Acoustic structure of alarm calls in Indian sambar (Rusa unicolor) and Indian muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis) in South Vietnam.

The alarm call acoustic structure and nonlinear vocal phenomena of the Indian sambar (Rusa unicolor) and northern Indian muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis) have been analyzed in detail as well as their vocal behavior in response to mobbing humans under natural conditions of southern Vietnam. The alarm calls of sambars, tonal barks separated by large intervals, were produced by animals standing on the place and gazing at a potentially dangerous object. Muntjacs flee off in danger and produced a series of dull barks interrupted with short intervals from a distance. The alarm call frequencies were characterized for sambars and muntjacs. The results of our study have been compared with the published data on alarm calls of other Cervidae species.

Vocalization toward conspecifics in silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes) selected for tame or aggressive behavior toward humans.

We examined the production of different vocalizations in three strains of silver fox (unselected, aggressive, and tame) attending three kinds of behavior (aggressive, affiliative, and neutral) in response to their same-strain conspecifics. This is a follow-up to previous experiments which demonstrated that in the presence of humans, tame foxes produced cackles and pants but never coughed or snorted, whilst aggressive foxes produced coughs and snorts but never cackled or panted. Thus, cackle/pant and cough/snort were indicative of the tame and aggressive fox strains respectively toward humans. Wild-type unselected foxes produced cough and snort toward humans similarly to aggressive foxes. Here, we found that vocal responses to conspecifics were similar in tame, aggressive and unselected fox strains. Both cackle/pant and cough/snort occurred in foxes of all strains. The difference in the use of cackle/pant and cough/snort among these strains toward humans and toward conspecifics suggest that silver foxes do not perceive humans as their conspecifics. We speculate that these vocalizations are produced in response to a triggering internal state, affiliative or aggressive, that is suppressed by default in these fox strains toward humans as a result of their strict selection for tame or aggressive behavior, whilst still remaining flexible toward conspecifics.

[Indicators of emotional arousal in vocal emissions of the humans and nonhuman mammals].

Human speech is not homologous to animal vocalizations, but these two different communication systems overlap in the area of expression of emotional arousal. The latter can be revealed in any mammalian vocal emissions: in human speech, in infant crying, and in calls of animals. Animals are able to perceive information about emotional arousal from human speech emissions and, in their turn, the humans are able to estimate emotional arousal from vocalizations of animals. Numerous studies conducted with many mammal species suggest the presence of vocal indicators of emotional arousal shared by the humans and nonhuman mammals. Here we appraise parameters used for description of call structures, overview fundamental studies constituting a framework for understanding the relationships between call structures and degrees of emotional arousal in mammals, and provide a synthesis of the available data allowing to establish integral vocal indicators of emotional arousal in the humans and nonhuman mammals.

[Structure, occurrence and functional significance of nonlinear phenomena in sounds of terrestrial mammals].

Subharmonics, deterministic chaos, biphonations, sidebands and frequency jumps, known under joining name nonlinear phenomena, represent acoustical appearances that occur in calls of various mammals, from insectivorous to humans. Although the physical basis for appearances of the nonlinear phenomen is known in principle, such aspects as occurrence and functional significance of nonlinear phenomena, are poorly understood. We described here the structural peculiarities of these appearances based on domestic dogs' whines demonstrating all kinds of the nonlinear phenomena. The nonlinear phenomena result directly from the work of mammalian vocal apparatus--lunges, vocal folds, and vocal tract, which are responsible for its inherent functional characteristics. The mammalian vocal folds represent a system of two coupled oscillators functioning in different vibratory regimes depending on degree of synchronization in their vibrations and occurrence of coupling between the vocal folds. This functioning does not need in direct neural control for turning on the complex regimes of vocal folds' vibration and switching from one regime to another. Besides, many mammals possess anatomical structures, such as vocal membranes, pads on vocal folds, or laryngeal air sacs, that are to participate in sound production as additional oscillators extend the range of possibilities for arising of nonlinear phenomena in vocalization. On the basis of published and own data, we provide and overview of the occurrence of nonlinear phenomena in sounds of humans, nonhuman primates, canids, and rodents, and discuss the supposed functional significance of these acoustical appearances in mammalian vocal communication systems. From one side, nonlinear phenomena may be related to various physiological disorders in humans and animals. In such cases, their appearance in calls may be nonadaptive, because they permit conspecifics' to avoid owners of such "ill" voices, and points easy prey to predators. From another side, in some cases the nonlinear phenomena may arise especially for performing of some signal functions in species communication system: to enhance reliability of individual recognition, to transmit information about size of a caller over the large distance, to permit individuals of not great size mimicry acoustically under more larger animal, to introduce variety into monotonous vocal sequences in order to force other group members to pay attention to a caller, and to facilitate distance estimation to a caller and direction of its movement.

[Arrest of the chronic pain syndrome using epidural analgesia in patients with disseminated prostate cancer]. / Vozmozhnosti épidural'noi analgesii pri kupirovanii khronicheskogo bolevogo syndroma u bol'nykh disseminirovannym rakom predstatel'noi zhelezy.

Treatments results of 22 cases of atypical generalized and local carcinoma of the prostate involving different cells and tissues and accompanied by persistent neuropathic pain are described in the paper. The method of continuous epidural analgesia by an opioid agonist ((a 2% morphine hydrochloride solution and a local anesthetic) and by a 0.5% anekain solution provides for a smaller single dose of the preparation and for a less number of injections that should be used; it also eliminates the pain stress and improves the life quality of patients.