Education for Experience: One View of Tibetan Tantric Initiation

The ethnographic treatment of "rites de Passage" is discussed with reference to material relating to religious initiation. It is suggested that the major transitions engendered through the Tibetan Buddhist Tantric W a n g Kur rituals may be profitably analyzed not simply as changes in social status but rather as tools for the re-ordering of phenomenology which are designed to engender long-term alterations in the initiates' experience of the world. The initiation provides a rationale and instruction conjunctive with ritual technique which is consciously designed to globally and permanently alter the consciousness of the practitioner. Suggestions for studies of rites of passage which take into account this dimension of the ritual control of experience are offered

Effect of remote ischaemic conditioning on clinical outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction (CONDI-2/ERIC-PPCI): a single-blind randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Remote ischaemic conditioning with transient ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm has been shown to reduce myocardial infarct size in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI). We investigated whether remote ischaemic conditioning could reduce the incidence of cardiac death and hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months. METHODS: We did an international investigator-initiated, prospective, single-blind, randomised controlled trial (CONDI-2/ERIC-PPCI) at 33 centres across the UK, Denmark, Spain, and Serbia. Patients (age >18 years) with suspected STEMI and who were eligible for PPCI were randomly allocated (1:1, stratified by centre with a permuted block method) to receive standard treatment (including a sham simulated remote ischaemic conditioning intervention at UK sites only) or remote ischaemic conditioning treatment (intermittent ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm through four cycles of 5-min inflation and 5-min deflation of an automated cuff device) before PPCI. Investigators responsible for data collection and outcome assessment were masked to treatment allocation. The primary combined endpoint was cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02342522) and is completed. FINDINGS: Between Nov 6, 2013, and March 31, 2018, 5401 patients were randomly allocated to either the control group (n=2701) or the remote ischaemic conditioning group (n=2700). After exclusion of patients upon hospital arrival or loss to follow-up, 2569 patients in the control group and 2546 in the intervention group were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. At 12 months post-PPCI, the Kaplan-Meier-estimated frequencies of cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure (the primary endpoint) were 220 (8·6%) patients in the control group and 239 (9·4%) in the remote ischaemic conditioning group (hazard ratio 1·10 [95% CI 0·91-1·32], p=0·32 for intervention versus control). No important unexpected adverse events or side effects of remote ischaemic conditioning were observed. INTERPRETATION: Remote ischaemic conditioning does not improve clinical outcomes (cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure) at 12 months in patients with STEMI undergoing PPCI. FUNDING: British Heart Foundation, University College London Hospitals/University College London Biomedical Research Centre, Danish Innovation Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, TrygFonden

Education for Experience: One View of Tibetan Tantric Initiation

The ethnographic treatment of "rites de Passage" is discussed with reference to material relating to religious initiation. It is suggested that the major transitions engendered through the Tibetan Buddhist Tantric W a n g Kur rituals may be profitably analyzed not simply as changes in social status but rather as tools for the re-ordering of phenomenology which are designed to engender long-term alterations in the initiates' experience of the world. The initiation provides a rationale and instruction conjunctive with ritual technique which is consciously designed to globally and permanently alter the consciousness of the practitioner. Suggestions for studies of rites of passage which take into account this dimension of the ritual control of experience are offered

New approaches for establishing conservation priorities for socio-economically important plant species

ACESSO via B-on: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9871-4The establishment of priorities among species is a crucial step in any conservation strategy since financial resources are generally limited. Traditionally, priorities for conservation of plant species have been focused on endemicity, rarity and particularly on their threatened status. Crop wild relatives (CWR) and wild harvested plants (WHP) are important elements of biodiversity with actual or potential socio-economic value. In this study, eight prioritisation criteria were used along with different prioritisation systems and applied to the Portuguese CWR and WHP. The top 50 species obtained by each of these methods were identified. The final top CWR were those that occurred as a priority in most methods. Twenty CWR were identified as the highest priorities for conservation in Portugal and they include wild relatives of the crop genera Allium, Daucus, Dianthus, Epilobium, Festuca, Herniaria, Narcissus, Quercus, Plantago, Trifolium, and Vicia. Eighteen WHP were recognised as priorities for conservation and include several Narcissus and Thymus species, among others. The advantages, limitations and level of subjectivity of each of the methods used in this exercise are discussed

Do couple-based interventions make a difference for couples affected by cancer?: a systematic review

Background: With the growing recognition that patients and partners react to a cancer diagnosis as an interdependent system and increasing evidence that psychosocial interventions can be beneficial to both patients and partners, there has been a recent increase in the attention given to interventions that target couples. The aim of this systematic review was to identify existing couple-based interventions for patients with cancer and their partners and explore the efficacy of these interventions (including whether there is added value to target the couple versus individuals), the content and delivery of couple-based interventions, and to identify the key elements of couple-based interventions that promote improvement in adjustment to cancer diagnosis