A képzelet szerepe a gyógyításban és a rehabilitációban - különös tekintettel a fájdalomcsökkentésre = The role of imagery in treatment and rehabilitation with special regard to pain management

Különböző pszichológiai módszereket már régóta alkalmaznak nem csak fájdalomcsökkentés céljából, hanem a legkülönfélébb kognitív módszereket igénylő klinikai helyzetekben is. A klinikumban és a rehabilitációban használatos pszichológiai módszerekkel történő fájdalomcsökkentés mellett a placebo-fájdalomcsillapítás is egyre inkább kutatott és feltárt jelensége az orvostudománynak. Mindkettő hatásmechanizmusában fontos szerepet játszik az orvos—beteg kapcsolat minősége. A beteg vonatkozásában a kognitív pszichológiai módszerek közül a képzelet alkalmazásának lehet nagy jelentősége sok esetben, főként azért, mert egy betegség vagy sérülés során a személy könnyen olyan regresszív munkamódba kerülhet, amelyben az elsődleges folyamatok, így a képzelet is, felerősödnek. Ezért a betegek képzeletének terápiás folyamatba való bevonása az egyik lehetséges módja annak, hogy minél szélesebb körben kihasználjuk a pszichoszociális tényezőkben rejlő gyógyító lehetőségeket és gyorsítsuk a gyógyulás folyamatát. Jelen összefoglaló keretében a képzelőerő terápiás alkalmazására vonatkozó szakirodalom néhány elemét kívánjuk bemutatni, elsősorban arra a kérdésre koncentrálva, hogy a képzelőerő milyen módon játszhat szerepet a különböző betegségekkel kapcsolatban megjelenő fájdalomcsillapítás területén. | Various psychological interventions are in use under clinical settings not only to relieve pain, but also to contribute to the treatment of any condition requiring the application of cognitive methods. In addition to the clinical and rehabilitational use of psychological interventions for pain reduction, placebo analgesia is also a more and more studied and understood phenomenon in medicine. In the mechanisms underlying both placebo analgesia and psychological pain reduction the quality of the physician-patient relationship has a very important role. From the patient’s point of view, among the cognitive psychological methods the application of mental imagery can have a great significance in many cases, mainly because persons with a disease or injury can easily mobilize a regressive mode of mental activity leading to the increased role of the primary processes including mental imagery. Therefore, the attempt to involve the patient’s mental imagery into the therapeutic process is a possible way to utilize the medical potentials of the psycho-social factors and to increase the speed of recovery. In this paper we would like to present some elements of the current literature about the therapeutic application of mental imagery, focusing on the question of how mental imagery can be used for the reduction of pain in different diseases

Transit timing variations in eccentric hierarchical triple exoplanetary systems. I. Perturbations on the time-scale of the orbital period of the perturber

We study the long-term time-scale (i.e. period comaprable to the orbital period of the outer perturber object) transit timing variations in transiting exoplanetary systems which contain a further, more distant (a_2>>a_1) either planetary, or stellar companion. We give an analytical form of the O-C diagram (which describes such TTV-s) in trigonometric series, valid for arbitrary mutual inclinations, up to the sixth order in the inner eccentricity. We show that the dependence of the O-C on the orbital and physical parameters can be separated into three parts. Two of these are independent of the real physical parameters (i.e. masses, separations, periods) of a concrete system, and depend only on dimensionless orbital elements, and so, can be analyzed in general. We analyze these dimensionless amplitudes for different arbitrary initial parameters, as well as for two particular systems CoRoT-9b and HD 80606b. We find in general, that while the shape of the O-C strongly varies with the angular orbital elements, the net amplitude (departing from some specific configurations) depends only weakly on these elements, but strongly on the eccentricities. As an application, we illustrate how the formulae work for the weakly eccentric CoRoT-9b, and the highly eccentric HD 80606b. We consider also the question of detection, as well as the correct identification of such perturbations. Finally, we illustrate the operation and effectiveness of Kozai cycles with tidal friction (KCTF) in the case of HD 80606b.Comment: Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics; Revised versio

The contact binary VW Cephei revisited: surface activity and period variation

Context. Despite the fact that VW Cephei is one of the well-studied contact binaries in the literature, there is no fully consistent model available that can explain every observed property of this system. Aims. Our motivation is to obtain new spectra along with photometric measurements, to analyze what kind of changes may have happened in the system in the past two decades, and to propose new ideas for explaining them. Methods. For the period analysis we determined 10 new times of minima from our light curves, and constructed a new O$-$C diagram of the system. Radial velocities of the components were determined using the cross-correlation technique. The light curves and radial velocities were modelled simultaneously with the PHOEBE code. All observed spectra were compared to synthetic spectra and equivalent widths of the H$\alpha$ line were measured on their differences. Results. We have re-determined the physical parameters of the system according to our new light curve and spectral models. We confirm that the primary component is more active than the secondary, and there is a correlation between spottedness and the chromospheric activity. We propose that flip-flop phenomenon occurring on the primary component could be a possible explanation of the observed nature of the activity. To explain the period variation of VW Cep, we test two previously suggested scenarios: presence of a fourth body in the system, and the Applegate-mechanism caused by periodic magnetic activity. We conclude that although none of these mechanisms can be ruled out entirely, the available data suggest that mass transfer with a slowly decreasing rate gives the most likely explanation for the period variation of VW Cep

A csillagfejlődés késői állapotai = Late stages of stellar evolution

Tanulmányoztuk a csillagfejlődés, csillagrezgések és -robbanások asztrofizikájának nyitott kérdéseit hazai, külföldi és űrbéli nagyműszerekkel végzett megfigyelésekkel. Vizsgáltuk pulzáló vörös óriás változócsillagoknál a pulzáció kapcsolatát a csillagfejlődéssel és a periódusváltozások okait. Elvégeztük több mint 300 vörös óriáscsillagnak a Kepler-űrtávcsővel készített fénygörbéje analízisét. A csillagoknál Fourier- és wavelet-analízist alkalmaztunk a periodicitás vizsgálatokhoz. Megvizsgáltunk nagy tömegű szuperóriás csillagokat mint lehetséges szupernóva progenitorokat a robbanás előtt. Szupernóvák távolságát, tömegét, luminozitását és fejlődési állapotát határoztuk meg fotometriai és spektroszkópiai megfigyelések alapján. A ROTSE programmal együttműködve megfigyeltünk és elemeztünk mintegy 50 új szupernóvát a 9,2 m-es HET (USA), a 9,3 m-es SALT távcső (Dél-Afrika) és más távcsövek (Piszkéstető, Baja és Szeged) használatával. A projekt új kutatási irányokat nyitott: vörös óriás csillagok rövid periódusú és kis amplitúdójú oszcillációjának vizsgálata a Kepler adatai alapján, és szupernóva-robbanások széles körű tanulmányozása az University of Texas-szal együttműködve. A kutatás végére 96 publikációnk született (ezek közül 1 MTA doktori és 6 PhD értekezés, 1 Science cikk) az OTKA-szám feltüntetésével, összesen 418 impakt faktorral. Ezekre 2013 közepéig 682 hivatkozás történt az ADS szerint (részletes adatok: http://astro.u-szeged.hu/kutatas/.otka/index.html). | In this project we explored open questions of stellar evolution, oscillations and explosions by taking new observations using ground-based and space telescopes. We studied the relationship of pulsation and stellar evolution in red giant stars and physical background of the period changes. We analyzed the light curves of more than 300 red giant stars measured by the Kepler space telescope. We applied Fourier- and wavelet-analysis to perform the periodicity studies. We studied massive supergiants as supernova progenitors before explosion. We determined the distance, mass, luminosity and evolutionary state of supernovae via photometric and spectroscopic measurements. In collaboration with the ROTSE program we observed and studied about 50 new supernovae using observations taken with the 9.2 m HET telescope (USA), the 9.3 m SALT telescope (South Africa) and other telescopes at Piszkéstető, Baja and Szeged. We extended our studies into new directions: the study of short period and small amplitude oscillations of red giant stars based on Kepler data, and comprehensive investigations of supernova explosions in collaboration with University of Texas. We produced 96 publications (among them 1 HAS DSc thesis and 6 PhD theses, 1 Science paper) with the indication of the OTKA-number, the cumulative impact factor is 418. The current number of citations (June 2013) is 682 according to the ADS data base (details: http://astro.u-szeged.hu/kutatas/.otka/index.html)

Adjustment errors of sunstones in the first step of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Studies with dichroic cordierite/tourmaline and birefringent calcite crystals.

According to an old but still unproven theory, Viking navigators analysed the skylight polarization with dichroic cordierite or tourmaline, or birefringent calcite sunstones in cloudy/foggy weather. Combining these sunstones with their sun-dial, they could determine the position of the occluded sun, from which the geographical northern direction could be guessed. In psychophysical laboratory experiments, we studied the accuracy of the first step of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. We measured the adjustment error e of rotatable cordierite, tourmaline and calcite crystals when the task was to determine the direction of polarization of white light as a function of the degree of linear polarization p. From the obtained error functions e(p), the thresholds p* above which the first step can still function (i.e. when the intensity change seen through the rotating analyser can be sensed) were derived. Cordierite is about twice as reliable as tourmaline. Calcite sunstones have smaller adjustment errors if the navigator looks for that orientation of the crystal where the intensity difference between the two spots seen in the crystal is maximal, rather than minimal. For higher p (greater than p(crit)) of incident light, the adjustment errors of calcite are larger than those of the dichroic cordierite (p(crit)=20%) and tourmaline (p(crit)=45%), while for lower p (less than p(crit)) calcite usually has lower adjustment errors than dichroic sunstones. We showed that real calcite crystals are not as ideal sunstones as it was believed earlier, because they usually contain scratches, impurities and crystal defects which increase considerably their adjustment errors. Thus, cordierite and tourmaline can also be at least as good sunstones as calcite. Using the psychophysical e(p) functions and the patterns of the degree of skylight polarization measured by full-sky imaging polarimetry, we computed how accurately the northern direction can be determined with the use of the Viking sun-dial under 10 different sky conditions at 61° latitude, which was one of the main Viking sailing routes. According to our expermiments, under clear skies, using calcite or cordierite or tourmaline sunstones, Viking sailors could navigate with net orientation errors [Formula: see text]. Under overcast conditions, their net navigation error depends on the sunstone type: [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]