Figshare, a leading provider of institutional repository infrastructure that supports open research, is pleased to announce that the University of the Witwatersrand Library has chosen Figshare to support its research community with archiving, publishing, sharing and promoting their datasets.  The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) – a leading research institution in South Africa based in Johannesburg, ranked as the second best university in Africa 2024 (jointly with Stellenbosch University) – will ...

Swedish researchers have surveyed all people under the age of 25 who have had cancer since 1958. The study, led by researchers at Linköping University and Region Östergötland, shows that cancer survivors are at greater risk for cardiovascular diseases, other cancers and other diagnoses later in life. In addition, the researchers saw that socioeconomic factors played a role in survival. Since 1958, Sweden has registered all cancer patients in the National Cancer Register. Swedish researchers have now used this register to study all cancer survivors who had cancer as a child, adolescent or adult to examine outcomes in later life. The results have been published ...

Osaka, Japan — While there is an increasing consensus among humans that corporal discipline of children does more harm than good, fish may disagree. Ryo Hidaka, Shumpei Sogawa, Masanori Kohda and Satoshi Awata from Osaka Metropolitan University have demonstrated that a fish species employs physical punishment to elicit helping efforts from their offspring, indicating advanced social and cognitive skills previously thought to be unique to higher vertebrates. The results of their study were published online in Animal Behaviour on April 6. For millennia, human societies have used punishment ...

To get high scores at essay writing tests, learners of English as a foreign language need to focus on good arguments more than on complex grammar. The Kobe University finding challenges conventional approaches to test preparation and scoring rubrics. Writing essays is a well-established tool for monitoring progress in learning English as a foreign language, as it provides a snapshot of a student’s mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Especially in Japan, where English language tests are often required for university admission and students closely follow advice on how to achieve high scores on these tests, a “good essay” is often seen as one that demonstrates ...

The United States’ NASA aims to construct a lunar base through the Artemis program, a manned lunar exploration initiative. However, the practical reality of what general public envision for the space base differs somewhat from well-known science fiction movies. To build a base on the Moon using abundant and diverse construction materials, significant transportation costs are involved. All these materials must be launched from Earth using rockets. Because transporting construction materials from Earth to the ...

Researchers from the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) at St. Michael’s Hospital and Public Health Ontario analyzed health data from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario and ICES, and found that there were 210 accidental opioid-related toxicity deaths within shelters between January 2018 to May 2022, with the number of deaths more than tripling during the study period (48 before the pandemic versus 162 during the pandemic).  Statistics Canada data shows that the annual number of emergency beds in Ontario grew by only 15% (6,764 to 7,767) between 2018 and 2022.  “People who use Ontario’s shelter system are not only facing housing instability, but ...

With more working hours and lower average base pay, the well-being of U.S. teachers continues to be worse than that of similar working adults – a consistent pattern since 2021, according to a new RAND survey. Managing student behavior, low salary and administrative work outside of teaching were the top-ranked sources of stress for teachers in 2024. Teachers reported working an average of 53 hours per week; 15 of these hours – or roughly one quarter of their working hours – were outside of their contracts. This compares to 44 hours per week for similar working adults. Only 36% of teachers said their base pay was adequate compared with 51% of similar ...

An important chapter of the history of human occupation on the coast of Brazil is being rewritten by Brazilian researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and supported by FAPESP. In an article published in the journal PLOS ONE, the group, which also includes researchers in Santa Catarina state, South Brazil, and in other countries (the United States, Belgium and France), shows that the sambaqui builders of Galheta IV, an archeological ...

Researchers from the University of Tokyo performed the first study to quantify highly processed food consumption and to investigate its association with diet quality among Japanese children and adolescents. Highly processed foods (HPFs) accounted for over one-fourth of the total energy intake amongst youths. Consumption was negatively associated with the intake of healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables and pulses, and positively associated with the consumption of confectioneries. It's common knowledge that poor-quality diets are considered major risk factors for many health issues and even noncommunicable ...

An international research team has discovered a new way to effectively treat cancer, by using nutrients to reactivate suppressed metabolic pathways in cancer cells. The researchers used a common amino acid, tyrosine, packaged as a nanomedicine, to change the metabolism of melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, and prevent cancer growth.  Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. This new approach could be combined with current therapies to better treat melanoma. The technique also has the potential to treat other types of cancer. The study, Nutrient-delivery and metabolism reactivation therapy for melanoma, was led by Professor Wenbo ...

Clustering is widely exploited in data mining. It has been proved that embedding weak label prior into clustering is effective to promote its performance. Previous researches mainly focus on only one type of prior. However, in many real scenarios, two kinds of weak label prior information, e.g., pairwise constraints and cluster ratio, are easily obtained or already available. How to incorporate them to improve clustering performance is important but rarely studied. To deal with this problem, a research team led by Chenping ...

Chronic wounds, which include diabetic ulcers, surgical wounds, pressure injuries, and other problems, are deadlier than many people realize. Patients with chronic wounds have a five-year survival rate around 70%, worse than that of breast cancer, prostate cancer and other serious diseases. Treating wounds is also expensive, costing an estimated $28 billion each year in the U.S. alone. A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is developing a series of cutting-edge technologies to revolutionize wound care, including smart bandages that would automatically sense and ...

A test that looks for genetic hallmarks of brain cancers in samples of cerebrospinal fluid can decrease the time to diagnosis and eliminate the need for invasive brain biopsies for some patients. Mass General Brigham experts in neurosurgery, cancer and pathology worked together to develop a rapid, genotyping test that can detect key mutations associated with brain cancers from samples taken during a lumbar puncture. The team evaluated the technique known as TetRS (Targeted Rapid Sequencing) among 70 patients admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital with new central nervous system ...

It’s one of the fastest growing industries globally, raking in millions for the best players and attracting a huge fanbase, but a new Australian study has revealed the dark side of professional video gaming: cyberbullying and sexual harassment. Even though the esports industry is a diverse community, cyberbullying is rampant in this virtual world, and cis-gendered and trans-gendered women players are disproportionately more likely to be sexually harassed than men. Despite women making up 46% of the world’s three billion video gamer players, according to a new paper published in Entertainment Computing, women who play professionally (16% of esports competitors ...

Scientists at the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University developed a novel way to observe the elusive burrowing behavior of hagfish. Dr. Douglas S Fudge and his team created a specialized tank of transparent gelatin in order to visualize how the hagfish behave and locomote within sediments.  Hagfishes are bottom-dwelling marine animals that are capable of producing startling amounts of defensive slime when they are provoked. Understanding the burrowing activities of hagfishes could lead to increased knowledge of sediment turnover in marine benthic habitats, new insights into the reproductive behavior of hagfishes or ...

Eye-contact has a significant impact on interpersonal evaluation, and online job interviews are no exception. In addition to the quality of a resume, the direction of the interviewee’s gaze might help (or hinder) their chances of securing the job. Researchers published their results in Scientific Reports on May 31.   The study simulated online job interviews. Twelve students who participated in the study as a role of interviewees presented themselves twice, once looking directly at a web camera, and the other looking towards the screen. ...

An NYU Tandon School of Engineering project led by Chinmay Hegde – Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering – is one of the first 35 initiatives selected for the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Energy, a result of President Biden's Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI. The NAIRR Pilot aims to connect U.S. researchers and educators with the computational power, data resources, ...

A team of scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to parse the composition of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. With the telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), the team gathered data that is helping to clarify the Crab Nebula’s history. The Crab Nebula is the result of a core-collapse supernova from the death of a massive star. The supernova explosion itself was seen on Earth in 1054 CE and was bright enough to view during the daytime. The much fainter remnant observed today ...

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/AMM-2023-0049 Announcing a new publication for Acta Materia Medica journal. Portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT), a severe complication of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), markedly influences patient prognosis by fostering a hypercoagulable state. However, its molecular underpinnings remain largely unexplored. This study sheds light on the critical role of the KIT ligand (KITLG) in modulating expression of the collagen gene COL4A1 via the STAT3-SMAD2 signaling pathway, thereby influencing platelet activation and PVTT development. Extensive analysis of PVTT tissue samples, ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that Nivedita Arora, of Northwestern University is the recipient of the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for her dissertation “Sustainable Interactive Wireless Stickers: From Materials to Devices to Applications,” which demonstrated wireless and batteryless sensor nodes using novel materials and radio backscatter. Arora’s research envisions creating sustainable computational materials that operate by harvesting energy from the environment and, at the end ...

Forecasters can use images in social media to better communicate weather related hazards of hurricanes, according to a pair of new studies.  Scientists at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) analyzed 2017 Twitter (now X) data related to two hurricanes – Harvey and Irma. The researchers found that forecast information communicated in the early stages of storm development, when the threat posed by a hurricane is uncertain, sets the stage for how people react to subsequent ...

The ketogenic diet has its fanatics and detractors among dieters, but either way, the diet has a scientifically documented impact on memory in mice. Whlie uncovering how the high fat, low carbohydrate diet boosts memory in older mice, Buck scientists and a team from the University of Chile identified a new molecular signaling pathway that improves synapse function and helps explain the diet’s benefit on brain health and aging. Published in the June 5, 2024 issue of Cell Reports Medicine, the findings provide new directions for targeting the memory effects on a molecular level, without requiring a ketogenic diet or even the byproducts of it. “Our ...

Brazilian researchers have developed functional bread with the potential to prevent asthma, a respiratory disorder responsible for some 350,000 hospitalizations per year in the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde), the nation’s public healthcare network. The formulation, for which a patent application has been filed in Brazil (BR1020210266465), is described in an article published in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition. It contains Saccharomyces cerevisiae UFMG A-905, ...

Potential New Treatment Option for Diabetic Retinopathy OU researcher developing potential new treatment for diabetic retinopathy that could address the problem much earlier. OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. – Patients with diabetes face a host of potential health problems as they work to manage the chronic disease. Still, one concern that seems to weigh heavily is the risk of losing their sight through a condition known as diabetic retinopathy. Researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center are studying a new, revolutionary treatment for diabetic retinopathy that could change the prognosis ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 17 June 2024     Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet      @Annalsofim     Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not ...