The beliefs and attitudes of UK registered osteopaths towards chronic pain and the management of chronic pain sufferers ::a cross-sectional questionnaire based survey

Objectives: This study investigated the beliefs and attitudes of UK registered osteopaths towards chronic pain and the management of chronic pain sufferers. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire based survey of UK registered osteopaths was performed to test the hypothesis that osteopaths have a more biopsychosocial approach to treating and managing chronic pain patients than other healthcare professionals. Sociodemographic determinants of the participants were explored and the original HC-PAIRS and the PABS-PT used as measurement tools. They assess practitioners' attitudes and beliefs towards perceived harmfulness of physical activities for patients with cLBP and participants' knowledge of pain. International meta-analyses were performed with both measurement tools to allow comparison with other healthcare professionals. Results: UK registered osteopaths (n=216) had mean PABS-PT subscale scores of 31.37 ± 6.26 [CI95% 30.53–32.21] (biomedical) and 32.72 ± 4.29 [CI95% 32.14–33.29] (biopsychosocial). The mean HC-PAIRS total score was 45.45 ± 10.05 [CI95% 44.11–46.8]. These indicate a wide spread of beliefs and knowledge towards chronic pain with a tendency to agree that physical activity is not necessarily harmful for patients with cLBP. Post-graduate education had a significant positive effect on questionnaire results. Meta-analyses revealed that UK registered osteopaths have significantly better HC-PAIRS scores than most physiotherapy students, nurses and pharmacists, and had similar PABS-PT scores to most other healthcare professionals. Conclusions: The hypothesis of UK registered osteopaths having a more biopsychosocial approach to treating and managing chronic pain patients in comparison to other healthcare providers has been rejected. This seems in contrast to the typically claimed unique concepts of osteopathy. Nevertheless, this study supports their ability to engage with psychosocial factors of the patients' pain experience, but shows that it can be improved. This paper suggests that training is needed to increase osteopaths' expertise in knowledge of chronic pain, and their attitudes towards the management of chronic pain sufferers

Permanent-magnets linear actuators applicability in automobile active suspensions

Significant improvements in automobile suspension performance are achieved by active systems. However, current active suspension systems are too expensive and complex. Developments occurring in power electronics, permanent magnet materials, and microelectronic systems justifies analysis of the possibility of implementing electromagnetic actuators in order to improve the performance of automobile suspension systems without excessively increasing complexity and cost. In this paper, the layouts of hydraulic and electromagnetic active suspensions are compared. The actuator requirements are calculated, and some experimental results proving that electromagnetic suspension could become a reality in the future are shown

Assessment of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from the tallow biodiesel production chain including land use change (LUC).

Economic uncertainties and environmental constraints regarding fossil fuels have encouraged initiatives for renewable energy sources and assessment of their life cycle impacts. Brazil ranks second worldwide in biodiesel production, despite the relatively recent organization of its national chain, marked by the creation of the National Program for Biodiesel Production and Use (PNPB). The Central-West region is responsible for the largest share of biodiesel production (44.4%) and the largest cattle slaughter (37.5%). In this scenario, beef tallow has great potential for expansion of biodiesel production, since it is a byproduct of the chain that, when not properly disposed, presents a considerable environmental burden. This work presents a method for assessing environmental performance that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA) with land use change (LUC) for analysis of the tallow biodiesel production chain. The results are given in terms of increment in annual greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions per hectare related to local tallow biodiesel. The system's boundary covers a representative major cattle farming area in Central-West Brazil. For the LCA segment of the method, five inventory allocations were considered: (i) without allocation, (ii) mass, (iii) market value, (iv) energy and (v) an ?average allocation?, calculated as the mean of mass, market value and energy. The last one is a novel approach proposed in this work, aggregating all the others, which separately result in under or over estimation of impacts. Using the ?average allocation?, the increment in annual GHG emission per hectare from tallow biodiesel production, is 43.2 kg CO2eq ha-1 y-1. This value is 17% less than the emission increment due to soybean biodiesel (50.2 kg CO2eq ha-1 y-1). LUC is responsible for 96% of the emission assessed, which demonstrates the importance of including LUC assessment in life cycle assessment of tallow biodiesel. According to the sensitivity analyses performed, changes from crop to pasture have superior environmental performance among the investigated options. Land use management is essential to preserve the remaining natural areas, making tallow biodiesel more sustainabl

Crescimento vegetativo de feijoeiro comum influenciado por diferentes épocas de plantio de adubos verdes.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a produção de massa fresca, massa seca, área foliar e índice de área foliar na cultura do feijoeiro comum em função das diferentes épocas de semeadura de adubos verdes.CONAFE

Alimentação de bezerros com extrato hidrossolúvel de soja. II. Produção de anticorpos e distúrbios intestinais.

O Objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar a substituição total do sucedâneo lácteo à base de proteína de leite (SL) por extrato hidrossolúvel de soja (EHS) na alimentação de bezerros Holandeses machos, com idade média inicial de cinco dias. Os bezerros alimentados com EHS apresentaram diminuição visível das gorduras presentes no tecido subcutâneo, omento, epíplon e da gordura perirenal. No abomaso, a principal alteração verificada foi a falta de formação do coágulo do EHS ingerido

Tasa de crecimiento de cerdos capones y hembras sin servicio bajo un mismo régimen alimenticio alojados por diferencia de sexo

Daily weight gains of barrow and gilts from 40 to 100 Kg live weight, were compared under a similar feeding treatment. Three groups of eight pigs each were allocated in two boxes. Forty-eight crossed and backcrossed Duroc Jersey x Hampshire pigs were used. Barrows showed significant greater daily gains in relation to the mixed group (0,948, 0,867 and 0,852 Kg/day respective ly). When gilts and mixed groups were compared, gilts showed a better performance but differences were not significant (P:0,05). Greater differences of daily gain of barrows were obtained during the finishing period (1,000,0,869 and 0,849 Kg/day respectively). Sailing prices at the Mercado Nacional de Haciendas showed no differences between groups.Se comparó la ganancia de peso de cerdos capones y hembras desde 40 a 100 Kg de peso vivo bajo un mismo régimen alimenticio en grupos separados por sexo y un grupo mixto de hembras y capones. Se utilizaron 48 cerdos cruza y retro cruza Duroc Jersey x Hampshire en tres grupos de alojamiento en dos boxes cada uno de ocho cerdos. Los capones tuvieron una mayor ganancia diaria de peso significativa frente a las hembras y el grupo mixto (0,948, 0,867 Y 0,852 Kg respectivamente (P 0,05)). El grupo de hembras y el mixto mostraron diferencias a favor del primero, pero sin significaci6n estadística. La mayor diferencia en la ganancia de los capones se observó en el período de terminación (1,000; 0,869 y 0,845 Kg respectivamente). No hubo diferencias en el precio de venta entre los grupos en el Mercado Nacional de Haciendas

On-sky results of the adaptive optics MACAO for the new IR-spectrograph CRIRES at VLT

The adaptive optics MACAO has been implemented in 6 focii of the VLT observatory, in three different flavors. We present in this paper the results obtained during the commissioning of the last of these units, MACAO-CRIRES. CRIRES is a high-resolution spectrograph, which efficiency will be improved by a factor two at least for point-sources observations with a NGS brighter than R=15. During the commissioning, Strehl exceeding 60% have been observed with fair seeing conditions, and a general description of the performance of this curvature adaptive optics system is done.Comment: SPIE conference 2006, Advances in adaptive optics, 12 pages, 11 figure