Bioethicists appearing in the media have been accused of "shooting from the hip" (Rachels, 1991). The criticism is sometimes justified. We identify some reasons our interactions with the press can have bad results and suggest remedies. In particular we describe a target (fostering better public dialogue), obstacles to hitting the target (such as intrinsic and accidental defects in our knowledge...

92 www.medical-acupuncture.co.uk/aimintro.htm Editor – I wish to comment on two articles in the December issue of Acupuncture in Medicine which are both of interest to me. One of the articles is by Filshie et al on acupuncture for vasomotor symptoms, and the other is on a review of one of my own papers. I am commenting on these articles to stress the absolute necessity of a complete, thorough a...

We present a new algorithm for mining frequent itemsets. Past studies have proposed various algorithms and techniques for improving the efficiency of the mining task. We integrate a combination of these techniques into an algorithm which utilize those techniques dynamically according to the input dataset. The algorithm main features include depth first search with vertical compressed database, ...

Objectives To compare the effect of acupuncture (manual and electroacupuncture) with that of a nonpenetrating sham (‘placebo’ needle) in patients with osteoarthritic knee pain and disability who are blind to the treatment allocation. Methods Acupuncture naïve patients with symptomatic and radiological evidence of osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly allocated to a course of either acupunctu...

Background Myofascial trigger points are commonly described in humans, and many studies have shown abnormal spontaneous electrical activity, spike activity and local twitch responses at these sites. Myofascial trigger points have only rarely been described in horses, and studies of their electrophysiological characteristics have not previously been published. The objective of this study was to ...