Encounters with whales '93 : a conference to further explore the management isues relating to human/whale interactions

Within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park there has also been an increase over the past few years in the number of tourist operators applying for permits to run commercial whale watching activities. In the Whitsunday Islands region, which is already a heavily used recreational and commercial tourism area, dedicated whale watch tours commenced in 1990 and have become more popular each year. In the southern Great Barrier Reef the island resorts among the Capricorn/Bunker Group of islands have engaged in whale watching for many years, but largely as an incidental part of their operations. An increase in the opportunities to view whales for the general public also brings with it the increased potential for harassment of these creatures. This is particularly significant when whale watching is occurring in the critical offshore breeding and nursery areas for these endangered species. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was aware of the need to discuss with other management agencies the requirement for updated guidelines for whale watching activities, together with a range of other important management issues

Social workers in community care practice: Ideologies and interactions with older people

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website through the link below. Copyright @ 2008 The Authors.Since the inception of the NHS and Community Care in 1990, there has been a proliferation of studies examining its implementation at the front line. Considerable attention has been aimed at understanding how it is that social work practitioners, charged with the responsibility to implement community care recommendations for older people, are doing so in a challenging care environment. How a practitioner's ideological frame of reference may impact on his/her practice interactions remains relatively unanswered. However, the course by which professional ideology matures and then directs practice would appear to both complex and multifaceted. The outcome is one that may render the professional both powerful and political, and one that may leave the older care recipient both vulnerable and stigmatized. This paper explores community care practice with older people, emphasizing the ideological underpinnings in practice and their influence on practice interactions. Social work practitioners working on older people's teams in two contrasting communities in England were interviewed to discuss their assessment and care management interactions with older people. Using grounded theory and Goffman's theoretical constructs within frame analysis, a conceptual model for practice emerged, reinforcing that practitioners' understandings of social events, anchored in government and professional discourse and individual perceptions about older people, enabled them to organize and influence the interaction to lead to a professionally determined outcome. The routine work of assessment and care management became very powerful in absence of strategic intention by the practitioner. A move to more strategic behaviour occurred when practice dilemmas required practitioners to intervene, informed by their professionally based values juxtaposed against those supported within official discourse. The findings provide an insight into how social work practitioners manage to deliver community care in a complex environment. The outcomes also reinforce the need for practitioners to develop an understanding of how they construct their social realities, as this may impact on the experience of community care for older people

A common neural substrate for language production and verbal working memory

Verbal working memory (VWM), the ability to maintain and manipulate representations of speech sounds over short periods, is held by some influential models to be independent from the systems responsible for language production and comprehension [e.g., Baddeley, A. D. Working memory, thought, and action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007]. We explore the alternative hypothesis that maintenance in VWM is subserved by temporary activation of the language production system [Acheson, D. J., & MacDonald, M. C. Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 50–68, 2009b]. Specifically, we hypothesized that for stimuli lacking a semantic representation (e.g., nonwords such as mun), maintenance in VWM can be achieved by cycling information back and forth between the stages of phonological encoding and articulatory planning. First, fMRI was used to identify regions associated with two different stages of language production planning: the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) for phonological encoding (critical for VWM of nonwords) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) for lexical–semantic retrieval (not critical for VWM of nonwords). Next, in the same subjects, these regions were targeted with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) during language production and VWM task performance. Results showed that rTMS to the pSTG, but not the MTG, increased error rates on paced reading (a language production task) and on delayed serial recall of nonwords (a test of VWM). Performance on a lexical–semantic retrieval task (picture naming), in contrast, was significantly sensitive to rTMS of the MTG. Because rTMS was guided by language production-related activity, these results provide the first causal evidence that maintenance in VWM directly depends on the long-term representations and processes used in speech production

A model for the break-up of a tuft of fibers

A simple model for the forces acting on a single fiber as it is withdrawn from a tangled fiber assembly is proposed. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the dynamics of the reptating fiber with respect to the entanglement of fibers within the tuft. The resulting two-parameter model captures the qualitative features of experimental simulation. The model is extended to describe the break-up of a tuft. The results show good agreement with experiment and indicate where a fiber is most likely to fracture based on the density of fiber end-points

Consciousness and cortical responsiveness: a within-state study during non-rapid eye movement sleep.

When subjects become unconscious, there is a characteristic change in the way the cerebral cortex responds to perturbations, as can be assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). For instance, compared to wakefulness, during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep TMS elicits a larger positive-negative wave, fewer phase-locked oscillations, and an overall simpler response. However, many physiological variables also change when subjects go from wake to sleep, anesthesia, or coma. To avoid these confounding factors, we focused on NREM sleep only and measured TMS-evoked EEG responses before awakening the subjects and asking them if they had been conscious (dreaming) or not. As shown here, when subjects reported no conscious experience upon awakening, TMS evoked a larger negative deflection and a shorter phase-locked response compared to when they reported a dream. Moreover, the amplitude of the negative deflection-a hallmark of neuronal bistability according to intracranial studies-was inversely correlated with the length of the dream report (i.e., total word count). These findings suggest that variations in the level of consciousness within the same physiological state are associated with changes in the underlying bistability in cortical circuits

Are the neural correlates of consciousness in the front or in the back of the cerebral cortex? Clinical and neuroimaging evidence

The role of the frontal cortex in consciousness remains a matter of debate. In this Perspective, we will critically review the clinical and neuroimaging evidence for the involvement of the front versus the back of the cortex in specifying conscious contents and discuss promising research avenues

Metabolism of a synthetic compared with a natural therapeutic pulmonary surfactant in adult mice

Secreted pulmonary surfactant phosphatidylcholine (PC) has a complex intra-alveolar metabolism that involves uptake and recycling by alveolar type II epithelial cells, catabolism by alveolar macrophages, and loss up the bronchial tree. We compared the in vivo metabolism of animal-derived poractant alfa (Curosurf) and a synthetic surfactant (CHF5633) in adult male C57BL/6 mice. The mice were dosed intranasally with either surfactant (80 mg/kg body weight) containing universally 13C-labeled dipalmitoyl PC (DPPC) as a tracer. The loss of [U13C]DPPC from bronchoalveolar lavage and lung parenchyma, together with the incorporation of 13C-hydrolysis fragments into new PC molecular species, was monitored by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. The catabolism of CHF5633 was considerably delayed compared with poractant alfa, the hydrolysis products of which were cleared more rapidly. There was no selective resynthesis of DPPC and, strikingly, acyl remodeling resulted in preferential synthesis of polyunsaturated PC species. In conclusion, both surfactants were metabolized by similar pathways, but the slower catabolism of CHF5633 resulted in longer residence time in the airways and enhanced recycling of its hydrolysis products into new PC species

A randomized controlled trial of nebulized surfactant for the treatment of severe COVID-19 in adults (COVSurf trial)

SARS-CoV-2 directly targets alveolar epithelial cells and can lead to surfactant deficiency. Early reports suggested surfactant replacement may be effective in improving outcomes. The aim of the study to assess the feasibility and efficacy of nebulized surfactant in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients. Patients were randomly assigned to receive open-labelled bovine nebulized surfactant or control (ratio 3-surfactant: 2-control). This was an exploratory dose–response study starting with 1080 mg of surfactant delivered at 3 time points (0, 8 and 24 h). After completion of 10 patients, the dose was reduced to 540 mg, and the frequency of nebulization was increased to 5/6 time points (0, 12, 24, 36, 48, and an optional 72 h) on the advice of the Trial Steering Committee. The co-primary outcomes were improvement in oxygenation (change in PaO2/FiO2 ratio) and ventilation index at 48 h. 20 patients were recruited (12 surfactant and 8 controls). Demographic and clinical characteristics were similar between groups at presentation. Nebulized surfactant administration was feasible. There was no significant improvement in oxygenation at 48 h overall. There were also no differences in secondary outcomes or adverse events. Nebulized surfactant administration is feasible in mechanically ventilated patients with COVID-19 but did not improve measures of oxygenation or ventilation

Unexpected depletion in plasma choline and phosphatidylcholine concentrations in a pregnant woman with bipolar affective disorder being treated with lithuim, haloperidol and benztropine: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Patients with bipolar affective disorder can be effectively managed with pharmacological intervention. This case report describes a pregnant woman with a ten-year history of bipolar affective disorder that was being treated with lithium, haloperidol and benztropine.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>The patient had a normal pregnancy, but developed an elevated blood pressure and started to lose weight at 36 weeks of gestation. During pregnancy, plasma concentrations of choline and phosphatidylcholine are increased to meet the demands of the foetus. However, our findings in this case included depletion of plasma choline and phosphatidylcholine concentrations. Other unusual outcomes included low placental weight and low infant birth weight.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This report suggests that the pharmacological management of this patient could possibly account for the findings.</p