Doctors in space (ships): biomedical uncertainties and medical authority in imagined futures

There has been considerable interest in images of medicine in popular science fiction and in representations of doctors in television fiction. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to doctors administering space medicine in science fiction. This article redresses this gap. We analyse the evolving figure of ‘the doctor’ in different popular science fiction television series. Building upon debates within Medical Sociology, Cultural Studies and Media Studies we argue that the figure of ‘the doctor’ is discursively deployed to act as the moral compass at the centre of the programme narrative. Our analysis highlights that the qualities, norms and ethics represented by doctors in space (ships) are intertwined with issues of gender equality, speciesism and posthuman ethics. We explore the signifying practices and political articulations that are played out through these cultural imaginaries. For example, the ways in which ‘the simple country doctor’ is deployed to help establish hegemonic formations concerning potentially destabilising technoscientific futures involving alternative sexualities, or military dystopia. Doctors mostly function to provide the ethical point of narrative stability within a world in flux, referencing a nostalgia for the traditional, attentive, humanistic family physician. The science fiction doctor facilitates the personalisation of technological change and thus becomes a useful conduit through which societal fears and anxieties concerning medicine, bioethics and morality in a ‘post 9/11’ world can be expressed and explored

Buddhist Wisdom for Reducing Mental Suffering and Improving Mental Health During the COVID-19

In the midst of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic, people around the world are full of many physical and mental suffering. Physical suffering includes sickness and death caused by COVID-19, and some difficulties such as lack of food and drinks to consume; mental suffering includes worry, anxiety, and stress caused by fear of COVID-19 infection. The ways of people life are not the same as usual; they have to adjust themselves and make a good planning in order to survive in this most difficult time. People need to find the ways to create happiness and peace into their lives. Buddhism can provide the best solutions to those who seek for mental happiness and peace. The purposes of this article were to present the meaning of suffering in Buddhist perspective, Buddhist wisdom for reducing mental suffering and improving mental health, the four noble truths for solving mental suffering, the threefold characteristics for improving wisdom, the four foundations of mindfulness for improving mental health, and the model of Buddhist wisdom for improving mental health

[Elastische okklusale Auflagen]

Ovaj referat osjetljava problem okluzalnih naslona kao prenosioce tlaka na preostale zube kod parcijalne proteze. Kruti lijevani okluzalni nasloni opterećuju samo zubne nosače zbog biološke razlike periodonta i sluznice, dok se sluznica ispod sedla proteze udaljuje od njega u korak s fiziološkom resorpcijom. Elastičnim okluzalnim naslonima neutralizira se ta biološka razlika time da se njihova popustljivost uskladi proporcionalno s rezilijencijom sluznice. Elastični okluzalni naslon može se prema autorima izraditi od dvostruko savijene žice, čiji je promjer egzaktnim mjerama doveden u sklad s rezilijencijom sluznice. Ispitani su ovi problemi: a) kvaliteta žice, b) dužina okluzalnog naslona, c) promjer žice, đ) kut pod kojim je savijen horizontalni krak. Mjerene su čelične žice raznih promjera iz visokolegiranog čelika koje se upotrebljavaju u svakodnevnoj praksi. Elastična svojstva žice mjerena su na kidalici u Institutu za alatne strojeve VTŠ-a Zagreb. Dobiveni rezultati i dobiven modul elastičnosti daje uputstvo za pravilnu izradu horizontalnog kraka okluzalnog naslona kao i pod kojim (kutem treba savijati žicu, debljina žice usklađena je s modulom elastičnosti.The report she ds light upon the problem of the occlusive support as a means for transmitting pressure onto the remaining teeth when partial prosthesis is used. Rigid cast occlusive supports burden only the dental carriers owing to the biological difference between periodont and mucosa, while the mucosa beneath the faddle of the prosthesis recedes from it concurrently with physiological resorption. This biological difference is neutralized by means of elastic occlusive supports if their elasticity is adjusted in proportion to the resilience of the mucosa. According to the authors occlusive supports can be construyted from double bent wire whose diameter was brought to conform with the resilience of the mucosa by exact measurements. The solloing problems were studied: a) the quality of the wire, b) the lenghth of the occlusive support, c) the diameter of the wire, d) the angle at which the horizontal arm is bent. The wires of different diameter made of stainless steel wire in use i nroutine practice were measured. The elasticity of the wire was measured on the measuring machine at the Institute of Mechanics at the Superior Technical School in Zagreb. The obtained results and the module of elasticity give directions for the correct manufacture! of the horizontal occlusive support and for the angle at which the wire vas to be bent. The thickness of the wire is adjusted to the module of elasticity.Starre okklusale Auflagen belasten ausschliesslich die Trägerzähne, da sich die Sattelschleimha\u27Ut infolge der physiologischen Resorption vom Prothesensattel entfernt. Dieser biologische Unterschied zwischen dem Periodont und der Schleimhautresilienz kann durch nachgiebige Auflagen ausgeglichen werden. Zweckmässing gestaltet man solche Auflagen aus einer elastischen rDahtschlinge, deren Elastizität mit der Schleimhautreisiiienz in Einklang gebracht werden muss. Es wurden folgende Probleme geprüft: a) Die Qaulität des Drahtes, b) die Länge der okklusalen Auflage, c) der Durchmesser des Drahtes, d) der Winkel unter dem der horizontale Drahtarm abgebagen wurde. Die elastischen Eigenschaften wurden am Institut für Instrumentenprüfung der technischen Hochschule in Zagreb, gemessen. Der erhaltene Elastizitätsmodul ergibt Richtlinien für die biologisch richtige Anfertigung der okklusalen Auflage in Bezug auf ihre Länger Durchmesser und Winkel

Effects of quenching media on the mechanical properties of Al-Al2O3 metal matrix composite

In the present investigation, Al–Al2O3 nano- and microcomposites with different volume fractions of alumina was fabricated using powder metallurgy route and then characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope succeeded by density and Vickers microhardness measurements. The heat treatment of the samples was done by first heating the composite specimens to conditioning temperatures of 150°, 200°, 250° and 300°C separately in furnace, then holding the samples at that temperature for 1 hour and finally quenching them in different media such as air, brine solution (7 wt. %), engine oil, liquid nitrogen and polymer (poly ethylene glycol-5 wt. %) solution. After quenching the microhardness values were again measured. 3-point flexural test was conducted on the quenched samples at a loading rate of 0.5 mm/min. Some of the selected fractured samples were then taken for fractography analysis using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The results revealed that the strength and hardness of the composites were significantly enhanced as a result of quenching heat treatment. Higher strength and hardness was observed for brine quenching followed by liquid nitrogen, oil, polymer and finally air cooling. The betterment of mechanical properties of AMCs after quenching can be accredited to the intensified dislocation density produced due to coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between the particles and the matrix and also due to the back stress developed due to particles blocking the plastic flow of the Al matrix phase. The significance of study of quenching of AMCs is realized in applications such as cooling of cylinder liners and pistons in automobiles and aerospace structures which are suddenly subjected to very low temperatures at high altitudes due to presence of strong winds

The first cyborg and First World War bodies as anti-war propaganda

This article discusses a play published in The Strand Magazine during the First World War which features a cyborg presenting anti-war and pacifist messages, used by The Strand to create anti-German propaganda. The article draws on theories of disability, cyborgs and the posthuman, and from new research on wartime fiction magazines. The importance of the cyborg character, Soldier 241, for the literary history of science fiction is explored by focusing on the relations between the mechanical and the impaired body, and on the First World War as a nexus for technological, surgical and military development. As a cyborg, this character reflects politicized desires that the wartime authorities did not acknowledge: a longing for the end of war, and refusal to countenance a society that rejected the impaired body