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Purpose Improper perfusion of the lamina cribrosa (LC) may lead to severe alterations of the visual function. LC perfusion parameters are difficult to estimate with non-invasive measurements and are affected by many factors that vary among individuals and cannot be easily isolated. Here we utilize a mathematical virtual simulator (MVS) to address these challenges. Methods The MVS combines i) a three-dimensional porous-media model for LC perfusion with ii) a circuit-based model for blood flow in the retrobulbar and ocular posterior segments (Fig. 1). Systems i) and ii) are solved using advanced computational and visualization methods (Feel++). Simulation inputs may include some patient-specific factors that can be measured non-invasively, e.g. systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), intraocular pressure (IOP) and ocular geometry. Results Fig. 2a shows the MVS visualization of ocular geometry. MVS simulated LC perfusion velocities at time t = 2.4 s (green line) are shown for IOP = 15 mmHg and SBP/DBP = 100/70 mmHg (Fig. 2b), SBP/DBP = 120/80 mmHg (Fig. 2c), SBP/DBP = 140/90 mmHg (Fig. 2d). Increasing SBP and DBP leads to higher LC perfusion velocities, especially near the nasal area. MVS also simulates blood velocities in the central retinal artery and vein (CRA and CRV), as shown in Figs. 2e and 2f, respectively, which are similar to those obtained via direct Imaging modalities. Conclusions MVS may serve as an instrument to illustrate and estimate LC perfusion parameters and predict their spatial variability, thereby providing new means to address the increasing demand of information on ocular tissues that are not-easily accessible with standard investigation instruments.

Purpose : The formation and stability of emulsions in vitrectomized eyes is linked to the properties of the silicone oil-aqueous humor interface, in particular the surface tension. In the presence of natural surfactants, such as serum and plasma, the value of the surface tension is likely to change, but little quantitative information is presently available. To this end we perform accurate experiments measuring the interfacial properties of silicone oil (Siluron 1000) with anaqueous solution in the presence of endogenous-like proteins that can act as surfactants....

Comunicació presentada a la 16th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR 2015), celebrada els dies 26 a 30 d'octubre de 2015 a Màlaga, Espanya. The similarity between linguistic tones and melodic pitch contours in Beijing Opera can be captured either by the contour shape of single syllable units, or by the pairwise pitch height relations in adjacent syllable units. In this paper, we investigate the latter problem with a novel machine learning approach, using techniques from time series data mining. Approximately 1300 pairwise contour segments are extracted from a selection of 20 arias. We then formulate the problem as a supervised machinelearning task of predicting types of pairwise melodic relations based on linguistic tone information. The results give a comparative view of fixed and mixed-effects models that achieved around 70% of maximum accuracy. We discuss the superiority of the current method to that of the unsupervised learning in single-syllable-unit contour analysis of similarity in Beijing Opera. This research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Program, as part of the CompMusic Project (ERC grant agreement 267583).

In many cultures of the world, traditional percussion music/nuses mnemonic syllables that are representative of the timbres/nof instruments. These syllables are orally transmitted/nand often provide a language for percussion in those music/ncultures. Percussion patterns in these cultures thus have/na well defined representation in the form of these syllables,/nwhich can be utilized in several computational percussion/npattern analysis tasks. We explore a connected word/nspeech recognition based framework that can effectively/nutilize the syllabic representation for automatic transcription/nand recognition of audio percussion patterns. In particular,/nwe consider the case of Beijing opera and present/na syllable level hidden markov model (HMM) based system/nfor transcription and classification of percussion patterns./nThe encouraging classification results on a representative/ndataset of Beijing opera percussion patterns supports/nour approach and provides further insights on the utility of/nthese syllables for computational description of percussion/npatterns. This work is partly supported by the European Research/nCouncil under the European Union’s Seventh Framework/nProgram, as a part of the CompMusic project (ERC grant/nagreement 267583)

La cocaína es la segunda droga de comercio ilegal más consumida en España después del cannabis. El número de pacientes atendidos en los servicios de urgencias tras consumir cocaína y los casos de muerte secundarios al consumo de la misma han ido aumentando hasta multiplicarse por seis en los últimos años. El consumo de este alcaloide ocasiona efectos nocivos, constatados sobre diferentes órganos y sistemas corporales, e incluso la muerte. A nivel del SNC destaca, por su gravedad e incidencia, la patología cerebro-vascular hemorrágica (PCVH). Este tipo de cuadro se halla asociado al consumo de drogas ilícitas entre el 9,5% y el 34% de los accidentes vasculares en menores de 45 años, siendo la cocaína la más frecuentemente implicada en su presentación. Por otro lado, la rotura de un aneurisma o malformación arteriovenosa se ha detectado hasta en el 50% de los pacientes con PCVH secundarios al consumo de cocaína. Presentamos tres casos de muerte súbita en adultos por patología cerebro-vascular hemorrágica asociada al consumo de cocaína. Cocaine is the second most frequent illegal drug consumed in Spain after cannabis. A significant increase has occurred in the number of individuals treated in emergency departments after cocaine use just as in the number of cocaine-related deaths. These rates have been actually multiplied by six in the latest years. Cocaine causes injury in different organ systems, even death. In the CNS the use of cocaine is frequently associated with cerebral haemorrhage. Stroke in young adults below 45 years is usually related to drug use between 9,5% and 34% of cases, and cocaine is the most frequently mentioned drug. Otherwise, even 50% of cocaine-related stroke is the result of rupture of saccular aneurysms involving the arteries at the base of the brain and vascular malformation. In this paper, we present three cases of sudden death in adults due to cerebral haemorrhage associated with cocaine use.