Ishikawa, Japan - Robots today have come a long way from their early inception as insentient beings meant primarily for mechanical assistance to humans. Today, they can assist us intellectually and even emotionally, getting ever better at mimicking conscious humans. An integral part of this ability is the use of speech to communicate with the user (smart assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo are notable examples). Despite these remarkable developments, they still do not sound very "human". This is where voice conversion (VC) comes in. A technology used to ...

Just one third of people in the UK managed to access the hospital care they needed at the peak of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic - according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today looks at the extent to which people managed to access NHS healthcare in April 2020, and as lockdown restrictions eased. The researchers found that, despite high levels of unmet need, there was equal access to NHS hospital care for people at different levels of income. And the NHS principle of equal treatment for equal need was upheld. However, people on higher incomes had better access to GP consultations, prescriptions and medical helplines at ...

Steroids should not be used to treat smell loss caused by Covid-19 according to an international group of smell experts, including Prof Carl Philpott from the University of East Anglia. Smell loss is a prominent symptom of Covid-19, and the pandemic is leaving many people with long-term smell loss. But a new study published today shows that corticosteroids - a class of drug that lowers inflammation in the body - are not recommended to treat smell loss due to Covid-19. Instead, the team recommend 'smell training' - a process that involves sniffing at least four different odours twice a day for several months. Smell loss expert Prof Carl Philpott from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "The huge rise in smell loss caused by Covid-19 has created an unprecedented worldwide demand for ...

According to the Motorik-Modul-Längsschnittstudie (MoMo, Motor Module Longitudinal Study) of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Karlsruhe University of Education (PHKA), mental health of children and adolescents decreased during the first lockdown. For children aged between 4 and 10 years and for girls irrespective of their age, mental health was found to promote physical activity during Covid-induced lockdown in spring 2020. This is reported in Children (DOI: 10.3390/children8020098). "The impacts of the lockdown on children and adolescents is discussed widely," ...

Deaths of people who suffered strokes increased during the first lockdown compared to the three previous years, new data analysis has found. Despite the pandemic, health care quality was maintained at a high level. In their paper, published today in Stroke American Heart Association, research teams from King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation and the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) analysed the data of 184,017 patients admitted to hospital with confirmed stroke during October-April periods across four consecutive years. This patient data were collected from 114 hospital trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Starting from the third week of February 2020 there was ...

One of the biggest challenges in Alzheimer's research is to identify biomarkers that can identify people who are at risk of developing dementia. Biomarkers could be used to screen people so they might be helped before they develop dementia. Researchers have focused primarily on three such biomarkers. Two are Alzheimer's-related proteins, amyloid and tau. Amyloid forms clumps in brains, and tau forms skeins of filaments called neurofibrillary tangles. Both can be detected in cerebral spinal fluid or by specialized positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The third marker, brain atrophy, can be seen with CT or MRI scans. To guide researchers, the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association ...

Proteins are undoubtedly some of the most fascinating biomolecules, and they perform many of the functions that (in our eyes) separate life from inanimate matter. Multi-molecular protein assemblies even have large-scale structural functions, as evidenced by feathers, hair, and scales in animals. It should come as no surprise that, with progress in advanced nanotechnology and bioengineering, artificial protein assemblies have found applications in a variety of fields, including catalysis, molecular storage, and drug delivery systems. However, producing ordered protein assemblies remains challenging. It is particularly difficult to get monomers, the building blocks of proteins, to assemble stably into the desired structures; this generally ...

Although most oncological diseases are not infectious, some viruses can cause cancer. According to the World Health Organization, two HPV subtypes account for 70% of cervical cancer cases and pre-existing conditions. Moreover, HPV considerably increases the risks of other types of cancer. Within an infected cell, a viral protein called E6 binds with human proteins from the 14-3-3 family. 14-3-3 proteins are present in cells of all eukaryotic organisms and can interact with hundreds of other important players of intracellular processes to regulate cell division, gene activity, metabolism, cell death, and intracellular ...

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have created an artificial intelligence platform that can identify the specific proteins that allow bacteria to infect the intestines - a method that paves the way for the creation of smart drugs that will neutralize the proteins and prevent disease, without the use of antibiotics. Participating in the study, which was published in the prestigious journal Science, were Ph.D. student Naama Wagner and Prof. Tal Pupko, head of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at the Faculty of Life Sciences and the new Center for Artificial Intelligence ...

Prof. PAN Jianwei and his colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated the high-loss free space high-precision time-frequency dissemination experiment between remote locations, simulating the high-precision time-frequency high-orbit satellite-ground links in the channel loss, atmospheric noise, and transmission delay effects. This link experiment exhibits that the instability of the time-frequency transfer via a satellite in middle-high earth orbits might reach E-18 at 10,000 s, enabling ...

The University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen have come together to study the effects of Football Fitness on various health parameters and self-rated health following treatment for breast cancer. The results of the project, called Football Fitness After Breast Cancer (ABC), have now been published in three scientific articles published in international sports medicine, cardiology and oncology journals. "The main conclusion is that Football Fitness is an intense and good form of training for women treated for breast cancer, with beneficial effects on balance, muscle strength and bone density," says END ...

The CDC's opioid prescribing guideline has failed to reduce addiction and overdoses, significantly worsened the quality of pain care in the United States and should be revoked, according to a large new survey of patients and healthcare providers by Pain News Network, an independent, non-profit news organization. Nearly 4,200 patients and providers participated in the online survey, which was conducted as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepares to update and possibly expand its 2016 guideline, which discourages doctors from prescribing opioid ...

NEW YORK, NY (April 26, 2021) -Brain research and advocacy nonprofit Cohen Veterans Bioscience (CVB) today announced the launch of a National TBI Precision Solutions Research Roadmap, with the advent of the first in a series of publications resulting from its Brain Trauma Blueprint framework program. The Brain Trauma Blueprint is a framework that enables stakeholder groups across government, academia, foundations, and industry to advance precision diagnostics and treatments for brain trauma through a coordinated effort. The framework comprises a 12-step process to jointly identify unmet patient needs, associated research priorities, landscape state of the science, identify research gaps and barriers, and provide ...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Touching patients while providing care is an important and unavoidable aspect of the nursing profession. Nurses can also transform touch into a useful therapeutic tool to improve patients'-- and their own--wellbeing. That is the topic of a study, "'Permission to Touch': Nurses' Perspectives of Interpersonal Contact during Patient Care," published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research.The authors include two Washington State University College of Nursing faculty, Associate Professor Marian Wilson and Assistant Professor Tullamora Landis, former faculty member Michele Shaw, and lead author Enrico DeLuca, of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, who visited WSU in 2018 to work with Wilson on the study. Nurses touch patients frequently ...

Creating the best conditions for cells to make energy and survive critical illness is a challenge little understood in modern medicine. Now a new study led by scientists at the University of Plymouth, in collaboration with University College London and the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, shows early signs that cells in some critically ill patients actually adapt to their conditions by producing energy more efficiently. The research, published in the journal Redox Biology, took muscle and blood samples over seven days from 21 critically ill patients (ie those with two or more organs failing) in intensive care, and 12 healthy people, comparing cells' behaviour. The study showed that all of the critically ill ...

The obstacles associated with shopping, such as shipping costs or the time needed to go to the shop, are crucial to the individual choice of where to shop. When deciding between online shopping and local shopping, personal opinion on purchasing security, environmental protection aspects, and work conditions plays a role. This is found by a study using microeconometric models at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Some of the results of the representative study funded by the German Research Foundation are reported in Papers in Applied Geography and Raumforschung und Raumordnung. For the evaluations reported, data were collected in 2019, that is before local shopping was restricted due to the pandemic. "During the lockdowns, ...

Few sites in the world preserve a continuous archaeological record spanning millions of years. Wonderwerk Cave, located in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, is one of those rare sites. Meaning "miracle" in Afrikaans, Wonderwerk Cave has been identified as potentially the earliest cave occupation in the world and the site of some of the earliest indications of fire use and tool making among prehistoric humans. New research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, led by a team of geologists and archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ...

Summer is the ozone season: The harmful gas forms at ground level on hot, sunny days. In recent years, however, the rise in ozone levels over the summer months has not been as pronounced in Germany as it was previously. According to a new study, this is primarily due to a reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions. This trend can be observed across Germany's southwestern regions in particular, while Berlin lags behind. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are among the precursors of ground-level ozone, which can irritate the eyes, nose and throat and aggravate respiratory conditions. The emissions are primarily produced during combustion ...

Australian researchers have identified neutralising nanobodies that block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells in preclinical models. The discovery paves the way for further investigations into nanobody-based treatments for COVID-19. Published in PNAS, the research is part of a consortium-led effort, bringing together the expertise of Australian academic leaders in infectious diseases and antibody therapeutics at WEHI, the Doherty Institute and the Kirby Institute. At a glance Researchers have identified nanobodies that effectively blocked the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells in pre-clinical models of COVID-19 infection. Nanobodies - which are tiny immune proteins - could provide an alternative to ...

DALLAS, April 26, 2021 -- The hormonal therapies used to treat many breast and prostate cancers raise the risk of a heart attack and stroke, and patients should be monitored regularly and receive treatment to reduce risk and detect problems as they occur, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement, published today in the Association's journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine. "The statement provides data on the risks of each type of hormonal therapy so clinicians can use it as a guide to help manage cardiovascular risks during cancer treatment," said Tochi M. Okwuosa, D.O., FAHA, chair of the scientific statement writing group, an associate professor of ...

A study led by researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm shows that the last remaining populations of the Sumatran rhinoceros display surprisingly low levels of inbreeding. The researchers sequenced the genomes from 21 modern and historical rhinoceros' specimens, which enabled them to investigate the genetic health in rhinos living today as well as a population that recently became extinct. These findings are published today in the journal Nature Communications. With less than 100 individuals remaining, the Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the most endangered mammal species in the world. Recent reports of health issues and low fecundity have raised fears that the remaining populations are suffering from inbreeding problems. ...

SILVER SPRING, Md.--A new Australian study reveals that changes in lifestyle patterns were longitudinally associated with concurrent changes in body mass index (BMI) z scores, and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, maternal dietary patterns and television viewing time are significant determinants, according to a paper published online in Obesity, The Obesity Society's (TOS) flagship journal. This is the first study that used multi-trajectory modeling to examine the longitudinal relationship between concurrent changes in lifestyle patterns and BMI z scores in early childhood. "The findings will inform early childhood obesity prevention intervention ...

A recent study provides insights on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on employment, anxiety, and financial distress among women who have gynecologic cancer and low income. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. For the study, Y. Stefanie Chen, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and her colleagues conducted telephone interviews with 100 women with gynecologic cancer living in New York City who were covered by Medicaid health insurance. Among the major findings: 31 percent of patients reported being employed prior to the pandemic, and 21 percent had a change in employment status due to the pandemic. 50 percent ...

A majority of gay and bisexual Generation Z teenage boys report being out to their parents, part of an uptick in coming out among young people that researchers have noted in recent decades, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. However, stigma and religious beliefs still prevent some young people from disclosing their sexual identity. This study offers a glimpse into the coming out practices of Generation Z, those born between 1998 and 2010, a group that researchers are only beginning to study. "This study is encouraging in that it shows that many teens, including those under 18 years old, are comfortable with their sexuality," said lead author David A. Moskowitz, PhD, assistant professor of medical ...

KANSAS CITY, MO--One of the evolutionary disadvantages for mammals, relative to other vertebrates like fish and chickens, is the inability to regenerate sensory hair cells. The inner hair cells in our ears are responsible for transforming sound vibrations and gravitational forces into electrical signals, which we need to detect sound and maintain balance and spatial orientation. Certain insults, such as exposure to noise, antibiotics, or age, cause inner ear hair cells to die off, which leads to hearing loss and vestibular defects, a condition reported by 15% of the US adult population. In addition, the ion composition of the fluid surrounding the hair cells needs to be tightly controlled, otherwise ...