The University of Nottingham experts support Rare Disease Day

Experts in Nottingham are using Rare Disease Day 2012 to raise awareness of the symptoms of children’s brain tumours and to call for urgently needed funding for research into this devastating disease.

Professor David Walker of The University of Nottingham’s Children Brain Tumour Research Centre (CBTRC) said the global event on February 29 presented the ideal opportunity to remind parents and carers to be vigilant for the signs of brain tumours, as early diagnosis could potentially save their child’s life.

Professor Walker said: “Brain tumours in young people are comparatively rare and we are not trying to cause parents unnecessary alarm. However, they do happen and, because the symptoms often mimic other common less serious illnesses they can be very difficult to diagnose.

“It is important for parents to be aware of the signs and if they spot any worrying symptoms in their child which come back frequently or are lasting for more than two weeks then they need to see their family doctor to have them investigated.”

Every year, around 450 children in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour. Survival rates for childhood brain tumours in the UK are among the lowest in Europe. On average, children in the UK wait up to three times longer for a brain tumour diagnosis than those in other developed countries — a delay which can make long-term survivors up to 10 times more likely to suffer disability.

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Cornell must invest in international efforts to remain relevant

In response to a white paper written by Cornell President David Skorton, Provost Kent Fuchs and Provost for Medical Affairs Laurie Glimcher have formed a university wide faculty committee charged with articulating the future of international studies and engagement at Cornell.

In his paper, Skorton recognizes the long and distinguished history of scholarly work, education and outreach in international studies and international engagement, dating from the very founding of the university. However, he means to "sound an alarm that the entire worldwide Cornell family needs to heed in order to maintain and enhance one of the defining characteristics of this institution" or risk "becoming less relevant globally at just the time when challenges such as global climate change, nuclear proliferation, infectious diseases, trade regulation and many others require international collaboration."

He reports "evidence of slippage of the quality and focus of international programs" that must be reversed through strategic investments if Cornell is to equip its students "to live and work in a world whose chief problems transcend national boundaries."

To build on Cornell's history of international education and engagement, Skorton will move forward immediately on five priorities:

• Hire new international studies faculty. Of 70 faculty members designated International Professors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 20 have emeritus status and another 20 are in their 60s, Skorton reports, and similar trends exist in other Cornell colleges with strong international programs.

Thus "the provosts should play a larger than usual role" to identify areas of greatest need and supply financial incentives to hire such faculty, Skorton writes. Provosts -- in partnership with deans in Ithaca and department heads at Weill Cornell Medical College -- should enunciate specific faculty renewal goals relevant to internationalization.

• Provide more study, internship and work abroad opportunities. Skorton wants no fewer than half of all Cornell undergraduate students to gain international experience through studying, service learning or internships in other countries by the time they graduate. He calls for the Cornell Abroad program -- whose high administrative costs price international experiences beyond the reach of many students -- to be reorganized.

Cornell should aspire "to rank among the institutions with the highest percentage of graduating seniors in the U.S. who have an intensive international experience; these students could be those who have spent three months or more living in another country, who are competent in at least one language other than English or who join the Peace Corps or similar global service organization after graduation."

• Increase financial aid to international students. Such an increase "would greatly benefit all our students as we seek to prepare them to live in a multicultural world," Skorton writes, but he notes that need-based undergraduate financial aid for international students is extremely limited.

• Coordinate administrative efforts. Skorton writes: "... some enhanced coordinative function will be necessary to achieve the goals of a new era of internationalization at Cornell. The Ithaca provost should in particular consider recasting the vice provost for international relations as a new position with responsibility for a wider portfolio."

A central unit integrated with college programs and the efforts of the senior vice provost for research, Graduate School dean and vice provost for undergraduate education could administer Cornell's international education and research programs, reduce duplication, ensure uniform policy interpretation and improve the academic quality of international experience programs.

• Provide seed money for internationalization efforts. "I call on the provosts and deans of Cornell's campuses to allocate some additional funds for these priorities and for other international initiatives," Skorton writes. He suggests the Ithaca campus provost allocate a total of $15 million over the next five years to renew Cornell's commitment to "being international in both scope and aspiration." The president will also allocate some discretionary money he controls to the effort, and the international component of the "Cornell Now" philanthropic campaign will "increase substantially."

An international advisory board would help to guide the design, implementation and assessment of Cornell's international programs.

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U of T physicists play key role in international study

Unprecedented Arctic ozone loss occurred last winter

A NASA-led study has documented an unprecedented depletion of the Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last winter and spring that was caused by an unusually prolonged period of extremely low temperatures in the stratosphere. University of Toronto physicist Kaley Walker was part of the international team behind the study published online Oct.2 inNature.

The researchers found the amount of ozone destroyed in the Arctic in 2011 was comparable to that seen in some years in the Antarctic, where an ozone "hole" has formed each spring since the mid 1980s. The stratospheric ozone layer, extending from about 15 to 35 kilometres above the surface, protects life on Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

The scientists found that at some altitudes, the cold period in the Arctic lasted more than 30 days longer in 2011 than in any previously studied Arctic winter, leading to the unprecedented ozone loss. Further studies are needed to determine what factors caused the cold period to last so long.

The Antarctic ozone hole forms when extremely cold conditions, common in the winter Antarctic stratosphere, trigger reactions that convert atmospheric chlorine from human-produced chemicals into forms that destroy ozone. While the same ozone-loss processes occur each winter in the Arctic, the generally warmer stratospheric conditions there limit the area affected and the time frame during which the chemical reactions occur. This means there is generally far less ozone loss in most years in the Arctic than in the Antarctic.

To investigate the 2011 Arctic ozone loss, Walker and scientists from 18 other institutions in nine countries (United States, Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Spain) analyzed a comprehensive set of measurements. These included daily global observations of trace gases and clouds from NASA's Aura and CALIPSO spacecraft; ozone measured by instrumented balloons; meteorological data and atmospheric models. The University of Toronto team contributed to the balloon-borne data with measurements from Eureka, Nunavut, located at 80 ºN (1,100 kilometres from the North Pole). The team was participating in a Canadian Space Agency-funded project making springtime measurements to verify the performance of a Canadian satellite called the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE).

“In the 2010-11 Arctic winter, we did not have temperatures that were lower than in the previous cold Arctic winters,” said Walker. “What was different about this year was that the temperatures were low enough to generate ozone-depleting forms of chlorine for a much longer period of time. Arctic ozone loss events such as those observed this year could become more frequent if winter Arctic stratospheric temperatures decrease in future as the Earth’s climate changes.

The 2011 Arctic ozone loss occurred over an area considerably smaller than that of the Antarctic ozone holes. This is because the Arctic polar vortex, a persistent large-scale cyclone within which the ozone loss takes place, was about 40 percent smaller than a typical Antarctic vortex. While smaller and shorter-lived than its Antarctic counterpart, the Arctic polar vortex is more mobile, often moving over densely-populated northern regions. Decreases in overhead ozone lead to increases in surface ultraviolet radiation, which are known to have adverse effects on humans and other life forms.

Although the total amount of Arctic ozone measured was much more than twice that typically seen in an Antarctic spring, the amount destroyed was comparable to that in some previous Antarctic ozone holes. This is because ozone levels at the beginning of Arctic winter are typically much greater than those at the beginning of Antarctic winter.

The scientists noted that without the 1989 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty limiting production of ozone-depleting substances, chlorine levels already would be so high that an Arctic ozone hole would form every spring. The long atmospheric lifetimes of ozone-depleting chemicals already in the atmosphere mean that Antarctic ozone holes, and the possibility of future severe Arctic ozone loss, will continue for decades.

“Each of the balloon and satellite measurements included in this study were absolutely necessary to understand the ozone depletion we observed this past winter,” Walker said. “To be able to predict future Arctic ozone loss reliably in a changing climate, it is crucial that we maintain our atmospheric measurement capabilities.”

Original source at the University website here.

‘Math class’ app for students with vision problems

Kira is one of two visually impaired high school students who are testing a new Android app, one designed to assist students like her in mastering algebra, geometry, graphing, and other subjects that are particularly hard to comprehend without the aid of normal vision.

Without looking down, Kira runs her index finger across the screen of an Android tablet that she is holding in her lap. For the occasion, she has painted her fingernails bright pink. When her finger touches a line drawn on the screen, the tablet vibrates quietly.

Scanning her finger back and forth and feeling the vibration come and go allows her to trace the line’s path. When her finger reaches a pink dot, the tablet gives off an electronic tone and she grins delightedly.

The app is the brainstorm of Jenna Gorlewicz, a graduate student in the Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory (MED Lab) at Vanderbilt University, and her advisor Robert Webster, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who directs the lab.

Given the enthusiastic reaction of Kira, her classmate Quinn, and their teacher, Gorlewicz’s innovation could have a major impact on how science, technology, engineering and math—the critical STEM subjects—are taught to the visually impaired.

Source article here.

Physical activity yields feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, Penn State University

People who are more physically active report greater levels of excitement and enthusiasm than people who are less physically active, according to Penn State researchers. People also are more likely to report feelings of excitement and enthusiasm on days when they are more physically active than usual.

"You don't have to be the fittest person who is exercising every day to receive the feel-good benefits of exercise," said David Conroy, professor of kinesiology. "It's a matter of taking it one day at a time, of trying to get your activity in, and then there's this feel-good reward afterwards."

Conroy added that it often is hard for people to commit to an exercise program because they tend to set longterm rather than short-term goals.

"When people set New Year's resolutions, they set them up to include the entire upcoming year, but that can be really overwhelming," he said. "Taking it one day at a time and savoring that feel-good effect at the end of the day might be one step to break it down and get those daily rewards for activity. Doing this could help people be a little more encouraged to stay active and keep up the program they started."

The researchers asked 190 university students to keep daily diaries of their lived experiences, including free-time physical activity and sleep quantity and quality, as well as their mental states, including perceived stress and feeling states. Participants were instructed to record only those episodes of physical activity that occurred for at least 15 minutes and to note whether the physical activity was mild, moderate or vigorous. Participants returned their diaries to the researchers at the end of each day for a total of eight days. The researchers published their results in the current issue of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

According to Amanda Hyde, kinesiology graduate student, the team separated the participants' feeling states into four categories: pleasant-activated feelings exemplified by excitement and enthusiasm, pleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by satisfaction and relaxation, unpleasant-activated feelings exemplified by anxiety and anger, and unpleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by depression and sadness.

"We found that people who are more physically active have more pleasant-activated feelings than people who are less active, and we also found that people have more pleasant-activated feelings on days when they are more physically active than usual," said Hyde, who noted that the team was able to rule out alternative explanations for the pleasant-activated feelings, such as quality of sleep.

"Our results suggest that not only are there chronic benefits of physical activity, but there are discrete benefits as well. Doing more exercise than you typically do can give you a burst of pleasant-activated feelings. So today, if you want a boost, go do some moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise."

Conroy added that most previous studies have looked only at pleasant or unpleasant feelings and paid less attention to the notion of activation.

"Knowing that moderate and vigorous physical activity generates a pleasant-activated feeling, rather than just a pleasant feeling, might help to explain why physical activity is so much more effective for treating depression rather than anxiety," he said. "People dealing with anxious symptoms don't need an increase in activation. If anything, they might want to bring it down some. In the future, we plan to look more closely at the effects of physical activity on mental health symptoms."

Other authors on the paper include Aaron Pincus, professor of psychology, and Nilam Ram, assistant professor of human development and family studies and of psychology.

National Institute on Aging and the Penn State Social Science Research Institute funded this research.

Read article at the original source here.