Early Globus Pallidus Internus Stimulation in Pediatric Patients With Generalized Primary Dystonia: Long-Term Efficacy and Safety

Primary generalized dystonia presents mainly at a young age and commonly is severely disabling. The authors report the long-term follow-up (mean, 73 months; range, 50-101 months) of 5 pediatric patients (mean age at surgery 13 years; range, 8-16 years) undergoing globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Mean improvement in the Burke-Fahn-Marsden movement score was 67.4% (range, 47.0%-87.5%), 75.4% (range, 61.5%-91.7%), and 83.5% (range, 72.0%-93.3%) at 3 months, 12 months, and long-term follow-up (>36 months), respectively. Hardware problems (electrode dislocation/breakage of extension cable, and imminent perforation of extension cable) were observed in 2 patients (operative revision without sequelae). Except for mild dysarthria in 2 patients, no other therapy-related morbidity was observed. The authors found globus pallidus internus stimulation to offer a very effective and safe therapy in pediatric patients with primary dystonia. Early neurosurgical intervention seems to be crucial to prevent irreversible impairment of motor function

The Impact of Noise and Mismatch on SAR ADCs and a Calibratable Capacitance Array Based Approach for High Resolutions

This paper describes widely used capacitor structures for charge-redistribution (CR) successive approximation register (SAR) based analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and analyzes their linearity limitations due to kT/C noise, mismatch and parasitics. Results of mathematical considerations and statistical simulations are presented which show that most widespread dimensioning rules are overcritical. For high-resolution CR SAR ADCs in current CMOS technologies, matching of the capacitors, influenced by local mismatch and parasitics, is a limiting factor. For high-resolution medium-speed CR SAR ADCs, a novel capacitance array based approach using in-field calibration is proposed. This architecture promises a high resolution with small unit capacitances and without expensive factory calibration as laser trimming

Myofascial Trigger Points in Children With Tension-Type Headache: A New Diagnostic and Therapeutic Option

The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate the effect of a trigger point–specific physiotherapy on headache frequency, intensity, and duration in children with episodic or chronic tension-type headache. Patients were recruited from the special headache outpatient clinic. A total of 9 girls (mean age 13.1 years; range, 5-15 years) with the diagnosis of tension-type headache participated in the pilot study from May to September 2006 and received trigger point–specific physiotherapy twice a week by a trained physiotherapist. After an average number of 6.5 therapeutic sessions, the headache frequency had been reduced by 67.7%, intensity by 74.3%, and duration by 77.3%. No side effects were noted during the treatment. These preliminary findings suggest a role for active trigger points in children with tension-type headache. Trigger point–specific physiotherapy seems to be an effective therapy in these children. Further prospective and controlled studies in a larger cohort are warranted

Evolutionary Monte Carlo of QM properties in chemical space: Electrolyte design

Optimizing a target function over the space of organic molecules is an important problem appearing in many fields of applied science, but also a very difficult one due to the vast number of possible molecular systems. We propose an Evolutionary Monte Carlo algorithm for solving such problems which is capable of straightforwardly tuning both exploration and exploitation characteristics of an optimization procedure while retaining favourable properties of genetic algorithms. The method, dubbed MOSAiCS (Metropolis Optimization by Sampling Adaptively in Chemical Space), is tested on problems related to optimizing components of battery electrolytes, namely minimizing solvation energy in water or maximizing dipole moment while enforcing a lower bound on the HOMO-LUMO gap; optimization was done over sets of molecular graphs inspired by QM9 and Electrolyte Genome Project (EGP) datasets. MOSAiCS reliably generated molecular candidates with good target quantity values, which were in most cases better than the ones found in QM9 or EGP. While the optimization results presented in this work sometimes required up to $10^{6}$ QM calculations and were thus only feasible thanks to computationally efficient ab initio approximations of properties of interest, we discuss possible strategies for accelerating MOSAiCS using machine learning approaches

Cognitive performance and behavior across idiopathic/genetic epilepsies in children and adolescents

We investigated the cognitive and behavioral profile of three distinct groups of epilepsies with a genetic Background: for intergroup differences: (1) idiopathic/genetic generalized epilepsies (IGE/GGE group);(2) idiopathic focal epilepsies (IFE group);and (3) epilepsies with proven or strongly suggested monogenic or structural/numeric chromosomal etiology (genetic epilepsies, GE group). Cognitive (total IQ and subcategories) and behavioral parameters (CBCL) were assessed at the tertiary epilepsy center of the University of Munich (Germany). We used ANOVA with post-hoc Bonferroni-correction to explore significant mean differences and Fisher's exact test for significant proportional differences of intelligence impairment and behavioral problems. 126 (56 IGE/GGE, 26 IFE, 44 GE) patients were available. Total IQ was 89.0 +/- 15.9 (95% CI 84.5-93.4) for IGE/GGE, 94.8 +/- 18.1 (95% CI 87.3-102.3) for IFE and 76.4 +/- 22.4 (95% CI 67.6-85.3) for GE (p=0.001). The same trend was significant for all but one IQ subcategory. The rate of patients with an intelligence impairment (total IQ<70) was higher for GE (40%) than for IGE/GGE (14%) and for IFE (7%) patients (p=0.033). There were no significant differences between groups for behavior scores and behavioral problems. This study shows that the current ILAE classification of epilepsies with genetic etiology creates a heterogeneous group of patients with respect to cognitive performance but not behavior. These findings may help in further delineating epilepsies as regards cognitive performance, notwithstanding their closely related etiological classification

Retracing trajectories: the embodied experience of cycling, urban sensescapes and the commute between ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘city’ in Utrecht, NL

This paper looks into the experience of “passing through different territories of the city” (Sennett, 2006, p. 3). Despite their importance for making sense of the city as a whole, these experiences are often not acknowledged in urban planning. This paper compares the everyday, embodied experiences of commuter cyclists with the planners’ perspective on Utrecht. ‘On the ground’ data was collected via ride-alongs with 15 inhabitants of the Leidsche Rijn neighbourhood. Our analysis reveals cycling trajectories composed of diverse sensescapes. It paints a much more complex picture of intra-urban divisions and connections than the planners’ perspective of the ‘new’ Leidsche Rijn neighbourhood separated from the ‘old’ city by major infrastructure lines

Follicular dendritic cells control engulfment of apoptotic bodies by secreting Mfge8

The secreted phosphatidylserine-binding protein milk fat globule epidermal growth factor 8 (Mfge8) mediates engulfment of apoptotic germinal center B cells by tingible-body macrophages (TBMφs). Impairment of this process can contribute to autoimmunity. We show that Mfge8 is identical to the mouse follicular dendritic cell (FDC) marker FDC-M1. In bone-marrow chimeras between wild-type and Mfge8−/− mice, all splenic Mfge8 was derived from FDCs rather than TBMφs. However, Mfge8−/− TBMφs acquired and displayed Mfge8 only when embedded in Mfge8+/+ stroma, or when situated in lymph nodes draining exogenous recombinant Mfge8. These findings indicate a licensing role for FDCs in TBMφ-mediated removal of excess B cells. Lymphotoxin-deficient mice lacked FDCs and splenic Mfge8, and suffer from autoimmunity similar to Mfge8−/− mice. Hence, FDCs facilitate TBMφ-mediated corpse removal, and their malfunction may be involved in autoimmunity

Sequencing of 15 622 Gene-bearing BACs Clarifies the Gene-dense Regions of the Barley Genome

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) possesses a large and highly repetitive genome of 5.1 Gb that has hindered the development of a complete sequence. In 2012, the International Barley Sequencing Consortium released a resource integrating whole-genome shotgun sequences with a physical and genetic framework. However, because only 6278 bacterial artificial chromosome (BACs) in the physical map were sequenced, fine structure was limited. To gain access to the gene-containing portion of the barley genome at high resolution, we identified and sequenced 15 622 BACs representing the minimal tiling path of 72 052 physical-mapped gene-bearing BACs. This generated ~1.7 Gb of genomic sequence containing an estimated 2/3 of all Morex barley genes. Exploration of these sequenced BACs revealed that although distal ends of chromosomes contain most of the gene-enriched BACs and are characterized by high recombination rates, there are also gene-dense regions with suppressed recombination. We made use of published map-anchored sequence data from Aegilops tauschii to develop a synteny viewer between barley and the ancestor of the wheat D-genome. Except for some notable inversions, there is a high level of collinearity between the two species. The software HarvEST:Barley provides facile access to BAC sequences and their annotations, along with the barley–Ae. tauschii synteny viewer. These BAC sequences constitute a resource to improve the efficiency of marker development, map-based cloning, and comparative genomics in barley and related crops. Additional knowledge about regions of the barley genome that are gene-dense but low recombination is particularly relevant