Self-affirmation may break down resistance to medical screening |  |
- Self-affirmation may break down resistance to medical screening
- NIST special publication expands government authentication options
- Do you hear what I hear? Noise exposure surrounds us
- Electronics made of plastic
- Quotas for women in local politics brings surge in documented crimes against women in India
- What are the prospects for sustaining high-quality groundwater?
- Chinese Academy of Sciences names CMU's Veloso an Einstein Chair Professor
- Legumes give nitrogen-supplying bacteria special access pass
- New predictor of heart attack or stroke
| Self-affirmation may break down resistance to medical screening Posted: 22 Dec 2011 11:00 PM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) People resist medical screening, or don't call back for the results, because they don't want to know they're sick or at risk for a disease. But many illnesses, such as HIV/AIDS and cancer, have a far a better prognosis if they're caught early. How can health care providers break down that resistance? Have people think about what they value most, finds a new study by University of Florida psychologists Jennifer L. Howell and James A. Shepperd. If you can get people to refocus their attention from a threat to their overall sense of wellbeing, they are less likely to avoid threatening information, says Howell. Do that, and people are more likely to face a medical screening even if it means undertaking onerous treatment and even if the disease is uncontrollable. The findings will appear in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers undertook three studies, each with about 100 students of both sexes. In all three studies, they asked the participants to think of a trait they valued; they chose traits such as honesty, compassion, and friendliness. Participants then wrote either about how they demonstrated the trait (expressing self-affirmation) or a friend (not affirming themselves) demonstrated the trait. Next participants watched a video about a (fictional) disorder called thioamine acetlyase (TAA) deficiency that ostensibly impairs the body's ability to process nutrients and can lead to severe medical complications. They then completed an online risk calculator for the disease and decided either to receive their risk feedback or not. In the first study, fewer participants who wrote self-affirming essays avoided learning their risk than did participants who wrote non-affirming essays. In studies 2 and 3 researchers investigated the effects of affirmation on two conditions known to increase avoidance of risk feedback. In the second study, participants learned that testing... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| NIST special publication expands government authentication options Posted: 21 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A newly revised publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) expands the options for government agencies that need to verify the identity of users of their Web-based services. Electronic Authentication Guideline (NIST Special Publication 800-63-1) is an extensive revision and update of the original document, released in 2006, and it recognizes that times, and technologies, have changed. Changes made to the document reflect changes in the state of the art, explains NIST computer security expert Tim Polk, Cryptographic Technology Group manager at NIST. There are new techniques and tools available to government agencies, and this provides them more flexibility in choosing the best authentication methods for their individual needs, without sacrificing security. When SP 800-63 was first released, its authors assumed that most agencies would handle the business of figuring out if users were who they claimed to be in-house. But since that time, an industry has grown around providing authentication services, and it is often in the best interest of agencies to take advantage of commercial systems or those of other government entities. And while passwords are still the leading mechanism for authenticating user identity, a growing number of systems rely on cryptographic keys or physical tokens. The revision broadens the discussion of technologies available to agencies and gives a more detailed discussion of these technologies. The guideline applies whether agencies choose to handle authentication directly or leverage services provided by other parties, including commercial companies. Government agencies have the option of using the services of companies that have had their authentication systems certified through the Federal Chief Information Officer Council's Trust Framework Provider Adoption Process (TFPAP). This program assesses credentialing processes against federal requirements, including those... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Do you hear what I hear? Noise exposure surrounds us Posted: 21 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Nine out of 10 city dwellers may have enough harmful noise exposure to risk hearing loss, and most of that exposure comes from leisure activities. Historically, loud workplaces were blamed for harmful noise levels. But researchers at the University of Michigan found that noise from MP3 players and stereo use has eclipsed loud work environments, said Rick Neitzel, assistant professor in the U-M School of Public Health and the Risk Science Center. Robyn Gershon, a professor with the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco is the principal investigator on the study. This proved true even though MP3 player and stereo listening were just a small fraction of each person's total annual noise exposure. Neitzel said he was surprised by the findings. As an occupational hygienist, he expected regular users of trains and buses along with work-related activities to be the chief culprits in excessive noise exposure. They found that one in 10 transit users had noise exposures exceeding the recommended limits from transit use alone. But when they estimated the total annual exposure from all sources, 90 percent of transit users and 87 percent of nonusers exceeded the recommended limits, primarily due to MP3 and stereo usage. That two out of three people get the majority of noise exposure from music is pretty striking, Neitzel said. I've always viewed the workplace as a primary risk for noise exposure. But this would suggest that just focusing our efforts on the workplace isn't enough, since there's lots of noise exposure happening elsewhere. The implications are startling, said Neitzel. I do think it's a serious problem, there aren't really any other experiences where we would tolerate having nine out of 10 people exposed at a level we know is hazardous. We certainly wouldn't tolerate this with another agent, such as something that caused cancer or chronic disease. Yet... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) When the concept was first proposed, it was dismissed as being unrealizable: It'll never work, commented one expert assessor of an application for research funding. Today, 15 years later, the physicist Professor Karl Leo and two of his colleagues have been presented with the Deutscher Zukunftspreis, one of Germany's most prestigious research awards, for what was once a highly controversial idea. Leo, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, has devoted most of his career to organic electronics. Until now, most electronic components have been made of inorganic silicon. The brittle material is a good semiconductor, but its manufacture requires a highly sophisticated process. It involves growing large crystals at high temperatures and then cutting them into thin slices known as wafers. The more elegant solution is to use an organic material, a type of dye commonly used in the production of road signs. Such materials have the advantage that they can be applied as a coating on flexible films and other substrates. This gives rise to endless new possibilities, such as displays that can be rolled up and carried in a vest pocket or switchable window panes that light up at night to illuminate rooms while hardly consuming any electricity. On the other hand, organic dyes are poor electrical conductors. But this is where the once-mocked ingenious idea comes into play: their less-than-satisfactory conductivity can be increased by doping, i.e. adding a small amount of another chemical substance. After years of experiments, the researchers have succeeded in creating materials with an electrical conductivity a million and more times greater than the original dyes, with a doping ratio of no more than one percent. The Deutscher Zukunftspreis, endowed with 250,000 euros, has been awarded by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany every year since 1997. It honors outstanding innovations that have made... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Quotas for women in local politics brings surge in documented crimes against women in India Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) An increase in female representation in local politics has caused a significant rise in documented crimes against women in India, new research has found. That is good news, say the authors of the study carried out at the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) at the University of Warwick in the UK, Harvard Business School and the IMF, who argue that the increase is down to greater reporting of crimes against women, rather than greater incidence of crimes against them. The research examined the impact of the Panchayati Raj reform passed in 1993, which required Indian states to set aside one third of all member and leader positions in local government councils for women. Panchayati Raj was implemented in different years by different states given their own election cycles, and is one of the largest experiments with quotas for female political representation anywhere in the world. The researchers found that documented crimes against women rose by an average of 44 per cent after women entered local government, while rapes rose by 23 per cent and kidnapping of women showed a 13 per cent increase in the post-reform period up until 2004. However there has been no significant effect on crimes not specifically targeted against women, such as kidnapping of men, theft or public order offences. The researchers believe there are two reasons behind the surge in reported crimes against women. Firstly, greater numbers of female politicians make the police more responsive to crimes against women. Since the quota legislation, the number of arrests has also increased significantly, particularly for cases dealing with kidnapping of women. And women victims who encounter more sympathetic women leaders would feel more encouraged to report crimes. Dr Anandi Mani, associate professor of economics at CAGE, said: The first thing we want to point out is that this is good news. The reason it's happening is because more crimes... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| What are the prospects for sustaining high-quality groundwater? Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Intensive agriculture practices developed during the past century have helped improve food security for many people but have also added to nitrate pollution in surface and groundwaters. New research has looked at water quality measurement over the last 140 years to track this problem in the Thames River basin. The NERC-funded study, led by the University of Bristol's Department of Civil Engineering, has looked at nitrate transport from agricultural land to water in the Thames basin. The team used a simple model to estimate the amount of nitrate able to leach from soils to the groundwater based on land use practices along with an algorithm that determined the route nitrate would take to reach surface or groundwater from agricultural areas. The Thames River catchment provides a good study example because the water quality in the river, which supplies drinking water to millions of people, has been monitored for the past 140 years, and the region has undergone significant agricultural development over the past century. The study found that nitrate concentrations in the Thames rose significantly during and after World War II to about double their previous level, then increased again in the early 1970s. Nitrite concentrations have remained at that high level even though nitrate from inputs from agriculture declined from the late 1970s to early 2000s. The researchers observed it takes some time for nitrate to reach the river, and their analysis suggests that the jump in nitrate concentrations from 1968 to 1972 is due to the delayed groundwater response to ploughing of permanent grasslands during World War II. Dr Nicholas Howden, Senior Lecturer in Water in the Department of Civil Engineering, who led the research, said: Balancing the needs for agriculture and clean groundwater for drinking requires understanding factors such as the routes by which nitrate enters the water supply and how long it takes to get there. Our results... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Chinese Academy of Sciences names CMU's Veloso an Einstein Chair Professor Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) PITTSBURGH -- The Chinese Academy of Sciences has named Manuela Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, as an Einstein Chair Professor for 2012. She is one of 20 prominent international scientists so honored. As an Einstein Chair Professor, Veloso will present a lecture at the University of Science and Technology of China, a national research university in Hefei, China, and at another Chinese university. The Einstein Professorship Program is a key initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Its goals are to strengthen exchanges between the Einstein chairs and Chinese scientists and to enhance the training of future generations of Chinese scientists. Veloso, who this summer will become president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), is the only AI and robotics researcher among this year's Einstein Chair Professors. Her lectures will focus on symbiotic autonomy, a concept she is pioneering in which robots are aware of their perceptual, physical, and reasoning limitations and proactively ask for help from humans. Symbiotic autonomy is employed by several robots, called CoBots, that her research group has deployed on the Carnegie Mellon campus. The CoBots can navigate on their own through hallways while delivering or fetching messages and packages, but must ask people for help when confused or for performing manipulation tasks such as opening doors or pushing elevator buttons. Veloso is well known for her work on robot soccer, which is an important research tool for studying how autonomous agents can work cooperatively in complex, uncertain environments. She is past president of the International RoboCup Federation, which sponsors annual world championships in robot soccer. Other 2012 recipients of Einstein Chair Professorships include Johann Deisenhofer, a Nobel laureate in chemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center;... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Legumes give nitrogen-supplying bacteria special access pass Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A 125-year debate on how nitrogen-fixing bacteria are able to breach the cell walls of legumes has been settled. A paper to be published on Monday by John Innes Centre scientists reports that plants themselves allow bacteria in. Once inside the right cells, these bacteria take nitrogen from the air and supply it to legumes in a form they can use, ammonia. Whether the bacteria breach the cell walls by producing enzymes that degrade it, or the plant does the work for them, has been contested since an 1887 paper in which the importance of the breach was first recognised. Our results are so clear we can unequivocally say that the plant supplies enzymes to break down its own cell walls and allow bacteria access, said Professor Allan Downie, lead author from the John Innes Centre, which is strategically funded by BBSRC. The findings form part of research at JIC to fully understand the symbiosis that enables legumes to be the largest producers of natural nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture. Manufacturing nitrogen fertilisers for non-legume crops uses more fossil fuels than any other agricultural process. Once they have been applied, they release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas about 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Legumes bypass both problems via their symbiosis with rhizobial bacteria from soil. The ultimate aim is to enable non-legumes, and possibly even cereals such as wheat and rice, to develop the symbiosis and source their own nitrogen from the air like legumes. The fact that legumes themselves call the shots is a great finding but it also shows the complexity of the challenge to try to transfer the process to non-legumes, said Downie. Plants give rhizobial bacteria a pass, but only allow a controlled invasion, not access all areas. A plant cell wall is hard to penetrate, constructed from carbohydrates including pectin. It is like a room with no doors or windows. Rhizobial bacteria signal to the legume that... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New predictor of heart attack or stroke Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CHICAGO --- A hike in your blood pressure during middle age significantly raises the risk of having a heart attack or a stroke during your lifetime, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. The study offers a new understanding on the importance of maintaining low blood pressure early in middle age to prevent heart disease later in life. Men and women who developed high blood pressure in middle age or who started out with high blood pressure had an estimated 30 percent increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who kept their blood pressure low. Previous estimates of a person's risk of cardiovascular disease were based on a single blood pressure measurement. The higher the blood pressure reading, the greater the risk. The new Northwestern Medicine study expands on that by showing a more accurate predictor is a change in blood pressure from age 41 to 55. The study is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. We found the longer we can prevent hypertension or postpone it, the lower the risk for cardiovascular disease, said lead author Norrina Allen, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Even for people with normal blood pressure, we want to make sure they keep it at that level, and it doesn't start increasing over time. There hasn't been as much of a focus on keeping it low when people are in their 40's and 50's, Allen added. That's before a lot of people start focusing on cardiovascular disease risk factors. We've shown it's vital to start early. People that maintain or reduce their blood pressure to normal levels by age 55 have the lowest lifetime risk for a heart attack or a stroke. The study used data from 61,585 participants in the Cardiovascular Lifetime Risk Pooling Project. Starting with baseline blood pressure readings at age 41, researchers measured blood pressure again at age 55, then followed... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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