Designing a Measurement Methodology for the Upper Aerodigestive Tract of <i>Phoca vitulina</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In North America, wild harbor seal neonates and pups ( Phoca vitulina ) are among the most common marine mammals admitted to rescue centers. Nutritional support is typically via gavage as most are admitted prior to weaning. In order to advance seal feeding and swallowing rehabilitation, we require a comprehensive understanding of their upper aerodigestive tract (UAT) as it applies to swallowing physiology. Anatomical studies of the harbor seal UAT are limited, and standardized UAT measurements for neonates and pups have not yet been determined. Our objective is to design a systematic method to measure their UAT structures and then obtain quantitative values. During post mortem examination, we photographed UAT structures using scalars. Structures included: tongue, vocal folds, cricoid cartilage, trachea, and epiglottis. A priori , we developed a manual outlining measurement start and endpoints using ImageJ (NIH, 2010). Following measurements, we summarized results with means (standard deviations, [SD]) and medians (interquartile ranges, [IQR]) as appropriate and explored correlations (Pearson’s correlation coefficient, one‐tailed) between UAT structures and other body measurements. We used IBM SPSS analytical software version 26 (IBM Corporation, 2019) for analyses with significance of p<.05. Our specimens included 14 deceased harbor seal neonates or pups (9 males, 5 females) aged between three days and 2 months old at the time of death. Causes of death were either: spontaneous, congenital, or due to infectious, metabolic or malnutrition disorders, or by euthanasia after a humane endpoint was reached. On admission to rehabilitation, body measurement ranges included: 46.0 to 57.0 (body length [cm]), 36.0 to 59.0 (axillary girth [cm]) 5.8 to 12.6 (weight [kg]). Post‐mortem UAT measurements (mm, mean ± SD) included: 1) tongue tip to epiglottis base: 82.7 ± 6.9, 2) vocal fold length: 13.9 ± 2.0, 3) tracheal diameter: 10.3 ± 1.4, and 4) epiglottic length: 20.0 ± 2.8. Correlations between seal body length and UAT dimensions were not statistically significant. In conclusion, we have developed a systematic method to measure harbor seal neonate and pup UAT structures. To the best of our knowledge, these measurements, as they relate to swallowing, have not been previously reported. These findings expand the seal macroscopic anatomy knowledge base and contribute to cross‐species conceptual convergences between human and seal swallowing physiology and its rehabilitation. Support or Funding Information Supported by a UBC Faculty of Medicine Summer Student Research Program 2019 award to Hirad Nourbakhsh, UBC Faculty of Medicine Start‐up grant to Stacey A. Skoretz and by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant to A. Wayne Vogl (RGPIN‐2018‐03727).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".