Symptom appraisal in uncertainty: A theory-driven thematic analysis with survivors of childhood cancer

Objective: Somatic symptoms capture attention, demand interpretation, and promote health behaviors. Symptom appraisal is particularly impactful within uncertain health contexts such as cancer survivorship. Yet, little is known about how individuals make sense of somatic symptoms within uncertain health contexts, nor how this process guides health behaviors. Design: 25 adolescent and young adult survivors of childhood cancer completed semi-structured interviews regarding how they appraise and respond to changing somatic sensations within the uncertain context of survivorship. Main Outcome Measures: Interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to a hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis, guided by the Cancer Threat Interpretation model. Results: Theme 1 (‘symptoms as signals of bodily threat’) captured that participants commonly interpret everyday sensations as indicating cancer recurrence or new illness. Theme 2 (‘playing detective with bodily signals’) captured the cognitive and behavioral strategies that participants described using to determine whether somatic sensations indicated a health threat. These two themes are qualified by the recognition that post-cancer symptoms are wily and influenced by psychological factors such as anxiety (Theme 3: ‘living with symptom-related uncertainty’). Conclusions: These data highlight the need for novel symptom management approaches that target how somatic sensations are appraised and responded to as signals of bodily threat.<br/

Odor and Odorous Chemical Emissions from Animal Buildings: Part 5—Correlations between Odor Intensities and Chemical Concentrations (gc-ms/o)

Simultaneous chemical and sensory analysis based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC-MS-O) of air samples from livestock operations is a very useful approach for quantification of target odorous gases and also for ranking of odorous compounds. This information can help link specific gases to odor, that can assist in solving farm odor problems and in evaluating of odor mitigation technologies. In this study, we applied the fundamental Weber-Fechner law to correlate the odor intensity and odorous chemical concentration for 15 individual target compounds (from GC-MS-O) for the gas samples collected from four livestock facilities (dairy barns in Wisconsin and Indiana and swine barns in Iowa and Indiana) over a one year period. The results showed that most of the correlations between odor intensities and chemical concentrations for the 15 odorous VOCs sampled fit well with the Weber-Fechner law and had correlation coefficient (R2) greater than 0.65, with R2s of 0.84, 0.83, and 0.82 for 4-methylphenol, 3-methylbutanoic acid, and 3-methylindole, respectively. The odorous compounds with higher mean odor activity value (OAV) values fit better with the Weber-Fechner law whereas the odorous compounds with lower mean OAV values resulted in relatively poor R2 values to the relatively large variations for odor intensities obtained from GC-MS/O for these compounds with low concentrations. The correlations for odorous compounds between odor intensities and chemical concentrations for swine sites were much better than that for dairy sites. R2s for eight out of fifteen compounds for the two swine sites were greater than 0.60 whereas only one R2 (butyric acid) was greater than 0.60 for two dairy sites

Imagined Bodies: architects and their constructions of later life

This article comprises a sociological analysis of how architects imagine the ageing body when designing residential care homes for later life and the extent to which they engage empathetically with users. Drawing on interviews with architectural professionals based in the United Kingdom, we offer insight into the ways in which architects envisage the bodies of those who they anticipate will populate their buildings. Deploying the notions of ‘body work’ and ‘the body multiple’, our analysis reveals how architects imagined a variety of bodies in nuanced ways. These imagined bodies emerge as they talked through the practicalities of the design process. Moreover, their conceptions of bodies were also permeated by prevailing ideologies of caring: although we found that they sought to resist dominant discourses of ageing, they nevertheless reproduced these discourses. Architects’ constructions of bodies are complicated by the collaborative nature of the design process, where we find an incessant juggling between the competing demands of multiple stakeholders, each of whom anticipate other imagined bodies and seek to shape the design of buildings to meet their requirements. Our findings extend a nascent sociological literature on architecture and social care by revealing how architects participate in the shaping of care for later life as ‘body workers’, but also how their empathic aspirations can be muted by other imperatives driving the marketisation of care

Odor and Odorous Chemical Emissions from Animal Buildings: Part 5. Simultaneous Chemical and Sensory Analysis with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Olfactometry

Simultaneous chemical and sensory analyses using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC-MS-O) for air samples collected at barn exhaust fans were used for quantification and ranking of the odor impacts of target odorous gases. Fifteen target odorous VOCs (odorants) were selected. Air samples were collected at dairy barns in Wisconsin and Indiana and at swine barns in Iowa and Indiana over a one-year period. The livestock facilities with these barns participated in the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study (NAEMS). Gas concentrations, odor character and intensity, hedonic tone, and odor peak area of the target odorants in air samples were measured simultaneously with GC-MS-O. The four individual odorants emitted from both dairy and swine sites with the largest odor impacts (measured as odor activity value, OAV) were 4-methyl phenol, butanoic acid, 3-methyl butanoic acid, and indole. The total odor (limited to target VOCs and referred to as the measured concentrations, odor intensities, and OAVs) emitted from the swine sites was generally greater than that from the dairy sites. The Weber-Fechner law was used to correlate measured odor intensities with chemical concentrations. Odorants with higher mean OAV followed the Weber-Fechner law much better than odorants with lower mean OAV. The correlations between odor intensities and chemical concentrations were much better for the swine sites (typically p \u3c 0.05 and R2 = 0.16 to 0.51) than for the dairy sites (typically p \u3e 0.05 and R2 \u3c 0.15). Linking specific gases to odor could assist in the development and evaluation of odor mitigation technologies for solving livestock odor nuisance problems

A landscape-scale, applied fire management experiment promotes recovery of a population of the threatened Gouldian Finch, Erythrura gouldiae, in Australia\u27s tropical savannas

Fire is an integral part of savanna ecology and changes in fire patterns are linked to biodiversity loss in savannas worldwide. In Australia, changed fire regimes are implicated in the contemporary declines of small mammals, riparian species, obligate-seeding plants and grass seed-eating birds. Translating this knowledge into management to recover threatened species has proved elusive. We report here on a landscape-scale experiment carried out by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) on Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary in northwest Australia. The experiment was designed to understand the response of a key savanna bird guild to fire, and to use that information to manage fire with the aim of recovering a threatened species population. We compared condition indices among three seed-eating bird species-one endangered (Gouldian finch) and two non-threatened (long-tailed finch and double-barred finch)-from two large areas (&gt; 2,830 km2) with initial contrasting fire regimes (\u27extreme\u27: frequent, extensive, intense fire; versus \u27benign\u27: less frequent, smaller, lower intensity fires). Populations of all three species living with the extreme fire regime had condition indices that differed from their counterparts living with the benign fire regime, including higher haematocrit levels in some seasons (suggesting higher levels of activity required to find food), different seasonal haematocrit profiles, higher fat scores in the early wet season (suggesting greater food uncertainty), and then lower muscle scores later in the wet season (suggesting prolonged food deprivation). Gouldian finches also showed seasonally increasing stress hormone concentrations with the extreme fire regime. Cumulatively, these patterns indicated greater nutritional stress over many months for seed-eating birds exposed to extreme fire regimes. We tested these relationships by monitoring finch condition over the following years, as AWC implemented fire management to produce the \u27benign\u27 fire regime throughout the property. The condition indices of finch populations originally living with the extreme fire regime shifted to resemble those of their counterparts living with the benign fire regime. This research supports the hypothesis that fire regimes affect food resources for savanna seed-eating birds, with this impact mediated through a range of grass species utilised by the birds over different seasons, and that fire management can effectively moderate that impact. This work provides a rare example of applied research supporting the recovery of a population of a threatened species

Odor and Odorous Chemical Emissions from Animal Buildings: Part 1. Project Overview, Collection Methods, and Quality Control

Livestock facilities have historically generated public concerns due to their emissions of odorous air and various chemical pollutants. Odor emission factors and identification of principal odorous chemicals are needed to better understand the problem. Applications of odor emission factors include inputs to odor setback models, while chemical emission factors may be compared with regulation thresholds as a means of demonstrating potential health impacts. A companion study of the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study (NAEMS) included measurements necessary for establishing odor and chemical emission factors for confined animal feeding operations. This additional investigation was conducted by the University of Minnesota, Iowa State University, West Texas A&M Agri-Life Center, and Purdue University. The objectives were to (1) determine odor emission rates across swine and dairy facilities and seasons using common protocols and standardized olfactometry methods, (2) develop a chemical library of the most significant odorants, and (3) correlate the chemical library with the olfactometry results. This document describes the sampling and quality assurance methods used in the measurement and evaluation of odor and chemical samples collected at two freestall dairy farms, one sow (gestation/farrowing) facility, and one finishing pig site. Odor samples were collected in Tedlar bags and chemical samples were collected in sorbent tubes at barn inlet and exhaust locations using the NAEMS multiple-location gas sampling systems. Quality assurance protocols included interlaboratory comparison tests, which were evaluated to identify variations between olfactometry labs. While differences were observed, the variations among the labs and samples appeared random and the collected odor data were considered reliable at a 0.5% level of statistical significance. Overall, the study took advantage of groundbreaking opportunities to collect and associate simultaneous odor and chemical information from swine and dairy buildings while maintaining accordance with standard methods and comparability across laboratories

Characterization and Quantification of Livestock Odorants using Sorbent Tube Sampling and Thermal Desorption coupled with Multidimensional Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry–Olfactometry (TD-MDGC-MS-O)

Characterization and quantification of livestock odorants is one of the most challenging analytical tasks because odor-causing gases are very reactive, polar and often present at very low concentrations in a complex matrix of less important or irrelevant gases. The objectives of this research is to develop a novel analytical method for characterization of the livestock odorants including their odor character, odor intensity, and hedonic tone and further quantitative analysis of the key odorants responsible for livestock odor emissions. Sorbent tubes packed with Tenax TA were employed for sampling. The automated one-step thermal desorption coupled with multidimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry system was developed for simultaneous chemical and odor analysis. Fifteen odorants identified from different livestock species operations are quantified. In addition, odor character, odor intensity and hedonic tone associated with each of the target compounds are also analyzed. The method developed in this research is being used on a multistate, multispecies project focused on quantifying odor and chemical analysis of odor