Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 129, June 1974

This special bibliography lists 280 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in May 1974

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 128, May 1974

This special bibliography lists 282 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1974

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 164

This bibliography lists 275 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1977

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 190, February 1979

This bibliography lists 235 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1979

Aerospace medicine and biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 186

This bibliography lists 159 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System in October 1978

Treatment of brain cancer and ischaemic stroke utilising High Intensity Focus Ultrasound (HIFU) guide with MRI

In this thesis high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is utilized for cancer treatment (thermal mode) and treatment of ischaemic stroke (mechanical mode). These two applications were investigated in vitro and in vivo models. MRI was utilized to monitor the lesions created by HIFU either in thermal or cavitation mode in freshly excised lamb brain tissue in vitro, and in rabbit brain in vivo. Additionally, MRI was used to monitor lesions deep in tissue for both in vitro and in vivo exposures. All three MRI sequences used (T1-W FSE, T2-W FSE and FLAIR) were able to detect lesions. Both thermal and bubbly lesions were best monitored using T1-W FSE with excellent contrast, proving the potential of HIFU to treat reliably tumours in the brain. A HIFU system was also used to assist thrombolysis in cooperation with a thrombolytic drug such as recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) in vitro and in vivo. It was shown that higher intensity results to higher volume of dissolved clot, but there is a limit of the intensity to be used in order to avoid heating of the clot and the surrounding tissue. The goal in this study was to achieve temperature elevation not exceeding 1ºC (called safe temperature). It was found that the larger the beam area the larger the dissolved clot volume. Also, the lower the frequency, the larger the volume of the dissolved clot. The results reported herein point to the use of frequency around 0.5 MHz and pulsing to optimize thrombolysis and skull penetration and at the same time avoiding unwanted heating. Finally, an Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) phantom skull model was developed in order to evaluate the propagation of ultrasound using a single element transducer. The skull model was appropriately designed so that it has the same attenuation as a human skull. It was demonstrated that using a frequency of 0.5 MHz versus 1 MHz, ultrasound propagation through the phantom skull was higher. Therefore, higher frequency has poor skull penetration and a small beam size at the focus, while low frequencies have better skull penetration but with the risk of reaching the unpredictable effect of cavitation. The developed system has proven to successfully create large lesions in the brain and at the same time, these lesions are successfully monitored with excellent contrast using MRI (T1-W FSE) enabling the accurate determination of the margins of these lesions. The results reported in this study point to the use of frequency around 0.5 MHz and pulsing to optimize thrombolysis and skull penetration and at the same time avoiding unwanted heating. For treating tumours located deep in the brain and for dissolving thrombus causing an acute ischaemic stroke, further extensive clinical studies will be needed before this technology is applied to humans

Methods of studying the functional ecology of protein and organ dynamics in birds

Birds are capable of adaptive responses to ecological challenges involving changes in body composition, including both body stores and functional tissues. These physiological adjustments may affect aspects of the birds’ ecology, such as choice of diet and microhabitat or susceptibility to aerial predators. Carcass analysis provides accurate data on body composition; however, ethical considerations apart, this method neither enables studies of temporal changes within individuals nor allows compositional analyses to be followed up by studies on the birds’ life history. Various non-terminal methods are available to quantify gross body composition in terms of fat, protein, and water. In addition, energy and mass (nitrogen) balance measurements in caged song birds and shorebirds provide sensitive and robust methods to estimate protein and fat contents of anabolised and catabolised body stores, albeit under laboratory conditions rather than in the field. The potential of new non-terminal methods (i.e. ultrasound, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography), which allow repeated size estimation of various organs, was evaluated in recent studies on shorebirds and swans. These methods probably have the greatest potential in break-through studies in the field of ecophysiological adaptation, because they allow non-invasive, repeated quantification of the size of different organs in individual birds

2017 Texas Bays and Estuaries Meeting

Program for the 2017 Texas Bays and Estuaries Meeting held in Port Aransas, Texas, April 12-13, 2017.Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, Coastal Bend Bays Foundation, The University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Sea Grant Texas at Texas A&M University, Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, and Mission Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve.Marine Scienc