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New operations research paper tackles problems facing confidential databases

11-13-2007 · EurekAlert!

As database managers for Web sites like the New Zealand census bureau have begun releasing a wide variety of information online, new operations research techniques are helping to balance the public's right to know with the need to maintain online security, according to a new study in Operations Research, a flagship journal of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Keywords: operations, research, paper, tackles, problems, facing, confidential, databases, operation, tackle, problem, database

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Operations research pioneer outlines ways to make kidney transplant allocation more equitable
01-03-2007 · EurekAlert!
Stefanos A. Zenios, a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, renowned for his application of Operations Research to tackle some of modern medicine's thorniest problems, has completed new research that could revolutionize kidney allocation for transplant waiting list candidates. The paper, "Recipient Choice Can Address the Efficiency-Equity Trade-Off in Kidney Transplantation: A Mechanism Design Model," was recently published in the journal Management Science.
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Communication is key to protecting public safety
10-31-2006 · EurekAlert!
Protecting public safety requires both more information sharing and better confidentiality protection, reconciling the two is a central challenge of joined-up government. New research from the Economic and Social Research Council has highlighted continuing communication problems and has identified the need to develop standards for best practice in order to tackle the problem.
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Cooking up a solution for a culinary problem
03-31-2007 · EurekAlert!
Acrylamide is considered to be a probable carcinogen and is produced from foods such as potatoes, coffee, wheat and other cereals when they are cooked at high temperatures. Reduced cooking times and temperatures can help to decrease this potentially harmful chemical but scientists at Rothamsted Research and the University of Reading are trying to tackle this problem from its source by investigating how to reduce the precursors of acrylamide in cereal plants.
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Inventors must counter negative effects of success on creativity, says management insights
01-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
R&D Managers who want to sustain the creativity of the inventors in their departments must cope with an unexpected problem -- success -- according to the January issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
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Is nutrient loading a smaller problem than we think?
07-24-2007 · EurekAlert!
A recent journal article in Estuaries and Coasts suggests that the problems with coastal sea grass destruction may not be so much due to eutrophication, as is commonly believed, but due to the depletion of top-level consumers in coastal and estuarine ecosystems. This paradigm could have major repercussions for management of coastal ecosystems, considering the research and management emphasis of recent decades on nutrient control.
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IBM world community grid squeezes decades of cancer research into 2 years
11-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
Canadian researchers will accelerate the war on cancer using a global network of volunteered computer time to tackle some of the world's most complex problems. The team led by Dr. Igor Jurisica, Ontario Cancer Institute, and scientists at Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network, are the first Canadians to use the World Community Grid, which has power equivalent to one of the globe’s top five fastest supercomputers to analyze data from scientists at Hauptman-Woodward in Buffalo, N.Y.
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Software overcomes major problems for scientists who operate research tools over the Internet
10-10-2007 · EurekAlert!
Software under development at Ohio State University is helping scientists operate big-budget research instruments -- such as high-powered microscopes and telescopes -- over the Internet, more safely and efficiently than was possible before. The need for such remote operation is growing, and it's driven by the costs of doing research.
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Geisinger study: PTSD a medical warning sign for long-term health problems
02-13-2008 · EurekAlert!
New Geisinger research finds that post-traumatic stress disorder is an indicator of long-term health problems, similar to biological warning signs such as elevated white blood cell counts. With an in-depth study of Vietnam vets, pioneering PTSD researcher Joseph Boscarino shows that PTSD leaves a distinct biological mark on a person's overall health. Considered a psychological or mental health problem, PTSD should now be viewed as a threat to a person's physical health, Boscarino concludes.
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Overstretched armed forces leading to mental health problems
08-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Prolonged periods of deployment among Britain's armed forces is associated with mental health problems, finds a study published online today.Deployment is an essential ingredient of military life. However, research shows that an increase in the pace of military operations "operational tempo" may have an effect on health and place strain on families.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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