80 research outputs found

    Albuterol metered dose inhaler performance under hyperbaric pressures

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    Comparative Medicine - OneHealth and Comparative Medicine Poster SessionINTRODUCTION: The stimulus for this presentation was an asthma attack suffered on the first dive by a victim of a severe industrial electrical burn. The patient's response to albuterol metered dose inhaler (MDI) treatment given at depth was felt to have been poor. We thus wondered what the output of these devises (chlorofluorocarbon or CFC) was at therapeutic depth versus normobaria. As the current MDIs were being phased out of use we also wondered what the comparable output characteristics of the replacement MDIs (hydrofluoroalkane or HFA) would be. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The dose and aerosol particle size and number delivered by MDIs were measured in a hyperbaric chamber at pressures ranging from one atmosphere absolute (1 ATA, 0 feet of seawater, fsw, 101 kPa) to three ATA (66 fsw, 304 kPa). Mass delivered was measured by a Sartorius B120 analytical balance, and particle size analysis by a TSI 3080L electrostatic classifier with a TSI 3776 ultrafine condensation particle counter. RESULTS: Dose delivery per actuation by CFC and long canister HFA powered MDIs was 13±1% and 12±1% less, respectively, at 3 ATA compared to 1 ATA. However, dose delivery by short canister HFA MDIs was not significantly changed with pressure. The geometric mean diameters of nano particles from the CFC and short canister HFA MDIs decreased from 50 nm at 0 fsw to 32 nm at 66 fsw whereas the long canister HFA aerosol diameters were not affected. The numbers of nanometer size particles delivered at 66 fsw were only 4-7% of those delivered at 0 fsw for the CFC and long canister HFA MDIs; whereas for the short canister HFAs it was 26%. CONCLUSIONS: The doses of albuterol and the sizes and numbers of aerosol particles emitted from albuterol MDIs actuated in a hyperbaric environment vary by canister type; CFC MDI loss is probably unimportant

    Poverty and mental health: the work of the female sanitary inspectors in Bradford (c. 1901–1912)

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    This is the final version of the article. Available from Palgrave Macmillan via the DOI in this record.Although there are many excellent studies of the work of pioneer women public health officers, few accounts dwell on mental health issues or discuss any relationship that such staff might have understood to exist between poverty and mental health in the early twentieth century. This is a remarkable omission considering that social and feminist historians have highlighted the problems created by the way early practitioners sought to manage poverty and arguably the poor. Drawing on records created by Female Sanitary Inspectors (FSIs) in Bradford, this study chronicles distressing economic and social conditions but also reveals encounters between the staff and people experiencing mental health problems and mental health crises. The ways in which the FSIs chose to both make and deny links between the abject poverty witnessed in the slum districts and cases of mental disorder forms an important strand to the analysis that follows. Interestingly, it is the well-being of the staff that emerges as a persistent and even over-riding concern.This work was generously supported by Wellcome Trust Grant 074999. This was a personal fellowship entitled 'The Medical Officer of Health and the Organisation of Health Visiting as a Comprehensive Community Health Service, 1906-1974'

    Red hot frogs:Identifying the Australian frogs most at risk of extinction

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    More than a third of the world’s amphibian species are listed as Threatened or Extinct, with a recent assessment identifying 45 Australian frogs (18.4% of the currently recognised species) as ‘Threatened’ based on IUCN criteria. We applied structured expert elicitation to 26 frogs assessed as Critically Endangered and Endangered to estimate their probability of extinction by 2040. We also investigated whether participant experience (measured as a self-assigned categorical score, i.e. ‘expert’ or ‘non-expert’) influenced the estimates. Collation and analysis of participant opinion indicated that eight species are at high risk (>50% chance) of becoming extinct by 2040, with the disease chytridiomycosis identified as the primary threat. A further five species are at moderate–high risk (30–50% chance), primarily due to climate change. Fourteen of the 26 frog species are endemic to Queensland, with many species restricted to small geographic ranges that are susceptible to stochastic events (e.g. a severe heatwave or a large bushfire). Experts were more likely to rate extinction probability higher for poorly known species (those with <10 experts), while non-experts were more likely to rate extinction probability higher for better-known species. However, scores converged following discussion, indicating that there was greater consensus in the estimates of extinction probability. Increased resourcing and management intervention are urgently needed to avert future extinctions of Australia’s frogs. Key priorities include developing and supporting captive management and establishing or extending in-situ population refuges to alleviate the impacts of disease and climate change

    Extremely Red Galaxies at z = 5-9 with MIRI and NIRSpec:Dusty Galaxies or Obscured Active Galactic Nuclei?

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    We study a new population of extremely red objects (EROs) recently discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) based on their NIRCam colors F277W − F444W &gt; 1.5 mag. We find 37 EROs in the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) field with F444W &lt; 28 mag and photometric redshifts between 5 &lt; z &lt; 7, with median z = 6.9 − 1.6 + 1.0 . Surprisingly, despite their red long-wavelength colors, these EROs have blue short-wavelength colors (F150W − F200W ∼ 0 mag) indicative of bimodal spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with a red, steep slope in the rest-frame optical, and a blue, flat slope in the rest-frame UV. Moreover, all these EROs are unresolved, point-like sources in all NIRCam bands. We analyze the SEDs of eight of them with MIRI and NIRSpec observations using stellar population models and active galactic nucleus (AGN) templates. We find that dusty galaxies or obscured AGNs provide similarly good SED fits but different stellar properties: massive and dusty, log M ⋆ / M ⊙ ∼ 10 and A V ≳ 3 mag, or low mass and obscured, log M ⋆ / M ⊙ ∼ 7.5 and A V ∼ 0 mag, hosting an obscured quasi-stellar object (QSO). SED modeling does not favor either scenario, but their unresolved sizes are more suggestive of AGNs. If any EROs are confirmed to have log M ⋆ / M ⊙ ≳ 10.5, it would increase the pre-JWST number density at z &gt; 7 by up to a factor ∼60. Similarly, if they are QSOs with luminosities in the L bol &gt; 1045-46 erg s−1 range, their number would exceed that of bright blue QSOs by more than three orders of magnitude. Additional photometry at mid-infrared wavelengths will reveal the true nature of the red continuum emission in these EROs and will place this puzzling population in the right context of galaxy evolution.</p

    Garotas de loja, história social e teoria social [Shop Girls, Social History and Social Theory]

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    Shop workers, most of them women, have made up a significant proportion of Britain’s labour force since the 1850s but we still know relatively little about their history. This article argues that there has been a systematic neglect of one of the largest sectors of female employment by historians and investigates why this might be. It suggests that this neglect is connected to framings of work that have overlooked the service sector as a whole as well as to a continuing unease with the consumer society’s transformation of social life. One element of that transformation was the rise of new forms of aesthetic, emotional and sexualised labour. Certain kinds of ‘shop girls’ embodied these in spectacular fashion. As a result, they became enduring icons of mass consumption, simultaneously dismissed as passive cultural dupes or punished as powerful agents of cultural destruction. This article interweaves the social history of everyday shop workers with shifting representations of the ‘shop girl’, from Victorian music hall parodies, through modernist social theory, to the bizarre bombing of the Biba boutique in London by the Angry Brigade on May Day 1971. It concludes that progressive historians have much to gain by reclaiming these workers and the service economy that they helped create

    The theory of expanded, extended, and enhanced opportunities for youth physical activity promotion

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    Background Physical activity interventions targeting children and adolescents (≤18 years) often focus on complex intra- and inter-personal behavioral constructs, social-ecological frameworks, or some combination of both. Recently published meta-analytical reviews and large-scale randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that these intervention approaches have largely produced minimal or no improvements in young people\u27s physical activity levels. Discussion In this paper, we propose that the main reason for previous studies\u27 limited effects is that fundamental mechanisms that lead to change in youth physical activity have often been overlooked or misunderstood. Evidence from observational and experimental studies is presented to support the development of a new theory positing that the primary mechanisms of change in many youth physical activity interventions are approaches that fall into one of the following three categories: (a) the expansion of opportunities for youth to be active by the inclusion of a new occasion to be active, (b) the extension of an existing physical activity opportunity by increasing the amount of time allocated for that opportunity, and/or (c) the enhancement of existing physical activity opportunities through strategies designed to increase physical activity above routine practice. Their application and considerations for intervention design and interpretation are presented. Summary The utility of these mechanisms, referred to as the Theory of Expanded, Extended, and Enhanced Opportunities (TEO), is demonstrated in their parsimony, logical appeal, support with empirical evidence, and the direct and immediate application to numerous settings and contexts. The TEO offers a new way to understand youth physical activity behaviors and provides a common taxonomy by which interventionists can identify appropriate targets for interventions across different settings and contexts. We believe the formalization of the TEO concepts will propel them to the forefront in the design of future intervention studies and through their use, lead to a greater impact on youth activity behaviors than what has been demonstrated in previous studies

    Shattered pellet injection experiments at JET in support of the ITER disruption mitigation system design

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    A series of experiments have been executed at JET to assess the efficacy of the newly installed shattered pellet injection (SPI) system in mitigating the effects of disruptions. Issues, important for the ITER disruption mitigation system, such as thermal load mitigation, avoidance of runaway electron (RE) formation, radiation asymmetries during thermal quench mitigation, electromagnetic load control and RE energy dissipation have been addressed over a large parameter range. The efficiency of the mitigation has been examined for the various SPI injection strategies. The paper summarises the results from these JET SPI experiments and discusses their implications for the ITER disruption mitigation scheme

    Overview of JET results for optimising ITER operation

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    The JET 2019–2020 scientific and technological programme exploited the results of years of concerted scientific and engineering work, including the ITER-like wall (ILW: Be wall and W divertor) installed in 2010, improved diagnostic capabilities now fully available, a major neutral beam injection upgrade providing record power in 2019–2020, and tested the technical and procedural preparation for safe operation with tritium. Research along three complementary axes yielded a wealth of new results. Firstly, the JET plasma programme delivered scenarios suitable for high fusion power and alpha particle (α) physics in the coming D–T campaign (DTE2), with record sustained neutron rates, as well as plasmas for clarifying the impact of isotope mass on plasma core, edge and plasma-wall interactions, and for ITER pre-fusion power operation. The efficacy of the newly installed shattered pellet injector for mitigating disruption forces and runaway electrons was demonstrated. Secondly, research on the consequences of long-term exposure to JET-ILW plasma was completed, with emphasis on wall damage and fuel retention, and with analyses of wall materials and dust particles that will help validate assumptions and codes for design and operation of ITER and DEMO. Thirdly, the nuclear technology programme aiming to deliver maximum technological return from operations in D, T and D–T benefited from the highest D–D neutron yield in years, securing results for validating radiation transport and activation codes, and nuclear data for ITER

    New H-mode regimes with small ELMs and high thermal confinement in the Joint European Torus

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    New H-mode regimes with high confinement, low core impurity accumulation, and small edge-localized mode perturbations have been obtained in magnetically confined plasmas at the Joint European Torus tokamak. Such regimes are achieved by means of optimized particle fueling conditions at high input power, current, and magnetic field, which lead to a self-organized state with a strong increase in rotation and ion temperature and a decrease in the edge density. An interplay between core and edge plasma regions leads to reduced turbulence levels and outward impurity convection. These results pave the way to an attractive alternative to the standard plasmas considered for fusion energy generation in a tokamak with a metallic wall environment such as the ones expected in ITER.&amp; nbsp;Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing

    The role of ETG modes in JET-ILW pedestals with varying levels of power and fuelling

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    We present the results of GENE gyrokinetic calculations based on a series of JET-ITER-like-wall (ILW) type I ELMy H-mode discharges operating with similar experimental inputs but at different levels of power and gas fuelling. We show that turbulence due to electron-temperature-gradient (ETGs) modes produces a significant amount of heat flux in four JET-ILW discharges, and, when combined with neoclassical simulations, is able to reproduce the experimental heat flux for the two low gas pulses. The simulations plausibly reproduce the high-gas heat fluxes as well, although power balance analysis is complicated by short ELM cycles. By independently varying the normalised temperature gradients (omega(T)(e)) and normalised density gradients (omega(ne )) around their experimental values, we demonstrate that it is the ratio of these two quantities eta(e) = omega(Te)/omega(ne) that determines the location of the peak in the ETG growth rate and heat flux spectra. The heat flux increases rapidly as eta(e) increases above the experimental point, suggesting that ETGs limit the temperature gradient in these pulses. When quantities are normalised using the minor radius, only increases in omega(Te) produce appreciable increases in the ETG growth rates, as well as the largest increases in turbulent heat flux which follow scalings similar to that of critical balance theory. However, when the heat flux is normalised to the electron gyro-Bohm heat flux using the temperature gradient scale length L-Te, it follows a linear trend in correspondence with previous work by different authors
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