Outcomes of pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD in older patients: a comparative study

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is established as an effective intervention in optimising function and quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, there are very limited data on the effectiveness of PR in older patients with COPD. We reviewed all patients attending an 8-week outpatient programme. Patients were divided into two groups; Group A (n = 202), below 70 years, and Group B (n = 122), above 70 years of age. Outcomes in both patient subgroups were compared using FEV1, Incremental Shuttle Walk Test (ISWT), Endurance Shuttle Walk Test (ESWT), Grip Strength, St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score (HADS), and COPD Assessment Test (CAT) score. Statistical analysis was conducted using Mann-Whitney non-parametric testing and chi-square testing for comparison of clinically relevant improvements between groups. There was no significant difference in PR outcomes between Group A and Group B using absolute values. Mean changes in ISWT for Groups A and B 39.7 m vs. 32.8 m (p = 0.63), respectively, SGRQ −2.5 vs. −2.8 (p = 0.95), HADS anxiety score −0.83 vs. −0.57 (p = 0.43) and HADS depression score −0.69 vs. −0.39 (p = 0.48), respectively. There was no difference in the proportion of patients who achieved the minimal clinically significant improvement in Group A versus Group B for parameters ISWT (38.6% vs 42.7%), SGRQ (27.8% vs 21.3%), and HADS total score (20.5% vs 28.1%). These data suggest that benefits of PR in COPD are not age dependent. Age should not be a barrier to enrolling patients with COPD in PR programmes

The economics of phosphorus supplementation of beef cattle grazing northern Australian rangelands

Context: Phosphorus (P) deficiency occurs in beef cattle grazing many rangeland regions with low-P soils, including in northern Australia, and may severely reduce cattle productivity in terms of growth, reproductive efficiency and mortality. However, adoption of effective P supplementation by cattle producers in northern Australia is low. This is likely to be due to lack of information and understanding of the profitability of P supplementation where cattle are P-deficient. Aims: The profitability of P supplementation was evaluated for two dissimilar regions of northern Australia, namely (1) the Katherine region of the Northern Territory, and (2) the Fitzroy Natural Resource Management (NRM) region of central Queensland. Methods: Property-level, regionally relevant herd models were used to determine whole-of-business productivity and profitability over 30 years. The estimated costs and benefits of P supplementation were obtained from collation of experimental data and expert opinion of persons with extensive experience of the industry. The economic consequences of P supplementation at the property level were assessed by comparison of base production without P supplementation with the expected production of P-supplemented herds, and included the implementation phase and changes over time in herd structure. In the Katherine region, it was assumed that the entire cattle herd (breeders and growing cattle) grazed acutely P-deficient land types and the consequences of (1) no P supplementation, or P supplementation during (2) the dry season, or (3) both the wet and dry seasons (i.e. 3 scenarios) were evaluated. In the Fitzroy NRM region, it was assumed that only the breeders grazed P-deficient land types with three categories of P deficiency (marginal, deficient and acutely deficient), each with either (1) no P supplementation, or P supplementation during (2) the wet season, (3) the dry season, or (4) both the wet and dry seasons (i.e. 12 scenarios). Key results: In the Katherine region, year-round P supplementation of the entire cattle herd (7400 adult equivalents) grazing acutely P-deficient pasture resulted in a large increase in annual business profit (+AU$500 000). Supplementing with P (and N) only in the dry season increased annual business profit by +AU$200 000. In the Fitzroy NRM region, P supplementation during any season of the breeder herd grazing deficient or acutely P-deficient pastures increased profit by +AU$2400–AU$45 000/annum (total cattle herd 1500 adult equivalents). Importantly, P supplementation during the wet season-only resulted in the greatest increases in profit within each category of P deficiency, comprising +AU$5600, AU$6300 and AU$45 000 additional profit per annum for marginal, deficient and acutely P-deficient herds respectively. Conclusions: The large economic benefits of P supplementation for northern beef enterprises estimated in the present study substantiate the current industry recommendation that effective P supplementation is highly profitable when cattle are grazing P-deficient land types. Implications: The contradiction of large economic benefits of P supplementation and the generally low adoption rates by the cattle industry in northern Australia suggests a need for targeted research and extension to identify the specific constraints to adoption, including potential high initial capital costs

Oliveros Virus: A Novel Arenavirus from Argentina

AbstractDuring the past few decades several newly recognized rodent-borne arenaviruses have been shown to be associated with severe hemorrhagic fever cases in South America. Changes in ecology and farming practices throughout the region have increased the concern over the potential public health threat posed by such emerging virus diseases. Oliveros (OLV) virus is a recently discovered arenavirus of the rodentBolomys obscurusin Argentina. Genetic analysis of the small genomic RNA segment, which encodes the nucleocapsid protein and the envelope glycoproteins, shows that Oliveros is a novel, phylogenetically distinct member of theArenaviridaefamily which differs in nucleotide sequence from the previously characterized members by approximately 35% or more. Despite this level of diversity, OLV virus possesses the same ambisense genome structure and many overall RNA and protein features in common with other arenaviruses. These data represent an important first step in the development of specific immunological and PCR diagnostic reagents to allow assessment of the prevalence and disease potential of this virus

Fundamental constraints on particle tracking with optical tweezers

A general quantum limit to the sensitivity of particle position measurements is derived following the simple principle of the Heisenberg microscope. The value of this limit is calculated for particles in the Rayleigh and Mie scattering regimes, and with parameters which are relevant to optical tweezers experiments. The minimum power required to observe the zero-point motion of a levitating bead is also calculated, with the optimal particle diameter always smaller than the wavelength. We show that recent optical tweezers experiments are within two orders of magnitude of quantum limited sensitivity, suggesting that quantum optical resources may soon play an important role in high sensitivity tracking applications

Adolescent Oxytocin Exposure Causes Persistent Reductions in Anxiety and Alcohol Consumption and Enhances Sociability in Rats

Previous studies have suggested that administration of oxytocin (OT) can have modulatory effects on social and anxiety-like behavior in mammals that may endure beyond the time of acute OT administration. The current study examined whether repeated administration of OT to male Wistar rats (n = 48) during a key developmental epoch (early adolescence) altered their physiology and behavior in later-life. Group housed rats were given intraperitoneal injections of either 1 mg/kg OT or vehicle during early adolescence (post natal-days [PND] 33–42). OT treatment caused a transient inhibition of body weight gain that recovered quickly after the cessation of treatment. At PND 50, the rats pre-treated with OT displayed less anxiety-like behavior on the emergence test, while at PND 55 they showed greater levels of social interaction. A subgroup of OT pre-treated rats examined at PND 63 showed a strong trend towards increased plasma OT levels, and also displayed significantly increased OT receptor mRNA in the hypothalamus. Rats pre-treated with OT and their controls showed similar induction of beer intake in daily 70 min test sessions (PND 63 onwards) in which the alcohol concentration of beer was gradually increased across days from 0.44% to 4.44%. However, when given ad libitum access to beer in their home cages from PND 72 onwards (early adulthood), consumption of beer but not water was significantly less in the OT pre-treated rats. A “booster” shot of OT (1 mg/kg) given after 25 days of ad libitum access to beer had a strong acute inhibitory effect on beer intake without affecting water intake. Overall these results suggest that exogenous OT administered during adolescence can have subtle yet enduring effects on anxiety, sociability and the motivation to consume alcohol. Such effects may reflect the inherent neuroplasticity of brain OT systems and a feed-forward effect whereby exogenous OT upregulates endogenous OT systems

OVI Absorption in the Milky Way Disk, and Future Prospects for Studying Absorption at the Galaxy-IGM Interface

We present a brief summary of results from our FUSE program designed to study OVI absorption in the disk of the Milky Way. As a full analysis of our data has now been published, we focus on the improvements that FUSE afforded us compared to Copernicus data published thirty years ago. We discuss FUSE's limitations in studying OVI absorption from nearby galaxies using background QSOs, but present FUSE spectra of two probes which indicate the absence of OVI (but the presence of Lyman-beta) absorption 8 and 63 kpc from a foreground galaxy. Finally, we discuss the need for a more sensitive UV spectrograph to map out the physical conditions of baryons around galaxies.Comment: Invited review to appear in the proceedings of "Future Directions in Ultraviolet Spectroscopy" meeting, held Oct 20-22, 2008, Annapolis, MD. To appear as an AIP Conference Proceedin