Water Banks in Washington State: A Tool for Climate Resilience

Water banks—a tool for exchanging senior water rights and offsetting new ones—can address multiple problems in contemporary water law. In the era of climate change, water banks enable needed flexibility and resilience in water allocation. As growing cities require new water rights, water banks can repurpose old water for new uses. These advantages should lead the Washington State Legislature to incentivize water banks, but in the 2018 “Hirst fix” it embraced habitat restoration as a false equivalent for water. The Legislature is rightfully concerned about the speculation that some private water banks allow. But overall, water banks enable new and productive uses while maintaining water in streams. Moving forward, Washington should embrace water banks for each unique basin’s needs

Pregnancy complications as markers for subsequent maternal cardiovascular disease: Validation of a maternal recall questionnaire

Background: We designed and tested the validity of a questionnaire to characterize maternal recall of pregnancy complications associated with increased future cardiovascular disease risk, based on the 2011 American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines. Methods: A maternal recall questionnaire of pregnancy history was administered to 971 patients who had participated in a previous cohort study of 1,608 pregnant women. Medical records from the study pregnancy served as the gold standard. Prevalence, sensitivity (sens), specificity (spec), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and/or Spearman's correlation coefficients (r) were calculated for each question. Results: A total of 526 (54%) individuals recontacted responded. Respondents were more likely to be older, white, educated, and nulliparous and were less likely to deliver low-birthweight infants in the study pregnancy than were individuals who did not respond. Mean length of recall was 4.35 years (standard deviation [SD] 0.46) postpartum. Maternal recall was most accurate for gestational diabetes (sens: 92%, spec: 98%, PPV: 79%, NPV: 99%), infant birthweight (r=0.95), and gestation length (r=0.85). Maternal recall was modest for preeclampsia (sens: 79%, spec: 97%, PPV: 68%, NPV: 98%) and pregnancy-associated hypertension, including preeclampsia or gestational hypertension (sens: 60%, spec: 95%, PPV: 64%, NPV: 94%). Conclusions: This validation study demonstrated that the majority of women could accurately recall a history of gestational diabetes, infant birthweight, and gestational age at delivery, 4 years postpartum on average. Recall of preeclampsia and pregnancy-associated hypertension overall was modest. Maternal report of these pregnancy conditions may help clinicians identify women at increased risk for cardiovascular disease

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Kokosing River in Knox County, Ohio: Nature and the Environment in Local Experience and Meaning

In the summer of 2015, the author conducted interviews with twenty-seven Knox County residents who volunteered to be interviewed after completing a survey (N=220). Surveys and interviews queried Knox County residents’ experiences with the Kokosing River, how these experiences influence their understandings of nature and wilderness, and their thoughts on environmental awareness, education, and action. Based on these conversations, the thesis explores the diverse meanings attributed to water, nature, wilderness, the environment, and the Kokosing River. Knox County residents connect with the Kokosing River in varied meaningful ways, many in relation to their sense of self. In analyzing interviews, absolutist and essentialist characterizations of such concepts as nature, culture, and wilderness dissolve into nuanced continuums relative within and between rivers and other environments. Interviewees also provided insights into what it means to have a connection with the environment, their ideas for how to develop such ties and inspire someone to take action on its behalf, and the degree to which they identify with conservationism, preservationism, and environmentalism. Throughout, the thesis includes quotes and comments from interviewees in order to focus on Knox County residents’ experiences, interpretations, and beliefs in their own words

Integrative oncology : international perspectives

Interest in integrative oncology (IO) is growing globally. Patients with cancer are actively using traditional complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) as part of their cancer and survivorship care. Published studies from around the world report increasing use of TCIM by people living with cancer. This article summarizes the presentations that took place during a symposium titled, “Integrative Oncology: International Perspectives” at the International Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health in Baltimore, 2018. The purpose of the presentations was to examine whether cancer services across a variety of geographical regions, including Australia, Canada, the United States, and the European Union, were actively responding to cancer survivors’ demand for TCIM. The presenters highlighted utilization rates and both facilitators and barriers to the provision of IO services in their respective countries and regions. The audience discussion following the presentations drew out many noteworthy perspectives

Integrative Oncology Care of Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Adults With Cancer: Society for Integrative Oncology-ASCO Guideline

PURPOSE: To provide evidence-based recommendations to health care providers on integrative approaches to managing anxiety and depression symptoms in adults living with cancer. METHODS: The Society for Integrative Oncology and ASCO convened an expert panel of integrative oncology, medical oncology, radiation oncology, surgical oncology, palliative oncology, social sciences, mind-body medicine, nursing, methodology, and patient advocacy representatives. The literature search included systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials published from 1990 through 2023. Outcomes of interest included anxiety or depression symptoms as measured by validated psychometric tools, and adverse events. Expert panel members used this evidence and informal consensus with the Guidelines into Decision Support methodology to develop evidence-based guideline recommendations. RESULTS: The literature search identified 110 relevant studies (30 systematic reviews and 80 randomized controlled trials) to inform the evidence base for this guideline. RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations were made for mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), yoga, relaxation, music therapy, reflexology, and aromatherapy (using inhalation) for treating symptoms of anxiety during active treatment; and MBIs, yoga, acupuncture, tai chi and/or qigong, and reflexology for treating anxiety symptoms after cancer treatment. For depression symptoms, MBIs, yoga, music therapy, relaxation, and reflexology were recommended during treatment, and MBIs, yoga, and tai chi and/or qigong were recommended post-treatment. DISCUSSION: Issues of patient-health care provider communication, health disparities, comorbid medical conditions, cost implications, guideline implementation, provider training and credentialing, and quality assurance of natural health products are discussed. While several approaches such as MBIs and yoga appear effective, limitations of the evidence base including assessment of risk of bias, nonstandardization of therapies, lack of diversity in study samples, and lack of active control conditions as well as future research directions are discussed.Additional information is available at www.asco.org/survivorship-guidelines

TryCYCLE: A Prospective Study of the Safety and Feasibility of Early In-Bed Cycling in Mechanically Ventilated Patients

<div><p>Introduction</p><p>The objective of this study was to assess the safety and feasibility of in-bed cycling started within the first 4 days of mechanical ventilation (MV) to inform a future randomized clinical trial.</p><p>Methods</p><p>We conducted a 33-patient prospective cohort study in a 21-bed adult academic medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) in Hamilton, ON, Canada. We included adult patients (≥ 18 years) receiving MV who walked independently pre-ICU. Our intervention was 30 minutes of in-bed supine cycling 6 days/week in the ICU. Our primary outcome was Safety (termination), measured as events prompting cycling termination; secondary Safety (disconnection or dislodgement) outcomes included catheter/tube dislodgements. Feasibility was measured as consent rate and fidelity to intervention. For our primary outcome, we calculated the binary proportion and 95% confidence interval (CI).</p><p>Results</p><p>From 10/2013-8/2014, we obtained consent from 34 of 37 patients approached (91.9%), 33 of whom received in-bed cycling. Of those who cycled, 16(48.4%) were female, the mean (SD) age was 65.8(12.2) years, and APACHE II score was 24.3(6.7); 29(87.9%) had medical admitting diagnoses. Cycling termination was infrequent (2.0%, 95% CI: 0.8%-4.9%) and no device dislodgements occurred. Cycling began a median [IQR] of 3 [2, 4] days after ICU admission; patients received 5 [3, 8] cycling sessions with a median duration of 30.7 [21.6, 30.8] minutes per session. During 205 total cycling sessions, patients were receiving invasive MV (150 [73.1%]), vasopressors (6 [2.9%]), sedative or analgesic infusions (77 [37.6%]) and dialysis (4 [2.0%]).</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>Early cycling within the first 4 days of MV among hemodynamically stable patients is safe and feasible. Research to evaluate the effect of early cycling on patient function is warranted.</p><p>Trial Registration</p><p>Clinicaltrials.gov: <a href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01885442" target="_blank">NCT01885442</a></p></div