Aceromath is a 2D attractor graphicator licensed under the GPL. It was programmed by THE NET CENTINELL at UADE University for a course of engineering.
Program features
Aceromath is a 2D attractor graphicator coded entirely in C++. It can graphicate:
* discrete monotonus attractors
* discrete non monotonous attractors
* linear continuous attractors
* non linear continuous attractors
Aceromath has a built in parser which can evaluate any kind of mathematical expression having brackets. At a first time Aceromath evaluates all expressions in brackets, then evaluates the total expression and graphicates it.
You can write in the expression also:
* sen(Xn) y senh(Xn) = sine & hyperbolic sine
* cos(Xn) y cosh(Xn) = cosine & hyperbolic cosine
* tan(Xn) y tanh(Xn) = tangent & hyperbolic tangent
* ln(Xn) = natural logarithm
* exp(Xn) = e at Xn power
* attractor parameters
Program features
Aceromath is a 2D attractor graphicator coded entirely in C++. It can graphicate:
* discrete monotonus attractors
* discrete non monotonous attractors
* linear continuous attractors
* non linear continuous attractors
Aceromath has a built in parser which can evaluate any kind of mathematical expression having brackets. At a first time Aceromath evaluates all expressions in brackets, then evaluates the total expression and graphicates it.
You can write in the expression also:
* sen(Xn) y senh(Xn) = sine & hyperbolic sine
* cos(Xn) y cosh(Xn) = cosine & hyperbolic cosine
* tan(Xn) y tanh(Xn) = tangent & hyperbolic tangent
* ln(Xn) = natural logarithm
* exp(Xn) = e at Xn power
* attractor parameters
The Harvard Shop is Harvard University's on campus and online store run entirely by students. It is the only store operating in Harvard Square which sells clothing and gifts under the umbrella of a non-profit company and with all proceeds going towards the creation of student jobs.
History/Information
The Harvard Shop is the largest agency or business of Harvard Student Agencies. HSA is a student-run non-profit corporation founded in 1957 that manages 9 agencies. Each agency provides a different valuable service to the Harvard community while giving students practical business experience.
Harvard Student Agencies is the largest student-run corporation in the world. Harvard Student Agencies, Inc. is a 6 million nonprofit company, consisting of nine different agencies, each headed by a student manager.
The organization was founded in 1957 to help defray rising tuition costs while providing practical business experience and supplying valuable, necessary services to the Harvard community. They carry out this mission by presenting myriad diverse opportunities with one objective in common: to provide the highest quality jobs available to Harvard students.
History/Information
The Harvard Shop is the largest agency or business of Harvard Student Agencies. HSA is a student-run non-profit corporation founded in 1957 that manages 9 agencies. Each agency provides a different valuable service to the Harvard community while giving students practical business experience.
Harvard Student Agencies is the largest student-run corporation in the world. Harvard Student Agencies, Inc. is a 6 million nonprofit company, consisting of nine different agencies, each headed by a student manager.
The organization was founded in 1957 to help defray rising tuition costs while providing practical business experience and supplying valuable, necessary services to the Harvard community. They carry out this mission by presenting myriad diverse opportunities with one objective in common: to provide the highest quality jobs available to Harvard students.
Since its inception in 1895, chiropractic has been the subject of scientific research and criticism. Criticism has come both from philosophical conflicts within the profession and from critics outside it.
Conflicts within the profession comes from the differing schools of thought. Historically, the belief that a spinal joint dysfunction can interfere with the nervous system and result in many different conditions of diminished health, a concept known as vertebral subluxation, was one of the main assertions of chiropractic. Today, chiropractors place differing degrees of emphasis on subluxation, with some rejecting it entirely. While "straight" chiropractors hold a traditional view of subluxation, "mixer" chiropractors explain its importance in different terms, and the minority "reform" chiropractors reject it entirely. These different groups of chiropractors make different claims made about the effects of spinal adjustments, and of supplementing adjustments with additional treatments.
Chiropractic has been investigated by the scientific community. As a result of these inquiries, the chiropractic philosophy is evolving toward more scientific practices.
Historical
Chiropractic researchers Robert Mootz and Reed Phillips suggest that, in chiropractic's early years, influences from both straight and mixer concepts were incorporated into its construct. They conclude that chiropractic has both materialistic qualities that lend themselves to scientific investigation and vitalistic qualities that do not.
Modern Research
With relatively little federal funding, academic research in chiropractic has only recently become established in the USA. In 1994 and 1995, half of all grant funding to chiropractic researchers was from the US Health Resources and Services Administration (7 grants totaling $2.3 million). The Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (11 grants, $881,000) and the Consortium for Chiropractic Research (4 grants, $519,000) accounted for most of the rest. By 1997, there were 14 peer-reviewed chiropractic journals in English that encouraged the publication of chiropractic research, including The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT), Topics in Clinical Chiropractic, and the Journal of Chiropractic Humanities. However, of these, only JMPT is included in Index Medicus. Research into chiropractic, whether from Universities or chiropractic colleges, is however often published in many other scientific journals.
While there is still debate about the effectiveness of chiropractic for the many conditions in which it is applied, chiropractic seems to be most effective for acute low back pain and tension headaches. When testing the efficacy of health treatments, double blind studies are considered acceptable scientific rigor. These are designed so that neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether they are using the actual treatment or a placebo (or "sham") treatment. However, chiropractic treatment involves a manipulation; "sham" procedures cannot be easily devised for this, and even if the patient is unaware whether the treatment is a real or sham procedure, the doctor cannot be unaware. Thus there may be "observer bias" - the tendency to see what you expect to see, and the potential for the patient to wish to report benefits to "please" the doctor. Similarly, it is often difficult to devise a sham procedure for surgical procedures, but it is not impossible. It is also a problem in evaluating treatments; even when there are objective outcome measures, the placebo effect can be very substantial. Thus, DCs have historically relied mostly on their own clinical experience and the shared experience of their colleagues, as reported in case studies, to direct their treatment methods. In this, they are not different to the practice in much of conventional medicine. . Consequently there has been a call to increase qualitative research studies which can better examine the whole chiropractic clinical encouter.
There is evidence that spinal manipulation is effective for the treatment of acute low back pain, tension headaches and some musculoskeletal issues, but not all studies support this conclusion. A systematic review of systematic reviews in 2006 by Edzard Ernst and P.H. Canter concluded that no data "demonstrate that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition. Given the possibility of adverse effects, this review does not suggest that spinal manipulation is a recommendable treatment." In 2007, Ernst performed another review, drawing similar findings which concluded: "Spinal manipulation, particularly when performed on the upper spine, is frequently associated with mild to moderate adverse effects. It can also result in serious complications such as vertebral artery dissection followed by stroke. Currently, the incidence of such events is not known. In the interest of patient safety we should reconsider our policy towards the routine use of spinal manipulation." A commentary from a chiropractic and osteopathic journal disputed Ernst and Canter's conclusion as, "..definitely not based on an acceptable quality review of systematic reviews and should be interpreted very critically by the scientific community, clinicians, patients, and health policy makers. Their conclusions are certainly not valid enough to discredit the large body of professionals utilizing spinal manipulation."
One controlled trial showed a lowering of blood pressure in hypertensive patients similar to taking two blood-pressure lowering drugs at once after alignment of the atlas vertebra.
Sociologist Leslie Biggs interviewed 600 Canadian DCs in 1997: while 86% felt that chiropractic methods needed to be validated, 74% did not believe that controlled clinical trials were the best way to evaluate chiropractic. Moreover, 68% believed that "most diseases are caused by spinal malalignment", although only 30% agreed that "subluxation was the cause of many diseases".
Even when a valid mechanism of action is not determined, it is generally thought sufficient to present evidence showing benefit for the claims made. There is wide agreement that, where applicable, an evidence based medicine framework should be used to assess health outcomes, and that systematic reviews with strict protocols are important for objectively evaluating treatments. Where evidence from such reviews is lacking, this does not necessarily mean that the treatment is ineffective, only that the case for a benefit of treatment may not have been rigorously established.
A 2005 editorial in JMPT, "The Cochrane Collaboration: is it relevant for doctors of chiropractic?" proposed that involvement in Cochrane collaboration would be a way for chiropractic to gain greater acceptance within medicine. The collaboration has 11,500 contributors from more than 90 countries organized in 50 review groups. For chiropractic, relevant review groups include the Back Group; the Bone, Joint, and Muscle Trauma Group; the Musculoskeletal Group; and the Neuromuscular Disease Group. The editorial states that, for example, "a chiropractor may provide conservative care supported by a Cochrane review to a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome. If the patient's symptoms become progressive, the doctor may consider referring the patient for surgery using a recent Cochrane review that examined new surgical techniques compared with traditional open surgery..."
The Cochrane Collaboration did not find enough evidence to support or refute the claim that manual therapy (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) is beneficial for asthma. Carpal tunnel syndrome trials have not shown benefit from diuretics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, magnets, laser acupuncture, exercise or chiropractic and there is not enough evidence to show the effects of spinal manipulation (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) for
painful menstrual periods. Bandolier found limited evidence that spinal manipulative therapy (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) might reduce the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks, but the evidence that spinal manipulation is better than amitriptyline, or adds to the effects of amitriptyline, is insubstantial for the treatment of migraine, although "spinal manipulative therapy might be worth trying for some patients with migraine or tension headaches."
According to Bandolier, a systematic review of a small, poor quality set of trials provided no convincing evidence for long-term benefits of chiropractic interventions for acute or chronic low back pain, despite some positive overall findings but there might be some short-term pain relief, especially in patients with acute pain. However, the BMJ noted in a study on long-term low-back problems "...improvement in all patients at three years was about 29% more in those treated by chiropractors than in those treated by the hospitals. The beneficial effect of chiropractic on pain was particularly clear."
A 1994 study by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services endorses spinal manipulation for acute low back pain in adults in its Clinical Practice Guideline.
The first significant recognition of the appropriateness of spinal manipulation for low back pain was performed by the RAND Corporation. This meta-analysis concluded that some forms of spinal manipulation were successful in treating certain types of lower back pain. Some chiropractors claimed these results as proof of chiropractic hypotheses, but RAND's studies were about spinal manipulation, not chiropractic specifically, and dealt with appropriateness, which is a measure of net benefit and harms; the efficacy of chiropractic and other treatments were not explicitly compared. In 1993, Dr Shekelle rebuked some DCs for their exaggerated claims: ...we have become aware of numerous instances where our results have been seriously misrepresented by chiropractors writing for their local paper or writing letters to the editor....
There is conflict in the results of chiropractic research. For instance, many DCs claim to treat infantile colic. According to a 1999 survey, 46% of chiropractors in Ontario treated children for colic. In 1999 a Danish randomized controlled clinical trial with a blinded observer suggested that there is evidence that spinal manipulation might help infantile colic. However, in 2001, a Norwegian blinded study concluded that chiropractic spinal manipulation was no more effective than placebo for treating infantile colic.
In 1997, historian Joseph Keating Jr described chiropractic as a "science, antiscience and pseudoscience", and said "Although available scientific data support chiropractic's principle intervention method (the manipulation of patients with lower back pain), the doubting, skeptical attitudes of science do not predominate in chiropractic education or among practitioners". He argued that chiropractic's culture has nurtured antiscientific attitudes and activities, and that "a combination of uncritical rationalism and uncritical empiricism has been bolstered by the proliferation of pseudoscience journals of chiropractic wherein poor quality research and exuberant over-interpretation of results masquerade as science and provide false confidence about the value of various chiropractic techniques". However, in 1998, after reviewing the articles published in the JMPT from 1989-1996, he concluded,
:"substantial increases in scholarly activities within the chiropractic profession are suggested by the growth in scholarly products published in the discipline's most distinguished periodical (JMPT). Increases in controlled outcome studies, collaboration among chiropractic institutions, contributions from nonchiropractors, contributions from nonchiropractic institutions and funding for research suggest a degree of professional maturation and growing interest in the content of the discipline."
Joseph C. Keating, Jr. and researchers argued: "The dogma of subluxation is perhaps the greatest single barrier to professional development for chiropractors. It skews the practice of the art in directions that bring ridicule from the scientific community and uncertainty among the public. Failure to challenge subluxation dogma perpetuates a marketing tradition that inevitably prompts charges of quackery. Subluxation dogma leads to legal and political strategies that may amount to a house of cards and warp the profession's sense of self and of mission. Commitment to this dogma undermines the motivation for scientific investigation of subluxation as hypothesis, and so perpetuates the cycle."
Dr. Craig F. Nelson states, "The chiropractic profession has crusaded against one of the most effective public health measures of all time¬vaccination¬and many of its members publicly scoff at the germ theory of disease. Even today some chiropractors are openly opposed to vaccination. Some practice "muscle testing"¬for example, manually, subjectively appraising the muscle strength of a patient with a vitamin pill in his or her hand as a means of diagnosing nutritional deficiencies."
Reports and studies
The Manga Report
The Manga Report was an outcomes-study funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and conducted by three health economists led by Professor Pran Manga. The Report supported the scientific validity, safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of chiropractic for low-back pain, and found that chiropractic care had higher patient satisfaction levels than conventional alternatives. The report states that "The literature clearly and consistently shows that the major savings from chiropractic management come from fewer and lower costs of auxiliary services, fewer hospitalizations, and a highly significant reduction in chronic problems, as well as in levels and duration of disability."
Workers' Compensation studies
In 1998, a study of 10,652 Florida workers' compensation cases was conducted by Steve Wolk. He concluded that "a claimant with a back-related injury, when initially treated by a chiropractor versus a medical doctor, is less likely to become temporarily disabled, or if disabled, remains disabled for a shorter period of time; and claimants treated by medical doctors were hospitalized at a much higher rate than claimants treated by chiropractors." Similarly, a 1991 study of Oregon Workers' Compensation Claims examined 201 randomly selected workers' compensation cases that involved disabling low-back injuries: when individuals with similar injuries were compared, those who visited DCs generally missed fewer days of work than those who visited MDs.
A 1989 study analyzed data on Iowa state records from individuals who filed claims for back or neck injuries. The study compared benefits and the cost of care from MDs, DCs and DOs, focusing on individuals who had missed days of work and who had received compensation for their injuries. Individuals who visited DCs missed on average 2.3 fewer days than those who visited MDs, and 3.8 fewer days than those who saw DOs, and accordingly, less money was dispersed as employment compensation on average for individuals who visited DCs.
In 1989, a survey by Cherkin et al. concluded that patients receiving care from health maintenance organizations in the state of Washington were three times as likely to report satisfaction with care from DCs as they were with care from other physicians. The patients were also more likely to believe that their chiropractor was concerned about them.
American Medical Association (AMA)
In 1997, the following statement was adopted as policy of the AMA after a report on a number of alternative therapies.
Specifically about chiropractic it said,
:"Manipulation has been shown to have a reasonably good degree of efficacy in ameliorating back pain, headache, and similar musculoskeletal complaints."
In 1992, the AMA issued this statement:
:"It is ethical for a physician to associate professionally with chiropractors provided that the physician believes that such association is in the best interests of his or her patient. A physician may refer a patient for diagnostic or therapeutic services to a chiropractor permitted by law to furnish such services whenever the physician believes that this may benefit his or her patient. Physicians may also ethically teach in recognized schools of chiropractic. (V, VI)"
British Medical Association
The British Medical Association notes that "There is also no problem with GPs referring patients to practitioners in osteopathy and chiropractic who are registered with the relevant statutory regulatory bodies, as a similar means of redress is available to the patient."
WebMD
WebMD has published several studies regarding chiropractic adjustments. The first of these, published on October 11, 2004 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded that chiropractic cut the cost of treating back pain by 28%, reduced hospitilizations by 41%, back surgeries by 32%, and the cost of medical imaging, such as X-rays or MRIs, by 37%. Researchers did not look at patient satisfaction in this study, but study co-leader Douglas Metz says company studies show that 95% of chiropractic care patients are satisfied with the care they receive.
Critics
Critics of chiropractic have labeled it pseudoscience and have expressed doubt that its methods can be effective by any mechanism other than placebo.
In the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, William F. Williams asserts that vitalism - the philosophy that human functions are not entirely due to physicochemical forces, but rather to more abstract "vital forces" - "form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems." Williams accuses vitalists of rejecting the scientific method in favor of subjective experience.
Quackwatch is even more critical of chiropractic; its founder, Stephen Barrett, has written that it is "absurd" to think that chiropractors are qualified to be primary care providers.
William T. Jarvis, Ph.D. stated: "Chiropractic is a controversial health-care system that has been legalized throughout the United States and in several other countries. In the United States in 1984, roughly 10.7 million people made 163 million office visits to 30,000 chiropractors. More than three fourths of the states require insurance companies to include chiropractic services in health and accident policies. The federal government pays for limited chiropractic services under Medicare, Medicaid, and its vocational rehabilitation program, and the Internal Revenue Service allows a medical deduction for chiropractic services. Chiropractors cite such facts as evidence of "recognition." However, these are merely business statistics and legal arrangements that have nothing to do with chiropractic's scientific validity."
Lon Morgan, DC, a reform chiropractor, expressed his view of Innate Intelligence this way: "Innate Intelligence clearly has its origins in borrowed mystical and occult practices of a bygone era. It remains untestable and unverifiable and has an unacceptably high penalty/benefit ratio for the chiropractic profession. The chiropractic concept of Innate Intelligence is an anachronistic holdover from a time when insufficient scientific understanding existed to explain human physiological processes. It is clearly religious in nature and must be considered harmful to normal scientific activity."
Conflicts within the profession comes from the differing schools of thought. Historically, the belief that a spinal joint dysfunction can interfere with the nervous system and result in many different conditions of diminished health, a concept known as vertebral subluxation, was one of the main assertions of chiropractic. Today, chiropractors place differing degrees of emphasis on subluxation, with some rejecting it entirely. While "straight" chiropractors hold a traditional view of subluxation, "mixer" chiropractors explain its importance in different terms, and the minority "reform" chiropractors reject it entirely. These different groups of chiropractors make different claims made about the effects of spinal adjustments, and of supplementing adjustments with additional treatments.
Chiropractic has been investigated by the scientific community. As a result of these inquiries, the chiropractic philosophy is evolving toward more scientific practices.
Historical
Chiropractic researchers Robert Mootz and Reed Phillips suggest that, in chiropractic's early years, influences from both straight and mixer concepts were incorporated into its construct. They conclude that chiropractic has both materialistic qualities that lend themselves to scientific investigation and vitalistic qualities that do not.
Modern Research
With relatively little federal funding, academic research in chiropractic has only recently become established in the USA. In 1994 and 1995, half of all grant funding to chiropractic researchers was from the US Health Resources and Services Administration (7 grants totaling $2.3 million). The Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (11 grants, $881,000) and the Consortium for Chiropractic Research (4 grants, $519,000) accounted for most of the rest. By 1997, there were 14 peer-reviewed chiropractic journals in English that encouraged the publication of chiropractic research, including The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT), Topics in Clinical Chiropractic, and the Journal of Chiropractic Humanities. However, of these, only JMPT is included in Index Medicus. Research into chiropractic, whether from Universities or chiropractic colleges, is however often published in many other scientific journals.
While there is still debate about the effectiveness of chiropractic for the many conditions in which it is applied, chiropractic seems to be most effective for acute low back pain and tension headaches. When testing the efficacy of health treatments, double blind studies are considered acceptable scientific rigor. These are designed so that neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether they are using the actual treatment or a placebo (or "sham") treatment. However, chiropractic treatment involves a manipulation; "sham" procedures cannot be easily devised for this, and even if the patient is unaware whether the treatment is a real or sham procedure, the doctor cannot be unaware. Thus there may be "observer bias" - the tendency to see what you expect to see, and the potential for the patient to wish to report benefits to "please" the doctor. Similarly, it is often difficult to devise a sham procedure for surgical procedures, but it is not impossible. It is also a problem in evaluating treatments; even when there are objective outcome measures, the placebo effect can be very substantial. Thus, DCs have historically relied mostly on their own clinical experience and the shared experience of their colleagues, as reported in case studies, to direct their treatment methods. In this, they are not different to the practice in much of conventional medicine. . Consequently there has been a call to increase qualitative research studies which can better examine the whole chiropractic clinical encouter.
There is evidence that spinal manipulation is effective for the treatment of acute low back pain, tension headaches and some musculoskeletal issues, but not all studies support this conclusion. A systematic review of systematic reviews in 2006 by Edzard Ernst and P.H. Canter concluded that no data "demonstrate that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition. Given the possibility of adverse effects, this review does not suggest that spinal manipulation is a recommendable treatment." In 2007, Ernst performed another review, drawing similar findings which concluded: "Spinal manipulation, particularly when performed on the upper spine, is frequently associated with mild to moderate adverse effects. It can also result in serious complications such as vertebral artery dissection followed by stroke. Currently, the incidence of such events is not known. In the interest of patient safety we should reconsider our policy towards the routine use of spinal manipulation." A commentary from a chiropractic and osteopathic journal disputed Ernst and Canter's conclusion as, "..definitely not based on an acceptable quality review of systematic reviews and should be interpreted very critically by the scientific community, clinicians, patients, and health policy makers. Their conclusions are certainly not valid enough to discredit the large body of professionals utilizing spinal manipulation."
One controlled trial showed a lowering of blood pressure in hypertensive patients similar to taking two blood-pressure lowering drugs at once after alignment of the atlas vertebra.
Sociologist Leslie Biggs interviewed 600 Canadian DCs in 1997: while 86% felt that chiropractic methods needed to be validated, 74% did not believe that controlled clinical trials were the best way to evaluate chiropractic. Moreover, 68% believed that "most diseases are caused by spinal malalignment", although only 30% agreed that "subluxation was the cause of many diseases".
Even when a valid mechanism of action is not determined, it is generally thought sufficient to present evidence showing benefit for the claims made. There is wide agreement that, where applicable, an evidence based medicine framework should be used to assess health outcomes, and that systematic reviews with strict protocols are important for objectively evaluating treatments. Where evidence from such reviews is lacking, this does not necessarily mean that the treatment is ineffective, only that the case for a benefit of treatment may not have been rigorously established.
A 2005 editorial in JMPT, "The Cochrane Collaboration: is it relevant for doctors of chiropractic?" proposed that involvement in Cochrane collaboration would be a way for chiropractic to gain greater acceptance within medicine. The collaboration has 11,500 contributors from more than 90 countries organized in 50 review groups. For chiropractic, relevant review groups include the Back Group; the Bone, Joint, and Muscle Trauma Group; the Musculoskeletal Group; and the Neuromuscular Disease Group. The editorial states that, for example, "a chiropractor may provide conservative care supported by a Cochrane review to a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome. If the patient's symptoms become progressive, the doctor may consider referring the patient for surgery using a recent Cochrane review that examined new surgical techniques compared with traditional open surgery..."
The Cochrane Collaboration did not find enough evidence to support or refute the claim that manual therapy (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) is beneficial for asthma. Carpal tunnel syndrome trials have not shown benefit from diuretics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, magnets, laser acupuncture, exercise or chiropractic and there is not enough evidence to show the effects of spinal manipulation (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) for
painful menstrual periods. Bandolier found limited evidence that spinal manipulative therapy (including, but not limited to, chiropractic) might reduce the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks, but the evidence that spinal manipulation is better than amitriptyline, or adds to the effects of amitriptyline, is insubstantial for the treatment of migraine, although "spinal manipulative therapy might be worth trying for some patients with migraine or tension headaches."
According to Bandolier, a systematic review of a small, poor quality set of trials provided no convincing evidence for long-term benefits of chiropractic interventions for acute or chronic low back pain, despite some positive overall findings but there might be some short-term pain relief, especially in patients with acute pain. However, the BMJ noted in a study on long-term low-back problems "...improvement in all patients at three years was about 29% more in those treated by chiropractors than in those treated by the hospitals. The beneficial effect of chiropractic on pain was particularly clear."
A 1994 study by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services endorses spinal manipulation for acute low back pain in adults in its Clinical Practice Guideline.
The first significant recognition of the appropriateness of spinal manipulation for low back pain was performed by the RAND Corporation. This meta-analysis concluded that some forms of spinal manipulation were successful in treating certain types of lower back pain. Some chiropractors claimed these results as proof of chiropractic hypotheses, but RAND's studies were about spinal manipulation, not chiropractic specifically, and dealt with appropriateness, which is a measure of net benefit and harms; the efficacy of chiropractic and other treatments were not explicitly compared. In 1993, Dr Shekelle rebuked some DCs for their exaggerated claims: ...we have become aware of numerous instances where our results have been seriously misrepresented by chiropractors writing for their local paper or writing letters to the editor....
There is conflict in the results of chiropractic research. For instance, many DCs claim to treat infantile colic. According to a 1999 survey, 46% of chiropractors in Ontario treated children for colic. In 1999 a Danish randomized controlled clinical trial with a blinded observer suggested that there is evidence that spinal manipulation might help infantile colic. However, in 2001, a Norwegian blinded study concluded that chiropractic spinal manipulation was no more effective than placebo for treating infantile colic.
In 1997, historian Joseph Keating Jr described chiropractic as a "science, antiscience and pseudoscience", and said "Although available scientific data support chiropractic's principle intervention method (the manipulation of patients with lower back pain), the doubting, skeptical attitudes of science do not predominate in chiropractic education or among practitioners". He argued that chiropractic's culture has nurtured antiscientific attitudes and activities, and that "a combination of uncritical rationalism and uncritical empiricism has been bolstered by the proliferation of pseudoscience journals of chiropractic wherein poor quality research and exuberant over-interpretation of results masquerade as science and provide false confidence about the value of various chiropractic techniques". However, in 1998, after reviewing the articles published in the JMPT from 1989-1996, he concluded,
:"substantial increases in scholarly activities within the chiropractic profession are suggested by the growth in scholarly products published in the discipline's most distinguished periodical (JMPT). Increases in controlled outcome studies, collaboration among chiropractic institutions, contributions from nonchiropractors, contributions from nonchiropractic institutions and funding for research suggest a degree of professional maturation and growing interest in the content of the discipline."
Joseph C. Keating, Jr. and researchers argued: "The dogma of subluxation is perhaps the greatest single barrier to professional development for chiropractors. It skews the practice of the art in directions that bring ridicule from the scientific community and uncertainty among the public. Failure to challenge subluxation dogma perpetuates a marketing tradition that inevitably prompts charges of quackery. Subluxation dogma leads to legal and political strategies that may amount to a house of cards and warp the profession's sense of self and of mission. Commitment to this dogma undermines the motivation for scientific investigation of subluxation as hypothesis, and so perpetuates the cycle."
Dr. Craig F. Nelson states, "The chiropractic profession has crusaded against one of the most effective public health measures of all time¬vaccination¬and many of its members publicly scoff at the germ theory of disease. Even today some chiropractors are openly opposed to vaccination. Some practice "muscle testing"¬for example, manually, subjectively appraising the muscle strength of a patient with a vitamin pill in his or her hand as a means of diagnosing nutritional deficiencies."
Reports and studies
The Manga Report
The Manga Report was an outcomes-study funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and conducted by three health economists led by Professor Pran Manga. The Report supported the scientific validity, safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of chiropractic for low-back pain, and found that chiropractic care had higher patient satisfaction levels than conventional alternatives. The report states that "The literature clearly and consistently shows that the major savings from chiropractic management come from fewer and lower costs of auxiliary services, fewer hospitalizations, and a highly significant reduction in chronic problems, as well as in levels and duration of disability."
Workers' Compensation studies
In 1998, a study of 10,652 Florida workers' compensation cases was conducted by Steve Wolk. He concluded that "a claimant with a back-related injury, when initially treated by a chiropractor versus a medical doctor, is less likely to become temporarily disabled, or if disabled, remains disabled for a shorter period of time; and claimants treated by medical doctors were hospitalized at a much higher rate than claimants treated by chiropractors." Similarly, a 1991 study of Oregon Workers' Compensation Claims examined 201 randomly selected workers' compensation cases that involved disabling low-back injuries: when individuals with similar injuries were compared, those who visited DCs generally missed fewer days of work than those who visited MDs.
A 1989 study analyzed data on Iowa state records from individuals who filed claims for back or neck injuries. The study compared benefits and the cost of care from MDs, DCs and DOs, focusing on individuals who had missed days of work and who had received compensation for their injuries. Individuals who visited DCs missed on average 2.3 fewer days than those who visited MDs, and 3.8 fewer days than those who saw DOs, and accordingly, less money was dispersed as employment compensation on average for individuals who visited DCs.
In 1989, a survey by Cherkin et al. concluded that patients receiving care from health maintenance organizations in the state of Washington were three times as likely to report satisfaction with care from DCs as they were with care from other physicians. The patients were also more likely to believe that their chiropractor was concerned about them.
American Medical Association (AMA)
In 1997, the following statement was adopted as policy of the AMA after a report on a number of alternative therapies.
Specifically about chiropractic it said,
:"Manipulation has been shown to have a reasonably good degree of efficacy in ameliorating back pain, headache, and similar musculoskeletal complaints."
In 1992, the AMA issued this statement:
:"It is ethical for a physician to associate professionally with chiropractors provided that the physician believes that such association is in the best interests of his or her patient. A physician may refer a patient for diagnostic or therapeutic services to a chiropractor permitted by law to furnish such services whenever the physician believes that this may benefit his or her patient. Physicians may also ethically teach in recognized schools of chiropractic. (V, VI)"
British Medical Association
The British Medical Association notes that "There is also no problem with GPs referring patients to practitioners in osteopathy and chiropractic who are registered with the relevant statutory regulatory bodies, as a similar means of redress is available to the patient."
WebMD
WebMD has published several studies regarding chiropractic adjustments. The first of these, published on October 11, 2004 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded that chiropractic cut the cost of treating back pain by 28%, reduced hospitilizations by 41%, back surgeries by 32%, and the cost of medical imaging, such as X-rays or MRIs, by 37%. Researchers did not look at patient satisfaction in this study, but study co-leader Douglas Metz says company studies show that 95% of chiropractic care patients are satisfied with the care they receive.
Critics
Critics of chiropractic have labeled it pseudoscience and have expressed doubt that its methods can be effective by any mechanism other than placebo.
In the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, William F. Williams asserts that vitalism - the philosophy that human functions are not entirely due to physicochemical forces, but rather to more abstract "vital forces" - "form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems." Williams accuses vitalists of rejecting the scientific method in favor of subjective experience.
Quackwatch is even more critical of chiropractic; its founder, Stephen Barrett, has written that it is "absurd" to think that chiropractors are qualified to be primary care providers.
William T. Jarvis, Ph.D. stated: "Chiropractic is a controversial health-care system that has been legalized throughout the United States and in several other countries. In the United States in 1984, roughly 10.7 million people made 163 million office visits to 30,000 chiropractors. More than three fourths of the states require insurance companies to include chiropractic services in health and accident policies. The federal government pays for limited chiropractic services under Medicare, Medicaid, and its vocational rehabilitation program, and the Internal Revenue Service allows a medical deduction for chiropractic services. Chiropractors cite such facts as evidence of "recognition." However, these are merely business statistics and legal arrangements that have nothing to do with chiropractic's scientific validity."
Lon Morgan, DC, a reform chiropractor, expressed his view of Innate Intelligence this way: "Innate Intelligence clearly has its origins in borrowed mystical and occult practices of a bygone era. It remains untestable and unverifiable and has an unacceptably high penalty/benefit ratio for the chiropractic profession. The chiropractic concept of Innate Intelligence is an anachronistic holdover from a time when insufficient scientific understanding existed to explain human physiological processes. It is clearly religious in nature and must be considered harmful to normal scientific activity."
These pages are intended primarily for any translators who are using Linux in their day-to-day work, or who are interested in experimenting with Linux in order to assess its suitability for translation work. Particular attention is therefore given to applications and aspects of interest to translators. Members of the Linux/Open Source community, in particular developers, may also find it interesting to see how the operating system is seen by this particular end user group.
Name
Description
Category
Platform
Licence
Version
Website
PCLOS-Trans
Full Linux distribution including a broad variety of tools for translators, including many of those listed here, and a full KDE desktop, English and German localization available.
Linux distribution
PC/Linux
Open source
0,1
PCLOS-Trans
Linguas OS
A light-weight Linux distribution for translators including OpenOffice.org and OmegaT (see below), and a fluxbox desktop. Fits on one CD (412 mb current release) and runs from the CD drive). Additional software easily added with synaptic after installation.
Light-weight Linux distribution / LiveCD
PC/Linux
Open source
0.2 (v. 1.0 due in Feb. 2008)
LinguasOS.org
Openoffice
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
Offline open source suite
All - Java based
Open source
2.3.1
http://www.openoffice.org/
OmegaT
OmegaT is a free translation memory application written in Java. It is a tool intended for professional translators.
Computer-aided translation tool
All - Java based
Open source
1.6.1. stable / 1.7.3 development
http://www.omegat.org/
OmegaT+
OmegaT+ a free machine aided human translation platform. Includes a translation processor, bitext aligner/converter, TMX validator, and other third party tools.
Machine-Aided Human Translation (MAHT) tools
Most - Java based
Free software
OmegaT+ 1.0 in development; milestone 1 (M1) available
http://omegatplus.sourceforge.net
Firefox
Internet browser
Open source Internet browser
All
Open source
2.0.11
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
Thunderbird
Mail application
Mail application
All
Open source
2.0.0.9
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird
Kdict
Kdict is a graphical client for the DICT protocol. It enables you to search through dictionary-like databases for a word or phrase, then displays suitable definitions. Kdict has support for all protocol features, a separate list of matching words for advanced queries, configurable database sets, a browser-like user interface, convenient interaction with the X-clipboard, configurable html-output and printing.
Dictionary application
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.5.6
http://www.rhrk.uni-kl.de/~gebauerc/kdict/
Kthesaurus
KThesaurus lists words related to a given term and offers a user interface to WordNet, a powerful lexical reference system. By default, only the English language is supported. This package is part of the KDE Office Suite.
Reference application
Unix, Linux
Open source
1:1.6.1
http://packages.debian.org/kthesaurus
Kpdf
Pdf viewer
Pdf viewer
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.5.8
http://kpdf.kde.org/
Koffice
KOffice is a free, integrated office suite for KDE, the K Desktop Environment.
Offline open source suite
Unix, Linux
Open source
1.6.3
http://www.koffice.org/
Kopete
Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. It is designed to be a flexible and extensible multi-protocol system suitable for personal and enterprise use.
Instant messaging
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.1.24
http://kopete.kde.org/
Kdepim
KDE PIM is a package of the KDE desktop environment that contains personal information management tools. * Akregator - Feed reader. * KMail - The official KDE mail client. * KAddressBook - Address Book frontend. * KOrganizer - Calendar and scheduling program. * KonsoleKalandar - Command line interface to KDE calendars. * KPilot - Replacement for the Palm™ Desktop software. * Kandy - Data synchronisation of phonebook, organizer and other data between a mobile phone and computer. * KArm - Time tracker that integrates with KOrganizer todo list. * KNotes - Virtual paper notes on the desktop. * KAlarm - A personal alarm message, command and email scheduler. * KNode - A Usenet news client * Kontact - Brings kdepim applications under one roof * KJots - outliner (tree structured) simple text editor
Application package for KdE
Unix, Linux
Open source
3.5.8
http://pim.kde.org/home.php
gFTP
gFTP is a free multithreaded ftp client for *NIX based machines running X11R6 or later.
Ftp application
Unix, Linux
Open source
2.0.18
http://gftp.seul.org/
Gimp
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
Image editing and creation
All
Open source
2.3.4.
http://www.gimp.org/
Scribus
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
Desktop publishing
All
Open source
1.3.3.11
http://www.scribus.net/
kpdftool
KPDFTool is a GUI interface for GhostView and ImageMagick for performing basic and usefull operations with PDF and PS (PostScript) files such as merge, extract pages and protect the text into new files in a simple and practical way.
Pdf application
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.22
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=33194
Quanta plus
Quanta Plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment. The vision with Quanta has always been to start with the best architectural foundations, design for efficient and natural use and enable maximal user extensibility.
Web development
Unix, Linux
Open source
3.5.8
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/
Ktranslator
KTranslator is a program to translate words from one language to another. KTranslator should support any language (I hope that) and come with a plugin system, to ease the addition of new dictionaries. The main idea behind KTranslator is to translate a word without disturb the application in use. So, when the user selects a word while pressing CTRL key, KTranslator will try to translate the word and show the result in a popup window. It behaves like Babylon for Windows.
Machine translation
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.4
http://ktranslator.sourceforge.net/
Kbabel
KBabel is a set of tools for editing and managing gettext PO files. Main part is a powerful and comfortable PO file editor which features full navigation capabilities, full editing functionality, possibility to search for translations in different dictionaries, spell and syntax checking, showing diffs and many more. Also included is a "Catalog Manager", a file manager view which helps keeping an overview of PO files. Last but not least it includes a standalone dictionary application as an additional possibility to access KBabel's powerful dictionaries. KBabel will help you to translate fast and also keep consistent translations.
Text editor for PO files
Unix, Linux
Open source
3.5.1
http://kbabel.kde.org/
Kmymoney
The free, easy to use, personal finance manager for KDE
Finance manager
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.8.8
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/index-home.html
Skype
Make calls from your computer — free to other people on Skype and cheap to phones and mobiles around the world.
Instant messaging and communication (audio-video)
All
Proprietary
3.6
www.skype.com/
gnucash
GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.
Finance manager
All
Open source
2.2.3
http://www.gnucash.org/
Coreutils
The GNU Core Utilities are the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities of the GNU operating system. These are the core utilities which are expected to exist on every operating system.
Basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities
Unix, Linux
Open source
6.9
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
Kaider
KAider is a computer-aided translation system that focuses on productivity and performance. Translator does only creative work (of delivering message in his/her mother language in laconic and easy to understand form). KAider implies paragraph-by-paragraph translation approach (when translating documentation) and message-by-message approach (when translating GUI).
Computer-aided translation tool
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.1
http://techbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Projects/Summer_of_Code/2007/Projects/KAider/Introduction
gtranslator
gtranslator is an enhanced gettext po file editor for the GNOME desktop environment. It handles all forms of gettext po files like compiled gettext po files (gmo/mo files), compressed po files (po.gz/po.bz2 etc.) and features many comfortable everyday usage features likeFind/Replace, Auto Translation, Message Translation Learning, Messages Table (for having an overview of the translations/messages in the po file), Easy Navigation and Editing of translation messages & comments of the translation where accurate.
Gettext po file editor
Unix, Linux
Open source
1.1.6
http://gtranslator.sourceforge.net/
JabRef
JabRef is an open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format. JabRef runs on the Java VM (version 1.5 or newer), and should work equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Reference managment
All
Open source
2.3.1
http://jabref.sourceforge.net/
AntConc
AntConc is a freeware concordance program for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems developed by Laurence Anthony of Waseda University, Japan. AntConc can generate KWIC concordance lines and concordance distribution plots. It also has tools to analyze word clusters (lexical bundles), n-grams, collocates, word frequencies, and keywords.
Concordance program
All
Freeware
3.2.1
http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/index.html
Sunbird
Mozilla Sunbird® is a cross-platform calendar application, built upon Mozilla Toolkit. Our goal is to provide you with full-featured and easy to use calendar application that you can use around the world.
Calendar application
All
Open source
0.7
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Wine
Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix, a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris.
Emulator
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.9.53
http://www.winehq.org/
Krusader
Advanced twin panel (commander style) file manager for KDE and other desktops in the *nix world, similar to Midnight or Total Commander. It provides all the file management features you could possibly want.
File management
Unix, Linux
Open source
1.80.0
http://www.krusader.org/
Keepass
KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).
Password management
All
Proprietary
1.10
http://keepass.info/
Kompozer
KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.
Html Editor
All
Open source
0.7.10
http://www.kompozer.net/
bitext2tmx is a program to segment and align corresponding translated sentences, contained in two plain text files, and generate a TMX translation memory from them for use in computer-assisted translation; in particular it makes a nice companion to other applications, such as the OmegaT cross-platform computer assisted translation program. This program has been developed using the Java programming language so that it may be used on any Java supported platform.
Segmentation / alignment application
All
Open source
0.9
http://bitext2tmx.sourceforge.net
Open Language Tools
The Open Language Tools are a set of translation tools that aim to make the task of translating software and documentation a lot easier. Initially, they comprise of a full-featured XLIFF Translation Editor and a set of XLIFF file-filters for a number of documentation and software file formats. Our intended audience is tools developers and translators of software and documentation - both professional translators and those just doing it for kicks !
Translation tools
All
Open source
1.2.7
https://open-language-tools.dev.java.net/
Kplato
KPlato is a project management application. In this first public release we focus on planning and scheduling of projects.
Project management
Unix, Linux
Open source
0.6.3
http://www.koffice.org/kplato/
file manager featuring a Norton Commander style interface and running
on any operating system with Java support (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux,
*BSD, Solaris...)
and a server are available. FileZilla is open source software
distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
application.
with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of
development behind it. To download, install, and set up jEdit as
quickly and painlessly as possible, go to the Quick Start page. While
jEdit beats many expensive development tools for features and ease of
use, it is released as free software with full source code, provided
under the terms of the GPL 2.0. # Written in Java, so it runs on Mac OS
X, OS/2, Unix, VMS and Windows. # Built-in macro language; extensible
plugin architecture. Dozens of macros and plugins available. # Plugins
can be downloaded and installed from within jEdit using the "plugin
manager" feature. # Auto indent, and syntax highlighting for more than
130 languages. # Supports a large number of character encodings
including UTF8 and Unicode. # Folding for selectively hiding regions of
text. # Word wrap. # Highly configurable and customizable. # Every
other feature, both basic and advanced, you would expect to find in a
text editor.
Name
Description
Category
Platform
Licence
PC/Linux
Open source
PCLOS-Trans
A light-weight Linux distribution for translators including OpenOffice.org and OmegaT (see below), and a fluxbox desktop. Fits on one CD (412 mb current release) and runs from the CD drive). Additional software easily added with synaptic after installation.
Light-weight Linux distribution / LiveCD
PC/Linux
Open source
0.2 (v. 1.0 due in Feb. 2008)
LinguasOS.org
Openoffice
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird
file manager featuring a Norton Commander style interface and running
on any operating system with Java support (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux,
*BSD, Solaris...)
and a server are available. FileZilla is open source software
distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
application.
with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of
development behind it. To download, install, and set up jEdit as
quickly and painlessly as possible, go to the Quick Start page. While
jEdit beats many expensive development tools for features and ease of
use, it is released as free software with full source code, provided
under the terms of the GPL 2.0. # Written in Java, so it runs on Mac OS
X, OS/2, Unix, VMS and Windows. # Built-in macro language; extensible
plugin architecture. Dozens of macros and plugins available. # Plugins
can be downloaded and installed from within jEdit using the "plugin
manager" feature. # Auto indent, and syntax highlighting for more than
130 languages. # Supports a large number of character encodings
including UTF8 and Unicode. # Folding for selectively hiding regions of
text. # Word wrap. # Highly configurable and customizable. # Every
other feature, both basic and advanced, you would expect to find in a
text editor.