Culture

SAN FRANCISCO -- An Indiana University study found that how "in love" a romantic couple appears to be is interpreted differently based on the couple's sexual orientation, affecting what formal and informal rights people think that couple deserves.

Long Doan, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, said the study was created to understand how people's attitudes differ based on sexual orientation.

Boston, MA— Bivalirudin and heparin are two anticoagulant options for patients undergoing coronary stenting for ischemic heart disease. Bivalirudin, a newer anticoagulant, has been touted as being as effective as generic heparin, but with nearly half the rate of bleeding. However, several studies have hinted that, compared with heparin, bivalirudin-based regimens might not protect as well against recurrent heart attacks and might increase the risk of stents clotting off.

(PHILADELPHIA) – New Penn Medicine research shows that neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety and fatigue are more common in newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease (PD) patients compared to the general population. The study also found that initiation of dopamine replacement therapy, the most common treatment for PD, was associated with increasing frequency of impulse control disorders and excessive daytime sleepiness.

New UC San Francisco research shows significant price differences for ten common blood tests in California hospitals, with some patients charged as little as $10 for one test while others were charged $10,169 for the identical test.

The analysis of charges at more than 150 California hospitals looked at blood tests that are often required of patients, such as lipid panel, basic metabolic panel, and complete blood cell count with differential white cell count.

An article in Science, "Preterm labor: one syndrome, many causes," delivers a powerful message: preterm birth is not one condition, but many, and provides a framework for meeting this challenge.

West Orange, NJ. August 15, 2014. Kessler stroke researchers and colleagues have identified an association between over-optimistic estimation of one's own ability to take medications accurately, and memory loss among stroke survivors. Results indicate that assessing patients for their ability to estimate medication skills accurately may predict memory disorder. The article, "Stroke survivors over-estimate their medication self-administration ability (MSA), predicting memory loss," was epublished ahead of print on May 28 by Brain Injury (doi:10.3109/02699052.2014.915984).

Over the past decades, the economic sciences have seen fundamental breakthroughs in our understanding of human responses to incentives in the face of uncertainty and strategic interactions. But what is the scope and what are the limits for applying these models in the design of better institutions and better policies? And to what extent can they teach us what is needed to encourage the innovation that drives economic growth and social wellbeing?

Washington, DC (August 14, 2014) — Among black kidney failure patients undergoing dialysis, women are much less likely than men to want to receive kidney transplants from living donors, despite more offers from family and friends. The findings, which are from a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), suggest that interventions are needed to increase women's acceptance of living donor kidney transplantation.

Bottom Line: The odds of having diabetic macular edema (DME), a leading cause of vision loss in patients with diabetes mellitus, appears to be higher in non-Hispanic black patients than white patients, as well as in those individuals who have had diabetes longer and have higher levels of hemoglobin A1c.

Author: Rohit Varma, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues.

(Boston) – People living in states with stronger alcohol policy environments have a substantially lower likelihood of any binge drinking, frequent binge drinking, and high-intensity binge drinking, according to a new study by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Boston Medical Center (BMC), published in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have shown promise in "flushing out" HIV from latently infected cells, potentially exposing the reservoirs available for elimination by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), also called killer T cells. However, findings published on August 14th in PLOS Pathogens now suggest that treatment with HDAC inhibitors might suppress CTL activity and therefore compromise the "kill" part of a two-pronged "flush-and-kill" HIV eradication strategy.

Pregnant women living near the World Trade Center during 9/11 experienced higher-than-normal negative birth outcomes, according to a new working paper by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

August 14, 2014 – More than 40 percent of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients take opioid pain relievers, while the prevalence of chronic opioid use is over 20 percent and rising, reports a study in the September issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Presenting an authentic image on social network sites (SNSs) includes an element of fakery according to a new study by researchers at Aalto University. During the study, researchers discovered that being authentic is very important for social media users. At the same time, users also admitted faking parts of their online image in order to conform to social norms and expectations.

By focusing on two SNSs, Facebook and Last.fm, the researchers came to the conclusion that being real is much more acceptable according to social norms.

Bethesda, MD (Aug. 14, 2014) – Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is one of the most innovative new treatments of the 21st century. Experts believe that this procedure, which transplants microbes from one human gut to another through fecal matter, could offer the cure to a vast range of diseases and shed new light on the role of the microbiome in gastrointestinal diseases. New research presented this weekend at the American Gastroenterological Association's 2014 James W.