Microstructural white-matter abnormalities and their relationship with cognitive dysfunction in obsessive-compulsive disorder

open5Background: In recent years, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have detected subtle microstructural abnormalities of white matter (WM) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, findings have been inconsistent, and it is unclear whether WM abnormalities are related to cognitive processes. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship of WM alterations with cognitive variables in OCD in order to investigate the structural correlates of behaviorally relevant features of the disorder. Methods: We compared DTI-derived fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and radial diffusivity (RD) measures between OCD patients (n = 16) and healthy controls (n = 18) using a whole-brain tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) approach. We also explored the correlations of WM alterations with clinical and cognitive variables. Results: Patients with OCD demonstrated increases in MD in the bilateral posterior corona radiata; left anterior corona radiata; bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus; genu, body, and splenium of the corpus callosum; and left posterior limb of the internal capsule. An increase in RD values was also found in some of the same tracts (right posterior corona radiata, right superior longitudinal fasciculus, left anterior corona radiata, and corpus callosum). Furthermore, increased MD value in the internal capsule was correlated with the percentage of errors made during a target detection task, which was greater in the OCD group overall. Conclusions: These findings indicate that OCD patients show greater diffusivity in several white-matter regions. The correlation between cognitive performance and diffusivity in the internal capsule suggests that microstructural WM alternations may have functional consequences for the disorder.openMagioncalda, P; Martino, M; Ely, B.A.; Inglese, M; Stern, E. R.Magioncalda, P; Martino, M; Ely, B. A.; Inglese, M; Stern, E. R

Community Ownership of local Assets: conditions for sustainable success

Paper given to British sociological Association conference,12/04/2018. Rates of asset transfer from local authority to community control have increased in recent years. This trend raises important questions around the impact of transfers on local communities, and how they manage these new responsibilities. This research project sought to answer two questions: how do local communities define what constitutes a community asset; and, once transferred to community ownership, what are the conditions and resources required for sustainable and successful community assets? Two districts in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, were selected as examples where local authority assets have been transferred into community control. Community asset maps were produced for each district using GIS mapping technology and qualitative case studies were developed based on interviews and questionnaires in each area. Our findings suggest that community stakeholders define community assets as buildings, open spaces or amenities. Such physical locations will provide a facilitative role in relation to 'social infrastructure' that can connect various parts of the community. Such assets, however, must, be open and available to the whole community in order to be regarded as legitimate community assets. Where assets transfers had taken place, there was an increase in community use and, often, the range of activities available. In order for asset transfers to have sustainable success, it was found that that a pool of capital -human, social, physical, and financial - was available to that community

New Integrated High-Resolution Dinoflagellate Cyst Stratigraphy and Litho- and Chemostratigraphy from the Paris and Dieppe–Hampshire Basins for the “Sparnacian”

The Paris Basin represents an historical cradle of Palaeogene stratigraphy, where during the nineteenth century the Palaeocene Series and the “Sparnacian Stage” were established. As highlighted by Aubry et al. (2005), whereas the chronostratigraphic connotation of the “Sparnacian Stage” has been controversial since its definition, modern studies of the late Palaeocene–early Eocene interval have revealed that the so-called “Sparnacian” deposits encompass a remarkable and short (~170 kyr) episode of the Cenozoic, the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~55.8–55.6 Ma). Dinoflagellate assemblages from the “Sparnacian” of the Dieppe–Hampshire and Paris basins do not contain the key species Apectodinium augustum, whereas it is present in the northern Belgian Basin Tienen Formation and is coeval there with the CIE and the Apectodinium acme interval. However, our calibration of the Apectodinium acme to the CIE in the Dieppe–Hampshire and Paris basins suggests its attribution to the A. augustum zone. The absence of species A. augustum in the Anglo–Paris Basin may be explained by its restriction to more offshore conditions

Using What Academics Really Think to Develop Our Teaching Offer: Mapping the Learner Journey at the University of Worcester

Developing students’ academic skills is central to the higher education experience, but what assumptions do course teams make about the skills students have at the start of their course? What expectations do they have about how these skills should develop throughout the degree programme, and how are these articulated to students? These were just some of the questions we posed to academic staff at the University of Worcester as part of a pedagogic research project to refresh our teaching offer. Our initial aim had been to develop a menu of options that helped staff understand what we could deliver and how it might fit into their curricula. It quickly became apparent that such a tool needed to be underpinned by academic understanding of students’ skills and development, in a much broader sense than ‘just’ information literacy. Thus the learner journey project was born. Academic Liaison Librarians were tasked with conducting informal interviews with staff, often over a coffee, with a few prompt questions to ask where needed. Consciously avoiding the term ‘information literacy’, they questioned staff about the broad skill base that students bring with them and develop at university, mapping their view of the student learner journey from pre-entry to graduation. Although starting out as a small-scale project, it soon piqued the interest of senior management at the university, and grew into a much larger piece of work. Through focusing on broader skills’ development, we have developed a body of evidence and data that has wide interest and application for both academic Institutes and other professional services (e.g. Disability & Dyslexia). Alongside highlighting themes, the data has demonstrated inconsistencies across the university and even within departments, with disparate staff attitudes towards such topics as progression, student confidence, and learner independence. These results have been shared widely across the university, for course teams to discuss, all of which has served to raise Library Services’ teaching and pedagogic profile

Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, De Orbe Novo Decades, voll.1-2

This is the critical edition with parallel translation of the Decades De Orbe Novo, books I-VIII by Peter Martyr of Angleria, an Italian humanist who, during his life at the court of the Ferdinand and Isabella, catholic monarchs in Spain, was a witness of events bound to change the world and the course of history. In this work a thirty-four years' history of geographical discoveries and conquests is described in epistolary style, from Christopher Columbus's landing in the ''Indies'', up to the exploration of the Caribbean islands and Venezuela, the conquest of Mexico and the first American settlements. Christopher Columbus, the Pinzons, supporters and participants in the Colombian project, the Vespuccis, together with Cabot, Cort\ue9s and Oviedo are the most famous characters of Peter Martyr; their reports to the Council of the Indies, the charts and the pilots' books are the sources allowing Peter Martyr and - later- his readers to become "desk travelers". The typical ciceronian Latin is made a current language thanks to the use of popular expressions, proverbs of the time and exoticisms taken and adapted from other languages, sometimes even at the expense of the formal elegance, The text, distributed in books, chapters and paragraphs has been reconstructed by collating the oldest editions, since neither an autograph nor a manuscript of the Decades de Orbe Novo has been found so far. Spelling criteria have been thoroughly kept: they respect the spelling of the oldest editions (1516 and 1530) printed in Spain, that is to say in the cultural environment where the Author himself lived. However, graphic fluctuations, even if common in umanistic texts, have been standardized as they would have caused spelling disorder, while some neologisms, typical of the language heritage acquired by the Author in Spain, have been preserved in the graphic form closer to Spanish The critical apparatus indicates the differences between the editions collated, which are the following: H = ed. Hispali 1511 (Decas I) C1 = ed. Compluti 1516 (Decades I-III) Ba = ed. Basileae 1521 (Decas IV) C2 = ed. Compluti 1530 (Decades I-VIII) = G = ed. anastatica Graz-Akademische Druck-u.Verlagsanstalt 1966 Pa = ed. Parisiis 1532 (Decas IV) B = ed. Basileae 1533 (Decades I-III; Decas IV) P = ed. Parisiis 1587 (Decades I- VIII) E = consensus editionum Ba Pa B (Decas IV). The parallel translation has been carried out so as to reflect the immediateness and expressiveness in the Author's style. Whenever any difficulties have arisen in the attempt to render terms of some classical and medieval texts in Italian, in general, when possible, the Latin pattern has been avoided, giving preference, instead, to technical terms considered to be more faithful to the social, political, legal and military situations of the time, according also to the Latin-Spanish dictionary of the humanist, Elio Antonio de Nebrija. As to the New World's geographical names, they are been translated into Spanish, since, on the one hand, Spanish (or Portuguese) is the language used by the discoverers and, on the other, such places are now known with Spanish names. The edition is completed by accompanying notes and three indexes, the former, of different kinds, are marked by an asterisk over the number indicating the paragraph in the translation and appear in two appendixes to the Decades I- IV and V- VIIII respectively. They help provide both an explanation and a first hint for further investigation. The latter refer to native terms, proper nouns and placenames. The work is composed as follows: - Introduction, edition criteria, collating the edition of Seville (1511) for the first Decade, the Basel edition of 1512, in Paris in 1532 and Basel in 1533 for the fourth Decade with edition, translation and notes of the preliminary texts by Rosanna Mazzacane; - Edition, translation and notes of the Decades I-IV by Elisa Magioncalda; - Edition, translation and notes of the Decade V-VIII by Rosanna Mazzacane; - Bibliography and Index of indigenous terms, proper names and names of places by Rosanna Mazzacane and Elisa Magioncalda

The Dababiya Quarry section: Lithostratigraphy, clay mineralogy, geochemistry and paleontology

The Global Standard Stratotype-section (GSSP) for the Paleocene/Eocene (P/E) boundary has been selected in the Dababiya Quarry, near Luxor, at the base of a lithostratigraphic unit where the base of the so-called Carbon Isotope Excursion (CIE) is recorded. The Dababiya Quarry offers remarkable three-dimensional exposures of the Upper Paleocene-Lower Eocene succession in the Nile Valley which comprises the Tarawan Chalk, the Esna Shale and the Thebes Limestone. The horizon that constitutes the P/E GSSP is located in the lower part of the Esna Shale Formation. This formation, remarkably thick (similar to 130m) at Dababiya, is largely of homogenous gray shales. Its lower part includes, however, a thin lithostratigraphic unit in a typical succession of five characteristic beds that can be followed throughout Upper Egypt, and at the base of which the GSSP is defined. We formally describe this unit as the Dababiya Quarry Beds at the same time as we subdivide the Esna Shale Formation into three formal lithostratigraphic units. The Dababiya Quarry Beds constitute the lower part of Unit Esna 2. While we place emphasis on the description of the lithology, mineralogy, carbon isotope stratigraphy and paleontology of the Dababiya Beds, we provide a mineralogic and biostratigraphic framework for the whole exposure of Esna Shale at Dababiya that constitutes essentially a complete record from the base of calcareous nannofossil Zone NP9 to Zone NP11 and planktonic foraminiferal Zone P4 to P8. The carbon isotopic excursion, measured on organic matter is similar to3m thick and has an amplitude of similar to4%. The planktonic foraminiferal excursion taxa are sporadic and the distinct Discoaster araneus Rhomboaster spp. association is persistent throughout the CIE-interval.status: publishe