Clin. Otolaryngol. 2012, 37, 28–34
Objectives: To determine minimum airflow rate required for olfactory stimulation in successfully rehabilitated laryngectomised patients after learning the polite ...yawning technique (PYT) and to confirm the hypothesis that sense of smell is rehabilitated once the nasal airflow is re‐established.
Design: Prospective open interventional trial.
Setting: Tertiary academic hospital.
Participants: The study population comprised 100 laryngectomised patients. The control group consisted of 100 non‐laryngectomised patients of similar age and sex. Rhinomanometry was used to measure air flow in the right and left nostrils, respectively, while the Smell Diskettes Olfaction test (SDOT) was used to test each individual’s sense of smell.
Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint was increasing the airflow, while the secondary endpoint was improvement in the Smell Diskettes Olfaction test score after learning the polite yawning technique.
Results: The difference in the Smell Diskettes Olfaction test results before and after introducing the polite yawning technique was statistically significant (F = 53.077; P < 0.001). The number of accurately identified odours increased with each measurement. There was a significant difference among rhinomanometric measurements of airflow through the right (F = 65.002; P < 0.001) and left nostrils (F = 75.465; P < 0.001). Nasal airflow improved with each measurement. The minimum airflow required for olfactory stimulation in successfully rehabilitated patients was approximately 60 cm3/s. The control group had considerably better airflow in both nostrils than the laryngectomised group. The difference between the total number of rehabilitated (normosmic) patients (48%) in the laringectomised group and normosmic participants (56%) in the control group (z = 1.132; P = 0.129) was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: The number of odours identified by laryngectomised patients increased with the volume of nasal airflow. The number of patients with rehabilitated olfactory function approximated the percentage of normosmic individuals in the non‐laryngectomised population. These findings confirm the hypothesis that sense of smell is rehabilitated once the nasal airflow is re‐established.
Labour markets in North America and Europe have changed tremendously in the face of increased globalisation and technical progress, raising important challenges for policy makers concerned with ...equality of opportunity. Originally published in 2004, this book examines the influence of both changes in income inequality and of social policies on the degree to which economic advantage is passed on between parents and children in the rich countries. Standard theoretical models of generational dynamics are extended to examine generational income and earnings mobility over time and across space. Over twenty contributors from North America and Europe offer comparable estimates of the degree of mobility, changes in mobility, and the impact of government policy. In so doing, they strengthen the analytical tool kit used in the study of generational mobility, and offer insights for research and directions in dealing with equality of opportunity and child poverty.
The aim of the study was to determine the influence of swimming on postlaryngectomy olfactory rehabilitation. This prospective open interventional trial at a tertiary academic hospital included 100 ...laryngectomised patients; 17 were swimmers and 83 were nonswimmers. Participants practiced the polite yawning technique (PYT) for postlaryngectomy olfactory rehabilitation. Rhinomanometry was used to measure air quantity in the right and left nostrils, respectively; to test sense of smell, we applied the smell diskettes olfaction test (SDOT). Swimmers used swimming aids and swam only in a pool accompanied by another person trained in the rescue and resuscitation of a laryngectomee. Measures were made at three time points. Following PYT initiation, the number of accurately guessed odours was higher among swimmers (SDOT1 = 5.29, SDOT2 = 6.40, SDOT3 = 6.76) than nonswimmers (SDOT1 = 3.73, SDOT2 = 5.48, SDOT3 = 5.60) as were airflows through the left (swimmers: FL1 = 40.82, FL2 = 137.71, FL3 = 172.80; nonswimmers: FL1 = 13.05, FL2 = 104.63, FL3 = 113.00) and right nostrils (swimmers: FR1 = 46.82, FR2 = 115.41, FR3 = 145.40; nonswimmers: FR1 = 13.70, FR2 = 92.77, FR3 = 106.43). The number of odours identified by laryngectomised patients increased with the volume of nasal airflow, but this number and the efficiency of olfactory rehabilitation were higher in swimmers compared to nonswimmers. Swimming with a swimming aid improved the quality of life after surgery and may facilitate resocialisation of laryngectomised patients.
Abstract
Correspondence between evolution and development has been discussed for more than two centuries. Recent work reveals that phylogeny−ontogeny correlations are indeed present in developmental ...transcriptomes of eukaryotic clades with complex multicellularity. Nevertheless, it has been largely ignored that the pervasive presence of phylogeny−ontogeny correlations is a hallmark of development in eukaryotes. This perspective opens a possibility to look for similar parallelisms in biological settings where developmental logic and multicellular complexity are more obscure. For instance, it has been increasingly recognized that multicellular behavior underlies biofilm formation in bacteria. However, it remains unclear whether bacterial biofilm growth shares some basic principles with development in complex eukaryotes. Here we show that the ontogeny of growing Bacillus subtilis biofilms recapitulates phylogeny at the expression level. Using time-resolved transcriptome and proteome profiles, we found that biofilm ontogeny correlates with the evolutionary measures, in a way that evolutionary younger and more diverged genes were increasingly expressed toward later timepoints of biofilm growth. Molecular and morphological signatures also revealed that biofilm growth is highly regulated and organized into discrete ontogenetic stages, analogous to those of eukaryotic embryos. Together, this suggests that biofilm formation in Bacillus is a bona fide developmental process comparable to organismal development in animals, plants, and fungi. Given that most cells on Earth reside in the form of biofilms and that biofilms represent the oldest known fossils, we anticipate that the widely adopted vision of the first life as a single-cell and free-living organism needs rethinking.
In recent years, extreme droughts in the United States have increased in frequency and severity, underlining a need to improve our understanding of vegetation resilience and adaptation. Flash ...droughts are extreme events marked by the rapid dry down of soils due to lack of precipitation, high temperatures, and dry air. These events are also associated with reduced preparation, response, and management time windows before and during drought, exacerbating their detrimental impacts on people and food systems. Improvements in actionable information for flash drought management are informed by atmospheric and land surface processes, including responses and feedbacks from vegetation. Phenologic state, or growth stage, is an important metric for modeling how vegetation modulates land–atmosphere interactions. Reduced stomatal conductance during drought leads to cascading effects on carbon and water fluxes. We investigate how uncertainty in vegetation phenology and stomatal regulation propagates through vegetation responses during drought and non-drought periods by coupling a land surface hydrology model to a predictive phenology model. We assess the role of vegetation in the partitioning of carbon, water, and energy fluxes during flash drought and carry out a comparison against drought and non-drought periods. We selected study sites in Kansas, USA, that were impacted by the flash drought of 2012 and that have AmeriFlux eddy covariance towers which provide ground observations to compare against model estimates. Results show that the compounding effects of reduced precipitation and high vapor pressure deficit (VPD) on vegetation distinguish flash drought from other drought and non-drought periods. High VPD during flash drought shuts down modeled stomatal conductance, resulting in rates of evapotranspiration (ET), gross primary productivity (GPP), and water use efficiency (WUE) that fall below those of average drought conditions. Model estimates of GPP and ET during flash drought decrease to rates similar to what is observed during the winter, indicating that plant function during drought periods is similar to that of dormant months. These results have implications for improving predictions of drought impacts on vegetation.
Phylogenetic relationships within Hydrophilidae were examined by analyses of separate and combined nuclear and mitochondrial markers (28S rRNA, 18S rRNA, 16S rRNA, 12S rRNA, COI and COII genes). The ...preferred (Bayesian) tree topology suggests a sister group relationship between Spercheidae and Hydrophilidae, supporting the ‘hydrophilid lineage’; Epimetopidae are placed on the base of the ‘helophorid branch’, the monophyly of Sphaeridiinae is highly supported, nested deeply within Hydrophilidae closest to Enochrus, making Hydrophilinae and Acidocerini paraphyletic; Hydrobius appears as sister taxon to (Hydrochara + Hydrophilus) without a closer relationship to Acidocerini; the hydrophiloid–histeroid sister group relationship is confirmed. The topology of several taxa remains contradictory, and requires further investigations with a larger taxon sampling and additional molecular markers.
Les inégalités de revenus s’accroissent, et tout le monde, du président Obama et du pape François au prince Charles et à Standard & Poor’s, en parle. Mais ces discours sur ce qui constitue ...probablement le changement le plus important dans la distribution des revenus et des rémunérations depuis les années 1940, mènent à des visions très différentes du rôle que les politiques publiques devraient jouer face à ce phénomène. Cela est vrai au Canada tout autant que dans presque tous les autres pays riches où les inégalités ont augmenté. Dans cet article, je présente deux points de vue sur les inégalités – l’un selon lequel il n’y a là rien de préoccupant, l’autre selon lequel il s’agit de l’un des défis majeurs de notre époque – afin de clarifier les problèmes auxquels font face les Canadiens et le rôle que les politiques publiques devraient jouer dans les circonstances.
We evaluated T-cell responses to mitogens and to defined antigens in breast cancer patients. Significant defects in responses to tetanus toxoid and influenza virus were observed in patients with ...advanced-stage breast cancer. To define whether these defects were associated with a defect in antigen presentation dendritic cells (DCs) or effector function (T cells), these cells were studied separately. Purified DCs from 32 patients with breast cancer demonstrated a significantly decreased ability to stimulate control allogeneic T cells, but stimulation of patient T cells with either control allogeneic DCs or immobilized anti-CD3 antibody resulted in normal T-cell responses, even in patients with stage IV tumors. These data suggest that reduced DC function could be one of the major causes of the observed defect in cellular immunity in patients with advanced breast cancer. We then tested whether stem cells from these patients could give rise to functional DCs after in vitro growth with granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor and interleukin 4. Normal levels of control allogeneic and tetanus toxoid-dependent T-cell proliferation were observed when DCs obtained from precursors were used as stimulators. Those cells also induced substantially higher levels of influenza virus-specific CTL responses than mature DCs from the peripheral blood of these patients, although responses did not quite reach control values. Thus, defective T-cell function in patients with advanced breast cancer can be overcome by stimulation with DCs generated from precursors, suggesting that these cells may better serve as autologous antigen carriers for cancer immunotherapy than mature peripheral blood DCs.
•Self-powered, wireless, real-time reactor power sensing implemented on a university research reactor.•Closed-loop reactor power control using self-powered, wireless neutron sensors.•Decay rate ...compensation algorithm that accurately accelerates signals from self-powered, wireless neutron sensors.
The successful development of real-time, self-powered, wireless reactor power sensing technology would enable key operating parameters of every fuel assembly in a commercial reactor core to be continuously monitored, and potentially be utilized for applications such as closed-loop reactor control. This paper discusses the expansion of successful work on the application of Self Powered Neutron Detectors (SPND) for reactor power monitoring and the wireless transmission of these detector signals using advanced vacuum micro-electronic (VME) transmitter technology developed by Westinghouse in collaboration with the Penn State University Radiation Science and Engineering Center. Results demonstrate that this technology may be successfully applied via long-term testing in the Penn State TRIGA reactor. SPND are inherently slower than, for example, ion chambers due to their dependence on radioactive decay to generate a signal. Additional research developed delay compensation algorithms to accelerate the response of these detectors for use in near-real-time closed-loop reactor control. Initial results indicate that practical signal acceleration can be obtained digitally or with an equivalent analog circuit. Future research will apply an inverse model of the sensor’s balance differential equations to more-effectively accelerate the SPND signal. Use of inverse models will also prove to be adaptive in the sense that time-dependent burn-up of these detectors, due to neutron activation of the detector material, can be modeled and applied in the acceleration algorithm.
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