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Neuroimaging to monitor worsening of multiple sclerosis : advances supported by the grant for multiple sclerosis innovation
No full textKey unmet needs in multiple sclerosis (MS) include detection of early pathology, disability worsening independent of relapses, and accurate monitoring of treatment response. Collaborative approaches to address these unmet needs have been driven in part by industry–academic networks and initiatives such as the Grant for Multiple Sclerosis Innovation (GMSI) and Multiple Sclerosis Leadership and Innovation Network (MS-LINK™) programs. We review the application of recent advances, supported by the GMSI and MS-LINK™ programs, in neuroimaging technology to quantify pathology related to central pathology and disease worsening, and potential for their translation into clinical practice/trials. GMSI-supported advances in neuroimaging methods and biomarkers include developments in magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, ocular imaging, and machine learning. However, longitudinal studies are required to facilitate translation of these measures to the clinic and to justify their inclusion as endpoints in clinical trials of new therapeutics for MS. Novel neuroimaging measures and other biomarkers, combined with artificial intelligence, may enable accurate prediction and monitoring of MS worsening in the clinic, and may also be used as endpoints in clinical trials of new therapies for MS targeting relapse-independent disease pathology.</p
"Is it alright if I cry?": considering (un)grievability through intermediality in Nina Bunjevac's Fatherland
No full text In Fatherland (2014), Nina Bunjevac reconstructs the tragic life story of her father Peter, an ultranationalist terrorist, who died in 1977. The narrative of Bunjevac’s graphic memoir revolves around the father’s life and death while placing his fate in the contexts of the tumultuous political history of the former Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavian diaspora in North America. Photographs and other intermedial elements play a central role in Fatherland, both visually as well as in regard to the narrative. In this article, the focus is on the ambivalent grievability of the father in light of Judith Butler’s theory of ungrievable lives. The analysis discusses how Peter Bunjevac’s grievability is approached and unravelled through different functions of intermediality. </p
Does the absence or presence of sleep spindles on EEG have prognostic value for cognitive outcome in children with infantile epileptic spasms syndrome? A systematic literature review
No full textInfantile Epileptic Spasms Syndrome (IESS) is an epileptic encephalopathy in childhood that affects infants under the age of one year. When spasm series occur, prognosis for cognitive outcome is poor in the majority of cases. The encephalopathy in IESS includes delayed maturation of normal sleep phenomena in the EEG, such as sleep spindles. Children with intellectual disabilities often have abnormal sleep, and children with sleep problems have difficulties learning at school. We examined whether there is evidence of prognostic value of detection of sleep spindles in the EEG of children with IESS on their future cognitive development. A systematic literature search yielded five studies touching this question. They were evaluated by two scorers independently. The lack of normal sleep patterns including lack of sleep spindles was used as a biomarker of poor cognitive outcome. Positive (PPV) and Negative (NPV) prognostic values were calculated. A summary of all five studies indicates a PPV of 82% and an NPV of 45%. Given the small amount of data, the retrospective quality of most studies, and the differences in the outcome parameters reported, it is prudent to say that currently available data do not allow us to conclude whether spindles have a specific and independent role in the cognitive prognosis of affected children. Since sleep spindles are needed for memory consolidation and demonstrate the active role of sleep for learning and memory, the hypothesis remains that their absence in the EEG may indicate an increased risk of cognitive delay, but more supporting data are needed to reach such a firm conclusion.</p
Creative geographies in the age of AI: Co-creative spatiality and the emerging techno-material relations between artists and artificial intelligence
No full textArtificial intelligence (AI) expands the more-than-human perspective on creativity and creative geographies, as new techno-material relations and spatialities are formed when humans and AI create together. In this paper, we suggest the concept of “co-creative spatiality” to refer to the special sites, relations, and processes of human–AI collaboration in artistic creative practice. Our study builds on interviews with 26 Finland-based artists who have used AI in their artistic work. In our analysis, we focus on the questions of what, how, where, who, and with of creativity, through which we study the spatialities of creativity and their links to AI. We discuss, how the emerging techno-materialities of AI affect co-creative spatiality by stretching the boundaries of (human) imagination and sparking creativity across new imaginative terrains. Co-creative spatiality reveals novel and unfamiliar collaborations that constitute our material worlds and, therefore, we believe it invites geographical analysis from all those interested in the transformations of creative and artistic practices in the age of AI.</p
Rapid withdrawal from a threatening animal is movement-specific and mediated by reflex-like neural processing
No full textResponses to potentially dangerous stimuli are among the most basic animal behaviors. While research has shown that threats automatically capture the attention of human participants, research has failed to demonstrate automatic behavioral responses to threats in humans. Using a novel naturalistic paradigm, we show that two species of animals humans often report fearing trigger rapid withdrawal responses: participants withdrew their arm from photos of snakes and spiders faster, and with higher acceleration when compared to bird and butterfly stimuli. The behavior was specific to withdrawal as approach movements or button-press/release tasks failed to detect a similar difference. Moreover, between-participant differences in how aversive they found the stimuli predicted the participant's withdrawal speed, indicating that the paradigm was also sensitive to trait-level differences between individuals. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we show that the fast withdrawal was mediated by two attentional processes. First, fast withdrawal responses were associated with early amplification of sensory signals (40-110 ms after stimulus). Second, a later correlate of feature-based attention (early posterior negativity, EPN, 200-240 ms after stimulus) revealed the opposite pattern: Stronger EPN was associated with slower behavioral responses, suggesting that the deployment of attention towards the threatening stimulus features, or failure to "disengage" attention from the stimulus, was detrimental for withdrawal speed. Altogether, the results suggest that rapid behavioral withdrawal from a threatening animal is mediated by reflex-like attentional processing, and later, conscious attention to stimulus features may hinder escaping the treat
Integrated geological modeling of partially exposed Precambrian bedrock surface and thickness of overlying Quaternary deposits
No full textBedrock surface topography and thickness of the overlying sediments are key information for numerous engineering applications. However, discrete geological structures, such as bedrock deformation zones, which cause abrupt breaks along bedrock surface, remain largely unrecognized within the conventional digital elevation models (DEMs). This paper provides an example over the generation of geological 3D-models which integrate the deformation zone-controlled erosion surface of the Precambrian crystalline bedrock and the associated thickness variation of the overlying Quaternary glacial sediments in southern Fennoscandian shield. We interpreted the deformation zones from 2D geological and geophysical maps as well as topographic signatures along conventional bedrock surface-DEM, which is based on bedrock surface elevation points comprising >87,000 geotechnical ground investigations, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and acoustic-seismic datasets. We classified the resulting final deformation zone traces into major, intermediate, and minor classes based on their cross-cutting relationships and lengths, and further used this information in generating an improved, structurally constrained bedrock surface-DEM. As input for the improved bedrock surface-DEM, we assigned the recognized 19 m, 11 m, and 5 m thickness of the load bearing stratum (LBS; basal till, gravel, coarse sand) for the major, intermediate, and minor deformation zones, respectively, and modified the bedrock surface accordingly. The resulting structurally constrained bedrock surface-DEM highlights the pronounced erosion and continuity of the linear topographic depressions occurring along the bedrock surface. The resulting network of linear depressions honors the topology and continuity of the bedrock deformation zones and provides geologically justified depth-to-bedrock constraints also in those areas where very limited geotechnical data is available, and, consequently, the conventional approaches result in excessively high bedrock surface elevations and overly thin overburden. By contrast, areas outside the deformation zones show up to 3 m thick LBS, which indicates that there is no need for bedrock-DEM improvements in those areas. The results can be used for e.g. detailed analysis of seismic hazard associated with the soil amplification, and development of improved bedrock surface modeling methods.</p
Smart regulations in maritime governance: Efficacy, gaps, and stakeholder perspectives
No full text The paper explores maritime environmental regulations, analyzing industry perspectives and their operational execution. It critically assesses the International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations' effectiveness in mitigating climate challenges within the shipping domain. The central argument is that the evolving and intricate nature of maritime regulations often impedes policy goal realization, enforcement, impact evaluation, and equity perception. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this research gathers, analyses, and interprets data via surveys and interviews. This exploration seeks to evaluate the regulations' impact on reducing shipping's negative impact, especially concerning emissions, waste management, and noise pollution, under the umbrella of smart regulations. The results indicate that the current regulatory approach is neither comprehensive nor immediate, necessitating a more agile, digitally enabled framework to adapt to fast-changing industry conditions. </p
Blood lipids and prostate cancer: a Mendelian randomization analysis
No full textGenetic risk scores were used as unconfounded instruments for specific lipid traits (Mendelian randomization) to assess whether circulating lipids causally influence prostate cancer risk. Data from 22,249 prostate cancer cases and 22,133 controls from 22 studies within the international PRACTICAL consortium were analyzed. Allele scores based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously reported to be uniquely associated with each of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglyceride (TG) levels, were first validated in an independent dataset, and then entered into logistic regression models to estimate the presence (and direction) of any causal effect of each lipid trait on prostate cancer risk. There was weak evidence for an association between the LDL genetic score and cancer grade: the odds ratio (OR) per genetically instrumented standard deviation (SD) in LDL, comparing high- (>= 7 Gleason score) versus low-grade (< 7 Gleason score) cancers was 1.50 (95% CI: 0.92, 2.46; P = 0.11). A genetically instrumented SD increase in TGs was weakly associated with stage: the OR for advanced versus localized cancer per unit increase in genetic risk score was 1.68 (95% CI: 0.95, 3.00; P = 0.08). The rs12916-T variant in 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR) was inversely associated with prostate cancer (OR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.00; P = 0.03). In conclusion, circulating lipids, instrumented by our genetic risk scores, did not appear to alter prostate cancer risk. We found weak evidence that higher LDL and TG levels increase aggressive prostate cancer risk, and that a variant in HMGCR (that mimics the LDL lowering effect of statin drugs) reduces risk. However, inferences are limited by sample size and evidence of pleiotropy
HERBase: A collection of understorey herb vegetation plots from Amazonia
No full textUnderstorey herbs form a diverse and understudied plant assemblage in tropical forests. Although several studies and research teams have long been dedicated to the study of this conspicuous vegetation component in Amazonia, no effort to unify the data has been undertaken to date. In contrast to trees and other life forms for which major data compilations already exist, a unified database dedicated to herbs is still lacking. Part of the problem is in defining what is a herb and how to effectively sample herb assemblages. In this article, we describe the database HERBase, an exhaustive compilation of published and unpublished data on herb inventories in Amazonia. We also describe the structure, functioning, and guidelines for data curation and integration in HERBase. We were able to compile information from 1381 plots from all six Amazonian geographic regions. Based on this dataset, we describe and discuss sampling and knowledge gaps, priority areas for new collections, and recommend sampling protocols to facilitate data integration in the future. This novel database provides a unique biodiversity data repository on understorey herbs that will enable new studies on community ecology and biogeography