho/Cr w gwiaździakach włókienkowych (p = 0,06), różniły się znamiennie od tych w grupie kontrolnej. Nowotwory wykazywały zmniejszoną zawartość Naa i Cr oraz wysoki sygnał Cho. Sygnał Lac-Lip był wysoki w gwiaździakach III stopnia wg WHO i glejakach wielopostaciowych. Nie udało się potwierdzić doniesień, że wskaźnik Cho/Cr rośnie, a wskaźnik Naa/Cr maleje wraz ze wzrostem stopnia złośliwości glejaka. Gwiaździaki anaplastyczne wykazywały znamiennie wyższy wskaźnik ml/Cr (p = 0,02) w porównaniu z gwiaździakami II stopnia wg WHO. W gwiaździakach włosowatokomórkowych wartość Naa/Cr (2,58 ± 0,39) była większa, a Cho/Naa mniejsza (2,14 ± 0,64) niż w innych gwiaździakach. Skąpodrzewiaki charakteryzowała obecność szczytu glutaminianu/glutaminy (Glx), którego jednak nie obserwowano w 2 spośród 3 przypadków skąpodrzewiaków anaplastycznych. Dla tych ostatnich symptomatyczna była obecność silnego sygnału Lac-Lip. Wnioski Badanie MRS in vivo nie jest niezawodną metodą różnicującą glejaki wewnątrzczaszkowe. Wydaje się użyteczne w diagnostyce różnicowej gwiaździaków I i II stopnia wg WHO oraz w odróżnianiu skąpodrzewiaków od pozostałych glejaków

Developing a research strategy to better understand, observe, and simulate urban atmospheric processes at kilometer to subkilometer scales

A Met Office/Natural Environment Research Council Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme workshop brought together 50 key international scientists from the UK and international community to formulate the key requirements for an Urban Meteorological Research strategy. The workshop was jointly organised by University of Reading and the Met Office

Diagnostyka różnicowa oponiaków wewnątrzczaszkowych w spektroskopii rezonansu magnetycznego

Background and purpose To determine in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) characteristics of intracranial meningiomas and to assess MRS reliability in meningioma grading and discrimination from tumours of similar radiological appearance, such as lymphomas, schwannomas and haemangiopericytomas. Material and methods Analysis of spectra of 14 patients with meningiomas, 6 with schwannomas, 2 with lymphomas, 2 with haemangiopericytomas and 17 control spectra taken from healthy hemispheres. Results All the patients with meningiomas had a high Cho signal (long TE). There were very low signals of Naa and Cr in the spectra of 10 patients. A reversed Ala doublet was seen only in 2 cases. Four patients had a negative Lac signal, whereas 3 had high Lac-Lip spectra. Twelve spectra showed high Cho signals (short TE). In one case the Cho signal was extremely low. All spectra displayed a very low Cr signal, but high Glx and Lac-Lip signals. Ala presence was found only in 3 patients. The mean Cho/Cr ratio (PRESS) was 5.97 (1.12 in normal brain, p < 0.05). Lac-Lip was present in all the meningiomas (STEAM). The Ala signal was seen only in 2 spectra with long TE and in 3 sequences of the short TE sequences. There were both β/γ-Glx and α-Glx/glutathione signals in all 14 meningiomas. Conclusions MRS is unable to discriminate low and high grade meningiomas. The method seems to be helpful in discriminating lymphomas (absent Glx signal), schwannomas (mI signal in the short TE sequences) and haemangiopericytomas (presence of mI band) from meningiomas.Wstęp i cel pracy Charakterystyka spektroskopii rezonansu magnetycznego (magnetic resonance spectroscopy – MRS) u chorych na oponiaki wewnątrzczaszkowe i ocena przydatności tego badania w przedoperacyjnej diagnostyce stopnia złośliwości oponiaków oraz różnicowaniu oponiaków z nowotworami o podobnych cechach radiologicznych, takimi jak chłoniaki, nerwiaki osłonkowe i obłoniaki. Materiał i metody Analiza widm MRS u 14 chorych z oponiakami, 6 z nerwiakami, 2 z chłoniakami i 2 z obłoniakami oraz 17 widm kontrolnych uzyskanych ze zdrowych półkul mózgu. Wyniki Wszyscy chorzy z oponiakami mieli wysoki sygnał Cho (przy długim TE). U 10 chorych występował bardzo niski sygnał Naa i Cr. U 2 pacjentów stwierdzono odwrócony dublet Ala. Cztery osoby miały ujemny sygnał Lac, a 3 wysokie widma Lac-Lip. Wysoki sygnał Cho zaobserwowano u 12 chorych (przy krótkim TE), u jednego pacjenta sygnał ten był krańcowo niski. Wszystkie widma wykazywały bardzo niski sygnał Cr przy wysokich sygnałach Glx i Lac-Lip. Obecność Ala odnotowano tylko u 3 chorych. Średni wskaźnik Cho/Cr (PRESS) wyniósł 5,97 (1,12 w niezmienionym mózgu; p < 0,05). Lac–Lip był obecny we wszystkich oponiakach (STEAM). Sygnał Ala zaobserwowano jedynie w 2 widmach przy długim TE i w 3 sekwencjach przy krótkim TE. Sygnały α-Glx/glutation oraz β/γ-Glx były obecne u wszystkich chorych z oponiakami. Wnioski Badanie MRS nie pozwala na określenie stopnia złośliwości oponiaka. Metoda wydaje się przydatna w diagnostyce różnicowej oponiaków i innych podobnych radiologicznie nowotworów: chłoniaków (brak sygnału Glx), nerwiaków osłonkowych (sygnał mI przy krótkim TE) oraz obłoniaków (obecność pasma mI)

Data underlying the article "Urban water storage capacity inferred from observed evapotranspiration recession"

Data contains meteorological and heat flux observations from eddy-covariance towers at 13 sites in different cities. Data is preprocessed for the analysis to infer water storage capacities, which means they are daily aggregates

Associated results of Phase 1 of the Urban-PLUMBER model evaluation project

Archive of: https://urban-plumber.github.io/AU-Preston/plots/ Files in this folder are associated with the manuscript: “Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban-PLUMBER project: Phase 1 results” Files are an archive of the website https://urban-plumber.github.io/AU-Preston/plots/ as of 2nd December 2022. Use of any data must give credit through citation of the above manuscript, the data repository, and other site references as appropriate. Corresponding author: Mathew Lipson ([email protected]) Usage Load the "index.html" to navigate through plots and results subpages Description These files include results from Phase 1 of the Urban-PLUMBER model evaluation project for urban areas. Data includes: - individual model results (error metrics) and submission metadata - individual model plots (timeseries, subsets, energy closure, distributions) - collective timeseries for every submitted output in the baseline experiment - collective timeseries for every submitted output in the detailed experiment - supplementary material for the manuscript - variable definitions Authors Mathew Lipson, Sue Grimmond, Martin Best, Gab Abramowitz, Andrew Coutts, Nigel Tapper, Jong-Jin Baik, Meiring Beyers, Lewis Blunn, Souhail Boussetta, Elie Bou-Zeid, Martin G. De Kauwe, Cécile de Munck, Matthias Demuzere, Simone Fatichi, Krzysztof Fortuniak, Beom-Soon Han, Maggie Hendry, Yukihiro Kikegawa, Hiroaki Kondo, Doo-Il Lee, Sang-Hyun Lee, Aude Lemonsu, Tiago Machado, Gabriele Manoli, Alberto Martilli, Valéry Masson, Joe McNorton, Naika Meili, David Meyer, Kerry A. Nice, Keith W. Oleson, Seung-Bu Park32, Michael Roth33, Robert Schoetter34, Andres Simon35, Gert-Jan Steeneveld, Ting Sun, Yuya Takane, Marcus Thatcher, Aristofanis Tsiringakis, Mikhail Varentsov, Chenghao Wang, Zhi-Hua Wan

Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban-PLUMBER project:Phase 1 results

Abstract Accurately predicting weather and climate in cities is critical for safeguarding human health and strengthening urban resilience. Multimodel evaluations can lead to model improvements; however, there have been no major intercomparisons of urban‐focussed land surface models in over a decade. Here, in Phase 1 of the Urban‐PLUMBER project, we evaluate the ability of 30 land surface models to simulate surface energy fluxes critical to atmospheric meteorological and air quality simulations. We establish minimum and upper performance expectations for participating models using simple information‐limited models as benchmarks. Compared with the last major model intercomparison at the same site, we find broad improvement in the current cohort's predictions of short‐wave radiation, sensible and latent heat fluxes, but little or no improvement in long‐wave radiation and momentum fluxes. Models with a simple urban representation (e.g., ‘slab’ schemes) generally perform well, particularly when combined with sophisticated hydrological/vegetation models. Some mid‐complexity models (e.g., ‘canyon’ schemes) also perform well, indicating efforts to integrate vegetation and hydrology processes have paid dividends. The most complex models that resolve three‐dimensional interactions between buildings in general did not perform as well as other categories. However, these models also tended to have the simplest representations of hydrology and vegetation. Models without any urban representation (i.e., vegetation‐only land surface models) performed poorly for latent heat fluxes, and reasonably for other energy fluxes at this suburban site. Our analysis identified widespread human errors in initial submissions that substantially affected model performances. Although significant efforts are applied to correct these errors, we conclude that human factors are likely to influence results in this (or any) model intercomparison, particularly where participating scientists have varying experience and first languages. These initial results are for one suburban site, and future phases of Urban‐PLUMBER will evaluate models across 20 sites in different urban and regional climate zones