3,339 research outputs found
TREATMENT OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE USING THE CAYCE WET CELL BATTERY
Parkinson's disease, a condition involving progressive deterioration of the nervous system, is at present incurable by conventional medicine. Here we report on a study in which we have evidence of clinical improvement from using a treatment modality recommended by Edgar Cayce, a subtle energy device known as the wet cell battery. Cayce said that the wet cell would transfer vibratory energy into the body, and specifically recommended it for neurological disorders, but there have been no previous clinical studies of this modality. T en participants with Parkinson's disease used the wet cell, a chemical battery, with gold and silver solutions, for a four-month treatment period at home. Nine of the ten people followed the protocol consistently (but none completely or perfectly). They averaged slight to moderate improvement in Parkinson's disease symptoms over four months, based on observations by researchers and subjective questionnaires. Over the long term (three years), one participant obtained almost complete remission of his Parkinson's disease symptoms. Since there was no control group the placebo effect cannot be ruled out. However, many minor symptoms showed interesting improvement in several individuals. For example, two people reported regaining their sense of smell, and one had improved color vision. Several people had more facial emotional expressiveness, and reported reduced tremors
IMPROVEMENT OF CIRCUlATION USING THE RADIAL APPLIANCE
The purpose of this study was to determine if a subtle energy device, the Cayce Radial Appliance, could improve circulation in the extremities. There were two aspects to the study: a doubleblind, placebo-controlled experiment and a small clinical investigation. In the experiment, 30 subjects were selected for cold extremities, with the criterion that either the hands or the feet had to be below 800 F during the initial measurement session. To measure improvement of circulation, we used digital thermometers to record the temperatures of the thumbs and big toes on both hands and feet. Subjects were instructed to use the appliance 16 times; laboratory measurements were taken during the 1st, 4th and 16th sessions. Skin temperature turned our to be a difficult variable to work with, due to the wide variability in temperature apparently unrelated to the experimental siruation. The strongest results were observed in the 4th session. During session baseline, differences between hand and foot temperatures of the experimental group were significantly greater than those of the control group (t [13,11] 2.49, p '" .02). The 16th session did not yield significant differences between the experimental and control groups. However, in the experimental group, there was a correlation of r (9) -.56 (p '" .07) of hand temperarure increase with the number of days it took to complete the 16 sessions. That is, those subjects who were more consistent in using the appliance may have obtained better results, though statistically the result is only suggestive due to the small sample size. In contrast, in a clinical follow-up study with five subjects and no control group, we found that all subjects had a substantial increase in hand temperature following three sessions on the appliance (Mean increase'" 8.40 F, SO = 3.3). This increase was well in excess of that seen in either the experimental or control groups in the previous study. One important difference was that in the clinical study, use of the appliance was closely supervised, whereas in the blind study most of the appliance sessions were conducted by the subjects alone in their homes
Structure and belonging: Pathways to success for underrepresented minority and women PhD students in STEM fields
The advancement of underrepresented minority and women PhD students to elite postdoctoral and faculty positions in the STEM fields continues to lag that of majority males, despite decades of efforts to mitigate bias and increase opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. In 2015, the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NSF AGEP) California Alliance (Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford, UCLA) conducted a wide-ranging survey of graduate students across the mathematical, physical, engineering, and computer sciences in order to identify levers to improve the success of PhD students, and, in time, improve diversity in STEM leadership positions, especially the professoriate. The survey data were interpreted via path analysis, a method that identifies significant relationships, both direct and indirect, among various factors and outcomes of interest. We investigated two important outcomes: publication rates, which largely determine a new PhD studentâs competitiveness in the academic marketplace, and subjective well-being. Women and minority students who perceived that they were well-prepared for their graduate courses and accepted by their colleagues (faculty and fellow students), and who experienced well-articulated and structured PhD programs, were most likely to publish at rates comparable to their male majority peers. Women PhD students experienced significantly higher levels of distress than their male peers, both majority and minority, while both women and minority student distress levels were mitigated by clearly-articulated expectations, perceiving that they were well-prepared for graduate level courses, and feeling accepted by their colleagues. It is unclear whether higher levels of distress in women students is related directly to their experiences in their STEM PhD programs. The findings suggest that mitigating factors that negatively affect diversity should not, in principle, require the investment of large resources, but rather requires attention to the local culture and structure of individual STEM PhD programs
Mitochondrial DNA signals of late glacial recolonization of Europe from near Eastern refugia
Human populations, along with those of many other species, are thought to have contracted into a number of refuge areas at the height of the last Ice Age. European populations are believed to be, to a large extent, the descendants of the inhabitants of these refugia, and some extant mtDNA lineages can be traced to refugia in Franco-Cantabria (haplogroups H1, H3, V, and U5b1), the Italian Peninsula (U5b3), and the East European Plain (U4 and U5a). Parts of the Near East, such as the Levant, were also continuously inhabited throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, but unlike western and eastern Europe, no archaeological or genetic evidence for Late Glacial expansions into Europe from the Near East has hitherto been discovered. Here we report, on the basis of an enlarged whole-genome mitochondrial database, that a substantial, perhaps predominant, signal from mitochondrial haplogroups J and T, previously thought to have spread primarily from the Near East into Europe with the Neolithic population, may in fact reflect dispersals during the Late Glacial period, ?19â12 thousand years (ka) ago.<br/
Lessons from Love-Locks: The archaeology of a contemporary assemblage
This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of Material Culture, November 2017, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.Loss of context is a challenge, if not the bane, of the ritual archaeologistâs craft. Those who research ritual frequently encounter difficulties in the interpretation of its often tantalisingly incomplete material record. Careful analysis of material remains may afford us glimpses into past ritual activity, but our often vast chronological separation from the ritual practitioners themselves prevent us from seeing the whole picture. The archaeologist engaging with structured deposits, for instance, is often forced to study ritual assemblages post-accumulation. Many nuances of its formation, therefore, may be lost in interpretation. This paper considers what insights an archaeologist could gain into the place, people, pace, and purpose of deposition by recording an accumulation of structured deposits during its formation, rather than after. To answer this, the paper will focus on a contemporary depositional practice: the love-lock. This custom involves the inscribing of names/initials onto a padlock, its attachment to a bridge or other public structure, and the deposition of the corresponding key into the water below; a ritual often enacted by a couple as a statement of their romantic commitment. Drawing on empirical data from a three-year diachronic site-specific investigation into a love-lock bridge in Manchester, UK, the author demonstrates the value of contemporary archaeology in engaging with the often enigmatic material culture of ritual accumulations.Peer reviewe
Understanding the nature of the optically faint radio sources and their connection to the submillimeter population
We present a sample of 43 submillimeter sources detected (at >3 sigma), drawn
from our program to follow-up optically faint radio sources with SCUBA. These
sources already have associated radio and in many cases optical
identifications, and many are also detected at 450 microns. We compare these
with 12 submillimeter sources drawn from the literature, which were discovered
in blank field mapping campaigns, but also have radio detections. We then use
this total sample (55 sources) to study and model the evolution of dusty
galaxies. A correlation is observed in the sub-mm/radio color-magnitude
diagram, which can be modeled by strong luminosity evolution. The selection
effects of the radio/optical pre-selection technique are determined from the
models, and a corrected redshift distribution is constrained using a range of
model assumptions. The temperature/redshift effects on the 450 microns detected
subset of our sample are studied in relation to the models, and prospects for
improved measurements in the shorter sub-mm wavelength windows (450 microns and
350 microns) are explored.Comment: to appear in ApJ, 19 pages, 9 figure
High-Redshift Quasars Found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data II: The Spring Equatorial Stripe
This is the second paper in a series aimed at finding high-redshift quasars
from five-color (u'g'r'i'z') imaging data taken along the Celestial Equator by
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) during its commissioning phase. In this
paper, we present 22 high-redshift quasars (z>3.6) discovered from ~250 deg^2
of data in the spring Equatorial Stripe, plus photometry for two previously
known high-redshift quasars in the same region of sky. Our success rate of
identifying high-redshift quasars is 68%. Five of the newly discovered quasars
have redshifts higher than 4.6 (z=4.62, 4.69, 4.70, 4.92 and 5.03). All the
quasars have i* < 20.2 with absolute magnitude -28.8 < M_B < -26.1 (h=0.5,
q_0=0.5). Several of the quasars show unusual emission and absorption features
in their spectra, including an object at z=4.62 without detectable emission
lines, and a Broad Absorption Line (BAL) quasar at z=4.92.Comment: 28 pages, AJ in press (Jan 2000), final version with minor changes;
high resolution finding charts available at
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~fan/paper/qso2.htm
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