Multi-Stage Novice Defensive Driver Training Program: It Creates overconfidence and increases crash

Multi-stage training programs have been promoted to transfer knowledge and skills to high-risk novice drivers. However, some have suggested there is a link between skill training and an increased crash probability due to overconfidence.A research from scientific researchpublishing concluded that there is a link between skill training and an increased crash probability due to overconfidence, but suggest that after the first year of driving experience, the training begins to pay dividends, with trained drivers performing better than their untrained peers. The article put forward some suggestions in reaction to this phenomenon:

We suggest that instruction designed to increase technical vehicle-handling skills in conjunction with modules focusing on hazard identification and risk perception may offset any effects of increased confidence in the trained group that this and past studies have found.

I think it was a good idea,share with you!

(original: scientific research publishing)

Information Security-A Comprehensive Security Framework of Cloud Data Storage Based on Multi Agent System Architecture

Cloud Data Storage has its attractive advantages,it is Pay-as-you-go Method mode, infrastructure investment is not required and there is no need to buy extra equipment for future storage needs.But the security still let some people worry. A Comprehensive Security Framework of Cloud Data Storage Based on Multi Agent System Architecture is proposed by some scientists:

The tremendous growth of the cloud computing environments requires new architecture for security services. Cloud computing is the utilization of many servers/data centers or cloud data storages (CDSs) housed in many different locations and interconnected by high speed networks. CDS, like any other emerging technology, is experiencing growing pains. It is immature, it is fragmented and it lacks standardization. Although security issues are delaying its fast adoption, cloud computing is an unstoppable force and we need to provide security mechanisms to ensure its secure adoption. In this paper a comprehensive security framework based on Multi-Agent System (MAS) architecture for CDS to facilitate confidentiality, correctness assurance, availability and integrity of users' data in the cloud is proposed. Our security framework consists of two main layers as agent layer and CDS layer. Our propose MAS architecture includes main five types of agents: Cloud Service Provider Agent (CSPA), Cloud Data Confidentiality Agent (CDConA), Cloud Data Correctness Agent (CDCorA), Cloud Data Availability Agent (CDAA) and Cloud Data Integrity Agent (CDIA). In order to verify our proposed security framework based on MAS architecture, pilot study is conducted using a questionnaire survey. Rasch Methodology is used to analyze the pilot data. Item reliability is found to be poor and a few respondents and items are identified as misfits with distorted measurements. As a result, some problematic questions are revised and some predictably easy questions are excluded from the questionnaire. A prototype of the system is implemented using Java. To simulate the agents, oracle database packages and triggers are used to implement agent functions and oracle jobs are utilized to create agents.

The paper published in the < Journal ofInformation Security > . Welcome to discuss if you are interested in!

(source: scientific research publishing )

How Long Can a Brain Live in a Dish?

Scientists have  ever took the brain of dog, monkey, cat apart ,then use all kinds of ways to make them live a period of time.In this respect,Rodolfo Llinás, from New York university,is the most successful.He has put guinea pig brain into a   container filled with liquid for a standard workday.

It's so magic!I am curious that when apart,does the brain has thinking?

(source：popsci)

Delaying motherhood and obesity are responsible for hard to get pregnant

Infertility,may caused by various causes.Mailonline health colume reported an article state that delaying motherhood and obesity are to blame.

Nearly 20 per cent of couples spend more than a year trying for a baby, worrying new figures show.

And the effect of not being able to conceive is so bad for some couples that it forces them apart - or places their relationship under great pressure.

Experts have blamed women delaying motherhood and the obesity epidemic as the two most likely reasons for rising infertility.

There are now more mothers over 30 than at anytime since records began - and further research has shown being overweight can interfere with ovulation in woman and sperm quality in men. 

Sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia - shown to affect both male and female fertility - are also on the rise.

The survey of more than 2,000 people, for ITV's This Morning, found that 18 per cent of couples spent over a year trying to get pregnant.

The figure is higher than that quoted by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which states that 14 per cent suffer fertility problems.

Experts say that couples should not have any cause for alarm until a year has passed without being successful.

When it came to IVF, 17 per cent of couples said they would try it once, with 35 per cent of men saying they would want their partner to try it three times.

Eight per cent of those questioned had undergone IVF and later became pregnant naturally.

And nearly 20 per cent of couples said the stress of not being able to conceive had placed their relationship under strain and affected their sex lives.

The figures come after the health spending watchdog National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) last week upped the age limit for women to have IVF on the NHS.

Women aged 40 to 42 will qualify for state-funded fertility treatment for the first time. Previously, the watchdog did not recommend IVF on the NHS for the over-39s.

Of the people surveyed for This Morning, 29 per cent thought the age limit for treatment should be 40, and 23 per cent said it should be 45.

More than a third of those questioned said they regarded having a baby as a right, but 43 per cent disagreed. Twenty eight per cent also said they believed IVF treatment is a right.

The vast majority were aware of the impact lifestyle can have on fertility, especially the negative effects of drinking and smoking, yet only half were willing to change their lifestyle to conceive.

Experts are increasingly warning that many women are leaving it far too late to start a family. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics last month found that the proportion of women over 40 having children has tripled in the last 20 years, with women in this age group accounting for 30,000 births last year.

It is well-known that a woman's chances of becoming pregnant decline sharply after the age of 35.

The ONS said the eclipse of the young mother has happened because growing numbers of women are putting their education and career first, while the cost of housing and child rearing is also persuading women to delay pregnancy.

And for the first time it suggested that the decline of marriage and the increase in cohabitation has made it harder for women to have families.

Previous research has also found that couples going through IVF are more likely to have relationship difficulties. 

Women undergoing IVF are less likely to want sex or be as satisfied in their relationships, researchers from Indiana University found.

Women who were going through IVF had a reduced libido and also reported feeling less satisfied in their relationships in general.

These women were also less likely to orgasm and experience more discomfort during sex. The longer the IVF process continued, the worse the symptoms became.

Indeed, many people trying for a baby have no idea the negative effect it can have on their sex life, says fertility expert and midwife Zita West.

‘Rather than trying to enjoy the experience, love making becomes pressured and mechanical because it’s the ‘right’ time of the month.’

And the effects aren’t just bad for women, either. ‘Many men think they are suffering from ED and poor libido - but it’s not that, it’s just performance anxiety,’ she added.

(source: http://www.scirp.org/journal/Index.aspx)

Minocycline for Schizophrenia

Minocycline can be used for many disease,such as : Amoebic dysentery, Anthrax, Cholera, Gonorrhea and the like.It is also a safe and effective adjunct to antipsychotic medications.The following research from SCIRP <Psychiatry> summarizes the available data supporting the clinical testing of minocycline for patients with schizophrenia:

Minocycline, an antibiotic of the tetracycline family, has been shown to display neurorestoractive or neuroprotective properties in various models of neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, it has been shown to delay motor alterations, inflammation and apoptosis in models of Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Despite controversies about its efficacy, the relative safety and tolerability of minocycline have led to the launching of various clinical trials. Previously, we reported the antipsychotic effects of minocycline in patients with schizophrenia. In a pilot investigation, we administered minocycline as an open-label adjunct to antipsychotic medication to patients with schizophrenia. The results of this trial suggested that minocycline might be a safe and effective adjunct to antipsychotic medications, and that augmentation with minocycline may prove to be a viable strategy for “boosting” antipsychotic efficacy and for treating schizophrenia. Recently, in randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials, the addition of minocycline to treatment as usual early in the course of schizophrenia predominantly improves negative symptoms. The present review summarizes the available data supporting the clinical testing of minocycline for patients with schizophrenia. In addition, we extend our discussion to the potential applications of minocycline for combining this treatment with cellular and molecular therapy. 

(source: SCIRP)

Interesting research-Why tongue twisters are so hard to say?

A research published in the journal Nature has shed light on exactly why tongue-twisters like 'she sells sea shells on the sea shore' are so hard to say.

It found the brain exercises split-second, symphony-like control to coordinate the tongue, jaw, tongue and larynx to articulate the words we speak.

In the same way an orchestra relies on a conductor to coordinate the orchestra's plucks, beats or blows to make music, speaking demands well-timed instructions from the brain to orchestrate these various parts.

So, like a conductor's gestures being picked up by the wrong player, when the brain sends messages to muscles near each other that make different sounds, confusion can ensue.

The research by a team from the University of California, San Francisco has potentially important implications for the treatment of speech disorders.

It also sheds light on an ability that is unique to humans among living creatures but poorly understood.

'Speaking is so fundamental to who we are as humans – nearly all of us learn to speak,' said senior author Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at UCSF.

'It's probably the most complex motor activity we do.'

The complexity comes from the fact that spoken words require the coordinated efforts of numerous 'articulators' in the vocal tract – the lips, tongue, jaw and larynx.

However, until now, scientists have not understood how the movements of these distinct articulators are precisely coordinated in the brain.

To shed light on how speech articulation works, Dr Chang and his colleagues recorded electrical activity directly from the brains of three people undergoing brain surgery at UCSF.

By implanting an electrode array under the skull of the outer surface of the patients' brains, they were able to record neural activity related to the enunciation of various commonly-spoken English syllables.

They used this information to determine the spatial organisation of the 'speech sensorimotor cortex,' which controls the lips, tongue, jaw, larynx as a person speaks.

This gave them a map of which parts of the brain control which parts of the vocal tract.

They then applied a sophisticated new method called 'state-space' analysis to observe the complex spatial and temporal patterns of neural activity in the speech sensorimotor cortex that play out as someone speaks.

This revealed a surprising sophistication in how the brain's speech sensorimotor cortex works.

They found that this cortical area has a hierarchical and cyclical structure that exerts a split-second, symphony-like control over the tongue, jaw, larynx and lips.

For example, the neural patterns involved in pronouncing consonants, they found, were quite different from those for vowels, even where they used exactly the same parts of the vocal tract, Dr Chang told Nature.com.

That difference could help to explain why slips of the tongue happen in predictable ways. In so-called spoonerisms, we often mix up two consonants, or two vowels, but hardly ever do people mistakenly swap consonants for vowels.

Findings also showed the brain seems to coordinate its articulation of words not by what they sound like, as was previously believed, but by which muscles it needs to move.

The UCSF data distinguished front-of-the-tongue consonants (like 'sa'), back-of-the-tongue consonants (like 'ga'), and lip consonants ('pa'); vowels split into those that require rounded lips ('ooh') or not ('ee').

'This implies that tongue twisters are hard because the representations in the brain greatly overlap,' Dr Chang told Nature.

'Sss' and 'Shh', for example, are both recognised by the brain as front-of-the-tongue sounds, so it more easily confuses these than sounds made by different parts of the tongue.

And that's why 'she sells sea shells by the sea shore' is more difficult to say than 'he sells sea snails by the green door'.

(source:scientific research publishing )

A new method to treat brain damage- Zapping Nerves On The Tongue

"Brain damage(injure)" is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. According to different situation, its treatment is also different.On 02.20.2013 ,the popsci TECHNOLOGY channel reported a new method to treat brain damage:

A new electronic device could treat brain damage by stimulating nerves on the tongue to send signals to the brain. The Portable NeuroModulation Stimulator, or PoNS, is named after part of the brain stem and aims to repair damaged neural connections.

Developed by NeuroHabilitation with funding from the U.S. Army, the battery-powered device is targeted at a specific type of damage called traumatic brain injury, which can cause long-term impairments to memory, coordination, and balance. More than 250,000 soldiers suffered traumatic brain injury between 2000 and 2012, according to the Pentagon.

Here's how PoNS works: The user bites down on the device while performing a 20- or 30-minute series of physical and cognitive exercises tailored to the patient's particular deficits. PoNS then stimulates nerve endings on the tongue in way that mirrors the exercises, hopefully allowing the brain to repair damaged neural connections. Doctors observed persistent patient improvement after a week of daily sessions with PoNS.

At a time when soldiers are likelier than ever to survive a battlefield injury, this tongue-to-brain device offers a glimpse at the kind of medical care veterans will need for decades to come.

(source: http://www.scirp.org/journal/Index.aspx)

Canned Designer Air To Citizens Suffering From Smog

Smog is a type of air pollution, now there a mang smog cities. Popsci science channel reported a new invention: Canned Designer Air.

Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Chen Guangbiao has released a line of designer canned air in China to offer urban citizens something to breathe besides the fume-choked smog that blankets cities there, a problem particularly visible in Beijing. Guangbiao hopes his canned air will bring more attention to China’s air quality problem and provoke citizens to push the government for change to pollution standards.

Increased pollution standards are something China could certainly benefit from. The Sydney Morning Herald reports concentrations of the smallest and most hazardous airborne particulates have been through the roof in recent days for the second time this month. The EPA’s Air Quality Index cannot even register levels above 500, which are something like 20 times what the World Health Organization deems safe. At the American Embassy in Beijing, the index has been hanging around in the 300-500 “hazardous” range since Friday.

Science, Clay Dillow, air pollution, beijing, china, climate change, environment, global warming, smogAnd that’s just this week. Smog has been so bad lately that even China’s tightly controlled national media has been groaning to party leadership about it. NASA satellite images have shown northern China under a thick haze since New Year’s, rendering many cities invisible from space. That’s why Gunagbiao hopes his designer air, which comes in flavors such as “pristine Tibet” (sure to rankle the leadership), “post-industrial Taiwan” (also a hot-button locale, geopolitically speaking), and “revolutionary Yan’an” (that’s the Chinese Communist Party’s historical place of origin).

Another piece of news coming across our desks this morning: China is now burning roughly the same amount of coal as the rest of the world combined. Perhaps the stories are related?

(source:SCIRP)

A bad relationship can make you ill by damaging your immune system

Doctors often tell us to keep good mood. But sometimes it is rather hard to follow the doctor's advice for some people some thing. Especially be anxious about close relationships, this is a common thing, and almost inevitable.Recently, dailymail health channel has reported that Feeling anxious about close relationships could make you fall ill  - by damaging your immune system.

Not only does anxiety appear to raise levels of stress hormones in the body, it also makes it less effective at fighting off illness.

Researchers at Ohio Sate University tested the health effects of 'attachment anxiety' on 85 couples who had been married for an average of more than 12 years.

People with attachment anxiety are defined as being excessively concerned about rejection.

They also have a tendency to constantly seek reassurance that they are loved, and are more likely to interpret ambiguous events in a relationship as negative, the researchers said.

Couples completes questionnaires about their relationships and had samples of blood and saliva taken.

This was so levels of a key stress-related hormone and numbers of certain immune cells could be tested.

The participants also reported general anxiety symptoms and their sleep quality.

Of particular interest were people considered to be at the high end of the attachment anxiety spectrum.

The researchers found that people with high attachment anxiety produced, on average, 11 per cent more cortisol  - a hormone associated with stress  - than those who weren't so anxious.

They also found that the more anxious people were also less able to fight off infection, as they had up to 22 per cent T- cells than less anxiously attached partners.

Incidentally, while more women in the study suffered from higher levels of attachment anxiety, the researchers saw the same elevated levels of cortisol and lower T-cells in the men who were anxious.

Stress is already known to negatively affect health, but this study aimed to look specifically at relationship anxiety.

And while more women in the study suffered from higher levels of attachment anxiety, the researchers saw the same elevated levels of cortisol and lower T-cells in the men who were anxious.

Lead study author Lisa Jaremka said: 'Everyone has these types of concerns now and again in their relationships, but a high level of attachment anxiety refers to people who have these worries fairly constantly in most of their relationships.'

Though some scientists believe that attachment anxiety can be traced back to childhood, Dr Jaremka noted that people who feel anxious can change, over time. 

'It's not necessarily a permanent state of existence,' she said in the study published in the journal Psychological Science.

(data source: scientific researchpublishing)

Some good open access source

The following are many open access source I like.The number in the “()” means the amount of journals.Share with you:

  

Medknow Publications（234）         

scientific research publishing（200）

Dove Medical Press（128）

Croatian Economic Association （110）

Academic Journals （100）

MDPI AG （91）

Journal of Chinese Integrative Medicine Press （90）

IDOSI （89）

IOP Publishing（61）

SAGE Publications （55）

Health and Medical Publishing Group（13）

Hardwood Species’ Nutrient Use Efficiency

The efficiency of nutrient uptake by crops from fertilizers or residue release is generally thought to be similar. For example: about 50 per cent recovery of N in the above-ground plant in the first year. There is some residual benefit of fertilizers as the crops take up a small amount of the nutrients two and three years later. The following is a research from scientific research publishing which studies Hardwood Species’s Hardwood Species:

Attitudes regarding traditional energy sources have shifted toward renewable resources. Specifically, short-rotation woody crop supply systems have become more prevalent for biomass and biofuel production. However, a number of factors such as environmental and inherent resource availability can limit tree production. Given the intensified demand for wood biomass production, forest and plantation management practices are focusing on increasing productivity. Fertilizer application, while generally one of the least expensive silvicultural tools, can become costly if application rates exceed nutrient uptake or demand of the trees especially if it does not result in additional biomass production. We investigated the effect of water and varying levels of nitrogen application (56, 112, and 224 kg?N?ha–1?yr–1) on nutrient content, resorption efficiency and proficiency, N:P and the relationship with ANPP, as well as leaf- and canopy-level nutrient use efficiency of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for Populus deltoides, Quercus pagoda, and Platanus occidentalis. P. deltoides and P. occidentalis reached their maximum nitrogen budget with the application of water suggesting old agricultural fields may have sufficient nutrient levels to sustain short-rotation woody crops negating the application of additional nitrogen for these two species. Additionally, for P. deltoides and Q. pagoda application of nitrogen appeared to increase the uptake of phosphorus however, resorption efficiency for these two species were more similar to studies conducted on nutrient poor sites. Nutrient resorption proficiency for all three nutrients and all three species were at levels below the highest rates of nitrogen application. These findings suggest maximum biomass production may not necessarily be tied to maximum nutrient application.

Welcome everyone to participate in discussion!

The relationship between Expected Stock Returns and Option-Implied Rate of Return

It is known that  for two stock option positions which appear identical, the potential stock option return may be useful for determining which position has the highest relative potential return. The following research from scientific research publishing pointed a new view:

This paper examines the predictability of implied required rate of return (ROI) of individual stock in the cross-section of stock returns. The required rate of return of each stock is implied using its corresponding stock options and used in estimating the fundamental value of stock. The study finds that stocks with low price to fundamental value have higher future returns. The inferred ROIOI.

Do you approve it?

(artical resource: scientific researchpublishing)