Illumination sources, optic filters, and their influence in the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue color test

The aim of this work is to evaluate the response of healthy subjects to the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue color test using colored optical filters and without them under different illuminations. Thirty healthy subjects (range 20-27 years) performed this color test under simulated A, D65 and LED illuminants, without and with three different filters. Results indicate that LED could be a good alternative to perform Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue color test. Colored filters modify color perception in specific spectral regions, it should be taken into account when a subject wears these filters. La finalidad de este trabajo ha sido analizar la variabilidad de los resultados obtenidos al realizar el test de color Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue en diferentes condiciones de observación e iluminación. El test se realizó a 30 sujetos jóvenes (entre 20 y 27 años de edad) sin alteraciones en la visión cromática. Se variaron las condiciones de iluminación utilizando fuentes de luz que simulaban al iluminante A y D65, y con una fuente de luz LED, además se utilizaron filtros ópticos coloreados. Los resultados indican que la fuente de iluminación LED podría ser adecuada como alternativa para la realización del test de color Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue. Los filtros coloreados modifican la percepción de los colores en determinadas regiones del espectro lo que debería tenerse en cuenta a la hora de su porte

Navigating the Structural Coherence of Sea Life

Ice breaking by ships can cause irreparable harm to the ecologies and cultures of northern regions. This chapter revolves around a central question: what are the barriers preventing the development of a legal mechanism to limit this act of environmental violence? The chapter suggests that the central barrier is not so much legal as it is ontological: foundational conceptions of space that underpin Western legal institutions are unable to value the form of water, reducing it instead to an ed space that is used for movement or resource extraction. This chapter demonstrates how a consideration of the environmental violence of ice breaking requires us to challenge underlying ideas about the various surfaces, volumes, structures, and movements of ocean-space that are inherent in Western conceptions of mobility, time, and territory. By looking beyond the ocean’s seemingly formless liquidity, this chapter explores how thinking from an oceanic perspective can challenge the limits of law, and how an inquiry that directly interrogates legal norms and institutions can reveal gaps in our understanding and governance of the ocean

Assessment of plasma chitotriosidase activity, CCL18/PARC concentration and NP-C suspicion index in the diagnosis of Niemann-Pick disease type C: A prospective observational study

Background: Niemann-Pick disease type C (NP-C) is a rare, autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease caused by mutations in either the NPC1 or NPC2 genes. The diagnosis of NP-C remains challenging due to the non-specific, heterogeneous nature of signs/symptoms. This study assessed the utility of plasma chitotriosidase (ChT) and Chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 18 (CCL18)/pulmonary and activation-regulated chemokine (PARC) in conjunction with the NP-C suspicion index (NP-C SI) for guiding confirmatory laboratory testing in patients with suspected NP-C. Methods: In a prospective observational cohort study, incorporating a retrospective determination of NP-C SI scores, two different diagnostic approaches were applied in two separate groups of unrelated patients from 51 Spanish medical centers (n = 118 in both groups). From Jan 2010 to Apr 2012 (Period 1), patients with =2 clinical signs/symptoms of NP-C were considered ''suspected NP-C'' cases, and NPC1/NPC2 sequencing, plasma chitotriosidase (ChT), CCL18/PARC and sphingomyelinase levels were assessed. Based on findings in Period 1, plasma ChT and CCL18/PARC, and NP-C SI prediction scores were determined in a second group of patients between May 2012 and Apr 2014 (Period 2), and NPC1 and NPC2 were sequenced only in those with elevated ChT and/or elevated CCL18/PARC and/or NP-C SI =70. Filipin staining and 7-ketocholesterol (7-KC) measurements were performed in all patients with NP-C gene mutations, where possible. Results: In total across Periods 1 and 2, 10/236 (4%) patients had a confirmed diagnosis o NP-C based on gene sequencing (5/118 4.2%] in each Period): all of these patients had two causal NPC1 mutations. Single mutant NPC1 alleles were detected in 8/236 (3%) patients, overall. Positive filipin staining results comprised three classical and five variant biochemical phenotypes. No NPC2 mutations were detected. All patients with NPC1 mutations had high ChT activity, high CCL18/PARC concentrations and/or NP-C SI scores =70. Plasma 7-KC was higher than control cut-off values in all patients with two NPC1 mutations, and in the majority of patients with single mutations. Family studies identified three further NP-C patients. Conclusion: This approach may be very useful for laboratories that do not have mass spectrometry facilities and therefore, they cannot use other NP-C biomarkers for diagnosis

Forging volumetric methods

The last two decades have seen a “volumetric turn” within Anglophone social sciences and humanities scholarship. This turn is premised on the idea that space may be better understood in three-dimensional terms – with complex heights and depths – rather than as a series of two-dimensional areas or surfaces. While there is an increasingly diverse and rich set of scholarship accounting for voluminous complexities in the air, oceans, ice, mountains, and undergrounds, all too often this work foregrounds state and military-led approaches to volume. This has resulted in a limited methodological toolkit through which to explore voluminous complexities as they emerge and extend beyond military and state contexts. Often reliant on elite interviews, archives, and cartographies, there has been little critical discussion of both methodological practice and the “flatness” of research outputs articulating three-dimensional worlds. In this paper we address this by foregrounding the role of immersive and multisensory methodologies (sounding volumes, seeing-sensing drone volumes, and object volumes). To conclude, we offer avenues for further inquiry, including attending to shifting everyday voluminous experiences in the Anthropocene, and the need to diversify the communication of “volume” research

Shipping corridors through the Inuit homeland

Long before the waters and shores of what is known today as Canada’s Arctic archipelago were explored and surveyed, Europeans imagined a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through or near the North Pole. But the archipelago shuttered hopes of easy passage. Its islands created conditions for longer sea-ice seasons and, together with continental shorelines, led to ice-clogged straits well into summer. Although the early European imagination lost out to geophysical reality, sea-ice melt accompanying 21st-century climate change has rekindled the prospect of navigation through the Northwest Passage. Projections indicate thinning ice in summer, sparking hopes for shorter inter-oceanic routes for cargo and new resource frontiers for mining, fishing, and the cruise-ship industry. Maritime administrators in the Canadian government have begun identifying corridors where shipping traffic may be directed, as well as areas and times where icebreaking would be necessary. However, this often has occurred without taking sufficient account of Inuit uses and understanding of these marine spaces. To embrace these worldviews is to fundamentally rethink the “frozen” nature of the Arctic archipelago and its many chokepoints

Navigating the Structural Coherence of Sea Ice

Ice breaking by ships can cause irreparable harm to the ecologies and cultures of northern regions. This chapter revolves around a central question: what are the barriers preventing the development of a legal mechanism to limit this act of environmental violence? The chapter suggests that the central barrier is not so much legal as it is ontological: foundational conceptions of space that underpin Western legal institutions are unable to value the form of water, reducing it instead to an ed space that is used for movement or resource extraction. This chapter demonstrates how a consideration of the environmental violence of ice breaking requires us to challenge underlying ideas about the various surfaces, volumes, structures, and movements of ocean-space that are inherent in Western conceptions of mobility, time, and territory. By looking beyond the ocean’s seemingly formless liquidity, this chapter explores how thinking from an oceanic perspective can challenge the limits of law, and how an inquiry that directly interrogates legal norms and institutions can reveal gaps in our understanding and governance of the ocean