Dim Room Research Articles

L’huile de colza : une huile multi-usages en devenir

Ageing tests have been carried out with refined rapeseed oil in different conditions (transparent and non transparent bottles, moderate and dim natural light exposure, room and refrigerator temperature). The results mainly based on sensory evaluation show that rapeseed oil keeps a rather good quality if kept in a non transparent bottle and best if stored in the refrigerator. Results of frying tests under household conditions show that chemical degradation of rapeseed oil is lower than for sunflower oil. But for both oils, the level of degradation compounds are below the 25% polar compounds limit, assuming that the consumer does respect the recommendations on the label i.e. temperature ≤ 180°C and not more than 10 fryings. Although the French regulation does not allow until now to use oils for frying purpose with more than 2 % of linolenic acid of their fatty acid composition, results demonstrate that rapeseed oil could be used worthwhile for frying. However on the basis of room odor tests, rapeseed oil might not be accepted by some consumers due to its fishy odor during frying operation. Therefore from a marketing point of view, it is advisable to limit the use of rapeseed oil to seasoning and cooking purposes.

Alterations in multifocal visual evoked potentials during the acute phase of Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy

This report aimed to investigate alterations in multifocal visual evoked potentials (mfVEPs) during the acute stage of Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). A 27-year-old woman with a point mutation at nucleotide 11778 in the mitochondrial DNA was examined during the acute phase of LHON, which is generally investigated only rarely because of its rapid progress. She was examined repeatedly, with testing of best corrected visual acuity, pupil function, Goldmann perimetry, ophthalmoscopy and frequent assessment of mfVEPs. Multifocal VEPs, which reveal topographical information about different parts of the visual pathways, demonstrated reduced responses in all parts of the central visual field. The mean amplitude (summarized amplitude of the first two components) in the mfVEPs in the previously described sector C, which has been identified as a hallmark of other optic nerve disorders, was evaluated. This amplitude demonstrated a correlation with the progression of the disease during the acute period of LHON, which also correlated with the VA, pupil function and Goldmann perimetry. These alterations in the components of mfVEPs reflect the reduction in the function of the visual pathways in different parts of the central field; the drop in amplitude in a localized area (sector C), not previously described, demonstrates the acute course of this disorder. Multifocal VEPs may be of further interest in evaluating the pathogenesis of this disorder and of clinical value in representing an objective method for monitoring the course of this disease.

A Compromise Phase Position for Permanent Night Shift Workers: Circadian Phase after Two Night Shifts with Scheduled Sleep and Light/Dark Exposure

Night shift work is associated with a myriad of health and safety risks. Phase‐shifting the circadian clock such that it is more aligned with night work and day sleep is one way to attenuate these risks. However, workers will not be satisfied with complete adaptation to night work if it leaves them misaligned during days off. Therefore, the goal of this set of studies is to produce a compromise phase position in which individuals working night shifts delay their circadian clocks to a position that is more compatible with nighttime work and daytime sleep yet is not incompatible with late nighttime sleep on days off. This is the first in the set of studies describing the magnitude of circadian phase delays that occurs on progressively later days within a series of night shifts interspersed with days off. The series will be ended on various days in order to take a “snapshot” of circadian phase. In this set of studies, subjects sleep from 23:00 to 7:00 h for three weeks. Following this baseline period, there is a series of night shifts (23:00 to 07:00 h) and days off. Experimental subjects receive five 15 min intermittent bright light pulses (∼3500 lux; ∼1100 µW/cm2) once per hour during the night shifts, wear sunglasses that attenuate all visible wavelengths—especially short wavelengths (“blue‐blockers”)—while traveling home after the shifts, and sleep in the dark (08:30–15:30 h) after each night shift. Control subjects remain in typical dim room light (<50 lux) throughout the night shift, wear sunglasses that do not attenuate as much light, and sleep whenever they want after the night shifts. Circadian phase is determined from the circadian rhythm of melatonin collected during a dim light phase assessment at the beginning and end of each study. The sleepiest time of day, approximated by the body temperature minimum (Tmin), is estimated by adding 7 h to the dim light melatonin onset. In this first study, circadian phase was measured after two night shifts and day sleep periods. The Tmin of the experimental subjects (n=11) was 04:24±0.8 h (mean±SD) at baseline and 7:36±1.4 h after the night shifts. Thus, after two night shifts, the Tmin had not yet delayed into the daytime sleep period, which began at 08:30 h. The Tmin of the control subjects (n=12) was 04:00±1.2 h at baseline and drifted to 4:36±1.4 h after the night shifts. Thus, two night shifts with a practical pattern of intermittent bright light, the wearing of sunglasses on the way home from night shifts, and a regular sleep period early in the daytime, phase delayed the circadian clock toward the desired compromise phase position for permanent night shift workers. Additional night shifts with bright light pulses and daytime sleep in the dark are expected to displace the sleepiest time of day into the daytime sleep period, improving both nighttime alertness and daytime sleep but not precluding adequate sleep on days off.

Fast assessment of the central macular pigment density with natural pupil using the macular pigment reflectometer

We built a new macular pigment reflectometer (MPR) for fast and objective measuring of the optical density of macular pigment in the human eye, using the undilated eye. The design is based on the spectral reflectance from a spot of white light at the fovea. To evaluate its performance, we measured the macular pigment of 20 healthy subjects, ages 18 to 79 years, under four conditions: (1) natural pupil in the dark, (2) natural pupil with dim room light, (3) dilated pupil in the dark, and for comparison with a different technique, (4) heterochromatic flicker photometry (HFP) in dim room light with natural pupil. Condition 1 was repeated in a subset of 10 subjects after an interval of at least 3 days. Data analysis with a model of reflectors and absorbers in the eye provided the density of the macular pigment in conditions 1 to 3. Dim room light and pupil dilatation had no influence on measured density. Mean within subjects variation was typically 7%. Mean difference between test and retest after at least 3 days was 1%. Correlation between MPR and HFP was r=0.56 (p=0.012). Mean within subjects variation with HFP was 19%. The new instrument holds promise for specific applications such as epidemiological research.

The Note

The Note Debra Gwartney (bio) I stood at the back of the laundromat near the dryers and held the note between my thumb and index finger. I'd found it, the white square of layered paper, at the bottom of the hollow drum after the wad of dry clothes were pulled out and I'd gone back in for one last sweep-of-the-hand check. The note was resting there on the gray metal – alone, hot, waiting for me to pick it up. I did. I laid it on my palm, folded so many times it was about the size of a half-dollar and crisp from its trip through the washer and dryer. No writing on the surface; blank on both sides. I closed my hand around it so no one would see that I'd scooped what wasn't mine from the hull of the machine. An hour earlier on this rare San Francisco day – rare because there was little wind and a bright blue sky – I had walked across the street from our hotel to wash my oldest daughter's clothes. It had been years since I'd done such a chore for Amanda, twenty-two now and long gone from my home. Out of her oily backpack I'd dragged pants and underwear and shirts that held the smell of her and even her shape (an elbow, a hip), threading them out one at a time, untwining them from one other. Amanda's familiar covers separating into whites and darks at my feet. I packed the washing machine and poured in soap, a strange buzz moving through my body from being so close, once again, to her things, as if I could – if I tried hard enough – draw some kind of evidence about who she'd become from the fabric sliding through my hands. Then, promising even more of her, the note had appeared at the end of the first load. It had fallen from one of her pockets. I wasn't sure what I was to do with it. My back turned to the few others in the dim room, the air sultry with sticky particles of lint, the churning sound of the appliances, and the nose-sting of detergent, I slid the scrap of paper into my jeans pocket and turned to Amanda's frayed panties and [End Page 89] Carhartt work pants with knees still dirt-stained. Her torn T-shirts, one with the faint image of Tom Waits crooning into a microphone. Unmatched wool socks, some gray, some red. I picked up a shirt and whipped out the wrinkles before folding it. I made smooth, neat piles on the black formica table in front of me. I ignored the small lump in my pocket. Amanda had brought the soiled bag of clothes with her from the Arizona town where she went to college. She didn't have time after class to do laundry, she said, so she rummaged dirty clothes out of her hamper and stuck them in her pack before catching a plane to meet Stephanie – her younger sister who'd traveled from Massachusetts – and me in San Francisco for the weekend. I'd traveled from western Oregon. We converged, the trio of us, at the Oakland Airport. The trip was my idea: three days to make up damaged ground. Not all, but at least some – at least a partial remedy of the long years of too much distance between my oldest daughters and me. The night we arrived, we found each other at the airport's chugging luggage carousel then ran to catch a bart to the city. Inside the train, I settled on one orange vinyl bench while Amanda and Stephanie sat across from me, arm wrapped in arm, heads so close they knocked together softly as the train bounced over the tracks. A half-hour later we climbed the stairs out of the Powell Street station into an inky night. The girls walked on either side of me up Geary Street, their backpacks hiked high, Amanda taking long drags on a cigarette and limping because of an injury to her foot, and Stephanie plinking quarters in the...

Indirections: Evolution, Not Revolution, at the Shaw Festival

On May 14, 2002, a curious scene was enacted on the stage of the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake. In a New York City precinct police station, the setting for Neil Munro’s acclaimed production of Sidney Kingsley’s Detective Story, a mysterious trench-coated figure in the obligatory slouch-brimmed fedora entered into the half-light. As the figure roamed among the desks, a second figure, similarly clad, entered behind the first: A gun blazed; the first fell victim to the second, the victim’s fedora rolling away across the floor. Calmly, the newcomer stood over the body, then deliberately picked up the fallen hat. Looking it over, the murderer came to a decision. The fallen hat replaced the fedora on the head of the stranger, the rejected hat was tossed onto the floor beside the body. The murderer posed proudly in the dim room. As the assembled members of the Shaw acting company laughed and cheered, the lights came up and the figures took their bows: Christopher Newton, outgoing Artistic Director, swiftly recovering from the murderous shot, and Jackie Maxwell, Artistic Director Designate, stepping dramatically into the Shaw spotlight.

Circadian Rhythms in Infants

After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Describe how circadian rhythms are generated. 2. Describe how lighting influences the circadian system. 3. Delineate the period during which the origin of circadian rhythms develops. 4. Describe the relationship between maternal circadian rhythms and the development of circadian rhythms in infants. 5. Characterize the potential sequelae of impaired fetal and early neonatal circadian rhythms related to sleep patterns. 6. Describe beneficial lighting patterns for preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care nursery. Circadian rhythms are endogenously generated rhythms that have a period length of about 24 hours. Evidence gathered over the past decade indicates that the circadian timing system develops prenatally, with the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in the anterior hypothalamus, the site of a circadian clock, present by mid-gestation in primates. Recent evidence also shows that the circadian system of primate infants is responsive to light at very early stages (as early as 25 to 28 weeks’ gestation in humans) and that low-intensity lighting can regulate the developing clock. After birth, circadian system outputs mature progressively, with rhythms in sleep-wake cycles, body temperature, and hormone production generally developing between 1 and 3 months of age. The importance of light in regulation of circadian rhythm in infants is highlighted by the early establishment of rest-activity patterns that are in phase with the 24-hour light-dark cycle in preterm infants exposed to low-intensity cycled lighting. With the continued elucidation of circadian system development and influences on human physiology and illness, it is anticipated that consideration of circadian biology will become an increasingly important component of neonatal care. ### The Circadian Timing System Notable examples of circadian rhythms include the sleep-wake cycle and daily rhythms in body temperature and hormone production. Circadian rhythms are also involved in the pathogenesis of illnesses, such as reactive airway disease (eg, asthma) and myocardial infarction. The system responsible …

Acute effects of bright light and caffeine on nighttime melatonin and temperature levels in women taking and not taking oral contraceptives

Caffeine and bright light effects on nighttime melatonin and temperature levels in women were tested during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle ( n=30) or the pseudo luteal phase for oral contraceptive users ( n=32). Participants were randomly assigned to receive either bright (5000 lux) or dim room light (<88 lux) between 20:00 and 08:00 h under a modified constant routine protocol. Half the subjects in each lighting condition were administered either caffeine (100 mg) or placebo in a double-blind manner at 20:00, 23:00, 02:00 and 05:00 h. Results showed that the combination of bright light and caffeine enhanced nighttime temperature levels to a greater extent than did either caffeine or bright light alone. Both of the latter groups had higher temperature levels relative to the dim light placebo condition and the two groups did not differ. Temperature levels in the bright light caffeine condition were maintained at near peak circadian levels the entire night in the luteal and pseudo luteal phase. Melatonin levels were reduced throughout the duration of bright light exposure for all women. Caffeine reduced the onset of melatonin levels for women in the luteal phase, but it had little effect on melatonin levels for oral contraceptive users. The results for women in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle are consistent with our previous findings in men. The results also suggest that oral contraceptives may alter the effects of caffeine on nighttime melatonin levels.

At the Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Remembering a Photograph of My Father, and: The Book of the Dead, and: Sifting Through the Remains

AT THE PITTSBURGH REGIONAL HISTORY CENTER, REMEMBERING A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY FATHER/Robert Gibb The dust raised up! Brick and girders Salvaged from the slow fires of the rust, The black, particulate Pittsburgh air That fell upon us like history's own patina And surface glare. Here all's restored: The U.S. Steel mándala, Klein's neon lobster And scalloped sea—the sign beneath which My parents dined in their brief spring after the war Until her death left him shell-shocked. I climb into the softly glowing streetcar, Mint and empty, they could have ridden. The house in Homestead they returned to, Past twisty rivers and smoke-plumed flues, Looked just like this re-creation With its weathered trim and kitchen, The mills' red suffusion flooding The shadowbox rooms. Alleys I watched, In turn, fill with sparrows and children flocking Home from school. Where my father Stands below the parlor window, archival In his baseball suit: high-tops and stirrups, The glove dangling to his knee The Missouri Review · 53 An enormous, swollen paw. In the wavy Panes above him, the oil-rubbed fronds And birdcage swirl within the rooftree Reflected from next door. A framed world Flattened like history. CO AL, his shirt reads, Which the stove in the kitchen burns, And the winter furnace, as though time Were sifting its cold iron grates for this boy Dressed so lovingly for play, the snows He'll find each year pitted with ashes. Looking out the window here, toward The narrow courtyard and porch next door, I find worn clouds of laundry strung in A line, their bodies more abiding than our own. 54 · The Missouri Review Robert Gibb THE BOOK OF THE DEAD/Robert Gibb The Nestling Already the ants are working their intricacies Upon it, world without end. They unburden the bones that were only The barest of reeds to begin with, They rinse themselves in the light And hurry on. There is no mystery for them In the unfinished body with its gummed wings And few feathers and dangling little feet. The bird is simply another thermal of the source They spend themselves uncovering. And I, who am loath to hold it in my hands, What right have I to quarrel With any of heaven's precise, cold terms? Or any of the earth's? Waking at Night All night I tossed fitfully as one whose sleep Was a passage to the same bad dream That set my flesh crawling, the smallest motes Of moonlight falling through the screen, And then beyond it, to where my father lay As evening filled his room, the faint ants spilled In countless waves out across the ceiling. The Missouri Review · 55 Figments of his shadows, he watched them Swarm from the corners, the ribs of light In the blinds, pour upside-down about him, Or cover his sheets like wrinkles he kept trying To smooth. Nor could anything but sleep Soothe him, no matter what measures we used To chase the small hordes from his sight. Now, tossing awake at night, I watch stars Glint mutely above me, like the motes which Keep sintering into my sleep. I kick loose The covers, trying to see if I am being bitten In bed for real or have again been dreaming Of another whose room grew dark those transits When the night rushed in in bits. in. Walton Hall ofAncient Egypt Feted and caulked, wound with strips Of swaddling, the blunt Egyptian body Lies in its stiff shreds as in mâché As though death might be managed The way life was not, and this vessel Floating on the waters of the dead— A trenched bed drifting into your sight. And in the dim room walled beyond it, The inlaid lid of that coffin blooming With spectral flowers, the hawk-faced god Fired in clay, and the chiseled ankh, And the dry, meticulous veins . . . Everything but the gold the great ants Roll from the underworld, the scarab Beetle that pushes up the disc of the sun. 56 · The Missouri Review Robert Gibb SIFTING THROUGH THE REMAINS/ Robert Gibb I I set them on the table before me: ring, bracelet...

A Bibliographical and Biographical Note: Henry James's Markings in Zola's La Debacle

A Bibliographical and Biographical Note: Henry James’s Markings in Zola’s La Débâcle Adeline R. Tintner Of the thirty-six volumes by Emile Zola in Henry James’s library, bound in dark green half calf with gilt decorations on the spine, there is only one that has markings by James. They occur in La Débâcle (1892). 1 James has written, in pencil in his characteristic handwriting, “178” and under that “478” on the back pasteboard of this volume. On each of the indicated pages, there are pencil markings. On page 178, there is a vertical line indicating two printed lines of the text. On page 478, there are two crosses on the left margin indicating the beginning of the passage and the end of the passage. The two markings are interesting to Jamesians because of his appreciation of the main theme of the novel, the defeat of the French army in the Franco-Prussian War at Sedan. It was this particular novel which James, in his 1903 article on Zola, pays the most attention to in terms of his feelings about Zola as a novelist. He ends his essay with a long paragraph in praise of La Débâcle, although the rest of the essay is concerned with certain failings on the part of Zola. James writes about the circumstances in which he read the novel. I recall the effect it then produced on me as a really luxurious act of submission. It was early in the summer; I was in an old Italian town; the heat was oppressive, and one could but recline, in the lightest garments, in a great dim room and give one’s self up. . . . I remember that in the glow of my admiration there was not a reserve I had ever made that I was not ready to take back. As an application of the author’s system and his supreme faculty, as a triumph of what these things could do for him, how could such a performance be surpassed? [End Page 204] The long, complex, horrific, pathetic battle, embraced, mastered, with every crash of its squadrons, every pulse of its thunder and blood resolved for us, by reflection, by communication from two of the humblest and obscurest of the military units, into immediate vision and contact, into deep human thrills of terror and pity—this bristling centre of the book was such a piece of “doing”. . . as could only shut our mouths. ( NN 63–64) James spent the early summer in Siena visiting the Bourgets for a month after his arrival on June 5, 1892 (Edel, Middle 321) during which time he probably read La Débâcle. What he did not mention in this concluding passage of his essay on Zola is that the great subject of this novel set within the devastating picture of the defeat of the French was the growing love between two young men, one, Jean Macquart, a peasant, the corporal of the 106th squadron of the French army, the other, Maurice Levasseur, a young lawyer, well-educated, who had enlisted. But he makes up for the neglect in public print by marking privately the passage in which Zola expresses the emotional depths of that relationship. The two men begin by resenting each other: Maurice resents the fact that the man who gives him orders is someone of peasant origin, and Jean resents Maurice’s spoiled and arrogant personality. However, their growing mutual affection and increasing interdependence, their saving of each other’s lives until the unfortunate accident at the end, is something that apparently struck James so forcibly that he was moved to indicate a passage that particularly touched him. The first marking is early in the book when starvation affects not only the soldiers but their horses, so essential at that time for the engagement of men in battle. Jean Macquart sees an African chasseur whose horse is starved. The following two lines have been marked by a vertical line in pencil. “Les grosses dents faisent un bruit de râpe, contre le bois, tandis que le chasseur d’Afrique pleurait” (178). “The horse’s large teeth were making the sound...

Quantification of the reduction of glare disability after standard extracapsular cataract surgery

Glare disability is often cited as an indication for cataract extraction, but very little objective data exist showing improvement of glare disability following standard extracapsular cataract extraction with posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation. In a series of 25 patients we determined glare disability by the reduction in visual acuity with dim room lighting (baseline) and with full room lights; with the brightness acuity tester (BAT) on low, medium, and high; with the true vision analyzer (TVA) glare light. Glare disability was quantified by the difference between the log VA postoperatively and the log VA preoperatively. Glare disability with BAT medium was no different than that with bright room lights (P > .05). Glare disability with BAT high was greater than that with BAT medium (P < .01) but did not differ from that with TVA (P > .05). Glare disability was significantly reduced (P < .01) six weeks postoperatively as measured by all tests except BAT low. Cataract surgery can be expected to reduce glare disability as measured by these tests.

The Fable of the Writer in Southern Fiction

No scene in Faulkner is more compelling than the one that transpires on a “long still hot weary dead September afternoon” in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, toward the end of the first decade of this century. Quentin Compson sits with Miss Rosa Coldfield in a “dim airless room” still called “the office because her father called it that,” and listens to Miss Rosa tell her version of the story of the “demon” Sutpen and his plantation, Sutpen's Hundred. As she talks “in that grim haggard amazed voice”—“vanishing into and then out of the long intervals like a stream, a trickle running from patch to patch of dried sand”—the 22-year-old Mississippi youth discovers he is hearing not Miss Rosa but the voices of “two separate Quentins.” One voice is that of the “Quentin preparing for Harvard in the South, the deep South dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous baffled ghosts.” The other voice is that of the Quentin “who was still too young to deserve yet to be a ghost, but nevertheless having to be one for all that, since he was born and bred in the deep South the same as she [Miss Rosa] was.” The two Quentins talk “to one another in the long silence of notpeople, in notlanguage:It seems that this demon—his name was Sutpen—(Colonel Sutpen)—Colonel Sutpen. Who came out of nowhere and without warning upon the land with a band of strange niggers and built a plantation”.