Fast myocardial T1ρ mapping in mice using k-space weighted image contrast and a Bloch simulation-optimized radial sampling pattern

Purpose T1ρ dispersion quantification can potentially be used as a cardiac magnetic resonance index for sensitive detection of myocardial fibrosis without the need of contrast agents. However, dispersion quantification is still a major challenge, because T1ρ mapping for different spin lock amplitudes is a very time consuming process. This study aims to develop a fast and accurate T1ρ mapping sequence, which paves the way to cardiac T1ρ dispersion quantification within the limited measurement time of an in vivo study in small animals. Methods A radial spin lock sequence was developed using a Bloch simulation-optimized sampling pattern and a view-sharing method for image reconstruction. For validation, phantom measurements with a conventional sampling pattern and a gold standard sequence were compared to examine T1ρ quantification accuracy. The in vivo validation of T1ρ mapping was performed in N = 10 mice and in a reproduction study in a single animal, in which ten maps were acquired in direct succession. Finally, the feasibility of myocardial dispersion quantification was tested in one animal. Results The Bloch simulation-based sampling shows considerably higher image quality as well as improved T1ρ quantification accuracy (+ 56%) and precision (+ 49%) compared to conventional sampling. Compared to the gold standard sequence, a mean deviation of − 0.46 ± 1.84% was observed. The in vivo measurements proved high reproducibility of myocardial T1ρ mapping. The mean T1ρ in the left ventricle was 39.5 ± 1.2 ms for different animals and the maximum deviation was 2.1% in the successive measurements. The myocardial T1ρ dispersion slope, which was measured for the first time in one animal, could be determined to be 4.76 ± 0.23 ms/kHz. Conclusion This new and fast T1ρ quantification technique enables high-resolution myocardial T1ρ mapping and even dispersion quantification within the limited time of an in vivo study and could, therefore, be a reliable tool for improved tissue characterization.

Methodology to identify robots given the type of control designation

Currently, robot manufacturers usually use closed proprietary protocols, which significantly complicates the development and integration of new robots and complexes. We propose to use a standard sequence of requests and responses between the control server and the client (some steps may be skipped). The first and second steps are designed to check the availability of equipment when you first turn on the system or during connection setup. If the verification is successful, the сontrol server proceeds to the next step. The third and fourth steps stand for initial configuration and adjustment of remote control. In the fifth step, the digital control signal is transmitted from the control server to the robot. The signal transmits all the necessary information to control the robot device. The keys are string fields (up to 256 characters). At the sixth step, the control server receives a сontrol response - the structure of the data transmitted from the client (robot) to confirm data acceptance and return of additional parameters. To identify robots, we propose to classify them by type and designation and indicate available types of control. For a detailed description of the robot, the entire initialization scheme is used. The proposed methodology is intended to describe infrastructure and platform independent interaction, which allows it to be used in various types of robotic systems.

A Guide to Nature Immersion: Psychological and Physiological Benefits

Nature exposure has been renowned for its positive physiological and psychological benefits. Recent years have seen a rise in nature immersion programs that make use of Guided Forest Therapy walks in a standard sequence of sensory awareness activities to expose participants to natural environments in a safe but effective manner. The study aimed to compare the efficacy of guided versus unguided nature immersion, upon three dependent variables of mood, nature connectedness and heartrate. 51 participants were assigned to either guided or unguided nature immersion. Nature connectedness (Connectedness to Nature Scale, CNS), Environmental Identity Scale, EID short form) and mood (Positive and Negative Affect Scale, PANAS) were assessed before and after nature immersion, while heart rate was tracked continuously by a wristwatch heart rate tracker throughout the 2-h experience. Demographics and general health practice (GHP) information were also collected. A mixed model ANOVA revealed that nature connectedness and mood (but not heart rate) improved post-immersion for all participants. Comparing the guided/unguided conditions, there were no significant differences in the change in nature connectedness, mood or heart rate. Comparing within the five segments within the standard sequence in the guided condition, the third and fifth segments revealed a significantly lower heart rate compared to the baseline heart rate.

SIMILATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN HITTITE «SONG OF ULLIKUMMI»

The article is aimed at the analysis of similative constructions with the semantics «X like Y» in Hittite epos the «Song of Ullikummi». Contextual analysis allows the author to detect this type of collocations without any markers like asyndetic constructions (with juxtaposition, a chain of accusatives). The author of the article has studied the word order in these constructions. It has been shown that the similarity phrase regularly takes place in the immediate preverbal position after the object and the adverbial modifier of place in a linear structure. It is interesting to find contexts with a standard of comparison in the initial position of the clause, which points out to the upper (and marked) focus position. This type of placement mostly correlates with right dislocations, frequent in the Hittite poetic language. As for the linear word order, constructions with conjunction «like X», as a rule, appear as a sequence «a comparee – a standard of comparison – a marker of the standard». The rare sequences «a standard – a comparee – a marker» show markedness connected to the needs for information structure, which demands further research. In asyndetic constructions the standard sequence appears as «a comparee – a standard». In the paper it has been shown that similative constructions in the «Song of Ullikummi» actually lost the proper similarity semantics and serve as markers of certain qualities of poetic images.

Agreement on Target-Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Networks for Sequence-to-Sequence Learning

Recurrent neural networks are extremely appealing for sequence-to-sequence learning tasks. Despite their great success, they typically suffer from a shortcoming: they are prone to generate unbalanced targets with good prefixes but bad suffixes, and thus performance suffers when dealing with long sequences. We propose a simple yet effective approach to overcome this shortcoming. Our approach relies on the agreement between a pair of target-directional RNNs, which generates more balanced targets. In addition, we develop two efficient approximate search methods for agreement that are empirically shown to be almost optimal in terms of either sequence level or non-sequence level metrics. Extensive experiments were performed on three standard sequence-to-sequence transduction tasks: machine transliteration, grapheme-to-phoneme transformation and machine translation. The results show that the proposed approach achieves consistent and substantial improvements, compared to many state-of-the-art systems.

Not your classic bath: adopting and adapting Roman bathing habits in NW Gaul

Roman-style bathhouses are often used as markers to study processes of ‘Romanisation’, or, more generally, the spread of a Roman way of life throughout newly conquered regions. The building type, with its characteristic hypocaust system and pools, was a foreign element in regions unacquainted with communal bathing. However, to assume that these buildings were introduced and spread as a ‘package’, with the standard sequence of rooms and accompanying technology, would be oversimplifying a complex phenomenon of acceptance, rejection and adaptation. Since Roman baths are too often perceived as a mainly urban phenomenon, regions on the fringes of the empire with low levels of urbanisation, including the northern provinces, have been excluded from most seminal works.1 The present paper aims to examine a corpus of baths in NW Gaul from between the 1st and early 4th c. (i.e., the period between the first villa constructions and their abandonment following Germanic invasions) in order to challenge idées fixes2 that their plans were rigid and standardised and that most were in urban settings.

Hildegard of Bingen, O Ierusalem aurea civitas (ca. 1150–1170)

This chapter contextualizes Hildegard of Bingen’s monumental sequence for her monastic community’s patron St. Rupert, O Ierusalem aurea civitas, both within Hildegard’s own output of sequences, and within the sequence repertory at large. Considering her deep sensitivity to the relationship between text and music, including close attention to grammatical structure, word stress, and word and syllable parsing, the essay proposes that Hildegard uses a varied repetition technique, adapting the standard sequence form. Instead of strict repetition, she varies many elements of the melodic surface through expansion or contraction, preserving an audible sense of repetition while responding directly to new text structures. The essay provides a textual and musical analysis of the entire sequence, demonstrating the composer’s large-scale control of musical structure.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination

Laws concerning sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) have undergone a sea change. Still, legal protections against SOGI discrimination vary widely around the world. As jurisdictions wrestle with whether and how to protect people against SOGI discrimination, several conceptual questions emerge. This Brill volume reviews and discusses legal developments and scholarly commentary concerning these questions. Specifically, this volume examines the following five questions: (1) Is SOGI discrimination encompassed by existing laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex? (2) Should sexual orientation and gender identity be considered protected categories in and of themselves? (3) Is there a standard sequence of steps for developing legal protections against SOGI discrimination? (4) What are the drawbacks of developing SOGI discrimination protections? (5) To what extent should religious objections justify exemptions from SOGI discrimination bans?

Encoding of Predictable and Unpredictable Stimuli by Inferior Temporal Cortical Neurons

Animals and humans learn statistical regularities that are embedded in sequences of stimuli. The neural mechanisms of such statistical learning are still poorly understood. Previous work in macaque inferior temporal (IT) cortex demonstrated suppressed spiking activity to visual images of a sequence in which the stimulus order was defined by transitional probabilities (labeled as “standard” sequence), compared with a sequence in which the stimulus order was random (“random” sequence). Here, we asked whether IT neurons encode the images of the standard sequence more accurately compared with images of the random sequence. Previous human fMRI studies in different sensory modalities also found a suppressed response to expected relative to unexpected stimuli but obtained various results regarding the effect of expectation on encoding, with one study reporting an improved classification accuracy of expected stimuli despite the reduced activation level. We employed a linear classifier to decode image identity from the spiking responses of the recorded IT neurons. We found a greater decoding accuracy for images of the standard compared with the random sequence during the early part of the stimulus presentation, but further analyses suggested that this reflected the sustained, stimulus-selective activity from the previous stimulus of the sequence, which is typical for IT neurons. However, the peak decoding accuracy was lower for the standard compared with the random sequence, in line with the reduced response to the former compared with the latter images. These data suggest that macaque IT neurons represent less accurately predictable compared with unpredictable images.