Understanding the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem productivity has become a central issue in ecology and conservation biology studies, particularly when these relationships are connected with global climate change and species extinction. However, which facets of biodiversity (i.e. taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity) account most for variations in productivity are...

The effects of factorial combinations of post-thinning density (6, 11, and 16 stems per hectare [sph]) and repeated fertilization on the growth and development of young lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. var. latifolia Engelm.) were investigated in central British Columbia. After 14 years, the effects of density and multi-nutrient fertilization (applied at , 5, and 1 years) on tree h...

Reduction in plasma volume is a major contributor to orthostatic tachycardia and hypotension after spaceflight. We set out to determine time- and frequency-domain baroreflex (BRS) function during preflight baseline and venous occlusion and postflight orthostatic stress, testing the hypothesis that a reduction in central blood volume could mimic the postflight orthostatic response. In five cosmo...

Over the past decades, extensive literature has been published regarding surgical therapies for advanced COPD. Lung-volume reduction surgery would be an option for a significantly larger number of patients than classic bullectomy or lung transplantation. Unfortunately, the initial enthusiasm has been tempered by major questions regarding the optimal surgical approach, safety, firm selection cri...

PURPOSE Lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) has re-emerged as an alternative in the management of patients with chronic, debilitating, emphysematous lung disease. This has permitted the formal evaluation of pathologic pulmonary changes present in these patients. This study seeks to describe systematically the pathologic findings present in patients undergoing LVRS. METHODS Tissue sections st...

OBJECTIVE To assess the feasibility, safety, and early results of awake lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) performed under thoracic epidural anesthesia by a new nonresectional technique. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA So far, resectional LVRS under general anesthesia and one-lung ventilation is the more frequently used technique, but procedure-related morbidity has been considerable. METHODS The...

Hyperinflation is a cardinal feature of COPD associated with reduced daily physical activity (1) and increased mortality (2). Although bronchodilators and pulmonary rehabilitation have some effect many patients with COPD remain highly symptomatic (3,4). The most established treatment is lung volume reduction surgery and results from the NETT trial show improved survival in appropriately selecte...

BACKGROUND The planum temporale, located on the posterior and superior surface of the temporal lobe, is a brain region thought to be a biological substrate of language and possibly implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. To investigate further the role of planum temporale abnormalities in schizophrenia, we measured gray matter volume underlying the planum temporale from high spatial...

This work proposes a method for model reduction of finite-volume models that guarantees the resulting reduced-order model is conservative, thereby preserving the structure intrinsic to finite-volume discretizations. The proposed reduced-order models associate with optimization problems characterized by a minimum-residual objective function and nonlinear equality constraints that explicitly enfo...

Therapeutic options in severe emphysema are limited. Endoscopic lung volume reduction (ELVR) refers to bronchoscopically inducing volume loss to improve pulmonary mechanics and compliance, thereby reducing the work of breathing. Globally, this technique is increasingly used as treatment for advanced emphysema with the aim of obtaining similar functional advantages to surgical lung volume reduct...