Illegal gambling in Canada

113 p.Illegal gambling has historically been common in Western countries due to the fact that legalized forms have largely been prohibited. However, over the past 50 years most forms of gambling have been legalized. One of the main justifications for legalization is that it forces black-market operators to close and diverts money to governments that is then utilized for societal benefit. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the validity of this premise. A brief review of the literature of legalizing alcohol, cannabis, and prostitution on black-market operators shows this premise to be largely true for alcohol, untrue for prostitution and intermediate for cannabis. A more comprehensive review of this issue was undertaken for gambling legalization in Canada. Four sources of data were examined: the rate of criminal charges for illegal gambling in Canada from 1977 to 2018; self-reported past-year involvement in illegal gambling in a national online panel sample of 10,199 adult gamblers in 2018; self-reported past-year involvement in age restricted forms of gambling among adolescents aged 15-17 in 2002 and 2018 from the Canadian Community Health Survey; and the opinions of key informants. The results confirm that illegal gambling has substantially declined with legalization. However, the evidence also indicates that a) this decline was not immediate, but rather occurred over a period of 10-20 years, and b) illegal gambling still exists to a limited extent. Potential reasons are discuss

Viewing Pictures of a Romantic Partner Reduces Experimental Pain: Involvement of Neural Reward Systems

The early stages of a new romantic relationship are characterized by intense feelings of euphoria, well-being, and preoccupation with the romantic partner. Neuroimaging research has linked those feelings to activation of reward systems in the human brain. The results of those studies may be relevant to pain management in humans, as basic animal research has shown that pharmacologic activation of reward systems can substantially reduce pain. Indeed, viewing pictures of a romantic partner was recently demonstrated to reduce experimental thermal pain. We hypothesized that pain relief evoked by viewing pictures of a romantic partner would be associated with neural activations in reward-processing centers. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined fifteen individuals in the first nine months of a new, romantic relationship. Participants completed three tasks under periods of moderate and high thermal pain: 1) viewing pictures of their romantic partner, 2) viewing pictures of an equally attractive and familiar acquaintance, and 3) a word-association distraction task previously demonstrated to reduce pain. The partner and distraction tasks both significantly reduced self-reported pain, although only the partner task was associated with activation of reward systems. Greater analgesia while viewing pictures of a romantic partner was associated with increased activity in several reward-processing regions, including the caudate head, nucleus accumbens, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – regions not associated with distraction-induced analgesia. The results suggest that the activation of neural reward systems via non-pharmacologic means can reduce the experience of pain

The impact of social isolation on pain interference : a longitudinal study

Online-first April 2018Background: Evidence suggests social interactions play an important role in pain perception. Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether social isolation (SI) in people with persistent pain determines pain interference (PI) and physical function over time. Methods: Patients seeking care at a tertiary pain management referral center were administered the Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) SI, PI, physical function, depression, and average pain intensity item banks at their initial consultation and subsequent visits as part of their routine clinical care. We used a post hoc simulation of an experiment using propensity score matching (n = 4,950) and carried out a cross-lagged longitudinal analysis (n = 312) of retrospective observational data. Results: Cross-lagged longitudinal analysis showed that SI predicted PI at the next time point, above and beyond the effects of pain intensity and covariates, but not vice versa. Conclusions: These data support the importance of SI as a factor in pain-related appraisal and coping and demonstrate that a comprehensive assessment of the individuals’ social context can provide a better understanding of the differential trajectories for a person living with pain. Our study provides evidence that the impact of pain is reduced in individuals who perceive a greater sense of inclusion from and engagement with others. This study enhances the understanding of how social factors affect pain and have implications for how the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions may be improved. Therapeutic interventions aimed at increasing social connection hold merit in reducing the impact of pain on engagement with activities

Serratus muscle stimulation effectively treats notalgia paresthetica caused by long thoracic nerve dysfunction: a case series

Currently, notalgia paresthetica (NP) is a poorly-understood condition diagnosed on the basis of pruritus, pain, or both, in the area medial to the scapula and lateral to the thoracic spine. It has been proposed that NP is caused by degenerative changes to the T2-T6 vertebrae, genetic disposition, or nerve entrapment of the posterior rami of spinal nerves arising at T2-T6. Despite considerable research, the etiology of NP remains unclear, and a multitude of different treatment modalities have correspondingly met with varying degrees of success. Here we demonstrate that NP can be caused by long thoracic nerve injury leading to serratus anterior dysfunction, and that electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) of the serratus anterior can successfully and conservatively treat NP. In four cases of NP with known injury to the long thoracic nerve we performed transcutaneous EMS to the serratus anterior in an area far lateral to the site of pain and pruritus, resulting in significant and rapid pain relief. These findings are the first to identify long thoracic nerve injury as a cause for notalgia paresthetica and electrical muscle stimulation of the serratus anterior as a possible treatment, and we discuss the implications of these findings on better diagnosing and treating notalgia paresthetica

SubseasonalClimateUSA: A Dataset for Subseasonal Forecasting and Benchmarking

Subseasonal forecasting of the weather two to six weeks in advance is critical for resource allocation and advance disaster notice but poses many challenges for the forecasting community. At this forecast horizon, physics-based dynamical models have limited skill, and the targets for prediction depend in a complex manner on both local weather variables and global climate variables. Recently, machine learning methods have shown promise in advancing the state of the art but only at the cost of complex data curation, integrating expert knowledge with aggregation across multiple relevant data sources, file formats, and temporal and spatial resolutions. To streamline this process and accelerate future development, we introduce SubseasonalClimateUSA, a curated dataset for training and benchmarking subseasonal forecasting models in the United States. We use this dataset to benchmark a diverse suite of models, including operational dynamical models, classical meteorological baselines, and ten state-of-the-art machine learning and deep learning-based methods from the literature. Overall, our benchmarks suggest simple and effective ways to extend the accuracy of current operational models. SubseasonalClimateUSA is regularly updated and accessible via the https://github.com/microsoft/subseasonal_data/ Python package

Policy options for the world’s primary forests in multilateral environmental agreements

We identify policies that would provide a solid foundation in key international negotiations to ensure that primary forests persist into the 21st Century. A novel compilation of primary forest cover and other data revealed that protection of primary forests is a matter of global concern being equally distributed between developed and developing countries. Almost all (98%) of primary forest is found within 25 countries with around half in five developed ones (USA, Canada, Russia, Australia, and NZ). Only approximate to 22% of primary forest is found in IUCN Protected Areas Categories I-VI, which is approximately 5% of preagriculture natural forest cover. Rates of deforestation and forest degradation are rapid and extensive, and the long-term integrity of primary forest cannot be assumed. We recommend four new actions that could be included in climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development negotiations: (1) recognize primary forests as a matter of global concern within international negotiations; (2) incorporate primary forests into environmental accounting; (3) prioritize the principle of avoided loss; and (4) universally accept the important role of indigenous and community conserved areas. In the absence of specific policies for primary forest protection, their unique biodiversity values and ecosystem services will continue to erode

Altered resting state neuromotor connectivity in men with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: A MAPP: Research Network Neuroimaging Study.

Brain network activity associated with altered motor control in individuals with chronic pain is not well understood. Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a debilitating condition in which previous studies have revealed altered resting pelvic floor muscle activity in men with CP/CPPS compared to healthy controls. We hypothesized that the brain networks controlling pelvic floor muscles would also show altered resting state function in men with CP/CPPS. Here we describe the results of the first test of this hypothesis focusing on the motor cortical regions, termed pelvic-motor, that can directly activate pelvic floor muscles. A group of men with CP/CPPS (N = 28), as well as group of age-matched healthy male controls (N = 27), had resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans as part of the Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain (MAPP) Research Network study. Brain maps of the functional connectivity of pelvic-motor were compared between groups. A significant group difference was observed in the functional connectivity between pelvic-motor and the right posterior insula. The effect size of this group difference was among the largest effect sizes in functional connectivity between all pairs of 165 anatomically-defined subregions of the brain. Interestingly, many of the atlas region pairs with large effect sizes also involved other subregions of the insular cortices. We conclude that functional connectivity between motor cortex and the posterior insula may be among the most important markers of altered brain function in men with CP/CPPS, and may represent changes in the integration of viscerosensory and motor processing

Planet Populations as a Function of Stellar Properties

Exoplanets around different types of stars provide a window into the diverse environments in which planets form. This chapter describes the observed relations between exoplanet populations and stellar properties and how they connect to planet formation in protoplanetary disks. Giant planets occur more frequently around more metal-rich and more massive stars. These findings support the core accretion theory of planet formation, in which the cores of giant planets form more rapidly in more metal-rich and more massive protoplanetary disks. Smaller planets, those with sizes roughly between Earth and Neptune, exhibit different scaling relations with stellar properties. These planets are found around stars with a wide range of metallicities and occur more frequently around lower mass stars. This indicates that planet formation takes place in a wide range of environments, yet it is not clear why planets form more efficiently around low mass stars. Going forward, exoplanet surveys targeting M dwarfs will characterize the exoplanet population around the lowest mass stars. In combination with ongoing stellar characterization, this will help us understand the formation of planets in a large range of environments.Comment: Accepted for Publication in the Handbook of Exoplanet