Le chikungunya : une arbovirose ré-émergente (Thèse d'exercice de Pharmacie)

Currently reemergence in the world, chikungunya virus is an arbovirus causing the occurrence of epidemics in countries not previously affected. Mainly transmitted to humans by mosquitoes Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti this arbovirus concerned by its development. The possible mutations of the virus, different genotypes, climate change, the political context (war, globalization ...) and reservoirs of viruses difficult to identify are all factors making the control very complicated of viral dissemination. Paradoxically this development, despite the lack of treatment and vaccine, chikungunya disease is becoming better understood. This overall progress of knowledge is one of optimism for the future. However currently, individual and collective prevention remains the most effective way to fight against the spread of the virus. Therefore, vector control is the major asset of this taken into preventive care. As the first contact the pharmacist has a major role to play in prevention

Effects of Phonomotor Treatment on the Reading Abilities of Individuals with Aphasia and Phonological Alexia

A left hemisphere stroke often results in aphasia characterized by impaired reading (Cherney, 2004; Webb & Love, 1983) and phonological processing abilities (Blumstein, Baker, & Goodglass, 1977; den Ouden & Bastiaanse, 2005). Research has shown that treatment focused at the level of the phoneme improves reading abilities in persons with aphasia (PWA) and phonological alexia (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). These findings are theoretically supported by a connectionist model of phonology (Nadeau, 2001), and a multimodal model of phonological processing and reading (Alexander & Slinger, 2004)

Using error type on confrontation naming as an indicator of improved linguistic processing following phonomotor treatment

This paper presents initial data on the influence of phonomotor treatment on word retrieval accuracy and error type from pre- and post-treatment confrontation naming probe responses produced by 10 individuals with aphasia. This study is part of a Phase II clinical rehabilitation research program which trains real- and non-words, comprised of low phonotactic probability and high neighborhood density phoneme sequences, to improve word retrieval in 30 subjects with left hemisphere lesion and aphasia. The treatment program is a logical advance on existing Phase I and Phase II clinical rehabilitation research (Kendall et al 2003, Kendall et al 2006a, Kendall et al 2006b, Kendall et al 2006c, Kendall et al 2008) and is motivated by a parallel distributed processing model of phonology (Nadeau, 2001)

Improvement of the phase regulation between two amplifiers feeding the inputs of the 3dB combiner in the ASDEX-Upgrade ICRH system

The present ICRF system at ASDEX Upgrade uses 3dB combiners to forward the combined power of a generator pair to a single line. Optimal output performance is achieved when the voltages at the two input lines of a combiner are equal in amplitude and the phase in quadrature. If this requirement is not met, a large amount of power is lost in the dummy loads of the combiner. To minimize losses, it is paramount to reach this phase relationship in a fast and stable way. The current phase regulation system is based on analog phase locked loops circuits. The main limitation of this system is the response time: several tens of milliseconds are needed to achieve a stable state. In order to get rid of the response time limitation of the current system, a new system is proposed based on a multi-channel direct digital synthesis device which is steered by a microcontroller and a software-based controller. The proposed system has been developed and successfully tested on a test-bench. The results show a remarkable improvement in the reduction of the response times. Other significant advantages provided by the new system include greater flexibility for frequency and phase settings, lower cost and a noticeable size reduction of the system

Examining inhibition during spoken word production in aphasia

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Developing a standardized measure of short-term memory and syntactic complexity: results from subtests of the CRTT-R

Short-term memory (STM) effects have shown to be distinguishable from other working memory components supporting complex computations/central executive functions. To develop a measure capable of assessing the effects of STM and linguistic computations on sentence processing,  effects of syntactic complexity and padding were investigated with the Computerized Revised Token Test –Revised in individuals with aphasia and control participants.  Off-line measures revealed clear effects of both factors.  The expected interaction of complexity and padding  and overadditive effects for individuals with aphasia were not found. An effect of complexity on word errors in passive sentences for individuals was shown

Varieties of linguistic complexity in a standardized assessment of language performance

This study examined the comprehension of linguistically complex sentences among unimpaired adults and adults with aphasia. Participants completed a self-paced reading version of the Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT-R) containing passive sentences, sentences with adverbial clauses, and sentences with discontinuous adjective-noun dependencies. Off-line measures revealed clear effects of linguistic complexity for passive and discontinuous-dependency sentences, with more complex sentences eliciting lower scores for impaired and aphasic groups, but not for sentences with adverbial clauses. In contrast, on-line measures revealed the opposite pattern: less complex sentences elicited slower reading times. Off-line measures appear more sensitive to linguistic complexity in this task

Automatic activation, interference and facilitation effects in persons with aphasia and normal adult controls on experimental CRTT-R-Stroop tasks

The current study investigated the effects of several color word congruent and incongruent “Stroop” tasks, within the context of a reading comprehension test (CRTT-R-wf-Stroop), in persons with aphasia (PWA) (N=25) and normal adults (NA) (N=29). Reading times, percentage of correct responses and CRTT-R-wf scores were examined for the color words. Both groups demonstrated significant vigilance and interference effects on RT ratios reflecting costs in sustained attention, interference/suppression effects and attentional switching. Both groups showed a facilitation effect on the CRTT-R-wf score. Unlike the NA, the PWA showed no attentional effects for the number of correct response on the color adjectives