4 research outputs found

    More than smell - COVID-19 is associated with severe impairment of smell, taste, and chemesthesis

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    Recent anecdotal and scientific reports have provided evidence of a link between COVID-19 and chemosensory impairments, such as anosmia. However, these reports have downplayed or failed to distinguish potential effects on taste, ignored chemesthesis, and generally lacked quantitative measurements. Here, we report the development, implementation, and initial results of a multilingual, international questionnaire to assess self-reported quantity and quality of perception in 3 distinct chemosensory modalities (smell, taste, and chemesthesis) before and during COVID-19. In the first 11 days after questionnaire launch, 4039 participants (2913 women, 1118 men, and 8 others, aged 19-79) reported a COVID-19 diagnosis either via laboratory tests or clinical assessment. Importantly, smell, taste, and chemesthetic function were each significantly reduced compared to their status before the disease. Difference scores (maximum possible change ±100) revealed a mean reduction of smell (-79.7 ± 28.7, mean ± standard deviation), taste (-69.0 ± 32.6), and chemesthetic (-37.3 ± 36.2) function during COVID-19. Qualitative changes in olfactory ability (parosmia and phantosmia) were relatively rare and correlated with smell loss. Importantly, perceived nasal obstruction did not account for smell loss. Furthermore, chemosensory impairments were similar between participants in the laboratory test and clinical assessment groups. These results show that COVID-19-associated chemosensory impairment is not limited to smell but also affects taste and chemesthesis. The multimodal impact of COVID-19 and the lack of perceived nasal obstruction suggest that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus strain 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may disrupt sensory-neural mechanisms. © 2020 The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved

    Comparison of the efficiency of various substrates in growing vertically aligned carbon nanotube carpets

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    The intensity of 9Be + p nuclear fusion reactions was experimentally studied during second harmonic (2ω CH) ion-cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) and further analyzed during fundamental hydrogen minority ICRH of JET-ILW hydrogen and deuterium plasmas. In relatively low-density plasmas with a high ICRH power, a population of fast H+ ions was created and measured by neutral particle analyzers. Primary and secondary nuclear reaction products, due to 9Be + p interaction, were observed with fast ion loss detectors, γ-ray spectrometers and neutron flux monitors and spectrometers. The possibility of using 9Be(p, d)2α and 9Be(p, α)6Li nuclear reactions to create a population of fast alpha particles and study their behaviour in non-active stage of ITER operation is discussed in the paper

    Erosion and deposition in the JET divertor during the second ITER-like wall campaign

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    Erosion of plasma-facing materials and successive transport and redeposition of eroded material are crucial processes determining the lifetime of plasma-facing components and the trapped tritium inventory in redeposited material layers. Erosion and deposition in the JET divertor were studied during the second JET ITER-like wall campaign ILW-2 in 2013-2014 by using a poloidal row of specially prepared divertor marker tiles including the tungsten bulk tile 5. The marker tiles were analyzed using elastic backscattering with 3-4.5 MeV incident protons and nuclear reaction analysis using 0.8-4.5 MeV 3He ions before and after the campaign. The erosion/deposition pattern observed during ILW-2 is qualitatively comparable to the first campaign ILW-1 in 2011-2012: deposits consist mainly of beryllium with 5-20 at.% of carbon and oxygen and small amounts of Ni and W. The highest deposition with deposited layer thicknesses up to 30 μm per campaign is still observed on the upper and horizontal parts of the inner divertor. Outer divertor tiles 5, 6, 7 and 8 are net W erosion areas. The observed D inventory is roughly comparable to the inventory observed during ILW-1. The results obtained during ILW-2 therefore confirm the positive results observed in ILW-1 with respect to reduced material deposition and hydrogen isotopes retention in the divertor

    Tractable flux-driven temperature, density, and rotation profile evolution with the quasilinear gyrokinetic transport model QuaLiKiz

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    Quasilinear turbulent transport models are a successful tool for prediction of core tokamak plasma profiles in many regimes. Their success hinges on the reproduction of local nonlinear gyrokinetic fluxes. We focus on significant progress in the quasilinear gyrokinetic transport model QuaLiKiz (Bourdelle et al 2016 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 58 014036), which employs an approximated solution of the mode structures to significantly speed up computation time compared to full linear gyrokinetic solvers. Optimisation of the dispersion relation solution algorithm within integrated modelling applications leads to flux calculations faster than local nonlinear simulations. This allows tractable simulation of flux-driven dynamic profile evolution including all transport channels: ion and electron heat, main particles, impurities, and momentum. Furthermore, QuaLiKiz now includes the impact of rotation and temperature anisotropy induced poloidal asymmetry on heavy impurity transport, important for W-transport applications. Application within the JETTO integrated modelling code results in 1 s of JET plasma simulation within 10 h using 10 CPUs. Simultaneous predictions of core density, temperature, and toroidal rotation profiles for both JET hybrid and baseline experiments are presented, covering both ion and electron turbulence scales. The simulations are successfully compared to measured profiles, with agreement mostly in the 5%-25% range according to standard figures of merit. QuaLiKiz is now open source and available at www.qualikiz.com
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