Work of breathing Work of breathing Work of breathing (WOB) is the energy expended to inhale and exhale a breathing gas. It is usually expressed as work per unit volume, for example, joules/litre, or as a work rate (power), such as joules/min or equivalent units, as it is not particularly useful without a reference to volume or time. It can be calculated in terms of the pulmonary pressure multiplied by the change in pulmonary volume, or in terms of the oxygen consumption attributable to breathing. In a normal resting state the work of breathing constitutes about 5% of the total body oxygen consumption.
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (United Kingdom) purposes. Large areas of research were the responsibility of other bodies - aviation, atomic energy, agriculture, health and medicine, meteorology - though it might undertake specific investigation on behalf of the responsible departments. The department encouraged and supported scientific research in universities and other institutions by means of grants for special research projects, research fellowships, studentships, grants to research associations and research contracts. The department absorbed or created a number of research organisations, which included large laboratories for special fields of work. Existing institutions for which it assumed responsibility were the National Physical Laboratory from the Royal Society in 1918,