<p>The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing between the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing.Humans are causing a massive animal extinction without precedent in 65 million years. Humans are causing a massive animal extinction without precedent in 65 million years.</p>
OBJECTIVES: Adequate relief (AR) of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms (IBS-AR) has been used as a primary end point in many randomized controlled trials of IBS and is considered by the Rome III committee to be an acceptable primary end point. However, controversy exists on whether baseline severity confounds the effect of the treatment outcome. The aim (1) is to compare a subjective report of IBS-AR with global assessment of improvement (IBS-GAI), change in IBS symptom severity scale (IBS-SSS), and IBS quality of life (IBS-QOL); (2) to explore whether initial IBS symptom severity influences the ability of these outcome measures to detect differences post treatment; and (3) to determine whether psychological symptoms influence the sensitivity of these measures, in a randomized controlled treatment trial.
METHODS: A total of 289 adult IBS patients were recruited to a treatment trial. Baseline IBS-SSS scores were used to classify IBS severity as mild (<175), moderate (175–300), or severe (>300). Questionnaires were completed at baseline and after 3 weeks of treatment with sham acupuncture or wait-list control.
RESULTS: IBS baseline severity (IBS-SSS) significantly affected the proportion of patients who reported IBS-AR at 3 weeks (mild, 70%; moderate, 49.7%; severe, 38.8%) (P<0.05). However, once the patients who reported IBS-AR at baseline (28.0%) were excluded from the analysis, baseline severity no longer affected the proportion of patients reporting IBS-AR. Baseline severity did not have a significant effect on patients reporting moderate or significant improvement on the IBS-GAI (mild, 30%; moderate, 25.3%; severe, 18.8%) (P=NS). Psychological symptoms had no significant correlations with responders after adjusting for baseline severity.
CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that IBS-AR as an end point is inversely related to baseline symptom severity. However, if patients who report AR at screening were excluded from study participation, baseline symptom severity was no longer confounded with a report of AR at the study end point.
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Context
Primary care physicians report high levels of distress, which is linked to burnout, attrition, and poorer quality of care. Programs to reduce burnout before it results in impairment are rare; data on these programs are scarce.Objective
To determine whether an intensive educational program in mindfulness, communication, and self-awareness is associated with improvement in primary care physicians' well-being, psychological distress, burnout, and capacity for relating to patients.Design, Setting, and Participants
Before-and-after study of 70 primary care physicians in Rochester, New York, in a continuing medical education (CME) course in 2007-2008. The course included mindfulness meditation, self-awareness exercises, narratives about meaningful clinical experiences, appreciative interviews, didactic material, and discussion. An 8-week intensive phase (2.5 h/wk, 7-hour retreat) was followed by a 10-month maintenance phase (2.5 h/mo).Main Outcome Measures
Mindfulness (2 subscales), burnout (3 subscales), empathy (3 subscales), psychosocial orientation, personality (5 factors), and mood (6 subscales) measured at baseline and at 2, 12, and 15 months.Results
Over the course of the program and follow-up, participants demonstrated improvements in mindfulness (raw score, 45.2 to 54.1; raw score change [Δ], 8.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 7.0 to 10.8); burnout (emotional exhaustion, 26.8 to 20.0; Δ = −6.8; 95% CI, −4.8 to −8.8; depersonalization, 8.4 to 5.9; Δ = −2.5; 95% CI, −1.4 to −3.6; and personal accomplishment, 40.2 to 42.6; Δ = 2.4; 95% CI, 1.2 to 3.6); empathy (116.6 to 121.2; Δ = 4.6; 95% CI, 2.2 to 7.0); physician belief scale (76.7 to 72.6; Δ = −4.1; 95% CI, −1.8 to −6.4); total mood disturbance (33.2 to 16.1; Δ = −17.1; 95% CI, −11 to −23.2), and personality (conscientiousness, 6.5 to 6.8; Δ = 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 5 and emotional stability, 6.1 to 6.6; Δ = 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3 to 0.7). Improvements in mindfulness were correlated with improvements in total mood disturbance (r = −0.39, P < .001), perspective taking subscale of physician empathy (r = 0.31, P < .001), burnout (emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment subscales, r = −0.32 and 0.33, respectively; P < .001), and personality factors (conscientiousness and emotional stability, r = 0.29 and 0.25, respectively; P < .001).Conclusions
Participation in a mindful communication program was associated with short-term and sustained improvements in well-being and attitudes associated with patient-centered care. Because before-and-after designs limit inferences about intervention effects, these findings warrant randomized trials involving a variety of practicing physicians.
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<p>This chapter from the collected volume <em>Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community</em> looks at the interface between Buddhism and psychology with respect to self-control and addiction. The author looks at the commonalities and differences found between Buddhism, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism and then outlines Buddhist (especially Nichiren Buddhist) and psychological theories of addiction. In general, spiritual or religious practice has been found to be effective in the long-term recovery from addiction, though often this spirituality is informed by a Judeo-Christian perspective. The Buddhist tradition offers an additional mode of spirituality which may assist individuals in the path of recovery from addiction, as well as provide direction for transcending psychopathology altogether for higher, more enlightened states of being. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-09)</p>
<p>This chapter from the book <em>Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community</em> focuses on empowerment, a concept which in psychology has come to refer the "process that enables people, organizations, and communities to gain control over issues of concern to them." Historically, the concept of empowerment arose out of environments where people had very little power to control issues and challenges that faced them, such as places of extreme poverty and oppression. The concept of empowerment was proposed as a way to help individuals, organizations, and communities develop strategies to bring about change through activism, citizen participation, community development and organization, education, and critical thinking and activity aimed at affecting law and public policy. Taking as an example the international Soka Gakkai Buddhist society and drawing from the study of empowerment in psychology, the author looks at how Buddhist philosophy, practice, organizational structure, and models of social engagement and leadership can contribute to practical ways of personal empowerment on the individual level, collective empowerment at the community level, and, through the practice of socially engaged Buddhism, empowerment at the level of society. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-09)</p>
<p>In this chapter of the book <em>Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community</em>, the author suggests that not only does Buddhist mindfulness meditation allow the individual to develop a calmness that allows for a greater clarity of comprehension and an ability arrest impulsive behaviors, mindfulness also can be seen to have a social function. In the complex social environments, mindfulness allows the individual to take a step back and better observe and attend to the diversity of experiences, viewpoints, and feelings, and of oneself and others. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-02)</p>
<p>Here is an accessible introduction to Buddhist thought, which takes readers completely unfamiliar with the subject as quickly as possible to an accurate appreciation and understanding of the main ideas, tracing their development from teh time of Buddha, and opening up the latest scholarly perspectives and controversies. by focusing on classical India (including modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) as well as areas of Central Asia and South-East Asia direcly influenced by India, this book provides the essential foundation for an appreciation of Buddhism as a whole.</p>
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<p>In this chapter from the book <em>Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community</em>, Buddhist scholar Richard P. Hayes looks at the Buddhist process toward transforming from a state of mind which tends toward harming oneself and others to one that is healing and able to benefit. He looks at the traditional Buddhist three-fold process of ethics, contemplation, and wisdom. Ethics provides a basis for contemplation by helping the individual avoid actions which may be a cause of gulit, shame, harm, and other obstacles to mental peace. During contemplation, the individual refines mental awareness and eventually applies this refined state of mind to the development of wisdom. Wisdom itself can be looked at as a three-fold process of (1) study, (2) reflection, and (3) cultivation. Through study, the individual learns about the stages of the path and their correct order etc. Reflection begins the process of deep internalization by questioning oneself and comparing oneself to one's spiritual teachers. Cultivation is the process whereby one infuses in one's state of being attitudes and insight conducive to fulfillment. This, in turn affects one's way of acting and speaking so that one's behavior is spontaneously and naturally virtuous and beneficial to oneself and others. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-02)</p>
A recently published analysis by Lewis and Maslin (Lewis SL and Maslin MA (2015) Defining the Anthropocene. Nature 519: 171–180) has identified two new potential horizons for the Holocene−Anthropocene boundary: 1610 (associated with European colonization of the Americas), or 1964 (the peak of the excess radiocarbon signal arising from atom bomb tests). We discuss both of these novel suggestions, and consider that there is insufficient stratigraphic basis for the former, whereas placing the latter at the peak of the signal rather than at its inception does not follow normal stratigraphical practice. Wherever the boundary is eventually placed, it should be optimized to reflect stratigraphical evidence with the least possible ambiguity.
Objective To investigate whether placebo effects can experimentally be separated into the response to three components—assessment and observation, a therapeutic ritual (placebo treatment), and a supportive patient-practitioner relationship—and then progressively combined to produce incremental clinical improvement in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. To assess the relative magnitude of these components.
Design A six week single blind three arm randomised controlled trial.
Setting Academic medical centre.
Participants 262 adults (76% women), mean (SD) age 39 (14), diagnosed by Rome II criteria for and with a score of ≥150 on the symptom severity scale.
Interventions For three weeks either waiting list (observation), placebo acupuncture alone (“limited”), or placebo acupuncture with a patient-practitioner relationship augmented by warmth, attention, and confidence (“augmented”). At three weeks, half of the patients were randomly assigned to continue in their originally assigned group for an additional three weeks.
Main outcome measures Global improvement scale (range 1-7), adequate relief of symptoms, symptom severity score, and quality of life.
Results At three weeks, scores on the global improvement scale were 3.8 (SD 1.0) v 4.3 (SD 1.4) v 5.0 (SD 1.3) for waiting list versus “limited” versus “augmented,” respectively (P<0.001 for trend). The proportion of patients reporting adequate relief showed a similar pattern: 28% on waiting list, 44% in limited group, and 62% in augmented group (P<0.001 for trend). The same trend in response existed in symptom severity score (30 (63) v 42 (67) v 82 (89), P<0.001) and quality of life (3.6 (8.1) v 4.1 (9.4) v 9.3 (14.0), P<0.001). All pairwise comparisons between augmented and limited patient-practitioner relationship were significant: global improvement scale (P<0.001), adequate relief of symptoms (P<0.001), symptom severity score (P=0.007), quality of life (P=0.01).Results were similar at six week follow-up.
Conclusion Factors contributing to the placebo effect can be progressively combined in a manner resembling a graded dose escalation of component parts. Non-specific effects can produce statistically and clinically significant outcomes and the patient-practitioner relationship is the most robust component.
Trial registration Clinical Trials NCT00065403.
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Positive emotions promote adjustment to aversive life events. However, evolutionary theory and empirical research on trauma disclosure suggest that in the context of stigmatized events, expressing positive emotions might incur social costs. To test this thesis, the authors coded genuine (Duchenne) smiling and laughter and also non-Duchenne smiling from videotapes of late-adolescent and young adult women, approximately half with documented histories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), as they described the most distressing event of their lives. Consistent with previous studies, genuine positive emotional expression was generally associated with better social adjustment two years later. However, as anticipated, CSA survivors who expressed positive emotion in the context of describing a past CSA experience had poorer long-term social adjustment, whereas CSA survivors who expressed positive emotion while describing a nonabuse experience had improved social adjustment. These findings suggest that the benefits of positive emotional expression may often be context specific.
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Feeling connected with nature has broad benefits and can manifest in many ways. One important component of nature connectedness is believing that the self and nature are “one” or interdependent. Mindfulness is associated with greater interdependence and also appears to be associated with feeling connected with nature. Decentering is a mechanism of mindfulness that involves creating a reflective distance from which thoughts and emotions can be observed as transient, internal phenomena and not unequivocal truths. Assuming a decentered perspective may allow individuals to get “out of their heads” and into the surrounding world. This study examined the relationships between dispositional mindfulness, decentering, and nature connectedness in a sample (N = 467) of American adults. Results indicated that dispositional mindfulness was positively associated with nature connectedness, with two dispositional mindfulness facets, observing and non-reacting, accounting for the majority of this association. Furthermore, decentering mediated the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and nature connectedness. Key Words: Nature connectedness—Mindfulness—Decentering—Self.
Dysuria and bladder pain are two symptoms that commonly call attention to the lower urinary tract.
This report synthesizes the findings from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) global and sub-global assessments of how ecosystem changes do or could affect human health and well-being. Over the past 50 years humans have changed natural ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than any comparable period in human history. The findings provide the strongest evidence so far of the ways in which pressures on ecosystems have resulted in the loss of vital ecosystem services which purify and replenish water soil and air resources essential to health and also keep many diseases in check. Loss of these ecosystem services in turn affect patterns of communicable and non-communicable disease distribution and transmission. In the future, still-increasing pressures on ecosystems could impact public health in a variety of ways that are unpredictable and potentially severe. Human exploitation of ecosystem services has indeed contributed to substantial net gains in well-being and development across much of the planet. Still not all regions and groups of people have benefited from this process and many have been harmed. Moreover the full costs associated with these gains are only now becoming apparent. Approximately 60% of the ecosystem services examined, from regulation of air quality to purification of water, are being degraded or used unsustainably. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has worked to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those systems so that they can continue to supply the services that underpin all aspects of human life. The assessment exercise has involved more than 1 300 experts worldwide and started in 2001.
A successful clinical trial is dependent on recruitment. Between December 2003 and February 2006, our team successfully enrolled 289 participants in a large, single-center, randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT) studying the impact of the patient-doctor relationship and acupuncture on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients. This paper reports on the effectiveness of standard recruitment methods such as physician referral, newspaper advertisements, fliers, audio and video media (radio and television commercials) as well as relatively new methods not previously extensively reported on such as internet ads, ads in mass-transit vehicles and movie theater previews. We also report the fraction of cost each method consumed and fraction of recruitment each method generated. Our cost per call from potential participants varied from $3–$103 and cost per enrollment participant varied from $12–$584. Using a novel metric, the efficacy index, we found that physician referrals and flyers were the most effective recruitment method in our trial. Despite some methods being more efficient than others, all methods contributed to the successful recruitment. The iterative use of the efficacy index during a recruitment campaign may be helpful to calibrate and focus on the most effective recruitment methods.
A successful clinical trial is dependent on recruitment. Between December 2003 and February 2006, our team successfully enrolled 289 participants in a large, single-center, randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT) studying the impact of the patient-doctor relationship and acupuncture on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients. This paper reports on the effectiveness of standard recruitment methods such as physician referral, newspaper advertisements, fliers, audio and video media (radio and television commercials) as well as relatively new methods not previously extensively reported on such as internet ads, ads in mass-transit vehicles and movie theater previews. We also report the fraction of cost each method consumed and fraction of recruitment each method generated. Our cost per call from potential participants varied from $3–$103 and cost per enrollment participant varied from $12–$584. Using a novel metric, the efficacy index, we found that physician referrals and flyers were the most effective recruitment method in our trial. Despite some methods being more efficient than others, all methods contributed to the successful recruitment. The iterative use of the efficacy index during a recruitment campaign may be helpful to calibrate and focus on the most effective recruitment methods.
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Previous research has shown that those with anxiety disorders may avoid distressing emotions, which in turn may increase avoidance behavior and help to maintain anxiety symptoms. The current study used an analogue laboratory design to investigate whether engaging in a brief mindfulness induction may result in decreased avoidance behavior following a fear-inducing stimulus. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to listen to a brief mindfulness induction or to a control audio designed to induce unfocused attention. They were then shown a fear-inducing or neutral film clip. Avoidance behavior was measured by the likelihood of quitting a frustrating math task. Of those participants watching the fear-inducing film clip, those in the mindfulness group were less likely to quit the frustrating task than those in the control audio group. There was no difference in persistence between the mindfulness and control groups after the neutral film. Perhaps mindfulness training can boost persistence after the experience of fear.
<p>The Buddhist concept of Mind-Only or Consciousness-Only provides a dynamic model of mental functioning wherein everything that appears to the individual ultimately arises from the mind or, in Sanskrit, the ālayavijñāna (a technical term sometimes translated as the "storehouse consciousness" or the "mind-basis-basis-of-all"). These appearances which arise out of this mind constitute all experiences of the individual. Even though appearances are no more than mind (i.e. only mind, mind/consciousness-only), they are grasped upon as though they were substantial and external. The idea of Consciousness-Only has implications for Buddhist views of nature and the environment. The author discusses the role of the mind (specifically the ālayavijñāna) in the creation of environmental problems and its role in developing a sense of responsibility for the environment. Through the training and cultivation of the mind paired with acting according to Buddhist ethics, we can approach solutions to environmental problems at their source. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-02)</p>
Objective—This study explored the relationship of experiential avoidance (e.g., the tendency to avoid, suppress, or otherwise control internal experiences even when doing so causes behavioral harm) to alcohol use disorders and alcohol-related problems. Participants—Cross-sectional data was collected from 240 undergraduate college students in their first year in college between December 2009 and April 2010.Methods—Participants completed a diagnostic interview and online self-report survey.
Results—Students with a history of alcohol abuse or dependence had significantly higher levels of experiential avoidance relative to students with no alcohol use disorder diagnosis. A hierarchical linear regression analysis found that experiential avoidance significantly predicted alcohol-related problems, even after controlling for gender and psychological distress. Furthermore, experiential avoidance mediated the relationship of psychological distress to alcoholrelated problems.
Conclusions—These findings suggest experiential avoidance may play a role in problematic alcohol use among college students.
<p>This chapter of <em>Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community</em> seeks to order and examine psychotherapeutic literature that has been influenced by the Buddhist tradition. The author presents five groups of literature on Buddhism and psychotherapy: (1) Freudian psychodynamics; (2) Jungian mysticism; (3) Neo-Freudian eclecticism; (4) Behavioral pragmatism; and (5) New Age consciousness. While these groupings are roughly chronological in their organization, they do not represent increasingly nuanced synthesis or theoretical progression. The author's goal is to assess the manner in which psychologists have learned from and employed Buddhist ideas, as well as how psychologists have contributed to the Western understanding (and misunderstanding) of Buddhist teachings on the whole. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-10)</p>
Freedom Project trains prisoners in nonviolent communication and meditation. Two complementary studies of its effects are reported in this article. The first study is correlational; we found decreased recidivism rates among prisoners trained by Freedom Project compared with recidivism rates in Washington state. The second study compared trained prisoners with a matched-pair control group and found improvement in self-reported anger, self-compassion, and certain forms of mindfulness among the trained group. Ratings of role-plays simulating difficult interactions show increased social skills among the group trained by Freedom Project than in the matched controls.
The rise of plastics since the mid-20th century, both as a material element of modern life and as a growing environmental pollutant, has been widely described. Their distribution in both the terrestrial and marine realms suggests that they are a key geological indicator of the Anthropocene, as a distinctive stratal component. Most immediately evident in terrestrial deposits, they are clearly becoming widespread in marine sedimentary deposits in both shallow- and deep-water settings. They are abundant and widespread as macroscopic fragments and virtually ubiquitous as microplastic particles; these are dispersed by both physical and biological processes, not least via the food chain and the ‘faecal express’ route from surface to sea floor. Plastics are already widely dispersed in sedimentary deposits, and their amount seems likely to grow several-fold over the next few decades. They will continue to be input into the sedimentary cycle over coming millennia as temporary stores – landfill sites – are eroded. Plastics already enable fine time resolution within Anthropocene deposits via the development of their different types and via the artefacts (‘technofossils’) they are moulded into, and many of these may have long-term preservation potential when buried in strata.
Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years or so. Biologists now suggest that a sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. Here we review how differences between fossil and modern data and the addition of recently available palaeontological information influence our understanding of the current extinction crisis. Our results confirm that current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the need for effective conservation measures.
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