VERITAS long term monitoring of Gamma-Ray emission from the BL Lacertae object

BL Lacertae is the prototype of the blazar subclass known as BL Lac type objects. BL Lacertae object itself is a low-frequency-peaked BL Lac(LBL). Very high energy (VHE) gamma ray emission from this source was discovered in 2005 by MAGIC observatory while the source was at a flaring state. Since then, VHE gamma rays from this source has been detected several times. However, all of those times the source was in a high activity state. Former studies suggest several non-thermal zones emitting in gamma-rays, then gamma-ray flare should be composed of a convolution. Observing the BL Lacertae object at quiescent states and active states is the key to disentangle these two components. VERITAS is monitoring the BL Lacertae object since 2011. The archival data set includes observations during flaring and quiescent states. This presentation reports on the preliminary results of the VERITAS observation between January 2013 - December 2015, and simultaneous multiwavelength observations

Design and Validation of an FPGA-Based Configurable Transcranial Doppler Neurofeedback System for Chronic Pain Patients

Neurofeedback is a self-regulation technique that can be applied to learn to voluntarily control cerebral activity in specific brain regions. In this work, a Transcranial Doppler-based configurable neurofeedback system is proposed and described. The hardware configuration is based on the Red Pitaya board, which gives great flexibility and processing power to the system. The parameter to be trained can be selected between several temporal, spectral, or complexity features from the cerebral blood flow velocity signal in different vessels. As previous studies have found alterations in these parameters in chronic pain patients, the system could be applied to help them to voluntarily control these parameters. Two protocols based on different temporal lengths of the training periods have been proposed and tested with six healthy subjects that were randomly assigned to one of the protocols at the beginning of the procedure. For the purposes of the testing, the trained parameter was the mean cerebral blood flow velocity in the aggregated data from the two anterior cerebral arteries. Results show that, using the proposed neurofeedback system, the two groups of healthy volunteers can learn to self-regulate a parameter from their brain activity in a reduced number of training sessions.This research was funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain, grant number PSI2013-48260-C3-2-R. The APC was funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain, grant number PSI2013-48260-C3-2-R

Genetic and constitutional factors are major contributors to substantia nigra hyperechogenicity

9 páginas, 2 figuras, 4 tablasHyperechogenicity of substantia nigra (SNh) is a frequent finding in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease (PD) and other movement disorders (MD) patients, but its meaning is unclear. To ascertain the contribution of different factors to SNh area, we measured it in 108 ALS, 102 PD, 91 other MD patients and 91 healthy controls. Demographical data were collected in all patients and controls. In ALS patients, we also recorded clinical variables, performed genetic analysis and measured baseline levels of ferritin. After family history and genetic testing, ALS patients were classified as familial (15) or sporadic (93). ALS, PD and other MD patients had a larger SNh area than controls. Left SNh and male gender, but not age, associated with larger SNh area in both patients and controls. Familial ALS patients showed larger SNh area than sporadic ones and familial ALS was the only clinical variable in the multivariate analysis to be associated with larger SNh area in ALS patients. Our results suggest that SNh associates with genetic and constitutional factors (male gender, handedness), some of which predispose to certain neurodegenerative diseases. This evidence supports the idea of SNh as an inborn marker of unspecific neuronal vulnerability.The research leading to these results has received funding from Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria La Fe (2013/0332, PI JFVC/TS), from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII, PI12/0946, PI TS) and from Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (SAF2014-59469-R, PI: JPT). The Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER) and the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED, group 209) are initiatives from the ISCIII.Peer reviewe

Altered cerebral blood flow velocity features in fibromyalgia patients in resting-state conditions - Fig 2

<p>Grand average power spectral density (PSD) of the envelope cerebral blood flow velocity signal in the following arteries: (a) L-ACA (b) R-ACA (c) L-MCA (d) R-MCA. The frequency range between 0 and 5 Hz is included. Mean values (Hz^-1) at each frequency bin for each group (Control and FMS) are shown.</p

Confusion matrices for LDA using all the features, ACA vessels features and MCA vessels features (except the statistical ones) from all the samples as the training set, using the leave-one-out cross validation approach, to discriminate between FMS group and control group.

<p>Confusion matrices for LDA using all the features, ACA vessels features and MCA vessels features (except the statistical ones) from all the samples as the training set, using the leave-one-out cross validation approach, to discriminate between FMS group and control group.</p

Clinical data from the FMS group and the control group.

<p>Data are presented as mean values ± SD. Bold text indicates the clinical parameters that have shown significant differences between groups (using F or χ²).</p