US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference

Long-Term Relationships between Synaptic Tenacity, Synaptic Remodeling, and Network Activity

Long term time-lapse imaging reveals that individual synapses undergo significant structural remodeling not only when driven by activity, but also when network activity is absent, raising questions about how reliably individual synapses maintain connections

Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of this report is to provide a succinct but comprehensive summary of the scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of manual treatment for the management of a variety of musculoskeletal and non-musculoskeletal conditions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The conclusions are based on the results of systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials (RCTs), widely accepted and primarily UK and United States evidence-based clinical guidelines, plus the results of all RCTs not yet included in the first three categories. The strength/quality of the evidence regarding effectiveness was based on an adapted version of the grading system developed by the US Preventive Services Task Force and a study risk of bias assessment tool for the recent RCTs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By September 2009, 26 categories of conditions were located containing RCT evidence for the use of manual therapy: 13 musculoskeletal conditions, four types of chronic headache and nine non-musculoskeletal conditions. We identified 49 recent relevant systematic reviews and 16 evidence-based clinical guidelines plus an additional 46 RCTs not yet included in systematic reviews and guidelines.</p> <p>Additionally, brief references are made to other effective non-pharmacological, non-invasive physical treatments.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Spinal manipulation/mobilization is effective in adults for: acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain; migraine and cervicogenic headache; cervicogenic dizziness; manipulation/mobilization is effective for several extremity joint conditions; and thoracic manipulation/mobilization is effective for acute/subacute neck pain. The evidence is inconclusive for cervical manipulation/mobilization alone for neck pain of any duration, and for manipulation/mobilization for mid back pain, sciatica, tension-type headache, coccydynia, temporomandibular joint disorders, fibromyalgia, premenstrual syndrome, and pneumonia in older adults. Spinal manipulation is not effective for asthma and dysmenorrhea when compared to sham manipulation, or for Stage 1 hypertension when added to an antihypertensive diet. In children, the evidence is inconclusive regarding the effectiveness for otitis media and enuresis, and it is not effective for infantile colic and asthma when compared to sham manipulation.</p> <p>Massage is effective in adults for chronic low back pain and chronic neck pain. The evidence is inconclusive for knee osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain syndrome, migraine headache, and premenstrual syndrome. In children, the evidence is inconclusive for asthma and infantile colic.</p

How sampling influences the statistical power to detect changes in abundance: an application to river restoration

[Departement_IRSTEA]Eaux [TR1_IRSTEA]QUASAREInternational audience1. Assessing how populations respond to ecological restoration is particularly difficult because their abundance results from many sources of variation. In addition, abundance estimates depend on sam- pling efforts that are limited by financial or practical constraints. 2. We used local abundance counts from the Rho^ne river restoration monitoring programme to quan- tify how sampling strategies and population characteristics influenced statistical power for detecting restoration effects.3. We first fitted observed changes in abundance of 13 fish taxa and 35 invertebrate taxa collected in microhabitats of four restored reaches of the Rho^ne river over 15 years, using a generalised linear mixed model. The model accounted for a restoration effect, random temporal variation between field surveys and spatial variation within surveys (i.e. microhabitat variation in abundance was assumed to follow a negative binomial distribution). We then used numerical simulations to calculate the sta- tistical power (i.e. the probability of detecting a true change) and the type I error (the probability of detecting a non-existent change) associated with various hypotheses of restoration effect size, mean abundance and temporal and spatial variation.4. Model fits revealed that accounting for temporal variation is needed to reduce type I error associ- ated with the effect of restoration. Significant abundance changes were observed for 27 of 104 (26%) of the taxa-reach combinations. 5. When assuming temporal variation and population characteristics typical of our data sets, power simulations showed that the probability of detecting a moderate change (50–200%) in abundance was <38% in all tests. The average probability of detecting large changes (500–1000%) was 61%. In these conditions, power was increased by low spatial variation and high sampling effort. Large numbers of surveys (e.g. 16 instead of 4) increased the power by 20 points if surveys were balanced before and after restoration.6. Because our simulations covered a wide variety of population characteristics and sampling strate- gies, they can be used a priori to determine which sampling strategy is best adapted for detecting res- toration effects from repeated abundance counts

A Unique Role for Citizen Science in Ecological Restoration: A Case Study in Streams

Citizen science has the potential to generate valuable biologic data for use in restoration monitoring, while also providing a unique opportunity for public participation in local restoration projects. In this article, we describe and evaluate a citizen science program designed to monitor the effect of stream restoration construction disturbance on the macroinvertebrate community. We present the results of a 7-year stream restoration study conducted by citizen scientists utilizing a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design. Trait-based macroinvertebrate data showed a strong response to restoration construction disturbance and return to pre-restoration conditions within 2 years. The findings of this study suggest that citizen science can generate meaningful BACI-oriented data about ecological restoration; however, until more research is conducted, citizen data should only be used to augment professional data intended to demonstrate restoration success