news 2012

Americans' lives are still grounded in the communities where they live and require a set of basic information to navigate daily life, despite the proliferation of technology that seems to shrink the world by the hour.

Reception and service at central level for international students after arrival at KTH. For Master's students For Exchange students At the KTH Symposium, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation explains how scientific co-operation with Sweden benefits American research.

Many homes with poor energy efficiency are actually consuming far less energy than predicted, new research has found. The study has implications for national energy-saving policies and the economic viability of thermal retrofit programmes. This challenges the prevailing view that large cuts in energy consumption can be achieved by focusing purely on technical solutions, such as retrofitting homes.

Breakthrough could reduce costs for the consumer MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/28/2012) —University of Minnesota engineering researchers are leading an international team that has made a major breakthrough in developing a catalyst used during chemical reactions in the production of gasoline, plastics, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals.

Levels began to climb in the 1970s, peaking a decade ago - a timeline consistent with the region's pattern of leaded gasoline use. Since the 1970s, leaded gasoline has been slowly phased out worldwide, as studies have shown that lead can cause neurological and cardiovascular damage and degrade vehicles' catalytic converters.

How do denser neighborhoods affect property values? And what's the economic value of walkable neighborhoods? A study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington College of Built Environments and a South Korean university shows that, contrary to popular belief, there's a positive association between higher neighborhood density and the value of single-family residential properties.

Reception and service at central level for international students after arrival at KTH. For Master's students For Exchange students At the KTH Symposium, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation explains how scientific co-operation with Sweden benefits American research.

One of the largest studies to investigate birth complications and later mental health has found that premature birth constitutes a single, independent risk factor for a range of severe psychiatric disorders. Researchers at King's College London in the UK and Karolinska Institutet suggest that neurodevelopmental differences in those born prematurely may be important in understanding the link.

Unrelated people who are more similar genetically tend to have more similar attitudes and preferences, reports a new Cornell study published May 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings suggest that genetic data - taken as a whole - could eventually help predict economic and political preferences.

Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that online freebie-exchange communities such as "Freecycle" and "Couchsurfing" foster greater team spirit among their members than do cash-for-goods websites. The results, published earlier this month in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly , may help explain why a growing number of recession-weary Americans are participating less in monetary-based consumerism in favor of "gift economies” built on freebies and community spirit.

: Carnegie Mellon Brain Research Shows Visual Perception System Unconsciously Affects Our Preferences-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University Researchers Launch NSF-supported Startup, neonlabs, To Apply Findings to Online Video Market : Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo [a] cmu (p) edu PITTSBURGH—When grabbing a coffee mug out of a cluttered cabinet or choosing a pen to quickly sign a document, what brain processes guide your choices?

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have identified a formula to understand why some branded movies go viral on the internet. Researchers at the University of Melbourne have identified a formula to understand why some branded movies go viral on the internet. In a study of more than 130 YouTube movies created by some of the biggest brands, researchers identified patterns which form the basis of a Branded Viral Movie Predictor algorithm, which they say identifies why some movies are watched and passed on more than others.

There is a lot of evidence of the effect of job loss on peoples' future earnings and employment opportunities. New research into the impact of fathers' job loss on their child's educational attainment, for the first time in the UK, finds significant effects on the next generation. The recession of the 1980s had a large and lingering effect on unemployment, which rose to 12 per cent (three million) and stayed around this level until 1986.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Cheeky crows, the legacy of graphic artist Lynd Ward, and how to avert collapse of the global financial system - all of these and more are topics of a new blog from the staff of the Research unit in Penn State's Office of University Relations. Research Matters tells the stories behind the news of research and creative activity at Penn State.

New MIT center examines education and its lifelong effects. Education has long been perceived as a great leveler in the United States, providing opportunities throughout society. But at a time of economic struggle, millions of people are wondering if the country's schools can still provide a platform for success.

Oxford researchers trying to improve the understanding of financial systems have new facilities to store and analyse huge volumes of financial data, which should speed up the research process. The Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance (OMI) has established a virtual 'data lab', which mirrors the systems that are being used by commercial financial institutions worldwide.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. People with mild or moderate disabilities who are creative, intellectually curious and attentive to their feelings - those who score higher on the personality trait openness - may be significantly more likely to maintain employment, suggests a new study co-written by David Strauser, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois.

Long portrayed as stagnant, the income growth of the U.S. middle class may be more than 10 times greater than previously suggested by some economists, according to a new study at Cornell. "When we use traditional methods to measure the income of the median American [the person whose income places him/her midway in the distribution of Americans lined up from lowest to highest by reported income] we find that it rose by as much as 37 percent between 1979 and 2007," says Richard Burkhauser, Cornell's Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Policy Analysis.

Actelion announced today that initial analysis indicates that the pivotal, long-term, event-driven study SERAPHIN with macitentan, a novel dual endothelin receptor antagonist, in 742 patients sufferi

There's no reprieve in sight for Australian letterboxes bombarded with junk mail, with new University of Sydney research showing that junk mail is enormously effective in boosting in-store sales. Professor Charles Areni and Rohan Miller , of the University's Discipline of Marketing , found that featuring products in mail catalogue advertising significantly increased sales compared to advertising on in-store radio, which plays in stores while customers shop.