Culture

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - From a public policy point of view, the national debt accumulation since President Obama took office is largely a result of policies put in place prior to his inauguration, says a new analysis by University of Maryland expert Philip Joyce. He adds that Obama's policies will make little impact in the debt over the next decade.

"The best that can be said about presidential fiscal policies thus far is that they would slow the bleeding, but they neither would stop it nor would they do much to heal the patient," Joyce says.

Patients in Japan who underwent living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) for acute liver failure (ALF) were classified as having excellent outcomes, with ten-year survival at 73%. The findings, published in the September issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), suggest that the type of liver disease or treatment plan does not affect long-term patient survival following LDLT. Donor and patient age, however, does impact long-term outcome post-transplant.

Scientists from A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), together with clinical collaborators from London , discovered for the first time that children and young patients with chronic Hepatitis B Virus infection (HBV carriers) do have a protective immune response, contrary to current belief, and hence can be more suitable treatment candidates than previously considered.

Fraudsters beware: the more your social networks connect you and your accomplices to the crime, the easier it will be to shake you from the tree.

The Steiner tree, that is.

BALTIMORE, MD (September 6, 2012)—A new study shows that when enough bacteria get together in one place, they can make a collective decision to grow an appendage and swim away. This type of behavior has been seen for the first time in marine sponges, and could lead to an understanding of how to break up harmful bacterial biofilms, such as plaque on teeth or those found on internal medical devices like artificial heart valves.

Children exposed to diethyl phthalate (DEP) and butylbenzyl phthalate (BBzP)—phthalate chemicals commonly found in personal care and plastic products—have elevated risk of asthma-related airway inflammation, according to researchers at Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health.

The drug telaprevir (trade name: Incivo®) has been available for treatment of chronic hepatitis C infection of genotype 1 since autumn 2011. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether telaprevir offers an added benefit compared with the present standard therapy.

Archaeologists from the University of Leicester who are leading the search for King Richard III have announced they have overcome the first significant hurdle of their investigation – and made a huge step forward in the search for the King by locating the church where he was buried.

The University of Leicester is leading the archaeological search for the burial place of King Richard III with Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society.

West Orange, NJ. September 5, 2012. Kessler Foundation has released preliminary research findings from its clinical study of the wearable robotic exoskeletal device, Ekso (Ekso Bionics). Gail Forrest, PhD, assistant director of Human Performance and Engineering Research, presented the Ekso research data on September 3, at the meeting of the Academy of Spinal Cord Injury Professionals at the Rio Suites in Las Vegas. Dr.

Basic science plays a critical role in the quest to improve global health, but it's only one part of a multi-pronged effort that includes changing the dynamics of global health so that developing nations have a more leading role in fulfilling their health care needs.

In April, academic and professional publisher SAGE convened a roundtable in association with the British Library to discuss the role of the academic library in an open access (OA) future - namely, how to stay relevant.

Chaired by publishing consultant Simon Inger and attended by an international panel of 14 senior librarians and other industry experts, their conclusions have been published in a report, “Moving towards an open access future: the role of academic libraries”.

There isn't a hard and fast rule for how long doctors should perform CPR, but new research from the University of Michigan Health System shows longer attempts might be beneficial for some patients.

Most cardiac arrest patients are often successfully resuscitated after a short period of time – about 12 minutes on average. Practitioners are often reluctant to perform longer attempts – those that can last 30 minutes or longer – because if patients do not survive early on during cardiac arrest, their overall prognosis is poor.

SEATTLE—After Group Health Cooperative introduced video-based "decision aids" for people with knee and hip arthritis, rates of knee and hip replacement surgeries dropped sharply: by 38 and 26 percent, respectively, over six months. The cost of caring for those patients also declined: by 12 percent to 21 percent, according to an article in the September Health Affairs.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Amid a presidential campaign and facing the "fiscal cliff," Americans hear a lot about federal spending, particularly for Medicare. But few probably know of either the history or the present watershed moment in the program's 40-year struggle to contain costs and finance quality treatment for Americans with end-stage renal disease.

Medicare payment reforms mandated in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for postacute care have great potential to lower costs without harming patients, a new study reports.

However, researchers caution, policymakers will need to be vigilant to ensure that these cuts don't result in one-time savings that revert to rising costs.