2011 Digging Into Data Challenge winners announced |  |
- 2011 Digging Into Data Challenge winners announced
- Rilonacept significantly reduced acute gout flares during uric acid-lowering therapy
- Global health award for Bihar chief minister
- New forms of torture leave 'invisible scars,' say researchers
| 2011 Digging Into Data Challenge winners announced Posted: 05 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Eight international research funders from four countries today jointly announced the 14 winners of the second Digging Into Data Challenge, a competition to promote innovative humanities and social science research using large-scale data analysis. Winning teams representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States will receive a total of about about $4.8 million in grants to investigate how data processing, analysis and transmission techniques can be applied to big data to change the nature of humanities and social sciences research. Each team represents collaborations among scholars, scientists and librarians from leading universities worldwide. Four international funders sponsored the first round of the Digging Into Data Challenge in 2009. That round led to breakthrough projects that received coverage in the New York Times, Nature, the Globe and Mail and Times Higher Education. We're excited to continue our involvement in the Digging Into Data Challenge as it has proven an excellent opportunity to leverage our resources through partnering with a number of other agencies, both in the U.S. and abroad, said Elizabeth Tran, an associate program officer for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va., one of three federal agencies supporting the challenge. Digging Into Data has helped reduce some of the barriers to international research by making collaboration among the scholars as seamless as possible through a single review process and joint-decision making, she said. First round projects included digging into a body of 53,000 18th-century letters to analyze the degree to which the effects of the Enlightenment could be observed in the letters of people with various occupations; creating tools to enable rapid and flexible access and linguistic analysis of more than 9,000 hours of spoken audio files from leading British and American spoken word corpora;... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Rilonacept significantly reduced acute gout flares during uric acid-lowering therapy Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:37 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A phase II clinical trial, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), found that rilonacept, an inhibitor of the protein interleukin-1 (IL-1), significantly reduced acute gout flares that occur when initiating uric acid-lowering therapy. Patients with gout—a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by the crystallization of urates in soft tissues—experience severe pain and swelling, often affecting the feet. A recent study also published in Arthritis & Rheumatism reported that doctor-diagnosed gout has risen over the past twenty years and now affects 8.3 million individuals in the U.S. Previous research shows that while gout attacks typically resolve spontaneously over several days, urate crystals remain in the joint, which can lead to recurrent attacks and if left untreated may permanently damage joints. "To reduce deposits of crystals in the joints, we advise patients to initiate treatment with medications that lower levels of uric acid in the blood," said lead investigator Dr. H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr., Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The authors explain that in the early months of urate-lowering therapy, as crystal deposits are broken up, patients may experience gout attacks that are proposed to be due to the release of crystals from softened deposits. These urate crystals interact with cells that release interleukin-1 (IL-1) which can lead to a cascade of inflammation and acute joint pain flares. Previous research has found that acute gout attacks brought on by uric acid-lowering therapy may make patients less likely to continue treatment. "Well tolerated drugs that reduce the risk of gout flares when initiating uric-acid lowering therapy could make patients more likely to continue important long-term treatments that control gout," added Dr. Schumacher. Rilonacept—marketed under the brand name ARCALYST® to treat another... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Global health award for Bihar chief minister Posted: 03 Jan 2012 03:09 PM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Patna, Jan 3 - Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been chosen for the first Gates Vaccine Innovation Award, instituted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for the state's successful immunisation programme, an official said Tuesday. 'Nitish Kumar has been chosen for the award for improving routine immunisation from 18.6 percent in 2005 to 70 percent till last year,' the official said. A health department official told IANS that Bihar has recorded a drastic fall in infant mortality rate and has not recorded a single polio case in the last fifteen months. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched the award last year, which carries a purse of $250,000 -. Last May, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates showered praise on Nitish Kumar for his impressive performance of rapid vaccination of children in the state, saying 'people are hungry for visionary leaders' who deliver upon their promises. 'I was struck by the chief minister's popularity,' he said in his address to the 64th World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organisation. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New forms of torture leave 'invisible scars,' say researchers Posted: 03 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Use of torture around the world has not diminished but the techniques used have grown more complex and sophisticated, according to new research from Queen Mary, University of London. The study* suggests that these emerging forms of torture, which include various types of rape, bestiality and witnessing violent acts, are experienced by people seeking asylum in the UK. In many cases the techniques cause no visible effect but are responsible for a variety of serious mental health problems. The researchers say that their findings are vital for understanding what many asylum seekers have endured and for ensuring the correct medical treatments are available. The majority of countries signed a UN convention banning all forms of torture almost thirty years ago but the new research joins a body of evidence showing that the use of torture not only persists but is also widespread. The researchers, led by Dr Nasir Warfa, based their study on asylum seekers who were being detained at Oakington Immigration Centre in Cambridgeshire. They carried out an audit of reports of torture over a six-month period. The results showed that 17 per cent of people at the Centre reported that they were tortured in their home countries. Some reported cases of physical methods of torture such as being beaten with blunt objects, barbed wire, or fire. Other physical torture included various types of stabbing, covering with sugar water then exposed to insects, burning, finger or toenail extraction and foreign objects placed under nails. Others experienced sexual torture including rape, forced bestiality, genital mutilation and forced abortion. Others still were suffocated or immersed in water, or forced to witness rape, violence or murder. The majority of those who reported such incidents were fleeing African countries. Others had come from Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The torture reported by these people is horrific, said Kate Izycki, Senior Nurse who... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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