news 2014

University of Sussex research is 'world-leading', major review finds The University of Sussex carries out world-leading research that has a positive impact on people's lives, the outcome of a review of research in the UK has revealed today (Thursday 18 December). The results of the Government-commissioned Research Excellence Framework (REF) show that 98 per cent of research activity at Sussex is categorised as 'world-leading' (4*), 'internationally excellent' (3*) or 'internationally recognised' (2*).

16 December 2014 GPs should consider a more overt discussion with patients when referring them for further investigation of symptoms which may indicate cancer, according to a paper published in the British Journal of General Practice. In an NIHR-funded study, researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham and Exeter conducted's with patients being referred for possible lung and colorectal cancer.

Scott Rick, assistant professor of marketing at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, is an expert on understanding the emotional causes and consequences of consumer financial decision-making. He shares his thoughts on how consumers can protect themselves and prosper in the new year.

Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, delivers a warning to the Conservative Party about the likely effects of an increasingly reactive policy on immigration. A day or two before David Cameron made his long-awaited ' big speech ' on immigration, Nick Clegg warned him not to float plans that would see 'the British people..plunged into a cycle of wild overpromising and inevitable disappointment, their scepticism confirmed.' That Clegg had a point should surprise no-one.

Our structure (research) Impact of our research Postgraduate research 05 Dec 2014 Economists working in academia are being advised to think twice before publishing in high impact journals. That's according to new research led by Professor Dan Rigby, of The University of Manchester, and published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, which examined whether careers were most enhanced by publishing in high impact journals.

Like its famous avian logo, Twitter users tend to favour birds of a feather - something which may be bad for democracy but good for the biggest flocks of like-minded people on the social media network, a new study suggests. The study analyzed more than two million politically-committed Twitter users.

Muslim communities may not be as victimised by violent crime, or as dissatisfied with the police as is widely suggested and believed, according to new research by a Cambridge academic. The findings suggest a growing need to move beyond misleading and potentially damaging generalisations which seek to cast British Muslim communities only as the victims of violent crime and police discrimination.

People are more likely to help someone whose name ends with the "hard e" (/?/) sound; women, in particular, prefer /?/ sounds; and children's behavioral patterns seem to indicate that asking "Mommy?" for help gets better results than "Mom" or "Mother." This according to Cornell-led studies ("Sounds That Make You Smile And Share: A Phonetic Key To Prosociality And Engagement") published this month in the journal, Marketing Letters.

People are willing to sacrifice twice as much money to spare a stranger from pain than to avoid pain themselves. That's despite their decision being secret. The study, conducted by researchers from UCL and Oxford University and funded by the Wellcome Trust, is the first to experimentally compare how much pain people were willing to anonymously inflict on themselves or strangers in exchange for money.

A UCL-led experiment on 80 pairs of adults found that people were willing to sacrifice on average twice as much money to spare a stranger pain than to spare themselves, despite the decision being secret. The study, conducted by researchers from UCL and Oxford University and funded by the Wellcome Trust, was the first to experimentally compare how much pain people were willing to anonymously inflict on themselves or strangers in exchange for money.

ANN ARBOR-Federally funded community health centers that provide medical care to underserved communities sharply reduced mortality rates at low cost, according to a new study. "Mortality rates dropped 7-to-13 percent among individuals 50 and older after CHCs started operating," said Martha Bailey, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

Related links: Full article available online MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit A new study, published today, reveals a significant drop in the number of young people taking up smoking over the last 20 years, as the UK has introduced a range of tobacco controls. However research findings also show inequalities in starting smoking across different economic backgrounds, despite these regulations.

For interview:  Professor Ian Ramsay, Melbourne Law School Centre for Corporate Law) i.ramsay [a] unimelb.edu (p) au / 613-83445332 / 0408015027 Enquiries:  Katherine Smith, University Media Unit k.smith [a] unimelb.edu (p) au / 613-83447263 / 0402460147 The first major study of the enforcement of Australia's insider trading laws has shown the number of insider trading cases brought by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) is increasing, and the regulator is having better success with its cases.

Digital junk: Unhealthy brands using Facebook to target young people 22 October 2014 World-first research by the University of Sydney reveals that junk food brands are engaging with young Facebook users to promote unhealthy foods which can contribute to obesity and lifestyle diseases. Published in the American Journal of Public Health, the new study sheds light on the digital marketing strategies of energy dense, nutrient-poor food (EDNP) brands to teens and young adults who are using Facebook.

A new study suggests the aspirations of women in Mongolia have rapidly shifted.  Before the rapid economic transition of the 1990s, the wealthiest women in the Communist-style era had big families. However, women today are less interested in babies and driven more by money and status. The research by Oxford University and Sheffield University was based on interviews with 9,000 women in Mongolia, a country that underwent a sudden transition from a Soviet-style state to mass privatisation.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed new regulations for e-cigarettes, and in so doing developed a much-debated cost-benefit analysis of smoking - one that discounts the benefits of quitting smoking by 70 percent due to the loss of pleasure involved.

An accent can affect an individual's evaluation and impact perceptions of competence, scholarly research tells us. But do negative assumptions based on accent translate to decision-making and behaviors? Beth Livingston, ILR School assistant professor of human resource studies, reports that "the workplace choices that employees encounter during the workday may all be influenced by the accented (or nonaccented) speech of those they interact with" in the paper, "Not What You Expected to Hear: Accented Messages and Their Effect on Choice," published July 15 in the Journal of Management.

Contact Greta Guest, (734) 936-7821, gguest [a] umich (p) edu or Terry Kosdrosky, (734) 936-2502, terrykos [a] umich (p) edu ANN ARBOR-As Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba prepares for what could be the biggest IPO in history, University of Michigan professor Puneet Manchanda dug into its Taobao website data to help solve a lingering chicken-and-egg question.

In the past three decades, the power of placebos has gone through the roof in treating major depressive disorder. In clinical trials for treating depression over that period of time, researchers have reported significant increases in patient's response rates to placebos — the simple sugar pills given to patients who think that it may be actual medication.

It is one of the highest-profile cases of scientific fraud in memory: In 2005, South Korean researcher Woo-Suk Hwang and colleagues made international news by claiming that they had produced embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo using nuclear transfer. But within a year, the work had been debunked, soon followed by findings of fraud.