Variety Of Anchors Research Articles

Ancient Anchors showing Maritime History (Based on Tamil University Museum Evidence)

Anchors made of stone, wood or metal played a significant role in marine history. They have been used as protection material for ships in ports and as a means of establishing maritime relations with other countries. A variety of anchors used in passenger ships, cargo ships, and warships around the world have been discovered by marine researchers. Stone anchors were initially introduced in India and iron anchors after the arrival of the Europeans. Since then iron anchors have been developed and used in various parts of India. Ancient stone anchors and later iron anchors have been found especially on the east coast of Tamil Nadu. Such anchors are a testament to man’s maritime ability and knowledge in ancient times. Such anchors are on display at the Tamil University Museum, Thanjavur. In that sense this article describes the maritime technique and maritime history that the Tamils knew for commercial purposes in ancient times.

Personalising Practice Using Preferences for Meditation Anchor Modality.

Many people are starting to establish contemplative practices and Mindfulness-Based Interventions have become quite popular. While Mindfulness-Based Interventions positively impact well-being, drop-out and lack of practice-maintenance plagues these interventions. Such adherence issues may reveal a lack of fit between participant partiality for attentional anchors of meditative practice and the intervention’s use of the breath as the anchor of attention. No study had yet compared partiality towards practices using anchors from different sensory modalities (e.g., auditory and visual) thus the present study examined such individual differences, sharing resources on the Open Science Framework1. Participants (N = 82) engaged 10-min practices within three modalities (somatosensory, auditory, and visual) and partiality towards these meditations was modelled. Partiality differences did exist: 49% preferred the breath, 30% the auditory-phrase, and 21% the visual-image. Pre-practice motivation and anchor-modality predicted partiality while cardiac responses were also positively associated with partiality. Preferences were updated through experience and over half of participants left the experiment partial to a different anchor than their initial meditation-naïve bias. Tangible next-steps are discussed, including integrating additional anchor modalities into existing interventions by offering brief practices with a variety of anchors. Suggestions are made for increasing post-training contact using email-automation to answer central practice-maintenance questions, including whether and which contemplative benefits are predicated on continued practice.

Mitochondrial anchors: Positioning mitochondria and more

The shape and position of mitochondria are intimately connected to both mitochondrial and cellular function. Mitochondrial anchors play a central role in mitochondrial positioning by exerting spatial, temporal, and contextual control over the cellular position of the organelle. Investigations into the molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial anchoring are still in the early stages, and we are beginning to appreciate the number and variety of anchors that exist. From the insight gained thus far, it is clear that mitochondrial anchoring has functional and physiological consequences that extend beyond mitochondrial positioning to other critical cellular processes.

Minimal Clinically Important Differences in the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System in Patients With Advanced Cancer

ContextLongitudinal symptom monitoring is important in the setting of patients with advanced cancer. Scores over time may naturally fluctuate, although a patient may feel the same. ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to determine the minimal levels of change required to be clinically relevant (minimal clinically important difference [MCID]) using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS). MethodsBetween 1999 and 2009, patients completed the ESAS before palliative radiotherapy and at follow-up. MCIDs were calculated using both the anchor- and distribution-based methods for improvement and deterioration; 95% confidence intervals for the differences in mean change scores between adjacent categories also were calculated. ResultsA total of 276 patients completed the ESAS at baseline and during at least one follow-up visit. At the four-week follow-up, decrease of 1.2 and 1.1 units in pain and depression scales, respectively, constituted clinically relevant improvement, whereas increase of at least 1.4, 1.8, 1.1, 1.1, and 1.4 units, respectively, in pain, tiredness, depression, anxiety, and appetite loss items were required for deterioration. At the subsequent follow-ups, these values were similar. Overall, the MCID for improvement tended to be smaller than that for deterioration. The distribution-based method estimates tended to be larger than the 0.3 SD estimates, but closer to the 0.5 SD estimates. ConclusionMCIDs allow health care professionals to determine the success of treatment in improving the patient's quality of life. MCIDs may prompt health care professionals to intervene with new treatment. Future studies should confirm our findings with a variety of anchors.