Systematic reviews of complementary therapies – an annotated bibliography. Part 2: Herbal medicine

Background Complementary therapies are widespread but controversial. We aim to provide a comprehensive collection and a summary of systematic reviews of clinical trials in three major complementary therapies (acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy). This article is dealing with herbal medicine. Potentially relevant reviews were searched through the register of the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, the Cochrane Library, Medline, and bibliographies of articles and books. To be included articles had to review prospective clinical trials of herbal medicines; had to describe review methods explicitly; had to be published; and had to focus on treatment effects. Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pre-tested form and summarized descriptively. Results From a total of 79 potentially relevant reviews pre-selected in the screening process 58 met the inclusion criteria. Thirty of the reports reviewed ginkgo (for dementia, intermittent claudication, tinnitus, and macular degeneration), hypericum (for depression) or garlic preparations (for cardiovascular risk factors and lower limb atherosclerosis). The quality of primary studies was criticized in the majority of the reviews. Most reviews judged the available evidence as promising but definitive conclusions were rarely possible. Conclusions Systematic reviews are available on a broad range of herbal preparations prescribed for defined conditions. There is very little evidence on the effectiveness of herbalism as practised by specialist herbalists who combine herbs and use unconventional diagnosis

On the Geroch-Traschen class of metrics

We compare two approaches to semi-Riemannian metrics of low regularity. The maximally 'reasonable' distributional setting of Geroch and Traschen is shown to be consistently contained in the more general setting of nonlinear distributional geometry in the sense of Colombea

High-field Zeeman effect of shallow acceptors in germanium

Zeeman absorption spectra have been obtained for B and Ga in Ge for B∥〈100〉 in the Voigt configuration with plane-polarized radiation. All twelve allowed transitions were observed for both the G and D lines. The corresponding excited states of these two lines for both impurities behave identically; two recent theoretical results are in good agreement. The measurements are a sensitive probe of the ground states; there are differences between the behavior of these for the two acceptors

Aharonov-Bohm-like effect for light propagating in nematics with disclinations

Using a geometric approach for the propagation of light in anisotropic media, we investigate what effect the director field of disclinations may have on the polarization state of light. Parallel transport around the defect, of the spinor describing the polarization, indicates the acquisition of a topological phase, in analogy with the Aharonov-Bohm effect.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Europhysics Letter

Space-time extensions II

The global extendibility of smooth causal geodesically incomplete spacetimes is investigated. Denote by $\gamma$ one of the incomplete non-extendible causal geodesics of a causal geodesically incomplete spacetime $(M,g_{ab})$. First, it is shown that it is always possible to select a synchronised family of causal geodesics $\Gamma$ and an open neighbourhood $\mathcal{U}$ of a final segment of $\gamma$ in $M$ such that $\mathcal{U}$ is comprised by members of $\Gamma$, and suitable local coordinates can be defined everywhere on $\mathcal{U}$ provided that $\gamma$ does not terminate either on a tidal force tensor singularity or on a topological singularity. It is also shown that if, in addition, the spacetime, $(M,g_{ab})$, is globally hyperbolic, and the components of the curvature tensor, and its covariant derivatives up to order $k-1$ are bounded on $\mathcal{U}$, and also the line integrals of the components of the $k^{th}$-order covariant derivatives are finite along the members of $\Gamma$---where all the components are meant to be registered with respect to a synchronised frame field on $\mathcal{U}$---then there exists a $C^{k-}$ extension $\Phi: (M,g_{ab}) \rightarrow (\widehat{M},\widehat{g}_{ab})$ so that for each $\bar\gamma\in\Gamma$, which is inextendible in $(M,g_{ab})$, the image, $\Phi\circ\bar\gamma$, is extendible in $(\widehat{M},\widehat{g}_{ab})$. Finally, it is also proved that whenever $\gamma$ does terminate on a topological singularity $(M,g_{ab})$ cannot be generic.Comment: 42 pages, no figures, small changes to match the published versio

Giant and reversible extrinsic magnetocaloric effects in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 films due to strain

Large thermal changes driven by a magnetic field have been proposed for environmentally friendly energy efficient refrigeration, but only a few materials which suffer hysteresis show these giant magnetocaloric effects. Here we create giant and reversible extrinsic magnetocaloric effects in epitaxial films of the ferromagnetic manganite La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 using strain mediated feedback from BaTiO3 substrates near a first-order structural phase transition. Our findings should inspire the discovery of giant magnetocaloric effects in a wide range of magnetic materials, and the parallel development of nanostructured bulk samples for practical applications.Comment: 32 pages, 1 Table, 5 figures, supplementary informatio

Systematic reviews of complementary therapies - an annotated bibliography. Part 1: Acupuncture

Background Complementary therapies are widespread but controversial. We aim to provide a comprehensive collection and a summary of systematic reviews of clinical trials in three major complementary therapies (acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy). This article is dealing with acupuncture. Potentially relevant reviews were searched through the register of the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, the Cochrane Library, Medline, and bibliographies of articles and books. To be included articles had to review prospective clinical trials of acupuncture; had to describe review methods explicitly; had to be published; and had to focus on treatment effects. Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pretested form and summarized descriptively. Results From a total of 48 potentially relevant reviews preselected in a screeening process 39 met the inclusion criteria. 22 were on various pain syndromes or rheumatic diseases. Other topics addressed by more than one review were addiction, nausea, asthma and tinnitus. Almost unanimously the reviews state that acupuncture trials include too few patients. Often included trials are heterogeneous regarding patients, interventions and outcome measures, are considered to have insufficient quality and contradictory results. Convincing evidence is available only for postoperative nausea, for which acupuncture appears to be of benefit, and smoking cessation, where acupuncture is no more effective than sham acupuncture. Conclusions A large number of systematic reviews on acupuncture exists. What is most obvious from these reviews is the need for (the funding of) well-designed, larger clinical trials