A study of semantic memory after brain injury: Learning newly coined French words

AbstractObjectiveTo investigate semantic memory in brain-injured patients.MethodsWe used the new word questionnaire (QMN) to assess the ability of 12 brain-injured patients and 12 healthy controls to define French words, which had been admitted to the dictionary in 1996 to 1997 or in 2006 to 2007.ResultsDespite amnesia or severe executive disorders, the brain-injured patients were able to learn new words and remember those that they already learnt. They successfully selected the relevant phrase in which the new word was placed and were reasonably good at recognizing the right definition from among decoys. In contrast, they had trouble defining the words and compensated for this by giving examples. These problems were correlated with their vocabulary and executive function scores in a battery of neuropsychological tests.ConclusionOur results suggest that frontal injury leads to an impairment in accurate word selection and the scheduling abilities required to generate word definitions

Moist and warm conditions in Eurasia during the last glacial of the Middle Pleistocene Transition

The end of the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT, ~ 800-670 thousand years before present, ka) was characterised by the emergence of large glacial ice-sheets associated with anomalously warm North Atlantic sea surface temperatures enhancing moisture production. Still, the direction and intensity of moisture transport across Eurasia towards potential ice-sheets is poorly constrained. To reconstruct late MPT moisture production and dispersal, we combine records of upper ocean temperature and pollen-based Mediterranean forest cover, a tracer of westerlies and precipitation, from a subtropical drill-core collected off South-West Iberia, with records of East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) strength and West Pacific surface temperatures, and model simulations. Here we show that south-western European winter precipitation and EASM strength reached high levels during the Marine Isotope Stage 18 glacial. This anomalous situation was caused by nearly-continuous moisture supply from both oceans and its transport to higher latitudes through the westerlies, likely fuelling the accelerated expansion of northern hemisphere ice-sheets during the late MPT. © 2023, The Author(s).This research used samples collected during the Expedition no. 339 “Mediterranean Outflow“ of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). M.F.S.G. acknowledges funding from the GPR Human Past (University of Bordeaux). A.B. thanks Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), project BA 3809/8. C.Z. acknowledges funding from IODP France and J.M.P.-M. from the Junta de Castilla y León and the European Regional Development Fund (Grant CLU-2019-03). T.R. acknowledges funding from FCT through projects Hydroshift (PTDC/CTA-CLI/4297/2021), WarmWorld (PTDC/CTA-GEO/29897/2017), UIDB/04326/2020, UIDP/04326/2020, LA/P/0101/2020 and EMSO-PT (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022157). We thank Vincent Hanquiez for drawing Fig. and Ludovic Devaux for pollen sample preparation

Performance of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter prototype to charged pion beams of 20−-300 GeV/c

The upgrade of the CMS experiment for the high luminosity operation of the LHC comprises the replacement of the current endcap calorimeter by a high granularity sampling calorimeter (HGCAL). The electromagnetic section of the HGCAL is based on silicon sensors interspersed between lead and copper (or copper tungsten) absorbers. The hadronic section uses layers of stainless steel as an absorbing medium and silicon sensors as an active medium in the regions of high radiation exposure, and scintillator tiles directly readout by silicon photomultipliers in the remaining regions. As part of the development of the detector and its readout electronic components, a section of a silicon-based HGCAL prototype detector along with a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype was exposed to muons, electrons and charged pions in beam test experiments at the H2 beamline at the CERN SPS in October 2018. The AHCAL uses the same technology as foreseen for the HGCAL but with much finer longitudinal segmentation. The performance of the calorimeters in terms of energy response and resolution, longitudinal and transverse shower profiles is studied using negatively charged pions, and is compared to GEANT4 predictions. This is the first report summarizing results of hadronic showers measured by the HGCAL prototype using beam test data.Comment: To be submitted to JINS

Response of a CMS HGCAL silicon-pad electromagnetic calorimeter prototype to 20-300 GeV positrons

The Compact Muon Solenoid Collaboration is designing a new high-granularity endcap calorimeter, HGCAL, to be installed later this decade. As part of this development work, a prototype system was built, with an electromagnetic section consisting of 14 double-sided structures, providing 28 sampling layers. Each sampling layer has an hexagonal module, where a multipad large-area silicon sensor is glued between an electronics circuit board and a metal baseplate. The sensor pads of approximately 1 cm$^2$ are wire-bonded to the circuit board and are readout by custom integrated circuits. The prototype was extensively tested with beams at CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron in 2018. Based on the data collected with beams of positrons, with energies ranging from 20 to 300 GeV, measurements of the energy resolution and linearity, the position and angular resolutions, and the shower shapes are presented and compared to a detailed Geant4 simulation

δ¹⁸Oatm and dO2/N2 records between 100-800 ka from EPICA Dome C ice core on AICC2012 chronology

Deep ice core chronologies have been improved over the past years through the addition of new age constraints. However, dating methods are still associated with large uncertainties for ice cores from the East Antarctic plateau where layer counting is not possible. Indeed, an uncertainty up to 6 ka is associated with AICC2012 chronology of EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core, which mostly arises from uncertainty on the delay between changes recorded in d18Oatm and in June 21st insolation variations at 65°N used for ice core orbital dating. Consequently, we need to enhance the knowledge of this delay to improve ice core chronologies. We present new high-resolution EDC d18Oatm record (153-374 ka) and dO2/N2 measurements (163-332 ka) performed on well-stored ice to provide continuous records of d18Oatm and dO2/N2 between 100 and 800 ka. The comparison of d18Oatm with the d18Ocalcite from East Asian speleothems shows that both signals present similar orbital and millennial variabilities, which may represent shifts in the InterTropical Convergence Zone position, themselves associated with Heinrich events. We thus propose to use the d18Ocalcite as target for d18Oatm orbital dating. Such a tuning method improves the ice core chronology of the last glacial inception compared to AICC2012 by reconciling NGRIP and mid-latitude climatic records. It is especially marked during Dansgaard-Oeschger 25 where the proposed chronology is 2.2 ka older than AICC2012. This d18Oatm - d18Ocalcite alignment method applied between 100 and 640 ka improves the EDC ice core chronology, especially over MIS 11, and leads to lower ice age uncertainties compared to AICC2012

The polyunsaturated fatty acid composition of hepatic and plasma lipids differ by both sex and dietary fat intake in rats

In rats and humans, females have higher liver and/or plasma docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content than males. We hypothesized that the effect of variation in total fat or essential fatty acid intakes on liver and plasma fatty acid composition would differ between sexes. Rats were fed a low-fat soybean oil (LFS), high-fat soybean oil (HFS), or high-fat linseed oil (HFL) diet for 20 d. There were significant sex differences in LFS rats in proportions of (n-3) and (n-6) fatty acids in plasma and liver contingent on lipid class. Significant diet x sex interactions were observed for eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), DHA, and arachidonic acid (AA) status. HFL females had a higher proportion of EPA in plasma and liver phosphatidylcholine (PC), DHA in liver triacylglycerol (TAG), and AA in plasma PC than HFS and LFS females. These findings show that the effect of varying dietary fat intake on (n-3) and (n-6) long-chain PUFA (LCPUFA) status is modified by sex. Liver phospholipid and TAG fatty acid product:substrate ratios suggested greater 6 desaturase (6D) activity in females than in males. The HFL diet induced higher 6D mRNA expression compared with the LFS or HFS diets and HFL females had 10% higher expression of 6D mRNA than HFL males. Together, these findings show that sex is an important determinant of the effect of variations in fat and fatty acid intake on LCPUFA status, which may have implications for recommendations for fat and fatty acid intake in humans

HGCROC3: the front-end readout ASIC for the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter

International audienceFor the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter (CE), the final version of the 72-channel front-end ASIC (HGCROC3) was submitted in December 2020. HGCROC3 includes low-noise/high-gain preamplifiers/shapers and a 10-bit 40 MHz successive approximation ADC (SAR-ADC) that provide the charge measurement over the linear range of the preamplifier. In the saturation range, a discriminator and a time-to-digital converter (TDC) provide the charge information from the time over threshold (ToT; 200 ns dynamic range, 50 ps binning). A fast discriminator and another TDC provide timing information to 25 ps accuracy. The chip embeds all necessary ancillary services: bandgap circuit, PLL, threshold DACs. We present the experimental results on the latest and final version (HGCROC3) received in April 2021

HGCROC-Si and HGCROC-SiPM: the front-end readout ASICs for the CMS HGCAL

International audienceThe two variants of HGCROC are the ASICs designed to readout the more than 6 million channels of the future HGCAL of CMS, which will consist of hexagonal silicon sensors for a large part but also SiPM-on-scintillators tiles. The SiPM version of the chip was made from the silicon version by adapting only the first amplifier stage. The first aspect is on the performance for both versions in terms of noise, charge and timing, the DAQ and Trigger paths, as well as results from irradiation qualification with total ionizing dose and heavy ions for single-event effects. The third version of HGCROC chip is a major digital release, with RadHard solutions and an additional buffer