Culture

AURORA, Colo. (May 26, 2016) - A team of researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System recently surveyed patients to understand barriers to reducing the use of opioids to manage chronic pain. The results of those interviews are published in the current issue of the journal Pain Medicine.

Anyone who's ever covered a wall with sticky notes to clearly map all of the steps in a process knows how valuable that exercise can be. It can streamline workflow, increase efficiency and improve the overall quality of the end result. Now, a public-private team led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has created a new international standard that can "map" the critically important environmental aspects of manufacturing processes, leading to significant improvements in sustainability while keeping a product's life cycle low cost and efficient.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 2016 -- Researchers at UCLA's Voice Center for Medicine and the Arts have recently examined the speech patterns of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina in a variety of settings to determine whether the presidential candidates followed the same voice modulation strategies. They researchers found that despite the politicians' varied messages, their vocal delivery remains the same.

WASHINGTON, DC, May 23, 2016 -- The view that the rich are highly mobile has gained much political traction in recent years and has become a central argument in debates about whether there should be "millionaire taxes" on top-income earners. But a new study dispels the common myth about the propensity of millionaires in the United States to move from high to low tax states.

If you have three or more siblings, odds are that you have at least one year less of education than someone who has no siblings.

More kids in your family. Less education. This pattern isn't new, but a team of researchers led by BYU sociology professor Ben Gibbs studied why that educational dip occurs and found that there are exceptions to the trend. One group that is a major outlier is Mormons.

CINCINNATI--A person is admitted to the hospital with a stroke, but not much is known about whether or not that patient will undergo neuroimaging.

A team led by Achala Vagal, MD, associate professor at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine and a UC Health radiologist, wanted to see whether differences in race, sex and/or age mattered when it came to neuroimaging use, and these findings, which showed a difference for young patients, men and African-Americans, will be presented at the American Society of Neuroradiology's annual meeting May 25 in Washington, DC.

A new study that examined timing and risk factors for suicide attempts by U.S. Army-enlisted soldiers suggests risks were highest among those soldiers never deployed and that never-deployed soldiers were at greatest risk in the second month of service, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry.

Just like suicides, suicide attempts have increased in the U.S. Army over the past decade. But suicide attempts have been studied less despite their importance as a gateway to suicide.

Initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) soon after diagnosis of an HIV infection did not prevent the progression of significant arterial inflammation in a small group of previously untreated patients. The findings from a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-based research team suggest that ART alone is not sufficient to reduce the elevated arterial inflammation that appears to contribute to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease in HIV-infected individuals.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- For men, an unhappy marriage may actually slow the development of diabetes and promote successful treatment once they do get the disease, finds a national study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.

Why? It may be because wives are constantly regulating their husband's health behaviors, especially if he is in poor health or diabetic. And while this may improve the husband's health, it also can be seen as annoying and provoke hostility and emotional distress.

Statisticians at the University of Washington have developed the first model for projecting population that factors in the vagaries of migration, a slippery issue that has bedeviled demographers for decades.

Their work, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also provides population projections for all countries worldwide -- and challenges the existing predictions for some, particularly the United States and Germany.

Not all ducks are created equal. In female Wood Ducks, variation in individual quality is what matters for breeding success and survival, according to the results of a new long-term study being published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances.

People who have reduced enzyme activity to breakdown active aldehyde, i.e., those who become easily inebriated, are more likely to develop fatty liver disease even if they do not drink alcohol. This discovery was made by a clinical research team from Kumamoto University in Japan.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24, 2016 - Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio are studying the lowest vocal register used by chorus singers to better understand the emotional properties of music.

The lowest register used by chorus singers is called vocal fry, and it sounds a little bit like a growl or a croak. The technique has become popular in today's pop and country music. When female singers use this lowest register, listeners rate her as more expressive, according to a small study. The opposite is true for men.

In a study appearing in the May 24/31 issue of JAMA, Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D., of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, and colleagues evaluated more than 3,500 participants with chronic kidney disease (CKD), examining the association between urinary sodium excretion and clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the 53rd European Renal Association - European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) Congress.

Florence, Italy - 24 May 2016: One in four patients develop heart failure within four years of a first heart attack, according to a study in nearly 25 000 patients presented today at Heart Failure 2016 and the 3rd World Congress on Acute Heart Failure by Dr Johannes Gho, a cardiology resident at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.1 Risk factors included older age, greater socioeconomic deprivation, and comorbidities such as diabetes.