Accessible opera : overcoming linguistic and sensorial barriers

The desire to make media available for all has been rapidly accepted and implemented by most European countries. Opera, as one of the many audiovisual representations, also falls under the category of production which needs to be made accessible and this article aims to analyse how opera has gone through a complete transformation to become a cultural event for all, overcoming not only linguistic but also sensorial barriers. The first part of the article analyses the various forms of translation associated with opera and the main challenges they entail. The second presents different systems used to make opera accessible to the sensorially challenged, highlighting their main difficulties. Examples from research carried out at the Barcelona's Liceu opera house are presented to illustrate various modalities, especially audio description. All in all, it is our aim to show how translated-related processes have made it possible to open opera to a wider audience despite some initial reluctance

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system1. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests2,3,4,5 are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced6 and satellite-derived approaches2,7,8 to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands. Despite regional variation, the predictions demonstrated remarkable consistency at a global scale, with only a 12% difference between the ground-sourced and satellite-derived estimates. At present, global forest carbon storage is markedly under the natural potential, with a total deficit of 226 Gt (model range = 151–363 Gt) in areas with low human footprint. Most (61%, 139 Gt C) of this potential is in areas with existing forests, in which ecosystem protection can allow forests to recover to maturity. The remaining 39% (87 Gt C) of potential lies in regions in which forests have been removed or fragmented. Although forests cannot be a substitute for emissions reductions, our results support the idea2,3,9 that the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of diverse forests offer valuable contributions to meeting global climate and biodiversity targets

Day-to-Day Changes of Auricular Point Acupressure to Manage Chronic Low Back Pain: A 29-day Randomized Controlled Study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a 4-week auricular point acupressure (APA) treatment on chronic low back pain (CLBP) outcomes and examine the day-to-day variability of CLBP in individuals receiving APA for CLBP over 29 days. Design: This was a prospective, randomized controlled trial (RCT). Data were collected at baseline, during each of the four office visits for APA treatment, after the completion of the 4-week intervention, and 1 month after the last treatment. A daily diary was given to each participant to record his or her APA practices, analgesic use, and pain intensity. Interventions: APA was used to manage CLBP. The participants received one APA treatment per week for 4 weeks. Patients and Setting. Sixty-one participants with CLBP were randomized into either a real APA or sham APA treatment group. Participants were recruited from primary care offices and clinics or through the Research Participant Registry at the University of Pittsburgh. Results: Among participants in the real APA group, a 30% reduction of worst pain was exhibited after the first day of APA treatment, and continuous reduction in pain (44%) was reported by the completion of the 4-week APA. This magnitude of pain reduction reached the clinically significant level of improvement reported in other clinical trials of chronic pain therapies. Analgesic use by participants in the real APA group also was reduced compared with use by participants in the sham group. Conclusion: This study shows that APA is a promising pain management strategy that is not invasive and can be self-managed by participants for CLBP. Given the day-to-day fluctuation in ratings, the tighter ecologic assessment of pain scores and other treatment parameters are an important pragmatic aspect of the design of chronic pain studies. © 2015 American Academy of Pain Medicine

Changes in Sleep With Auricular Point Acupressure for Chronic Low Back Pain

The purpose of this study was to report sleep quality from 4 weeks of auricular point acupressure that was designed for chronic low back pain and determine the relationship between pain intensity and sleep quality. Participants were randomized into the APA group (Formula presented.) or the sham-APA group (Formula presented.). At baseline assessment, 87% of the participants reported poor sleep quality. Participants who received APA had decreased daytime disturbance and improved global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores at end of intervention (EOI) and 1-month follow up compared to participants in the sham-APA group. For the APA group, both the sleep duration and wake after sleep onset decreased gradually during the 4-week APA (0.56% and 0.23% daily change, respectively). Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Olanzapine and haloperidol in first episode psychosis: two-year data

Few studies have assessed the comparative efficacy and safety of atypical and typical antipsychotic medications in patients within their first episode of psychosis. This study examined the effectiveness of the atypical antipsychotic olanzapine and the typical antipsychotic haloperidol in patients experiencing their first episode of a schizophrenia-related psychotic disorder over a 2-year treatment period. Two hundred and sixty-three patients were randomized to olanzapine or haloperidol in a doubleblind, multisite, international 2-year study. Clinical symptoms and side effects were assessed at baseline and longitudinally following randomization for the duration of the study. Olanzapine and haloperidol treatment were both associated with substantial and comparable reductions in symptom severity (the primary outcome measure) over the course of the study. However, the treatment groups differed on two secondary efficacy measures. Patients were less likely to discontinue treatment with olanzapine than with haloperidol: mean time (in days) in the study was significantly greater for those treated with olanzapine compared to haloperidol (322.09 vs. 230.38, p\u3c0.0085). Moreover, remission rates were greater in patients treated with olanzapine as compared to those treated with haloperidol (57.25% vs. 43.94%, p\u3c0.036). While extrapyramidal side effects were greater in those treated with haloperidol, weight gain, cholesterol level and liver function values were greater in patients treated with olanzapine. The data from this study suggest some clinical benefits for olanzapine as compared to haloperidol in first episode patients, which must be weighed against those adverse effects that are more likely with olanzapine