Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: Clinicians' use of space and bodies during diagnosis

© 2015 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2015 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children with a movement disorder called dystonia. Interviews were conducted with team members and diagnostic examinations were observed. We illustrate that clinicians use communicative body work and verbal communication to transform a material terrain into diagnostic space, and we illustrate how this diagnostic space configures forms of embodied 'sensing-and-acting' within. We argue that a 'diagnosis' can be conceptualised as emerging from an interaction in which space, the clinician-body, and the patient-body (or body-part) mutually configure one another. By conceptualising diagnosis in this way, this article draws attention to the corporal bases of diagnostic power and counters Cartesian-like accounts of clinical work in which the patient-body is objectified by a disembodied medical discourse.The Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Trust Biomedical Strategic Award 086034

Improved determination of the atmospheric parameters of the pulsating sdB star Feige 48

As part of a multifaceted effort to exploit better the asteroseismological potential of the pulsating sdB star Feige 48, we present an improved spectroscopic analysis of that star based on new grids of NLTE, fully line-blanketed model atmospheres. To that end, we gathered four high S/N time-averaged optical spectra of varying spectral resolution from 1.0 \AA\ to 8.7 \AA, and we made use of the results of four independent studies to fix the abundances of the most important metals in the atmosphere of Feige 48. The mean atmospheric parameters we obtained from our four spectra of Feige 48 are : Teff= 29,850 $\pm$ 60 K, log $g$ = 5.46 $\pm$ 0.01, and log N(He)/N(H) = $-$2.88 $\pm$ 0.02. We also modeled for the first time the He II line at 1640 \AA\ from the STIS archive spectrum of the star and we found with this line an effective temperature and a surface gravity that match well the values obtained with the optical data. With some fine tuning of the abundances of the metals visible in the optical domain we were able to achieve a very good agreement between our best available spectrum and our best-fitting synthetic one. Our derived atmospheric parameters for Feige 48 are in rather good agreement with previous estimates based on less sophisticated models. This underlines the relatively small effects of the NLTE approach combined with line blanketing in the atmosphere of this particular star, implying that the current estimates of the atmospheric parameters of Feige 48 are reliable and secure.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, April 201

The golden circle: A way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service

This paper analyses the way in which the London Ambulance Service recovered from the events of October 1992, when it implemented a computer-aided despatch system (LASCAD) that remained in service for less than two weeks. It examines the enactment of a programme of long-term organizational change, focusing on the implementation of an alternative computer system in 1996. The analysis in this paper is informed by actor-network theory, both by an early statement of this approach developed by Callon in the sociology of translation, and also by concepts and ideas from Latour’s more recent restatement of his own position. The paper examines how alternative interests emerged and were stabilized over time, in a way of arguing and acting among key players in the change programme, christened the Golden Circle. The story traces four years in the history of the London Ambulance Service, from the aftermath of October 1992 through the birth of the Golden Circle to the achievement of National Health Service (NHS) trust status. LASCAD was the beginning of the story, this is the middle, an end lies in the future, when the remaining elements of the change programme are enacted beyond the Golden Circle

STS in management education: connecting theory and practice

This paper explores the value of science and technology studies (STS) to management education. The work draws on an ethnographic study of second year management undergraduates studying decision making. The nature and delivery of the decision making module is outlined and the value of STS is demonstrated in terms of both teaching method and module content. Three particular STS contributions are identified and described: the social construction of technological systems; actor network theory; and ontological politics. Affordances and sensibilities are identified for each contribution and a discussion is developed that illustrates how these versions of STS are put to use in management education. It is concluded that STS has a pivotal role to play in critical management (education) and in the process offers opportunities for new forms of managin

Discovery of a second pulsating intermediate helium-enriched sdOB star

We present the discovery of long-period, low-amplitude, g-mode pulsations in the intermediate He-rich hot subdwarf (sdOB) star Feige 46. Up until now only one other He-enriched sdOB star (LS IV -14116) was known to exhibit such pulsations. From our ground-based light curves of Feige 46, we extracted five independent periodicities ranging from 2294 s to 3400 s. We fitted our low-resolution, high signal-to-noise optical spectrum of the star with our grid of non-LTE model atmospheres and derived the following atmospheric parameters: Teff = 36120 $\pm$ 230 K, log g = 5.93 $\pm$ 0.04 and log N(He)/N(H) = -0.32 $\pm$ 0.03 (formal fitting errors only). These parameters are very similar to those of LS IV -14116 and place Feige 46 well outside of the instability strip where the hydrogen-rich g-mode sdB pulsators are found. We used the Gaia parallax and proper motion of Feige 46 to perform a kinematic analysis of this star and found that it likely belongs to the Galactic halo population. This is most certainly an intriguing and interesting result given that LS IV -14116 is also a halo object. The mechanism responsible for the pulsations in these two peculiar objects remains unclear but a possible scenario involves the $\epsilon$-mechanism. Although they are the only two members in their class of variable stars, these pulsators appear to have more in common than just their pulsation properties.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Just how hot are the ω\omega Centauri extreme horizontal branch pulsators?

Past studies based on optical spectroscopy suggest that the five $\omega$ Cen pulsators form a rather homogeneous group of hydrogen-rich subdwarf O stars with effective temperatures of around 50 000 K. This places the stars below the red edge of the theoretical instability strip in the log $g$ $-$ Teff diagram, where no pulsation modes are predicted to be excited. Our goal is to determine whether this temperature discrepancy is real, or whether the stars' effective temperatures were simply underestimated. We present a spectral analysis of two rapidly pulsating extreme horizontal branch (EHB) stars found in $\omega$ Cen. We obtained Hubble Space Telescope/COS UV spectra of two $\omega$ Cen pulsators, V1 and V5, and used the ionisation equilibrium of UV metallic lines to better constrain their effective temperatures. As a by-product we also obtained FUV lightcurves of the two pulsators. Using the relative strength of the N IV and N V lines as a temperature indicator yields Teff values close to 60 000 K, significantly hotter than the temperatures previously derived. From the FUV light curves we were able to confirm the main pulsation periods known from optical data. With the UV spectra indicating higher effective temperatures than previously assumed, the sdO stars would now be found within the predicted instability strip. Such higher temperatures also provide consistent spectroscopic masses for both the cool and hot EHB stars of our previously studied sample.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Scraping the Social? Issues in live social research

What makes scraping methodologically interesting for social and cultural research? This paper seeks to contribute to debates about digital social research by exploring how a ‘medium-specific’ technique for online data capture may be rendered analytically productive for social research. As a device that is currently being imported into social research, scraping has the capacity to re-structure social research, and this in at least two ways. Firstly, as a technique that is not native to social research, scraping risks to introduce ‘alien’ methodological assumptions into social research (such as an pre-occupation with freshness). Secondly, to scrape is to risk importing into our inquiry categories that are prevalent in the social practices enabled by the media: scraping makes available already formatted data for social research. Scraped data, and online social data more generally, tend to come with ‘external’ analytics already built-in. This circumstance is often approached as a ‘problem’ with online data capture, but we propose it may be turned into virtue, insofar as data formats that have currency in the areas under scrutiny may serve as a source of social data themselves. Scraping, we propose, makes it possible to render traffic between the object and process of social research analytically productive. It enables a form of ‘real-time’ social research, in which the formats and life cycles of online data may lend structure to the analytic objects and findings of social research. By way of a conclusion, we demonstrate this point in an exercise of online issue profiling, and more particularly, by relying on Twitter to profile the issue of ‘austerity’. Here we distinguish between two forms of real-time research, those dedicated to monitoring live content (which terms are current?) and those concerned with analysing the liveliness of issues (which topics are happening?)

Towards a new theory of practice for community health psychology

The article sets out the value of theorizing collective action from a social science perspective that engages with the messy actuality of practice. It argues that community health psychology relies on an abstract version of Paulo Freire’s earlier writing, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which provides scholar-activists with a ‘map’ approach to collective action. The article revisits Freire’s later work, the Pedagogy of Hope, and argues for the importance of developing a ‘journey’ approach to collective action. Theories of practice are discussed for their value in theorizing such journeys, and in bringing maps (intentions) and journeys (actuality) closer together

Seismic Resilient Steel Frames Equipped with Self-Centering Column Bases with Friction Devices

In the last two decades many researchers focused on the development of innovative building structures with the aim of achieving seismic resilience. Among others, steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRFs) equipped with friction devices in beam-to-column joints have emerged as an effective solution able to dissipate the seismic input energy while also ensuring the damagefree behaviour of the system. However, to date, little attention has been paid to their column bases, which represent fundamental components in order to achieve resilience. In fact, column bases designed by current conventional approaches lead to significant seismic damage and residual drifts leading to difficult-to-repair structures. This work assesses the seismic performance of steel MRFs equipped with an innovative damage-free, self-centering, rocking column base joints, developed in accordance with the aims of the European project FREEDAM. The proposed column base consists of a rocking splice joint where the seismic behaviour is controlled by a combination of friction devices, providing energy dissipation capacity, and pre-loaded threaded bars with disk springs, introducing restoring forces in the joint. The design procedure of the column base is presented, a numerical OpenSees model is developed to simulate the seismic response of a perimeter seismic-resistant frame, including the hysteretic behaviour of the connection. Non-linear dynamic analyses have been carried out to investigate the effectiveness of the column base in protecting the first storey columns from yielding and reducing the residual storey drifts. The results show that the damage-free behaviour of the column bases is a key requirement when self-centering of MRFs is a design objective