For companies in Germany, web accessibility has never been a compelling issue until now – this was also confirmed by a series of tests conducted in 2011 by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT in Sankt Augustin. The scientists at the Web Compliance Center used their analysis tools to test the "web compliance" – or adherence to international web standards – among the Internet sites of German companies listed on the DAX. The outcome: 90 percent of the websites exhibited substantial flaws. For instance, important data could only be found after much ...

Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behaviour found in unstable fluid flows. The study, led by Dirk Helbing from the Risk Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is published in EPJ Data Science¹. Never before have crowd disasters been studied by relying on a qualitative analysis of large public data sets. These include media and public authority reports, YouTube videos, Google Earth maps, 360˚ photographs, ...

Aircraft turbulence guidelines should be rewritten after new research revealed thunderstorms could produce unexpected turbulence more than 100km away from storm cells. The research by University of Melbourne and the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science researcher, Dr Todd Lane, has highlighted the impact of atmospheric gravity waves caused by thunderstorms and how air safety guidelines have not taken them into account. "It is likely that many reports of encounters with turbulence are caused by thunderstorm generated gravity waves, making them far more ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Online shoppers would rather receive an offer for a product or service than make their own offer, according to a study led by a Michigan State University scholar that has implications for the fast-growing e-commerce industry. The findings may come as a surprise given that shopping online is an anonymous process that seemingly can give consumers more confidence to drive a hard bargain, said Don Conlon, Eli Broad Professor of Management in MSU's Broad College of Business. But the study found that participants who made their own offers were less successful ...

Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia scientists have discovered a new flu-fighting role for a well-known component of the immune system. Kimberly Klonowski, assistant professor of cellular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues found that administering a cell-signaling protein known as IL-15 to mice infected with influenza reduces their peak viral load by nearly three times. "We gave the IL-15 intranasally and found that it enhanced the movement of the immune system's natural killer cells and CD8 T cells into the lung airways," said ...

The energy generated from our oceans could be doubled using new methods for predicting wave power. Research led by the University of Exeter, published (27 June) in the journal Renewable Energy, could pave the way for significant advancements in marine renewable energy, making it a more viable source of power. The study was carried out by a team of mathematicians and engineers from the University of Exeter and Tel Aviv University. They devised a means of accurately predicting the power of the next wave in order to make the technology far more efficient, extracting twice ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Cooling systems that use a liquid that changes phase — such as water boiling on a surface — can play an important part in many developing technologies, including advanced microchips and concentrated solar-power systems. But understanding exactly how such systems work, and what kinds of surfaces maximize the transfer of heat, has remained a challenging problem. Now, researchers at MIT have found that relatively simple, microscale roughening of a surface can dramatically enhance its transfer of heat. Such an approach could be far less complex and more ...

From Earth, observers use telescopes to look and learn about the distant luminous spheres. But the telescope often isn't the only instrument used. Karl Gebhardt, professor of astrophysics at The University of Texas at Austin and one of the principal investigators for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) project, makes revolutionary discoveries about dark matter by combining deep-space observations with the powerful Lonestar supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). Dark matter exerts a gravitational pull on matter in a galaxy, ...

Athens, Ga. – People love social networks. That's the obvious conclusion from Facebook's 900 million active users and its current standing as one of the most visited sites on the web, second only to Google. New research from the University of Georgia finds what people may really "like" about social networking are themselves. "Despite the name 'social networks,' much user activity on networking sites is self-focused," said Brittany Gentile, a UGA doctoral candidate who looked at the effects of social networks on self-esteem and narcissism. According to the research, ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Many hospitals offer residency programs for doctors in training, allowing them to complete the education needed to become practicing physicians. Hospitals find those residents using National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) rules, but a new study finds wide variation in the interpretation of those rules. The NRMP rules are intended to minimize pressure on residency candidates, says lead author Diana S. Curran, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., residency program director for the U-M Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. But her study, published in the Journal of ...

New data released by the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) to coincide with World Spirometry Day today has revealed a worrying lack of understanding and concern among the public about the world's biggest killer - lung disease, which now claims the lives of almost 4 million people a year. Despite the high incidence of lung disease, research conducted by YouGov across four continents revealed that people are far more worried about cancer, heart disease and stroke . This lack of concern is even more striking as data shows that while the other major diseases ...

Test performance can improve dramatically if students are offered rewards just before they are given standardized tests and if they receive the incentive immediately afterward, new research at the University of Chicago shows. Educators have long debated the value of financial and other rewards as incentives, but a series of experiments in Chicago-area schools showed that with the right kind of rewards, students achievement improved by as much as six months beyond what would be expected. The rewards apparently provide students with an incentive to take tests more seriously. ...

URBANA -- When D.K. Lee and Lane Rayburn, faculty members in the crop sciences department at the University of Illinois, talk about prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) they have difficulty containing their enthusiasm. They are among the very few people doing research on this grass as a potential energy crop. According to Lee, switchgrass has been studied extensively as a forage crop and a dedicated energy crop. Recently this research has been extended to big bluestem, indiangrass, and other native grasses. Prairie cordgrass has received comparatively little attention ...

An automated lung nodule matching program can improve radiologists' efficiency almost two-fold, a first of its kind study shows. The study found that the time required for manual nodule matching ranged from 1 second to about 11.4 minutes, whereas automated nodule matching ranged from less than one second to about 6.6 minutes, said Chi Wan Koo, MD, the lead author of the study. The study conducted at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York, included 57 patients, yielding a total of 325 pulmonary nodules identified on CT. Four thoracic radiologists manually ...

June 26, 2012 – Scientists from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have released comprehensive reviews of the most effective treatments for alcohol dependence, one of the most prevalent addictions in Canada. Published in the latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, the reviews explore the most effective treatments and interventions for problem alcohol use and concurrent disorders. Almost 40 per cent of people with an alcohol use problem also have a concurrent mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, mood or anxiety disorders. The reviews ...

Tropical Storm Debby continues to be a big rainmaker in Florida and southern Georgia and NASA's TRMM satellite has measured those rainfall rates from space, showing where heavy rain has fallen. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite is basically a flying rain gauge in space. Scientists use TRMM data to calculate rainfall rates and rain totals from space. TRMM imagery from June 25 showed Debby's heaviest rains were falling at a rate of over 2 inches (50 mm) per hour, and to the southeast of the center. Debby has been a huge rainmaker. For example, Debby ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rhode Island Hospital researcher Suzanne de la Monte, M.D., has found a link between brain insulin resistance (diabetes) and two other key mediators of neuronal injury that help Alzheimer's disease (AD) to propagate. The research found that once AD is established, therapeutic efforts must also work to reduce toxin production in the brain. The study, Dysfunctional Pro-Ceramide, ER Stress, and Insulin/IGF Signaling Networks with Progression of Alzheimer's Disease, is published in the June 22, 2012, supplement of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's ...

The MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP), under the direction of co-principal investigators University of Chicago political scientist Cathy Cohen, and Joseph Kahne, professor of education at Mills College, has unveiled the findings of the largest nationally representative study to date of new media and politics among young people. The national survey questioned 3,000 young people, ages 15-25 on how they use the Internet, social media and engage in politics. Unlike any prior study on the topic, the YPP survey included large numbers of black, ...

WASHINGTON — Nuclear physics is a discovery-driven enterprise aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of visible matter in the universe. For the past hundred years, new knowledge of the nuclear world has also directly benefited society through many innovative applications. In its fourth decadal survey of nuclear physics, the National Research Council outlines the impressive accomplishments of the field in the last decade and recommends a long-term strategy for the future. The report builds on the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee's 2007 five-year plan and commends ...

BOSTON – While current American Heart Association heart failure prevention guidelines warn against habitual coffee consumption, some studies propose a protective benefit, and still others find no association at all. Amidst this conflicting information, research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center attempts to shift the conversation from a definitive yes or no, to a question of how much. "Our results did show a possible benefit, but like with so many other things we consume, it really depends on how much coffee you drink," says lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, MPH, ...

Compared to normal cells, cancer cells have a prodigious appetite for glucose, the result of a shift in cell metabolism known as aerobic glycolysis or the "Warburg effect." Researchers focusing on this effect as a possible target for cancer therapies have examined how biochemical signals present in cancer cells regulate the altered metabolic state. Now, in a unique study, a UCLA research team led by Thomas Graeber, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, has investigated the reverse aspect: how the metabolism of glucose affects the biochemical signals present ...

When we turn on the A/C in the summer, our first thought is probably one of relief. If it's 100 degrees in the shade, we're probably not thinking about how our decision might influence the environmental legacy we leave for future generations. It's not that we don't care, it's just that we typically don't think about our behavior in terms of long-term, inter-generational tradeoffs. But new research suggests that reminders of our own mortality may encourage us to keep future generations in mind as we make decisions. In a study published in Psychological Science, a publication ...

PASADENA, Calif.—In 1969, an exploding fireball tore through the sky over Mexico, scattering thousands of pieces of meteorite across the state of Chihuahua. More than 40 years later, the Allende meteorite is still serving the scientific community as a rich source of information about the early stages of our solar system's evolution. Recently, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discovered a new mineral embedded in the space rock—one they believe to be among the oldest minerals formed in the solar system. Dubbed panguite, the new titanium oxide ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the federal government made about $13 billion in duplicative payments to provide health-care services to veterans who were simultaneously enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans from 2004-2009. The study was conducted by researchers at Brown University, VA Palo Alto Medical Center and the Institute for Population Health Improvement at UC Davis Health System. Some veterans are entitled to health-care coverage through both the U.S. Department of Veterans ...

As the Supreme Court prepares to issue its ruling on Thursday, Americans are divided along party, ideology and gender lines on a key provision of the healthcare law. A new National Agenda Opinion Poll by the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication reveals women are significantly more likely to support health insurance requirements than men. Additionally, Democrats and liberals overwhelmingly favor insurance mandates, whereas large majorities of Republicans and conservatives oppose them. The national telephone survey of 906 Americans was conducted ...