Cenozoic-Recent tectonics and uplift in the Greater Caucasus: a perspective from Azerbaijan

The Greater Caucasus is Europe's highest mountain belt and results from the inversion of the Greater Caucasus back-arc-type basin due to the collision of Arabia and Eurasia. The orogenic processes that led to the present mountain chain started in the Early Cenozoic, accelerated during the Plio-Pleistocene, and are still active as shown from present GPS studies and earthquake distribution. The Greater Caucasus is a doubly verging fold-and-thrust belt, with a pro- and a retro wedge actively propagating into the foreland sedimentary basin of the Kura to the south and the Terek to the north, respectively. Based on tectonic geomorphology – active and abandoned thrust fronts – the mountain range can be subdivided into several zones with different uplift amounts and rates with very heterogeneous strain partitioning. The central part of the mountain range – defined by the Main Caucasus Thrust to the south and backthrusts to the north – forms a triangular-shape zone showing the highest uplift and fastest rates, and is due to thrusting over a steep tectonic ramp system at depth. The meridional orogenic in front of the Greater Caucasus in Azerbaijan lies at the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, to the south of the Kura foreland basin

Within/between-session reliability and agreement of lumbopelvic kinematics in the sagittal plane during functional movement control tasks in healthy persons

A lack of adequate lumbopelvic movement control has been suggested as an underlying mechanism contributing to the development and persistence of low back pain and lower limb pathologies. The purpose of this study was to assess the within and between session reliability (i.e. the ability to discriminate between subjects), and the agreement (i.e. whether scores are identical on repeated measures) of lumbopelvic kinematics in the sagittal plane during functional movement control tasks. Kinematics were measured with a portable inertial measurement unit system. Twenty healthy subjects (mean age = 22 (±3.6) years, 15 females) performed four tasks on two occasions, five to seven days apart: standing bow (SB), lifting a box from the floor (LIFT), stance-to-sit-to-stance (SIT) and placing a box on an overhead shelf (OVERH). Participants were asked to keep the lumbar spine in a neutral lordosis during the tasks. The maximal deviations from the neutral starting position for the lumbar spine and hip were calculated. Intraclass correlations (ICCs), standard errors of measurement (SEM), minimal detectable changes and 95% limits of agreement were used to assess reliability and agreement. SB and LIFT were substantially reliable (ICC = 0.89-0.96), SIT was moderately to substantially reliable (ICC = 0.69-0.92) and OVERH was fairly to moderately reliable (ICC = 0.40-0.67). SEMs ranged between 1.1° and 3.1° for the lumbar spine and between 0.7° and 4.8° for the hip. Based on the substantial reliability and acceptable agreement, SB and LIFT are most appropriate to quantify lumbopelvic movement control during functional tasks

Capturing reconnection phenomena using generalized Eulerian-Lagrangian description in Navier-Stokes and resistive MHD

New generalized equations of motion for the Weber-Clebsch potentials that describe both the Navier-Stokes and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) dynamics are derived. These depend on a new parameter, which has dimensions of time for Navier-Stokes and inverse velocity for MHD. Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) are performed. For Navier-Stokes, the generalized formalism captures the intense reconnection of vortices of the Boratav, Pelz and Zabusky (BPZ) flow, in agreement with the previous study by Ohkitani and Constantin. For MHD, the new formalism is used to detect magnetic reconnection in several flows: the three-dimensional (3D) Arnold, Beltrami and Childress (ABC) flow and the (2D and 3D) Orszag-Tang (OT) vortex. It is concluded that periods of intense activity in the magnetic enstrophy are correlated with periods of increasingly frequent resettings. Finally, the positive correlation between the sharpness of the increase in resetting frequency and the spatial localization of the reconnection region is discussed

Current perspectives on developmental dysphasias

This paper documents the major difficulties observed in the oral language development of individuals with mental retardation of genetic origin. The extent of inter- and within-syndrome variability is evaluated. More specifically, a comparative analysis of typical language phenotypes in several genetic syndromes is attempted and the possible brain underpinnings of the observed differences are envisaged. Recent cases of favorable language development in individuals with mental retardation are summarized and explanatory variables are discussed