Reproducibility of the bronchoconstrictive response to eucapnic voluntary hyperpnoea

Background: Eucapnic voluntary hyperpnoea (EVH) is considered an effective bronchoprovocation challenge for identifying exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB). However, the reproducibility of the hyperpnoea-induced bronchoconstriction (HIB) response elicited by EVH remains unknown and was therefore the focus of this study. Methods: Two cohorts of 16 physically active males (each cohort comprised 8 controls and 8 with physician diagnosis of asthma) participated in two studies of the short- and long-term reproducibility of the bronchoconstrictive response to an EVH test with dry air. EVH was performed on days 0, 7, 14, and 21 (short-term study), and 0, 35, and 70 (long-term study). HIB was diagnosed by a ≥10% fall in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) after EVH. Results: On day 0 of the short-term study, FEV1 fell by 2 ± 1% (P < 0.05) and 27 ± 18% (P < 0.01) from pre-to post-EVH in control and HIB-positive groups respectively. The post-EVH fall in FEV1 did not differ across the short-term study test days. In the HIB-positive group, the day-to-day coefficient of variation, reproducibility, and smallest meaningful change for the fall in FEV1 were 12%, 328 mL, and 164 mL, respectively. On day 0 of the long-term study, FEV1 fell by 2 ± 2% and 25 ± 18% (P < 0.01) after EVH in control and HIB-positive groups respectively. The post-EVH fall in FEV1 did not differ across the long-term study test days. In the HIB-positive group, the day-to-day coefficient of variation, reproducibility, and smallest meaningful change for the fall in FEV1 were 10%, 196 mL, and 98 mL respectively. Conclusion: The EVH test elicits a reproducible bronchoconstrictive response in physically active males with physician diagnosed asthma. These data thus support the clinical utility of the EVH test for EIB screening and monitoring

Henry James and the China Trade

Henry James is not usually read as having much to do with China or transpacific commerce. However, his writing reflects a sustained awareness of the early nineteenth-century China trade’s effect on the visual and cultural landscape of New England where the first American millionaires deposited fortunes amassed in a world system of commerce. References to the China Trade resonate in James’s intensely visual literary style through which he verbally sketches social landscapes that convey an aura of national culture. These social landscapes eventually register his deep alienation in regard to the moral implication of American fortunes.published_or_final_versio

Fire history of the northern part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its associated regions

Fire history (from the 1820s to 2000) in the northern quarter of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its associated regions is discussed in this paper. This area includes Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Granite Tor Conservation Area, Walls of Jerusalem National Park and the Central Plateau Conservation Area west of Great Lake. In common with fire history in southwest Tasmania, there have been major changes in fire regimes during the last 180 years, with major fires in the 1890s (most probably in 1896-97 or 1897-98 or both) and the 1930s (most probably in 1933-34). However, in contrast to southwest Tasmania, there were major fires until the early 1960s: in the early 1950s in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and Granite Tor Conservation Area, and in 1960-61 in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park and the Central Plateau Conservation Area. Between the 1930s and 1960s over 40% of the study area or about 129 000 ha was burnt. About half of the study area's fire-sensitive vegetation (i.e., alpine, subalpine heath, subalpine rainforest, rainforest and native conifer) was burnt in these fires. The last of these fires - the 1960-61 Central Plateau fire was the biggest and most destructive fire in the World Heritage Area since the 1930s. Less than 3% of the study area was burnt between 1970 and 2000

Learning about sex: Results from Natsal 2000.

11-13 September 2002

Ecological observations and new locations of a rare moss Ambuchanania leucobryoides (Ambuchananiaceae)

Ambuchanania leucobryoides is a moss listed as rare under the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995. It is endemic to Tasmania and is monotypic at the genus and family levels. It is sister group to the widespread and speciose genus Sphagnum. In 2008, a survey funded by the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Program (Department of Primary Industries and Water) established the exact location of the A. leucobryoides type locality and extended the known range of the moss. The moss is now known from three locations in southwest Tasmania and has a range of 1272 km. It occurs in sandy washes or “daisy pans” derived from Precambrian quartzite

The speculative romance of early Sino-American commerce in the journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the first American Consul at Canton (1847)

Session 3: Cultural Aura of Commercepostprin