Breath

The impact of different sampling techniques on the results of breath analysis was to be assessed in this study. Alveolar, mixed expiratory and time-controlled samples were collected from ten volunteers and from eight lung cancer patients. Breath sampling was visually controlled by means of capnometry. PCO(2) and 13 VOCs were determined. Mixed expiratory sampling yielded 25% lower concentrations of CO(2) and blood-borne VOCs. Time-controlled sampling generated high variation of results. Ratios C(alv)/C(mixed) were >1.5 for CO(2), acetone and isoprene, and <1 for isopropanol, 2-butanone and hexanal. Acetonitrile, butane, dimethylsulfide, pentane, butanal, benzene and hexane showed 1.5 > C(alv)/C(mixed) > 1. The ratio C(alv)/C(mixed) of CO(2), acetone and isoprene was different in healthy volunteers and lung cancer patients. Alveolar samples showed the highest concentrations of endogenous and lowest concentration of exogenous substances. Sampling can impact results in breat...

In my paper I interrogate Maurice Merleau-Ponty's examinations of 'the origin of space' and 'the primordial spatial level' in connection to his cryptic remarks about breathing. According to Merleau-Ponty the respiratory body gives us our first experience of space (in 'The Child's Relations with Others'), and in this sense it could be seen as a dimension of our carnal constitution of space. This could be seen as a radically new way to think about the question of spatiality, but Merleau-Ponty unfortunately never investigated explicitly his own short remarks about the respiratory constitution of space. In my paper I try to show with the help Merleau-Ponty himself that there can be found essential intertwinings between the origin of space and the phenomenon of breathing.

In this article, I show how certain contemporary Italian philosophers (Giorgio Colli, Giorgio Agamben, Adriana Cavarero, and Emanuele Coccia) responded to Jacques Derrida's critique of the voice and developed a new, ultra-materialist pneumatology.

Voice is a trinomy , and the trinomy in question is the self.  In the live theatre, the actor expresses his or her self, creating a community of selves (the world of the play) which is then shared with the community of selves which constitutes the audience. This article is about the role of the voice in creating that shared community.

Slightly longer draft (though not as long as the full version) of a text published in The Philosopher, Spring 2018.
It concerns the relation between breath and being, an etymology traced by Nietzsche and Renan, among others.
It thus opens up an exposition of the two main senses of being in Aristotle, the proposition, the mediaeval debate regarding universals, and Heidegger's rethinking of being beyond the Aristotelian delimitation.

Всички ние усещаме взаимовръзката между дишането и физическата дейност, някои психични състояния като вълнение, гняв, преходи между будно в спящо състояние на съзнанието и обратно. При по-внимателно разглеждане на връзката между дълбочината и ритъма на дишането и съзнанието в състояния на сън, на дълбоко спане без сънища, на екстаз, на контрол на ума чрез дихателни упражнения (например в практиките на йога) виждаме, че дишането предлага за всеки един от нас множество начини за преживяване на себе си. Настоящото изследване се фокусира върху описанията в Упанишадите на връзката между движението на прана и будното състояние, сънуването, дълбокото спане без сънища, умирането, екстаза, живота и смъртта. / We all feel the relationship between respiration and physical activity, some emotional and psychic states such as excitement, anger, and transitions from waking to sleeping consciousness and vice versa. Upon closer examination of the relationship between the depth and rhythm of breathing and consciousness in the states of dreaming, of deep sleep, of ecstasy, of mind control through breathing exercises (in practices of Yoga), we see that breathing offers for everyone multiple ways to experience of self. This study focuses on some of the descriptions in the Upaniṣads of the relationship between the movement of prāṇa and waking, dreaming, deep sleep without dreams, death, ecstasy, life and death.

Previous studies suggest that Solobacterium moorei is associated with oral halitosis. In the present study, we examined the prevalence of S. moorei on the dorsal surface of the tongue in 57 adults (21 with and 36 without halitosis) by bacterial culture and direct amplification of nucleic acids. We also examined the S. moorei type strain and four clinical isolates for 16S ribosomal nucleic acid sequence, H(2)S and enzyme production, and antibiotic susceptibility. S. moorei was found on the dorsal surface of the tongue in 100% of the subjects with halitosis and 14% of subjects without halitosis. Infection with S. moorei was correlated with organoleptic measures of halitosis and with volatile sulfur compound levels. Nucleic acid probe detection of S. moorei as a test for halitosis exhibited 100% sensitivity and 86% specificity. The S. moorei type strain and all four clinical isolates showed >98% 16S rDNA sequence similarity, produced H(2)S, demonstrated acid phosphatase, beta-galact...

ELIZABETH A. POVINELLI is an anthropologist, queer theorist, and filmmaker, whose ground-clearing work has developed a critical theory of late liberalism that would support what she calls “an anthropology of the otherwise.” Unfolding primarily through her sustained relationship with Indigenous Karrabing colleagues in north Australia, Povinelli’s writings have addressed problems such as settler liberalism and the politics of carnality, multiculturalism and the rhetorics of recognition, Indigeneity and the “governance of the prior,” and the ethics and archives of otherwise existence. In her most recent monograph, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism, she probes the politics that undergird the distinction between Life and Nonlife, tracking its pernicious vocation both within contemporary regimes of power and within the critical languages that infuse the contemporary theoretical scene. In this interview, Povinelli speaks about
geontopower, the breath of the geological, and the spatio-temporalities of dust, smog, and smoke. The following interview was conducted on May 20, 2018.

Beckett's Breath: Anti-Theatricality and the Visual Arts (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernism, Drama and Performance) Hardcover – 28 Feb 2018
by Sozita Goudouna (Author)


Samuel Beckett, one of the most prominent playwrights of the 20th century, wrote a 30-second playlet for the stage that does not include actors, text, characters or drama but only stage directions. Breath (1969) is the focus and the only theatrical text examined in this study, which demonstrates how the piece became emblematic of the interdisciplinary exchanges that occur in Beckett's later writings, and of the cross-fertilisation of the theatre with the visual arts.The book attends to 50 breath-related artworks (including sculpture, painting, new media, sound art, performance art) and contextualises Beckett's Breath within the intermedial and high-modernist discourse thereby contributing to the expanding field of intermedial Beckett criticism.

Released in the US by Oxford University Press https://global.oup.com/academic/product/becketts-breath-9781474421645?prevSortField=1&sortField=1&start=280&resultsPerPage=20&prevNumResPerPage=20&lang=en&cc=sv

Le terme abstraction revient de manière récurrente sous la plume des critiques beckettiens, étant devenu un lieu commun aux allures d’une évidence qui n’est pas toujours définie ou interrogée. Il est vrai, cependant, que de nombreuses caractéristiques de l’œuvre semblent justifier ce qualificatif : autant dans le théâtre que dans la fiction, les personnages et les lieux paraissent progressivement délestés de toute fonction référentielle. L’objectif du présent recueil consiste  à interroger le vocable abstrait, afin d’en déceler la complexité. Les études successives offrent autant d’éclairages mettant à jour la portée de cette notion, en sorte qu’elle n’apparaisse pas simple ou univoque, mais foncièrement problématique : la pertinence de l’idée d’abstraction paraîtra, dans le contexte beckettien, comme étant à la fois confirmée et nuancée, processus au cours duquel elle aura gagné en précision.

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The term abstraction is frequently used by critics in Beckett studies, and has become commonplace, appearing as self-evident without always being defined or questioned. It is true however that many characteristics of Beckett's work would seem to justify this description: both in his theatre and in his fiction, characters and places appear to be progressively emptied of any referential function. The aim of the present volume is to question the vocable abstract, in order to discern its complexity. The successive studies shed light and renew the range of meanings included in this notion, so that it no longer appears simple or unequivocal, but fundamentally problematic: the relevance of the idea of abstraction will appear, in the context of Beckett's work, as being both confirmed and nuanced, a process in which it will have gained additional precision.

We present the real-time monitoring of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) production from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) strains in vitro, using laser-based photoacoustic spectroscopy. Simultaneously, the production of ammonia (NH3) was measured, and the influence of different factors (e.g. the medium, temperature and antibiotics treatment) was assessed. Both reference strains and clinical isolates of patients with CF were studied, and compared to other pathogens commonly present in lungs/airways of CF patients. Hydrogen cyanide production starts to rise as soon as P. aeruginosa bacteria reach the stationary phase ((9.0-9.5) × 10(9) colony forming units, CFUs), up to concentrations of 14.5 microliters per hour (µl h(-1)). Different strains of P. aeruginosa produced HCN to varying degrees, and addition of tobramycin strongly reduced HCN production within 2 h from application. Burkholderia cepacia also produced HCN (up to 0.35µl h(-1) in 9.0  ×  10(9) CFU) while other pathogens (Aspergill...

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers. Serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is used to aid the selection of men undergoing biopsies. Its use remains controversial. We propose a GC-sensor algorithm system for classifying urine samples from patients with urological symptoms. This pilot study includes 155 men presenting to urology clinics, 58 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, 24 with bladder cancer and 73 with haematuria and or poor stream, without cancer. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to assess the discrimination achieved, while linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) were used as statistical models for sample classification. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV), repeated 10-fold cross-validation (10FoldCV), repeated double cross-validation (DoubleCV) and Monte Carlo permutations were applied to assess performance. Significant separation was found between prostate cancer and control samples, bladder cancer and controls and...

Physiological effects may change volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations and may therefore act as confounding factors in the definition of VOCs as disease biomarkers. To evaluate the extent of physiological background variability, this study assessed the effects of feed composition and somatic growth on VOC patterns in a standardized large animal model. Fifteen clinically healthy goats were followed during their first year of life. VOCs present in the headspace over faeces, exhaled breath and ambient air inside the stable were repeatedly assessed in parallel with the concentrations of glucose, protein, and albumin in venous blood. VOCs were collected and analysed using solid-phase or needle-trap microextraction and gas chromatograpy together with mass spectroscopy. The concentrations of VOCs in exhaled breath and above faeces varied significantly with increasing age of the animals. The largest variations in volatiles detected in the headspace over faeces occurred with the cha...

The ChemPro 100i chemical detector (aspiration-type ion mobility spectrometer) was used for the detection of selected volatile organic compounds known to be potential indicators of human presence. The targeted group of compounds mainly comprised ketones (acetone, 2-butanone, 2-pentanone, 3-methyl-2-butanone, 4-heptanone), aldehydes (propanal, pentanal, hexanal, octanal), dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), isoprene and ethanol. Gaseous standards of these compounds were produced from pure substances and analysed using the aspiration ion mobility spectrometry (AIMS) chemical detector. The chemical fingerprints obtained (patterns) were compared to evaluate possible differences in responses. The limits of detection ranged from 5 ppbv for 4-heptanone to 87 ppbv for DMDS, whereas relative standard deviations varied from 1.5% to 5%. Additionally, quantitative AIMS measurements of acetone levels in human breath samples were carried out. The breath acetone levels measured with AIMS ranged from 290 to...

The up-regulation of nitric oxide (NO) by inflammatory cytokines and mediators in central and peripheral airway sites can be easily monitored in exhaled air (F(E)NO). It is now possible to estimate the predominant airway site of increased F(E)NO i.e. large versus peripheral airway/alveoli, and its potential pathologic and physiologic role in obstructive lung disease. In asthma, six double-blind, randomized, controlled algorithm trials have reported only equivocal benefits of add-on measurements of F(E)NO to usual clinical guideline management including spirometry. Significant design issues, as emphasized by Gibson, may exist. However, meta-analysis of these six studies (Petsky et al 2012 Thorax 67 199-208) concluded that routine serial measurements of F(E)NO for clinical asthma management does not appear warranted. In COPD including chronic bronchitis and emphysema, despite significant expiratory airflow limitation, when clinically stable as well as during exacerbation, F(E)NO, j&#3...

Nalophan, Tedlar and Cali-5-Bond polymeric bags were compared to determine the most suitable type for breath sampling and storage when volatile organic compounds are to be determined. Analyses were performed by thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry. For each bag, the release of contaminants and the chemical stability of a gaseous standard mixture containing eighteen organic compounds, as well as the CO2 partial pressure were assessed. The selected compounds were representative of breath constituents and belonged to different chemical classes (i.e. hydrocarbons, ketones, aldehydes, aromatics, sulfurs and esters). In the case of Nalophan, the influence of the surface-to-volume ratio, related to the bag's filling degree, on the chemical stability was also evaluated. Nalophan bags were found to be the most suitable in terms of contaminants released during storage (only 2-methyl-1,3-dioxalane), good sample stability (up to 24 h for both dry and humid samples), and v...