Web tools and social media are our key sources of information when we make decisions as citizens and consumers. But these information technologies can mislead us by magnifying social processes that distort facts and make us act contrary to our own interests – such as buying property at wildly inflated prices because we are led to believe that everybody else is. New research from the University of Copenhagen, which has just been published in the journal Metaphilosophy, combines formal philosophy, social psychology, and decision theory to understand and tackle these phenomena.
Culture
Clinical pharmacologists at Heidelberg University Hospital have achieved major progress for improving the reliability of drugs. In a pharmacological study, they showed for the first time that interactions between drugs can be detected with minute doses in the range of nanograms. However, at these low doses, the drugs are neither effective nor do they have side effects. This means that studies on interactions occurring in drug combinations can be conducted practically without posing risks or negative impacts on the participants.
The three-year study, the largest of its kind ever conducted in Australia, found about 3% of Australia's medical workforce accounts for nearly half of all complaints. Researchers also identified several risk factors, which could be used to help identify which doctors were at high risk of receiving further complaints in the near future.
The researchers worked closely with Health Complaints Commissioners in seven states and territories and collected information on nearly 19,000 complaints against 11,000 doctors over a decade.
Half of all formal patient complaints made in Australia to health ombudsmen concern just 3% of the country's doctors, with 1% accounting for a quarter of all complaints, finds research published online in BMJ Quality & Safety.
Doctors complained about more than three times are highly likely to be the subject of a further complaint - and often within a couple of years - the findings show.
The problem is unlikely to be confined to Australia, warn commentators, who point out that while regulators often know about these problem doctors, patients usually don't.
The study will be presented today (11 April 2013) at the Sleep and Breathing Conference in Berlin, organised by the European Respiratory Society and the European Sleep Research Society.
Previous research has demonstrated that people with sleep apnoea are less productive at work, usually due to excessive daytime sleepiness. This study aimed to assess whether continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) improved productivity at work.
SEATTLE – By the end of 2011, most of the 255 Washington residents who received a prescription for lethal medication to end their lives under the state's Death with Dignity Act had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Of those, 40 were patients at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, part of the Pacific Northwest's only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Virginia Tech scientists have provided new evidence that biofilms — bacteria that adhere to surfaces and build protective coatings — are at work in the survival of the human pathogen Salmonella.
One out of every six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, with over a million illnesses caused by Salmonella bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Finding out what makes Salmonella resistant to antibacterial measures could help curb outbreaks.
New research reveals that advanced fibrosis is a significant predictor of mortality in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), largely brought about by cardiovascular causes. NAFLD alone was not associated with increased mortality according to findings published in the April issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
In a study published recently in the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, WSU Ph.D. student Zavin Nazaretian and David M. Merolla, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, found that a method called "capping" — which only allows survey respondents to represent a maximum of three incidents per crime type regardless of how many incidents they report — undercounted violent crime by 87 percent and household crime by 36 percent.
STANFORD, Calif. — Mining the records of routine interactions between patients and their care providers can detect drug side effects a couple of years before an official alert from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a Stanford University School of Medicine study has found.
The study, led by Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, will be published online April 10 in Nature Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
A 2011 record-breaking algae bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures, scientists have discovered.
The researchers also predict that, unless agricultural policies change, the lake will continue to experience extreme blooms.
In almost 90 per cent of cases, novel drugs tested on humans by pharmaceutical companies do not work as intended and must be scrapped. Often the drugs do not work, while at worst, test subjects die.New research from the University of Southern Denmark now shows that this number can be reduced. The secret is to test the drug on cells grown as 3D structures.
CHICAGO --- Systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma, is a rare autoimmune connective tissue disorder that's difficult to treat. However, thanks to new research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, doctors may be able to treat some patients more effectively.
Cambridge, Mass. – April 10, 2013 – New research from Harvard University helps to explain how waterborne bacteria can colonize rough surfaces—even those that have been designed to resist water.
A team of materials scientists and microbiologists studied the gut bacterium Escherichia coli, which has many flagella that stick out in all directions. The researchers found that these tails can act as biological grappling hooks, reaching far into nanoscale crevices and latching the bacteria in place.
More than 1 in 5 seniors with Medicare Advantage plans received a prescription for a potentially harmful "high risk medication" in 2009, according to a newly published analysis by Brown University public health researchers. The questionable prescriptions were significantly more common in the Southeast region of the country, as well as among women and people living in relatively poor areas.