A cephalic phase of colonic pressure response to food was sought in five normal subjects (mean age (22.6) years, 22-24), studied on six separate occasions by recording intraluminal pressures in the unprepared sigmoid colon. Gastric acid secretion was measured simultaneously by continuous aspiration through a nasogastric tube. After a 60 minute basal period, one of five 30 minute food related ce...

Although often underrated in importance, the human sense of smell has both evolutionary and contemporary significance: our ability to perceive odors provides information that guides our responses to our environments. For example, the rich aromas wafting from a bakery encourage us to linger and savor them, whereas the smell of rotting garbage impels us to move away. No account of the role of sme...

Disturbances of olfaction are a common occurrence in many neurological and neurosurgical patients and their correct diagnosis might be helpful in management and enhancement of quality of life. However, olfaction is seldom checked in most neurosurgical units and the "smell bottles" are often either absent or out of date. This chapter reviews systematically recent advances in our understanding of...

Computer-controlled scent output technologies have a history dating back nearly 50 years. However, it’s only in the last few years that such systems have become easy to use and readily available, fueled by the emphasis on multimedia technologies from the internet and dot.com boom and by the increasing prominence of fragrance in everyday life. The key advantage of computer-controlled output, in ...

The fundamental mechanism of olfactory receptor activation has been conserved from yeast to humans. Engineered yeast cells can smell some of the same odorants as humans can, which makes yeast an ideal model system for studying human olfaction. Furthermore, if engineered yeast cells are incorporated into sensory arrays, they can be used as biosensors or artificial noses.

The increasing availability of genomic and genetic tools to study olfaction-the sense of smell-has brought important new insights into how this chemosensory modality functions in different species. Newly sequenced mammalian genomes-from platypus to dog-have made it possible to infer how smell has evolved to suit the needs of a given species and how variation within a species may affect individu...

Multimedia systems are widely used in consumer electronics environments today, where humans can work and communicate through multi-sensory interfaces. Unfortunately smell detection and generation systems are not part of today’s multimedia systems. In this paper, we propose an Electronic Nose that can be used in a multimedia environment. The proposed electronic nose can detect a large number of ...

Disorders of the chemical senses are frequent. They can severely affect our lives. Appropriate testing is needed to determine the nature of the patient's complaints. Because many chemosensory disorders are secondary to a wide variety of diseases, olfactory or gustatory complaints may help in establishing certain differential diagnoses, e.g. in Alzheimer's disease. In turn, treatment of the unde...

Good design is essential for long-term evolvability of software systems. To reduce the required additional short-term effort appropriate tools are highly desirable. The most promising approach [3] combines basic metrics to build complex heuristics to detect refactoring opportunities (design smells). We still saw backed by a questionnaire survey in [5] the need to systematically improve this app...

two of the most widely cited models in biodiversity research; niche partitioning and adaptive radiation. Many Amazonian fish genera are represented by 10 or more species living together — cheek by jowl — in multi-species assemblages. Even the specialist can hardly tell them apart; they often have very similar shapes and sizes, diets and microhabitats. In the face of this exuberance arguments fo...