The author of a paper to be presented at the upcoming 2013 International Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting has described behavioral, cognitive, and perceptual attributes of e-mail users who are vulnerable to phishing attacks. Phishing is the use of fraudulent e-mail correspondence to obtain passwords and credit card information, or to send viruses.
Culture
Most obese individuals with kidney failure can prolong their lives by receiving a kidney transplant, although this survival benefit is lower in severely obese individuals. That's the conclusion of a new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation. The findings will hopefully decrease differences in access to transplantation for obese patients.
Every day, people donate to charities, volunteer to clean up city parks, or scale back their driving to curb air pollution. But some take these public goods for granted and ride free on the efforts of others. They watch public television but never make a donation to fund it. Or they run their lawn sprinklers during a drought while their neighbors follow government pleas to limit water consumption.
Weight discrimination may increase risk for obesity rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, according to research published July 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Angelina Sutin and Antonio Terracciano from the Florida State University College of Medicine.
The analysis of data from the TraumaRegister® of the German Trauma Society (DGU) was performed by Stefan Huber-Wagner, MD, and colleagues in close cooperation with Professor Rolf Lefering, PhD, from the Institute for Research in Operative Medicine (IFOM), University of Witten/Herdecke in Cologne. Data of 16,719 severely injured patients from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Slovenia were analyzed. The authors compared the observed and the expected mortality rate of severely injured patients with and without whole-body CT.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass- The "broken-windows theory," which was propounded by two Harvard University researchers in the early 1980s, holds that urban "disorder" — visible signs of neglect, such as broken windows — actually promotes crime, initiating a vicious feedback loop. The theory was the basis for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's crackdown on petty crime, but it's come under sharp criticism from some social scientists. One of the difficulties in evaluating the theory is that it's hard to quantify something as subjective as visible disorder.
Women think it would be easier to overcome their fears of sex after having a heart attack if their doctors gave them more information, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
"Most women don't have discussions with their doctors about resuming sex after a heart attack even though many experience fear or other sexual problems," said Emily M. Abramsohn, M.P.H., the study's lead author and a researcher at the University of Chicago. "We wanted to get a better understanding of women's sexual recovery and how it could be improved."
Artists and craftsmen more than 2,000 years ago developed thin-film coating technology unrivaled even by today's standards for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products. Understanding these sophisticated metal-plating techniques from ancient times, described in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research, could help preserve priceless artistic and other treasures from the past.
WASHINGTON -- A "geographic value index" that would tie Medicare payment rates to the health benefits and costs of health services in particular regions of the country should not be adopted by Congress, says a new congressionally mandated report from the Institute of Medicine. The committee that wrote the report concluded that decisions about health care generally are made at the level of the physician or organization, such as a hospital, not at the regional level.
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of North Carolina have demonstrated a new design for an instrument, a "instrumented nanoscale indenter," that makes sensitive measurements of the mechanical properties of thin films -- ranging from auto body coatings to microelectronic devices -- and biomaterials. The NIST instrument uses a unique technique for precisely measuring the depth of the indentation in a test surface with no contact of the surface other than the probe tip itself.*
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Strong relationships with physicians, particularly those that are long standing, are likely to increase patients' openness to talk about health care costs when decisions are being made about their treatment options. According to a new study1 by Marion Danis from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center2 in the US, and colleagues, rushed visits with insufficient time to talk about important issues can undermine efforts to bring sensitive topics like costs into the doctor-patient relationship and can be counterproductive.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – The rate at which women get called back for additional imaging after screening mammography may be higher at hospitals than at community office practices, mostly due to differences among the patients, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. The findings highlight the limitations of recall rates as a quality measure for breast cancer screening, the researchers said.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study at Rhode Island Hospital has found that academic medical centers have higher rates of recall following mammography than community radiology centers. The recall rate is the frequency at which a radiologist interprets an examination as positive and the patient is instructed to return for more testing. The study is published online in advance of print in the journal Radiology.
The main barriers to the access, delivery, and use of interventions that help to prevent malaria in pregnant women are relatively consistent across sub-Saharan African countries and may provide a helpful checklist to identify the factors influencing uptake of these important interventions, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine.
COLUMBIA, Mo. –Individuals diagnosed with HIV nowadays can live long, healthy lives if they follow their medical treatment plans; however, nearly half of individuals with the virus fail to get needed medical help or to continue treatment, according to previous research. Now, a nursing researcher at the University of Missouri has developed a peer-led intervention that helps individuals with HIV adhere to their treatment plans that can improve their quality of life.