Stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) consists of the implantation of microelectrodes for the electrophysiological characterization of epileptogenic networks. To reduce a possible risk of intracranial ...bleeding by vessel rupture during the electrode implantation, the stereotactic trajectories must follow avascular corridors. The use of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) for vascular visualization during planning is controversial due to the additional risk related to this procedure. Here we evaluate the utility of this technique for planning when the neurosurgeon has it available together with gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted magnetic resonance sequence (T1-Gd) and computed tomography angiography (CTA).
Twenty-two implantation plans for SEEG were initially done using T1-Gd imaging (251 trajectories). DSA was only used later during the revision process. In 6 patients CTA was available at this point as well. We quantified the position of the closest vessel to the trajectory in each of the imaging modalities.
Two thirds of the trajectories that appeared vessel free in the T1-Gd or CTA presented vessels in their proximity, as shown by DSA. Those modifications only required small shifts of both the entry and target point, so the diagnostic aims were preserved.
T1-Gd and CTA, despite being the most commonly used techniques for SEEG planning, frequently fail to reveal vessels that are dangerously close to the trajectories. Higher-resolution vascular imaging techniques, such as DSA, can provide the neurosurgeon with crucial information about vascular anatomy, resulting in safer plans.
Opioid-induced constipation (OIC) can affect up to 63% of all patients with cancer. The objectives of this study were to assess quality of life as well as efficacy and safety of naloxegol, in ...patients with cancer with OIC.
An observational study was made of a cohort of patients with cancer and with OIC exhibiting an inadequate response to laxatives and treated with naloxegol. The sample consisted of adult outpatients with a Karnofsky performance status score ≥50. The Patient Assessment of Constipation Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAC-QOL) and the Patient Assessment of Constipation Symptoms (PAC-SYM) were applied for 3 months.
A total of 126 patients (58.2% males) with a mean age of 61.3 years (range 34-89) were included. Clinically relevant improvements (>0.5 points) were recorded in the PAC-QOL and PAC-SYM questionnaires (p<0.0001) from 15 days of treatment. The number of days a week with complete spontaneous bowel movements increased significantly (p<0.0001) from 2.4 to 4.6 on day 15, 4.7 after 1 month and 5 after 3 months. Pain control significantly improved (p<0.0001) during follow-up. A total of 13.5% of the patients (17/126) presented some gastrointestinal adverse reaction, mostly of mild (62.5%) or moderate intensity (25%).
Clinically relevant improvements in OIC-related quality of life, number of bowel movements and constipation-related symptoms were recorded as early as after 15 days of treatment with naloxegol in patients with cancer and OIC, with a good safety profile.
The emergence of new devices to be used in low-power applications are expected to reach impressive performance compared to those obtained by equivalent CMOS counterparts. However, when used in ...lightweight security applications, these emerging paradigms are required to be reliable and safe enough during the task of protecting important and valuable data. In this work, the usage of HyperFET devices for security applications has been analyzed and new paradigms for enhancing security against Power Analysis attacks have been developed for the first time. To perform this analysis, classical dual-precharge logic primitives implemented with 14nm FinFET have been upgraded to incorporate HyperFET devices. The proposed primitives incorporating HyperFETs, as well as a 4-bit Substitution box of PRIDE algorithm as demonstrative example, have been designed and simulated using predictive models. Simulation-based Differential Power Analysis attacks demonstrate high improvements in security levels in a x25 factor at least, with negligible degradation in performance. This first approach could be easily extensible to other ciphers or crypto-circuits, where the incorporation of HyperFET devices will enhance security for most future applications.
In Solid-State Chemistry, a well-known route to obtain new compounds and modulate their properties is the formation of solid solutions, a strategy widely exploited in the case of classical inorganic ...perovskites but relatively unexplored among emergent hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites (HOIPs). In this work, to the best of our knowledge, we present the first dicyanamide-perovskite solid solution of TPrACo0.5Ni0.5(dca)3 and study its thermal, dielectric and optical properties, comparing them with those of the parent undoped compounds TPrACo(dca)3 and TPrANi(dca)3. In addition, we show that the prepared doped compound can be used as a precursor that, by calcination, allows CNTs with embedded magnetic Ni:Co alloy nanoparticles to be obtained through a fast and much simpler synthetic route than other complex CVD or arc-discharge methods used to obtain this type of material.
Surgical planning is crucial to Stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), a minimally invasive procedure that requires clinicians to operate with no direct view of the brain. Decisions making involves ...different clinical specialties and requires analysis of multiple multimodal datasets. We present a DepthMap tool designed to localize, measure, and visualize surgical risk, and an AlternativeFinder tool, designed to search for alternative trajectories maintaining adherence to the initial trajectory with three different re-planning strategies: similar entry, similar target, or parallel trajectory. The two tools transform the 3D problem into the 2D domain using projective geometry and distance mapping. Both use the graphics processing unit (GPU) to create a 2D depth image used by DepthMap for measurement and visualization, and by AlternativeFinder to find alternative trajectories. Tools were tested with 12 SEEG cases using digital subtraction angiography. DepthMap was used to measure vessel distance. AlternativeFinder was then used to search for alternatives. Computation time and displacements of the entry and target points for each trajectory and adherence strategy were recorded. The DepthMap tool found vessels in 118 initial trajectories (out of 145). Ninety alternative trajectories were found to meet the required avascular constraints (average 820K alternatives evaluated per initial trajectory). The average computation time was 449 ms per initial trajectory (77 ms when alternatives were found). The tools presented helped clinicians examine and re-plan SEEG trajectories to avoid vascular risks using three adherence strategies. Quantitative measurement of the adherence shows the potential of this tool for clinical use.
•A technique for dynamic clustering is developed based on static K-means.•The dynamic clustering is applied on a sample of energy consumption profiles from residential customers.•The resulting ...patterns allow evaluating customers’ trends in energy consumption.
The following article describes the work of dynamic segmentation of daily load profiles throughout years 2008 and 2009, of a representative sample of Spanish residential customers. The technique applied is classification of the energy consumption time series of load profiles by means of dynamic clustering algorithms. The techniques used and analysis performed prove adequate as a fast tool to classify clients according to their energy consumption patterns, as well as to evaluate their overall energy consumption trends at a glance. The segmentation of the energy consumption load profiles is performed, and the results are analyzed and discussed.
En este trabajo se subraya la tesis de que la antropología filosófica es imprescindible para acceder a la comprensión de la realidad educativa, que al pertenecer al núcleo mismo del ser humano, ...resultaría indescifrable sin los códigos de la antropología integral, en la que confluyen los conocimientos científicos y el saber comprensivo filosófico. Desde su dimensión natural y cultural, hasta su configuración como ser personal, dialógico, libre y trascendente, todo en el hombre apunta a la educación y culmina en ella, otorgándole ésta a su vida el verdadero sentido. Se aprovechan las aportaciones de la filosofía dialógica y personalista (Buber, Levinas, Mounier), que sitúa al ser humano en el ámbito de la ética y del humanismo, para recuperar en la visión de la educación conceptos fundamentales como persona, libertad, encuentro, valores, etc., que alumbran el sentido pleno de la vida humana y que enriquecen al máximo el significado y el alcance de la formación. En consecuencia, la escuela de hoy debería de centrarse en la formación de personas libres y comprometidas con los valores que elevan la dignidad de la existencia. This work highlights the thesis that philosophical anthropology is essential for understanding the reality of education, which belonging to the very core of human being, would be indecipherable without the codes of integral anthropology, where scientific knowledge and philosophical comprehensive knowledge converge. From their natural and cultural dimension, to their configuration as personal, dialogic, free and transcendent beings, everything in mankind points at education and culminates in it, as it gives life its true meaning. Contributions of dialogic and personalist philosophy (Buber, Levinas, Mounier) are relied on, those which locate human beings on the realm of ethics and humanism, so as to recover in the vision of education fundamental concepts such as person, freedom, encounter, values, etc, which enlighten the full sense of human life and enrich to its utmost the meaning and scope of formation. Consequently, school today should focus on forming free persons, committed with values which uplift the dignity of existence.
Optical imaging techniques reflect different biochemical processes in the brain, which is closely related with neural activity. Scientists and clinicians employ a variety of optical imaging ...technologies to visualize and study the relationship between neurons, glial cells and blood vessels. In this paper, we present an overview of the current optical approaches used for the in vivo imaging of neurovascular coupling events in small animal models. These techniques include 2-photon microscopy, laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI), voltage-sensitive dye imaging (VSDi), functional photoacoustic microscopy (fPAM), functional near-infrared spectroscopy imaging (fNIRS) and multimodal imaging techniques. The basic principles of each technique are described in detail, followed by examples of current applications from cutting-edge studies of cerebral neurovascular coupling functions and metabolic. Moreover, we provide a glimpse of the possible ways in which these techniques might be translated to human studies for clinical investigations of pathophysiology and disease. In vivo optical imaging techniques continue to expand and evolve, allowing us to discover fundamental basis of neurovascular coupling roles in cerebral physiology and pathophysiology.
Paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes are a rare and heterogeneous group of immune-mediated syndromes caused by underlying solid and nonsolid tumors. We present a case of 8-year-old female with long ...history of mild headaches and central instability who presented multiple poorly defined signal abnormalities at the subcortical white matter of both cerebral hemispheres and cerebellar atrophy on brain magnetic resonance imaging. Further studies revealed a posterior mediastinum ganglioneuroma derived from a mature ganglioneuroblastoma that was treated with surgery. Two paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes were considered: Anti-N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis due to the resolution of subcortical signal abnormalities after mediastinal mass resection and opsoclonus-myoclonus-ataxia syndrome due to cerebellar atrophy. Intertnational guideline established the criteria for definite diagnosis of paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes and detection of onconeural antibodies is not mandatory for their diagnosis. Paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes may appear several years before the tumor is detected.
•Dynamic clustering is applied on load profiles of energy consumption.•The dynamic evolution of energy at each hour of the day can be observed.•A new dynamic clustering technique based on Hausdorff ...distance is presented.
As the analysis of electrical loads is reaching data measured from low voltage power distribution networks, there is a need for the main agents involved in the operation and management of the power grids to segment the end users as a function of their shapes of daily energy consumption or load profiles, and to obtain patterns that allow to classify the users in groups based on how they consume the energy.
However, this analysis is usually limited to the analysis of single days. Since the smart metering data are time series formed by sequential measurements of energy through each hour or quarter of hour of the day, and also through each day, thanks to the implementation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and the Smart Grid technologies, it becomes clear that the analysis of the data needs to be extended to consider the dynamic evolution of the consumption patterns through days, weeks, months, seasons, and even years.
This is the objective of the present work. A new framework is presented that addresses the dynamic clustering, visualization and identification of temporal patterns in load profiles time series, fulfilling the detected gap in this area. The present development is a generic framework that allows the clustering and visualization of load profiles time series applying different classical clustering algorithms. A novel dynamic clustering algorithm is also presented, based on an initial segmentation of the energy consumption time series data in smaller surfaces, and the computation of a similarity measure among them applying the Hausdorff distance. Following, these developments are presented and tested on two dataset of energy consumption load profiles from a sample of residential users in Spain and London.
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