Ictal asystole (IA) is a rare event mostly seen in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and a potential contributor to sudden unexplained death in epilepsy (SUDEP). Clinical and ...video-electroencephalographic findings associated with IA have not been described, and may be helpful in screening for high risk patients.
A database search was performed of 6,825 patients undergoing long-term video-EEG monitoring for episodes of IA.
IA was recorded in 0.27% of all patients with epilepsy, eight with temporal (TLE), two with extratemporal (XTLE), and none with generalized epilepsy. In 8 out of 16 recorded events, all occurring in patients with TLE, seizures were associated with a sudden atonia on average 42 seconds into the typical semiology of a complex partial seizure. The loss of tone followed after a period of asystole usually lasting longer than 8 seconds and was associated with typical EEG changes seen otherwise with cerebral hypoperfusion. Clinical predisposing factors for IA including cardiovascular risk factors or baseline ECG abnormalities were not identified.
Ictal asystole is a rare feature of patients with focal epilepsy. Delayed loss of tone is distinctly uncommon in patients with temporal lobe seizures, but may inevitably occur in patients with ictal asystole after a critical duration of cardiac arrest and cerebral hypoperfusion. Further cardiac monitoring in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and a history of unexpected collapse and falls late in the course of a typical seizure may be warranted and can potentially help to prevent sudden unexplained death in epilepsy.
ABSTRACT
There have been several reports of a detection of an unexplained excess of X-ray emission at $\simeq$3.5 keV in astrophysical systems. One interpretation of this excess is the decay of ...sterile neutrino dark matter. The most influential study to date analysed 73 clusters observed by the XMM–Newton satellite. We explore evidence for a ≃3.5-keV excess in the XMM-PN spectra of 117 redMaPPer galaxy clusters (0.1 < z < 0.6). In our analysis of individual spectra, we identify three systems with an excess of flux at $\simeq$3.5 keV. In one case (XCS J0003.3+0204), this excess may result from a discrete emission line. None of these systems are the most dark matter dominated in our sample. We group the remaining 114 clusters into four temperature (TX) bins to search for an increase in ≃3.5-keV flux excess with TX – a reliable tracer of halo mass. However, we do not find evidence of a significant excess in flux at ≃3.5 keV in any TX bins. To maximize sensitivity to a potentially weak dark matter decay feature at ≃3.5 keV, we jointly fit 114 clusters. Again, no significant excess is found at ≃3.5 keV. We estimate the upper limit of an undetected emission line at ≃3.5 keV to be 2.41 × 10−6 photons cm−2 s−1, corresponding to a mixing angle of sin 2(2θ) = 4.4 × 10−11, lower than previous estimates from cluster studies. We conclude that a flux excess at ≃3.5 keV is not a ubiquitous feature in clusters and therefore unlikely to originate from sterile neutrino dark matter decay.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we present the X-ray analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR8 redMaPPer (SDSSRM) clusters using data products from the XMM Cluster Survey (XCS). In total, 1189 SDSSRM clusters ...fall within the XMM–Newton footprint. This has yielded 456 confirmed detections accompanied by X-ray luminosity (LX) measurements. Of these clusters, 381 have an associated X-ray temperature measurement (TX). This represents one of the largest samples of coherently derived cluster TX values to date. Our analysis of the X-ray observable to richness scaling relations has demonstrated that scatter in the TX–λ relation is roughly a third of that in the LX–λ relation, and that the LX–λ scatter is intrinsic, i.e. will not be significantly reduced with larger sample sizes. Analysis of the scaling relation between LX and TX has shown that the fits are sensitive to the selection method of the sample, i.e. whether the sample is made up of clusters detected ‘serendipitously’ compared to those deliberately targeted by XMM. These differences are also seen in the LX–λ relation and, to a lesser extent, in the TX–λ relation. Exclusion of the emission from the cluster core does not make a significant impact on the findings. A combination of selection biases is a likely, but yet unproven, reason for these differences. Finally, we have also used our data to probe recent claims of anisotropy in the LX–TX relation across the sky. We find no evidence of anistropy, but stress this may be masked in our analysis by the incomplete declination coverage of the SDSS.
Because of its renewed importance in international agendas, food security in sub-tropical countries has been the object of studies at different scales, although the spatial components of food ...security are still largely undocumented. Among other aspects, food security can be assessed using a food selfsufficiency index. We propose a spatial representation of this assessment in the densely populated rural area of the Huasteca Poblana, Mexico, where there is a known tendency towards the loss of selfsufficiency of basic grains. The main agricultural systems in this area are the traditional milpa (a multicrop practice with maize as the main basic crop) system, coffee plantations and grazing land for bovine livestock. We estimate a potential additional milpa - based maize production by smallholders identifying the presence of extensive coffee and pasture systems in the production data of the agricultural census. The surface of extensive coffee plantations and pasture land were estimated using the detailed coffee agricultural census data, and a decision tree combining unsupervised and supervised spectral classification techniques of medium scale (Landsat) satellite imagery. We find that 30% of the territory would benefit more than 50% increment in food security and 13% could theoretically become maize self-sufficient from the conversion of extensive systems to the traditional multicrop milpa system.
The particle filter methods have been widely used to solve inverse problems with sequential Bayesian inference in dynamic models, simultaneously estimating sequential state variables and fixed model ...parameters. This methods are an approximation of sequences of probability distributions of interest, that using a large set of random samples, with presence uncertainties in the model, measurements and parameters. In this paper the main focus is the solution combined parameters and state estimation in the radiofrequency hyperthermia with nanoparticles in a complex domain. This domain contains different tissues like muscle, pancreas, lungs, small intestine and a tumor which is loaded iron oxide nanoparticles. The results indicated that excellent agreements between estimated and exact value are obtained.
In this paper particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms are applied to estimate the particle size distribution (PSD) of a colloidal system from the average PSD diameters, which are measured by ...multi-angle dynamic light scattering. The system is considered a nonlinear inverse problem, and for this reason the estimation procedure requires a Tikhonov regularization method. The inverse problem is solved through several PSO strategies. The evaluated PSOs are tested through three simulated examples corresponding to polysty-rene (PS) latexes with different PSDs, and two experimental examples obtained by simply mixing 2 PS standards. In general, the evalu-ation results of the PSOs are excellent; and particularly, the PSO with the Trelea's parameter set shows a better performance than other implemented PSOs.
A system to monitor tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease Bermeo, A.; Bravo, M.; Huerta, M. ...
2016 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC),
08/2016, Volume:
2016
Conference Proceeding, Journal Article
In this work the design and development of a system to monitor tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease based on Arduino open-source prototyping platform is presented. For processing data tremors ...acquired by the sensor device we have developed an Android application which allows an evaluation of the state of PD patients based on three types of tests that are in the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale recommended by the Movement Disorder Society (MDS-UPDRS); the tests performed in the application are: postural tremor of the hands, kinetic tremors of the hands and resting tremor amplitude. The results of PD Patients showed that despite receiving medication to minimize symptoms of their disease, patients have a considerable tremor amplitude, which affects the normal development of their daily activities. In addition, the spectral analysis of the tremors shows that two of the patients were correctly diagnosed with PD while the third patient showed spectral characteristics which led us to suggest to the treating physician reconsider the diagnosis.
Abstract
We use weak-lensing shear measurements to determine the mean mass of optically selected galaxy clusters in Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data. In a blinded analysis, we split the ...sample of more than 8000 redMaPPer clusters into 15 subsets, spanning ranges in the richness parameter 5 ≤ λ ≤ 180 and redshift 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 0.8, and fit the averaged mass density contrast profiles with a model that accounts for seven distinct sources of systematic uncertainty: shear measurement and photometric redshift errors; cluster-member contamination; miscentring; deviations from the NFW halo profile; halo triaxiality and line-of-sight projections. We combine the inferred cluster masses to estimate the joint scaling relation between mass, richness and redshift,
${\cal M}(\lambda ,z) \propto M_0 \lambda ^{F} (1+z)^{G}$
. We find
$M_0 \equiv \langle M_{200\mathrm{m}}\,|\,\lambda =30,z=0.5 \rangle = 2.35 \pm 0.22\ \rm {(stat)} \pm 0.12\ \rm {(sys)} \times \ 10^{14}\ \mathrm{M}_{{\odot }}$
, with
$F = 1.12\,\pm \,0.20\ \rm {(stat)}\, \pm \, 0.06\ \rm {(sys)}$
and
$G = 0.18\,\pm \, 0.75\ \rm {(stat)}\, \pm \, 0.24\ \rm {(sys)}$
. The amplitude of the mass–richness relation is in excellent agreement with the weak-lensing calibration of redMaPPer clusters in SDSS by Simet et al. and with the Saro et al. calibration based on abundance matching of SPT-detected clusters. Our results extend the redshift range over which the mass–richness relation of redMaPPer clusters has been calibrated with weak lensing from z ≤ 0.3 to z ≤ 0.8. Calibration uncertainties of shear measurements and photometric redshift estimates dominate our systematic error budget and require substantial improvements for forthcoming studies.
We present a direct measurement of the mean halo occupation distribution (HOD) of galaxies taken from the eleventh data release (DR11) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillation ...Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). The HOD of BOSS low-redshift (LOWZ: 0.2 < z < 0.4) and Constant-Mass (CMASS: 0.43 < z < 0.7) galaxies is inferred via their association with the dark matter haloes of 174 X-ray-selected galaxy clusters drawn from the XMM Cluster Survey (XCS). Halo masses are determined for each galaxy cluster based on X-ray temperature measurements, and range between log sub( 10)(M sub( 180)/M...) = 13 and 15. Our directly measured HODs are consistent with the HOD-model fits inferred via the galaxy-clustering analyses of Parejko et al. for the BOSS LOWZ sample and White et al. for the BOSS CMASS sample. Under the simplifying assumption that the other parameters that describe the HOD hold the values measured by these authors, we have determined a best-fitting alpha-index of 0.91 plus or minus 0.08 and 1.27... for the CMASS and LOWZ HOD, respectively. These alpha-index values are consistent with those measured by White et al. and Parejko et al. In summary, our study provides independent support for the HOD models assumed during the development of the BOSS mock-galaxy catalogues that have subsequently been used to derive BOSS cosmological constraints. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
The current diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) is based on a subjective assessment by the specialist. The monitoring of the tremor that presents in the hand index fingers in a patient with ...Parkinson's is one of the most important parameters to diagnose the evolution of the disease in an objective manner. This research analyze the tremor in the hand index fingers of patients with PD with medication and without medication. A sensor based in a triaxial accelerometer was used to acquire the data produced by the acceleration changes of parkinsonian tremor in the case of three activities: postural tremor, action tremor and rest tremor. Acquired data were processed in Matlab; the data were filtered and the spectral power density (PSD) was estimated with the Burg periodogram. It has been verified that the system presented in this article can accurately detect the parkinsonian tremors of the patients evaluated, additionally has been found that with the medication the tremors do not disappear completely, these remained with the same frequencies of PD but with a very small amplitude.