Introducing Elinor for monitoring the governance and management of area-based conservation.

Monitoring the governance and management effectiveness of area-based conservation has long been recognized as an important foundation for achieving national and global biodiversity goals and enabling adaptive management. However, there are still many barriers that prevent conservation actors, including those affected by governance and management systems from implementing conservation activities and programs and from gathering and using data on governance and management to inform decision-making across spatial scales and through time. We explored current and past efforts to assess governance and management effectiveness and barriers actors face in using the resulting data and insights to inform conservation decision-making.

Olfactory Dysfunction as a Global Biomarker for Sniffing out Alzheimer's Disease: A Meta-Analysis.

Cases of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are rising exponentially due to increasing global life expectancy. There are approximately 50 million sufferers worldwide, with prevalence rising most rapidly in low-income countries such as Africa and Asia. There is currently no definite diagnosis of AD until after death, thus an early biomarker for AD is urgently required in order to administer timelier and more effective interventions.

Participation and Intellectual Disability: A Review of the Literature.

Participation is a central aspect of human functioning and a key focus of research and practice in the intellectual disability field. However, there is not an accepted definition of participation that guides research and practice. To inform the development of a definition, a scoping review of the intellectual disability literature from 2001-2015 was conducted.

The Alberta Breakthrough Pain Assessment Tool for cancer patients: a validation study using a delphi process and patient think-aloud interviews.

Breakthrough pain is a prevalent cancer pain syndrome, and research is needed to identify more effective interventions to manage it. A validated tool to assess breakthrough pain in a standard and reliable manner is urgently needed to support the conduct of clinical trials in breakthrough pain. To address this need, we developed a breakthrough pain assessment tool for research purposes.

An open-label, multi-dose efficacy and safety study of intramuscular tetrodotoxin in patients with severe cancer-related pain.

Cancer pain is a prevalent and serious public health issue, and more effective treatments are needed. This study evaluates the analgesic activity of tetrodotoxin, a highly selective sodium channel blocker, in cancer pain. A Phase IIa, open-label, multicenter, dose-escalation study of intramuscular tetrodotoxin was conducted in patients with severe, unrelieved cancer pain.

Sublingual methadone for the management of cancer-related breakthrough pain: a pilot study.

Background: Breakthrough pain is a highly prevalent and difficult to manage cancer pain problem. Current strategies are frequently ineffective, in part because of a mismatch between the sudden onset and brief duration of breakthrough pain and the slower onset and more prolonged duration of oral immediate-release opioids. Novel analgesic interventions are needed to provide a closer match between the temporal profile of the pain and the pharmacodynamics of the pain medication, and novel models of study of breakthrough pain are needed to evaluate them.

A titration strategy is needed to manage breakthrough cancer pain effectively: observations from data pooled from three clinical trials.

Background: Breakthrough pain is a prevalent and serious problem in patients with cancer. However, it is not known how best to predict the effective dose of breakthrough opioid for any given patient.

Methods: Data were pooled and reanalyzed from three large, randomized clinical trials of the rapidly absorbed oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate lozenges (OTFC) in which patients were carefully titrated to an optimal OTFC dose.

Characterization of the early pharmacodynamic profile of oral methadone for cancer-related breakthrough pain: a pilot study.

Methadone is effective for chronic cancer pain, but its early pharmacodynamic profile and effectiveness for breakthrough pain remain uncertain. This was an open-label, non-randomized, crossover study comparing the use of oral methadone for breakthrough pain with patients' usual opioid. Study variables included pain intensity (pretreatment and at 10-minute intervals post treatment), treatment-related side effects, and treatment satisfaction.

A bedside food cart as an alternate food service for acute and palliative oncological patients.

Patients with advanced cancer experience various problems with eating, and their meals should be tailored to meet their specific needs. Two methods of food service were compared in a shared acute oncology/palliative care unit; an electrical food cart allowing patients to select their food types and portions at the bedside, and a traditional food tray delivery service that relied on meals being prepared in a centralized kitchen and then delivered by tray. Over a 10-day period, lunch meals were delivered by food cart and supper meals via food trays.

Antinociceptive effects following intrathecal pretreatment with selective metabotropic glutamate receptor compounds in a rat model of neuropathic pain.

In the present study, we examined the effects of intrathecal pretreatment (twice daily injections on postoperative (PO) days 0-3 with the selective Group I (mGluR1a) mGluR antagonist, (RS)-1-aminoindan-1,5-dicarboxylic acid ((RS)-AIDA), the selective Group I (mGluR5a) antagonist, 2-methyl-6-(phenylethynyl)-pyridine (MPEP), the selective Group II mGluR agonist, (2R,4R)-4-aminopyrrolidine-2,4-dicarboxylate ((2R,4R)-APDC) or the selective Group III mGluR agonist, L-2-amino-4-phosphonobutyrate (L-AP4), on mechanical and cold hypersensitivity associated with chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve in rats. Mechanical and cold sensitivity was assessed prior to surgery (baseline) and then at 4, 8 and 12 days following CCI. Pretreatment with all of the mGluR agents produced reductions in the development of mechanical hypersensitivity.

Biological mechanisms underlying voice changes due to dehydration.

Four vocally untrained healthy adults, 2 men and 2 women, completed the study. A double-blind placebo-controlled approach was used to administer three treatments to each participant on separate days. Drugs treatments involved a single 60-mg dose of a diuretic, Lasix (LA), on one day, and a single 50-mg dose of an oral antihistamine, diphenhydramine hydrochloride (DH), on another day.

Differential effects of NMDA and group I mGluR antagonists on both nociception and spinal cord protein kinase C translocation in the formalin test and a model of neuropathic pain in rats.

Coincident with nociception, both noxious chemical stimulation of the hind paw and chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve produce an increase in protein kinase C (PKC) translocation in the spinal cord of rats. Noxious stimulus-induced PKC translocation likely depends on glutamate activity at either N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors or group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR1/5) in the spinal cord dorsal horn. This study compares nociceptive responses to, and the alterations in membrane-associated PKC, induced by noxious chemical stimulation of the hindpaw and CCI of the sciatic nerve, as well as their modulation by both NMDA and mGluR1/5 receptor antagonists.

Intrathecal administration of the mGluR compound, (S)-4CPG, attenuates hyperalgesia and allodynia associated with sciatic nerve constriction injury in rats.

The present study examined the effects of intrathecal (i.t.) treatment (twice-daily injections on post-operative (PO) days 0-8) with the metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) compound, (S)-4-carboxyphenylglycine ((S)-4CPG), or the non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist, dizocilipine maleate (MK-801), on mechanical allodynia and cold hyperalgesia associated with chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve in rats.