The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Program was established in 1977 and is designed to assess health technology. The program organizes major conferences that produce consensus statements and technology assessment statements on controversial issues in medicine important to health care providers, patients, and the general public. The following statement is from the NIH Consensus Development Statement on Acupuncture on November 3-5, 1997. 

 Acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention is widely practiced in the United States. There have been many studies of its potential usefulness. However, many of these studies provide equivocal results because of design, sample size, and other factors. The issue is further complicated by inherent difficulties in the use of appropriate controls, such as placebo and sham acupuncture groups. 

However, promising results have emerged, for example, efficacy of acupuncture in adult post-operative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in post-operative dental pain. There are other situations such as addition, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma where acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. 

  Findings from basic research have begun to elucidate the mechanisms of action of acupuncture, including the release of opioids and other peptides in the central nervous system and the periphery and changes in neuroendocrine function. Although much needs to be accomplished, the emergence of plausible mechanisms for the therapeutic effects of acupuncture is encouraging. 

   The introduction of acupuncture into the choice of treatment modalities that are readily available to the public is in its early stages. Issues of training, licensure, and reimbursement remain to be clarified. There is sufficient evidence, however, of acupuncture's value to expand its use into conventional medicine and to encourage further studies of its physiology and clinical value. This statement is representative of the opinions of current standard medical practice.

The kimono is a traditional Japanese dress. In modern days, it is worn only sparingly or during special 16 such as weddings, tea ceremonies, formal traditional events and funerals. A kimono of a particular style and color is to be worn depending on the occasion and the person's age and marital status. Men's kimonos usually have more subdued colors and are made typically from matte fabrics. Partly for this reason, it is the women's kimonos 17 generate more interest because their beautiful designs make them art pieces as much as they are garments. The women's kimonos are traditionally made of silk, 18 these days they are also made of polyester. Decoration techniques include embroidery, yuzen painting and dyeing. The price of a kimono can range from around 10,000 yen for a simple set 19 of cheap fabric to millions of yen for a luxurious silk outfit with intricate embroidery or yuzen designs. The outfit is accompanied by traditional footwear and a small handbag for women. When buying kimonos, take into account that maintenance is an issue unless you are not planning on ever wearing them. Silk kimonos are difficult to clean and washing without the proper methods might 20 damaging the garment. Kimonos of polyester material are easier to clean, but you should always check with the merchant the appropriate ways of maintaining them.

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 Our brains function in complex and puzzling ways. Case studies have shown that some people can calculate the day of the week for any given date in 40,000 years, but they cannot add two plus two. Others can perform complex classical piano pieces after hearing them once, but they cannot read or write. People who have these special abilities but cannot look after themselves suffer from savant syndrome. Scientists have only recently begun to explain this condition, which has interested neurologists since Dr. J. Langdon Down first described it in 1887. He called these people idiot savants (savant means wise person). We now know that the condition occurs as a result of some kind of brain malfunction. Dr. Benjamin Rush, an American doctor, offered one of the first descriptions of a person who could calculate quickly in 1789. His patient, Thomas Fuller, was brought to Virginia as a slave in 1724. It took Thomas only 90 seconds to figure out that a man who has lived 70 years, 17 days, and 12 hours has lived 210,500,800 seconds. He even included the leap years in his calculation. Despite this ability, he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write. Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s. Even though he had a vocabulary of only 100 words, Blind Tom played 5,000 musical pieces beautifully.

     The kidneys are located in the posterior part of the abdomen. The right kidney sits just below the liver, while the left kidney is under the diaphragm, next to the spleen. On the vertebral level, they are approximately positioned from T12 to L3. In a normal human adult, the kidneys are about 12 centimeters long and five centimeters thick, and weigh 150 grams. They filter the blood and secrete water and nitrogenous waste (urea, creatinine, and so forth) in the form of urine. The medical field that studies the functions and diseases of the kidneys is called nephrology.

    The kidneys are composed of nephrons. Each nephron consists of a glomerulus, Bowman’s capsule, and renal tubule. There are more than a million nephrons within a healthy adult kidney. The vital function of the nephron is to remove waste from blood plasma. It also helps to maintain a normal fluid balance in the body by reabsorbing water and some electrolytes back into the blood.

    Urine is formed by a process of filtration and reabsorption in the nephron. Blood enters the nephron via the arteriole. As it passes through the glomerulus, water is filtered through the glomerular membrane and collected in the Bowman’s capsule. The filtrate then passes through the proximal tubule, loop of Henle, distal tubule, and collecting tubule. Other substances, such as uric acid and hydrogen ions, are also added to the urine.

    Whether they’re swooping in to deliver packages or spotting victims in disaster zones, swarms of flying robots could have a range of important applications in the future, a new study found. The robots can switch from driving to flying without colliding with each other and could offer benefits beyond the traditional flying-car concepts of sci-fi lore, the study said.

    Robots with similar versatility could fly over impediments on the ground or drive under overhead obstacles. But currently, robots that are good at one mode of transportation are usually bad at others, study lead author Brandon Araki, a roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and his colleagues said in their new study.

    The researchers previously developed a robot named the “flying monkey” that could run and fly, as well as grasp items. However, the researchers had to program the paths the flying monkey would take; in other words, it could not find safe routes by itself.

    Now, these scientists have developed flying cars that can both fly and drive through a simulated city-like setting that has parking spots, landing pads and no-fly zones. Moreover, these drones can move autonomously without colliding with each other, the researchers said. “Our vehicles can find their own safe paths,” Araki told Live Science.

    The researchers took eight four-rotor “quadcopter” drones and put two small motors with wheels on the bottom of each drone, to make them capable of driving. In simulations, the robots could fly for about 295 feet (90 meters) or drive for 826 feet (252 meters) before their batteries ran out.

    The roboticists developed algorithms that ensured the robots did not collide with one another. In tests in a miniature town made using everyday materials such as pieces of fabric for roads and cardboard boxes for buildings, all drones successfully navigated from a starting point to an ending point on collision-free paths. Adding the driving apparatus to each drone added weight and so slightly reduced battery life, decreasing the maximum distances the drones could fly by about 14 percent, the researchers said. Still, the scientists noted that driving remained more efficient than flying, offsetting the relatively small loss in efficiency in flying due to the added weight.

    “The most important implication of our research is that vehicles that combine flying and driving have the potential to be both much more efficient and much more useful than vehicles that can only drive or only fly,” Araki said.

    The scientists cautioned that fleets of automated flying taxis are likely not coming anytime soon. “Our current system of drones certainly isn’t robust enough to actually carry people right now,” Araki said. Still, these experiments with quadcopters help explore “various ideas related to flying cars,” he said.

    The scientists detailed their findings on June 1 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Singapore.

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　　Blind people can “see” things by using other parts of their bodies. This fact may help us to understand our feelings about color. If blind people can sense color differences, then perhaps we, too, are affected by color unconsciously. 

　　Manufacturers have discovered by experience that sugar sells badly in green wrappings, that blue foods are considered unpleasant, and that cosmetics should never be packaged in brown. These discoveries have grown into a branch of color psychology. 

　　Color psychology now finds application in everything from fashion to decoration. Some of our preferences are clearly psychological. Dark blue is the color of the night sky and therefore associated with calm, while yellow is a day color with associations of energy and incentive. For a primitive man, activity during the day meant hunting and attacking, while he soon saw red as the color of blood and anger and the heat that came with effort. And green is associated with passive defense and self-protection. 

　　Experiments have shown that colors, partly because of their psychological associations, also have a direct psychological effect. People exposed to bright red show an increase in breath, in heartbeat and in blood pressure; red is exciting. Similar exposure to pure blue has exactly the opposite effect; it is a calming color. Because of its exciting meaning, red is chosen as the signal for danger, but closer analysis shows that a vivid yellow can produce a more basic state of alarm. So fire engines and ambulances in some advanced communities are now rushing around in bright yellow colors.

 While extremely high buildings vary in their design and architectural appeal, they all follow a similar construction process. First, for the construction of a building, a deep and solid __32.__ should be put in place. When you look at a skyscraper, you only see the part above the ground; what you do not see is the building’s underground support, made up of __33.__ concrete pillars. When engineering a skyscraper project of such large scale, __34.__ safety is essential. Since many of the world’s most famous skyscrapers play multiple roles: offices, apartment buildings, and hotels. engineers need to take many __35.__ to keep all these people safe.

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