Demonstrative Suffering: The Gestural (Re)embodiment of Symptoms

Despite the long-standing interest in emotion and bodily conduct, there remains relatively little research concerned with how gestures are used with talk and within interaction to reveal emotional and personal experience. In this article, the author considers the medical consultation and, in particular, the ways in which patients attempt to reveal their experience of illness to the doctor. The paper examines how gesture and other forms of bodily conduct are used to transform symptoms into suffering; to display, enact, and (re)embody medical problems and difficulties. The analysis is based on videorecordings of primary health care consultations and focuses on the social and interactional organization of demonstrative suffering.     

Railgun performance with a two-stage light-gas gun injector

Results obtained with the HELEOS (hypervelocity experimental launcher for equation of state) railgun, which uses a two-stage light-gas gun (2SLGG) as an injector, are presented. The high-velocity 2SLGG injector preaccelerates projectiles up to ~7 km/s. The high injection velocity reduces the exposure duration of the railgun barrel to the passing high temperature plasma armature, thereby reducing the ablation and subsequent armature growth. The 2SLGG also provides a column of cool, high-pressure hydrogen gas to insulate the rails behind the projectile, thereby eliminating restrike. A means to form an armature behind the injected projectile has been developed. In preliminary tests, the third-stage railgun has successfully increased the projectile velocity by 1.35 km/s. Extensive diagnostics have been used to determine the behavior of the armature and track the launcher's performance. Insome cases, velocity increases in the railgun section have been achieved, which are in close agreement with theoretical predictions, whereas in other experiments deviations from theoretical have been observed. The reasons for and implications of these results are addressed. Recent tests are reported     

Subanesthetic concentrations of isoflurane suppress learning as defined by the category-example task

It has been shown that chronic oral steroid therapy (ST) does not induce respiratory muscle dysfunction in normal and asthmatic subjects. As corticosteroids are sometimes chronically used in the treatment of the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the aim of our study was to verify whether ST could cause respiratory muscle impairment and, since ST also affects the central nervous system, whether ST could influence the ventilatory pattern. We retrospectively studied 12 COPD patients (group A), on long-term therapy (for at least 4 consecutive months, range 4-18 months) with an oral steroid, deflazacort, 15 mg.d-1. The subjects were strictly matched, with regard to age, sex, height, weight, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), residual volume (RV), arterial oxygen tension (PaCO2), arterial carbon dioxide tension (PaCO2) and pH, with 12 COPD patients (Group B) who had never taken oral steroids. To assess respiratory muscle strength, we measured maximal inspiratory (MIP) and expiratory (MEP) pressures, while mouth occlusion pressure (P0.1) was employed to assess neuromuscular drive; ventilatory pattern and airway impedence were also evaluated. Effectiveness of ST was confirmed by the plasmatic levels of endogenous cortisol. No significant differences were observed between the two groups with regard to MIP (A 72.2 +/- 9.7 vs B: 70 +/- 7.2 cmH2O) and MEP (A 91.6 +/- 10.5 vs B 94.4 +/- 7.6 cmH2O) whilst P0.1 was significantly higher in group A (2.6 +/- 0.3 cmH2O) than in group B (1.8 +/- 0.1 cmH2O). No significant differences were found among all the ventilatory parameters, but the impedence was significantly higher in group A.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)