Treating Postlaparoscopic Surgery Shoulder Pain with Acupuncture

Objective. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of acupuncture on postlaparoscopic shoulder pain (PLSP) which is a common side effect in patients undergoing abdominal laparoscopic surgery. Methods. Patients with moderate to severe PLSP in spite of analgesic treatment, which were referred by the medical staff to the Complementary-Integrative Surgery Service (CISS) at our institution, were provided with acupuncture treatment. The severity of PLSP and of general pain was assessed using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) from 0 to 10. Pain assessment was conducted prior to and two hours following acupuncture treatment. Acupuncture treatment was individualized based on traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis. Results. A total of 25 patients were evaluated during a 14-month period, from March 2011 to May 2012. A significant reduction in PLSP (mean reduction of 6.4±2.3  P<0.0001) and general pain (mean reduction 6.4±2.1  P<0.0001) were observed, and no significant side effects were reported. Conclusion. Individualized acupuncture treatments according to traditional Chinese medicine principles may improve postlaparoscopic shoulder pain and general pain when used in conjunction with conventional therapy. The primary findings of this study warrant verification in controlled studies

Evaluating expert-based habitat suitability information of terrestrial mammals with GPS-tracking data

Aim Macroecological studies that require habitat suitability data for many species often derive this information from expert opinion. However, expert-based information is inherently subjective and thus prone to errors. The increasing availability of GPS tracking data offers opportunities to evaluate and supplement expert-based information with detailed empirical evidence. Here, we compared expert-based habitat suitability information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with habitat suitability information derived from GPS-tracking data of 1,498 individuals from 49 mammal species. Location Worldwide. Time period 1998-2021. Major taxa studied Forty-nine terrestrial mammal species. Methods Using GPS data, we estimated two measures of habitat suitability for each individual animal: proportional habitat use (proportion of GPS locations within a habitat type), and selection ratio (habitat use relative to its availability). For each individual we then evaluated whether the GPS-based habitat suitability measures were in agreement with the IUCN data. To that end, we calculated the probability that the ranking of empirical habitat suitability measures was in agreement with IUCN's classification into suitable, marginal and unsuitable habitat types. Results IUCN habitat suitability data were in accordance with the GPS data (> 95% probability of agreement) for 33 out of 49 species based on proportional habitat use estimates and for 25 out of 49 species based on selection ratios. In addition, 37 and 34 species had a > 50% probability of agreement based on proportional habitat use and selection ratios, respectively. Main conclusions We show how GPS-tracking data can be used to evaluate IUCN habitat suitability data. Our findings indicate that for the majority of species included in this study, it is appropriate to use IUCN habitat suitability data in macroecological studies. Furthermore, we show that GPS-tracking data can be used to identify and prioritize species and habitat types for re-evaluation of IUCN habitat suitability data

Moving in the anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission

Patterns of patient reluctance to receive complementary-medicine treatments in a hospital setting: A cross-sectional study

Objective: We aim to characterize the patient population that exhibits reluctance to undergo complementary medicine (CM) treatments in a hospital setting. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional prospective study among patients prior to hospitalization using structured questionnaires in a single center in Israel. Participants were asked to rate their degree of consent to receiving CM treatments during hospitalization. Results: The CM-reluctant group was 7.1 % of the study cohort. The CM modalities most commonly refused were spiritual guidance, acupuncture, and energy and healing therapies. The CM-reluctant population showed a weaker relation to spiritual content and tended to value complementary medicine's effectiveness less in comparison to the CM-consenting group. The main reason for reluctance was skepticism of the perceived effectiveness of CM. Conclusions: With skepticism playing a major role in decision making, we should question whether the Stakeholders in the field of CM and public health services are succeeding in explaining the benefits and risks of CM treatments

Decomposing spatiotemporal brain patterns into topographic latent sources

This paper extends earlier work on spatial modeling of fMRI data to the temporal domain, providing a framework for analyzing high temporal resolution brain imaging modalities such as electroencapholography (EEG). The central idea is to decompose brain imaging data into a covariate-dependent superposition of functions defined over continuous time and space (what we refer to as topographic latent sources). The continuous formulation allows us to parametrically model spatiotemporally localized activations. To make group-level inferences, we elaborate the model hierarchically by sharing sources across subjects. We describe a vari-ational algorithm for parameter estimation that scales efficiently to large data sets. Applied to three EEG data sets, we find that the model produces good predictive performance and reproduces a number of classic findings. Our results suggest that topographic latent source