Weak Quantum Theory: Complementarity and Entanglement in Physics and Beyond

The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of material systems, is outlined and tentatively applied to some examples.Comment: Revised version. Chapter 5.2 (old counting) omitted for separate publication, chapter 5.2 (new counting) reformulate

Measuring the effects of acupuncture and homoeopathy in general practice: An uncontrolled prospective documentation approach

BACKGROUND: Despite the increasing demand for acupuncture and homoeopathy in Germany, little is known about the effects of these treatments in routine care. We set up a pragmatic documentation study in general practice funded within the scope of project launched by a German health insurer. Patients were followed-up for up to four years. METHODS: The aim of the project was to study the effects and benefits of acupuncture and/or homoeopathy, and to assess patient satisfaction within a prospective documentation of over 5000 acupuncture and over 900 homoeopathy patients. As data sources, we used the documentation made available by therapists on every individual visit and a standardised quality-of-life questionnaire (MOS SF-36); these were complemented by questions concerning the patient's medical history and by questions on patient satisfaction. The health insurer provided us with data on work absenteeism. RESULTS: Descriptive analyses of the main outcomes showed benefit of treatment with middle to large-sized effects for the quality of life questionnaire SF-36 and about 1 point improvement on a rating scale of effects, given by doctors. Data on the treatment and the patients' and physicians' background suggests chronically ill patients treated by fairly regular schemes. CONCLUSION: Since the results showed evidence of a subjective benefit for patients from acupuncture and homoeopathy, this may account for the increase in demand for these treatments especially when patients are chronically ill and unsatisfied with the conventional treatment given previously

Protocol for a phase 1 homeopathic drug proving trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study protocol adapts the traditional homeopathic drug proving methodology to a modern clinical trial design.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>Multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 1 trial with 30 healthy volunteers. The study consists of a seven day run-in period, a five day intervention period and a 16 day post-intervention observation period. Subjects, investigators and the statisticians are blinded from the allocation to the study arm and from the identity of the homeopathic drug. The intervention is a highly diluted homeopathic drug (potency C12 = 10²⁴), Dose: 5 globules taken 5 times per day over a maximum period of 5 days. The placebo consists of an optically identical carrier substance (sucrose globules). Subjects document the symptoms they experience in a semi-structured online diary. The primary outcome parameter is the number of specific symptoms that characterise the intervention compared to the placebo after a period of three weeks. Secondary outcome parameters are qualitative differences in profiles of characteristic and proving symptoms and the total number of all proving symptoms. The number of symptoms will be quantitatively analysed on an intention-to-treat basis using ANCOVA with the subject's expectation and baseline values as covariates. Content analysis according to Mayring is adapted to suit the homeopathic qualitative analysis procedure.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Homeopathic drug proving trials using the terminology of clinical trials according GCP and fulfilling current requirements for research under the current drug regulations is feasible. However, within the current regulations, homeopathic drug proving trials are classified as phase 1 trials, although their aim is not to explore the safety and pharmacological dynamics of the drug, but rather to find clinical indications according to the theory of homeopathy. To avoid bias, it is necessary that neither the subjects nor the investigators know the identity of the drug. This requires a modification to the informed consent process and blinded study materials. Because it is impossible to distinguish between adverse events and proving symptoms, both must be documented together.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01061229.</p

Characteristics of cancer patients using homeopathy compared with those in conventional care: a cross-sectional study

Background: There are only few studies on cancer patients who are treated in complementary and alternative medicine clinics and comparing them with patients in conventional care. We will present the comparison of characteristics of two patient cohorts: one was treated in a homeopathic cancer care clinic and one was treated in a conventional oncology care (CC) outpatient clinic. Patients and methods: Six-hundred and forty-seven patients were included in this cross-sectional cohort study and had to fill in questionnaires [health-related quality of life (QoL) (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy—General Scale), depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), fatigue (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory) and expectancies toward treatment]. Clinical data were extracted from medical records. This study presents the comparison of both cohorts. Results: Patients in the homeopathy cohort are younger, better educated and more often employed than patients in the CC cohort. The most pronounced differences indicate longer disease histories and different diagnostic and clinical pretreatment variables. Despite the clinical differences, QoL as well as anxiety, depression and fatigue was similar in both the groups. Conclusions: Homeopathic treatment is sought by cancer patients at a different phase during the course of the disease, which has particular implications for research. However, expectancies toward the benefit of the treatment as well as QoL data are simila

Generalized Quantum Theory: Overview and Latest Developments

The main formal structures of Generalized Quantum Theory are summarized. Recent progress has sharpened some of the concepts, in particular the notion of an observable, the action of an observable on states (putting more emphasis on the role of proposition observables), and the concept of generalized entanglement. Furthermore, the active role of the observer in the structure of observables and the partitioning of systems is emphasized.Comment: 14 pages, update in reference

Experiences and Perceived Effects of Rosary Praying: A Qualitative Study

The aim of this study is to explore experiences and perceived effects of the Rosary on issues around health and well-being, as well as on spirituality and religiosity. A qualitative study was conducted interviewing ten Roman Catholic German adults who regularly practiced the Rosary prayer. As a result of using a tangible prayer cord and from the rhythmic repetition of prayers, the participants described experiencing stability, peace and a contemplative connection with the Divine, with Mary as a guide and mediator before God. Praying the Rosary was described as helpful in coping with critical life events and in fostering an attitude of acceptance, humbleness and devotion

Classical homeopathy in the treatment of cancer patients - a prospective observational study of two independent cohorts

BACKGROUND: Many cancer patients seek homeopathy as a complementary therapy. It has rarely been studied systematically, whether homeopathic care is of benefit for cancer patients. METHODS: We conducted a prospective observational study with cancer patients in two differently treated cohorts: one cohort with patients under complementary homeopathic treatment (HG; n = 259), and one cohort with conventionally treated cancer patients (CG; n = 380). For a direct comparison, matched pairs with patients of the same tumour entity and comparable prognosis were to be formed. Main outcome parameter: change of quality of life (FACT-G, FACIT-Sp) after 3 months. Secondary outcome parameters: change of quality of life (FACT-G, FACIT-Sp) after a year, as well as impairment by fatigue (MFI) and by anxiety and depression (HADS). RESULTS: HG: FACT-G, or FACIT-Sp, respectively improved statistically significantly in the first three months, from 75.6 (SD 14.6) to 81.1 (SD 16.9), or from 32.1 (SD 8.2) to 34.9 (SD 8.32), respectively. After 12 months, a further increase to 84.1 (SD 15.5) or 35.2 (SD 8.6) was found. Fatigue (MFI) decreased; anxiety and depression (HADS) did not change. CG: FACT-G remained constant in the first three months: 75.3 (SD 17.3) at t0, and 76.6 (SD 16.6) at t1. After 12 months, there was a slight increase to 78.9 (SD 18.1). FACIT-Sp scores improved significantly from t0 (31.0 - SD 8.9) to t1 (32.1 - SD 8.9) and declined again after a year (31.6 - SD 9.4). For fatigue, anxiety, and depression, no relevant changes were found. 120 patients of HG and 206 patients of CG met our criteria for matched-pairs selection. Due to large differences between the two patient populations, however, only 11 matched pairs could be formed. This is not sufficient for a comparative study. CONCLUSION: In our prospective study, we observed an improvement of quality of life as well as a tendency of fatigue symptoms to decrease in cancer patients under complementary homeopathic treatment. It would take considerably larger samples to find matched pairs suitable for comparison in order to establish a definite causal relation between these effects and homeopathic treatment

The therapeutic effect of clinical trials: understanding placebo response rates in clinical trials – A secondary analysis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Placebo response rates in clinical trials vary considerably and are observed frequently. For new drugs it can be difficult to prove effectiveness superior to placebo. It is unclear what contributes to improvement in the placebo groups. We wanted to clarify, what elements of clinical trials determine placebo variability. METHODS: We analysed a representative sample of 141 published long-term trials (randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled; duration > 12 weeks) to find out what study characteristics predict placebo response rates in various diseases. Correlational and regression analyses with study characteristics and placebo response rates were carried out. RESULTS: We found a high and significant correlation between placebo and treatment response rate across diseases (r = .78; p < .001). A multiple regression model explained 79% of the variance in placebo variability (F = 59.7; p < 0.0001). Significant predictors are, among others, the duration of the study (beta = .31), the quality of the study (beta = .18), the fact whether a study is a prevention trial (beta = .44), whether dropouts have been documented (beta = -.20), or whether additional treatments have been documented (beta = -.17). Healing rates with placebo are lower in the following diagnoses; neoplasms (beta = -.21), nervous diseases (beta = -.10), substance abuse (beta = -.14). Without prevention trials the amount of variance explained is 42%. CONCLUSION: Medication response rates and placebo response rates in clinical trials are highly correlated. Trial characteristics can explain some portion of the variance in placebo healing rates in RCTs. Placebo response in trials is only partially due to methodological artefacts and only partially dependent on the diagnoses treated

Subitizing with Variational Autoencoders

Numerosity, the number of objects in a set, is a basic property of a given visual scene. Many animals develop the perceptual ability to subitize: the near-instantaneous identification of the numerosity in small sets of visual items. In computer vision, it has been shown that numerosity emerges as a statistical property in neural networks during unsupervised learning from simple synthetic images. In this work, we focus on more complex natural images using unsupervised hierarchical neural networks. Specifically, we show that variational autoencoders are able to spontaneously perform subitizing after training without supervision on a large amount images from the Salient Object Subitizing dataset. While our method is unable to outperform supervised convolutional networks for subitizing, we observe that the networks learn to encode numerosity as basic visual property. Moreover, we find that the learned representations are likely invariant to object area; an observation in alignment with studies on biological neural networks in cognitive neuroscience