A researcher from the New Jersey Institute of Technology has published a perspective paper that examines sentience and its application to artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Sentience describes the ability to sense and feel, drawing its meaning from the Latin word sentire which means “to feel.” The paper addresses a set of ideological commitments at stake in debates over sentient machines. The author proposes that artificial sentience is both necessary and impossible.   The perspective paper is published in the Journal of Social Computing on December 31, 2023.   “I argue ...

Medicare is sporadically compromised by fraudulent insurance claims. These illicit activities often go undetected, allowing full-time criminals and unscrupulous health providers to exploit weaknesses in the system. Last year, the estimated annual fraud topped $100 billion according to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, but it is likely much higher. Traditionally, to detect Medicare fraud, a limited number of auditors, or investigators, are responsible for manually inspecting thousands of claims, but only have enough time to look for very specific patterns indicating suspicious behaviors. Moreover, there are not enough ...

Green roofs have become increasingly popular thanks to their benefits related to climate adaptation, mitigation, and urban biodiversity management. These vegetated surfaces on the rooftops of buildings absorb excess storm water, reduce energy use by insulating buildings, and cool neighborhoods, tempering urban heat islands, while also creating urban habitats for plants, pollinators, and wildlife. But, in the U.S., green roofs are typically planted with non-native plants in sterile soils, and their effectiveness declines over time. A Dartmouth-led research team set out to determine ...

SEATTLE – For many aspiring mothers with autoimmune disease, pregnancy can be daunting and full of unknowns. In some cases, those suffering from specific autoimmune conditions have chosen to forego pregnancy altogether due to concerns about their disease treatments and adverse pregnancy outcomes. In a just-published study in the journal Lancet eClinical Health, researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) and Providence showed nuanced pregnancy outcomes for pregnant individuals with autoimmune disease. The ...

The world of online dating can be overwhelming with the dizzying array of options for attracting a partner but new research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that those looking for love may have more success if they also seek a sense of purpose in life. Researcher Isabella D’Ottone, in the lab of Patrick Hill, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences, published a study about how that sense of purpose can affect how others may rate dating app profiles. Those whose profiles show a sense of purpose were rated higher on various scales for attractiveness compared ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study has found that the brain system enabling us to inhibit our own pain changes with age, and that gender-based differences in those changes may lead females to be more sensitive to moderate pain than males as older adults. Researchers used fMRI scans to examine brain responses in men and women who had rated the intensity and unpleasantness of pain during exposure to increasing levels of heat. The results suggested that established gender differences in pain perception could likely be traced at least ...

Photoluminescent molecules, capable of absorbing and re-emitting light, play an important role in the development of technologies such as light-emitting diodes, sensors, and displays. Among them, ordered arrangements of π-electronic molecules such as crystals of organoplatinum(II) complexes, where a platinum(II) ion is coordinated by organic ligands in a square-planar arrangement, stand out for their applications in energy-efficient flexible displays. However, their luminescence in the solid state is short-lived due to the interaction between excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) of neighboring molecules. To address this ...

A new system that brings together real-world sensing and virtual reality would make it easier for building maintenance personnel to identify and fix issues in commercial buildings that are in operation. The system was developed by computer scientists at the University of California San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University.  The system, dubbed BRICK, consists of a handheld device equipped with a suite of sensors to monitor temperature, CO2 and airflow. It is also equipped with a virtual reality environment that has access to the sensor data and metadata in a specific building while being ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – A snippet of hair can reveal a pregnant person’s stress level and may one day help warn of unexpected birth problems, a study indicates. Washington State University researchers measured the stress hormone cortisol in hair samples of 53 women in their third trimester. Of that group, 13 women who had elevated cortisol levels later experienced unpredicted birth complications, such as an early birth or hemorrhaging. While more research is needed with larger groups, this preliminary finding could eventually lead to a non-invasive way to identify those ...

Palliative care is the interdisciplinary medical specialty of caring for people with serious and often terminal illnesses. Its aim is to improve quality of life for such patients and their families, by relieving symptoms and stress. Palliative care is widely considered to be a human right, even if the World Health Organization estimates that only 14% of the approximately 56.8 million people who need it each year worldwide actually receive it. Since seriously ill patients often experience stress, psychological interventions such as relaxation therapy play an important role in palliative care. Now, researchers have shown in a ground-breaking clinical trial ...

Since the onset of COVID-19, we've become accustomed to seeing antiviral films attached to elevator buttons and public transportation handles. However, conventional antiviral films are made by mixing antiviral metal particles with polymers. Due to the manufacturing process, only a very small fraction of these metal particles is exposed on the surface. As a result, contrary to the belief that these films will protect us from viruses, the actual antiviral effect upon contact with the film surface is not ...

LiDAR sensors are indispensable for the realization of advanced technologies such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving, and AR/VR. In particular, short- and mid-range LiDAR used in AR/VR devices and smartphones requires better distance (depth) resolution to detect the shape of a person or object more accurately, and so a single-photon detector with better timing jitter performance is required. LiDAR measures distance and creates a 3D image by calculating the time it takes for a photon emitted by the transmitter to strike an object, reflect, and arrive back at the ...

Solitons are quasiparticles that propagate along a non-dissipative wave. Put another way, they are waveforms that hold their shape as they move—like a single wave moving across the surface of a pond. They can also show the particle-like behavior, such as collision, attraction, and repulsion. Ultrafast fiber laser is an ideal platform to explore nonlinear dissipation dynamics, but also deepen the understanding of optical soliton properties. In dissipative system, dissipative soliton can be obtained due to the balance between nonlinearity and ...

DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2024 — A new survey conducted by the American Heart Association, which is marking one hundred years of service saving lives, suggests that increased visibility of the need for CPR has had a positive impact on someone’s willingness to respond if they are bystanders in a cardiac emergency. However, there remains a significant gap in awareness that emphasizes the urgent need for collaboration between governments, communities, businesses and the media to promote and provide lifesaving training. To help close this gap, the ...

In agroecosystems where manure is applied as organic fertilizer, these antibiotic residues exert strong selective pressure on soil microbial communities. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) from animal manure would increase the concentration of ARB in soils. The influencing mechanisms of soil types on the distribution of ARB were worthy of further exploration. This study demonstrates that CTC-manure induced more resistance of soil indigenous microbes in fluvo-aquic soil, Lactobacillus, Dyella, Ralstonia, and Bacillus ...

A first of its kind study of the 2019-2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires in Australia has revealed that the tourism industry nationwide took an immediate hit of $2.8 billion in total output to its broader supply chains and almost 7300 jobs disappeared nationwide. The fires four years ago triggered widespread tourism shutdowns in many parts of the country in the lead up to the peak Christmas and New Year season, resulting in $1.7 billion direct losses to the tourism industry, which triggered the larger drop in supply chain output. “These results are an illustration of what can be expected in the future not only in Australia, but in other ...

When researchers want to study how COVID makes us sick, or what diseases such as Alzheimer's do to the body, one approach is to look at what's happening inside individual cells. Researchers sometimes grow the cells in a 3D scaffold called a "hydrogel." This network of proteins or molecules mimics the environment the cells would live in inside the body. New research led by the University of Washington demonstrates a new class of hydrogels that can form not just outside cells, but also inside of them. The team created these hydrogels from protein building blocks designed using a computer to form a specific structure. These hydrogels exhibited similar mechanical properties ...

A study study published today reports that BIPOC individuals who were infected with COVID-19 experienced greater negative aftereffects in health and work loss than did similarly infected white participants. Despite similar symptom prevalence, Hispanic participants compared to non-Hispanic participants and BIPOC participants compared to white participants had more negative impacts following a COVID-19 infection in terms of health status, activity level and missed work, the authors wrote.  The findings appeared in the journal Frontiers ...

Photocatalytic water splitting using semiconductors is regarded as a promising technique for producing hydrogen fuel from solar energy. The oxygen evolution half reaction has proven to be the bottleneck for photocatalytic overall water splitting owing to the high energy barrier and the sluggish kinetics. It is a big challenge to develop efficient photocatalysts for the advancement of water oxidation. Similar to graphene carbon nitride, π-stacked covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs) have gained much attention in photocatalytic water splitting in recent years. The fully conjugated structure with the regular channels in the crystalline network will provide defined pathways for ...

Poison ivy ranks among the most medically problematic plants. Up to 50 million people worldwide suffer annually from rashes caused by contact with the plant, a climbing, woody vine native to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Western Bahamas and several areas in Asia. It’s found on farms, in woods, landscapes, fields, hiking trails and other open spaces. So, if you go to those places, you’re susceptible to irritation caused by poison ivy, which can lead to reactions that require medical attention. Worse, most people don’t know ...

Eating up to three daily servings of the Korean classic, kimchi, may lower men’s overall risk of obesity, while radish kimchi is linked to a lower prevalence of midriff bulge in both sexes, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Open.   Kimchi is made by salting and fermenting vegetables with various flavourings and seasonings, such as onion, garlic, and fish sauce.  Cabbage and radish are usually the main vegetables used in kimchi, which contains few calories and is rich in dietary fibre, microbiome enhancing lactic acid bacteria, vitamins, and polyphenols. Previously published experimental studies ...

An increase in annual cardiorespiratory fitness by 3% or more is linked to a 35% lower risk of developing, although not dying from, prostate cancer, suggests research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.   The findings prompt the researchers to conclude that men should be encouraged to improve their level of fitness to help lower their chances of getting the disease. There are relatively few known risk factors for prostate cancer, note the researchers. And while there’s good evidence for the beneficial effects of physical activity on ...

A high quality diet at the age of 1 may curb the subsequent risk of inflammatory bowel disease, suggests a large long term study, published online in the journal Gut. Plenty of fish and vegetables and minimal consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks at this age may be key to protection, the findings indicate. A linked editorial suggests that it may now be time for doctors to recommend a ‘preventive’ diet for infants, given the mounting evidence indicative of biological plausibility. Cases of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are increasing globally. Although there is no obvious ...

The government in post after the election should declare a national health and care emergency, calling on all parts of society to help improve health, care, and wellbeing, say experts in the first report of The BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS.   The new government should, in effect, relaunch the NHS with a renewed long term vision and plan, they argue. "The NHS has never seemed so embattled—and its core principle of ‘free to all at the point of use’ has never been so under threat,” said Kamran ...

East Hanover, NJ – January 30, 2024 – Amidst the backdrop of a remarkable four-year streak of growth, the employment indicators for people with disabilities reached unprecedented milestones in 2023. This achievement stands in stark contrast to the experiences of people without disabilities who faced a more severe decline during the COVID-19 pandemic and a slower recovery, not surpassing their pre-pandemic employment levels until 2023. That’s according to the National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) 2023 Year-End Special Edition, ...