Compilation of basal metabolic and blood perfusion rates in various multi-compartment, whole-body thermoregulation models

The assignments of basal metabolic rates (BMR), basal cardiac outputs (BCO) and basal blood perfusion rates (BBPR) were compared in nine multi-compartment, whole body thermoregulation models. The data are presented at three levels of detail: total body, specific body regions and regional body tissue layers. Differences in the assignment of these quantities among the compared models increased with the level of detail, in the above order. The ranges of variability in the total body BMR was 6.5% relative to the lowest value, with a mean of 84.3±2 Watts, and in the BCO it was 8% with a mean of 4.70±0.13 l/min. The least variability among the body regions is seen in the combined torso (shoulders, thorax and abdomen: ±7.8% BMR and ±5.9% BBPR) and in the combined head (head, face, and neck: ±9.9% BMR and ±10.9% BBPR), determined by the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean. Much more variability is apparent in the extremities with the most showing in the BMR of the feet (±117%), followed by the BBPR in the arms (±61.3%). In the tissue layers, most of the bone layers were assigned zero BMR and BBPR, except in the shoulders and in the extremities that were assigned non-zero values in a number of models. The next lowest values were assigned to the fat layers, with occasional zero values. Skin basal values were invariably non-zero but involved very low values in certain models, e.g., BBPR in the feet and the hands. Muscle layers were invariably assigned high values with the highest found in the thorax, abdomen and legs. The brain, lung and viscera layers were assigned the highest of all values of both basal quantities with those of the brain layers showing rather tight ranges of variability in both basal quantities.Average basal values of the "time-seasoned" models presented in this study could be useful as a first step in future modeling efforts, subject to appropriate adjustment of values to conform to most recently available and reliable data

The production of a physiological puzzle: how Cytisus adami confused and inspired a century’s botanists, gardeners, and evolutionists

‘Adam’s laburnum’ (or Cytisus adami), produced by accident in 1825 by Jean-Louis Adam, a nurseryman in Vitry, became a commercial success within the plant trade for its striking mix of yellow and purple flowers. After it came to the attention of members of La Société d’Horticulture de Paris, the tree gained enormous fame as a potential instance of the much sought-after ‘graft hybrid’, a hypothetical idea that by grafting one plant onto another, a mixture of the two could be produced. As I show in this paper, many eminent botanists and gardeners, including Charles Darwin, both experimented with Adam’s laburnum and argued over how it might have been produced and what light, if any, it shed on the laws of heredity. Despite Jean-Louis Adam’s position and status as a nurseryman active within the Parisian plant trade, a surprising degree of doubt and scepticism was attached to his testimony on how the tree had been produced in his nursery. This doubt, I argue, helps us to trace the complex negotiations of authority that constituted debates over plant heredity in the early 19th century and that were introduced with a new generation of gardening and horticultural periodicals

Attention in the Wake of Emerging Urban Technologies

Technology in one form or another has always been a part of urban life and the different types of environments where it takes place. What types of technologies have been taken into use and developed in the first place has traditionally been dictated by the very practical needs of the urbanized community. However, these technologies have also a significant impact on how a city looks and feels to its users, inhabitants and visitors alike. Some technologies are marked by a clearly perceivable presence in the urban environment whereas others are more invisibly embedded into the material structures of the city. Urban aesthetics as a branch of environmental aesthetics focuses on studying the very specific aesthetic values and qualities present in contemporary urbanized areas. It can be used also to explain, how different types of aesthetic values manifest in urban environments and whether and how conflicts in values are resolved. As we move further into the 21st century, the aesthetic identity of different types ofcities is changing due to new development in the form of large-scale adoption of technologies such as 5G network and self-driving vehicles (SDVs). The planned and unplanned aesthetic consequences of new and emerging technologies are thus of special interest in this paper. The aim is to show how concepts such as aesthetic attitude and attention are relevant for understanding the new type of sensibility that new and emerging technologies require or make possible for their users. There is also focus on how technological development might reduce the range of possibilities for aesthetic choices and thus create more inequality between urban dwellers. Emphasis is made on the distinction between the everyday urban experience and more transitory ways of using the city, since this is significant for preconditions of the experience such as attention and attitude.Peer reviewe