Tech

In the last decade, thousands have been killed or injured as a result of mass violence in the United States. Such acts take many forms, including family massacres, terrorist attacks, shootings, and gang violence. Yet it is indiscriminate mass public shootings, often directed at strangers, that has generated the most public alarm.

Now, 41 scholars have contributed 16 articles on the topic to a special issue of Criminology & Public Policy (CPP), the flagship policy journal of the American Society of Criminology. The articles assess trends in mass violence and gauge the effectiveness of measures to prevent instances of mass shootings and reduce their lethality. The issue also includes research-based policy recommendations to limit the harm from such violence.

"There are no easy solutions or quick fixes for these horrific events," according to Daniel Nagin, who co-organized the special issue with Christopher Koper and Cynthia Lum, Chief Editors of CPP. "However, there are measures we can take to limit the harm and damage caused by these violent incidents, as well as prevent some shootings from ever taking place. Most of these recommendations require legislative action at the federal and state levels."

New findings from the studies include:

Public mass shootings in the U.S. have become more common and deadly in the last decade: More public mass shooters are motivated to kill large numbers for fame or attention, and experts recommend that the media limit their coverage of shooters to discourage copycats.

Mental illness plays less of a role in violence than assumed: Policies that assume serious mental illness causes mass shootings do little to prevent them and subject millions of nonviolent people with mental illness to stigma and unwarranted social control.

Threat assessments can help prevent violence: Threat assessments using multidisciplinary teams of law enforcement, legal, and mental health experts have been used successfully in schools and recommended for other environments as a feasible prevention strategy. Yet they have not been adopted nationwide, and social awareness campaigns are needed to encourage reluctant bystanders and family members to report suspicious behaviors.

Gun laws can reduce mass shootings: Mass shootings committed with high capacity semiautomatic firearms result in substantially more deaths and injuries than do attacks with other firearms. States with restrictions on large capacity ammunition magazines have fewer mass shooting deaths, as do states requiring firearm purchasers to be licensed through a background check process.

Gun violence restraining orders, or "red flag" laws, provide a way to temporarily disarm high-risk individuals: Preliminary research in California suggests that other efforts to identify and disarm high-risk and illegal gun owners may also hold promise.

Restrictions on gun owners involved in domestic violence may prevent access to firearms for some potential mass shooters: Restrictions can help only if they are obtained through criminal convictions or restraining orders, and only if the firearm restrictions are actually enforced.

Situational crime-prevention strategies should be tested to see if they can prevent public mass violence: Settings can be identified that are at risk of being attacked, leading to more interventions to prevent such attacks or mitigate their harm.

Enhanced response to mass shootings can reduce death and disability: By taking a series of evidence-based steps, hospitals, emergency medical teams, police, and the public can lessen the chances that individuals who are injured will be disabled or die.

More research and effort are needed: The special issue also addresses using machine learning techniques to identify potential mass shooters, using the Internet and social media to study preventing and responding to mass violence, and the need to develop more comprehensive data systems for studying mass violence.

Based on these and other findings in this special issue, Nagin, Koper, and Lum offer the following policy recommendations:

1. Staunch the growth of high-capacity firearms.
2. Curtail access to firearms for dangerous individuals by strengthening background checks for gun buyers, and by instituting extreme risk protection orders, stronger restrictions for domestic violence offenders, and other measures.
3. Improve threat-detection systems through more widespread use of threat-assessment teams, public education campaigns, and social media analysis.
4. Expand training, education, and awareness for first responders, trauma centers, and the public on tactics and strategies that can reduce fatalities when an event occurs.
5. Launch a federally supported effort to formally track mass casualty incidents to support in-depth research and evaluation.

A group of St. Petersburg scientists has proposed a new method of manufacturing electrodes for lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, smartphones and tablets. The researchers have shown that these elements can be printed on an inkjet printer, which will reduce the electrodes' thickness by 10-20 times and open up new possibilities for manufacturers of compact electronics. Their article has been published in the journal Energy Technology.

How to achieve a bigger capacity for lithium-ion batteries but simultaneously make them lighter and more compact is a concern of many engineers of hi-tech companies. It is the battery's size and capacity that determines how heavy a laptop will be, how much time a smartphone will be able to work without needing a recharge for, and how far an electric car will go. Today's standard methods of lithium-ion batteries manufacturing do not allow for a significant increase in their weight or size without necessitating a loss in their battery capacity. To achieve this result, a change in the production of battery components is necessary.

A group of St. Petersburg scientists from ITMO University, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and the Ioffe Institute has proposed a technology using which the thickness of the cathode material level could be reduced by 10 or even 20 times. This will provide an opportunity for reducing the size and weight of the entire battery, as a standard tablet or laptop battery can have hundreds of these layers.

"We've developed the ink for inkjet printing of the cathode material," says Denis Kolchanov, a PhD student at ITMO's SCAMT Laboratory who co-authored the article. "We've managed to apply a layer of about 5 micrometers in thickness on the current collector. Existing industrial samples use cathode materials with a thickness of 100 micrometers. Laboratory samples created on the basis of other technologies give a thickness of 50 micrometers. Therefore, we were able to reduce the thickness by 10-20 times. It's not possible to make an ever smaller layer with this technology, because a short circuit will occur."

The researchers have recently confirmed the operability of the printed cathode material in order to prove that the technology can be used to create a smaller working battery with similar properties.

In theory, this development can have another useful effect. The printing of ultra-thin current collectors with a cathode material can allow scientists to create a flexible battery that does not deform when bent. This is important because today, hi-tech companies face a difficult task: on the one hand, users want their gadgets to be lightweight and compact, while on the other, people enjoy watching pictures and videos from as large a screen as possible. Apart from that, there is a growing demand for transformer devices that can be used both as tablets and laptops. Foldable and extendable gadgets are designed to solve these problems. Such devices were presented at the CES 2020 exhibition that took place at the very beginning of 2020.

In order to develop such a device, engineers have to think not only about its screen and case but also the placement of a standard lithium-ion battery. Ideally, the battery of the transformer tablet should bend along with the case.

"In theory, our development can be used to create such devices," explains Denis Kolchanov. "There is a huge possibility that thin electrodes will be more flexible since they will not deform when bent. This will allow us to use them in transformer devices."

Static electricity shock which occurs more often in winter is unpleasant. When two different objects are in repeated contact, it causes friction which then creates static electricity.

This can be found easily in our everyday actions and it is very annoying even between the lovers. In fact, there is no electric current flowing in static electricity but tens of thousands of volts occurs, equal to the power of lightning. Then, can we collect static electricity for use? The answer is yes.

Prof. Dong Sung Kim and his PhD candidate student, Donghyeon Yoo from POSTECH Mechanical Engineering Department and Prof. Jae-Yoon Sim and his PhD student Seoulmin Lee from POSTECH Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering jointly with the research teams of Prof. Woonbong Hwang of POSTECH and Dongwhi Choi of Kyung Hee University developed a new technology to increase the total amount of energy generated by a 'triboelectric nanogenerator' which can converts static electricity into power. In the meantime, they also succeeded in developing an integrated circuit that makes this energy into practical electric energy.

Energy harvesting is a technology that harvests and converts energies, which occur in everyday life such as human actions, light, heat, vibration of an object and electromagnetic wave and disappear quickly, into usable energies. Among many of the energy harvesting technologies, a triboelectric nanogenerator is a device that obtains static electricity, which can be found when two different materials are in contact and detached.

So far, there have been many studies on triboelectric nanogenerator, however, it has been difficult to commercialize because of its limitations such as small quantity of energy converted from harvested static electricity and that power is only generated when there is friction.

The joint research team fabricated the nano surface structure by using nanoimprinting process to intensify friction under same contact and separate condition. They also used poling process to produce more static electricity under the same given frictional condition due to ease of electron transfer between two objects.

Nanoimprinting process is a method that forms nano surface structures in thermoplastic polymer by stacking nano molds with the polymer films, and then heating under a certain pressure. Poling process is a method that rearranges molecular structures orderly by changing directions of dipoles of the materials in contact and by applying high voltage.

In the meantime, the joint research team successfully invented an integrated circuit that converted temporary and unstable electric energy generated by a triboelectric nanogenerator into reliable power source. They demonstrated that even when 2.5 μW of energy was input, the conversion efficiency recorded over 70%. It was the first time the team verified that stable power of 1.8V was obtained without external power supply when this newly developed integrated circuit was used. This amount of power was enough to operate sensors of thermo and humidity meters, a calculator and more.

This research was the first demonstration of a triboelectric nanogenerator fabricated by nanoimprinting process using heat and pressure and poling process simultaneously. By using these newly introduced triboelectric nanogenerator and integrated circuit, it is possible to increase the total amount of electric energy produced by obtained static electricity and to convert it into reliable energy. It is expected that this technology can be a reference for future development of a self-powered system which operates sensors without external power source.

Prof. Dong Sung Kim said, "The conventional triboelectric nanogenerators faced challenges in obtaining reliable electric power because it used an auxiliary power source to operate commercial integrated circuit or to operate itself independently. However, our findings can overcome these limitations by converting static electricity into reliable power which can be used instantly. It is also meaningful in a way this research was conducted jointly with colleagues from various fields of academic discipline."

Currently, re-growing forests comprise roughly 21% of previously deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon. However, these forests, referred to as secondary vegetation, have been little studied, despite occupying a total area similar to that of the United Kingdom.

Now, researchers led by the University of Leeds, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) have examined 14 years of data on secondary vegetation formation and cutting in the Brazilian Amazon based on the TerraClass Amazon mapping project.

Their study, published in Nature Sustainability, has found that secondary forests account for an increasing proportion of overall forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon, rising from 32% of total deforestation in 2000 to 72% in 2014.

However, while secondary forest cutting has increased in recent years, deforestation of old-growth primary forests in the Brazilian Amazon remained stable. This suggests that secondary forest loss has eased deforestation pressure on primary forests and their irreplaceable biodiversity and carbon storage.

Study lead author Yunxia Wang, from the School of Geography said: "There in an ongoing demand for new pasture and agricultural land in Brazil. Our study shows that this demand has increasingly been met by secondary forests, providing a buffer that has stalled deforestation of primary forests.

"But the strength of this buffer depends on the area of secondary forest available. The limited legal protection means that secondary forest loss is largely unregulated.

"Not only would easing the strain on secondary forests help Brazil meet climate change targets, as they accumulate carbon very rapidly, but future deforestation would likely lead to increased loss of primary forests once easily accessible secondary forests are diminished."

Brazil has committed to restore 120,000 km2 of forest land by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Contribution for the Paris Agreement. The authors suggest that a cost-effective way to do this would be to allow part of its existing Amazonian secondary forest area to recover naturally.

Study co-author Dr David Galbraith, Associate Professor in Earth System Dynamics at Leeds said: "Managing this ecosystem sustainably to maximize the conservation value of these forests, while not intensifying pressure on primary forests, requires an integrated strategy that includes active monitoring of secondary forests in Amazonia and strengthening of their governance in Brazilian law."

Today, optical systems mimicking eye functions are of great importance in a wide variety of areas of application: advanced robotics, consumer electronics, medical equipment, and machine vision systems.

"The article describes the latest advances in the development of optical systems that mimic human and mammalian eye functions," Natalya Ivanova, Head of the photonics and microfluidics laboratory at the X-BIO Institute of UTMN, said.

The authors have in detail examined tunable optical liquid- and elastomeric-based elements with a focus on the actuator, as well as analyzed the optical characteristics and the possibility of integration into artificial eye systems.

According to scientists, this optics has advantages compared with traditional technologies: excellent adaptation to changing conditions, as well as a wide range of functional characteristics at miniature sizes.

The same team of UTMN researchers has already created unique varifocal liquid lenses based on thermoconcentration-capillary effects, capable of changing the focal length, adapting to changing external conditions.

Liquid lenses can focus an unlimited amount, very quickly and without wear (due to fluidity properties).

According to the authors, introducing liquid lenses will result in smaller-sized optical systems, which is much-needed in such fields as medicine, microbiology, laser diagnostics, navigation, and information transfer.

The presence of artificial sweeteners has revealed that at least 13 percent of septic system wastewater from rural Southern Ontario homes eventually makes its way into local streams.

In a recent study, researchers at the University of Waterloo used the presence of artificial sweeteners excreted from humans to identify the wastewater content in streams across rural Southern Ontario.

"Artificial sweeteners are one of the best tracers of wastewater in the environment because they don't completely break down in the body or in wastewater treatment systems," said John Spoelstra, an adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Waterloo. "They are prevalent in many common consumer products, so we find them in every wastewater sample we look at.

"In many cases, residual artificial sweeteners are the most reliable indicator of the waters' septic system origin once released into the environment."

This research, done in coordination with Environment and Climate Change Canada, found that 91 percent of the stream samples tested contained artificial sweeteners. The amount of artificial sweeteners present allowed researchers to calculate that approximately 13 percent of the septic wastewater generated in Southern Ontario is eventually transported to streams through groundwater.

"High levels of sweeteners indicate an elevated presence of wastewater in the stream," said Spoelstra. "Therefore, in some cases, more testing may be warranted to ensure that harmful wastewater contaminants, such as pathogens and pharmaceuticals, are not present.

"The prevalence of artificial sweeteners in streams around rural Southern Ontario is a reminder that our water use is a cycle, and what we put into our environment doesn't just disappear."

There has been a sharp rise in the number of specialist canine fertility clinics, according to an investigation published in this week's issue of the Vet Record.

The journal found at least 37 clinics in operation - a rise from one known clinic in 2015.

Worryingly, many of these clinics do not appear to be run by vets and do not have a vet on site despite the fact that many seem to be offering veterinary services, such as taking bloods and performing caesarean sections. In two cases, clinics have advertised canine surgical artificial insemination, which is a banned procedure.

This increase has happened at the same time as the number of puppies born using artificial insemination (AI) has dramatically increased.

Kennel Club figures show there were more AI births in the past three years than there were between 1998 and 2015 - a trend linked to the rise in the popularity of brachycephalic breeds - dogs with short noses and flat faces such as Pugs, Shih Tzus, and Chihuahuas.

The journal's investigative feature suggests that the rise in the number of fertility clinics could be linked to a large growth in the popularity of brachycephalic breeds, with the vast majority being born by caesarean section, and where many cannot mate naturally due to an inability to breathe properly.

From its investigation, the journal found that some of the 37 clinics identified as specialising in offering canine fertility services were recognisably veterinary clinics based at a fixed location and with vets on site, but others were mobile businesses with rudimentary websites and only offering an anonymous mobile number as a point of contact.

Of the 37 clinics, the majority (20) offered a stud dog from breeds with an 80% caesarean rate (for example, English and French bulldogs, which require a caesarean section most of the time in order to give birth).

Of these, the majority also did not appear to offer a vet on site as part of their services. However, the journal acknowledged that could still mean the clinics were potentially hiring a vet to perform surgeries.

Some of these clinics appeared to advocate 'self-whelping' - whereby the bitch is not taken to the vet in order to give birth, even where this might be advisable - as well as raw feeding.

In the journal's feature, Madeleine Campbell, a specialist in reproduction and European diplomate in animal welfare from the Royal Veterinary College, said: "Artificial insemination is, of itself, ethically permissible in many situations. Indeed, it can sometimes have positive welfare effects, for example by removing the need to transport animals over long distances or internationally to breed, or through helping to maintain genetic diversity by facilitating crosses between animals who are geographically remote from each other.

"However, if artificial insemination is being used to achieve pregnancies in animals which for heritable anatomical reasons are not capable of either breeding or giving birth naturally, then that has negative welfare implications and is of ethical concern.

"Furthermore, if Vet Record's investigations imply that non-vets may be undertaking acts of veterinary surgery such as caesarian sections, then that is obviously worrying, and would be illegal.

"Concerns about non-vets undertaking acts of veterinary surgery should be reported to trading standards and the police."

In an accompanying editorial, Josh Loeb, senior news reporter at Vet Record, says: "Perhaps it's time the UK created its own laws to better regulate the burgeoning canine fertility and reproduction industry?

"At very least, there needs to be greater attention paid by the profession to how these clinics are conducting themselves and whether, in some cases, they should be considered not as veterinary but rather as 'pseudo veterinary' clinics."

A new way of making bone-replacement materials that allows for cells to grow around and inside them has been developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham.

The team adopted a novel approach called chemobrionics, in which chemical components are controllably driven to react together in specific ways, enabling the self-assembly of intricate bio-inspired structures.

Scientists first observed these life-like 'chemical gardens' several hundred years ago, but recent renewed interest in the field of chemobrionics has seen researchers using these techniques to design new materials at the micro- and nanoscale.

The Birmingham researchers set out to explore whether chemobrionics could also be harnessed for biotechnological applications.

Lead author Erik Hughes, of the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, explains "We set out to investigate if chemobrionics could be used to form architectures that are chemically and structurally similar to human bone. Once a method of generating such structures is established, the natural next step forward is to evaluate if chemobrionic materials can provide ideal frameworks for bone regeneration."

The team used a calcium-loaded gel layered under a phosphate solution, and succeeded in growing long microscale hollow tubes of hydroxyapatite material that is similar in composition to natural bone. Hydroxyapatite is commonly used as a bone substitute material, but it is typically manufactured as a powder or as a hard block, which then needs to be shaped with further processing.

The individual structures grown by the Birmingham team are approximately as thick as a strand of human hair. These tubes possess distinctive features, including porous surfaces that promote interactions with cells. Published in RSC Biomaterials Science, the study demonstrates the similarity of the tubes to many of the structures found in bone tissue, such as osteons - long cylindrical channels in bone that house blood vessels.

"We can find lots of examples of chemobrionic principles at work in nature," explains Erik. "For example, on the ocean floor, we see hot mineral-rich fluids emitted from hydrothermal vents that react with the cool seawater to form chimney-like structures. We are exploiting these same mechanisms to make these new structures for applications in regenerative medicine."

The team have tested the ability of the tubes to support cell attachment, viability and growth in the laboratory using stem cells. They were able to show extensive spreading of the cells upon and extending within the tubes after only 48 hours, indicating favourable cell-material interactions.

"Using chemobrionics to produce materials that are biocompatible is a relatively new approach, but we are really excited by its potential," says co-first author Miruna Chipara, who is also based in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. "In particular, the way these structures promote cellular integration means they could be widely useful for bone regeneration".

The next steps for the researchers include carrying out further tests to demonstrate the properties of the tubular materials and how they may be modified to improve tissue regeneration. The researchers are hopeful that their work will lead to the development of a new class of chemobrionic bone substitute materials.

A research team from the University of Delaware and the Indian Institute of Management took a deeper look into the newly emerging domain of "forward-looking" business strategies and found that firms have far more ability to actively influence the future of their markets than once thought.

Through a decade-long field study of Fabindia Overseas Pvt. Ltd. (Fabindia), India's largest retailer for handloom and handcrafted products, the authors mapped the evolutionary processes -- which they term as "artificial evolution" -- by which the industry pioneer's actions over more than 50 years actively and deliberately nudged the industry's evolutionary trajectory.

In their award-winning paper Shaping the Future: Strategy Making as Artificial Evolution, Shubha Patvardhan, professor of management at the UD's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, and J. Ramachandran from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, found that companies who successfully shape the future actually use a specific approach.

For this paper based on her dissertation, Patvardhan won Best Paper from the Academy of Management's Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division, was one of five finalists for the Academy of Management's William H. Newman Award for Best Paper Based on a Dissertation and was one of 25 Division Finalists for the Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award from the Academy of Management.

Since 1960, Fabindia has produced ready-to-wear apparel, household furnishings and more. With permission from Fabindia and rare access to the firm's senior management and archives, the authors studied five decades of strategy at Fabindia. The team used multiple on-site visits, observation and job shadows and conducted more than 155 interviews for their research.

Shaping an Industry

Once an industry staple, traditional Indian handloom fabric -- with its manual, small-batch process, inconsistent production and non-standardization -- had fallen out of favor in the 1950s. It was overshadowed by a growing demand for cheaper and easy-to-maintain synthetic fiber fabrics. While most Indian textile companies embraced this change, Fabindia's senior management took a different approach. A company that valued the tradition of handloom within Indian culture and the artistry of craftsmen, they worked to modify the various aspects of this troubled business landscape and rebuild the handloom and handicraft industry to bring Indian handloom products back into the mainstream.

According to the researchers, "Fabindia served as an inspirational case because the firm is widely acknowledged to have shaped a problem-ridden business ecosystem in the handloom and handicraft industry over a period of five decades and played a role in leading the rejuvenation of major aspects of this industry."

Mapping Fabindia's evolution between 1958 and 2016, the researchers found three major instances of efforts to shape the industry. These three cases were comparable in that each involved transforming important aspects of the industry landscape. In two of those phases, Fabindia successfully transformed its industry while in one the firm had to retreat from its efforts.

In the first period from 1960 through the early 1990s, the company focused on creating a market for Indian handlooms products internationally. The firm re-fashioned handloom products, applying contemporary sensibility to traditional handloom techniques. Fabindia also embraced an export model, creating products for international markets and partnering with overseas buyers. The firm was able to establish a network of major international retailers. By creating a mid-market niche for these handloom products, Fabindia was able to demonstrate the industry's viability and later actively mentor others to follow it path.

In the second period from the early 1990s to 2010, sensing that the export model devalued Indian crafts, Fabindia imagined the possibility of an Indian handloom retail brand. Over the next two decades, Fabindia transformed the retail landscape for handloom fabrics and reimagined the supply chain to create a profitable retail brand with over 200 stores across the country and overseas. This paved the way for new firms and investors to enter the Indian handloom sector.

The third period from 2005 through 2013 focused on Fabindia's creation of community-owned companies that would unite individual craftsmen into an organized collective. The head of Fabindia decided to challenge the market belief that the handloom industry could not successfully become organized and large-scale through the organization of these collectives. There were unintended consequences, however, including lower quality products and intense pressure for the craftsmen, leading Fabindia to end the program. Fabindia bought the shares of the collective from the craftspeople and resumed its business model from the second case. This instance was particularly illuminating about the high uncertainty and risks associated with future-shaping and how firms can actively navigate such risk.

A Pattern for the Future

Across the three cases, the research team found a pattern in which the firm's senior managers made decisions and engaged in actions that gradually shaped the evolutionary direction of the industry towards Fabindia's preferred direction for rebuilding the handloom and handicraft industry. From this pattern emerged a grounded theoretical model that describes the processes by which firms organize themselves to shape the future.

A key finding of the grounded model was that senior managers at Fabindia employed imagination to determine their preferred evolutionary direction for the industry. Where traditionally leaders focus on discovering and predicting the natural trajectory of their industry, future-shapers, like those at Fabindia, focused their cognitive energy on imagining an alternate trajectory.

Another key finding was how imagination translated into reality through a dynamic and complex process. Future-shaping firms will internally prioritize initiatives that represent their desired future environment, even if they are counter to current market pressures. This may lead to resistance from buyers and skepticism from suppliers and employees. If firms continue with their prioritized initiatives, and are willing to revise some aspects in response to feedback, they will be rewarded when these initiatives receive acceptance in the market. The delicate balance of persisting with imagination but also being flexible about it, and the challenges of dealing with inevitable market resistance, is perhaps why few firms try to shape the future or succeed at it.

"This research describes one way that firms can nudge the environment in directions that are idealized by firms," Patvardhan concluded. "In future-shaping firms, strategists tend to actively embrace both imagination and luck. The direction of the evolution is guided by imagination; while the shape or the contextual detail of the strategy is subject to environmental pressures and opportunities. Such shaping-oriented strategies can not only lead to greater profits and sustained advantage, but they can also play an important role in solving seemingly intractable problems of society."

Stories of unique and sentient interactions between elephants and their dead are a familiar part of the species' lore, but a comprehensive study of these interactions has been lacking--until now. A recent review of documented field observations of elephants at carcasses reveals patterns of elephants' behavior toward their dead, regardless of the strength of former relationships with the deceased individual.

The findings, published in the journal Primates, indicate that elephants exhibit a generalized interest in their dead, even after bodies have long decayed--and even if the elephants studied were not closely bonded to the dead individual. The most common behaviors observed were approaching the dead, touching and examining the carcass. Elephants also appeared to use their advanced sense of smell to identify dead individuals, and they were observed vocalizing and attempting to lift or pull fallen elephants that had just died.

The research was led by Shifra Goldenberg, Ph.D., from the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and George Wittemyer, Ph.D., from Save the Elephants and the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University. The project was funded by Save the Elephants, the National Science Foundation and Colorado State University.

The study consisted of a literature review of 32 original observations of wild elephant carcasses from 12 distinct sources across Africa. Despite variability across sources in methodology, some trends were apparent.

"The most commonly recorded behavior of elephants towards their dead included touching, approaching the dead animal and investigating the carcass," said Goldenberg. "The motivations underlying observed behaviors are hard to know, but clearly varied across circumstances and individuals. For example, some elephants made repeated visits to a carcass, and it's possible that temporal gland streaming by a young female at the site of her mother's carcass is associated with heightened emotion."

Elephants form lasting relationships over decades, and individuals maintain different types of relationships across populations. They live in socially complex, fission-fusion societies, in which social groups divide and merge over time. These complex relationships necessitate recognizing and remembering a wide range of individuals in their species. Not surprisingly, elephants have demonstrated notable cognitive abilities, extensive memory and highly sophisticated olfaction.

"Witnessing elephants interact with their dead sends chills up one's spine, as the behavior so clearly indicates advanced feeling," said Wittemyer. "This is one of the many magnificent aspects of elephants that we have observed, but cannot fully comprehend." When greeting each other after separation, elephants engage in prolonged olfactory and tactile investigation, suggesting that they're constantly updating social and spatial information. It is possible that elephant behavior toward a carcass serves the same purpose as who an elephant interacts with and has important implications in an individual's survival.

The researchers said they hope future studies will be performed to better understand elephant memory and further explore the possibility of grief and emotion in elephants' responses to death.

Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 4: In this study, locally advanced head and neck cancer patients undergoing definitive chemoradiation were randomly allocated to weekly cisplatin - radiation {CRT arm} or nimotuzumab -weekly cisplatin -radiation {NCRT arm}.

An interaction test was performed between the study arms and HPV status prior to doing any HPV specific analysis for each of the studied outcomes.

We had 187 HPV negative oropharyngeal cancers, 91 in the CRT arm and 96 in NCRT arm.

The addition of nimotuzumab to weekly cisplatin-radiation improves outcomes inclusive of OS in HPV negative oropharyngeal cancers.

Dr. Kumar Prabhash from the Department of Medical Oncology at the Tata Memorial Hospital, HBNI in Mumbai India said in their Oncotarget research article, "Locally advanced oropharyngeal cancers possess a unique challenge."

Patients with HPV positive disease have a favorable prognosis as opposed to HPV negative disease.

They had hypothesized that an improvement in outcomes in our study was seen due to the differential patient population in our study when compared to the RTOG 0552 study.

Another phase 3 study, exploring the role of cetuximab along with carboplatin -5 FU with radiation, reported improvement in outcomes with the addition of cetuximab.

Taking this into consideration, the authors decided to perform a subgroup analysis of the HPV negative oropharyngeal cancer cohort, to study the absolute improvement in 2-year outcomes with the addition of nimotuzumab.

The Prabhash Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget article that an interaction test was performed prior to doing the subgroup analysis, to determine whether nimotuzumab had a differential impact or not.

A study led by environmental researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington suggests a disconnect between the perception of groundwater contamination and the extent to which that contamination is attributable to oil and natural gas extraction.

Members of the Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation (CLEAR) at UTA found that samples from only five of 36 private water wells showed any potential indications of contamination from unconventional oil and gas development, a multifaceted process that includes hydraulic fracturing. The samples were collected from the Barnett, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Marcellus Shale regions in response to anecdotal claims of oil- and gas-related contamination.

The study, "Characterizing anecdotal claims of groundwater contamination in shale energy basins," appears in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Kevin Schug, Shimadzu Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry and co-founder and director of CLEAR, led the study along with CLEAR co-founder Zacariah Hildenbrand. Other authors were Doug Carlton, CLEAR project manager; Paige Wicker, a graduate research assistant in the CLEAR lab; Sabrina Habib, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina; and Paula Stigler-Granados, an assistant professor at Texas State University.

"We found that the water quality data very rarely aligned with the perceptions that the well owners had of their individual situations," Schug said. "This disconnect between perception and reality is possibly attributed to prevailing negative sentiments toward hydraulic fracturing as well as myriad environmental factors that make point source attribution very challenging."

The team suggests that as hydraulic fracturing and unconventional oil and gas development continue to expand, collaborations with concerned citizens who are trained to collect reliable measurements may be beneficial.

"These measurements could help guide scientists through larger datasets in larger study areas than what is presented in this study," Schug said. "Conversely, scientists should provide unbiased knowledge to communities to help decision-making that is based on scientific evidence, offering benefits and possible risks of hydraulic fracturing in a clear and transparent manner."

Hildenbrand said the recent CLEAR study provides vital findings for better understanding the environmental implications of shale energy extraction.

"This is a seminal piece of research where anecdotal claims of contamination were examined exclusively," he said. "With these findings, we now have a hierarchical method for examining the presence of manmade contamination under the most variable of hydrogeological conditions."

ROCHESTER, Minn. ? Men and women differ in the way their vascular systems age and the rate at which atherosclerosis ? the hardening of artery walls or buildup of arterial blockage ? progresses over time. These sex- and age-related differences have a direct bearing on a woman's risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Mayo Clinic researchers, in collaboration with international investigators, suggest a new approach of evaluating vascular function earlier in women, starting in middle age before arterial damage becomes severe. Amir Lerman, M.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, is senior investigator on the study. This study, "Endothelial Vascular Function as a Surrogate of Vascular Risk and Aging in Women," was recently published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Constriction in the microvascular system limits the amount of blood and oxygen entering the heart, reducing the heart muscle's ability to pump blood to the rest of the body. Microvascular dysfunction can cause chest pain before coronary artery disease becomes visible.

"Women have gender-specific risk factors for damage to the endothelial cells, which are crucial to vascular function. Decreasing estrogen, premature menopause, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension and polycystic ovaries all have a negative effect on a woman's vascular health and increase her risk of heart disease," says Dr. Lerman.

Heart disease continues to be the No.1 cause of death in U.S. women. The effects of vascular aging don't begin to appear until middle age. Early detection, along with monitoring cardiovascular disease risk factors, is especially important for continued health as people live longer lives.

"We feel that an established baseline of vascular health during early perimenopause can serve as a marker to measure effectiveness of lifestyle changes aimed at prevention, as well as of clinical treatment for cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Lerman.

A nanoscale gold butterfly provides a more precise route for growing/synthesizing nanosized semiconductors that can be used in nano-lasers and other applications.

Hokkaido University researchers have devised a unique approach for making nanosized semiconductors on a metal surface. The details of the method were reported in the journal Nano Letters and could further research into the fabrication of nanosized light and energy emitters.

The approach, developed by Hokkaido University's Research Institute for Electronic Science and Hokkai-Gakuen University, involves generating localized heat on a gold nanoparticle within a butterfly-shaped nanostructure. The heat causes hydrothermal synthesis in which semiconducting zinc oxide crystallizes on the gold nanoparticle.

Scientists have been investigating ways to carefully place nano-sized semiconductors on metallic particles to utilize them in nano-lasing and nano-lithography, for example. But current methods lack precision or are too costly.

The approach developed by the Japanese team overcomes these issues.

The team first conducted simulations to determine the optimal conditions for precisely controlling the generation of heat in nanostructures. They utilized a phenomenon called surface plasmon resonance, a process which partly converts light to heat in metallic materials.

According to the simulations, a butterfly-shaped nanostructure consisting of two rhombus gold particles placed on either side of a gold nanorod would lead to optimal conditions. In this system, the nanorod, or the body of the butterfly, works as a nanoheater using a specific polarized light. After rotating the light polarization 90 degrees, the rhombus particles, or the wings of the butterfly, should work as an antenna to gather light at subwavelength spots in the butterfly's semiconductor skin.

To test this theory, they fabricated the gold butterfly and placed it in water inside a glass chamber. A solution made from equal parts zinc nitrate hexahydrate and hexamethylene tetramine was added to the chamber, which was then sealed and placed on a microscopic stage. When the laser light was shone on the system inside the chamber, the nanorod heated up and semiconducting zinc oxide particles crystallized along its surface as they expected.

This demonstrated that the butterfly-shaped gold nano-antenna can precisely control where plasmon-assisted hydrothermal synthesis occurs, therefore enabling the localized formation of nanosized semiconductors.

"Further research is expected to lead to the development of powerful nano-sized light sources, highly efficient photoelectric conversion devices, and photocatalysts," says Hokkaido University's Keiji Sasaki of the research team. "It could also lead to applications in semiconductor electronics and optical quantum information processing."

Could patients experience less pain and possibly have better recovery outcomes if their fears or emotional issues were addressed before surgery?

Three researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, recently developed a predictive model to examine that question.

Rebecca Koszalinski, assistant professor in the College of Nursing; Anahita Khojandi, assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the Tickle College of Engineering; and Bruce Ramshaw, a physician and adjunct professor in the Haslam College of Business, examined data collected from 102 patients who underwent ventral hernia repair surgery.

A ventral hernia is a bulge of tissue that pushes through a point of weakness in an abdominal wall muscle, requiring surgical correction. Approximately 350,000 ventral hernia procedures occur each year in the US and are associated with an estimated $3 billion in health care costs.

The predictive model suggests that the emotional status of the patient prior to surgery--levels of depression, anxiety, grief, or anger--influence recovery outcomes. Patients may experience less pain if their fears or emotional issues are addressed before surgery.

"If we begin prehabilitation, which includes a holistic assessment--not limited to physical and emotional condition--of the person prior to the intervention, then we may be able to affect outcomes," Koszalinski said.

The researchers looked at historical patient data, including demographics and details from the surgical procedures, and examined patterns that led to complications following surgery. By associating the information collected before and during the patients' surgeries to their outcomes, the researchers developed a predictive model to identify future at-risk patients.

The predictive model, generated by Python programming, could be used as a decision support tool, allowing practitioners and patients to more easily assess the risks involved in this type of surgery. Using predictive modeling to examine health data sets is one example of how artificial intelligence can transform modern health care.

"There is a lot of potential for developing decision support tools using data science and artificial intelligence," Khojandi said. "We hear about similar models in the news every day, focused on detecting tumors in chest X-rays, among other things. This is an example of how a tool can be used for shared decision-making and change how individuals interact with the health care system."

The study suggests using the model as a tool for physicians, nurse practitioners, and other clinicians to simulate various scenarios for different patients, examining how the risk factors change for patients. The model could assist in avoiding overtreatment.

The predictive model could help direct efforts on patient education and quantify the impact lifestyle changes have on patients.

"I focus on the person and how they may be better informed and empowered to share in decision-making," Koszalinski said. "The hope is that predictive modeling coupled by empowered patients and expert clinical professionals could result in optimal patient outcomes."