Rapid and Reversible Recruitment of Early Visual Cortex for Touch

The loss of vision has been associated with enhanced performance in non-visual tasks such as tactile discrimination and sound localization. Current evidence suggests that these functional gains are linked to the recruitment of the occipital visual cortex for non-visual processing, but the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these crossmodal changes remain uncertain. One possible explanation is that visual deprivation is associated with an unmasking of non-visual input into visual cortex.We investigated the effect of sudden, complete and prolonged visual deprivation (five days) in normally sighted adult individuals while they were immersed in an intensive tactile training program. Following the five-day period, blindfolded subjects performed better on a Braille character discrimination task. In the blindfold group, serial fMRI scans revealed an increase in BOLD signal within the occipital cortex in response to tactile stimulation after five days of complete visual deprivation. This increase in signal was no longer present 24 hours after blindfold removal. Finally, reversible disruption of occipital cortex function on the fifth day (by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation; rTMS) impaired Braille character recognition ability in the blindfold group but not in non-blindfolded controls. This disruptive effect was no longer evident once the blindfold had been removed for 24 hours.Overall, our findings suggest that sudden and complete visual deprivation in normally sighted individuals can lead to profound, but rapidly reversible, neuroplastic changes by which the occipital cortex becomes engaged in processing of non-visual information. The speed and dynamic nature of the observed changes suggests that normally inhibited or masked functions in the sighted are revealed by visual loss. The unmasking of pre-existing connections and shifts in connectivity represent rapid, early plastic changes, which presumably can lead, if sustained and reinforced, to slower developing, but more permanent structural changes, such as the establishment of new neural connections in the blind

Household Possession and Use of Insecticide-Treated Mosquito Nets in Sierra Leone 6 Months after a National Mass-Distribution Campaign

BACKGROUND: In November 2010, Sierra Leone distributed over three million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) with the objective of providing protection from malaria to individuals in all households in the country. METHODS: We conducted a nationally representative survey six months after the mass distribution campaign to evaluate its impact on household insecticide-treated net (ITN) ownership and use. We examined factors associated with household ITN possession and use with logistic regression models. RESULTS: The survey included 4,620 households with equal representation in each of the 14 districts. Six months after the campaign, 87.6% of households own at least one ITN, which represents an increase of 137% over the most recent estimate of 37% in 2008. Thirty-six percent of households possess at least one ITN per two household members; rural households were more likely than urban households to have ≥ 1:2 ITN to household members, but there was no difference by socio-economic status or household head education. Among individuals in households possessing ≥ 1 ITN, 76.5% slept under an ITN the night preceding the survey. Individuals in households where the household head had heard malaria messaging, had correct knowledge of malaria transmission, and where at least one ITN was hanging, were more likely to have slept under an ITN. CONCLUSIONS: The mass distribution campaign was effective at achieving high coverage levels across the population, notably so among rural households where the malaria burden is higher. These important gains in equitable access to malaria prevention will need to be maintained to produce long-term reductions in the malaria burden

Helsinki-Vantaan lentoaseman tilannekuvakeskus : Häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteiden eteneminen lentoasemalla

Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten Finavian ylläpitämällä Helsinki-Vantaa lentoasemalla tapahtuvat häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteet vaikuttavat lentoasemalla toimiviin Finavian omiin organisaatioihin sekä lentoasemalla toimiviin viranomaisiin. Häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteella tarkoitetaan lentoaseman normaaliin toimintaan häiritsevästi vaikuttavaa tapahtumaa, esimerkiksi sähkökatkoa. Työ tehtiin Helsinki-Vantaa lentoaseman tilannekuvakeskuksen päällikön pyynnöstä. Tilannekuvakeskuksessa huomattiin, että vaikka häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteessa toiminta eri tahojen kanssa on ollut kitkatonta ja sujuvaa, ei toisen organisaation sisällä tapahtuvasta toiminnasta ollut kuvaa. Työn avulla selvitettiin, onko häiriö- tai poikkeamatilanteella vaikutusta eri organisaatioiden ja viranomaisten toimintaan. Opinnäytetyö auttaa rakentamaan kokonaiskäsitystä poikkeamatilanteiden aiheuttamasta toiminnasta koko lentoaseman alueella. Tätä kautta voidaan myös lisätä ymmärrystä eri organisaatioiden ja viranomaisten välillä. Opinnäytetyö toteutettiin yhteistyössä Helsinki-Vantaa lentoaseman tilannekuvakeskuksen kanssa. Työn edetessä rakennetta muokattiin yhteistyössä tilaajan kanssa niin, että se palvelisi mahdollisimman tarkoituksenmukaisesti eri organisaatioita. Työ toteutettiin tekemällä laadullinen tutkimus, jonka runkona oli puolistrukturoitu haastattelu. Haastatteluita kertyi yhteensä 19 kappaletta ja haastateltavia 21. Haastateltavina olivat Finavian eri organisaatioiden johtajia tai päälliköitä ja lentoaseman toimintaan liittyvien viranomaisten lentoaseman toimipisteiden päälliköt. Työstä rajattiin pois kaupalliset yritykset, koska haastatteluiden määrä olisi kasvanut liian suureksi. Lentoaseman tilannekuvakeskus on luonut useita valmiita toimintamalleja erilaisiin häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteisiin. Tilannekuvakeskuksen päällikkö valitsi näistä häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteista ne, jotka ovat todennäköisiä tai merkittäviä ja vaikuttavat haitallisesti lentoaseman toimintaan. Erilaisia häiriö- ja poikkeamatilanteita valikoitui 17 kappaletta. Näiden tilanteiden vaikutuksia ja toimintamalleja käsiteltiin haastatteluissa. Haastatteluissa saatu informaatio liitettiin tilannekuvakeskuksen toimintamalleihin ja luotiin jokaiseen valittuun poikkeamatilanteeseen kronologinen kuvaus eri organisaatioiden toiminnasta. Opinnäytetyöstä on myöhemmin tarkoitus tehdä pelkistetympi käsikirja Finavian ja viranomaisten käyttöön.The aim of this study was to find out how to Finavia’s Helsinki-Vantaa airport take place in crisis and emergency situations and how they affecting operating at the airport Finavia's own organizations as well as authorities operating at the airport. The work was done at the request of the Head of the Helsinki-Vantaa airport operation center. The airport operation center noted that although the crisis and emergency situations operation with various parties has been smooth, but nobody didn’t have a picture how these crisis and emergency situations was handled in the another organizations. The work purpose was to find out whether the fault or deviation situation could affect the functioning of the various organizations and public authorities. The thesis helps to build the overall understanding of the actions caused by the deviation of situations throughout the airport. This period may also increase the understanding of the different organizations and authorities. The research was conducted in cooperation with the Helsinki-Vantaa airport operation center. As work progresses, the structure was modified in cooperation with the client so that it would serve as appropriately as possible the different organizations. The work was carried out by qualitative research, whose backbone was the semi-structured interview. Interviews were a total of 19 tracks and 21 interviewees were interviewed leaders or managers in different organizations and Finavia's airport activities related to airport authorities, heads of offices. Work were excluded trading companies, because the number of interviews had grown too large. The airport operation center has created a number of ready-made models for different crisis and emergency situations. Head of the Centre chose a snapshot of the crisis and emergency situations, those who are likely or significant and adversely affect the operation of the airport. 17 various types of crisis and emergency situations was selected. Effects and models of these situations addressed in the interviews. The information obtained in the interviews attached a airport operation center’s operational models and was created for each selected deviation situation chronological description of the activities of various organizations. The thesis is later to be made simpler manual for use by Finavia and the authorities

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

Search for pair-produced long-lived neutral particles decaying to jets in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter in ppcollisions at √s=8TeV

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is used to search for the decay of a scalar boson to a pair of long-lived particles, neutral under the Standard Model gauge group, in 20.3fb−1of data collected in proton–proton collisions at √s=8TeV. This search is sensitive to long-lived particles that decay to Standard Model particles producing jets at the outer edge of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter or inside the hadronic calorimeter. No significant excess of events is observed. Limits are reported on the product of the scalar boson production cross section times branching ratio into long-lived neutral particles as a function of the proper lifetime of the particles. Limits are reported for boson masses from 100 GeVto 900 GeV, and a long-lived neutral particle mass from 10 GeVto 150 GeV

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques

Inducible Gene Manipulations in Brain Serotonergic Neurons of Transgenic Rats

The serotonergic (5-HT) system has been implicated in various physiological processes and neuropsychiatric disorders, but in many aspects its role in normal and pathologic brain function is still unclear. One reason for this might be the lack of appropriate animal models which can address the complexity of physiological and pathophysiological 5-HT functioning. In this respect, rats offer many advantages over mice as they have been the animal of choice for sophisticated neurophysiological and behavioral studies. However, only recently technologies for the targeted and tissue specific modification of rat genes - a prerequisite for a detailed study of the 5-HT system - have been successfully developed. Here, we describe a rat transgenic system for inducible gene manipulations in 5-HT neurons. We generated a Cre driver line consisting of a tamoxifen-inducible CreERT2 recombinase under the control of mouse Tph2 regulatory sequences. Tissue-specific serotonergic Cre recombinase expression was detected in four transgenic TPH2-CreERT2 rat founder lines. For functional analysis of Cre-mediated recombination, we used a rat Cre reporter line (CAG-loxP.EGFP), in which EGFP is expressed after Cre-mediated removal of a loxP-flanked lacZ STOP cassette. We show an in-depth characterisation of this rat Cre reporter line and demonstrate its applicability for monitoring Cre-mediated recombination in all major neuronal subpopulations of the rat brain. Upon tamoxifen induction, double transgenic TPH2-CreERT2/CAG-loxP.EGFP rats show selective and efficient EGFP expression in 5-HT neurons. Without tamoxifen administration, EGFP is only expressed in few 5-HT neurons which confirms minimal background recombination. This 5-HT neuron specific CreERT2 line allows Cre-mediated, inducible gene deletion or gene overexpression in transgenic rats which provides new opportunities to decipher the complex functions of the mammalian serotonergic system

Differential Functional Constraints on the Evolution of Postsynaptic Density Proteins in Neocortical Laminae

The postsynaptic density (PSD) is a protein dense complex on the postsynaptic membrane of excitatory synapses that is implicated in normal nervous system functions such as synaptic plasticity, and also contains an enrichment of proteins involved in neuropsychiatric disorders. It has recently been reported that the genes encoding PSD proteins evolved more slowly than other genes in the human brain, but the underlying evolutionary advantage for this is not clear. Here, we show that cortical gene expression levels could explain most of this effect, indicating that expression level is a primary contributor to the evolution of these genes in the brain. Furthermore, we identify a positive correlation between the expression of PSD genes and cortical layers, with PSD genes being more highly expressed in deep layers, likely as a result of layer-enriched transcription factors. As the cortical layers of the mammalian brain have distinct functions and anatomical projections, our results indicate that the emergence of the unique six-layered mammalian cortex may have provided differential functional constraints on the evolution of PSD genes. More superficial cortical layers contain PSD genes with less constraint and these layers are primarily involved in intracortical projections, connections that may be particularly important for evolved cognitive functions. Therefore, the differential expression and evolutionary constraint of PSD genes in neocortical laminae may be critical not only for neocortical architecture but the cognitive functions that are dependent on this structure

Ultrafast Light and Electrons: Imaging the Invisible

In this chapter, the evolutionary and revolutionary developments of microscopic imaging are overviewed with focus on ultrashort light and electrons pulses; for simplicity, we shall use the term “ultrafast” for both. From Alhazen’s camera obscura, to Hooke and van Leeuwenhoek’s optical micrography, and on to three- and four-dimensional (4D) electron microscopy, the developments over a millennium have transformed humans’ scope of visualization. The changes in the length and time scales involved are unimaginable, beginning with the visible shadows of candles at the centimeter and second scales, and ending with invisible atoms with space and time dimensions of sub-nanometer and femtosecond, respectively. With these advances it has become possible to determine the structures of matter and to observe their elementary dynamics as they fold and unfold in real time, providing the means for visualizing materials behavior and biological function, with the aim of understanding emergent phenomena in complex systems. Both light and light-generated electrons are now at the forefront of femtosecond and attosecond science and technology, and the scope of applications has reached beyond the nuclear motion as electron dynamics become accessible