311 research outputs found
Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy: A State-of-the-Art Review
Background: Current literature supports the comprehensive health benefits of exposure to nature and green environments on human systems. The aim of this state-of-the-art review is to elucidate empirical research conducted on the physiological and psychological effects of Shinrin-Yoku (or Forest Bathing) in transcontinental Japan and China. Furthermore, we aim to encourage healthcare professionals to conduct longitudinal research in Western cultures regarding the clinically therapeutic effects of Shinrin-Yoku and, for healthcare providers/students to consider practicing Shinrin-Yoku to decrease undue stress and potential burnout. Methods: A thorough review was conducted to identify research published with an initial open date range and then narrowing the collection to include papers published from 2007 to 2017. Electronic databases (PubMed, PubMed Central, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus) and snowball references were used to cull papers that evaluated the use of Shinrin-Yoku for various populations in diverse settings. Results: From the 127 papers initially culled using the Boolean phrases: âShinrin-yokuâ AND/OR âforest bathingâ AND/OR ânature therapyâ, 64 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this summary review and then divided into âphysiological,â âpsychological,â âsensory metricsâ and âframeworksâ sub-groups. Conclusions: Human health benefits associated with the immersion in nature continue to be currently researched. Longitudinal research, conducted worldwide, is needed to produce new evidence of the relationships associated with Shinrin-Yoku and clinical therapeutic effects. Nature therapy as a health-promotion method and potential universal health model is implicated for the reduction of reported modern-day âstress-stateâ and âtechnostress.â
A new search for features in the primordial power spectrum
We develop a new approach toward a high resolution non-parametric
reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum using WMAP cosmic microwave
background temperature anisotropies that we confront with SDSS large-scale
structure data in the range k~0.01-0.1 h/Mpc. We utilise the standard LambdaCDM
cosmological model but we allow the baryon fraction to vary. In particular, for
the concordance baryon fraction, we compare indications of a possible feature
at k~0.05 h/Mpc in WMAP data with suggestions of similar features in large
scale structure surveys.Comment: revised version, conclusions unchanged, 7 figures, accepted for
publication in MNRA
Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy: A State-of-the-Art Review
Background: Current literature supports the comprehensive health benefits of exposure to nature and green environments on human systems. The aim of this state-of-the-art review is to elucidate empirical research conducted on the physiological and psychological effects of Shinrin-Yoku (or Forest Bathing) in transcontinental Japan and China. Furthermore, we aim to encourage healthcare professionals to conduct longitudinal research in Western cultures regarding the clinically therapeutic effects of Shinrin-Yoku and, for healthcare providers/students to consider practicing Shinrin-Yoku to decrease undue stress and potential burnout. Methods: A thorough review was conducted to identify research published with an initial open date range and then narrowing the collection to include papers published from 2007 to 2017. Electronic databases (PubMed, PubMed Central, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus) and snowball references were used to cull papers that evaluated the use of Shinrin-Yoku for various populations in diverse settings. Results: From the 127 papers initially culled using the Boolean phrases: âShinrin-yokuâ AND/OR âforest bathingâ AND/OR ânature therapyâ, 64 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this summary review and then divided into âphysiological,â âpsychological,â âsensory metricsâ and âframeworksâ sub-groups. Conclusions: Human health benefits associated with the immersion in nature continue to be currently researched. Longitudinal research, conducted worldwide, is needed to produce new evidence of the relationships associated with Shinrin-Yoku and clinical therapeutic effects. Nature therapy as a health-promotion method and potential universal health model is implicated for the reduction of reported modern-day âstress-stateâ and âtechnostress.â
Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1994 Term
This Article attempts, through statistical analysis, to identify the ideological leanings of the United States Supreme Court during the October 1994 Term. Although generally perceived as a conservative institution, the Court this Term adopted a more liberal stance in its approach to First Amendment, statutory civil rights, jurisdictional and federalism issues, and in litigation involving the federal government. Furthermore, in close cases that were decided by a one-Justice majority, the Court overwhelmingly adopted a more liberal result. Justice Kennedy remained the most influential Justice, his vote determining the outcome in over 80% of these close cases. While some of this liberal movement may be attributed to the nature of the agenda pursued by the Clinton administration, it is too broad-based to be discounted entirely. Regression analysis, moreover, reveals that there are several positive correlations (and one negative correlation) in the voting patterns of the five longest-tenured Justices
Structural and functional implications of the QUA2 domain on RNA recognition by GLD-1
The STAR family comprises ribonucleic acid (RNA)-binding proteins that play key roles in RNA-regulatory processes. RNA recognition is achieved by a KH domain with an additional α-helix (QUA2) that seems to extend the RNA-binding surface to six nucleotides for SF1 (Homo sapiens) and seven nucleotides for GLD-1 (Caenorhabditis elegans). To understand the structural basis of this probable difference in specificity, we determined the solution structure of GLD-1 KH-QUA2 with the complete consensus sequence identified in the tra-2 gene. Compared to SF1, the GLD-1 KH-QUA2 interface adopts a different conformation resulting indeed in an additional sequence-specific binding pocket for a uracil at the 5âČend. The functional relevance of this binding pocket is emphasized by our bioinformatics analysis showing that GLD-1 binding sites with this 5âČend uracil are more predictive for the functional response of the messenger RNAs to gld-1 knockout. We further reveal the importance of the KH-QUA2 interface in vitro and that its alteration in vivo affects the level of translational repression dependent on the sequence of the GLD-1 binding motif. In conclusion, we demonstrate that the QUA2 domain distinguishes GLD-1 from other members of the STAR family and contributes more generally to the modulation of RNA-binding affinity and specificity of KH domain containing protein
Constraints on the interaction and self-interaction of dark energy from cosmic microwave background
It is well-known that even high quality cosmic microwave background (CMB)
observations are not sufficient on their own to determine the equation of state
of the dark energy, due to the effect of the so-called geometric degeneracy at
large multipoles and the cosmic variance at small ones. In contrast, we find
that CMB data can put tight constraints on another fundamental property of the
dark energy, namely its coupling to dark matter. We compare the current
high-resolution CMB data to models of dark energy characterized by an inverse
power law or exponential potential and by the coupling to dark matter. We
determine the curve of degeneracy between the dark energy equation of state and
the dimensionless Hubble parameter h and show that even an independent perfect
determination of h may be insufficient to distinguish dark energy from a pure
cosmological constant with the current dataset. On the other hand, we find that
the interaction with dark matter is firmly bounded, regardless of the
potential. In terms of the dimensionless ratio \beta of the dark energy
interaction to gravity, we find \beta <0.16 (95% c.l.). This implies that the
effective equation of state between equivalence and tracking has been close to
the pure matter equation of state within 1% and that scalar gravity is at least
40 times weaker than tensor gravity. Further, we show that an experiment
limited by cosmic variance only, like the Planck mission, can put an upper
bound \beta < 0.05 (95% c.l.). This shows that CMB observations have a strong
potentiality not only as a test of cosmic kinematics but also as a
gravitational probe.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Dark Energy and Dark Matter
It is a puzzle why the densities of dark matter and dark energy are nearly
equal today when they scale so differently during the expansion of the
universe. This conundrum may be solved if there is a coupling between the two
dark sectors. In this paper we assume that dark matter is made of cold relics
with masses depending exponentially on the scalar field associated to dark
energy. Since the dynamics of the system is dominated by an attractor solution,
the dark matter particle mass is forced to change with time as to ensure that
the ratio between the energy densities of dark matter and dark energy become a
constant at late times and one readily realizes that the present-day dark
matter abundance is not very sensitive to its value when dark matter particles
decouple from the thermal bath. We show that the dependence of the present
abundance of cold dark matter on the parameters of the model differs
drastically from the familiar results where no connection between dark energy
and dark matter is present. In particular, we analyze the case in which the
cold dark matter particle is the lightest supersymmetric particle.Comment: 4 pages latex, 2 figure
Clinical pharmacogenetics of methotrexate
It is well known that interindividual variability can affect the response to many drugs in relation to age, gender, diet, and organ function. Pharmacogenomic studies have also documented that genetic polymorphisms can exert clinically significant effects in terms of drug resistance, efficacy and toxicity by modifying the expression of critical gene products (drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, and target molecules) as well as pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters. A growing body of in vitro and clinical evidence suggests that common polymorphisms in the folate gene pathway are associated with an altered response to methotrexate (MTX) in patients with malignancy and autoimmune disease. Such polymorphisms may also induce significant MTX toxicity requiring expensive monitoring and treatment. Although the available data are not conclusive, they suggest that in the future MTX pharmacogenetics could play a key role in clinical practice by improving and tailoring treatment. This review describes the genetic polymorphisms that significantly influence MTX resistance, efficacy, and toxicity
Primordial Power Spectrum Reconstruction
In order to reconstruct the initial conditions of the universe it is
important to devise a method that can efficiently constrain the shape of the
power spectrum of primordial matter density fluctuations in a model-independent
way from data. In an earlier paper we proposed a method based on the wavelet
expansion of the primordial power spectrum. The advantage of this method is
that the orthogonality and multiresolution properties of wavelet basis
functions enable information regarding the shape of to be
encoded in a small number of non-zero coefficients. Any deviation from
scale-invariance can then be easily picked out. Here we apply this method to
simulated data to demonstrate that it can accurately reconstruct an input
, and present a prescription for how this method should be used
on future data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. JCAP accepted versio
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