Culture

After years of reducing their contact with pharmaceutical sales representatives, physicians now risk an unintended consequence: Doctors who rarely meet with pharmaceutical sales representatives — or who do not meet with them — are much slower to drop medicines with the Food and Drug Administration's "black box" warnings and to adopt first-in-class therapies.

As U.S. presidential election campaigns heat up, candidates can expect an earful of complaints over taxes. Now a new study led by a Northern Illinois University sociologist argues that American middle-class hostilities toward the federal income tax follow a common discourse rooted in moral beliefs.

"We propose that everyday tax talk among the middle class is not simply about economics or free markets," NIU sociologist Jeffrey Kidder said. "Tax talk is morally charged.

DETROIT — A Wayne State University researcher has introduced computer technology that makes it easier for people who need wheelchairs to select one that best suits their needs.

In "Remote Decision Support for Wheeled Mobility and Seating Devices," recently published online and set to appear in the June edition of Expert Systems with Applications, Kyoung-Yun Kim, Ph.D., associate professor of industrial and systems engineering in WSU's College of Engineering, introduces a Web-based decision support system for remotely selecting wheelchairs.

Shifts in exchange patterns provide a new perspective on the fall of inland Maya centers in Mesoamerica approximately 1,000 years ago. This major historical process, sometimes referred to as the "Maya collapse" has puzzled archaeologists, history buffs, and the news media for decades. The new research was published online today in the journal Antiquity.

The number of Americans suffering from kidney stones between 2007 and 2010 nearly doubled since 1994, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and RAND.

The emergence of weeds resistant to the most widely used herbicide is fostering a new arms race in the war against these menaces, which cost society billions of dollars annually in control measures and lost agricultural production. That's the topic of a story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.

People in rural counties who work for themselves may add a boost to local economies, improving income and job growth, according to economists.

The share of self-employed workers in non-metro counties significantly predicted personal income and job growth, as well as declines in family poverty levels, said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural economics and regional economics, Penn State, and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development.

Combined legal and market factors may force online companies to offer more flexible contract terms, suggests new research from Queen Mary, University of London.

The paper examines how and why companies providing IT services over the internet, also known as cloud computing, have begun to negotiate standard contract terms to better meet cloud users' needs, minimise operating risks and address legal compliance obligations.

A new study at Karlstad University in Sweden shows that phthalates from PVC flooring materials is taken up by our bodies. Phthalates are substances suspected to cause asthma and allergies, as well as other chronic diseases in children. The study shows that children can ingest these softening agents with food but also by breathing and through the skin.

ATS 2012, SAN FRANCISCO – Prior treatment with inhaled corticosteroids in patients with respiratory disorders who develop community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is associated with a lower incidence and severity of parapneumonic effusion, according to a new study from researchers in Spain.

A parapneumonic effusion is a type of pleural effusion (excess fluid that accumulates between the two pleural layers, the fluid-filled space that surrounds the lungs) that arises as a result of a pneumonia, lung abscess, or bronchiectasis.

As the U.S. presidential election campaigns heat up, the economic debate is dominated by bailouts, austerity and, inevitably, taxation. Now a new study published in Symbolic Interaction asks why tax is such an important issue to voters and explores the moral ideas which underpin their views.

A new tool that could provide a useful framework for deciding what medicines to include in drug formularies is presented in this week's PLoS Medicine by the experts from Harvard Medical School and the University of Illinois at Chicago who developed it.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Children born with cleft lip, cleft palate and other craniofacial disorders face numerous medical challenges beyond appearance.

Patients can face serious airway, feeding, speech and hearing problems, as well as social and psychological challenges, Laura Swibel Rosenthal, MD, of Loyola University Medical Center and colleagues write in the June 2012 issue of Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America.

Two studies that included adults with obstructive sleep apnea examined the effectiveness of reducing the risk of cardiovascular outcomes, including high blood pressure, by treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), according to the articles in the May 23/30 issue of JAMA.

The number of systems of care that quickly transfer and treat heart attack patients has increased substantially across the nation, according to research published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

Results of a national survey from the American Heart Association's Mission: Lifeline® STEMI program found similar characteristics and challenges with regional care systems that treat patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the most severe form of heart attack.