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Researchers at HMRI and the University of Newcastle have evaluated a drug called azithromycin, a macrolide antibiotic, to test if it would put moderate to severe asthma into remission. Professor Peter Gibson from the HMRI Asthma and Breathing program says the findings were very promising. “Remission in adults with asthma is a relatively new concept and a less researched area but it has recently gained attention. Recent studies have found that remission is possible in severe asthma treated with highly effective biologics therapies, a new class of drugs,” Professor Gibson Read More
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For hospitalized patients with Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRD) and dysphagia, those receiving thick liquids are less likely to be intubated but have no difference in hospital mortality compared with those receiving thin liquids, according to a study published online May 6 in JAMA Internal Medicine. Alexander Makhnevich, M.D., from Northwell in New Hyde Park, New York, and colleagues examined whether a diet of thick versus thin liquids is associated with improved outcomes for hospitalized patients with ADRD and dysphagia. Adults aged 65 years and older with ADRD who Read More
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Temporal Trends of Real-Time Emergency Department Patient Portal Use. Credit: JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.9831 More people are using online patient portals to view their information while in the emergency room, but access is challenging for members of medically underserved communities and the elderly, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers and national colleagues found in a new study. “Patient portals such as Epic’s MyChart have grown in popularity in recent years, but they are still often seen as a tool for ambulatory chronic disease management,” said Robert Turer, M.D., Assistant Read More
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New research, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, examined a broad range of potential predictors of substance use among adolescents and found sociodemographic variables were the most robust predictors of substance use initiation. The study is part of a special issue of the journal highlighting advances in understanding the neurobiology and sociodemographic underpinnings of substance use disorders and how this understanding has advanced recognition and treatment. Several authors discussed this work today at a special briefing during the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). ReJoyce Green, Read More
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When Shanina Knighton began pursuing her doctorate in nursing in 2013, she set out to prove a theory. She’d noticed that, during the H1N1 pandemic, patient hand hygiene wasn’t prioritized the same way it was for health care providers. Her take? Prioritizing this practice among patients as well would keep germs at bay and prevent disease spread in hospital settings. Knighton decided she would give herself four years to prove her theory and, if it didn’t pan out, she would let it go. She didn’t have to. Her research demonstrated Read More
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Credit: Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.013 Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have revealed a powerful new bone marrow atlas that will offer the public a first-of-its-kind visual passport into the spectrum of healthy and diseased blood production. The findings are published in the journal Cell. “For the first time, we will have a comprehensive framework to view the full gene expression and spatial organization of bone marrow cells,” said senior study author Kai Tan, Ph.D., a professor in Read More
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Tombs and Bridges have developed a new method that improves on the standard method of differential privacy to allow health care data sharing while maintaining patient privacy. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy In industries such as health care, where data generation grows by 47% each year, information collected within electronic health records could help inform more efficient care operations or more accurate diagnoses. However, personal health data is highly protected and largely goes untouched by analysts and researchers. To balance personal safety and research innovation, researchers at the Department Read More
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Individuals living with HIV often face significant physical and mental stress, including self-stigma, which can impede their ability to seek treatment and disclose their status. Adopting effective coping strategies helps them manage these challenges to their well-being. However, research on coping strategies and self-stigma in newly diagnosed HIV patients in Indonesia remains limited. Researchers from Indonesia have aimed to examine how people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Indonesia cope with their emotions and how this relates to their self-perception. The work is published in The Open Public Health Journal. Conducted Read More
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Investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have examined the historical evolution of Community Outreach and Engagement initiatives at both the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Centers (NCI-DCCs). The team’s assessment of these activities and recommendations for future efforts were recently published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The toll cancer takes on lives in the U.S. has declined during the last 28 years, but not equitably. Disparities persist in many historically marginalized communities—including communities disadvantaged by race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or gender identity, and geographic Read More
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Study reveals VR’s potential in revolutionizing depression treatment, offering hope to millions worldwide. Credit: JMIR Publications/Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) A recent study published in JMIR Mental Health sheds light on the promising role of virtual reality (VR) in treating major depressive disorder (MDD). Titled “Examining the Efficacy of Extended Reality–Enhanced Behavioral Activation for Adults With Major Depressive Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial,” the research, led by Dr. Margot Paul and team from Stanford University, has unveiled the effectiveness of extended reality (XR)–enhanced behavioral activation (XR-BA) in easing symptoms of depression. MDD Read More
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Researchers at Bar-Ilan University have unveiled a technology that promises to improve cancer treatment decisions based on a patient’s biopsy. The pioneering biological research and development measures changes in immune system cells adjacent to cancer cells, providing crucial insights into the patient’s immune response and potentially enhancing the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Immunotherapy represents a targeted approach to cancer treatment, harnessing the body’s own immune system to identify and eliminate cancer cells. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, which can have widespread effects on healthy cells, immunotherapy offers a more precise and targeted treatment Read More
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Epilepsy is a neurological condition characterized by recurrent seizures, which can lead to various psychological problems. While most cases are idiopathic, some may result from brain injury, stroke, or genetic mutations. In children, seizures can have different origins and sensitivity to drugs, requiring careful consideration by doctors. Symptoms range from mild to severe, including confusion, staring spells, uncontrollable movements, and loss of consciousness. The prevalence of epilepsy in Saudi Arabia is significant, with studies indicating insufficient knowledge among the public and schoolteachers. A recent study conducted in the Kingdom of Read More
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The researchers have already received further funding and are planning to develop an implantable device for use in humans with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Surgery after spinal cord injury is common, and the concept could offer surgeons the opportunity during the same operation to implant a device to help protect and repair the spinal cord itself. Credit: Andrew Stevens, University of Birmingham, UK Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) could benefit from a future treatment to repair nerve connections using red and near-infrared light. The method, invented by scientists Read More
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This immunofluorescent staining shows a lymph node that has been significantly expanded in mice with the help of the biomaterial MPS-vaccine (on the right), next to a lymph node taken from non-treated control mice (on the left) at the same time post-vaccination. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University Each one of us has around 600 lymph nodes (LNs)—small, bean-shaped organs that house various types of blood cells and filter lymph fluid—scattered throughout our bodies. Many of us have also experienced some of our LNs to temporarily swelling during infections with Read More
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KrasG12D induces spatiotemporally specific tissue deformation in hair follicle regeneration. a, Schematic showing the genetic approach to induce KrasG12D in the hair follicle stem cells via tamoxifen (TAM)-inducible Cre–LoxP system. b, Schematic showing the timing of the KrasG12D induction and repeated imaging relative to the hair cycle stages. c, Representative two-photon images of the wild-type resting and growing hair follicles carrying Cre-inducible tdTomato (magenta) reporter after induction. d, Representative two-photon images of the control and KrasG12D hair follicles at different stages of the hair cycle. Bump-like tissue deformation in the Read More
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Graphical abstract. Credit: Neuro-Oncology (2024). DOI: 10.1093/neuonc/noae028 Glioblastoma is an often fatal form of brain cancer, with only 5% of patients surviving beyond five years. The cancer is difficult to treat and almost always becomes resistant to treatment. As a result, recurrence of glioblastoma is practically inevitable. Findings from a joint study by researchers from NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) and the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) offer new hope for glioblastoma patients. Their work could pave the way for more effective and precise therapies for the deadly Read More
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Image of BORCS7-KO i3Neurons stained for various organellar markers. BORCS7-Knockout human i3Neurons show axonal swellings due to accumulation of defective mitochondria-associated autophagosomes. Credit: De Pace et al. RNA granules, sites for the storage, transport, and regulation of RNA molecules within cells, are transported along axons and then translated locally, far from the cell body. Recent studies suggest that these granules can “hitch a ride” from lysosome-related vesicles, membrane-bound structures in cells that share common characteristics with lysosomes. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health recently set out to further investigate Read More
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A hypothetical opioid epidemic with and without spillovers. Credit: Harvard Gazette The U.S. opioid epidemic is a story of failed policy initiatives, missed opportunities, and more than 600,000 deaths. It’s also a story with no end in sight, and for that, two economists say, we can blame relationships. The central problem owes to the nature of the market, according to David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard, and former Harvard doctoral student J. Travis Donahoe, co-authors of new research posted as a working paper focused on Read More
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Researchers from the Research Area on Neurological Diseases, Neuroscience, and Mental Health at the Sant Pau Research Institute, led by Dr. Juan Fortea, Director of the Memory Unit of the Neurology Service at the same hospital, have found that over 95% of individuals over 65 years old who have two copies of the APOE4 gene—APOE4 homozygotes—show biological characteristics of Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain or biomarkers of this disease in cerebrospinal fluid and PET scans. The study, published in Nature Medicine, also concludes that those individuals homozygous for APOE4 also Read More
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Ex vivo porcine heart and in vivo patient short-axis views of flow speed and direction maps. Credit: arXiv: DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2303.14003 Researchers from Imperial College London’s Department of Bioengineering and Faculty of Medicine worked alongside academics from UCL to produce sub-millimeter resolution images of cardiac micro-vessels. The non-invasive new imaging technique was tested on four human patients. Existing imaging technologies can visualize large vessels on the heart’s surface. However, this new technique could allow scientists to study the physiology of the heart in more detail by imaging smaller micro-vessels within the Read More
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An example of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) on a FLAIR MRI scan in an older adult. FLAIR MRI is a technique that is particularly good at detecting fluid in the brain. It helps researchers see areas of the brain that might be damaged by making the cerebrospinal fluid appear dark while the surrounding tissue remains light and detailed. This contrast makes it easier to identify abnormalities or injuries; WMHs appear as bright, patchy regions in the brain tissue. Credit: Jennifer K. Ferris, Ph.D. A new study by a global team Read More
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This figure shows the extent of cartilage damage after 6 weeks of daily loading and treatment compared to a non-loaded control knee with no cartilage damage present. The cartilage is stained red, and the bone is stained bluish green. Overall, combined parathyroid hormone pretreatment prior to loading and alendronate treatment during loading had the least cartilage damage (loss of red-stained tissue) and preserved the most cartilage. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk8402 Applying a pretreatment of a parathyroid hormone, commonly used to increase bone mass to combat osteoporosis, can help Read More
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Credit: Journal of the American Chemical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c02262 Researchers from the UAB have identified a region in the early aggregates of the alpha-synuclein protein that can be targeted to prevent its conversion into the toxic amyloid fibrils that accumulate in the brains of people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The discovery was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, in a study that advances the comprehension of the structural properties of these initial aggregates, or oligomers, and opens the door to developing new therapeutic strategies for Read More
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Chronic VNS reduces the GC response. Mice implanted with a stimulation electrode on the left cervical vagus nerve received 5 min of VNS twice a day for 4 weeks while they were freely moving; a TD B cell response was assessed in these animals. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adn3760 One of the main roles of the spleen is to help the body’s immune system fight infections. The spleen does this through producing and regulating antibodies—antibody production is negatively affected in various conditions, including sepsis and autoimmune diseases such as Read More
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Credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important ligament in the knee. It runs from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia) and helps stabilize the knee joint. Injuries to the ACL, often called a “tear” or a “rupture,” are common in sport. While a ruptured ACL has just sidelined another Matildas star, people who play sport recreationally are also at risk of this injury. For decades, surgical repair of an ACL injury, called a reconstruction, has been the primary treatment in Australia. Read More
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(A) Schematic illustration of the MAGIC. Two single-mode fibers for the dual-wavelength OCT imaging and laser ablation and the endoscope camera with an LED illumination fiber were all integrated inside a single device with an 11-mm diameter and a 26-mm length. (B and C) Photographs of the assembled MAGIC with a flexible tether. Credit: Biophotonics Imaging Technology Lab @ JHU. In an advancement in gastrointestinal health, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have developed the Multifunctional Ablative Gastrointestinal Imaging Capsule (MAGIC)—a gastrointestinal imaging capsule for esophagus surveillance and interventions. The findings Read More
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Over the last several decades, research has brought nationwide awareness to issues of patient harm in the “inpatient” setting, where patients receive care as part of an overnight stay at a hospital. A new study reveals that patient safety events are also prevalent and persistent in the outpatient setting—primary care visits, specialty care appointments, day surgeries, visits to the emergency room and other settings where patients receive most of their care. To better understand patient safety in the outpatient setting, a team from Boston area hospitals used data from the Read More
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The UK government is proposing major changes to the benefits system, in response to the increase in people claiming benefits for disability and ill health. The proposals, which will be consulted on in the coming months, focus mainly on replacing the personal independence payment (Pip). Pip is a working-age benefit to help disabled people with the additional costs associated with a long-term health condition or disability. Currently, people receiving Pip must undergo an assessment of the impact of a health condition on day to day activities. The benefit is paid Read More
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Credit: cottonbro studio from Pexels Reducing barriers to comprehensive and affirming health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) populations requires physicians to receive LGBTQI+ health content during undergraduate medical education (UME). With more than 7% of the U.S. adult population, 4% of the Canadian adult population and 20% of persons in the U.S. ages 18–25 who are LGBTQI+, there is a critical need to train health care professionals on their specific health care needs. LGBTQI+ people experience a higher prevalence of tobacco, alcohol, substance use, and Read More
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Nearly 100,000 U.S. children lost a parent in 2020 to gun violence or drug overdose, a three-fold rise since 1999, according to a new study. Overall, these two causes made up nearly a quarter (23%) of parental losses in 2020, almost double the level cited in 1999, according to a team who reported its findings May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “US youth are at high and increasing risk of experiencing parental death by drugs or firearms,” a team led by Mathew Kiang of the Read More
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If you are a police officer, a health care worker, a firefighter or even a miner, you may be part of the 25% to 30% of the population with atypical working hours. This type of schedule may involve working early mornings, evenings and nights, and it may be fixed, on-call or rotating. Unconventional schedules, especially the night shift and rotating schedules, have a significant impact on sleep and alertness, and this has an adverse effect on health. First of all, insomnia and sleepiness while awake are widespread among people whose Read More
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T cells—the body’s foot soldiers against invaders, ranging from everyday infections to cancers—are integral to many successful immunotherapies. However, a frustrating factor is that immunotherapies do not always work. More than half of human cancers, called “non-inflamed” or “cold” tumors, are not being effectively infiltrated by the cancer-fighting T cells. Essentially, the soldiers are excluded from the battlefield. Researchers want to know why. A study led by Yale scientists, published in the journal Science Immunology, investigated the potential causes associated with T cell exclusion using a genome-wide screen of more Read More
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Tubewells are a typical drinking water source in rural Bangladesh and can sometimes have high levels of contaminants. Credit: WASH Benefits We’re increasingly aware of how environmental factors influence a child’s early development and health trajectory. We’ve mostly learned this through research involving direct observations of how ambient conditions like air pollution or a lack of nutritious food affect how our genes function, and over time, what diseases we might develop. However, a new study led by a global health researcher at UC Santa Cruz provides some of the clearest Read More
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Heart Monitor (close up) in hospital room showing heart rate and elevated blood pressure. Credit: American Heart Association A new screening algorithm for preeclampsia combining maternal history, ultrasound data and several tests for blood markers may better predict the majority of preeclampsia cases in the first trimester of pregnancy, when it may still be preventable, according to new research published in Hypertension. Preeclampsia is the most dangerous form of high blood pressure during pregnancy (blood pressure measures ?140/90 mm Hg), and it is a leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Read More
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Proteogenomic biomarkers of copy number-based genome instability in renal cell carcinoma. Credit: Cell Reports Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101547 A new study led by University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center researchers identifies novel biomarkers in renal cell carcinomas. The researchers’ integrative analysis of comprehensive proteogenomic datasets from both non-clear cell and clear cell renal carcinomas builds on previous work, which primarily focused on geonomics, and improves understanding of the mechanisms of renal cell carcinomas. The findings lay the groundwork to identify therapeutic targets in non-clear-cell renal cell carcinomas. The study Read More
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Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU are shedding new light on how the increasing rate of child mortality in the United States has disproportionately affected certain racial and ethnic groups. Their previous research found that child and adolescent mortality rates in the United States rose by 18.3% between 2019 and 2021, the largest such increase in at least half a century. In their latest study, published May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), their analysis revealed that Black and Native Read More
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In research that may be a step forward toward finding personalized treatments for Tourette disorder, scientists at Rutgers University–New Brunswick have bred mice that exhibit some of the same behaviors and brain abnormalities seen in humans with the disorder. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers, using a technique known as CRISPR/Cas9 DNA editing that selectively modifies the DNA of living organisms, inserted the same genetic mutations found in humans with Tourette disorder into the corresponding genes in mouse embryos. After the mice were Read More
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Over the last 20 years, there has been a tenfold increase in reports of dengue—an infectious disease that spreads to humans through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. A high fever, headache, vomiting and rash are some of the most common symptoms of dengue. In rare and severe cases, it can also cause death. The symptoms become more extreme in individuals with subsequent infections. Dengue thrives in hot, humid and densely populated conditions. While it is most common in tropical and sub-tropical climates, the disease is Read More
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Labeling vulnerable patients in hospital as “socially admitted” may prevent treatment of medical issues, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Emergency departments are the last resort for some socially-vulnerable people who may not have an acute or new medical issue. They may be seeking care because of a breakdown of supports or the inability of the patient, or their family, to cope with living at home. These people are known colloquially as “social admissions,” and other labels such as “orphan patient,” “failure to cope,” and others Read More
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(Clockwise from top left) robotic bronchial endoscope; robotic bronchial endoscope system with a user interface attached; steering-type endoscopic forceps inserted into the working channel of the endoscope. Credit: Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) A robotic bronchial endoscopic system has been engineered to reduce side effects and provide prompt intervention during emergencies involving airway blockages in infants, young children, or the elderly caused by food or foreign substances. This innovative system is expected to be highly beneficial in emergency scenarios, as it has the potential to decrease the requisite Read More
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In an editorial, published in Oncoscience, researcher Rafael Parra-Medina from Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud and Instituto Nacional de Cancerología discusses Latin America’s (LA) population—a heterogeneous mix of Amerindian, African, and Caucasian ancestries with different proportions in different regions. The paper is titled, “Exploring oncogenic driver molecular alterations in Hispanic/Latin American cancer patients: A call for enhanced molecular understanding.” Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Venezuela have a higher proportion of Caucasian while regions in Mexico, Perú, and Bolivia have a higher proportion of Read More
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New data reveal that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) can be safely performed before, during, or after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) for patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD). The results from the analysis were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2024 Scientific Sessions. For those with CAD, PCI and TAVR are often required to restore blood flow. Many clinicians prefer to conduct PCI before TAVR due to the potential complications that could occur during the replacement procedure. However, the optimal timing for PCI in patients Read More
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Researchers at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing and DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Hematology/Oncology Clinic found that receiving financial and legal navigation services improves levels of financial toxicity and quality of life for patients and caregivers. Financial toxicity refers to the burden and stress a patient or caregiver has related to the cost of medical care. Patients undergoing cancer treatment and their caregivers often experience high levels of financial toxicity. Currently, very few evidence-based oncology financial and legal navigation programs exist to address this. The research team’s work to Read More
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Children with mental health emergencies presenting to the pediatric emergency department (PED) who receive psychiatric comanagement in a pediatric observation unit (POU) have significantly reduced PED length of stay (LOS) and inpatient psychiatric (IP) admission, according to a research letter published online May 5 in JAMA Pediatrics to coincide with the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, held from May 2 to 6 in Toronto. Rachel G. Kasdin, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues examined outcomes of children admitted for Read More
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For adolescents scheduled for surgery, the prevalence of cannabis use disorder (CUD) is increasing and is associated with higher odds of postoperative complications, according to a study published online May 6 in Pediatrics. Brittany L. Willer, M.D., from the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues performed a retrospective, 1:1 propensity-matched cohort study of adolescents with and without CUD who underwent inpatient operations from 2009 to 2022. The trend in prevalence of CUD was examined as the primary outcome. Overall, 2,604 (0.5%) of the 558,721 Read More
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Average outcome levels over the follow-up. Mean outcome level indicates the prevalence of the outcome for the substance misuse, mental health, and somatic health. Mean outcome level indicates the average number of charges/suspicions by the police for the crime outcome. X-axis represents relative time to period (quarter year) where treatment first changes (time 0). Credit: BMC Psychiatry (2024). DOI: 10.1186/s12888-024-05734-y Substance use disorder treatment in the community is a superior alternative to incarceration for offenders with a substance misuse background, according to a recent study published in BMC Psychiatry that Read More
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The number of Scottish veterans who were hospitalized with COVID-19 or who died from the disease was no greater than in the wider community, according to new research published today. The study, from the University of Glasgow and published in BMJ Military Health, compared veterans with people who had never served, and found that there were no more serious cases of COVID-19 overall than in the non-veterans. However, veterans who did not complete their initial term of military engagement had a greater risk of being hospitalized; and veterans over 70 Read More
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A novel high-resolution manometry (HRM) score can stratify the risk and severity of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to a study published online March 27 in the UEG Journal. Stefano Siboni, M.D., from IRCCS Policlinico San Donato in Milan, and colleagues built and externally validated a manometric score (Milan Score) to stratify the risk and severity of the disease in patients undergoing HRM for suspected GERD. The analysis included 295 consecutive patients undergoing HRM and pH-study for persistent typical or atypical GERD symptoms. The researchers report that straight leg raise Read More
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Multifrequency tympanometry (MFT) could aid the diagnosis of Meniere disease (MD), according to a review published online March 4 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. Christos Tsilivigkos, from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to examine the role of MFT in the diagnosis of MD. The analysis included seven identified studies that directly compared ears affected by MD to unaffected or control ears. The researchers found that among 282 ears affected by MD, 197 unaffected ears in patients Read More
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Diagnosing a person with autism spectrum disorder can be challenging. It’s a medical condition that no blood test, brain scan or objective test can pinpoint. And because of each person’s distinctive pattern of symptoms, it can be hard to determine its severity. As people gain familiarity with autism, however, they are becoming more open to discussing the diagnosis and seeking treatment. Society is also becoming more motivated to learn about neurodivergent conditions, including autism. What is autism spectrum disorder? Autism spectrum disorder is a condition related to brain development that Read More
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Peripheral artery disease (PAD) involves a debilitating narrowing of arteries in the legs, and the National Institutes of Health estimates that one in every 20 Americans over 50 is affected. Research into best treatments for women with PAD is lacking, however. Now, a study finds that less invasive endovascular treatments work equally well in women as in men. Endovascular therapies — minimally invasive procedures such as angioplasty or stenting — help restore blood flow without the risks of more invasive procedures such as bypass. The new study, led by Dr. Read More
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Private Medicaid health plans lost millions of members in the past year as pandemic protections that prohibited states from dropping anyone from the government program expired. But despite Medicaid’s unwinding, as it’s known, at least two of the five largest publicly traded companies selling plans have continued to increase revenue from the program, according to their latest earnings reports. “It’s a very interesting paradox,” said Andy Schneider, a research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, of plans’ Medicaid revenue increasing despite enrollment drops. Medicaid, the state-federal health Read More
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Belmont Cragin residents were filing into the cafeteria at Prieto Math and Science Academy in April to weigh in on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s signature plan to overhaul Chicago’s mental health system when they got unexpected evidence that the bold, still largely theoretical plan remains a focus at City Hall. Into the school walked Johnson, an unannounced guest at the community forum, surrounded by a flock of leading administration officials. “It’s one of our top priorities,” he told attendees, before talking about his older brother, Leon, who dealt with untreated mental Read More
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Among postmenopausal women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), there is no higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared with women without IBD, although the risk for ischemic stroke may be higher, according to a study published online April 29 in Digestive Diseases and Sciences. Ruby Greywoode, M.D., from the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and colleagues examined whether women with IBD have increased CVD risk after menopause. The analysis included data from 134,022 Women’s Health Initiative participants. The researchers found that after adjusting for Read More
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A.J. took two small hits off a cannabis vape pen, a common ritual with his morning coffee. Moments after exhaling, a transfigured, kaleidoscopic version of the world emerged before his eyes. “Some colors are seeping into the other colors,” the 30-year-old said, gesturing across his art-filled living room in Yorba Linda. “In that Persian tapestry on the wall, the flowers are flowing like the wind, back and forth, and the centerpieces of the horses and other animals, they’re stagnant still but I can feel them kind of moving, almost like Read More
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by Suanne Kowal-Connelly, MD, FAAP, and Richard J. Chung, MD, FSAHM, FAAP, American Academy of Pediatrics Aside from all the physical changes, adolescents are developing skills that help prepare them for adulthood. Part of this means participating more in their own health care. The adolescent well-child visits are tailored to support your family in this process. Although pediatricians lend their own style to their examinations, many start the adolescent office visit with you and your child together. The doctor asks the typical questions, such as the past year’s medical history Read More
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The overall risk for cancer is not increased for children born after medically assisted reproduction (MAR), according to a study published online May 2 in JAMA Network Open. Paula Rios, M.D., Ph.D., from the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety in Saint-Denis, and colleagues compared the risk for cancer overall and by cancer type among children born after fresh embryo transfer (ET), frozen ET (FET), or artificial insemination (AI) and children conceived naturally. Data were included for 8,526,306 children with a mean age of 6.4 years. Overall, Read More
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A brief, valid instrument has been developed for assessing quality of life in Meniere disease, according to a study published online April 30 in The Laryngoscope. Alexandra E. Quimby, M.D., M.P.H., from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues created a 24-item Meniere disease quality of life (MenQOL) instrument using a sequential process of expert input, patient focus groups, and analyses of responses to draft questionnaires. The MenQOL and Short-Form-36 version 2 (SF-36v2) were administered to 50 patients with Meniere disease and 60 patients with tinnitus, Read More
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Nonmetropolitan counties had higher percentages of preventable premature deaths from the five leading causes of death during 2010 to 2022, according to research published in the May 2 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Macarena C. García, Dr.P.H., from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., and colleagues provide estimates of preventable premature deaths for 2010 to 2022 from the five leading causes of death in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan counties. Preventable premature deaths among persons aged younger Read More
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Credit: Mark Neal from Pexels Learning in real health care settings is crucial for nursing students. It helps them develop practical skills and apply what they learn in the classroom. However, many undergraduate nursing students find clinical learning to be tough, and the theory-practice gap is usually wide. A recent study in Morocco, published in The Open Public Health Journal aimed to understand the challenges faced by nursing students during their practical training in various clinical settings. Using a method called phenomenological qualitative design, researchers spoke with 34 nursing students Read More
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You are walking back home. Suddenly the ground seems to open and a security drone emerges, blocking your way to verify your identity. This might sound far-fetched but it is based on an existing technology—a drone system made by the AI company Sunflower Labs. As part of an international project looking at the impact of AI on cities, we recently “broke ground” on a new field of research called AI urbanism. This is different from the concept of a “smart city.” Smart cities gather information from technology, such as sensor Read More
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New research from a group including a University of Massachusetts Amherst engineer has helped identify the most important characteristics to increase adoption of ride-splitting platforms like UberX Share. “For this paper, we focused on a particular form of ride sharing called ride-splitting, which refers to services in which fares and rides are split among multiple strangers who are traveling in the same direction,” explains co-leader of the study, Shannon Roberts, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass Amherst. The paper was published in the Proceedings of the Human Read More
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An AI system can malfunction if an adversary finds a way to confuse its decision making. In this example, errant markings on the road mislead a driverless car, potentially making it veer into oncoming traffic. This “evasion” attack is one of numerous adversarial tactics described in a new NIST publication intended to help outline the types of attacks we might expect along with approaches to mitigate them. Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST Adversaries can deliberately confuse or even “poison” artificial intelligence (AI) systems to make them malfunction—and there’s no foolproof defense that Read More
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Researchers from the MRC Brain Network Dynamics Unit and Oxford University’s Department of Computer Science have set out a new principle to explain how the brain adjusts connections between neurons during learning. This new insight may guide further research on learning in brain networks and may inspire faster and more robust learning algorithms in artificial intelligence. The essence of learning is to pinpoint which components in the information-processing pipeline are responsible for an error in output. In artificial intelligence, this is achieved by backpropagation: adjusting a model’s parameters to reduce Read More
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FIND is a new benchmark suite for evaluating automated interpretability methods in neural networks, featuring functions that mimic real-world network components and their complexities. It also presents a novel interactive method using automated interpretability agents, which employ pretrained language models to generate descriptions of function behavior, demonstrating the agent’s ability to infer function structure while highlighting the need for further refinement in capturing local details. Credit: Alex Shipps / MIT CSAIL Explaining the behavior of trained neural networks remains a compelling puzzle, especially as these models grow in size and Read More
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A self-driving tractor trailer maneuvers around a test track in Pittsburgh, Thursday, March 14, 2024. The truck is owned by Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation Inc. Late this year, Aurora plans to start hauling freight on Interstate 45 between the Dallas and Houston areas with 20 driverless trucks. Credit: AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar On a three-lane test track along the Monongahela River, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rounded a curve. No one was on board. A quarter-mile ahead, the truck’s sensors spotted a trash can blocking one lane and a tire in another. In Read More
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Hardware experiment carried out by the researchers. Credit: Bodmer et al. The development and testing of algorithms for robotics applications typically requires evaluations in both simulated and physical environments. Some algorithms, however, can be difficult to deploy in simple hardware experiments, due to the high costs of robotics hardware or to difficulties associated with setting up this hardware inside robotics labs. Moreover, often developers lack reliable software that would allow them to integrate their algorithms on a specific robotics platform. A team of researchers at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Read More
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Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough and other local officials speak at a news conference in Towson, Md., April 25, 2024. The most recent criminal case to involve artificial intelligence has emerged from a high school in Baltimore County, Maryland. That’s where police say a principal was framed by a fake recording of his voice. Credit: Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP, file The most recent criminal case involving artificial intelligence emerged last week from a Maryland high school, where police say a principal was framed as racist by a Read More
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The WAVE technique developed by Aalto University researchers is based on anticipating future movement, such as a turn. Credit: Markus Laattala Researchers at Aalto University were looking for better ways to instruct dance choreography in virtual reality. The new WAVE technique they developed will be presented in May at the CHI conference for human-computer interaction research. Previous techniques have largely relied on pre-rehearsal and simplification. “In virtual reality, it is difficult to visualize and communicate how a dancer should move. The human body is so multi-dimensional, and it is difficult Read More
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In this study, researchers developed a self-folding origami gripper that abruptly changes conformation when force is applied. By mounting this low-cost and biodegradable structure on top of a quadcopter, it is possible to hold onto and carry objects from one place to another in a convenient way. Credit: Hiroki Shigemune from Shibaura Institute of Technology; CC BY 4.0 Over the past decade, researchers all around the world have been finding new and exciting use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Commonly called “drones,” UAVs have proved their worth across many Read More
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Eight US newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft in a New York federal court Tuesday for violating their copyright to train the technology behind the ChatGPT and Copilot chatbots. The newspapers, which include The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, are owned by Alden Global Capital, a Florida-based investment firm that created the second-largest US newspaper group behind USA Today owner Gannett when it bought the Tribune publishing chain in 2021. “This lawsuit arises from defendants purloining millions of the publishers’ copyrighted articles without permission and without payment to Read More
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Speech is critical to detecting suicidal ideation and a key to understanding the mental and emotional state of people experiencing it. Suicide hotline counselors are trained to quickly analyze speech variation to better help callers through a crisis. But just as no system is perfect, there is room for error in interpreting a caller’s speech. In order to assist hotline counselors to properly assess a caller’s condition, Concordia Ph.D. student Alaa Nfissi has developed a model for speech emotion recognition (SER) using artificial intelligence tools. The model analyzes and codes Read More
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You wanna see her move? I think that’s the fun part. The room is thick with anticipation and fabricated skulls. She’s gonna wake up. Give her a second. Matt McMullen eyes his creation as her eyes flutter open in return, her gaze settling upon all the disembodied faces and mechanical mandibles surrounding her in this workshop where fake hair co-mingles with real ambition. Gradually, she stirs to life, this robot who doesn’t look like one. Her arms flare out a bit, her head tilts downward then upward, a smile slowly, Read More
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AI holds the potential to help doctors find early markers of disease and policymakers to avoid decisions that lead to war. But a growing body of evidence has revealed deep flaws in how machine learning is used in science, a problem that has swept through dozens of fields and implicated thousands of erroneous papers. Now an interdisciplinary team of 19 researchers, led by Princeton University computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, has published guidelines for the responsible use of machine learning in science. “When we graduate from traditional statistical Read More
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Andrew Witty, Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealth Group, testifies at a Senate Finance Committee hearing examining cyber attacks on health care, and the Change Healthcare cyber attack, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin The Change Healthcare cyberattack that disrupted health care systems nationwide earlier this year started when hackers entered a server that lacked a basic form of security: multifactor authentication. UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty said Wednesday in a U.S. Senate hearing that his company, which owns Change Healthcare, is still trying to Read More
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Researcher and technologist Matt Beane, an assistant professor in the Technology Management Department at UC Santa Barbara, is calling attention to an immediate and hidden concern in the modern workplace—and offering a surprising path forward. In his new book, “The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines”, Beane focuses on how our use of intelligent machines, like surgical robots and ChatGPT, is deeply weakening the master-novice relationship, the tried-and-true system in which a trainee masters new skills by working closely with a senior employee Read More
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Three new frameworks from MIT CSAIL reveal how natural language can provide important context for language models that perform coding, AI planning, and robotics tasks. Credit: Alex Shipps/MIT CSAIL, with components from the researchers and Pixabay Large language models (LLMs) are becoming increasingly useful for programming and robotics tasks, but for more complicated reasoning problems, the gap between these systems and humans looms large. Without the ability to learn new concepts like humans do, these systems fail to form good abstractions—essentially, high-level representations of complex concepts that skip less-important details—and Read More
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Although the current study tested the AI algorithm only on simulated robots, the researchers have developed NoodleBot for future testing of the algorithm in the real world. Credit: Northwestern University Northwestern University engineers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm designed specifically for smart robotics. By helping robots rapidly and reliably learn complex skills, the new method could significantly improve the practicality—and safety—of robots for a range of applications, including self-driving cars, delivery drones, household assistants and automation. Called Maximum Diffusion Reinforcement Learning (MaxDiff RL), the algorithm’s success lies Read More
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It didn’t take long for Harshraj Ghai to respond to the impact of California’s new $20 an hour minimum wage for his 3,700 fast-food employees. Ghai and his family operate 180 Burger Kings, Taco Bells and Popeyes chicken restaurants across the state, and one of the first things they did after the law took effect April 1 was to start capping workers’ hours to avoid overtime pay. Also, they’re closing some outlets a little earlier, and opening others a bit later to avoid paying workers for less profitable periods. But Read More
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Adele, winner of the award for best pop solo performance for “Easy on Me,” poses in the press room at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 5, 2023, in Los Angeles. Artists from Universal Music Group, which include Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, will be returning to TikTok as the two parties have struck a new licensing agreement following an approximately three-month long dispute. Credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File Artists from Universal Music Group, which include Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, will be returning Read More
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Data pre-processing and inference process overview. The left panel shows the two main data collection steps, while the central panel illustrates how buildings are isolated and centered owing to cadastral data. The right panel exemplifies, first, the classification task, which delivers a number in the range of [0,1] expressing the likelihood of the presence of asbestos in the image. The classification task undergoes a Grad-CAM analysis, delivering an interpretable heatmap to understand which part of the image is most responsible for the classification score. Credit: Remote Sensing (2024). DOI: 10.3390/rs16081342 Read More
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Recently, there has been a flurry of publicity about the planned upgrades to OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI-powered chatbot and Meta’s Llama system, which powers the company’s chatbots across Facebook and Instagram. The technology behind these systems is known as a large language model (LLM). These are artificial neural networks, a type of AI designed to mimic the human brain. They can generate general purpose text, for chatbots, and perform language processing tasks such as classifying concepts, analyzing data and translating text. They acquire these abilities through an intensive process known as Read More
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Credit: Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.002 Artificial intelligence may soon help to identify lies and deception. However, a research team from the Universities of Marburg and Würzburg warns against premature use. Oh, if only it were as easy as with Pinocchio. It was simple to see when he was telling a lie: His nose grew a little longer each time. In reality, it is much more difficult to recognize lies and it is only understandable that scientist have already for a long time been trying to develop valid Read More
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Nanshu Lu. Credit: University of Texas at Austin A first-ever stretchy electronic skin could equip robots and other devices with the same softness and touch sensitivity as human skin, opening up new possibilities to perform tasks that require a great deal of precision and control of force. The new stretchable e-skin, developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, solves a major bottleneck in the emerging technology. Existing e-skin technology loses sensing accuracy as the material stretches, but that is not the case with this new version. “Much Read More
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Achieving a noteworthy milestone to advance noninvasive brain-controlled interfaces, researchers used AI technology to improve the decoding of human intention and control a continuously moving virtual object all by thinking about it, with unmatched performance. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Pursuing a viable alternative to invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has been a continued research focus of Carnegie Mellon University’s He Lab. In 2019, the group used a noninvasive BCI to successfully demonstrate, for the first time, that a mind-controlled robotic arm had the ability to continuously track and follow a computer Read More
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Research in the International Journal of Biometrics introduces a new method for assessing a practitioner’s precision in martial arts training. The method focuses on quickly identifying errors in the athlete’s movements and allowing their trainer to more precisely guide them to correct form. The system has been developed with a particular focus on Wushu, a collection of Chinese martial arts styles known for their complexity and precision. Zhiqiang Li of the Department of Police Sports Teaching and Research at Jilin Police College in Changchun, China, explains how the system used Read More
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Imagine it’s Friday night. You’re enjoying happy hour with friends after a long week. You’re relaxed, having indulged in several of your preferred adult beverages. Now, imagine that as you leave the bar, a police officer approaches. You’re under arrest. Flash forward to the police station. The officer takes you to a cramped room and reads you your Miranda rights: You have the right to remain silent, to an attorney, and all the rest. Let’s say you waive those rights—most people do—and the officer questions you for several hours. While Read More
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Social media apps regularly present teens with algorithmically selected content often described as “for you,” suggesting, by implication, that the curated content is not just “for you” but also “about you”—a mirror reflecting important signals about the person you are. All users of social media are exposed to these signals, but researchers understand that teens are at an especially malleable stage in the formation of personal identity. Scholars have begun to demonstrate that technology is having generation-shaping effects, not merely in the way it influences cultural outlook, behavior and privacy, Read More
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Would you rather find yourself alone in the woods with a bear or a man? This is the question currently dividing social media. Based on the responses online, it looks like most women answering the question say they would choose the bear, a decision that is shocking many men. The reactions show some men don’t understand women’s experiences. The assertion that women would prefer to encounter a bear is based on evidence about the rate of male violence against women, and on a lifetime of learning to fear and anticipate Read More
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A new survey from Wiley suggests workers do not feel artificial intelligence (AI) will be replacing the art of communication in the workplace. The vast majority—80%—of respondents in the latest Wiley Workplace Intelligence survey say soft skills are more important than ever with the evolution of AI. That’s according to the newly released report “Taking the Person Out of Interpersonal: Why AI Can Never Replace Soft Skills.” And even though AI could make it easy to draft a quick email to handle a sticky situation or settle conflicts in the Read More
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Weekly targets, annual resolutions, five-year plans—all of them so troublingly elusive. With best intentions, most of us fail to stick with the goals we set. Next time, consider pursuing them with a friend. New field research by Assistant Professor Rachel Gershon, published in Management Science, suggests that pursuing our goals with friends may make them more attainable. Gershon, along with Cynthia Cryder of Washington University and Katy Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania, specifically looked at gym attendance and found that going with a friend—even with the hurdles of coordinating Read More
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New research led by Aston University’s Dr. Carl Senior has found that the type of smile used by a political leader can influence voters to support them and their political agenda. The research is published in the journal PLOS ONE. There are many different types of smile, and the researchers, including Professor Patrick Stewart from the University of Arkansas, Professor Erik Bucy from Texas Tech University and Professor Nick Lee from Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, UK, focused on two in particular—the “reward” smile and the “affiliative” Read More
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People not only think political news is likelier to be true if it reinforces their ideological biases, but will tend to trust news more if it leads them to adopt more extreme (and even incorrect) beliefs, finds a new study by a UCL researcher. The study, published in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, found that when people were presented with new information on politically sensitive topics, individuals on both sides of the political spectrum struggled to detect whether the information was true or not, and were biased towards trusting news that Read More
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Parents often worry about the use of social media among children and young people. Caring about this is a good thing, and there are several reasons why you should pay attention, but there is one thing that parents needn’t worry about: young people spending time on social media does not impair their interaction with friends offline, according to a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior. “On the contrary, we find that people who use social media a lot spend more time with friends offline,” says Professor Silje Steinsbekk Read More
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It is well-established that people hold “self-servingly” biased beliefs about their own personal traits and abilities that help bolster their self-esteem. A new study, published in The Economic Journal, has tested whether this phenomenon is linked to how we assess others. The study looked at the findings of an experiment involving 426 students. In the first part of the experiment they were asked to participate in a computerized quiz. In the second part they would be paired with either a human partner who completed the same quiz, or with a Read More
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In March 2024, a 39-year-old man became the first person in England and Wales to be convicted of the new offense of cyberflashing, part of the Online Safety Act. He had sent unsolicited photos of his genitals to a 15-year-old girl and a woman. Cyberflashing now being a criminal offense is a welcome change, and the creation of this offense was informed by our research. But as researchers of young people’s use of social media, we have concerns that this is not enough to to counter the widespread nrmalization of Read More
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“This isn’t mine; this is one for the team,” said Succession star Kieran Culkin as he accepted the Best Actor award at this year’s Golden Globes. It’s a familiar aspect of Hollywood awards speeches—a reminder that the stars dazzling us on screen could not exist without the people who support them. “It’s been said, but it’s a team effort, this show,” said Succession creator Jesse Armstrong at the awards, underlining the same sentiment. Hollywood speeches aside, we do seem to focus on individuals when we acknowledge greatness. In business and Read More
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Nearly 50% of new businesses fail within the first five years. Many former entrepreneurs apply for 9-to-5 jobs to get back on their feet, but new research reveals an unexpected obstacle: hiring bias. In a Rutgers-led study published in the Spring 2024 issue of the journal Personnel Psychology, researchers created fake resumes and showed them to 219 people with corporate recruiting experience in high-tech manufacturing, software development, health care, and other industries. The resumes displayed virtually identical qualifications with one major exception: some of the fictional applicants were former business Read More
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Many schools say anti-racism and equity initiatives matter for quality education, yet specific plans are often wanting. In 2023, the not-for-profit organization People for Education reported that 73% of schools included anti-racism and equity in their school improvement plan, but only 28% of school boards actually have an anti-racism policy, strategy or approach. More work is needed from school boards to support anti-racist teaching and learning. However, in the interim, what can classroom teachers do to create equitable and anti-racist classrooms that meet their racialized students’ needs? We are two Read More
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Consultants have to rely heavily on employee interviews for information on the way a company operates. Credit: fauxels/Pexels Around the world, more and more companies are publishing sustainability reports—public scorecards detailing their impacts on society and the environment. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports outline the positive and negative effects of a company’s activities, and the steps they’re taking in response. Companies publish these reports as their own documents. But often, externally hired consultants play an invisible role in gathering data and framing it in a positive narrative the public Read More