Students' social skills and behaviour in social situations during their university studies contribute to their success in the transition to work. The social strategies adopted during university studies also have an impact on work commitment and early-career coping with working life. These results have been uncovered in a research project investigating the relationship between the social strategies students show at university and how well they cope with work-related challenges. The research has been carried out with funding from the Academy of Finland. "The higher the ...

The growth in the demand of smartphones has highlighted the complexities of wireless communications through problems of reduced sensitivity when the user holds some devices. New research has been investigating this problem, along with developing new solutions to overcome the loss of connectivity. The study by academics in the field of antennas and propagation in the University of Bristol's Centre for Communications Research (CCR) is published in the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters. The paper builds on previous work that analysed multi-antenna ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a cheap and easy method for assembling nanowires, controlling their alignment and density. The researchers hope the findings will foster additional research into a range of device applications using nanowires, from nanoelectronics to nanosensors, especially on unconventional substrates such as rubber, plastic and paper. "Alignment is a critical first step for developing devices that use nanowires," says Dr. Yong Zhu, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and co-author of ...

Ulysses Balis, M.D., clicks a mouse to identify a helicopter in a satellite photo of Baghdad, Iraq. With another click, an algorithm that he and his team designed picks out three more choppers without highlighting any of the buildings, streets, trees or cars. Balis isn't playing war games. The director of the Division of Pathology Informatics at the University of Michigan Medical School is demonstrating the extreme flexibility of a software-tool aimed at making the detection of abnormalities in cell and tissue samples faster, more accurate and more consistent. In a ...

UPTON, NY - A brain imaging study at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals a subtle difference between ordinary obese subjects and those who compulsively overeat, or binge: In binge eaters but not ordinary obese subjects, the mere sight or smell of favorite foods triggers a spike in dopamine - a brain chemical linked to reward and motivation. The findings - published online on February 24, 2011, in the journal Obesity - suggest that this dopamine spike may play a role in triggering compulsive overeating. "These results identify dopamine ...

Nanometre-scale gold particles are currently intensively investigated for possible applications in catalysis, sensing, photonics, biolabelling, drug carriers and molecular electronics. The particles are prepared in a solution from gold salts and their reactive gold cores can be stabilised with various organic ligands. Particularly stable particles can be synthesised by using organothiolate ligands that have a strong chemical interaction to gold. The chemical process of preparing such particles has been known since the mid-1990s and many different stable sizes and compositions ...

Sexuality and religion are generally considered uncomfortable bedfellows. Now, for the first time, a team of researchers from Nottingham have carried out a detailed study around these issues and how they affect and influence the lives of British 18 to 25 year olds. Led by The University of Nottingham, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, experts spent two years investigating the attitudes, values and experiences of sex and religion among young adults. The study, which involved nearly 700 young people from six different religious traditions; Buddhism, Christianity, ...

One in eight Americans will fall prey to Alzheimer's disease at some point in their life, current statistics say. Because Alzheimer's is associated with vascular damage in the brain, many of them will succumb through a painful and potentially fatal stroke. But researchers led by Dr. Dan Frenkel of Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences are working on a nasally-delivered 2-in-1 vaccine that promises to protect against both Alzheimer's and stroke. The new vaccine repairs vascular damage in the brain by rounding up ...

Ever get a flu shot and still get the flu? If so, there's new hope for flu-free winters in the years to come thanks to a new discovery by researchers who found that a drug called DMXAA, originally developed as anti-tumor agent, enhances the ability of flu vaccines to ward off this deadly virus. A new research report appearing in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) suggests that DMXAA could assist flu vaccines by causing the body to produce its own antiviral proteins, called interferons, which interfere with the virus's ability ...

Be it a heart transplant or a Cesarean section, every operation requires a wide variety of surgical instruments, from simple retractors, clamps, scalpels and scissors to more specialist devices such as cerclage wire passers, which surgeons employ to repair long, oblique fractures in bones. These are shaped in such a way as to half encircle the broken bone, and incorporate a hollow channel. In a process not unlike stringing a parcel for posting, thread or wire is fed through the channel around the damaged bone and then knotted in place, both to support the bone and to hold ...

More and more often, abdominal surgeries are being carried out in a minimally invasive manner. A small incision in the abdominal wall is sufficient for the surgeon to be able to insert the instrument and make the organs visible with an endoscope. This technique is gentler and does not stress the body as much as traditional surgeries do. However, these minimally invasive surgeries pose a special challenge to the surgeons. In particular, the suturing – meaning joining the tissue with needle and suture material - demands great skill and dexterity. Very often, piercing the ...

Part of the answer to how and why primates differ from other mammals, and humans differ from other primates, may lie in the repetitive stretches of the genome that were once considered "junk." A new study by researchers at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine finds that when a particular type of repetitive DNA segment, known as an Alu element, is inserted into existing genes, they can alter the rate at which proteins are produced -- a mechanism that could contribute to the evolution of different biological characteristics in different species. The study was ...

In an interesting bit of scientific serendipity, researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a chemical compound useful for studying the origins of intestinal birth defects may also inhibit the growth and spread of cancerous tumors. During the screening of chemical compounds created by NC State chemist Dr. Alex Deiters, developmental biologist Dr. Nanette Nascone-Yoder found one of particular interest to her research: a compound that induced heterotaxia, a disordering or mirror-image "flipping" of internal organs, in the frog embryos she was studying. ...

A daytime sleep could have cardiovascular benefits according to new research by Ryan Brindle and Sarah Conklin, PhD, from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania in the US. Their study, looking at the effect of a daytime nap on cardiovascular recovery following a stress test, found that those participants who slept for at least 45 minutes during the day had lower average blood pressure after psychological stress than those who did not sleep. The work is published in Springer's journal International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Long work schedules, shift work, increased anxiety ...

A research study coordinated by Manel Esteller, researcher at Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) has identified a substance that inhibits cancer growth by activating the so‑called "dark genome" (or non‑coding DNA) and micro‑RNA molecules. The study appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Human body cells have a genome (the set of our DNA) encoding our proteins such as keratin in the skin or haemoglobin in blood. This genome with encoding DNA represents only the 5% of our genetic material. ...

About 1,200 criminal justice researchers as well as active and retired law-enforcement professionals from around the world are expected to attend the annual meeting of the international Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, to be held March 1-5 in Toronto. Presentations of the latest research in the field will be made, including research presented by the University of Cincinnati faculty and students. Recognized at the conference will be UC researchers Bonnie Fisher, professor, and Francis Cullen, distinguished professor. Fisher and Cullen will receive the 2010 Outstanding ...

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that patients with node negative T3 and T4 non-small lung cancer who underwent chemotherapy before surgery had more than three times the survival rate than patients who only underwent surgery. These findings currently appear on-line in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. The study looked at a total of 110 patients who underwent surgical resection for invasive T3 and T4 non-small lung cancer between 1979 and 2008. Forty-seven patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and concurrent ...

AMES, Iowa - A protein pathway that may hold the secret to understanding Parkinson's disease has been discovered and explained by Iowa State University researchers. Anumantha Kanthasamy, a distinguished professor of biomedical sciences and the W. Eugene and Linda R. Lloyd Endowed Chair in Neurotoxicology at the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine, has been working to understand the complex mechanisms of the disease for more than a decade. He believes this recent discovery offers hope for the cure. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and is published ...

WASHINGTON, February 28, 2011) – Results from a study published in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology reveal a close relationship between pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)—exceedingly high blood pressure in the arteries carrying blood from the heart to the lungs—and abnormalities of the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow (known as myeloid abnormalities). The study, which was conducted by a team of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, showed that blood progenitor cells (cells that are capable of forming white blood cells, red blood cells, ...

A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates an ancient form of complementary medicine may be effective in helping to treat people with mild traumatic brain injury, a finding that may have implications for some U.S. war veterans returning home. The study involved a treatment known as acupressure in which one's fingertips are used to stimulate particular points on a person's body -- points similar to those stimulated with needles in standard acupuncture treatments, said CU-Boulder Professor Theresa Hernandez, lead study author. The results indicate a link between ...

ATLANTA –February 28, 2011– A sharp decline in breast cancer incidence rates among non-Hispanic white women in the U.S. after a dramatic drop in the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy did not continue through 2007, according to a new study from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute. While there are several possible explanations for the recent stabilization, it may indicate that the decrease in breast cancers thought to be related to postmenopausal hormone use has bottomed out. The study appears online in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention ...

Troy, N.Y. – Benjamin Clough has developed a novel method for eavesdropping on terahertz information hidden in invisible plasma acoustic bursts. The doctoral student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has demonstrated a promising technique that employs sound waves to boost the distance from which researchers can use powerful terahertz technology to remotely detect hidden explosives, chemicals, and other dangerous materials. Clough, a student in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer, is one of three finalists for the 2011 $30,000 ...

New York University physicists have developed a method for packing microscopic spheres that could lead to improvements in commercial products ranging from pharmaceutical lotions to ice cream. Their work, which relies on an innovative application of statistical mechanics, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study aimed to manipulate the properties of emulsions, which are a mixture of two or more immiscible liquids. The NYU researchers examined droplets of oil in water, which form the basis of a range of consumer products, including butter, ...

New York University researchers have isolated neural activity that reflects basic mechanisms used by the brain to combine elementary pieces of language in order to construct complex ideas. The study, which appears in the Journal of Neuroscience, was conducted by Douglas Bemis, a graduate student in NYU's Department of Psychology, and Liina Pylkkänen, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and Department of Linguistics. Researchers have long studied the neural regions that underlie the processing of complete sentences and other complex linguistic ...

More than 45 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics show minority academic institutions still enroll a substantial number of minority students, but the percentage of minorities earning bachelor's degrees in science and engineering (S&E) from minority-serving institutions has declined over time. Statistics published today in a report titled "Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2011" show that 26 percent of blacks earned S&E bachelor's degrees from historically black colleges and universities ...