Culture

Links between hundreds of millions of names belonging to people around the world have been analysed by geographers from UCL and the University of Auckland. The results reveal how our forenames and surnames are connected in distinct global networks of cultural, ethnic and linguistic communities.

The researchers say their methods could be of use to social scientists and health researchers investigating migration, identity and integration.

Almost one third of students at a university in Uganda say that they have been subject to sexual coercion, an experience which was often linked to risky sexual behaviour. This is shown in a study from Lund University in Sweden. The study's findings could lead to a new approach in the work to combat HIV in Uganda.

The link between being subjected to sexual coercion and engaging in risky sexual behaviour by making an early sexual debut and having many sexual partners is significant in the work to prevent HIV, in the view of to Anette Agardh, the researcher who has led the study.

WASHINGTON — Factoring health and related costs into decision making is essential to enhancing public well-being, says a new report from the National Research Council, which adds that a health impact assessment (HIA) is a promising tool for use by scientists, communities, and government and private sector policymakers.

Boston, MA – Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have demonstrated that the circadian system, the body's internal clock, regulates human platelet function and causes a peak in platelet activation corresponding to the known morning peak in adverse cardiovascular events. These findings are published in PLoS ONE on September 8, 2011.

News coverage of Washington politicians and their rhetoric appears to have less influence on the American public compared to other news coverage, according to a political scientist. Using the news media as a bully pulpit to influence public opinion has decreased, though the groundswell of media support for Sen. Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign might lead many to believe otherwise.

Washington, DC (Sept 9, 2011) -- The blood levels of a particular hormone can help predict which kidney disease patients will develop heart problems, need dialysis, and die prematurely, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). Testing for this hormone could identify which patients need early treatment, thereby lowering their health risks and lengthening their lives.

Alcohol has become an important cause of death among patients with type 1 diabetes since the 1980s, concludes a study published on bmj.com today.

The study also shows that, while survival of patients with early onset type 1 diabetes (age 0-14 years) has improved with time, survival of patients with late onset type 1 diabetes (age 15-29 years) has deteriorated since the 1980s.

New research published on bmj.com today supports a change to the lifetime ban on blood donations from homosexual men.

In the 1980s, blood services in many countries introduced a lifetime ban on blood donations by men who had ever had oral or anal sex with a man. Some other groups at increased risk of HIV (drug users) are allowed to donate blood after a year's deferral since last risky activity under the rationale that you can stop using drugs but can't choose to stop being gay.

Bethesda, MD—A new commentary published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) argues that patients should be diligent and demand proof of safety and benefit before beginning any treatment regimen for chronic pain, as some treatments have very little scientific evidence that they actually alleviate the conditions for which they are prescribed. In the article, Phillip J.

CORAL GABLES, FL (September 8, 2011) – University of Miami Frost School of Music Professor Carlos R. Abril has recently published findings of a research study designed to construct a national demographic profile of high school band, choir, and orchestra students in the U.S. using evidence from the 2004 follow-up wave of the Education Longitudinal Study. The article, published with Kenneth Elpus (University of Maryland) in the Journal of Research in Music Education, is titled "High School Music Ensemble Students in the United States: A Demographic Profile."

WASHINGTON, DC—September 8, 2011—The U.S. public and private sectors invested $140.5 billion in 2010 on research to find new ways to treat, cure and prevent disease and disability, according to Research!America's latest annual estimate, available at http://www.researchamerica.org/uploads/healthdollar10.pdf.

With the police service undergoing budget reductions, and calls for more officers on the streets, a new study offers some reassuring conclusions. Researchers at UCL's Department of Security and Crime Science found no evidence that successful police crime prevention activity, such as problem-oriented policing, results in problems being moved elsewhere (as sceptics argue). In fact, the study identified knock-on crime reduction benefits for nearby areas in some cases.

A specially commissioned set of essays, published in the September 2011 issue of the Geographical Journal, argues that in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks the world did change, but not always in ways anticipated by policy-makers and pundits.

Edited by Simon Dalby of Carleton University the commentaries and essays, written by distinguished geographers and social scientists including Derek Gregory and Neil Smith, puncture the more hyperbolic claims regarding the longer-term significance of the attacks.

CINCINNATI—Although society's perception might be that surgeons endure greater mental challenges and stress in their work duties than a primary care doctor, new research from experts at the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that this isn't necessarily the case.

Fast-rising health costs have eaten nearly all the income gains made by a median-income American family of four over the past decade, leaving them with just $95 per month in extra income, after accounting for taxes and price increases, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Had health care costs risen only as fast as the cost of other goods and services in the United States from 1999 to 2009, the same family would have an additional $545 per month to spend in 2009, according to findings published in the September edition of the journal Health Affairs.