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Globus pharyngeus is a common ENT condition. This paper reviews the current evidence on globus and gives a rational guide to the management of patients with globus. The aetiology of globus is still unclear though most ENT surgeons believe that reflux whether acidic or not plays a significant role. Though proton pump inhibitors are used extensively in practice, there is little evidence to support their efficacy. Most patients with globus can be discharged after simple office investigations. The role of pepsin-induced laryngeal injury is an exciting concept that needs further study. Given the benign nature of globus pharyngeus, in most cases, reassurance rather than treatment or extensive investigation with rigid oesophagoscopy or contrast swallows is all that is needed. We need more research into the aetiology of globus.

The emission of complex fragments (3⩽ Z ≲12) from reactions of 3 He with nat Ag has been studied at bombarding energies of E = 480, 900, 1800, 2700 and 3600 MeV. Between 900 and 1800 MeV slopes of the fragment kinetic energy spectra at backward angles undergo a change in character, becoming much flatter; in addition, the Coulomb peak is found to broaden significantly and shift to lower energies. Power-law fits to the fragment charge distributions result in decreasing values of the exponent τ up to a bombarding energy of 1800 MeV; at this value and beyond, a constant value of τ =2.1±0.1 is observed. Elemental cross sections at the highest energy are found to increase by approximately two orders of magnitude relative to data near 100 MeV. The data suggest a change in reaction mechanism between incident energies of 900 and 1800 MeV.

By coupling a thin fast NE102A plastic scintillator to a BaF2 crystal, we have been able to detect and identify simultaneously light charged particles and heavy ions from Z = 1 to Z = 18. Time-of-flight information is used to separate Z = 1 isotopes and to distinguish fission fragments from other reaction products.

Angular correlations between fission fragments induced by an 40Ar bombardment of 232Th targets at four energies, 31, 35, 39 and 44 MeV/u, have been measured as well as the energies, velocities and masses of both fragments. The characteristics of peripheral collisions remain about constant in the range studied, whereas the component attributed to the central collisions which shows a saturation in linear momentum transfer at 180 MeV/c per incident nucleon, has a cross section decreasing with bombarding energy which is correlated to an increase of the excitation energy of the fissioning nuclei.

Fragment-fragment correlations have been studied in α -induced reactions at incident energies from 70 to 800 MeV/u on Ag, Ho and Au targets. Even at the highest energy binary thermal fission is observed with excitation energies up to 800–900 MeV. In addition, events with mass number around 30 and relative velocities up to twice the values expected for thermal fission occur and are attributed to multifragmentation. The energy deposit rather than the projectile velocity seems to be parameter governing the appearance of the multifragmentation process which competes strongly with fission for imparted energies beyond 800 MeV.

The fusion cross sections of systems leading to s-d shell compound nuclei reveal a strong dependence upon the number of valence nucleons of the colliding ions. This striking feature is discussed in terms of entrance channel and compound nucleus effects.

The study of evaporation residue from the Ne + Ag system shows that there is qualitative change in the reaction mechanism in the Fermi energy domain. At 20 MeV/u the projectile is mostly absobered by the target, while at 30-37 MeV/u a continious range of mass transfer with a large transverse momentum is observed.

Formation and decay properties of composite-like nuclei produced by 58 Ni projectiles bombarding 232 Th target nuclei are investigated at different energies by means of fission fragment angular correlation measurements. Experimental results are compared to the excition model and excitation energies in the fissioning nuclei are deduced. By comparing the present data with the results on other systems, the influences of entrance channel conditions and composite-like nuclei temperatures are discussed to explain the evolution of the high linear momentum transfer region. The coexistence of both massive transfer mmechanism and head-on collisions followed by preequilibrium is suggested.

Expérience GANIL; Angular correlations between fission fragments induced by 1760 MeV 40Ar bombarding 197Au and 232Th targets have been measured. Energies, velocities and masses have been obtained for both fragments. The momentum transfer and energy deposited were deduced from an event-by-event analysis. The recoil velocity and total mass spectra show that mass transfer is still a dominating process. Momentum transfer of at least 6.5 GeV/c and 900 MeV excitation energy are deduced.