Culture

Overexposure to credit default swaps (CDS) – a market-traded form of investment insurance – are believed to have contributed to last year's financial meltdown.

Trying to understand how CDS prices are determined, a team of researchers concludes that earnings have a major impact and in turn, CDS prices can seriously affect the economy. When earnings drop, CDS spreads rise.

At the request of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as part of an investigation into preventable medical errors, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has issued a report recommending further restrictions regarding duty hours for resident physicians and other actions to reduce resident fatigue and ensure patient safety, according to an article published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR).

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) have discovered a new agent that might inhibit the infectivity of HIV. The agent, surfen, impairs the action of a factor in semen that greatly enhances the viral infection. Surfen might be used to supplement current HIV microbicides to greatly reduce HIV transmission during sexual contact.

Alexandria, VA – Upwards of 76 percent of patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) experienced significant quality of life (QOL) improvements after undergoing endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS), according to new research in the January 2010 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. — A study in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep found that adolescents with bedtimes that were set earlier by parents were significantly less likely to suffer from depression and to think about committing suicide, suggesting that earlier bedtimes could have a protective effect by lengthening sleep duration and increasing the likelihood of getting enough sleep.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Young hunters between the ages of 15 and 34 are the most likely to suffer serious injuries in tree stand-related incidents, say researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Center for Injury Sciences (CIS). The same researchers' findings, though, suggest that such injuries are preventable.

Pre-market approval by the FDA of cardiovascular devices is often based on studies that lack adequate strength or may have been prone to bias, according to a study in the December 23/30 issue of JAMA. The researchers found that of nearly 80 high-risk devices, the majority received approval based on data from a single study.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The role of pharmacists hasn't received much attention in the debate on the cost of health care. But national and regional studies show that when pharmacists directly participate in patient care, they significantly reduce treatment costs and improve outcomes.

2009 may well be remembered for its scandal-ridden headlines, from admissions of extramarital affairs by governors and senators, to corporate executives flying private jets while cutting employee benefits, and most recently, to a mysterious early morning car crash in Florida. The past year has been marked by a series of moral transgressions by powerful figures in political, business and celebrity circles. New research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University explores why powerful people – many of whom take a moral high ground – don't practice what they preach.

Marital status plays a significant role in how individuals cope economically with disability and health shocks, according to a working paper by University of British Columbia economists Giovanni Gallipoli and Laura Turner.

A team of researchers from the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute in Germany has shown that some mathematical algorithms provide clues about the artistic style of a painting. The composition of colours or certain aesthetic measurements can already be quantified by a computer, but machines are still far from being able to interpret art in the way that people do.

Nieves Jiménez Carra, a researcher and lecturer at the Pablo de Olavide (UPO) University in Seville has studied how scripts swap from one language to another in American television series and cinema. One of her conclusions is that English-Spanish bilingualisms are increasingly common in scripts.

MADISON — Conservationists have long known that lines on a map are not sufficient to protect nature because what happens outside those boundaries can affect what happens within. Now, a study by two University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists in the department of forest and wildlife ecology measures the threat of housing development around protected areas in the United States.

NATO is rethinking its future direction for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a process that could redirect the Cold War alliance toward contemporary security issues like cyberthreats and piracy, and strengthen its commitment to fragile states like Afghanistan, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

December 22, 2009 -- The average low-income person loses 8.2 years of perfect health, the average high school dropout loses 5.1 years, and the obese lose 4.2 years, according to researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Tobacco control has long been one of the most important public health policies, and rightly so; the average smoker loses 6.6 years of perfect health to their habit. But the nation's huge high school dropout rate and poverty rates are typically not seen as health problems.