The Effect of High-Intensity Interval/Circuit Training on Cognitive Functioning and Quality of Life During Recovery From Substance Abuse Disorder. A Study Protocol.

This proposed study will examine whether structured physical activity reduces the recovery time of cognitive functioning during the early phase of substance use disorder treatment. Addiction or substance dependence is associated with neurobiological changes and cognitive impairment that can affect quality of life and the efficacy of therapy for up to a year after clinical detoxification. The biological, psychological, and social effects of physical exercise have the potential to be a therapeutic approach to increase quality of life and relieve symptoms associated with substance abuse, such as psychosis, depression, and anxiety. There is a dearth of research on physical activity and exercise in clinical substance use disorder patients. This protocol describes a clinical study that will examine cognitive recovery after substance abuse using physical exercise as a treatment intervention. We will use a quasi-experimental longitudinal clinical trial, with a pretest and multiple posttests, on naturally randomized sequential groups. Patients will be consecutively be recruited into the study groups, with a control group that is completed, before its followed by an intervention group, each with 30 patients. Patients will be enrolled 2 weeks after the start of detoxification, at which time all subjects will be inpatients at the Stavanger Salvation Army Treatment Center in the Norwegian specialized healthcare system. Cognition will be evaluated with a comprehensive battery of cognitive tests, including several tests of executive function. Physical fitness will be tested with the Rockport 1-Mile Walk Test, the 30-S Chair Stand Test, the 1-Min Burpee Test at baseline (within the first 2 weeks of admittance) and after 4 weeks. The intervention will be a 30-min workout at 70-90% of maximum heart rate (134-170 bpm), recorded and calculated by a Polar heart rate monitor. The intervention treatment will be administered four times a week for 4 weeks and will consist of high-intensity circuit training, high-intensity interval training, functional movement, and primitive reflex training. We anticipate improvement in both the control and intervention groups, with the exercise intervention group having the greatest increase in recovery of cognitive function because of the combination of functional full body movements and primitive movement training in an intense interval training program. Clinical Trial Registration ID: ISRCTN74750479, Retrospectively Registered.

Dispersion of Legionella-containing aerosols from a biological treatment plant, Norway.

Legionella was detected in aeration ponds (biological treatment plant) at Borregaard Ind. Ltd., Norway, and in air samples harvested directly above these ponds. Since 2005, three outbreaks of legionellosis occurred within a 10 km radius from this plant. This work addresses the dispersion patterns of Legionella-containing particles by characterizing the aerosol plume emitted from these ponds (outbreak source) less than 500 meters using wind-tunnel measurements, CFD simulations, and real-life measurements. The most abundant particles directly over the ponds were less than 6 and more than 15 microm. The results showed that the aerosol plume remained narrow; 180 meters wide at 350 meters downwind of the ponds, and that 2 and 18 microm aerosols were mainly deposited in the vicinity of the ponds ( 150 - 200 meters). Furthermore, the maximum aerosol concentration level appeared 5-10 meters above ground level and the maximum concentration 500 meters downwind was approximately 2 per cent of the concentration level directly above the ponds. Our study demonstrates the strength of combining modeling with real-life aerosol analyses increasing the understanding of dispersion of airborne (pathogenic) microorganisms.

Tracking airborne Legionella and Legionella pneumophila at a biological treatment plant.

Biological treatment plants are frequently used to degrade organic substances in wastewater from wood refinement processes. Aeration ponds in such plants provide an optimal growth environment for many microorganisms, including Legionella species. To investigate whether legionellae could be dispersed as aerosols from the ponds and transported by the wind, the wetted-wall cyclone SASS 2000(PLUS) and the impactors MAS-100 and STA-204 were used to collect air samples directly above, upwind, and downwind of aeration ponds during a 4-month period. Computational fluid dynamics was used a priori to estimate the aerosol paths and to determine suitable air-sampling locations. Several Legionella species, including Legionella pneumophila, were identified in air samples at the biological treatment plant using microbiological and molecular methods. L. pneumophila was identified up to distances of 200 m downwind from the ponds, but, in general, not upwind nor outside the predicted aerosol paths. The highest concentration level of viable legionellae was identified directly above the aeration ponds (3300 CFU/m3). This level decreased as the distance from the aeration ponds increased. Molecular typing indicated that a single clone of L. pneumophila was dispersed from the ponds during the period of the study. Thus, our study demonstrated that aerosols generated at aeration ponds of biological treatment facilities may contain L. pneumophila, which then can be transported by the wind to the surroundings. The methods used in this study may be generically applied to trace biological aerosols that may pose a challenge to environmental occupational health.

Visualization of vorticity and vortices in wall-bounded turbulent flows.

This study was initiated by the scientifically interesting prospect of applying advanced visualization techniques to gain further insight into various spatio-temporal characteristics of turbulent flows. The ability to study complex kinematical and dynamical features of turbulence provides means of extracting the underlying physics of turbulent fluid motion. The objective is to analyze the use of a vorticity field line approach to study numerically generated incompressible turbulent flows. In order to study the vorticity field, we present a field line animation technique which uses a specialized particle advection and seeding strategy. Efficient analysis is achieved by decoupling the rendering stage from the preceding stages of the visualization method. This allows interactive exploration of multiple fields simultaneously, which sets the stage for a more complete analysis of the flow field. Multifield visualizations are obtained using a flexible volume rendering framework which is presented in this paper. Vorticity field lines have been employed as indicators to provide a means to identify "ejection" and "sweep" regions; two particularly important spatio-temporal events in wall-bounded turbulent flows. Their relation to the rate of turbulent kinetic energy production and viscous dissipation, respectively, have been identified.

Visualization of vector fields using seed LIC and volume rendering.

Line Integral Convolution (LIC) is a powerful texture-based technique for visualizing vector fields. Due to the high computational expense of generating the 3D textures and the difficulties of effectively displaying the result, LIC has most commonly been used to depict vector fields in 2D or over a surface in 3D. Here, we propose new methods for more effective volume visualization of three-dimensional vector fields using LIC: 1) We present a fast method for computing volume LIC textures that exploits the sparsity of the input texture. 2) We propose the use of a shading technique, called limb darkening, to reveal the depth relations among the field lines. The shading effect is obtained simply by using appropriate transfer functions and, therefore, avoids using expensive shading techniques. 3) We demonstrate how two-field visualization techniques can be used to enhance the visual information describing a vector field. The volume LIC textures are rendered using texture-based rendering techniques, which allows interactive exploration of a vector field.