Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Navy Clear on Causes of Physiological Events in Pilots; Final Recommendations Released for PE Mitigation – USNI News

Lt. Joshua Chester, a Navy pilot from Corton, West Virginia, poses in front of an F/A-18E Super Hornet, assigned to the Sunliners of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 81 on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in the Atlantic Ocean. US Navy Photo

The Navy now understands what has been causing physiological events in aviators which spiked so sharply in 2017 that flight instructors refused to get into their jets to train new student pilots with a recently completed root cause analysis pointing to a complex relationship between aircrew, their flight gear and their aircraft.

Rear Adm. Fredrick Luchtman, the commander of the Naval Safety Center and the lead of the Physiological Episodes Action Team (PEAT), told reporters today that two root cause corrective action (RCCA) teams one looking at the T-45 Goshawk trainer jet and one looking at the F-18 family of fighters had completed their work in December and briefed naval aviation leaders in February on their findings. The teams spent three years and $50 million on this work, drafting more than 8,000 pages of technical documentation and proposing combined 567 recommendations for how to keep pilots and weapons officers safer in the cockpit in the future.

Ultimately, the teams found that there was no simple fix. Despite early theories, the PEs werent caused by contaminated air, a lack of oxygen or systems not designed well enough to keep humans safe in harsh environments.

The bad news is that theres no single causal factor that leads to physiological events, Luchtman told reporters today, though he noted that a string of pilot programs and early mitigation efforts to tackle contributing factors have already resulted in a 96-percent decrease in the PE rate in the T-45 fleet, and a 74-percent reduction in the PE rate in the F-18 fleet since 2017.

Physiological events fall in two main categories: those related to oxygen in the air, and those related to air pressure. Luchtman said its not as simple as the systems that control these two factors not working; rather, breathing concentrated oxygen in a small cockpit with restrictive flight gear is hard on the body, and something as simple as a mask not fitting quite right could lead to PE symptoms.

Though physiological episodes have long existed, Luchtman said with symptoms ranging from headaches to tingly fingers to dizziness to loss of consciousness around 2010 the naval aviation community started to see a rise in PEs believed to be related to aircraft malfunctions. That combination of a physiological episode related to an aircraft malfunction was dubbed a physiological event Luchtman noted and apologized for the confusion between the names of physiological episodes and the subcategory of physiological events. In 2017, physiological events skyrocketed with T-45s reaching their highest PE rates in March and F-18s in November.

After a comprehensive review was released in June 2017 and the RCCA teams were created shortly after, early theories emerged. One was that pilots were breathing in contaminated air from the Onboard Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS).

It was an early theory, its a valid theory and we needed to address it. And contamination could be a logical theory in both those aircraft, so we addressed it with both root cause corrective action teams. The bottom line is that the teams took over 21,000 samples of air from naval aircraft over the course of 20 months, and there were compounds identified, as you can imagine, but they were in such small amounts that a team of medical doctors and toxicologists concluded that the presence of those compounds in those amounts would not result in physiological symptoms, Luchtman said.

Sailors assigned to Aviation Survival Training Command, Norfolk operate a normobaric hypoxia trainer (NHT). An NHT allows for safer hypoxia training for pilots and aircrewman while providing a more realistic experience on Jan. 27, 2020. US Navy Photo

To be sure, the Navy asked a team from Johns Hopkins University to review the data, and they agreed: the air provided by Navy onboard oxygen generating systems, which we abbreviate OBOGS, is and was extremely clean, Luchtman said.

Another early theory was that aircrews werent getting enough oxygen, leading to hypoxia.

We took a hard, hard look at that, and after extensive testing this theory has been disproven, the rear admiral said.

A final theory questioned the basic design of OBOGS and the Environmental Control System (ECS) that controls air pressure in the F-18 cabin, suggesting that the systems were not suitable to protect human health while the jets flew challenging flight profiles. Luchtman said the testing proved the two systems were robust.

So what was causing the hundreds of PEs naval aviators reported?

On the F-18s the legacy F/A-18A-D Hornets, the newer F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and the electronic warfare EA-18G Growlers Luchtman said both oxygen- and pressure-related PEs had been occurring.

On the oxygen side, the air produced by OBOGS was found to be clean, and though aviators showed symptoms of hypoxia, it turned out they didnt actually have hypoxia where the bodys tissues are deprived of sufficient oxygen.

Instead, even under benign conditions, the act of breathing highly concentrated air from a closed-loop system while encumbered by bulky flight gear in a cramped cockpit is not easy. And in the dynamic environment of a fighter cockpit, we also add to the equation temperature variance, exposure to continual changes in Gs and pressure, all while managing an overwhelming amount of sensory input. All this amounts to increased what we call work of breathing. Over time, increased levels of work of breathing can lead to fatigue and changes in breathing patterns, leading to inefficient gas exchange, and many of those symptoms look a lot like hypoxia, he said.

Aviation Structural Mechanic 3rd Class Jeffery Hendricks removes a screw from an Onboard Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) while performing special maintenance in the airframes shop aboard the Nimitz-Class nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) on Jan. 5, 2008. US Navy photo.

Further, the F-18 RCCA team found that work of breathing could also be affected by improperly fit or worn flight gear, malfunctions in the oxygen mask, and malfunctions of the OBOGS unit itself, Luchtman added. Though OBOGS has an alert system to warn pilots if it malfunctions, there is no such alert for flight gear and masks that dont fit, arent being worn properly or have experienced some kind of malfunction. Luchtman said efforts to create some kind of gear alert system are immature at this point, but that the Navy is trying to explore this avenue to protect pilots against failures in the gear meant to protect their bodies.

In the meantime, based on everything weve learned about human physiology through research and testing, many of our training syllabi are under modification to address some of those shortfalls in training related to the flight gear and masks including a course that would teach maintainers how to properly pack parachutes and other gear with PE-avoidance in mind.

On the air pressure side, which Luchtman said tends to cause more severe PEs, the OBOGS design was fine, but components of it had been failing and causing pressure anomalies that might not affect some aircrew but did cause PE symptoms in others.

On the legacy Hornets, the Navy set strict limits on how long OBOGS components can be used in an aircraft before being replaced and mandated periodic inspections. Luchtman said this was the single most important thing the Navy did for legacy Hornets, leading to an 88-percent reduction in pressure-related PEs. Similar component replacement requirements have been put in place for the Super Hornets and Growlers, and the admiral said that redesign efforts are ongoing for many of the components the two most important being the primary and secondary bleed air valves to create new parts that are more reliable and can go longer between replacement.

He praised Naval Air Systems Command for sending aircrew up with a small slam stick to record air pressure, which after flights was downloaded and paired with aircraft maintenance data. Through data analytics, he said, NAVAIR has created a Hornet Health Assessment Readiness Tool (HhART) that can now identify components that are sub-performing and flag them for replacement before a failure and possible a PE ever occur.

Think of the significance of that: that is a tremendous paradigm shift in the way we do maintenance, we can actually identify parts that are sub-performing, replace those parts and prevent the PE from ever happening, he said.

Since the HhART pilot program kicked off in January 2019, pressure-related PEs in F-18s overall are down 80 percent.

Finally, he said, the F-18 RCCA team looked at aeromedical factors such as dehydration, fatigue, diet, hypoglycemia, stress, physical conditioning and more.

A T-45C Goshawk training aircraft assigned to Training Air Wing (TW) 2 lands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) in the Atlantic Ocean on Dec. 9, 2019. US Navy Photo

We shouldnt be surprised that if you go flying dehydrated and youre breathing dry air from our OBOGS concentrator, that youre not going to feel well after awhile, Luchtman said.

On the T-45 side, Luchtman said the RCCA team came closer to a single root cause: with the PEs primarily being oxygen-related rather than pressure-related, the team narrowed in on the airflow from the engine to the OBOGS and then into the cockpit. While the air coming out of OBOGS was clean, in some flight profiles the engine wasnt putting out much air, meaning the OBOGS wasnt taking in much air to purify, and therefore the aircrewtemporarilywerent getting as much air out of OBOGS.

In two relatively simple changes, the RCCA team recommended straightening out what had been an angled pipe to bring air from the engine to the OBOGS, increasing overall air flow, as well as altering the engine to increase the rotations per minute so it would spin faster and provide more air to OBOGS.

Those two things, along with implementation of an ECS hygiene inspection regimen, has resulted in a 96-percent reduction in the PE rate across the T-45 fleet since its peak rate in March of 2017. So I think thats actually a pretty good news story, he said.

Despite the significant decreases in PEs since 2017, they havent ceased altogether. Luchtman told USNI News that between October 2019 and the end of May the first eight months of Fiscal Year 2020 the Navy had seen 27 PEs across all Navy aircraft types. Just one of those was in the T-45, with 20 coming from F-18s and six coming from other kinds of non-fighter aircraft.

This compares to 35 PEs in T-45s in FY 2016, 31 in 2017, six in 2018 and one in the first half of 2019, USNI News previously reported. In the F-18s, there had been 87 PEs in FY 2016, 73 in 2017, 65 in 2018, and 41 in the first half of FY 2019.

To continue working to eliminate PEs, Luchtman said several initiatives are ongoing. The PE Action Team, which he led for two years previously out of Arlington, Va., was recently pulled under the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va. The relocated office has continued funding for several initiatives, he said.

Cmdr. Leslie Mintz, executive officer of the Blacklions of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 213, inspects an F/A-18F Super Hornet prior to her flight on board Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., on Feb 28, 2019. US Navy Photo

Soon the Navy will install a Cockpit Pressure and OBOGS Monitoring System (CPOMS) into all F-18s more than 1,000 jets, USNI News has previously reported which will record oxygen concentration levels and pressurization data from cockpit and alert air crew if either level is off.

Luchtman told USNI News in an interview last year that CPOMS involves some pretty significant engineering modification to the aircraft. That will be done by professionals from Boeing, and its going to take 10 to 14 days per aircraft, times over 1,000 aircraft. Weve never done anything of that scale before.

Additionally, a Life Support Systems Integration for the F-18s will include a new OBOGS concentrator, as well as the ability to electronically schedule oxygen delivery to the aircrew based on their altitude a capability the Navy wanted before but hadnt been able to achieve. LSSI, which will also bring additional data recording capabilities, is still several years from being operational.

On the T-45s, the OBOGS will get a new concentrator, though Luchtman said that was more of a routine modernization project rather than an attempt to address a specific PE concern. To address PEs, though, an automatic backup system will be installed where, if oxygen levels dip below a certain threshold, a liquid oxygen bottle will spray a bit of 100-percent oxygen into the cockpit for the aircrew.

Luchtman said Navy leadership has been very supportive of this effort and has fully funded all these modifications.

He added that at least 30 more studies are in the hopper for the Navy to continue to better understand aeromedical factors, and that hopefully monitoring systems could be developed to help aircrew identify when they may be on the cusp of a PE and prevent it from happening in the first place.

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Navy Clear on Causes of Physiological Events in Pilots; Final Recommendations Released for PE Mitigation - USNI News

Physiology

How to help your chickens beat the heat in summer – The Poultry Site

Last year we experienced record-breaking temperatures across the UK, peaking in Faversham, Kent at 35.3oC. With the expected rise in global temperatures those sweltering summer months could be beyond our current means of coping with the heat. Every summer we experience days when just spending a few minutes in a poultry house feels unbearable, and for many broilers reaching the end of the cycle it is with mortality soaring. Thankfully the poultry industry has made a great deal of progress in the area of ventilation and cooling. As chickens are reared in hot countries such as Saudi Arabia, the technology to deal with temperatures in excess of 40oC has already been well tested.

Chickens, in general, can cope with high temperatures. The domestic fowl has a healthy body temperature of between 40C and 41.7oC, chicks under three weeks of age being at the lower end. With the birds metabolism being quite high, its ability to lose heat is imperative and it does this by radiation, conduction and the evaporation of water. Chicks, being small, have a high surface area in comparison to their body mass, which means heat is lost from the body relatively easily; as the bird increases in size this ratio changes, though, and for the hefty 3kg broiler radiation of heat via the skin is not going to be enough to keep its temperature down.

When radiation is insufficient you will see other behaviours presented: the bird will increase its surface area by lifting its wings, exposing the less feathered parts of its body; the flock will also try to move to a cooler area, away from the heat source, perhaps into the shade; or the birds will clear soil and litter away to make a cool depression.

Heat loss via conduction can only occur if the chicken is in direct contact with a substance that is cooler than itself. This could be the ground, as seen in the hollow-digging behaviour. In the main, though, conduction will occur in a well-ventilated area where the skin can contact cooler air.

Evaporation is the final key to cooling off. Like other animals that lack sweat glands, chickens main evaporative apparatus is the respiratory system and they will typically pant once temperatures become uncomfortable. Panting uses a lot of energy; this will be reflected in an increase in food consumption once the temperature starts moving toward 30oC.

Knowing how the physiology of the bird handles excess heat enables us to design environments and conditions that will support chickens in keeping cool. Space is an essential element when birds need to radiate heat, and therefore stocking densities should be reduced in the summer months. On a still day in naturally ventilated housing, you only have convection to pull the air across your birds and that is a fine balance steep roofs and tall chimneys will help increase air speed and throughput. You must maintain a minimum of ventilation rate at all times, and this can be calculated using feed consumption as a baseline, plus other factors including physiology of the birds and humidity.

Heat management in extensive systems is less of an issue, but a simple provision of shade and access to water will help tremendously. If local planning will allow, use light-coloured roofing materials. Its tricky but if you can check air speed in the house you will find that there is an optimum amount of inlet area to outlet. Too much inlet area can slow air movement in the house, so aim for a 1:1 ratio for inlet to outlet area as a guide. In a naturally ventilated building, consider placing the whole building in the shade of trees or orienting it so the sun is not blazing down on the broadside at noon. Where a source of power is available, place circulating fans around the house to get the air moving. Its important to stress that still air is a killer even in slightly elevated temperatures.

Another key element of hot-weather management is keeping the birds calm, so stick to your normal routine and avoid entering the house at the hottest part of the day. Activities such as weighing birds, routine maintenance and depletion should be postponed or relegated to early mornings.

Once you move into the realm of intensive production and complete environmental control, get it right and its plain sailing. Tweak a few buttons and gauges and the environment within the building can be optimised regardless of conditions outside. Get it wrong, though, and you could literally lose your entire flock through heat exhaustion and suffocation.

Modern intensive poultry farmers have a whole range of technologies and management tools they can use to mitigate the harshest of climatic conditions. Its important to start with the physiology and behaviour of the chicken. We can assist the chicken in optimising its body temperature by either supplying air at the right temperature or by enabling the chicken to effectively control its body temperature a combination of both will move us toward the most efficient system.

Air cooling is not widely used in the UK as it is very expensive. Air can be cooled by introducing cold water via a fine spray into the air inlet. This in principle sounds ideal; in reality there is a very fine balance between cooling the air sufficiently and not increasing the humidity to a point whereby the chickens are unable to effectively respire water away from themselves and consequently are unable to cool down. Increased humidity can also lead to an increase in moulds throughout the housing and a deterioration in the fabric of the building. Increasing the airs humidity also increases its mass, meaning that it will tend to hang around the birds rather than being lifted away from them. A better system is one in which air passes through a cooler, which is the same as a radiator only cold water is passed through the vanes cooling the air as it passes through.

Increasing air throughput to the house is the preferred method in our climate. This has been used to great effect in housing with tunnel ventilation, whereby the long broiler house becomes a tunnel with huge fans at one end and inlets covering the wall of the other end. There is, however, a limit to this system: if air speed through the flock exceeds 1.5m per second, it will create a significant wind chill, having a detrimental effect on the birds.

As summer temperatures rise and production is further challenged, other methods of keeping birds cool will no doubt come to the fore but ultimately it is the chickens physiology that will set the limits.

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How to help your chickens beat the heat in summer - The Poultry Site

Physiology

Nanotoxicology of Dendrimers in the Mammalian Heart: ex vivo and in vi | IJN – Dove Medical Press

Fawzi Babiker,1 Ibrahim F Benter,2 Saghir Akhtar3

1Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Health Science Center, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait; 2Faculty of Medicine, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus; 3College of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

Correspondence: Fawzi BabikerDepartment of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Health Science Center, Kuwait University, PO Box 24923, Safat 13110, Kuwait, Tel +965 24636360Fax +965 25338937Email Fawzi.b@hsc.edu.kwSaghir AkhtarCollege of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, PO Box 2713, Doha, QatarTel +974-4403 7865Email s.akhtar@qu.edu.qa

Aim: The effects of polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers on the mammalian heart are not completely understood. In this study, we have investigated the effects of a sixth-generation cationic dendrimer (G6 PAMAM) on cardiac function in control and diabetic rat hearts following ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury.Methods: Isolated hearts from healthy non-diabetic (Ctr) male Wistar rats were subjected to ischemia and reperfusion (I/R). LV contractility and hemodynamics data were computed digitally whereas cardiac damage following I/R injury was assessed by measuring cardiac enzymes. For ex vivo acute exposure experiments, G6 PAMAM was administered during the first 10 mins of reperfusion in Ctr animals. In chronic in vivo studies, nondiabetic rats (Ctr) received either vehicle or daily i.p. injections of G6 PAMAM (40 mg/kg) for 4 weeks. Diabetic (D) animals received either vehicle or daily i.p. injections of G6 PAMAM (10, 20 or 40 mg/kg) for 4 weeks. The impact of G6 PAMAM on pacing-postconditioning (PPC) was also studied in Ctr and D rats.Results: In ex vivo studies, acute administration of G6 PAMAM to isolated Ctr hearts during reperfusion dose-dependently impaired recovery of cardiac hemodynamics and vascular dynamics parameters following I/R injury. Chronic daily i.p. injections of G6 PAMAM significantly (P< 0.01) impaired recovery of cardiac function following I/R injury in nondiabetic animals but this was not generally observed in diabetic animals except for CF which was impaired by about 50%. G6 PAMAM treatment completely blocked the protective effects of PPC in the Ctr animals.Conclusion: Acute ex vivo or chronic in vivo treatment with naked G6 PAMAM dendrimer can significantly compromise recovery of non-diabetic hearts from I/R injury and can further negate the beneficial effects of PPC. Our findings are therefore extremely important in the nanotoxicological evaluation of G6 PAMAM dendrimers for potential clinical applications in physiological and pathological settings.

Keywords: PAMAM, postconditioning, diabetes, ischemia, reperfusion

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Nanotoxicology of Dendrimers in the Mammalian Heart: ex vivo and in vi | IJN - Dove Medical Press

Physiology

Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests – Science Magazine

Risks to mitigation potential of forests

Much recent attention has focused on the potential of trees and forests to mitigate ongoing climate change by acting as sinks for carbon. Anderegg et al. review the growing evidence that forests' climate mitigation potential is increasingly at risk from a range of adversities that limit forest growth and health. These include physical factors such as drought and fire and biotic factors, including the depredations of insect herbivores and fungal pathogens. Full assessment and quantification of these risks, which themselves are influenced by climate, is key to achieving science-based policy outcomes for effective land and forest management.

Science, this issue p. eaaz7005

Forests have considerable potential to help mitigate human-caused climate change and provide society with a broad range of cobenefits. Local, national, and international efforts have developed policies and economic incentives to protect and enhance forest carbon sinksranging from the Bonn Challenge to restore deforested areas to the development of forest carbon offset projects around the world. However, these policies do not always account for important ecological and climate-related risks and limits to forest stability (i.e., permanence). Widespread climate-induced forest die-off has been observed in forests globally and creates a dangerous carbon cycle feedback, both by releasing large amounts of carbon stored in forest ecosystems to the atmosphere and by reducing the size of the future forest carbon sink. Climate-driven risks may fundamentally compromise forest carbon stocks and sinks in the 21st century. Understanding and quantifying climate-driven risks to forest stability are crucial components needed to forecast the integrity of forest carbon sinks and the extent to which they can contribute toward the Paris Agreement goal to limit warming well below 2C. Thus, rigorous scientific assessment of the risks and limitations to widespread deployment of forests as natural climate solutions is urgently needed.

Many forest-based natural climate solutions do not yet rely on the best available scientific information and ecological tools to assess the risks to forest stability from climate-driven forest dieback caused by fire, drought, biotic agents, and other disturbances. Crucially, many of these permanence risks are projected to increase in the 21st century because of climate change, and thus estimates based on historical data will underestimate the true risks that forests face. Forest climate policy needs to fully account for the permanence risks because they could fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of forest-based climate solutions.

Here, we synthesize current scientific understanding of the climate-driven risks to forests and highlight key issues for maximizing the effectiveness of forests as natural climate solutions. We lay out a roadmap for quantifying current and forecasting future risks to forest stability using recent advances in vegetation physiology, disturbance ecology, mechanistic vegetation modeling, large-scale ecological observation networks, and remote sensing. Finally, we review current efforts to use forests as natural climate solutions and discuss how these programs and policies presently consider and could more fully embrace physiological, climatic, and permanence uncertainty about the future of forest carbon stores and the terrestrial carbon sink.

The scientific community agrees that forests can contribute to global efforts to mitigate human-caused climate change. The community also recognizes that using forests as natural climate solutions must not distract from rapid reductions in emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Furthermore, responsibly using forests as natural climate solutions requires rigorous quantification of risks to forest stability, forests carbon storage potential, cobenefits for species conservation and ecosystem services, and full climate feedbacks from albedo and other effects. Combining long-term satellite records with forest plot data can provide rigorous, spatially explicit estimates of climate changedriven stresses and disturbances that decrease productivity and increase mortality. Current vegetation models also hold substantial promise to quantify forest risks and inform forest management and policies, which currently rely predominantly on historical data.

A more-holistic understanding and quantification of risks to forest stability will help policy-makers effectively use forests as natural climate solutions. Scientific advances have increased our ability to characterize risks associated with a number of biotic and abiotic factors, including risks associated with fire, drought, and biotic agent outbreaks. While the models that are used to predict disturbance risks of these types represent the cutting edge in ecology and Earth system science to date, relatively little infrastructure and few tools have been developed to interface between scientists and foresters, land managers, and policy-makers to ensure that science-based risks and opportunities are fully accounted for in policy and management contexts. To enable effective policy and management decisions, these tools must be openly accessible, transparent, modular, applicable across scales, and usable by a wide range of stakeholders. Strengthening this science-policy link is a critical next step in moving forward with leveraging forests in climate change mitigation efforts.

Leveraging cutting-edge scientific tools holds great promise for improving and guiding the use of forests as natural climate solutions, both in estimating the potential of carbon storage and in estimating the risks to forest carbon storage.

Forests have considerable potential to help mitigate human-caused climate change and provide society with many cobenefits. However, climate-driven risks may fundamentally compromise forest carbon sinks in the 21st century. Here, we synthesize the current understanding of climate-driven risks to forest stability from fire, drought, biotic agents, and other disturbances. We review how efforts to use forests as natural climate solutions presently consider and could more fully embrace current scientific knowledge to account for these climate-driven risks. Recent advances in vegetation physiology, disturbance ecology, mechanistic vegetation modeling, large-scale ecological observation networks, and remote sensing are improving current estimates and forecasts of the risks to forest stability. A more holistic understanding and quantification of such risks will help policy-makers and other stakeholders effectively use forests as natural climate solutions.

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Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests - Science Magazine

Physiology

Swine it #42 Back to the basics in gilt development – Dr Kara Stewart – The Pig Site

I think for a while the gilt development was a forgotten piece of the sow system and I think it is our greatest potential for improvements in sow reproduction and lifetime performance. We need to start paying more attention there

- Boar exposure in gilt development

- Optimal weight, age, and number of estruses at first breeding

- Acclimation to the breeding crate

- Out-of-feed events in GDUs

- Space requirements and number of gilts per pen

- Have gilt development units and gilt research been forgotten?

Our guest is Dr Kara Stewart. Dr Stewart received her bachelors degree from Purdue University in 2001 and her masters and a doctorate from North Carolina State University in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Dr Stewart taught in the Department of Animal Science at NC State for two years before returning to Indiana to work for Cook Inc., a human medical device company. In 2013, she accepted a faculty position in reproductive physiology in the Department of Animal Science at Purdue University.

Listen to the podcast here: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/swine-it/back-to-the-basics-in-gilt-development-dr-kara-ste/

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Swine it #42 Back to the basics in gilt development - Dr Kara Stewart - The Pig Site

Physiology

Medical Biosensors Market 2020: Potential Growth, Challenges, and Know the Companies List Could Potentially Benefit or Loose out From the Impact of…

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Medical Biosensors Market 2020: Potential Growth, Challenges, and Know the Companies List Could Potentially Benefit or Loose out From the Impact of...

Physiology

Why do some people with COVID-19 get really sick but not others? Wearable sensors might answer that. – WTSP.com

Researchers at the University of South Florida are monitoring skin temperature and other physiological patterns of 150 COVID-19 patients.

TAMPA, Fla. As the number of new coronavirus cases increases in Florida and other states, theres still a lot that researchers are trying to figure out about the novel virus.

One thing they do know is that while the rate of infection is climbing, the percentage of people who get COVID-19 and experience the most severe symptoms remains relatively low.

What they dont know yet is why some otherwise healthy people get really sick from infection but not others.

We definitely have awareness that certain populations have underlying conditions and they are at higher risk of having an adverse reaction to this virus, said Dr. Matthew Mullarkey, the lead investigator on the project.

What were interested in studying, though, is why it sometimes happens to otherwise healthy individuals who suddenly develop blood clots, lungs filled with fluid, a respiratory issue.

Using tiny sensors that can be worn around a persons wrist and chest, University of South Florida researchers hope to figure out how to predict when a patient might be most at-risk for severe symptoms to ultimately be able to prevent it.

The technology will monitor the physiological conditionslike skin temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levelsof more than 100 people with COVID-19.

Mullarkey says 15 specific biometrics will be monitored non-stop in the patients for between 14 to 21 days.

Its a massive amount of data that, Mullarkey says, could reveal patterns of how different people react to being infected with the virus. Those patterns could help identify early indicatorsan early warning systemsignaling if an otherwise healthy person could be at risk of developing more severe symptoms.

The purpose would be to help physicians diagnose earlier that a particular patient has this certain set of three, four, five variables that are going to go sideways, he said.

So we could get two, to four, to six days in front of the person ending up in an ICU and begin a treatment plan targeted at that particular physiology.

The study is a partnership between the USF MUMA College of Business, Tampa General Hospital-USF Health COVID Clinic and USF College of Nursing.

The wearable monitoring technology is similar to sensors USF MUMA College of Business researchers used in February in a first-of-its-kind experiment to measure how viewers biometrically responded to watching a presidential primary debate. The sensors are manufactured by the same company called Shimmer.

"The vast majority of us are relatively healthy individuals and are still at risk of contracting this virus," Mullarkey said. "All of us could benefit potentially from the information we can learn."

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Why do some people with COVID-19 get really sick but not others? Wearable sensors might answer that. - WTSP.com

Physiology

NSF grant to fund digitization of mammal collections at UNM’s Museum of Southwestern Biology – UNM Newsroom

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will fund digitization of museum mammal collections at the Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico (UNM) and University of Michigan through a collaboration with scientists at three other universities and Sandia National Laboratories.

The three-year, $180,000 grant is titled Digitization PEN: Functional Quantitative Characters for Ecology and Evolution (FuncQEE) and the digital data produced will be integral to research in the fields of medicine, physiology, ecology, evolution and biomechanics, among others. This NSF award is part of the Open Vertebrate Thematic Collection Network as a Partner to an Existing Network (PEN).

The project will generate computed tomography (CT) scans as a basis for 3D modeling of structural diversity for some 1,000 specimens of rodents. These data will be made publicly available on the MorphoSource website to the life science community, educators and science-interested public and serve as the basis for many research projects, including the doctoral work of John Korbin, a Sandia scientist,in the Biology Department at UNM.

UNM holds the worlds largest collection of mammalian tissues and is among the three largest mammal collections overall (with the Smithsonian and British Museum) said Joseph Cook, professor and Curator of Mammals at the Museum of Southwestern Biology and has become critical infrastructure for diverse sets of investigations. Applied and theoretical studies of museum specimens range from identifying and characterizing zoonotic pathogens (e.g., hantaviruses in New Mexico and globally) to this new set of investigations aimed at characterizing the anatomical shape of wild mammals to allow us to understand how animals have adapted to diverse environmental conditions.

The resulting 3D modeling will allow researchers to examine and quantify the characters found in the vast diversity throughout the rodent Tree of Life. Many species of rodents are susceptible to extinction in the face of anthropogenic climate and habitat changes, according to Noe de la Sancha of Chicago State University (and originally from southern New Mexico).

This project is an excellent demonstration of the evolution of use and sustained impact of these types of collections. As new technology is developed and new questions arise, we continue to build novel layers of knowledge based on specimens archived for very different reasons in the past, said Jon Dunnum, collection manager for Mammals, Museum of Southwestern Biology.

CT data provide an excellent opportunity to leverage museum collections in a way that was never envisioned 100 years ago, said 'University of Michigan's Cody Thompson.

The physical shapes of todays living organisms are a result of millions of years of countless evolutionary and ecological filters, de la Sancha said. For the vast majority of species, especially in tropical regions, we dont know much at all about where or how they live, eat, or find mates. This project will allow us an initial glimpse into more pieces of this huge puzzle that evolutionary biologists and ecologists have been trying to build. There is a great deal of information we can capture in the small bones and body parts of rodents that we had not been able to access before CT scanning. And this opens up a whole new world of knowledge.

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NSF grant to fund digitization of mammal collections at UNM's Museum of Southwestern Biology - UNM Newsroom

Physiology

Peaks and valleys lead to gold medal win for UBCO student – UBC Faculty of Medicine

UBC Okanagans Governor General gold medal winner Mike Tymko stands at a landmark called Kala Patthar with Mount Everest in the background.

Although he climbed numerous mountains to conduct high-altitude research, UBC Okanagans Mike Tymko admits the peak of his academic career might have arrived in his inbox a few weeks ago.

Tymko is UBC Okanagans winner of this year's Governor General Gold Medal. The award is presented to the universitys most accomplished doctoral graduate each spring. Tymko, who has published more than 60 research papers, is beyond talented says his supervisor Professor Phil Ainslie. The pair have worked together since 2012, when Tymko, an undergraduate at Mount Royal University, was invited to join one of Ainslies research expeditions to Nepal.

At the time UBC Okanagan was much smaller and Professor Ainslie was relatively new into his appointment, but you could tell the research team he was building was extremely unique even at that time, says Tymko. That was such an amazing trip to me from both a life and scientific perspective.

Within months, he was a student in UBCOs School of Health and Exercise Sciences, working on his masters degree with another colleague from the Nepal project, Associate Professor Glen Foster, also fairly new to the Okanagan. The pair got along during the 2012 Nepal expedition and created a dynamic and busy research team when reunited at the Kelowna campus.

I knew that as Professor Foster's first student I would be privy to more one-on-one training. I appreciate everything that he has taught me over the years and I wouldn't be the scientist I am today without his mentorship.

Fosters laboratory studies how the respiratory, cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems interact to control blood flow and ventilation in health and disease. And Ainslie, a Canada Research Chair in Cerebrovascular Physiology in Health and Disease, studies cerebral blood flow regulation, how that can be influenced by environmental stressheat, altitude, pressureand how exercise can also affect cerebrovascular function. The research teams would work together for a number of years studying basic aspects of helping people under extreme conditionswhether that be where they live, or an illness they havebe able to breathe better.

Tymko explains there are many peoplesuch as those living in Nepal, the Andean mountains and Ethiopiawho live in high-altitude regions. And more than 200 million tourists travel to high-altitude destinations each year. However, his research also impacts millions of people who never get the chance to travel.

From a more clinical standpoint there are many pathologies that are characterized by low oxygen, such as people living with heart failure, obstructive sleep apnea and lung disease, he says. Studying healthy human adaptation to low oxygen in both the laboratory and in the field has implications to better understand the physiological consequences that occur in these clinical states. The findings from these studies are applicable not only to Canadians, but people worldwide.

There were several highlights for Tymko while working on his doctorate, but Ainslie notes he is a natural leader. During his studies, he has trekked to Nepal in 2012 and 2016, as well as White Mountain, California in 2015 and Peru in 2018where Tymko co-led more than 40 scientists at a research station at Cerro de Pasco.

This was undoubtedly Michaels most impressive feat during his doctorate, says Ainslie. So far more than 10 research manuscripts have been published based on data collected during this expedition and many others will come in due course.

Tymko is humbled by the gold medal win, and says, like the expeditions, this is not something you accomplish alone.

These research projects are never led by one person, they are a product of dozens of people working together towards one goal, says Tymko, crediting Ainslie, Foster and dozens of colleagues for years of support. The best part of these trips are the people you meetresearchers from all over the world. But its also a fantastic feeling knowing that your research is meaningful and impactful within the academic community."

Ainslie credits Tymkos diverse interests, skills, leadership and dedication that made him an outstanding doctoral student.

Not only can he operate as a high-level academic but he can also design, implement, build and lead high-level scientific initiatives, he says. His research interests expand those from normal laboratory-based experiments to the translation of the work into Indigenous populations at high altitude. He is a true allrounder and, importantly, also values the importance of scientific teaching and education. As an exceptional young scientist, he is fully worthy of this recognition.

UBC Okanagans Governor General gold medal winner Mike Tymko takes ultrasound measurements of the internal carotid artery and vertebral artery while conducting research on the neural control of blood flow to the brain.

UBCs Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBCranked among the worlds top 20 public universitiesthe Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbias stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit:ok.ubc.ca

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Peaks and valleys lead to gold medal win for UBCO student - UBC Faculty of Medicine

Physiology

Why it could be dangerous to exercise with a face mask on – Metro Newspaper UK

Lindsay Bottoms, reader in exercise and health physiology, University of Hertfordshire

THE coronavirus began to affect sporting events as early as January 30, when the Chinese Football Association announced it was delaying the start of the football season. Two months later it was revealed that the Tokyo Olympic Games would be postponed until the summer of 2021 the first postponement in modern Olympic history.

Sporting administrators are only now exploring ways to enable a return to training and competition at both professional and amateur levels. In the absence of a vaccine, though, there are several challenges. One of them is around breathing.

When playing sport, breathing is faster and harder than at rest, which increases the risk of passing the disease on. As a result, premier league football is considering introducing face masks. Others may follow suit.

Yet a mask makes it harder to inhale the quantity of air needed to perform at the highest levels. We know that wearing a surgical mask can increase the resistance to airflow. Exercise invariably leads to faster and harder breaths, so wearing a mask during exercise places a further strain on airflow.

At low to moderate-intensity exercise, effort will feel slightly harder than normal with a mask, but you can still walk comfortably. The challenge appears to be more during heavy exercise (say, rugby or football) taking in air at rates of about 40-100 litres per minute.

When we do heavy exercise, our muscles produce lactic acid, which causes that burning sensation. It is then converted to carbon dioxide and exhaled. But what happens if the carbon dioxide is trapped by the mask? As you move from moderate to heavy exercise, you may be re-breathing carbon dioxide, which can reduce cognitive function and increase breathing rate.

There may also be less oxygen in the recycled air, which could imitate exercising at higher altitudes. So it is important we gain a better understanding of the limitations of heavy exercise with a face mask.

The need for this understanding is growing, given the story reported on an Australian News Channel of two teenage boys in China dying within a week of each other during compulsory physical education examinations while wearing face masks. Autopsies have not been performed, so its impossible to know whether the masks played a role in the boys deaths. But it raises the question, is it safe to exercise with a face mask on during Covid-19?

A supplier of fencing equipment approached the University of Hertfordshire with just this question.

To gain a rough understanding of the problem, I experimented on myself. I ran on a treadmill at 10kph for three minutes to reflect the intensity and duration of fencing. I did this with full fencing kit, with and without a cloth face mask under my fencing mask. I used a portable gas analyser and adapted it to measure the concentration of gases being breathed in and out.

The concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is around 21 per cent at sea level. When running on the treadmill with only the fencing mask, the concentration of oxygen was around 19.5 per cent. This would be equivalent to exercising at 600m above sea level.

But wearing a face mask under the fencing mask reduced my oxygen level to around 17 per cent the equivalent of exercising at 1,500m. Any further decreases in oxygen concentration by exercising longer or harder would have a large effect on the physiological responses to exercise, causing altitude-sickness symptoms such as dizziness or headache.

There are negligible levels of carbon dioxide in atmospheric air, and when exercising with only the fencing mask this remains below one per cent. With the face mask on, it trebled to three per cent. Bear in mind that the UK Health and Safety Executive the government agency responsible for regulation and enforcement of workplace safety advises that employees should not be exposed to 1.5 per cent carbon dioxide for more than 15 minutes.

Fencing has been part of the Olympics since 1896 and is unique in that we already have a mask on when exercising. So, before any recommendations are made for wearing a face mask for fencing, it is important that further research is undertaken on more than one person to explore the high carbon dioxide levels and low oxygen levels. There could be similar issues of wearing a face mask with other high-intensity sports.

With gyms looking to reopen and sports clubs wanting to resume, before anyone recommends wearing a face mask, research urgently needs to be undertaken to ensure the safety of the sporting community, regardless of any underlying conditions.

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Why it could be dangerous to exercise with a face mask on - Metro Newspaper UK