ABSTRACT:Popa, L., Panaiotu, C.E. and Grădinaru, E. 2014. An early Middle Anisian (Middle Triassic) Tubiphytes and cement crusts-dominated reef from North Dobrogea (Romania): facies, depositional environment and diagenesis. Acta Geologica Polonica, 64 (2), 189-206. Warszawa.A well-developed Triassic carbonate platform is exposed in the eastern part of the Tulcea Unit, in the Cimmerian North Dobrogean Orogen, southeastern Romania. Facies analysis of the 200 m thick succession of lower Middle Anisian limestones exposed in a large limestone quarry south of the village of Mahmudia suggests a transition from upper slope towards toe-of-slope carbonate facies, reflecting sea-level fluctuations and tectonic tilting. The slope is dominated by in situ microbialites in the upper portion, consisting of reefal boundstone facies, and by molluscan coquina and cement boundstones. A key role is played by the cosmopolitan micro-encruster Tubiphytes, which became common in the aftermath of the mass extinction at the Permian/Triassic boundary, and by autochthonous micrite and synsedimentary marine cement. The absence of metazoan reef builders, such as sponges and corals, reflects the fact that microbes were the first organisms to recover after the Permian/Triassic crisis under unusual marine conditions and that their main role in reef formation was sediment stabilization along the upper slopes. The lower slope is mostly detrital, being dominated by platform-derived bioclastic rudstones and crinoidal floatstones, which are interbedded with basinal carbonate hemipelagics. The toe-of-slope is composed of pelagic wackestones framed by thin tongues of intraclast breccia. All these observations are in agreement with the slopeshedding model described for the Pennsylvanian microbial margin in Asturias (northern Spain) and the AnisianLadinian flat-topped, steep-rimmed Latemar platform (Dolomites, Italy).As most of the Anisian reefs were described from western and eastern Tethys (Southern Alps, Hungary, China), the occurrence of the early Middle Anisian Tubiphytes-reef from North Dobrogea (Romania) contributes to resolving the puzzle of the geographic distribution of reef recovery in the Middle Triassic.

From an interdisciplinary approach, the neurosciences (NSs) represent the junction of many fields (biology, chemistry, medicine, computer science, and psychology) and aim to explore the structural and functional aspects of the nervous system. Among modern neurophysiological methods that "measure" different processes of the human brain to salience stimuli, a special place belongs to eye tracking (ET). By detecting eye position, gaze direction, sequence of eye movement and visual adaptation during cognitive activities, ET is an effective tool for experimental psychology and neurological research. It provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the gaze, which is very useful in understanding choice behavior and perceptual decision making. In the high tech era, ET has several applications related to the interaction between humans and computers. Herein, ET is used to evaluate the spatial orienting of attention, the performance in visual tasks, the reactions to information on websites, the customer response to advertising, and the emotional and cognitive impact of various spurs to the brain.

Quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) is a modern type of electroencephalography (EEG) analysis that involves recording digital EEG signals which are processed, transformed, and analyzed using complex mathematical algorithms. QEEG has brought new techniques of EEG signals feature extraction: analysis of specific frequency band and signal complexity, analysis of connectivity, and network analysis. The clinical application of QEEG is extensive, including neuropsychiatric disorders, epilepsy, stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injury, mental health disorders, and many others. In this review, we talk through existing evidence on the practical applications of this clinical tool. We conclude that to date, the role of QEEG is not necessarily to pinpoint an immediate diagnosis but to provide additional insight in conjunction with other diagnostic evaluations in order to objective information necessary for obtaining a precise diagnosis, correct disease severity assessment, and specific treatment response evaluation.

Seric biomarkers have been tested in a large number of studies on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) patients in order to predict severity, especially related to the short-term outcome. However, TBI patients have a high risk of developing long-term complications such as physical disability, cognitive impairment, psychiatric pathology, epilepsy, and others. The aim of this study was to assess the correlation between protein biomarkers S100 and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and neurocognitive status at 10- and 90-days post-injury. Both biomarkers were tested in the first 4h and after 72h post-injury in 62 patients with moderate-severe TBI. The patients were evaluated by a series of neurocognitive tests: Early Rehabilitation Barthel Index (ERBI), Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended (GOSE), The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Processing Speed Index (PSI), and Stroop Test, at 10 and 90 days post-injury and supplementary by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale at 90 days. For evaluating the whole neurocognitive status instead of every scale separately, we used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), while for anxiety and depressive symptoms, we used multiple regression analyses. SEM showed that NSE values at 4 hours were significant predictors of the cognitive status at 10 (p=0.034) and 90 days (p= 0.023). Also, there were found significant correlations between NSE at 4h and the anxiety level. This study demonstrated a significant correlation between NSE at 4h and short and medium-term neuropsychological outcomes, which recommends using this biomarker for selecting patients with a higher risk of cognitive dysfunction.