Culture

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Reforms aimed at curbing executive compensation will likely have little effect on reducing systemic risk in the financial system, and they may even have unintended consequences for the freedom to contract, according to a University of Illinois expert in business law and corporate finance.

TORONTO, Ont., July 21, 2011—Chronic pain is not managed well in the general population and it's an even greater challenge for homeless people, according to new research by St. Michael's Hospital.

Twenty-five per cent of Canadians say they have continuous or intermittent chronic pain lasting six months or more. The number is likely to be even higher among homeless people, in part due to frequent injuries.

Researchers from the United States and Europe involved in an NIH-funded multicenter study have determined that increased body mass index (BMI) is an independent predictor of clinical decompensation in patients with compensated cirrhosis, independent of portal pressure and liver function. The findings suggest obesity accelerates cirrhosis progression and measures to reduce BMI could improve the prognosis for patients with advanced liver disease.

A study by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) shows that people who use cosmetics buy these products primarily for emotional reasons. The study was carried out on facial creams (hydrating and nutritive ones, coloured or non-coloured, and anti-wrinkle creams) and body creams (firming and anti-cellulite creams).

A new study by Harvard Medical School researchers published today [July 21] in the Annals of Emergency Medicine finds that access to outpatient psychiatric care in the greater Boston area is severely limited, even for people with reputedly excellent private health insurance. Given that the federal health law is modeled after the Massachusetts health reform, the findings have national implications, the researchers say.

A new study shows that the health gains associated with a category of medications commonly used to treat Multiple Sclerosis (MS) – know as disease modifying drugs – come at a very high cost when compared to therapies that address the symptoms of MS and treatments for other chronic diseases.

Michigan's older adults are more likely to be poor and at greater risk of not being able to afford their basic living expenses than U.S. Census data indicate. According to a recent analysis by the Wayne State University Institute of Gerontology's Seniors Count! project, 37 percent of Michigan's seniors are living at or below a level of basic economic security. Many of these older adults dwell in the state's seemingly well-to-do suburbs.

Despite warnings about borrowing medication prescribed to other people, past studies have demonstrated that many Americans say they have used someone else's medication at least once in a given year. In low income, urban populations, this rate was stereotypically thought to be higher due to a number of factors, including a perceived lack of access to health care and higher rates of crime and drug abuse.

However, a study led by Temple researchers has found the rates of using someone else's medication among this population were about on par with the rest of the country.

BOSTON (July 19, 2011) - Disclosing the calories in restaurant foods to customers holds promise as a strategy to lower the nation's obesity rate. However, a new study of food items from national chain restaurants found that while stated calories on restaurant menus and websites were accurate on average, 19% of individual samples differed from laboratory measurements by more than 100 calories and lower calorie foods tended to contain more than listed.

Today 15 million persons throughout the world suffer from an ictus every year and 5 million are left with chronic disabilities. FIK designed a system for alleviating neuromuscular disability amongst these patients from their homes and by which these can be permanently supervised by the therapist who will be able to carry out a quantitative evaluation of the therapy. To this end, they have brought together new technologies and entertainment and a greater quality of rehabilitation.

Spanish patients with Fabry disease, a rare hereditary condition where abnormal fatty deposits collect in blood vessels and organs throughout the body, appear to react differently to those in other European countries, according to a study in the August issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

Researchers from three university hospitals say that the Spanish patients showed a different pattern of organ involvement in ill health and death to other European patients on the Fabry Outcome Survey (FOS).

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated* a measurement technique that reliably determines three fundamental mechanical properties of near-nanoscale films. The technique, which highlights the challenge of making mechanical measurements on an object with at least one dimension comparable to the size of a virus, should enable better design and engineering for a variety of thin-film technologies, particularly reverse-osmosis membranes for water purification.

The French may have had a better chance at the Battle of Agincourt had they not been weighed down by heavy body armor, say researchers.

A study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that soldiers carrying armor in Medieval times would have been using more than twice the amount of energy had they not been wearing it. This is the first clear experimental evidence of the limitations of wearing Medieval armor on a soldier's performance.

Transferring care of HIV patients from doctors in hospitals to nurses in primary health clinics is both clinically successful and cost effective

Health outcomes for stable patients with HIV on antiretroviral (anti-HIV) therapy 12 months after their care was transferred to a primary health clinic (a community clinic) where they were managed by nurses were equivalent, or even better, than the outcomes of similar patients on antiretroviral therapy who remained at a hospital-based, doctor-managed outpatient clinic.

In sub-Saharan Africa, only about one third of patients who test positive for HIV but are not yet eligible for antiretroviral treatment remain in care until they become eligible and start treatment. Some patients never return for the results of their initial CD4 count (a prognostic and treatment eligibility biomarker); some disappear between having their initial CD4 count taken and becoming eligible for HIV treatment; and others with CD4 counts that indicate that they are eligible for treatment do not return to start receiving medications.