Los Angeles, CA (June 17, 2014) How do open access sources, tightened budgets, and competition from popular technologies affect how librarians perceive and employ reference resources? How do librarians expect to utilize reference in the future? "The State of Reference Collections," a new SAGE white paper out today, finds that though the definition of reference is changing, this is in part because reference resources now look and feel like other information sources and because other information resources perform the traditional purpose of reference – answering research ...

BOSTON (June 17, 2014, 4:00 a.m. EDT) — Autistic-like behaviors and decreased cognitive ability may be associated with disruption of the function of the Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) gene. When Tufts researchers deleted the gene from select neurons in the developing mouse brain, the mice showed reduced social behavior, increased repetitive behavior, and impaired learning and memory formation, similar to behaviors seen in individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities. This study is the first to evaluate how the loss of APC from nerve cells in the forebrain affects ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Brain iron levels offer a potential biomarker in the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and may help physicians and parents make better informed treatment decisions, according to new research published online in the journal Radiology. ADHD is a common disorder in children and adolescents that can continue into adulthood. Symptoms include hyperactivity and difficulty staying focused, paying attention and controlling behavior. The American Psychiatric Association reports that ADHD affects 3 to 7 percent of school-age children. Psychostimulant ...

Fecal microbiota transplantation --- the process of delivering stool bacteria from a healthy donor to a patient suffering from intestinal infection with the bacterium Clostridium difficile --- works by restoring healthy bacteria and functioning to the recipient's gut, according to a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The study provides insight into the structural and potential metabolic changes that occur following fecal transplant, says senior author Vincent B. Young, MD, PhD, an associate professor ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Combining two smoking cessation therapies is more effective than using just one for male and highly nicotine-dependent smokers who weren't initially helped by the nicotine patch, according to researchers at Duke Medicine. The findings, published online June 17, 2014, in the American Journal of Psychiatry, also support using an adaptive treatment model to determine which smokers are likely to succeed in quitting with nicotine replacement alone before trying additional therapies. "The findings offer a potential practical treatment approach that can identify ...

Exposure to information that diminishes free will, including brain-based accounts of behavior, seems to decrease people's support for retributive punishment, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. People who learned about neuroscientific research, either by reading a magazine article or through undergraduate coursework, proposed less severe punishment for a hypothetical criminal than did their peers. The findings suggest that they did so because they saw the criminal as less blameworthy. "There ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have completed the first comprehensive survey of e-cigarettes for sale online and the results, they believe, underscore the complexity in regulating the rapidly growing market for the electronic nicotine delivery devices. The survey, published in a June 16 special supplement of the journal Tobacco Control, found that 10 new e-cigarette brands entered the Internet marketplace every month, on average, from 2012 to 2014, and that there are currently 466 e-cigarette brands online, offering more than ...

Boston, MA – Most Europeans who have tried electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are young, current smokers, or those who recently tried quitting regular cigarettes, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Nearly 30 million Europeans have tried the battery-operated cigarettes, in spite of the fact that not much is known about their potential risks to health or whether they help smokers trying to quit. The study will appear online on June 16, 2014 in Tobacco Control. It is the largest study to date on e-cigarette use in the European Union. "As ...

How much commuting can you tolerate? A new study by MIT researchers shows that across countries, people assess their commutes by the time it takes them to complete the trip, generally independent of the distance they have to travel — as long as they have a variety of commuting options to chose from. The study, which compares commuting practices in five locations on four continents, also demonstrates the methodological validity of using mobile phone data to create an accurate empirical picture of commuting. "Every country has had its own different way of doing things ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- The Great White Shark is not endangered in the Eastern North Pacific, and, in fact, is doing well enough that its numbers likely are growing, according to an international research team led by a University of Florida researcher. George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said the wide-ranging study is good news for shark conservation. The study, to be published June 16 in the journal PLOS ONE, indicates measures in place to protect the ocean's apex predator are working. Scientists reanalyzed 3-year-old research that indicated ...

Boston, MA — A new poll by The Boston Globe and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) finds, eight years into the state's universal health insurance legislation enacted in 2006, 63% of Massachusetts residents support the law and 18% oppose it, while 7% are not sure, and 12% have not heard or read about the law. The percentage of residents supporting the law remains unchanged since a 2011 Boston Globe/HSPH poll. Support for the law varies by party affiliation, with 77% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans saying they support the legislation. The poll ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – June 16, 2014 – For decades, common medical wisdom has been "the lower the better" in treating the approximately one in three people in this country who have high blood pressure. But does that approach result in reduced risk for dangerous heart events? In a study published in the June 16 online edition of JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that lowering systolic blood pressure below 120 does not appear to provide additional benefit for patients. Systolic pressure is the top number in a standard blood pressure ...

Bottom Line: Use of beta (β)-blockers in patients who have not had a recent heart attack but were undergoing nonemergency coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery was not associated with better outcomes. Author: William Brinkman, M.D., of the Cardiopulmonary Research Science and Technology Institute, Dallas, and colleagues. Background: The use of preoperative β-blockers has been associated with a reduction in perioperative mortality for patients undergoing CABG surgery in previous observational studies. Preoperative β-blocker therapy is a national ...

Bottom Line: A multipart intervention increased adherence rates of annual fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in vulnerable populations. Author: David W. Baker, M.D., M.P.H., of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, and colleagues. Background: The vast majority of CRC screening in the U.S. is by colonoscopy, although studies suggest that FOBT can achieve similar reductions in CRC mortality. Colorectal cancer screening rates are lower among Latinos and people living in poverty. Expanded use of FOBT ...

Bottom Line: Breastfeeding by mothers treated with antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy was not associated with adverse effects on cognitive function in children at 6 years. Author: Kimford J. Meador, M.D., of Stanford University, California, and colleagues for the Neurodevelopmental Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs (NEAD) Study Group. Background: Some concern has been raised that breastfeeding by mothers being treated with AED therapy may be harmful to the child because some AEDs can cause neuronal apoptosis (cell death) in immature animal brains. How the Study Was ...

WASHINGTON — One of the most comprehensive looks at the use of hormone therapy in women over 65 with non-metastatic breast cancer found some welcome news. Except for frail patients, most participants in the large study complied with their oncologists' recommendations to treat their estrogen-positive breast cancer with hormone therapy — either an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen. These drugs prevent tumors from using estrogen to fuel growth. But the study, reported online June 16th in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also found that non-white women were much more likely ...

Bottom Line: Very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) babies who undergo major surgery appear to have an increased risk of death or subsequent neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI). Author: Frank H. Morriss, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and colleagues. Background: Some animal studies suggest general anesthesia for surgery can increase the risk for neurocognitive or behavioral deficits. This has raised some concerns about exposing infants to general anesthesia for surgery. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors examined the association between ...

Bottom Line: Military personnel with concussive traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a blast or a nonblast-related event had similar outcomes, including headache severity and depression. Author: Christine L. Mac Donald, Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and colleagues. Background: It has been estimated that in the U.S. military about 20 percent of the deployed force experienced a head injury in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those injured, about 83 percent had a mild, uncomplicated TBI or concussion. Blast injuries were the ...

CHICAGO --- In low-income and minority communities where colonoscopies may be prohibitively expensive for many residents, less-invasive, more frequent testing combined with automated reminders, can yield dramatic improvements in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates, according to a new Northwestern Medicine® study. The study found that community health center patients who received follow-up -– that is, outreach by mail, automated telephone and text messages, and calls by a health center staff member if no response was given in three months -- were more than twice as ...

(PHILADELPHIA) – A team of researchers led by Penn Medicine anesthesiologists have pinpointed the "top five" most common perioperative procedures that are supported by the least amount of clinical evidence, in an effort to direct providers to make more cost-effective treatment decisions. Their findings are published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. The team surveyed anesthesiologists, many of them in academic practice, to identify the most common activities that should be questioned in the field, using practice parameters developed by the American Society ...

Explosions are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A new study shows that military personnel with mild brain trauma related to such blasts had outcomes similar to those with mild brain injury from other causes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. However, nearly 80 percent of patients in both categories of brain trauma suffered moderate to severe overall disability within a year after injury. The analysis appears June 16 in JAMA Neurology. "We are interested ...

SEATTLE—People living in poverty are less likely to be screened regularly for colorectal cancer—and more likely to develop the disease and die from it. How to end these disparities—and raise screening rates, lower disease rates, and prevent deaths? A promising way is to mail fecal immunochemical tests (a newer kind of stool test) to populations, Beverly B. Green, MD, MPH, and Gloria D. Coronado, PhD, wrote in the June 17 JAMA Internal Medicine. Dr. Green is a Group Health physician and an associate investigator at Group Health Research Institute. Dr. Coronado is a senior ...

Cancer clinicians and a chaplain at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a new tool to help doctors, nurses and other health care providers talk to dying patients and families who are, literally, praying for a miracle. The AMEN (Affirm, Meet, Educate, No matter what) protocol, a script that can be used by medical staff, offers a way to negotiate these challenging conversations to affirm or acknowledge a patient's hope, share the patient's wish with others, continue to educate the patient and family about medical issues, and assure them that their health ...

Well-child visits are the foundation of pediatric primary care in the U.S. Accounting for more than one-third of all outpatient visits for infants and toddlers, the appointments are intended to give doctors the opportunity to identify health, social, developmental and behavioral issues that could have a long-term impact on children's lives. However, several studies have shown that the current system of well-child care leaves room for improvement. One major concern is that well-child care guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics call for physicians to provide ...

HOUSTON – (June 16, 2014) – How does a stem cell decide what path to take? In a way, it's up to the wisdom of the crowd. The DNA in a pluripotent stem cell is bombarded with waves of proteins whose ebb and flow nudge the cell toward becoming blood, bone, skin or organs. A new theory by scientists at Rice University shows the cell's journey is neither a simple step-by-step process nor all random. Theoretical biologist Peter Wolynes and postdoctoral fellow Bin Zhang set out to create a mathematical tool to analyze large, realistic gene networks. As a bonus, their open-access ...