273 research outputs found
Benuzzi (F.). — Kenya ou la fugue africaine.
No full textVeyret Paul. Benuzzi (F.). — Kenya ou la fugue africaine. . In: Revue de géographie alpine, tome 39, n°3, 1951. pp. 615-616
Didymus and comedy
No full textDidymus' commentaries on the comic playwrights and his Comic Vocabulary responded to the interests of the readership of Attic comedy primarily in two ways: by summarizing the opinions of previous scholars and by offering a wide range of explanations, useful also to less specialized readers. Although his exegesis of comedy is now preserved only through quotations (mainly in the scholia to Aristophanes), it is still possible to identify the main features and interests of Didymus' interpretative work and highlight its relevance for both ancient and contemporary readers of Greek comedy
Recognition of emotions from faces and voices in medial temporal lobe epilepsy
No full textPatients with chronic medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) can be impaired in different tasks that evaluate emotional or social abilities. In particular, the recognition of facial emotions can be affected (Meletti S, Benuzzi F, Rubboli G, et al. Neurology 2003;60:426-31. Meletti S, Benuzzi F, Cantalupo G, Rubboli G, Tassinari CA, Nichelli P. Epilepsia 2009;50:1547-59). To better understand the nature of emotion recognition deficits in MTLE we investigated the decoding of basic emotions in the visual (facial expression) and auditory (emotional prosody) domains in 41 patients. Results showed deficits in the recognition of both facial and vocal expression of emotions, with a strong correlation between performances across the two tasks. No correlation between emotion recognition and measures of IQ, quality of life (QOLIE-31), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory) was significant, except for a weak correlation between prosody recognition and IQ. These data suggest that emotion recognition impairment in MTLE is not dependent on the sensory channel through which the emotional stimulus is transmitted. Moreover, these findings support the notion that emotional processing is at least partly independent of measures of cognitive intelligence
Awake craniotomy anesthetic management using dexmedetomidine, propofol, and remifentanil
No full textAndrea Prontera,1 Stefano Baroni,2 Andrea Marudi,2 Franco Valzania,3 Alberto Feletti,1 Francesca Benuzzi,4 Elisabetta Bertellini,2 Giacomo Pavesi1 1Department of Neurosurgery, Nuovo Ospedale Civile SAgostino-Estense, 2Department of Anesthesiology, Nuovo Ospedale Civile SAgostino-Estense, 3Department of Neurology, Nuovo Ospedale Civile S Agostino-Estense, 4Department of Neuroscience, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy Introduction: Awake craniotomy allows continuous monitoring of patients’ neurological functions during open surgery. Anesthesiologists have to sedate patients in a way so that they are compliant throughout the whole surgical procedure, nevertheless maintaining adequate analgesia and anxiolysis. Currently, the use of α2-receptor agonist dexmedetomidine as the primary hypnotic–sedative medication is increasing.Methods: Nine patients undergoing awake craniotomy were treated with refined monitored anesthesia care (MAC) protocol consisting of a combination of local anesthesia without scalp block, low-dose infusion of dexmedetomidine, propofol, and remifentanil, without the need of airways management.Results: The anesthetic protocol applied in our study has the advantage of decreasing the dose of each drug and thus reducing the occurrence of side effects. All patients had smooth and rapid awakenings. The brain remained relaxed during the entire procedure.Conclusion: In our experience, this protocol is safe and effective during awake brain surgery. Nevertheless, prospective randomized trials are necessary to confirm the optimal anesthetic technique to be used. Keywords: dexmedetomidine, awake surgery, anesthesi
The role of emotions in decisional processes: How neuroscience can impact evaluation of patients' ability to will and to act
No full textPrediction of the press-fit curve in the assembly of railway axle and wheel
No full textA methodology for the prediction of the press-fit curve in the assembly of a railway axle and wheel is described. It starts from friction measurements on samples taken directly from the two components. A new apparatus, adaptable to a common axial testing machine, was developed for this aim: it permits the contact pressure and sliding speed to be varied in order to change the lubrication condition of the contact surfaces. Two calculation models are then proposed to predict the press-fit curves. They take the results of the friction measurements as input data, together with the wheelset geometry, the design interference and the material characteristics. The first one is a finite element method (FEM) model, which is very accurate but difficult to use, which also allows the effect of the wheel seat chamfer and the oil injection grove to be assessed. The second one is a simpli®ed analytical model based on the theory of axisymmetric bodies, which works on an approximate wheel geometry; nevertheless, it gives results in good agreement with those of the FEM model and with the experimental press-fit curves of the examined wheelsets. Moreover, the simplfied model is very fast and easy to use, thus constituting a powerful and useful tool for the design of new wheelsets
Visual illusions and the control of children arm movements
No full textThe aim of the present study was to determine whether children like adults (Gentilucci M, Chieffi S, Daprati E, Saetti MC, Toni
I. Visual illusion and action. Neuropsychologia 1996;34:369–76; Gentilucci M, Daprati E, Gangitano M, Toni I. Eye position
tunes the contribution of allocentric and egocentric information to target localisation in human goal directed arm movements.
Neurosci Lett 1997;222:123–6) are influenced by visual illusions when they transform visual information in motor command.
Children and adults pointed to a shaft extremity of the Mu ̈ ller-Lyer configurations, as well as to an extremity of a control
configuration. Movements were executed in two experimental conditions. In the vision condition subjects saw both the stimulus
and their hand before and during movement. In the no vision (memory) condition subjects saw the stimulus and their hand before, but not during movement. Movement started 5 s after vision was precluded. The Mu ̈ ller-Lyer illusion affected pointing kinematics of both children and adults. As found previously (Gentilucci M, Chieffi S, Daprati E, Saetti MC, Toni I. Visual illusion and action. Neuropsychologia 1996;34:369–76; Gentilucci M, Daprati E, Gangitano M, Toni I. Eye position tunes the contribution
of allocentric and egocentric information to target localisation in human goal directed arm movements. Neurosci Lett
1997;222:123–6), subjects undershot and overshot the shaft extremity of the closed and of the open configuration, respectively.
The illusion effect was greater in the no vision than in the vision condition. These results show that in children like in adults the
system underlying visual perception in an object-centered frame of reference and that involved in motor control functionally
interact with each other. Although the processes of target localisation were the same, the transformation of target position
information in a sequence of motor patterns was different in children from that in adults. Even if both children and adults
lengthened duration of the deceleration phase in the vision condition, only adults shortened duration of the acceleration phase in order to maintain constant movement time (Viviani P, Schneider R. A developmental study of the relationship between geometry
and kinematics in drawing movements. J Exp Psychol 1991;17:198–218). This result suggests that children are yet unable to co-ordinate temporally acceleration with deceleration phase
The influence of stimulus color on the control of reaching-grasping movements
No full textThis kinematic study aimed to determine
whether color is a stimulus property involved in the control
of reaching-grasping movements. Subjects reached
and grasped a target-object, located either on the right or
on the left of the subject’s midline. A distractor, placed
along the subject’s midline, could be randomly presented.
The colors, i.e., both chromaticity (red and green
stimuli were presented) and lightness, of the target and
distractor were varied in experiment 1. Only stimulus
lightness and only stimulus chromaticity were varied in
experiments 2 and 3, respectively. In experiment 4 subjects
matched with their thumb and index finger the size
of the target-stimuli presented in experiment 1. Chromaticity
(experiments 1 and 3) of the target and distractor
influenced grasp, but not reach. Maximal finger aperture
was larger during grasping the red than the green target.
Data collected in the matching task (experiment 4) confirmed
a trend to overestimate the red target and to underestimate
the green one. During grasp, hand shaping
was influenced by distractor chromaticity when it was
different from target chromaticity. Distractor lightness
affected reach, but not grasp (experiments 1 and 2).
Reach was slower when the distractor was lighter and
arm trajectory veered away from it. The results of the
present study suggest that color, that is the ensemble of
chromaticity and lightness, is a stimulus property involved
in the control of reaching-grasping. The different
effects of target color on reach and grasp support the notion
that intrinsic object properties, such as color, affect
grasp more than reach. In addition, the different effects
of distractor chromaticity and lightness on reach and
grasp confirm that target-objects are visually extracted
from surrounding cues by means of different processes,
according to the required motor response
Grasp With Hand and Mouth: A Kinematic Study on Healthy Subjects
No full textGrasp with hand and mouth: a kinematic study
on healthy subjects. J Neurophysiol 86: 1685–1699, 2001. Neurons
involved in grasp preparation with hand and mouth were previously recorded in the premotor cortex of monkey. The aim of the present kinematic study was to determine whether a unique planning underlies the act of grasping with hand and mouth in humans as well. In a set of four experiments, healthy subjects reached and grasped with the hand an object of different size while opening the mouth (experiments 1 and 3), or extending the other forearm (experiment 4), or the fingers of the other hand (experiment 5). In a subsequent set of three experiments,
subjects grasped an object of different size with the mouth,
while opening the fingers of the right hand (experiments 6–8). The
initial kinematics of mouth and finger opening, but not of forearm
extension, was affected by the size of the grasped object congruently
with the size effect on initial grasp kinematics. This effect was due
neither to visual presentation of the object, without the successive
grasp motor act (experiment 2) nor to synchronism between finger and
mouth opening (experiments 3, 7, and 8). In experiment 9 subjects
grasped with the right hand an object of different size while pronouncing
a syllable printed on the target. Mouth opening and sound production
were affected by the grasped object size. The results of the
present study are discussed according to the notion that in an action
each motor act is prepared before the beginning of the motor sequence.
Double grasp preparation can be used for successive motor
acts on the same object as, for example, grasping food with the hand
and ingesting it after bringing it to the mouth. We speculate that the circuits involved in double grasp preparation might have been the neural substrate where hand motor patterns used as primitive communication signs were transferred to mouth articulation system. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that Broca’s area derives phylogenetically from the monkey premotor area where hand movements are controlled
Computer-aided design of multi-stage cold forging process: load peaks and strain distribution evaluation
No full textThis paper describes some developments of an interactive program aimed at assisting the user in analysing for suitability the forming sequences for multi-stage cold forging of rotationally symmetric parts. The program capabilities include (i) the automatic analysis of sequences in forging solid as well as hollow parts and recognition of individual operations involved in each step, (ii) the evaluation of the load-peak distribution in the different forming stage-and (iii) the prediction of the strain distribution accumulated in the blanks and the finished part. The program is part of an integrated system consisting of a suite of interactive procedures whose purpose is facilitating all the engineering activities for the process planning functions involved in manufacturing components on automatic multi-station cold forging machines. The major implication of including the developed program in this CAD system is that of providing the user with the tools suitable to perform a complete producibility check and to identify the most appropriate forming sequence. © 1987 CIRP
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