11,820 research outputs found
Homoeopathy
Homoeopathy is a system of treating patients
using very low dose preparations according
to the principle: "like should be cured with
like". This paper summarises the research evidence
presented in a recent issue of Effective Health
Care on the effectiveness of homoeopathy.
Increasing numbers of patients are seeking
information on complementary medicines from
NHS health professionals. Results of a 1998 survey
of use and expenditure on complementary
medicine in England suggested that 28% of
respondents had either visited a complementary
therapist or had purchased an over the counter
herbal or homoeopathic remedy in the past year.
From this survey it was estimated that there
could be over 470 000 recent users of homoeopathic
remedies in England
Impact of pig slurry amendments on phosphorus, suspended sediment and metal losses in laboratory runoff boxes under simulated rainfall
peer-reviewedLosses of phosphorus (P) when pig slurry applications to land are followed by a rainfall event or losses from soils with high P contents can contribute to eutrophication of receiving waters. The addition of amendments to pig slurry spread on high P Index soils may reduce P and suspended sediment (SS) losses. This hypothesis was tested at laboratory-scale using runoff boxes under simulated rainfall conditions. Intact grassed soil samples, 100 cm-long, 22.5 cm-wide and 5 cm-deep, were placed in runoff boxes and pig slurry or amended pig slurry was applied to the soil surface. The amendments examined were: (1) commercial grade liquid alum (8% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.88:1 [Al:total phosphorus (TP)] (2) commercial-grade liquid ferric chloride (38% FeCl3) applied at a rate of 0.89:1 [Fe:TP] and (3) commercial-grade liquid poly-aluminium chloride (PAC) (10% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.72:1 [Al:TP]. The grassed soil was then subjected to three rainfall events (10.3 ± 0.15 mm h−1) at time intervals of 48, 72, and 96 h following slurry application. Each sod received rainfall on 3 occasions. Results across three rainfall events showed that for the control treatment, the average flow weighted mean concentration (FWMC) of TP was 0.61 mg L−1, of which 31% was particulate phosphorus (PP), and the average FWMC of SS was 38.1 mg L−1. For the slurry treatment, there was an average FWMC of 2.2 mg TP L−1, 47% of which was PP, and the average FWMC of SS was 71.5 mg L−1. Ranked in order of effectiveness from best to worst, PAC reduced the average FWMC of TP to 0.64 mg L−1 (42% PP), FeCl3 reduced TP to 0.91 mg L−1 (52% PP) and alum reduced TP to 1.08 mg L−1 (56% PP). The amendments were in the same order when ranked for effectiveness at reducing SS: PAC (74%), FeCl3 (66%) and alum (39%). Total phosphorus levels in runoff plots receiving amended slurry remained above those from soil only, indicating that, although incidental losses could be mitigated by chemical amendment, chronic losses from the high P index soil in the current study could not be reduced.The first author gratefully acknowledges the award of the EMBARK scholarship from
IRCSET to support this study
Education on the Frontier: Schools, Teachers and Community Influence in North-Central British Columbia
Rural education in British Columbia has traditionally been studied from urban-based
perspectives. A more intimate interpretation of rural schools is called for, one
afforded by the "window on rural society", namely the remote one-room school and its
teacher. What did it mean to be a teacher in a small rural school in north-central British
Columbia in the 1920s, and what was the interrelationship between the isolated school,
its teacher and the community? The answers to these questions are pursued by looking at
the experiences of individual teachers, highlighting the teacher's struggle to adapt to
adverse physical and social conditions in his or her private and public life, and examining
the community's reaction to the efforts by the Department of Education to improve rural
school systems. This case study of a specific geographical region in British Columbia
demonstrates that rural schools, along with community politics and society, were often
markedly different from their urban counterparts.L'école rurale en Colombie-Britannique n'a été étudiée à ce jour que dans une
perspective urbaine. Un autre regard s'impose, plus intimiste, comme « à travers une
fenêtre s'ouvrant sur le monde rural » d'où l'on verrait, esseulées, l'institutrice et sa petite
école. Que signifait, dans les années 1920, enseigner dans une école de campagne du nord
de la Colombie-Britannique centrale, et quelle était la nature des rapports entre l'école,
l'institutrice et la collectivité? Pour répondre à ces questions, on a interrogé l'expérience
de diverses enseignantes, mettant en lumière leurs efforts pour s'adapter à des conditions
matérielles et sociales hostiles et exminant les réactions des collectivités face aux mesures
prises par le ministère de l'Éducation pour améliorer les systèmes scolaires ruraux. Cette
étude de cas sur une région précise de la Colombie-Britannique permet de voir que les
écoles rurales, de même que les réalités politiques et sociales de ces milieux, diffèrent
souvent de façon marquée des pratiques et des réalités urbaines en ces domaines
Evolutionary Psychology and Artificial Intelligence:The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Behaviour
Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a new landscape for humanity. Both what we can do, and the impact of our ordinary actions is changed by the innovation of digital and intelligent technology. In this chapter we postulate how AI impacts contemporary societies on an individual and collective level. We begin by teasing apart the current actual impact of AI on society from the impact that our cultural narratives surrounding AI has. We then consider the evolutionary mechanisms that maintain a stable society such as heterogeneity, flexibility and cooperation. Taking AI as a prosthetic intelligence, we discuss how—for better and worse—it enhances our connectivity, coordination, equality, distribution of control and our ability to make predictions. We further give examples of how transparency of thoughts and behaviours influence call-out culture and behavioural manipulation with consideration of group dynamics and tribalism. We next consider the efficacy and vulnerability of human trust, including the contexts in which blind trust in information is either adaptive or maladaptive in an age where the cost of information is decreasing. We then discuss trust in AI, and how we can calibrate trust as to avoid over-trust and mistrust adaptively, using transparency as a mechanism. We then explore the barriers for AI increasing accuracy in our perception by focusing on fake news. Finally, we look at the impact of information accuracy, and the battles of individuals against false beliefs. Where available, we use models drawn from scientific simulations to justify and clarify our predictions and analysis
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