170,225 research outputs found
Non-pharmacological Approaches Based on Mind-Body Medicine to Enhancement of Cognitive and Brain Reserve in Humans
No full textIn recent years, the concepts of cognitive reserve (CR) and brain reserve (BR) have been used to take account of the interindividual variability between cognitive impairment and degree of brain damage occurring in a variety of neurological disorders. These studies, however, have typically not addressed the critical issue of the clinical implications of this research for the clinical care of the patients. After an introduction to CR and BR theory, the present chapter will review studies exploring CR and BR in healthy ageing and in a series of progressive and relatively common neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and Parkinson’s disease (PD). In the second part of the chapter, we will discuss the implications of CR and BR for clinical interventions based on mind-body medicine (in particular meditation), as possible approaches aimed at potentiating individuals’ reserve in the conditions of healthy ageing, AD, MS, and PD
The paleontological collection of Egidio Feruglio at MUST
No full textMany fossil specimens whose collection is attributable to Egidio Feruglio were found in the repositories of the Paleontology Museum in the Department of Earth Sciences of ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, soon became MUST. The material can be traced back to the activity which Feruglio did in Argentina during his two stays between the twenties and forties of the twentieth century. Different available information about this material mainly deriving from tags, label and hand written notes combined with specimens, were organized and are here provided as subsidiary to future museum’s activities
Pieces of the flavour puzzle
No full textAn overview of the flavour problem is presented, with emphasis on the theoretical efforts to find a satisfactory description of the fermion masses and the mixing angles
A SUSY SU(5) Grand Unified Model of Tri-Bimaximal Mixing from A4
No full textWe discuss a grand unified model based on SUSY SU(5) in extra dimensions and on the flavour group A4xU(1) which, besides reproducing tri-bimaximal mixing for neutrinos with the accuracy required by the data, also leads to a natural description of the observed pattern of quark masses and mixings.We discuss a grand unified model based on SUSY SU(5) in extra dimensions and on the flavour group A4xU(1) which, besides reproducing tri-bimaximal mixing for neutrinos with the accuracy required by the data, also leads to a natural description of the observed pattern of quark masses and mixings
Synthesis and Water Solubility of Novel Fullerene Bisadduct Derivatives
No full textThe synthesis of four classes of bisadduct derivatives of C-60 is reported. The solubility of the new compounds in aqueous solvents is enhanced and is among the highest ever reported for fullerene derivatives. ((C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2003
The application o a method to analze A77 1726 after Leflunomide in viro plasma conversion.
No full textOrigin and evolution of human consciousness
No full textThe study of the origin and evolution of consciousness presents several problems. The first problem concerns terminology. The word consciousness comes from the Latin term conscĭentĭa that means “knowledge shared with others.” However, the term consciousness also refers to several other aspects involving both its levels (sleep, coma, dreams and waking state) and contents (subjective, phenomenal and objective). A second issue is the problem of other minds, namely, the possibility to establish whether others have minds very like our own. Moreover, human consciousness has been linked to three different forms of memory: procedural/implicit, semantic and episodic. All these different aspects of consciousness will be discussed in the first part of the chapter. In the second part, we discuss different neuroscientific theories on consciousness and examine how research from developmental psychology, clinical neurology (epilepsy, coma, vegetative state and minimal state of consciousness), neuropsychology (blindsight, agnosia, neglect, split-brain and ocular rivalry), and comparative neuropsychophysiology contribute to the study of consciousness. Finally, in the last part of the chapter we discuss the distinctive features of human consciousness and in particular the ability to travel mentally through time, the phenomenon of joint intentionality, theory of mind and language
Extended dynamic range imaging for noise mitigation in fluorescence anisotropy imaging
No full textSignificance: Fluorescence polarization (FP) and fluorescence anisotropy (FA) microscopy are powerful imaging techniques that allow to translate the common FP assay capabilities into the in vitro and in vivo cellular domain. As a result, they have found potential for mapping drug-protein or protein-protein interactions. Unfortunately, these imaging modalities are ratiometric in nature and as such they suffer from excessive noise even under regular imaging conditions, preventing accurate image-feature analysis of fluorescent molecules behaviors. Aim: We present a high dynamic range (HDR)-based FA imaging modality for improving image quality in FA microscopy. Approach: The method exploits ad hoc acquisition schemes to extend the dynamic range of individual FP channels, allowing to obtain FA images with increased signal-to-noise ratio. Results: A direct comparison between FA images obtained with our method and the standard, clearly indicates how an HDR-based FA imaging approach allows to obtain high-quality images, with the ability to correctly resolve image features at different values of FA and over a substantially higher range of fluorescence intensities. Conclusion: The method presented is shown to outperform standard FA imaging microscopy narrowing the spread of the propagated error and yielding higher quality images. The method can be effectively and routinely used on any commercial imaging system and could be also translated to other microscopy ratiometric imaging modalities
Equivalent effective Lagrangians for Scherk-Schwarz compactifications
No full textWe discuss the general form of the mass terms that can appear in the effective field theories of coordinate-dependent compactifications a la Scherk-Schwarz. As an illustrative example, we consider an interacting five-dimensional theory compactified on the orbifold S^1/Z_2, with a fermion subject to twisted periodicity conditions. We show how the same physics can be described by equivalent effective Lagrangians for periodic fields, related by field redefinitions and differing only in the form of the five-dimensional mass terms. In a suitable limit, these mass terms can be localized at the orbifold fixed points. We also show how to reconstruct the twist parameter from any given mass terms of the allowed form. Finally, after mentioning some possible generalizations of our results, we re-discuss the example of brane-induced supersymmetry breaking in five-dimensional Poincare' supergravity, and comment on its relation with gaugino condensation in M-theory
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