LONDON: New research has found mobile phones can damage personal relationships merely with their presence no matter they are being used or not.
According to psychologists who conducted the experiments at Essex University, mobile phones automatically trigger thoughts about wider social networks, reducing the level of empathy and understanding in face-to-face conversations, ?Daily Mail? reported.
The two studies found if a mobile was visible during a conversation it caused people to feel less positive towards the person with whom they were talking.
The findings suggest fiddling with one's cellphone or simply leaving it in view during a romantic dinner or a meeting with a friend could be a serious social faux pas.
"In both studies we found evidence mobiles can have negative effects on closeness, connection, and conversation quality," said lead researcher Andrew Przybylski.
The studies were the first designed to check the effects of a mobile phone being present on face-to-face communication.
TOKYO (Reuters) - The IMF cut its global growth forecast on Tuesday for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.
Global growth is too weak to bring down unemployment and what little momentum exists is coming primarily from central banks, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook, released ahead of its twice-yearly meeting, which will be held in Tokyo later this week.
"A key issue is whether the global economy is just hitting another bout of turbulence in what was always expected to be a slow and bumpy recovery or whether the current slowdown has a more lasting component," it said.
"The answer depends on whether European and U.S. policymakers deal proactively with their major short-term economic challenges."
For 2012, the IMF now expects global output to grow just 3.3 percent, down from its July estimate of 3.5 percent, making it the slowest year of growth since 2009. It predicted only a modest pickup next year to 3.6 percent, below its July estimate of 3.9 percent.
Emerging markets are still expected to grow four times as fast as advanced economies, but the IMF took a sharp knife to its estimates for India and Brazil, with the latter now seen growing slower than the United States this year.
The IMF said "familiar" forces were dragging down advanced economy growth: fiscal consolidation and a still-weak financial system, the same problems that have plagued the world since the global financial crisis exploded in 2008.
"More seems to be at work, however, than these mechanical forces - namely, a general feeling of uncertainty," IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said.
Measures of risk and uncertainty, such as the VIX volatility gauge in the United States, remain at low levels, Blanchard pointed out, which makes it difficult to assess the nature of the uncertainty. Blanchard described it as "more Knightian in nature," referring to a term for risk that is impossible to measure, named after economist Frank Knight.
"Worries about the ability of European policymakers to control the euro crisis and worries about the failure to date of U.S. policymakers to agree on a fiscal plan surely play an important role, but one that is hard to nail down," Blanchard said.
The IMF said financial conditions are likely to remain "very fragile" over the near term because repairing euro zone problems will take time and there are concerns about how the U.S. economy will cope with the expected expiry of tax cuts early next year.
For the United States, the IMF said its "urgent policy priorities" should include avoiding a so-called "fiscal cliff" from the expected tax increases and spending cuts, raising the government borrowing limit, and agreeing on a credible plan to reduce the deficit.
It said the fiscal cliff at the extreme would amount to a fiscal withdrawal of more than 4 percent of GDP in 2013, and economic growth would stall.
In the euro area, it said resolving the crisis was the highest priority, and that would require progress toward banking and fiscal union.
"If uncertainty is indeed behind the current slowdown, and if the adoption and implementation of these measures decrease uncertainty, things may turn out better than our forecasts, not only in Europe, but also for the rest of the world," Blanchard said. "I, for once, would be happy if our baseline forecasts turn out to be inaccurate - in this case, too pessimistic."
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NYU dental researcher awarded $1.9 million NIH grant to test new glass-zirconia composite crownPublic release date: 4-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christopher James christopher.james@nyu.edu 212-998-6876 New York University
Dr. Yu Zhang, an associate professor of biomaterials and biomimetics at the New York University College of Dentistry, has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop and test a prototype glass-zirconia composite dental crown.
The award enables Dr. Zhang to advance earlier research on a glass-zirconia composite formulation intended to serve as an alternative to porcelain-veneered zirconia designs. An estimated 10 percent of porcelain-veneered zirconia restorations develop fractures within the first three years.
"A composite crown with glass-rich surfaces will be less susceptible to top-to-bottom fractures from direct contact with hard food as well as to ruptures that occur when the bottom of the restoration buckles under pressure," predicts Dr. Zhang,
Dr. Zhang formulated the initial prototype glass-zirconia composite material with funding from the NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which awarded him more than $1.4 million in 2007 and 2008, respectively. His prior research showed that the glass-zirconia composite has significantly higher load-bearing capacity than porcelain-veneered zirconia formulations.
"In this new study, we will be using a mouth motion simulator -- a machine that simulates chewing and grinding -- to compare the fracture-resistance of eight glass-zirconia and eight all-zirconia crowns," said Dr. Zhang. "Each crown will endure two months and 1.25 million chewing cycles in the simulator equivalent to three meals a day over a five-year period," he said.
Dr. Zhang's glass-ceramic composite crown design has a predominantly glass surface with underlying layers that gradually become more densely packed with ceramic. The crown offers aesthetics comparable to a porcelain-veneered zirconia version, but since it is thinner, less healthy tooth structure needs to be removed to make room for it.
If the glass-ceramic composite crown proves more durable than the all-ceramic variant, Dr. Zhang plans to conduct a subsequent study examining the safety and efficacy of glass-ceramic crowns in human subjects.
Dr. Zhang's co-investigators include Dr. Van P. Thompson, professor and chair of the Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics; Dr. Melvin Janal, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and health promotion, both at the NYU College of Dentistry; Dr. Brian R. Lawn, an NIST Senior Fellow; and Dr. Herzl Chai, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Zhang joined the NYU College of Dentistry in 2005 after working as a materials scientist at NIST, the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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About New York University College of Dentistry
Founded in 1865, New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) is the third oldest and the largest dental school in the US, educating more than 8 percent of all dentists. NYUCD has a significant global reach and provides a level of national and international diversity among its students that is unmatched by any other dental school.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NYU dental researcher awarded $1.9 million NIH grant to test new glass-zirconia composite crownPublic release date: 4-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christopher James christopher.james@nyu.edu 212-998-6876 New York University
Dr. Yu Zhang, an associate professor of biomaterials and biomimetics at the New York University College of Dentistry, has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop and test a prototype glass-zirconia composite dental crown.
The award enables Dr. Zhang to advance earlier research on a glass-zirconia composite formulation intended to serve as an alternative to porcelain-veneered zirconia designs. An estimated 10 percent of porcelain-veneered zirconia restorations develop fractures within the first three years.
"A composite crown with glass-rich surfaces will be less susceptible to top-to-bottom fractures from direct contact with hard food as well as to ruptures that occur when the bottom of the restoration buckles under pressure," predicts Dr. Zhang,
Dr. Zhang formulated the initial prototype glass-zirconia composite material with funding from the NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which awarded him more than $1.4 million in 2007 and 2008, respectively. His prior research showed that the glass-zirconia composite has significantly higher load-bearing capacity than porcelain-veneered zirconia formulations.
"In this new study, we will be using a mouth motion simulator -- a machine that simulates chewing and grinding -- to compare the fracture-resistance of eight glass-zirconia and eight all-zirconia crowns," said Dr. Zhang. "Each crown will endure two months and 1.25 million chewing cycles in the simulator equivalent to three meals a day over a five-year period," he said.
Dr. Zhang's glass-ceramic composite crown design has a predominantly glass surface with underlying layers that gradually become more densely packed with ceramic. The crown offers aesthetics comparable to a porcelain-veneered zirconia version, but since it is thinner, less healthy tooth structure needs to be removed to make room for it.
If the glass-ceramic composite crown proves more durable than the all-ceramic variant, Dr. Zhang plans to conduct a subsequent study examining the safety and efficacy of glass-ceramic crowns in human subjects.
Dr. Zhang's co-investigators include Dr. Van P. Thompson, professor and chair of the Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics; Dr. Melvin Janal, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and health promotion, both at the NYU College of Dentistry; Dr. Brian R. Lawn, an NIST Senior Fellow; and Dr. Herzl Chai, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Zhang joined the NYU College of Dentistry in 2005 after working as a materials scientist at NIST, the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology.
###
About New York University College of Dentistry
Founded in 1865, New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) is the third oldest and the largest dental school in the US, educating more than 8 percent of all dentists. NYUCD has a significant global reach and provides a level of national and international diversity among its students that is unmatched by any other dental school.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 4-Oct-2012
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