Herbs or natural substances as complementary therapies for chronic kidney disease: ideas for future studies

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an increasingly common condition with limited treatment options that is placing a major financial and emotional burden on the community. The use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMS) has increased many-fold over the past decade. Although several compelling studies show renal toxicities and an adverse outcome from use of some CAMS, there is also emerging evidence in the literature that some may be renoprotective. Many nephrologists are unaware of these potential therapeutic benefits in treating CKD, or they are reluctant to consider them in research trials for fear of adverse effects (including nephrotoxicity) or deleterious interaction with co-prescribed, conventional medicines. The increased use of self-prescribed CAMS by their patients suggests that practitioners and researchers should keep abreast of the current information on these agents. A primary goal of this article was to review the available scientific evidence for the use of herbs or natural substances as a complementary treatment for patients with CKD. A further goal was to report the literature on herbs that have been reported to cause kidney failure.

The use of complementary and alternative therapies by patients with cancer

The aim of this research was to assess the prevalence and predictors of complementary and alternative therapy (CAT) use among cancer patients in Australia. A total of 1492 cancer patients attending nine major public cancer treatment centers in New South Wales, Australia, were asked to complete the Supportive Care Needs Survey. Of the 1354 consenting patients, 888 (65%) returned a completed survey. This article reports the secondary analyses of the survey data, specifically focusing on CAT use. For all cancers, 17.1% of patients were using at least one CAT. The two main demographic characteristics of CAT users were gender and age, where females were more likely to use CAT than males and that CAT use declined as age increased. Time since diagnosis was identified as the only significant clinical predictor of CAT use, where CAT use increased with time until 5 years since diagnosis. Our research shows that herbal treatments and naturopathy are the most popular CAT used by cancer patients (constituting over 30% of all CAT use recorded). The use of CAT among cancer patients is a significant issue in cancer care, especially considering the potential interactions between CAT and conventional medicines. Given that many cancer patients may not be aware of potential risks associated with these interactions it is important that oncologists and others involved in cancer patient care are informed about CAT and its use amongst their patients.

Test–retest repeatability of self-reported environmental exposures in Parkinson’s disease cases and healthy controls

There is substantial disagreement among published epidemiological studies regarding environmental risk factors for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Differences in the quality of measurement of environmental exposures may contribute to this variation. The current study examined the test–retest repeatability of self-report data on risk factors for PD obtained from a series of 32 PD cases recruited from neurology clinics and 29 healthy sex-, age-and residential suburb-matched controls. Exposure data were collected in face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire derived from previous epidemiological studies. High repeatability was demonstrated for ‘lifestyle’ exposures, such as smoking and coffee/tea consumption (kappas 0.70–1.00). Environmental exposures that involved some action by the person, such as pesticide application and use of solvents and metals, also showed high repeatability (kappas>0.78). Lower repeatability was seen for rural residency and bore water consumption (kappa 0.39–0.74). In general, we found that case and control participants provided similar rates of incongruent and missing responses for categorical and continuous occupational, domestic, lifestyle and medical exposures.

Trades and Graphs

The trade spectrum of a simple graph G is defined to be the set of all t for which it is possible to assemble together t copies of G into a simple graph H, and then disassemble H into t entirely different copies of G. Trade spectra of graphs have applications to intersection problems, and defining sets, of G-designs. In this investigation, we give several constructions, both for specific families of graphs, and for graphs in general.

Packing complete multipartite graphs with 4-cycles

In this paper we completely solve the problem of finding a maximum packing of any complete multipartite graph with edge-disjoint 4-cycles, and the minimum leaves are explicitly given.

Decomposition of complete tripartite graphs into gregarious 4-cycles

A 4-cycle in a tripartite graph with vertex partition {V-1, V-2, V-3} is said to be gregarious if it has at least one vertex in each V-i, 1 less than or equal to i less than or equal to 3. In this paper, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of an edge-disjoint decomposition of any complete tripartite graph into gregarious 4-cycles.

Effect of multiple transverse modes in self-mixing sensors based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We investigate the effect of coexisting transverse modes on the operation of self-mixing sensors based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). The effect of multiple transverse modes on the measurement of displacement and distance were examined by simulation and in laboratory experiment. The simulation model shows that the periodic change in the shape and magnitude of the self-mixing signal with modulation current can be properly explained by the different frequency-modulation coefficients of the respective transverse modes in VCSELs. The simulation results are in excellent agreement with measurements performed on single-mode and multimode VCSELs and on self-mixing sensors based on these VCSELs.

Emotional Intelligence, emotional Self-Awareness, and Team Effectiveness

An issue at the forefront of recent emotional intelligence debates revolves around whether emotional intelligence can be linked to work performance. Although many authors continue to develop new and improved measures of emotional intelligence (e.g. Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2001) to give us a better understanding of emotional intelligence, the links to performance in work settings, especially in the context of group effectiveness, have received much less attention. In this chapter, we present the results of a study in which we examined the role of emotional self-awareness and emotional intelligence as a predictor of group effectiveness. The study also addresses the utility of self- and peer assessment in measureing emotional self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Common multiples of complete graphs

A graph H is said to divide a graph G if there exists a set S of subgraphs of G, all isomorphic to H, such that the edge set of G is partitioned by the edge sets of the subgraphs in S. Thus, a graph G is a common multiple of two graphs if each of the two graphs divides G.

Surface Waves and Roughness in Self-Aerated Supercritical Flow

In high-velocity open channel flows, free-surface aeration is commonly observed. The effects of surface waves on the air-water flow properties are tested herein. The study simulates the air-water flow past a fixed-location phase-detection probe by introducing random fluctuations of the flow depth. The present model yields results that are close to experimental observations in terms of void fraction, bubble count rate and bubble/droplet chord size distributions. The results show that the surface waves have relatively little impact on the void fraction profiles, but that the bubble count rate profiles and the distributions of bubble and chord sizes are affected by the presence of surface waves.

Self-Similarity of Air-Water Flows in Skimming Flows on Stepped Spillways

Skimming flows on stepped spillways are characterised by a significant rate of turbulent dissipation on the chute. Herein an advanced signal processing of traditional conductivity probe signals is developed to provide further details on the turbulent time and length scales. The technique is applied to a 22° stepped chute operating with flow Reynolds numbers between 3.8 and 7.1 E+5. The new correlation analyses yielded a characterisation of large eddies advecting the bubbles. The turbulent length scales were related to the characteristic depth Y90. Some self-similar relationships were observed systematically at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. These included the distributions of void fraction, bubble count rate, interfacial velocity and turbulence level, and turbulence time and length scales. The self-similarity results were significant because they provided a picture general enough to be used to characterise the air-water flow field in prototype spillways.