Low back pain : a comparative study on the value of core training versus traditional strengthening exercises

This randomised controlled trial (RCT) employed a pre-test/post-test design to compare the effects of core training (Pilates method) and traditional back exercises on a population with low back pain (LBP). Therapeutic intervention related to the Pilates method has recently become popular, but there is little evidence to prove it works. In this study, 120 individuals with LBP were allocated to three different groups. Group A was the control group, Group B was given modified Pilates intervention and Group C received traditional back exercises. All three groups were given a posture re-education session and back-care advice. After the initial session, the control group had individual sessions on posture re-education. The other groups undertook a six-week course of either modified Pilates or general back exercise classes. The modified Pilates group was taught how to use the core muscles, incorporating stabilisation with increasing functional movements. The back exercise group did similar exercises without learning to specifically stabilise. The Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire (ODQ) and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were used as measures for pain and functional disability. Post-test ODQ readings showed no significant difference for pain-related function whilst VAS readings revealed a significant improvement in pain levels in all three groups, with the control group showing the best scores. However, the six-month follow-up scores showed that only the modified Pilates group continued to improve. At this stage, the control group was beginning to regress and the back exercise group was almost back to baseline measures. It was therefore concluded that core stability exercises have better long-term effects than traditional back exercisespeer-reviewe

Organic Upland Beef and Sheep Production

The technical guide addresses the issues relevant to the organic beef and sheep sector, acknowledging the questions that are frequently directed to the technical ‘Helpline’ of Organic Centre Wales. It draws on the experience of the ADAS Research Farm at Pwllpeiran and is intended as a guide for those with an interest in organic beef and sheep production production. This guide is in three interrelated parts. The first part deals primarily with technical issues of grassland and beef and sheep management, and provides practical information for farmers on key factors influencing the performance of the system. The upland organic unit at ADAS Pwllpeiran in mid-Wales was set up in 1993 to examine the feasibility of organic beef and sheep production in the hill situation. The organic unit at Pwllpeiran ADAS research farm located in the Cambrian Mountains Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) of mid-Wales has 237.5 ha, of which 111 ha achieved full organic status in 1995 and a further 126 ha was added in 2004. There is a suckler herd of Welsh Black cows and a breeding flock of Hardy Speckled Face ewes and Texel crosses. Annual average rainfal at 300 metres was 1765 mm, compared to over 2500 mm at 550 metres. Between 1993 and 2001, work focused on the feasibility of organic livestock production in the hills. With EAGGF Objective 5b funding, the unit was compared with the rest of the farm in terms of grassland productivity, livestock and financial per formance. Since 2001, the focus has been on key problems for organic upland farmers, particularly livestock health and welfare. Methods of internal and ectoparasite control, feeding to organic standards and maintaining the quality of forage by reseeding upland pastures have been investigated. Part 2 is a review of the financial performance of organic beef and sheep farming in Wales, provided by Andrew Jackson, of the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth. It is based mainly on two DEFRA funded studies: • Data for organic farms extracted from the main Farm Business Survey in Wales • A four year project focusing specifically on organic farms, drawing on all Farm Business Survey data collected for organic farms across England and Wales as well as independently collected data. From these data, it is possible to derive whole farm income data, gross margin and cost of production data to give an overview of the economics of organic dairy farming in Wales for the latest recorded financial periods (2004/05) The third and final part consists of 2 farmer case studies, which put many of the issues discussed in parts 1 and 2 in the context of individual farm businesses. We are grateful for the co-operation of Blaen y Nant and Cannon Farm

Japanese raspberry (Rubus parvifolius L.): An invasive species threat in savanna and prairie

Japanese raspberry (Rubus parvifolius L.) is native to eastern Asia and Australia and has naturalized in several locations in Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Ohio. This species was introduced in North America for food and erosion control, but it appears to be becoming a serious invasive species threat in savannas and prairies. It was found in a former commercial game-hunting farm on Walnut Creek National Wildlife Refuge (now Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge) in 1991, and was identified as Japanese raspberry in 1995. Japanese raspberry grows vigorously and spreads via rooting from low-arching-to-prostrate canes that are up to 300 cm long, and its seeds can be dispersed by birds. In summer, primocanes are green to purplish green, though they turn reddish brown in winter. It has small pink flowers and bright red fruits. It thrives in shade in a remnant savanna on the refuge, forming rapidly expanding near-monoculture populations. Efforts to control it with herbicide treatment since its discovery have been unsuccessful, but also somewhat sporadic. A second population in a roadside within a mile of the refuge demonstrates its ability to thrive in full sun. County dredging of ditches for drainage improvement may be serving as a vector for its expansion

Evidence for coupling of evolved star atmospheres and spiral arms of the milky way

It is imperative to map the strength and distribution of feedback in galaxies to understand how feedback affects galactic ecosystems. H2O masers act as indicators of energy injection into the interstellar medium. Our goal is to measure the strength and distribution of feedback traced by water masers in the Milky Way. We identify optical counterparts to H2O masers discovered by the HOPS survey. The distribution and luminosities of H2O masers in the Milky Way are determined using parallax measurements derived from the second Gaia Data Release. We provide evidence of a correlation between evolved stars, as traced by H2O masers, and the spiral structure of the Milky Way, suggesting a link between evolved stars and the Galactic environment

A rapid method to collect methane from peatland streams for radiocarbon analysis

Peatland streams typically contain high methane concentrations and act as conduits for the release of this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Radiocarbon analysis provides a unique tracer that can be used to identify the methane source, and quantify the time elapsed between carbon fixation and return to the atmosphere as CH4. Few studies – those that have focus largely on sites with bubble (ebullition) emissions – have investigated the14C age of methane in surface waters because of the difficulty in collecting sufficient CH4for analysis. Here, we describe new sampling methods for the collection of CH4samples from CH4-oversaturated peatland streams for radiocarbon analysis. We report the results of a suite of tests, including using methane14C standards and replicated field measurements, to verify the methods. The methods are not restricted to ebullition sites, and can be applied to peatland streams with lower methane concentrations. We report the14C age of methane extracted from surface water samples (~4–13 l) at two contrasting locations in a temperate raised peat bog. Results indicate substantial spatial variation with ages ranging from ~400 (ditch in afforested peatland) to ~3000 years BP (bog perimeter stream). These contrasting ages suggest that methane in stream water can be derived from a wide range of peat depths. This new method provides a rapid (10–15 min per sample) and convenient approach, which should make14CH4dating of surface water more accessible and lead to an increased understanding of carbon cycling within the soil–water–atmosphere system

Reversible self-assembly of patchy particles into monodisperse icosahedral clusters

We systematically study the design of simple patchy sphere models that reversibly self-assemble into monodisperse icosahedral clusters. We find that the optimal patch width is a compromise between structural specificity (the patches must be narrow enough to energetically select the desired clusters) and kinetic accessibility (they must be sufficiently wide to avoid kinetic traps). Similarly, for good yields the temperature must be low enough for the clusters to be thermodynamically stable, but the clusters must also have enough thermal energy to allow incorrectly formed bonds to be broken. Ordered clusters can form through a number of different dynamic pathways, including direct nucleation and indirect pathways involving large disordered intermediates. The latter pathway is related to a reentrant liquid-to-gas transition that occurs for intermediate patch widths upon lowering the temperature. We also find that the assembly process is robust to inaccurate patch placement up to a certain threshold, and that it is possible to replace the five discrete patches with a single ring patch with no significant loss in yield.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

Tap water use amongst pregnant women in a multi-ethnic cohort

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies of disinfection by-products in drinking water and measures of adverse fetal growth have often been limited by exposure assessment lacking data on individual water use, and therefore failing to reflect individual variation in DBP exposure.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Pregnant women recruited to the Born in Bradford cohort study completed a questionnaire which covers water exposure. Information was collected on water consumption, showering, bathing and swimming. Water exposure data from a subset of 39 women of the cohort are described here.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean total tap water intake was 1.8 l/day, and women on average spent 146 minutes per week showering and bathing. Most tap water intake occurred at home (100% for unemployed, 71.8% for employed). Differences between age groups were observed for total tap water intake overall (p = 0.02) and at home (p = 0.01), and for bottled water intake (p = 0.05). There were differences between ethnic groups for tap water intake at home (p = 0.02) and total tap water intake at work (p = 0.02). Total tap water intake at work differed by income category (p = 0.001). Duration per shower was inversely correlated with age (Spearman's correlation -0.39, p = 0.02), and differed according to employment status (p = 0.04), ethnicity (p = 0.02) and income (p = 0.02).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides estimates of water exposure in pregnant women in a multi-ethnic population in the north of England and suggests differences related to age, employment, income and ethnicity. The findings are valuable to inform exposure assessment in studies assessing the relationship between DBPs and adverse birth outcomes.</p

Flash and grab : deep-diving southern elephant seals trigger anti-predator flashes in bioluminescent prey

Funding: Fondation BNP Paribas; Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales; Institut Polaire Français Paul Emile Victor; Natural Environment Research Council; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.Bioluminescence, which occurs in approximately 80% of the world's mesopelagic fauna, can take the form of a low-intensity continuous glow (e.g. for counter-illumination or signalling) or fast repetitions of brighter anti-predatory flashes. The southern elephant seal (SES) is a major consumer of mesopelagic organisms, in particular the abundant myctophid fish, yet the fine-scale relationship between this predator's foraging behaviour and bioluminescent prey remains poorly understood. We hypothesised that brief, intense light emissions should be closely connected with prey strikes when the seal is targeting bioluminescent prey that reacts by emitting anti-predator flashes. To test this, we developed a biologging device containing a fast-sampling light sensor together with location and movement sensors to measure simultaneously anti-predator bioluminescent emissions and the predator's attack motions with a 20 ms resolution. Tags were deployed on female SES breeding at Kerguelen Islands and Península Valdés, Argentina. In situ light levels in combination with duration of prey capture attempts indicated that seals were targeting a variety of prey types. For some individuals, bioluminescent flashes occurred in a large proportion of prey strikes, with the timing of flashes closely connected with the predator's attack motion, suggestive of anti-predator emissions. Marked differences across individuals and location indicate that SES do exploit bioluminescent organisms but the proportion of these in the diet varies widely with location. The combination of wideband light and acceleration data provides new insight into where and when different prey types are encountered and how effectively they might be captured.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Space rescaling in the MFS method improves the ECGI reconstruction

International audienceThe method of fundamental solutions (MFS) has been extensively used for the electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) inverse problem. One of its advantages is that it is a meshless method. We remarked that the using cm instead of mm as a space unit has a high impact on the reconstructed inverse solution. Our purpose is to refine this observation, by introducing a rescaling coefficient in space and study its effect on the MFS inverse solution. Results are provided using simulated test data prepared using a reaction-diffusion model. We then computed the ECGI inverse solution for rescaling coefficient values varying from 1 to 100, and computed the relative error (RE) and correlation coefficient (CC). This approach improved the RE and CC by at least 10% but can go up to 40% independently of the pacing site. We concluded that the optimal coefficient depends on the heterogeneity and anisotropy of the torso and does not depend on the stimulation site. This suggests that it is related to an optimal equivalent conductivity estimation in the torso domain