rate – Page 2 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Public Acceptance of Climate Change Affected by Word Usage, Says MU Anthropologist

By Guest PostJanuary 24, 2013Culture, Environmentanthropologist, biodiversity, climate change, climate change keywords, culturgen, current era, database, degree of variation, earth, english language, environmental factors, evolution of species, Google, history, Holocene, ice cores, last ice age, life cycle, life forms, mainstream, michael obrien, ngram, organism, paleoclimate, phenology, pollen, popular vocabulary, prehistoric climate, public acceptance, rate, scientific journal, sediments, statistical analysis, tree rings, university of missouri, usage rates, william brock, words

Better science communication could lead to a more informed American public.

Public acceptance of climate change’s reality may have been influenced by the rate at which words moved from scientific journals into the mainstream, according to anthropologist Michael O’Brien, dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri. A recent study of word usage in popular literature by O’Brien and his colleagues documented how the usage of certain words related to climate change has risen and fallen over the past two centuries. Understanding how word usage affects public acceptance of science could lead to better science communication and a more informed public.

“Scientists can learn from this study that the general public shouldn’t be expected to understand technical terms or be convinced by journal papers written in technical jargon,” O’Brien said. “Journalists must explain scientific terms in ways people can understand and thereby ease the movement of those terms into general speech. That can be a slow process. Several words related to climate change diffused into the popular vocabulary over a 30-50 year timeline.” (more…)

comScore Reports $41.9 Billion in Q3 2012 U.S. Retail E-Commerce Spending, Up 15 Percent vs. Year Ago

By Guest PostNovember 7, 2012Technology2012, apparel, Comscore, comscore chairman, double digit, ecommerce sale, ecommerce sector, Economy, estimate, event tickets, gian fulgoni, growth, growth rate, macroeconomic environment, q3, rate, retail, showrooming behavior, US, us consumer

comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni to Present Overview of Q3 2012 E-Commerce Trends in Upcoming Webinar

RESTON, VA, November 7, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its Q3 2012 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, showing that online retail spending reached $41.9 billion for the quarter, up 15 percent versus year ago. This represents the twelfth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. (more…)

PTSD Consortium

By Guest PostNovember 1, 2012Healthadult, afghanistan, americans, bad experience, behavior, behavioral epigenetic, brain, brain imaging, cambridge, car accident, cardiovascular disease, chemical change, combat troops, david diamond, delaware, diagnose, disorder, DNA, dna methylation, draper laboratory, gene, hormone level, Iraq, military, molecular change, molecular modification, objective biomarker, panic attack, posttraumatic, ptsd, rate, rodent model, south florida, stress, stress disorder, tania roth, trauma, university, victim, violent crime, war

Researchers seek better ways to diagnose, treat disorder

Tania Roth studies what happens to the brain when stress occurs early in life, seeking to pinpoint how those kinds of bad experiences can cause molecular changes to DNA.

Now, by participating in a national consortium of researchers, the assistant professor of psychology at the University of Delaware is hoping to use her expertise to contribute to a better understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (more…)

Training Your Robot the PaR-PaR Way

By Guest PostOctober 31, 2012Scienceautomation, berkeley lab, biological design, challenge, changhao bi, cloning, compiler, database, dna molecules, dynamic, experimental data, experimental error, gregory linshiz, j5, jay keasling, language, nathan hillson, new trick, nina stawski, non repetitive, par par, program, programming, programming tool, rate, research environment, robot, robot platform, robot programming, robotic protocol, sean poust, software program, syntax, virtual object

Berkeley Lab and JBEI Researchers Develop a Biology-Friendly Robot Programming Language

Teaching a robot a new trick is a challenge. You can’t reward it with treats and it doesn’t respond to approval or disappointment in your voice. For researchers in the biological sciences, however, the future training of robots has been made much easier thanks to a new program called “PaR-PaR.”

Nathan Hillson, a biochemist at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), led the development of PaR-PaR, which stands for Programming a Robot. PaR-PaR is a simple high-level, biology-friendly, robot-programming language that allows researchers to make better use of liquid-handling robots and thereby make possible experiments that otherwise might not have been considered. (more…)

Elevated Indoor Carbon Dioxide Impairs Decision-Making Performance

By Guest PostOctober 28, 2012Environmentberkeley lab, brain injury, building, carbon dioxide, CO2, cognitive function, concentration, decline, dimension, dysfunctional, economic consequence, economic impact, energy consumption, energy-efficient, human, indoor, mark mendell, new york, pharmaceutical, pollutant, ppm, primary source, rate, reduction, scenarios, sms, state university, suny, upstate medical university, usha satish, ventilation, william fisk

Berkeley Lab scientists surprised to find significant adverse effects of CO2 on human decision-making performance.

Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found that moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) can significantly impair people’s decision-making performance. The results were unexpected and may have particular implications for schools and other spaces with high occupant density.

“In our field we have always had a dogma that CO₂ itself, at the levels we find in buildings, is just not important and doesn’t have any direct impacts on people,” said Berkeley Lab scientist William Fisk, a co-author of the study, which was published in Environmental Health Perspectives online last month. “So these results, which were quite unambiguous, were surprising.” The study was conducted with researchers from State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. (more…)

Increase in Metal Concentrations in Rocky Mountain Watershed Tied to Warming Temperatures

By Guest PostSeptember 10, 2012Environmentacid rock drainage, acidity, air temperature, andrew manning, andrew todd, ard, bedrock, biologist, caitlin crouch, calcium concentration, chemical reaction, colorado, colorado boulder, continental divide, diane mcknight, ecological concern, geological survey, hypothesis, keystone, metal concentration, mineral weathering, mineralized, pennsylvania mine, permafrost, peru creek, philip verplanck, pyrite, pyrite weathering, rate, remediation effort, rocky mountain, snake river, stream, stream ecosystem, sulfide mineral, sulfuric acid, tributary, united states, university, US, usgs, water table, watershed, zinc

Warmer air temperatures since the 1980s may explain significant increases in zinc and other metal concentrations of ecological concern in a Rocky Mountain watershed, reports a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Rising concentrations of zinc and other metals in the upper Snake River just west of the Continental Divide near Keystone, Colo., may be the result of falling water tables, melting permafrost and accelerating mineral weathering rates, all driven by warmer air temperatures in the watershed. Researchers observed a fourfold increase in dissolved zinc over the last 30 years during the month of September. (more…)

Financial Crisis to Blame for Increased Suicides in Italy

By Guest PostAugust 21, 2012Economy, Generalausterity package, bologna, crisis year, david stuckler, economic reason, Europe, global financial crisis, great recession, Greece, increase, italy, michael gideon marmot, rate, regression model, roberto de vogli, suicide, tax office, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The global financial crisis has contributed to an increase in the rates of suicide and attempted suicide for economic reasons in Italy, new research shows.

A team of researchers, co-led by Roberto De Vogli, associate professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health,

looked at data from 2000-10 and found an increase in suicides and attempted suicides for economic reasons during the entire period. (more…)

On-the-job Deaths Hold Steady; Number of Burn Injuries Underreported

By Guest PostApril 24, 2012Economycancer, construction industry, death certificate, deb chester, environmental medicine, illnesses, karla swift, kenneth rosenman, labor statistics, lung disease, martha yoder, michigan, michigan state university, miface report, norwood jewell, poison control center, program, public health, rate, surveillance, trauma, work related burns, worker, workers memorial day, workplace burn, workplace death

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The rate of workplace deaths in Michigan remained steady in 2011, as 141 workers died on the job compared with 145 in 2010, according to an annual report from Michigan State University.

The construction industry had the most deaths at 24, while the agriculture industry had the second most at 22, according to the Michigan Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, or MIFACE. (more…)

Tag Archives: rate