Letter to the editor: autoimmune pathogenic mechanisms in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The innate immune system may affect the function and survival of motor neurons in ALS by at least three mechanisms. First, there is evidence to suggest that aggregates of mutant SOD1—which is derived from microglial and astroglial cells—activate neighbouring microglia by binding to TLR2, TLR4, and CD14, and subsequently promote neuronal cell death [9]. Second, the release of pro- inflammatory cytokines may drive motor neuron damage. Third, although poorly understood, a mechanism has been suggested on the basis of the functional analysis of microglial cells that express mutant SOD1 [10]. These cells showed impaired overall motility and a reduced capacity to clear neuronal cell debris. Impairment of microglial cell phagocytosis may therefore contribute to the accumulation of further immunostimulatory proteins, including mutant SOD1, chromogranin A, and dsRNA, thereby resulting in disease progression

Facing Non-Stationary Conditions with a New Indicator of Entropy Increase: The Cassandra Algorithm

We address the problem of detecting non-stationary effects in time series (in particular fractal time series) by means of the Diffusion Entropy Method (DEM). This means that the experimental sequence under study, of size $N$, is explored with a window of size $L << N$. The DEM makes a wise use of the statistical information available and, consequently, in spite of the modest size of the window used, does succeed in revealing local statistical properties, and it shows how they change upon moving the windows along the experimental sequence. The method is expected to work also to predict catastrophic events before their occurrence.Comment: FRACTAL 2002 (Spain

Managing Self-Talk in Clinical Sessions: Implications for Speech-Language Pathology

Currently affecting over one million Americans (NINDS, 2015), aphasia is a communication disorder caused by brain damage that disrupts an individuals use of spoken and written language. It not only disrupts communication, but is isolating, and impacts overall quality of life. Studying the social impact of aphasia, Devanga (2015) employed a 15-session collaborative intervention called the barrier task (Hengst, Duff & Dettmer, 2010) on Mr. Lee, a 75-year-old man with chronic aphasia to foster a conversational therapy environment that involved taking turns naming picture cards. Mr. Lee showed successful collaboration and reported increased confidence in his overall communication. The current study examines the self- talk patterns of Mr. Lee and the clinician by conducting secondary analysis of Devanga's video data to better understand Mr. Lees reported increase in confidence across sessions. Video transcripts from five sessions were analyzed and coded for self-talk. Self-talk is defined as instances of personal reflection using first person pronouns (Neck & Manz, 1992). Each instance of self-talk was linguistically coded as positive or negative. The preliminary findings from the on-going interpretive analysis indicate the use of multiple episodes of self-talk throughout sessions, with Mr. Lee using more self-talk than the clinician. The findings will link a variety of fields, such as linguistics, psychology, education, and communication sciences and disorders, by contributing to broader understandings of the construction of confidence in moments of negative self-talk. As a clinical implication, this study provides a stronger understanding of patients communicative confidence throughout the progression of therapy. Devanga, S., Mosier, H., & Hengst, J. A. (2015). Thin Versus Thick Description: Analyzing Representations of People and Their Life Worlds in the Literature of Communication Sciences and Disorders. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. doi:10.1044/2015_AJSLP-14-0163 Hengst, J.A., Duff, M.C., & Dettmer, A. (2010). Rethinking repetition in therapy: Repeated engagement as the social ground of learning. Aphasiology, 24(6-8), 887-901. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (2015). From http://ww.ninds.nih.gov/ Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C.. (1992). Thought Self-Leadership: The Influence of Self-Talk and Mental Imagery on Performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(7), 681699. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2488389 Special Formatting: Additional Technology (for oral presentations)Ope

Los caracteres biocenóticos de las lagunas basálticas del oeste de Neuquén

Fil: Roig, Virgilio G.. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto de BiologíaFil: Cei, José M.. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto de Biologí

Compression and diffusion: a joint approach to detect complexity

The adoption of the Kolmogorov-Sinai (KS) entropy is becoming a popular research tool among physicists, especially when applied to a dynamical system fitting the conditions of validity of the Pesin theorem. The study of time series that are a manifestation of system dynamics whose rules are either unknown or too complex for a mathematical treatment, is still a challenge since the KS entropy is not computable, in general, in that case. Here we present a plan of action based on the joint action of two procedures, both related to the KS entropy, but compatible with computer implementation through fast and efficient programs. The former procedure, called Compression Algorithm Sensitive To Regularity (CASToRe), establishes the amount of order by the numerical evaluation of algorithmic compressibility. The latter, called Complex Analysis of Sequences via Scaling AND Randomness Assessment (CASSANDRA), establishes the complexity degree through the numerical evaluation of the strength of an anomalous effect. This is the departure, of the diffusion process generated by the observed fluctuations, from ordinary Brownian motion. The CASSANDRA algorithm shares with CASToRe a connection with the Kolmogorov complexity. This makes both algorithms especially suitable to study the transition from dynamics to thermodynamics, and the case of non-stationary time series as well. The benefit of the joint action of these two methods is proven by the analysis of artificial sequences with the same main properties as the real time series to which the joint use of these two methods will be applied in future research work.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure

Letter to the editor: autoimmune pathogenic mechanisms in Huntington’s disease

Letter to the Editor: Autoimmune pathogenic mechanisms in Huntington's disease

Alvenaria estrutural com elementos de madeira

Apesar da madeira e da alvenaria dialogarem constantemente no contexto construtivo, não é comum elas se fundirem nas suas funções. A madeira surge maioritariamente associada a elementos estruturais finos, formando um esqueleto, ou a elementos de revestimento, e a alvenaria associada a paredes resistentes ou simplesmente de enchimento. O que aqui se propõe, é combinar técnica e material, geralmente desassociados, procurando utilizações mais rentáveis, combinando funções estruturais e protectoras aos edifícios. Para o efeito, apresenta-se uma série de ensaios preliminares realizados no Laboratório de Ensaio de Estruturas da Universidade do Minho (LEST) que garantiram informações preciosas para o desenvolvimento de um tijolo de madeira. Os dados recolhidos nos ensaios permitem ainda a previsão da resposta global das paredes construídas utilizando estes tijolos de madeira. Realizaram-se ensaios de compressão de tijolos, avaliando quer a resposta mecânica quer o fenómeno da fluência, e ensaios de flexão de paredes, em particular, ensaios de flexão para estudo do comportamento das juntas horizontais e verticais das paredesAlthough wood and masonry constantly dialoguing in a constructive context, it is unusual to merge them in their roles. The wood comes mostly associated with slender structural elements, forming a skeleton, or cladding, and masonry as bearing walls or associated with simply filling. The aim of this work is to combine the technique and the materials, normally disassociated, looking for more profitable uses, combining structural and protective functions of the buildings. For that, a series of preliminary tests, performed at the Laboratory for Testing of Structures of the University of Minho (LEST), were performed. These tests supplied valuable information to the development of a wooden brick. Data collected from the tests also allow the prediction of the global response of the walls built using these wooden bricks. Compression tests of wooden bricks, assessing the mechanical response and the creep, and bending tests of walls studying the behaviour of bed and head joints, were performed