Salute to the sun: a new dawn in yoga therapy for breast cancer.

IntroductionInterest in the application of yoga for health benefits in western medicine is growing rapidly, with a significant rise in publications. The purpose of this systematic review is to determine whether the inclusion of yoga therapy to the treatment of breast cancer can improve the patient's physical and psychosocial quality of life (QoL).MethodsA search of peer reviewed journal articles published between January 2009 and July 2014 was conducted. Studies were included if they had more than 15 study participants, included interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) or yoga therapy with or without comparison groups and had stated physical or psychological outcomes.ResultsScreening identified 38 appropriate articles. The most reported psychosocial benefits of yoga therapy were anxiety, emotional and social functioning, stress, depression and global QoL. The most reported physical benefits of yoga therapy were improved salivary cortisol readings, sleep quality and lymphocyte apoptosis. Benefits in these areas were linked strongly with the yoga interventions, in addition to significant improvement in overall QoL.ConclusionThe evidence supports the use of yoga therapy to improve the physical and psychosocial QoL for breast cancer patients with a range of benefits relevant to radiation therapy. Future studies are recommended to confirm these benefits. Evidence-based recommendations for implementation of a yoga therapy programme have been derived and included within this review. Long-term follow-up is necessary with these programmes to assess the efficacy of the yoga intervention in terms of sustainability and patient outcomes

Assessment of black spruce portfolio trial survival and growth and implications for reforestation under climate change

The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of black spruce seedlings at a genetic trial designed to select seed sources adapted to several climate change scenarios. Height variability among trees is attributed to seed source effects, block effects, and seed source-by-block interaction effects. Seed sources originating from areas to the south west of the study site appeared to have greater mean heights. There was no significant difference in survival among seed sources

Creating an Interactive Guide to Support Health Disparities Competency

Authors share their educational resource developed for the health sciences, that guides users in awareness of health disparities, vulnerable populations, and social determinants of health, directing them to specific guidance and resources available through the library

Differences in Secure Messaging, Self-management, and Glycemic Control Between Rural and Urban Patients: Secondary Data Analysis

BACKGROUND: Rural patients with diabetes have difficulty accessing care and are at higher risk for poor diabetes management. Sustained use of patient portal features such as secure messaging (SM) can provide accessible support for diabetes self-management. OBJECTIVE: This study explored whether rural patients\u27 self-management and glycemic control was associated with the use of SM. METHODS: This secondary, cross-sectional, mixed methods analysis of 448 veterans with diabetes used stratified random sampling to recruit a diverse sample from the United States (rural vs urban and good vs poor glycemic control). Administrative, clinical, survey, and interview data were used to determine patients\u27 rurality, use of SM, diabetes self-management behaviors, and glycemic control. Moderated mediation analyses assessed these relationships. RESULTS: The sample was 51% (n=229) rural and 49% (n=219) urban. Mean participant age was 66.4 years (SD 7.7 years). More frequent SM use was associated with better diabetes self-management (P=.007), which was associated with better glycemic control (P \u3c .001). Among rural patients, SM use was indirectly associated with better glycemic control through improved diabetes self-management (95% CI 0.004-0.927). These effects were not observed among urban veterans with diabetes (95% CI -1.039 to 0.056). Rural patients were significantly more likely than urban patients to have diabetes-related content in their secure messages (P=.01). CONCLUSIONS: More frequent SM use is associated with engaging in diabetes self-management, which, in turn, is associated with better diabetes control. Among rural patients with diabetes, SM use is indirectly associated with better diabetes control. Frequent patient-team communication through SM about diabetes-related content may help rural patients with diabetes self-management, resulting in better glycemic control

Chapter 2 Investigating waiting

Researching ‘waiting’ necessitates practices of attunement to multiple coexisting temporalities and careful processes for handling and holding the temporal material produced by these practices. In this chapter, we share some of what has been learned from experiments in ‘making time’ as a research practice, in which we have had to invent the relations needed to give the temporal a thinkable form. We bring together accounts from three collaborative projects about waiting in health settings, where waiting is fundamentally linked to practices of care. Each project sits within its own discipline (publicly-engaged literary studies, artistic practice-as-research, and psychosocial studies), leading researchers to experiment with different forms and concepts through which time as an ‘object’ might be attended to, grasped and indeed ‘made’ in the process

Do business angels benefit their investee companies?

Abstract: Purpose – Entrepreneurial businesses often face financial and experiential gaps, which can constrain their growth. Business angels (BAs) can provide sources of financial, human and social capital to overcome these gaps. Building on the work by Munck and Saublens, this paper aims to introduce a framework that seeks to provide a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs can bring to the firms in which they invest. Design/methodology/approach – In order to obtain a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs bring to their investee companies, semi-structured, in-depth telephone interviews were conducted from an investee perspective. The key managers of nine angel-funded companies were purposefully selected and the transcribed interviews analysed with the help of common qualitative analysis techniques. Findings – According to investee managers, BAs provide benefits in all four areas of the proposed framework. Specifically, BAs: help overcome funding gaps; fill knowledge/experience gaps through provision of their own expertise and involvement; provide a wide range of contacts and leverage further funding, including their own follow-on finance. Research limitations/implications – The anonymous nature of the BA market requires convenience sampling, which, in addition to the small sample size used, does not allow for generalisability. The use of telephone interviews instead of face-to-face interviews did not allow for observation of non-verbal cues. Nevertheless, the study identified various areas in need of further research. Originality/value – In-depth interview data enabled a detailed exploration of the financial and non-financial benefits of BA funding from an under-utilised investee perspective. The paper's main value, however, lies in establishing the usefulness of a framework showing BAs' benefits in a structured manner

Ethical trade and sustainable rural livelihoods

The growth in interest in ethical trade has raised many questions. This publication seeks to answer four of the most basic of these: what do we mean by ethical trade and the ethical market, particularly in relation to natural resources? How does ethical trade operate? Who benefits from ethical trade and how? Is it a useful developmental approach

Prospectus, September 12, 2007

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2007/1019/thumbnail.jp