Tag: university

  • Simple Authentication Scheme Cuts Phishing, Password Theft

    Computer scientists at Royal Hollaway in the U.K., a part of University of London, developed a method for verifying the identify of computer users when logging on to password-protected Web sites that reduces opportunities for stealing user credentials. Royal Hollaway professor Chris Mitchell and researcher Haitham Al-Sinani in the university’s Information Security Group describe an…

  • Cancer Care Plans Help Survivors Make Lifestyle Changes

    Medical researchers at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia found online care plans encourage cancer survivors to make needed lifestyle changes to help them cope with their treatments. This finding and other results appear online this month in the journal Cancer (paid subscription required). The Institute of Medicine recommended in a 2005 report that cancer patients…

  • NSF Awards $20 Million for Cyber Security, Privacy R&D

    National Science Foundation is funding new research to better secure the nation’s health information technology, simplify and improve control of security for cloud computing, and clarify an individual’s privacy on the Web. The awards, made under the agency’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program, total $20 million and are supporting three initiatives, each shared among multiple…

  • Calculator Estimates Individual Surgical Complications Risk

    Medical researchers with American College of Surgeons devised an online system that calculates an individual’s risk of developing complications for nearly all kinds of surgery. The team led by Karl Bilimoria, director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center at Northwestern University in Chicago, with colleagues from the UCLA medical center and VA Greater…

  • TV, Cellular Signals Harnessed for Power, Communications

    Computer scientists and engineers at University of Washington in Seattle developed a wireless process that harnesses existing television and cell phone signals as sources of power and a way of communicating. The team led by computer science professors Shyam Gollakota and Joshua Smith describes the process in a paper at ACM’s Special Interest Group on…

  • FDA Funds Organ-on-Chip to Test Radiation Disease Treatments

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration awarded a contract to a Harvard University lab for simulated organ devices to test radiation disease countermeasures. The $5.6 million award will fund the work of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering from FDA’s research and development program on regulatory science and medical countermeasures initiative. Wyss Institute researchers,…

  • Design for Microenterprise Helps Target Emerging Markets

    Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge recommend designing products for small entrepreneurial businesses as a strategy for success in large emerging markets, such as India and China. Graduate student Jesse Austin-Breneman and engineering professor Maria Yang describe their findings in a paper delivered last week at the International Design Engineering Technical Conference of…

  • Telemedicine Found to Improve Rural Pediatric Emergency Care

    A study of rural emergency room cases in northern California shows physician consultations with teleconferencing result in higher quality of  care for seriously ill and injured children. The findings of pediatrician James Marcin and colleagues at University of California in Davis were published yesterday online in the journal Critical Care Medicine (paid subscription required). Telemedicine…

  • Prototype Robotic Brain Blood-Clot Surgery Device Developed

    Engineers and surgeons at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee built a prototype of a surgical device to safely remove blood clots from the brain, a risky and difficult procedure. A team led by Vanderbilt neurosurgery professor Kyle Weaver and mechanical engineering professor Robert Webster describe the system in an upcoming issue of the journal IEEE…

  • Trial Testing External Power Connections for Heart Pumps

    A clinical trial testing alternative connections for external powering of implanted heart pumps is enrolling patients at University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, one site of the study. Bartley Griffith, a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery is leading the research for the university, which is funded by Jarvik Heart Inc., maker of one…