Communication between Brain Areas Based on Nested Oscillations

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New insights on the ventral attention network::active suppression and involuntary recruitment during a bimodal task

International audienceDetection of unexpected, yet relevant events is essential in daily life. fMRI studies have revealed the involvement of the ventral attention network (VAN), including the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), in such process. In this MEG study with 34 participants (17 women), we used a bimodal (visual/auditory) attention task to determine the neuronal dynamics associated with suppression of the activity of the VAN during top-down attention and its recruitment when information from the unattended sensory modality is involuntarily integrated. We observed an anticipatory power increase of alpha/beta oscillations (12–20 Hz, previously associated with functional inhibition) in the VAN following a cue indicating the modality to attend. Stronger VAN power increases were associated with better task performance, suggesting that the VAN suppression prevents shifting attention to distractors. Moreover, the TPJ was synchronized with the frontal eye field in that frequency band, indicating that the dorsal attention network (DAN) might participate in such suppression. Furthermore, we found a 12–20 Hz power decrease and enhanced synchronization, in both the VAN and DAN, when information between sensory modalities was congruent, suggesting an involvement of these networks when attention is involuntarily enhanced due to multisensory integration. Our results show that effective multimodal attentional allocation includes the modulation of the VAN and DAN through upper-alpha/beta oscillations. Altogether these results indicate that the suppressing role of alpha/beta oscillations might operate beyond sensory regions

Top-down control of alpha phase adjustment in anticipation of predictable visual stimuli

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Service Delivery Management: A Process for Proactively Ensuring Customer Satisfaction.

SDM is a process model, based on service marketing components, to position a service while concurrently being a service delivery management tool improving serviceen counter processes. Added to a service script, SDM can increase customer satisfaction, quality perception, voice levels and repurchase intentions in a general service encounter scenario as well as during episodes which include a failure. Addressing mishaps requires particular attention, since Consumer Complaint Behaviour research shows that most customers prefer to switch suppliers, rather than offer constructive feedback. This means that many service failures go unnoticed, with a large proportion of customers defecting. Since most services are performed in real time by service personnel, consistent quality output is a challenge. Therefore, occasional service failures are inevitable. Present research recognises this by offering suggestions, but does not present an integrated framework like SDM, using the presence of a customer during a service encounter as an unique opportunity to resolve issues on the spot. An elicitation process is used as a first step, attempting to improve voice and minimising lost feedback. Step two is a specific service recovery process, adapted to the failure type. SDM processes can also lead to a general increase of satisfaction and quality perception, regardless of whether or not there was a service failure. With satisfaction generally being regarded as an actual repurchase behaviour indicator, this may lead to increased sales turnover, while a higher quality perception may lead to a larger price premium tolerance and therefore higher profits. Higher service quality perceptions can also be used as a marketing positioning tool to differentiate a service from competitors. Data collected supported all hypotheses put forward in this thesis, showing statistically significant improvements on all key variables, including a satisfaction rating increase of 24percent when SDM was applied. In academic terms, the process model tested did not only link separate literature streams, but offered an integrated, proactive tool which is capable of operating in real time. Traditionally, academic models and their processes analyse results after an episode concludes, while SDM allows a provider to positively influence or manage satisfaction levels during the service delivery

Hippocampal pattern completion is linked to gamma power increases and alpha power decreases during recollection

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Twenty Tips for High-School Students Engaging in Research with Scientists

Ten high-school students from Catalunya and two neuroscientists from the Netherlandsstarted a research collaboration in 2012 investigating how colors may influence learningabilities. This research question was defined and developed solely by the students, withresearchers joining the project later through the guidance of a facilitator and a teacher. Thisrather radical approach to “citizen-science” involved research collaborations on citizen-generatedquestions and was extremely rewarding for both parties involved. It providedskills, empowered participants, and enhanced the social relevance of science while allowinginteractions that might have never happened otherwise. But the process was alsochallenging,which motivated the team of 10 students to propose “Twenty Tips” for otherstudents interested in embarking on a similar journey. In the spirit of all research within thisproject, this article was a collaborative effort between the participants and thus departsstructurally from other scientific articles

Gene-educational attainment interactions in a multi-population genome-wide meta-analysis identify novel lipid loci

Introduction: Educational attainment, widely used in epidemiologic studies as a surrogate for socioeconomic status, is a predictor of cardiovascular health outcomes. Methods: A two-stage genome-wide meta-analysis of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), and triglyceride (TG) levels was performed while accounting for gene-educational attainment interactions in up to 226,315 individuals from five population groups. We considered two educational attainment variables: “Some College” (yes/no, for any education beyond high school) and “Graduated College” (yes/no, for completing a 4-year college degree). Genome-wide significant (p &lt; 5 × 10−8) and suggestive (p &lt; 1 × 10−6) variants were identified in Stage 1 (in up to 108,784 individuals) through genome-wide analysis, and those variants were followed up in Stage 2 studies (in up to 117,531 individuals). Results: In combined analysis of Stages 1 and 2, we identified 18 novel lipid loci (nine for LDL, seven for HDL, and two for TG) by two degree-of-freedom (2 DF) joint tests of main and interaction effects. Four loci showed significant interaction with educational attainment. Two loci were significant only in cross-population analyses. Several loci include genes with known or suggested roles in adipose (FOXP1, MBOAT4, SKP2, STIM1, STX4), brain (BRI3, FILIP1, FOXP1, LINC00290, LMTK2, MBOAT4, MYO6, SENP6, SRGAP3, STIM1, TMEM167A, TMEM30A), and liver (BRI3, FOXP1) biology, highlighting the potential importance of brain-adipose-liver communication in the regulation of lipid metabolism. An investigation of the potential druggability of genes in identified loci resulted in five gene targets shown to interact with drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including genes with roles in adipose and brain tissue. Discussion: Genome-wide interaction analysis of educational attainment identified novel lipid loci not previously detected by analyses limited to main genetic effects.</p

Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the ‘‘Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Altimetry for the future: building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the “Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Characterization of elementary processing steps of conditional reasoning using EEG and MEG : effect of uncertainty of the conditional and individual differences

Le raisonnement conditionnel, fondé sur les énoncés de la forme Si P alors Q, est celui qui a reçu le plus d'attention de la part des psychologues. Les arguments principaux du raisonnement conditionnel, comme le Modus Ponens (MP), sont constitués de trois éléments : la prémisse majeure (Si P alors Q), la prémisse mineure (P) et la conclusion (Q). Ces éléments constituent trois étapes de traitement distinctes. Cependant, la dimension temporelle du raisonnement a été en partie négligée dans la littérature. L’objectif central de cette thèse a été d’explorer cette dimension temporelle à l’aide d’une approche novatrice combinant l’utilisation de la mesure du temps de lecture des prémisses, de l’Electroencéphalographie (EEG) et de la Magnétoencéphalographie (MEG). Nous nous sommes donné trois objectifs : 1) Déterminer la séquence des étapes de traitement élémentaire de l’argument MP ; 2) Déterminer comment l’incertitude d’un conditionnel thématique est prise en compte ; 3) Mettre en évidence les différences interindividuelles de traitement d’un énoncé conditionnel, basique ou thématique, en introduisant l’étude de l’argument AC qui permet de dissocier deux populations : les individus qui acceptent la conclusion de AC et les individus qui la rejettent.L’ensemble des données révèle que tous les individus ont une tendance à se focaliser davantage sur P que sur Q lors du traitement du conditionnel, avec des degrés variables selon les individus. Lorsque la prémisse P (ou Q pour les participants qui acceptent AC) est présentée, elle est intégrée à la prémisse majeure afin de générer une conclusion Q encodée et stockée en mémoire de travail avant d’être comparée avec la conclusion présentée.Lorsque le conditionnel est incertain (conditionnel thématique), cette incertitude sur la suffisance de P pour Q (ou de Q pour P) semble être prise en compte par les sujets au niveau de la prémisse majeure et se manifeste par une attente moins prononcée de la conclusion Q une fois que la prémisse P a été présentée.The conditional reasoning, based on statements of the form If P then Q, is one which has received the most attention from psychologists. The main arguments of conditional reasoning, as the Modus Ponens (MP), consist of three elements: the major premise (If P then Q), the minor premise (P) and conclusion (Q). These elements constitute three separate processing steps. However, the temporal dimension of reasoning has been partly neglected in the literature. The central objective of this thesis was to explore the temporal dimension by using an innovative approach combining the use of the measurement of premises reading time and of the electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography ( MEG). We set three objectives: 1) Determine the sequence of processing steps of the basic argument MP 2) Determine how the uncertainty of a conditional theme is taken into account, 3) Highlight the interindividual differences in treatment a conditional statement, or basic theme by introducing the study of the AC argument, which allows to separate two populations: individuals who accept the conclusion of AC and individuals who reject it. The data reveals that all individuals have a tendency to focus more on P and Q in the processing of the conditional, with varying degrees in different individuals. When the premise P (or Q for participants that accept AC) is presented, it is integrated with the major premise to generate a conclusion Q encoded and stored in working memory before being compared with the conclusions presented. When the conditional is uncertain (Thematic conditional), this uncertainty about the sufficiency of P for Q (or Q for P) seems to be taken into account by the subjects at the major premise and is manifested by an less pronounced expectation of Q conclusion when the premise P has been presented