Protocol: Testing the Relevance of Acupuncture Theory in the Treatment of Myofascial Pain in the Upper Trapezius Muscle

© 2017 Medical Association of Pharmacopuncture Institute A protocol for a prospective single-blind parallel four-arm randomized placebo-controlled trial with repeated measures was designed to test the effects of various acupuncture methods compared with sham. Eighty self-selected participants with myofascial pain in the upper trapezius muscle were randomized into four groups. Group 1 received acupuncture to a myofascial trigger point (MTrP) in the upper trapezius. Group 2 received acupuncture to the MTrP in addition to relevant distal points. Group 3 received acupuncture to the relevant distal points only. Group 4 received a sham treatment to both the MTrP and distal points using a deactivated acupuncture laser device. Treatment was applied four times within 2 weeks with outcomes measured throughout the trial and at 2 weeks and 4 weeks posttreatment. Outcome measurements were a 100-mm visual analog pain scale, SF-36, pressure pain threshold, Neck Disability Index, the Upper Extremity Functional Index, lateral flexion in the neck, McGill Pain Questionnaire, Massachusetts General Hospital Acupuncture Sensation Scale, Working Alliance Inventory (short form), and the Credibility Expectance Questionnaire. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures were used to assess the differences between groups

Revisiting monomer synthesis and radical ring opening polymerization of dimethylated MDO towards biodegradable nanoparticles for enzymes

Radical ring opening polymerization is a powerful tool to achieve a polyester via radical polymerization. We used it to obtain a dimethylated version of poly(caprolactone) (PdmCL) from dimethylated MDO (DMMDO). First, we revisited monomer synthesis and achieved a milder synthetic protocol by introducing a cobalt-based catalyst. We also developed a new route towards DMMDO via a cyclic carbonate using the Petasis chemistry. Amphiphilic block-copolymers were then generated by free radical polymerization of DMMDO with a PEG-based macroinitiator. The resulting polyesters self-assembled into nanoparticles that were biodegradable as well as biocompatible. The nanoparticles proved to be an effective protective shell for an entrapped enzyme that was released upon degradation of the polyester by esterase. We are confident that our results will spur further research into block-copolymers resulting from RROP

Trollthrottle -- Raising the Cost of Astroturfing

Astroturfing, i.e., the fabrication of public discourse by private or state-controlled sponsors via the creation of fake online accounts, has become incredibly widespread in recent years. It gives a disproportionally strong voice to wealthy and technology-savvy actors, permits targeted attacks on public forums and could in the long run harm the trust users have in the internet as a communication platform. Countering these efforts without deanonymising the participants has not yet proven effective; however, we can raise the cost of astroturfing. Following the principle `one person, one voice', we introduce Trollthrottle, a protocol that limits the number of comments a single person can post on participating websites. Using direct anonymous attestation and a public ledger, the user is free to choose any nickname, but the number of comments is aggregated over all posts on all websites, no matter which nickname was used. We demonstrate the deployability of Trollthrottle by retrofitting it to the popular news aggregator website Reddit and by evaluating the cost of deployment for the scenario of a national newspaper (168k comments per day), an international newspaper (268k c/d) and Reddit itself (4.9M c/d)

High energy emission from microquasars

The microquasar phenomenon is associated with the production of jets by X-ray binaries and, as such, may be associated with the majority of such systems. In this chapter we briefly outline the associations, definite, probable, possible, and speculative, between such jets and X-ray, gamma-ray and particle emission.Comment: Contributing chapter to the book Cosmic Gamma-Ray Sources, K.S. Cheng and G.E. Romero (eds.), to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2004. (19 pages

Tree migration-rates : narrowing the gap between inferred post-glacial rates and projected rates

Faster-than-expected post-glacial migration rates of trees have puzzled ecologists for a long time. In Europe, post-glacial migration is assumed to have started from the three southern European peninsulas (southern refugia), where large areas remained free of permafrost and ice at the peak of the last glaciation. However, increasing palaeobotanical evidence for the presence of isolated tree populations in more northerly microrefugia has started to change this perception. Here we use the Northern Eurasian Plant Macrofossil Database and palaeoecological literature to show that post-glacial migration rates for trees may have been substantially lower (60–260 m yr–1) than those estimated by assuming migration from southern refugia only (115–550 m yr–1), and that early-successional trees migrated faster than mid- and late-successional trees. Post-glacial migration rates are in good agreement with those recently projected for the future with a population dynamical forest succession and dispersal model, mainly for early-successional trees and under optimal conditions. Although migration estimates presented here may be conservative because of our assumption of uniform dispersal, tree migration-rates clearly need reconsideration. We suggest that small outlier populations may be a key factor in understanding past migration rates and in predicting potential future range-shifts. The importance of outlier populations in the past may have an analogy in the future, as many tree species have been planted beyond their natural ranges, with a more beneficial microclimate than their regional surroundings. Therefore, climate-change-induced range-shifts in the future might well be influenced by such microrefugia

Location, location, location: utilizing pipelines and services to more effectively georeference the world's biodiversity data

Abstract Background Increasing the quantity and quality of data is a key goal of biodiversity informatics, leading to increased fitness for use in scientific research and beyond. This goal is impeded by a legacy of geographic locality descriptions associated with biodiversity records that are often heterogeneous and not in a map-ready format. The biodiversity informatics community has developed best practices and tools that provide the means to do retrospective georeferencing (e.g., the BioGeomancer toolkit), a process that converts heterogeneous descriptions into geographic coordinates and a measurement of spatial uncertainty. Even with these methods and tools, data publishers are faced with the immensely time-consuming task of vetting georeferenced localities. Furthermore, it is likely that overlap in georeferencing effort is occurring across data publishers. Solutions are needed that help publishers more effectively georeference their records, verify their quality, and eliminate the duplication of effort across publishers. Results We have developed a tool called BioGeoBIF, which incorporates the high throughput and standardized georeferencing methods of BioGeomancer into a beginning-to-end workflow. Custodians who publish their data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) can use this system to improve the quantity and quality of their georeferences. BioGeoBIF harvests records directly from the publishers' access points, georeferences the records using the BioGeomancer web-service, and makes results available to data managers for inclusion at the source. Using a web-based, password-protected, group management system for each data publisher, we leave data ownership, management, and vetting responsibilities with the managers and collaborators of each data set. We also minimize the georeferencing task, by combining and storing unique textual localities from all registered data access points, and dynamically linking that information to the password protected record information for each publisher. Conclusion We have developed one of the first examples of services that can help create higher quality data for publishers mediated through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and its data portal. This service is one step towards solving many problems of data quality in the growing field of biodiversity informatics. We envision future improvements to our service that include faster results returns and inclusion of more georeferencing engines

Aortic valvuloplasty of calcific aortic stenosis with monofoil and trefoil balloon catheters: practical considerations

In order to evaluate the relation between balloon design (monofoil, trefoil) and valvular configuration, experimental aortic valvuloplasty was performed in four post-mortem hearts with calcific aortic sten

Persistent anthrax as a major driver of wildlife mortality in a tropical rainforest

Anthrax is a globally important animal disease and zoonosis. Despite this, our current knowledge of anthrax ecology is largely limited to arid ecosystems, where outbreaks are most commonly reported. Here we show that the dynamics of an anthrax-causing agent, Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis, in a tropical rainforest have severe consequences for local wildlife communities. Using data and samples collected over three decades, we show that rainforest anthrax is a persistent and widespread cause of death for a broad range of mammalian hosts. We predict that this pathogen will accelerate the decline and possibly result in the extirpation of local chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) populations. We present the epidemiology of a cryptic pathogen and show that its presence has important implications for conservation

Foundations of Black Hole Accretion Disk Theory

This review covers the main aspects of black hole accretion disk theory. We begin with the view that one of the main goals of the theory is to better understand the nature of black holes themselves. In this light we discuss how accretion disks might reveal some of the unique signatures of strong gravity: the event horizon, the innermost stable circular orbit, and the ergosphere. We then review, from a first-principles perspective, the physical processes at play in accretion disks. This leads us to the four primary accretion disk models that we review: Polish doughnuts (thick disks), Shakura-Sunyaev (thin) disks, slim disks, and advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs). After presenting the models we discuss issues of stability, oscillations, and jets. Following our review of the analytic work, we take a parallel approach in reviewing numerical studies of black hole accretion disks. We finish with a few select applications that highlight particular astrophysical applications: measurements of black hole mass and spin, black hole vs. neutron star accretion disks, black hole accretion disk spectral states, and quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs).Comment: 91 pages, 23 figures, final published version available at http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2013-