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Widening of the QRS complex by terminal notching in leads V1 and V2 was observed in 6 seborrheic patients with adequate personal hygiene. This anomaly disappeared when the presternal skin was degreased thoroughly with cationic detergent before placing the conductive paste and electrodes. We attribute these electrocardiographic alterations to variations in the apocrine secretions in the presternal region, which modified the resistance of the skin to electrical potentials.

To the Editors: Cardiac auscultation must be done in a compulsive, systematic way, with the physician listening intently for one event at a time (1). Auscultation focuses more on the timing of even...

The phonomechanocardiographic parameters most closely associated with heart failure are reviewed and a critical judgement is made of the method. The conclusion is drawn that phonomechanocardiographic measurements help to establish approximate limits of functional normality in cases of moderate abnormality. When acute phonomechanocardiographic alterations appear following infection or toxic heart disease or the use of potentially cardiotoxic drugs, the diagnosis of miocarditis can be made on an objective basis. To control the clinical course of heart failure the following parameters are useful: variations in the period of expulsion, "a" and "telediastolic" indices of the apexcardiogram, and the expulsion period/pre-expulsion period and expulsion period/systolic isovolumetric phase coefficients. Although phonomechancardiography lacks exact biological precision, it represents a rational and no invasive method for estimating heart function. It provides a means for recognizing diverse functional anomalies at their onset and for controlling their development. It thus helps in choosing adequate preventive and therapeutic measures to keep an early functional miocardial disease from becoming a serious case of heart failure.

We studied several parameters of the jugular flebogram in 70 patients who had undergone cardiac surgery. Fifty six of them were on sinusal rithm and 14 in auricular fibrillation. We found among them 39 who had undergone commissurotomy and 16 who had got valvular prothesis. The results of these studies were analyzed and compared with those of 94 normal subjects, taking in consideration the type of surgical intervention and the time elapsed since the operation was performed--the latter in the more numerous group. It is interesting to observe that the sinus grows deeper after the intervention so making the relation xv/yv lower than the unit in 33% of the patients maintaining sinusal rithm. This alteration remained stationary during some years in some of the cases, the results suggesting a greater frequency during the first months of the post-operatory period. We didn't find any relation of this morphologic alteration with the presence of a pericardial construction, pulmonary hypertension, valvular injuries with repercussion on the right heart or modifications on the nenous pressure which we think due to functional changes following the pericardiotomy. It is interesting to observe these mechanographic signs in relation with the post-operatory period of cardiac surgery, but we must avoid hypervaluation of those cases suspicious of pericardial constriction.

An abnormal ECG suggested the diagnosis of myocardial infarction in a 65-year-old man who had suffered a transient chest pain. When the patient was admitted to the Hospital a new ECG and biochemical enzymes were normal, but and identical pathologic ECG was registered following inversion of the electrocardiographic leads in the right superior and inferior extremities. A prospective study of 160 adult patients has demonstrated that inversion of the leads in the right limbs frequently causes the appearance of pathologic Q waves (37.14 percent) and ischemic T waves (51.22 percent), especially in lead I and aVL. Number of pathologic Q and T waves may vary when they are present in the basal register, but we never observed their disappearance in all the precordial lead series. A constant finding was the marked low voltage of P, QRS and T in lead II due to the "distance" of the electrocardiographic leads right leg-left leg. Technical recognition may be difficult because P waves and QRS complex are frequently negative or isoelectric in aVR.

This piece of research centres upon a detailed analysis of the internal structure of noun-noun compounds extracted from a corpus of present-day English. Our theoretical approach has been based on a variety of theories and basic principles within the field of cognitive linguistics and microcognition: Langacker's Cognitive Grammar, the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor as proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, Turner and Fauconnier's Theory of Conceptual Integration as well as Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon. All of these approaches have been pervasively influenced by a background on connectionism.We have carried out a detailed analysis of a set of compounds according to its morphological, syntactic, semantic, cognitive and pragmatic features as each element of the compound is inserted into its contextual slot within the nominal composition construction. One of our critical findings has been the reinforcement of the fallacy of mass-count opposition in nouns. In this sense, noun compounds have helped reveal the real nature of nouns in general, as they are relatively mass or count within a countability scale based on the prototype. On the other hand, the conjunction of a conceptual context and a textual context within the contextual slot are essential for an adequate interpretation of a lexical unit. The contextual slot has thus been depicted as a container for a linguistic type, featuring a high degree of specificity with symbolic implications. We have also described the basic structure of the nominal composition construction (NCC) which is made up of two contextual slots: one slot for the compound's internal modifier (Mi) and another for the compound's head (Hn). The conceptual integration between the two components of a compound, the concept of emergence and the fact the many compounds have a well-delimited metaphorical and/or metonymical structure are also some of the interesting findings of this research. We have concluded that a noun-noun compound is a conceptually-integrated linguistic unit, functionally and semantically autonomous in relation with its two components., 542 p.

This piece of research centres upon a detailed analysis of the internal structure of noun-noun compounds extracted from a corpus of present-day English. Our theoretical approach has been based on a variety of theories and basic principles within the field of cognitive linguistics and microcognition: Langacker's Cognitive Grammar, the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor as proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, Turner and Fauconnier's Theory of Conceptual Integration as well as Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon. All of these approaches have been pervasively influenced by a background on connectionism.We have carried out a detailed analysis of a set of compounds according to its morphological, syntactic, semantic, cognitive and pragmatic features as each element of the compound is inserted into its contextual slot within the nominal composition construction. One of our critical findings has been the reinforcement of the fallacy of mass-count opposition in nouns. In this sense, noun compounds have helped reveal the real nature of nouns in general, as they are relatively mass or count within a countability scale based on the prototype. On the other hand, the conjunction of a conceptual context and a textual context within the contextual slot are essential for an adequate interpretation of a lexical unit. The contextual slot has thus been depicted as a container for a linguistic type, featuring a high degree of specificity with symbolic implications. We have also described the basic structure of the nominal composition construction (NCC) which is made up of two contextual slots: one slot for the compound's internal modifier (Mi) and another for the compound's head (Hn). The conceptual integration between the two components of a compound, the concept of emergence and the fact the many compounds have a well-delimited metaphorical and/or metonymical structure are also some of the interesting findings of this research. We have concluded that a noun-noun compound is a conceptually-integrated linguistic unit, functionally and semantically autonomous in relation with its two components., 542 p.

Este trabajo presenta un enfoque psico-pragmático de procesamiento de modismos con la superficie flexibilidad como para poder analizar los procesos cognitivos subyacentes en cualquier modismo por diversa y compleja que sea su naturaleza. Para ello, se han combinado dos perspectivas de análisis, indispensables y complementarias, a mi modo de ver: por un lado, la teoría pragmática de la relevancia de Sperber y Wilson y, por otro, la teoría psicolingüística de la descomposicionalidad idiomática, propuesta por Gibbs. La tesis está estructurada en seis capítulos. En el primero de ellos se realiza un análisis terminológico y tipológico de las denominaciones más comunes, como son "modismo", "expresión fija", "unidad fraseológica" o "expresión extendida". Dicho análisis pone de manifiesto la imprecisión y subjetividad con que se utilizan los términos anteriormente citados. Por ello, se propone una definición y tipología de los modismos atendiendo a criterios de uso pragmático. En el segundo capítulo se lleva a cabo una revisión crítica de los modelos psicolingüístas sobre procesamiento de modismos, analizando de forma más exhaustiva la propuesta de Gibbs. Tras el repaso a los modelos de procesamiento psicolingüístas, en el tercer capítulo se exponen las idea principales de la teoría de la relevancia. El capítulo cuarto está dividio en dos partes vinculadas entre sí. La primera de ellas trata el tema de los que los modismos comunican explícita e implícitamente. La segunda parte estudia los distintos usos de los modismos: descriptivos - cuando la forma proposicional de un modismo representa un estado de cosas del mundo-, e interpretativos y/o metalingüísticos -cuando dicha forma proposiconal posee cirta semejanza semántcia y/o formal respectivamente con el pensamiento de la hablante, como es el caso de la mayoría de los modismos y de todas las variantes idiomáticas. Si en el capítulo cuarto se tien

The present work offers a psycho-pragmatic approach to idiom processing that has enough flexibility to be able to account for any idiom, regardless of their nature. In order to achieve it, two different views of modeling idiom processing have been combined: the Idiom Decomposition Hypothesis , proposed by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., and the pragmatic approach represented by Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory.This work is structured in six chapters. Chapter 1 offers a terminological and typological analysis of the most common terms used to define idioms. This analysis highlights the vagueness with which the different terms are used. Thus, the definition and the typology proposed for idioms at the end of the chapter are only based on pragmatic criteria. Chapter 2 reviews the psycholinguistic models of idiom processing, carrying out a more specific analysis of Gibbs's model than of the rest. Chapter 3 analyzes the main ideas of Relevance Theory. Chapter 4 is divided into two parts. The first one deals with which idioms communicate explicitly and implicitly. The second part tackles the uses that speakers of a language make of idioms: descriptive use---when the concept communicated by the speaker is identical to the one encoded by the idiom---and interpretative and/or metalinguistic use---when the concept of the idiom the speaker communicates resembles semantically and/or formally the one encoded by the idiom. Chapter 5 focuses on the concepts underlying idioms, which reveals that idioms make immediately accessible sets of stereotypical assumptions whose number varies depending on their degree of lexicalization. Those sets of assumptions are the point of departure for the creation of an ad hoc concept in all cases, except when the lexicalized concept underlying the idiom coincides with the one encoded by the expression. Chapter 6 accounts for the representation of idioms in the mind, following the Sperberian distinction between intuitive and reflective concepts. This analysis leads me to the conclusion that idiom processing requires not only conceptual information but also procedural information that constrains the way in which that conceptual information is combined., 500 p.

The present work offers a psycho-pragmatic approach to idiom processing that has enough flexibility to be able to account for any idiom, regardless of their nature. In order to achieve it, two different views of modeling idiom processing have been combined: the Idiom Decomposition Hypothesis , proposed by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., and the pragmatic approach represented by Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory.This work is structured in six chapters. Chapter 1 offers a terminological and typological analysis of the most common terms used to define idioms. This analysis highlights the vagueness with which the different terms are used. Thus, the definition and the typology proposed for idioms at the end of the chapter are only based on pragmatic criteria. Chapter 2 reviews the psycholinguistic models of idiom processing, carrying out a more specific analysis of Gibbs's model than of the rest. Chapter 3 analyzes the main ideas of Relevance Theory. Chapter 4 is divided into two parts. The first one deals with which idioms communicate explicitly and implicitly. The second part tackles the uses that speakers of a language make of idioms: descriptive use---when the concept communicated by the speaker is identical to the one encoded by the idiom---and interpretative and/or metalinguistic use---when the concept of the idiom the speaker communicates resembles semantically and/or formally the one encoded by the idiom. Chapter 5 focuses on the concepts underlying idioms, which reveals that idioms make immediately accessible sets of stereotypical assumptions whose number varies depending on their degree of lexicalization. Those sets of assumptions are the point of departure for the creation of an ad hoc concept in all cases, except when the lexicalized concept underlying the idiom coincides with the one encoded by the expression. Chapter 6 accounts for the representation of idioms in the mind, following the Sperberian distinction between intuitive and reflective concepts. This analysis leads me to the conclusion that idiom processing requires not only conceptual information but also procedural information that constrains the way in which that conceptual information is combined., 500 p.