Doctorate

A doctorate (from Latin doctor, meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism licentia docendi ("licence to teach"). In most countries, a research degree qualifies the holder to teach at university level in the degree's field or work in a specific profession. There are a number of doctoral degrees; the most common is the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), awarded in many different fields, ranging from the humanities to scientific disciplines. Many universities also award honorary doctorates to individuals deemed worthy of special recognition, either for scholarly work or other contributions to the university or society. History Middle Ages The term doctor derives from Latin, meaning "teacher" or "instructor". The doctorate (Latin: doctoratus) appeared in medieval Europe as a license to teach Latin (licentia docendi) at a university. Its roots

The aging brain as a model to understand motor skill acquisition in humans and its restoration using non-invasive brain stimulation

Pablo Maceira Elvira

Motor skill acquisition is essential to our survival, as it enables an efficient interaction with the changing world around us. The acquisition of novel sequential tasks, of particular relevance due to their pervasiveness in everyday life activities, can become more challenging at an advanced age, with structural and functional changes in the brain often resulting in diminished learning abilities. During the pursuit of my doctoral degree, I studied some of the processes leading to the acquisition of a novel sequential motor task, and how some of the mechanisms underlying these processes differ between healthy young and older adults. Young adults acquired the sequential task effectively by prioritizing its accurate execution early in training and focusing on increasing their speed thereafter, resulting in the generation of mechanically efficient execution patterns in the replication of the sequence. In contrast, older adults improved both the accuracy and the speed simultaneously and gradually after more extensive practice, which resulted in an overall decreased performance of the task. However, anodal direct current stimulation applied over the motor cortex partially restored skill acquisition in older adults by facilitating the early improvement of the accuracy, enabling an accelerated generation of efficient execution patterns in the sequence, similar to those seen in young adults. Further investigations into the effects of stimulation to improve skill acquisition in healthy older adults showed age not to be a determinant factor for an individual's proneness to benefit from stimulation; rather, it is the state of the neural system of each individual what likely determines the potential benefits to be had from stimulation. Therefore, a better understanding of the mechanisms targeted by stimulation and the identification of parameters signaling an individual's likelihood to benefit from it are needed to use these techniques to their full potential. Leveraging this knowledge and taking advantage of the portability, robustness and accessibility of this technique could represent an attractive option for applications involving extensive motor training, such as rehabilitative training provided after stroke.

EPFL2022

Étapes marquantes du développement urbain de la Chaux-de-Fonds

Tearanel Te

The city planning of La Chaux-de-Fonds, they way we know it today, is the result of a long evolution. It starts the day after a fire which, in 1794, practically devastated the whole village. With the human and material loss which the fire caused, this disaster offered the possibility to reconstruct on a new basis. The fear of fire and the demands of the watch industry, will dictate the policy of city planners and architects. As of this event, the urban expansion of La Chaux-de-Fonds is characterised by three major stages. All three are continuous and interrelated. Each is the product of a particular person. Their coming corresponds to a precise period in time and a given context. The resulting "urban matrix", called massif, will serve for a long period of time as a model for the extension of the city. The continuous use of this model will serve until to the beginning of the 20th century and will only be abandoned at the end of the 1st world war. The present study comprises two distinctive parts, complementary and of equal importance: - A written part and - An illustrated part The choice of these two means for the research is to insure a better understanding of complex subject: - Stage 1: 1794-1795: The reconstruction of the burned down village is assigned to Moïse Perret-Gentil (1744-1815) with the introduction of the first elements of orthogonal planning. It initiates the system of the grid plan which will define future works. - Stage 2: 1831-1835: The continuous and accelerated development of the watch industry pushes the local authorities to hire the engineer Charles-Henri Junod (1795-1843) to plan an extension at a larger scale. The document is named the "General Plan of Alignments". Thanks to its singularity and its urban impact, the Junod plan occupies a significant place in this doctorate thesis. - Stage 3: 1854-1859: The arrival of the railroad, the Industrial Jura, will profoundly modify the urban configuration. The intervention of Charles-Frédéric Knab (1822- 1874) is based on the works of his predecessor. It includes the railroad as a complete part of his Plan of Alignments. It results from this study that the city plans of La Chaux-de-Fonds conceived by the engineers Charles Junod and Charles Knab are not just a simple grid plan applied at random. Their characteristics are far from the image of a checker board plan to which La Chaux-de-Fonds is usually associated to. Instead, these plans result respectively from a combination of refined imbrications of grids which perfectly connect to the existing urban tissue. Behind their apparent regularity, the Junod and Knab plans, hold a series of irregularities which insure at the same time their complexity and their richness. The works of these two engineers constitutes an exemplary case of an urban transformation, a model for a remarkable case of city planning.

EPFL2011

The aging brain as a model to understand motor skill acquisition in humans and its restoration using non-invasive brain stimulation

Pablo Maceira Elvira

EPFL2022

Étapes marquantes du développement urbain de la Chaux-de-Fonds

Tearanel Te

EPFL2011

Strength and deformability of jointed rock masses reinforced by rock bolts ; Translation of the doctoral thesis no 1169

The aging brain as a model to understand motor skill acquisition in humans and its restoration using non-invasive brain stimulation

Étapes marquantes du développement urbain de la Chaux-de-Fonds

The aging brain as a model to understand motor skill acquisition in humans and its restoration using non-invasive brain stimulation

Strength and deformability of jointed rock masses reinforced by rock bolts ; Translation of the doctoral thesis no 1169

Étapes marquantes du développement urbain de la Chaux-de-Fonds