Author Archives: Guest Post

UA’s Kate Kenski Tracks Election Through Talking Points, Tweets

Kate Kenski, an associate professor in the UA communication department, is studying the 2012 election using talking points, Twitter feeds and also jokes.

Election season is to politics-watchers as tax season is to accountants. There are polls to follow, debates to dissect and political ads to analyze.

For Kate Kenski, an associate professor in the University of Arizona communication department and School of Government and Public Policy, election season provides a wealth of data that she analyzes to write and teach about public opinion and political communication.

For the 2012 election, Kenski is keeping a keen eye on whether the frequent explanations for wins and losses in previous campaigns hold true for this campaign. Will the economy be the determining factor? Or will candidate personality or message strategy tip the campaign in one candidate’s direction over the other’s? (more…)

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Germs in Space: Preventing Infection on Long Flights

On a long spaceflight unique conditions including microgravity could give microbes the upper hand, but not if astronauts and their spacecrafts are properly prepared. In a new paper, infectious disease expert Dr. Leonard Mermel brings together a broad base of research to come up with specific recommendations for keeping astronauts safe in deep space.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The cabin of a spacecraft halfway to Mars would be the least convenient place — one cannot say “on earth” — for a Salmonella or Pneumococcus outbreak, but a wide-ranging new paper suggests that microgravity and prolonged space flight could give unique advantages to germs. What’s a space agency to do? Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital infectious disease expert Dr. Leonard Mermel offers several ideas.

And no, they are not to add more Vitamin C to the Tang, or to give each crew member a bottle of Purell. It’s a lot more complicated than that. (more…)

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Speaking of Ethics

Lecturer explores the imperatives of environmental ethics

Speaking to University of Delaware faculty and students and community members in Brown Lab on Monday night, Oct. 15, environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore discussed how important it is for humans to realize their ethical responsibility to save the world from a climate crisis.

In a lecture titled “Why It’s Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and the Moral Obligation to the Future,” Moore reflected on the relationship humans have with the environment and argued that once humans realize the impact of their actions, they will naturally feel a moral obligation to care for the planet. (more…)

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A Tradition is Born

At Huntley House, black male students find companions and support

It’s not every day you get to meet somebody who’s made history.

That happened in September for the young men of Huntley House, a section of Sanford Hall for black, male first-year students.

The students met Huntley House namesake Horace Huntley, who in 1969 took part in the takeover of Morrill Hall and occupation of the president’s office. The action called attention to the situation of black University of Minnesota students and led to the creation of what is now the Department of African American & African Studies. (more…)

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Another Advance on the Road to Spintronics

Berkeley Lab Researchers Unlock Ferromagnetic Secrets of Promising Materials

Spintronic technology, in which data is processed on the basis of electron “spin” rather than charge, promises to revolutionize the computing industry with smaller, faster and more energy efficient data storage and processing. Materials drawing a lot of attention for spintronic applications are dilute magnetic semiconductors – normal semiconductors to which a small amount of magnetic atoms is added to make them ferromagnetic. Understanding the source of ferromagnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors has been a major road-block impeding their further development and use in spintronics. Now a significant step to removing this road-block has been taken.

A multi-institutional collaboration of researchers led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), using a new technique called HARPES, for Hard x-ray Angle-Resolved PhotoEmission Spectroscopy, has investigated the bulk electronic structure of the prototypical dilute magnetic semiconductor gallium manganese arsenide. Their findings show that the material’s ferromagnetism arises from both of the two different mechanisms that have been proposed to explain it. (more…)

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Medication Beliefs Strongly Affect Individuals’ Management of Chronic Diseases, MU Expert Says

Health practitioners should use behavior-change tactics so patients take medications as prescribed

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly half of patients taking medications for chronic conditions do not strictly follow their prescribed medication regimens. Failure to use medications as directed increases patients’ risk for side effects, hospitalizations, reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans. Now, a University of Missouri gerontological nursing expert says patients’ poor adherence to prescribed medication regimens is connected to their beliefs about the necessity of prescriptions and concerns about long-term effects and dependency.

MU Assistant Professor Todd Ruppar found that patients’ beliefs about the causes of high blood pressure and the effectiveness of treatment alternatives significantly affected their likelihood of faithfully following prescribed medication regimens. In his pilot study, Ruppar focused on older patients’ adherence to medication treatments that control high blood pressure, a condition that affects nearly 70 million adults in the U.S. and can lead to heart disease and stroke. (more…)

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