Bionics of visuo-motor control

International audienc

Successful Treatment of Anterior Tracheal Necrosis after Total Thyroidectomy Using Vacuum-Assisted Closure Therapy

Total thyroidectomy involving the adjacent structures of the trachea can cause tracheal damage such as early tracheal necrosis. The authors describe the first case of anterior tracheal necrosis following total thyroidectomy treated using vacuum-assisted closure device. After two weeks of VAC  therapy, there was no evidence of ongoing infection and the trachea was partially closed around a tracheotomy cannula, removed after 3 months. The use of a VAC  therapy to reduce and close the tracheal rent and to create a rapid granulation tissue over tracheal structure appeared as a good opportunity after anterior tracheal necrosis

Arc Deformation and Marginal Basin Opening: Japan Sea as a Case Study

Laurent Jolivet est est Professeur à l'Université d'Orléans depuis le 1er Septembre 2009International audienceWe discuss the opening mechanism of the Japan Sea in Miocene time using (1) tectonic and published paleomagnetic data along the eastern margin from the north of Hokkaido Island to Sado Island, (2) a mechanical model which is tested by small-scale physical modeling, and (3) crustal structure and bathymetric features in the Japan Sea which constrain our kinematic model and preopening reconstructions. Our main conclusions are the following. The eastern margin of the Japan Sea was, as a whole, a dextral shear zone about 100 km wide. This conclusion is supported by the existence of a ductile dextral shear zone in Central Hokkaido (Hidaka Mountains) and associated brittle deformation in western Hokkaido and northeastern Honshu. The stress field during the opening (which ended about 12 Ma ago at the end of the middle Miocene) changes from right-lateral transpression in the north to right-lateral transtension in the south. The western margin, along the Korean peninsula, during the same period, also was an active dextral shear zone. Paleomagnetic results indicate that clockwise rotations occurred in the south during the opening and counterclockwise rotations in the north. We propose a model of right-lateral pull-apart deformation with clockwise rotations of rigid blocks in the southern transtensional domain and counterclockwise rotations in the transpressional one. Small-scale physical models show that the clockwise rotation in transtension is possible provided that the eastern boundary (Pacific side) is free of stress. The opening stopped and compression subsequently began about 12 Ma ago. Finally, we show that the dextral shear, which is distributed over the whole Japan Sea area, is accommodated by N-S trending right-lateral faults and rotation of blocks located between these right-lateral faults

Placing Madagascar's marine turtle populations in a regional context using community-based monitoring

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record.Madagascar is an important foraging ground for marine turtles in the Western Indian Ocean, yet the status of the country's nesting aggregations remains poorly documented. We assess the current status and trend in nesting throughout Madagascar, including data recorded by a community-based monitoring project in the Barren Isles (western Madagascar). We contextualize the findings in comparison with data from Madagascar's closest neighbouring states. Reports indicate that nesting levels have declined at many coastal sites, with no known recordings since 2000 at > 40 nesting sites. We estimate there are a minimum of 1,200 nests per year in Madagascar, with the largest recorded nesting aggregation (< 1,000 nests per year) found on islands off the west and northern coasts. The majority of nesting aggregations, including those recorded by the community-based monitoring project in the Barren Isles, are relatively small, in the order of < 50 nests per year, yet they are potentially important sources of regional genetic diversity. Nesting on many of the islands (e.g. Tromelin, Europa) around Madagascar has increased over the last 20 years, despite the fact that thousands of turtles probably originating from these sites are taken by fishers in the waters of Madagascar annually. We discuss the importance of protecting small nesting populations, and how community-based monitoring could be an important tool for conserving remote and vulnerable populations and building capacity for natural resource management.We thank in particular Audrey Campillo, a researcher affiliated with the La Réunion-based research group Kelonia (www.kelonia.org), who provided initial training for the community monitoring team in Madagascar. We also thank the eight community members of the monitoring team from Maintirano, Jean Berthieu Nomenjanahary and Armel Bezafy for their assistance, Charlotte Moffat, Jérémie Bossert and Marianne Teoh for assisting with community interviews and data organization, Samir Gandhi for helping to prepare Figs 1–3, the State of the World's Sea Turtles, National Geographic's Conservation Trust and The Rufford Foundation for supporting Blue Ventures’ marine turtle conservation and research work in Madagascar, and two referees for their helpful input

Seismoacoustic coupling induced by the breakup of the 15 February 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor

International audienceOn 15 February 2013 around 03:20:00 UTC, the largest meteor reported since the 1908 Tunguska event was observed as a fireball traveling through the Earth's atmosphere, exploding in an air burst near the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. The rarity of such an event provides a unique window on the physics of meteoroid collision. We report the fine seismic detection of Rayleigh waves produced by the coupling of ground motion with the incident shock wave at distances up to 4000 km from the event. Combining information from seismic beam-forming analysis, recon- structed trajectory from casual video records, and remote sensing, we identify the Rayleigh waves as being initiated by the shock wave produced by the main blast that occasioned damages and injuries in Chelyabinsk. From the Rayleigh wave observations, we report a magnitude Ms ~ 3.7 seismic source

Rescue of fragile X syndrome phenotypes in Fmr1 KO mice by a BKCa channel opener molecule.

International audienc