Culture

EUGENE, Ore. -- April 20, 2016 -- Oregon's complex property tax system sometimes computes to problems for eighth-graders who rely heavily on teachers for shaping their skills as they enter advanced math courses.

A study led by two University of Oregon undergraduate economics students has found that math scores go down 5 percent in the first year of a budget cycle hit when tax-compression rules are triggered in local school districts. The problem is funding unpredictability that disrupts planning and teacher assignments.

A researcher who embedded himself in several London branches of one of the UK's largest supermarkets found that management used a combination of 'flexed-time' contracts and overtime to control worker shifts to meet times of anticipated demand, while ensuring costs are kept to a minimum.

Workers at the supermarket chain were frequently expected to extend or change shifts with little or no notice, often to the detriment of their home and family lives - causing the majority of workers interviewed to feel negatively about their jobs.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Humans aren't alone in their ability to mix perfumes and colognes. Lemurs, too, get more out of their smelly secretions by combining fragrances to create richer, longer-lasting scents, finds a study led by Duke University.

The results appear online April 20 in Royal Society Open Science.

Loneliness and social isolation are linked to around a 30 per cent increased risk of having a stroke or developing coronary artery disease--the two leading causes of illness and death in high income countries--finds an analysis of the available evidence, published online in the journal Heart.

The size of the effect is comparable to that of other recognised risk factors, such as anxiety and a stressful job, the findings indicate.

Low body mass index increases risk mortality after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), even after adjustment for other health factors that affect body weight, according to a study this week in PLOS Medicine. Emily Bucholz, Hannah Krumholz, and Harlan Krumholz of Yale University conducted a prospective cohort study of elderly patients hospitalized for AMI, analyzing short- and long-term mortality among underweight and normal weight patients (as measured by body mass index, BMI) while controlling for comorbid illness and frailty.

Results of the Wellcome Trust funded trial of the experimental anti-Ebola drug TKM-130803 have been published today (April 19) in PLOS Medicine. Using a novel approach designed to get rapid indications of a drug's effectiveness, the trial showed that at the dose given the drug did not improve survival compared to historic controls.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Prior to the 1990s, there was little concept of corporate sustainability within the textile and apparel industry. However, beginning in the mid-1990s, clothing and apparel corporations began receiving pushback from consumers regarding social, environmental and economic sustainability. In an effort to qualify the process of investing in corporate sustainability, University of Missouri researchers examined two major international apparel brands, Nike and Adidas, to determine the paths taken to reach corporate sustainability.

In a study appearing in the April 19, 2016 issue of JAMA, Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California-Los Angeles, and colleagues examined tumor response and overall survival following administration of the antibody pembrolizumab among patients with advanced melanoma.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A new study from the Indiana University Center for Aging Research and the Regenstrief Institute has found that almost half of all long-stay nursing home residents experience at least one transfer to an Emergency Department over the course of a year regardless of their cognitive status. While a high percentage of long-stay nursing home residents were sent to the ED, only about a third of these individuals were subsequently admitted to the hospital.

A new analysis of 204 studies involving more than 1.4 million people suggests that metformin, the most frequently prescribed stand-alone drug for type 2 diabetes, reduces the relative risk of a patient dying from heart disease by about 30 to 40 percent compared to its closest competitor drug, sulfonylurea.

DARIEN, IL - A new study found that specific psychological and social work factors were associated with sleep problems both concurrently and two years after exposure, indicating prolonged consequences.

Results show that quantitative job demands, decision control, role conflict and support from a superior in the workplace were the most consistent predictors of troubled sleep, which was characterized by difficulty initiating sleep or disturbed sleep. Findings remained significant after adjustment for potential con-founders such as age, sex and occupation skill level.

WASHINGTON (April 18, 2016) --The use of bleeding avoidance strategies has only a modest effect on the variation in bleeding rates post-angioplasty among hospitals performing this procedure, leaving about 70 percent of the causes for this variation unexplained, according to a study published today in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.

A new RAND Corporation survey of American teachers provides several key areas where states and school districts can do more to help teachers engage in instruction that will most help students meet state standards.

Most of the patients who had carotid revascularization for asymptomatic carotid disease were diagnosed on the basis of carotid imaging tests ordered for uncertain or inappropriate indications, according to a new study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The advertising landscape during presidential elections could look a whole lot different if each American were to vote for his or her own preferred candidate, instead of having to do so collectively through the current Electoral College system. This is according to Brett Gordon of Northwestern University and Wesley Hartmann of Stanford Graduate School of Business in the US, in a study published in Springer's journal Quantitative Marketing and Economics.