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Study Gives Clues To Increasing X-Rays' Power
Three-dimensional, real-time X-ray images of patients could be closer to reality because of research recently completed by scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a pair of Russian institutes.
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Lawmakers Prepare For Health Care Reform Action During Memorial Day Recess; Advocacy Groups Promote Reform Agendas
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been given "talking points" on health care reform to discuss with constituents during the Memorial Day recess as House and Senate committees work to develop comprehensive reform bills by mid-June, Politico reports (Budoff Brown, Politico, 5/26). According to The Hill, talking points distributed to Democrats in both chambers urge lawmakers to reassure constituents that congressional Democrats are working to improve and not threaten the current U.S. health care system. The Senate Democrats" talking points memo states, "We cannot delay this discussion any longer," adding, "Health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative. If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of health care this year" (Rushing/Alarkon, The Hill, 5/23). According to the memo, health care reform will "reduce costs to make health care affordable," "protect a patient"s choice of doctor and insurance plan" and "assure quality, affordable health care for all Americans." The memo also encourages lawmakers to hold "health care reform action forums" during the recess with constituents. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday said that Democrats "have held more than 170 health care events in their districts already, with another 100-plus events planned for the Memorial Day district work period" (Friedman/House, CongressDaily, 5/22). In a memo by Democratic strategist Paul Begala that was distributed to lawmakers along with other recess materials, Begala urges Democrats to refer to Republicans as defenders of the flaws in the current health care system, including health insurers interfering with medical decisions and helping increase health care costs. He wrote, "There is one fact that animates the Republicans" strategy. It should animate yours, as well. That fact is this: The overwhelming majority of Americans support health care reform," adding, "If health care reform were unpopular, Republicans would not resort to misleading rhetoric to mask their opposition" (Politico, 5/26).Meanwhile, the Senate Republican Conference"s "Getaway Card" for the Memorial Day recess provides lawmakers with talking points about how health care overhaul should allow for all U.S. residents to have access to affordable health coverage provided by patient-selected physicians, avoid long wait times and be "patient-centered, not Washington-centered." The House Republican leaders are encouraging members to focus on Democrats" push for a "complete government takeover of health care," while characterizing Republican efforts as the right health care reform "that puts patients first" (CongressDaily, 5/22). The kit includes four pages of tips similar to recommendations made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz (Politico, 5/26). The New York Times Magazine on Sunday included an interview with Luntz that included his views on health care reform (Solomon, New York Times Magazine, 5/24). Advocacy Groups
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Fewer Americans Following Healthy Lifestyle
A new study found that compared with two decades ago, fewer Americans are following a healthy lifestyle. This is despite the mounting evidence
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Technology On Way To Forecasting Humanity's Needs

Much as meteorologists predict the path and intensity of hurricanes, Indiana University"s Alessandro Vespignani believes we will one day predict with unprecedented foresight, specificity and scale such things as the economic and social effects of billions of new Internet users in China and India, or the exact location and number of airline flights to cancel around the world in order to halt the spread of a pandemic. In the "Perspectives" section of the journal Science, Vespignani writes that advances in complex networks theory and modeling, along with access to new data, will enable humans to achieve true predictive power in areas never before imagined. This capability will be realized as the one wild card in the mix -- the social behavior of large aggregates of humans -- becomes more definable through progress in data gathering, new informatics tools and increases in computational power. Vespignani is the James H. Rudy Professor of Informatics and adjunct professor of physics and statistics at IU, where he is also the director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research (CNetS) at IU"s Pervasive Technology Institute and the IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing. Researchers have already shown they can track the movement of as many as 100,000 people at a time over six months using mobile phone data, and use worldwide currency traffic as a proxy for human mobility. There are sensors and tags generating data at micro, one-to-one interaction levels, much as Bluetooth, Global Positioning Systems and WiFi leave behind detailed traces of our lives. Such are some of the new s of basic information that researchers are using to gain knowledge about aggregated human behavior. This new "reality mining" should in turn enhance the ability of researchers and scientists to accurately forecast the effects of phenomena like catastrophic events, mass population movements or invasions of new organisms into ecosystems, Vespignani said. "It is analogous to what happened in physics when we saw the shift from the study of atomic and molecular physics to the study of the physics of matter," he said. "Here we see a movement from the study of a small number of elements, or small social groups, to the study of the behavior of large-scale social systems consisting of millions of people that can be characterized in space, both social and geographic, and in time." In his article "Predicting the Behavior of Techno-Social Systems," Vespignani also recognizes challenges in creating a predictive system that includes social adaptation. Large-scale data, for example, is still needed about how information spreads and society reacts in times of crisis, but he believes advancing communications databases may address that issue. Quantifying effects of risk perception and awareness phenomena among individuals on the larger techno-social network"s structure and dynamics needs to be designed into formal models, he added, and a need remains for the deployment of monitoring infrastructures capable of supplying real time information to computational models. "While the needed integrated approach is still in its infancy, using network theory, mathematical biology, statistics, computer science and nonequilibrium statistical physics will play a key role in the creation of computational forecasting infrastructures," Vespignani said. "And that should help us design better energy distribution systems, plan for traffic-free cities and manage the deployment of the world"s res." Vespignani"s work on complex systems appears again in the same "Perspectives" section of Science as he is listed as co-author with five others on lead author Frank Schweitzer"s "Economic Networks: The New Challenges." Schweitzer, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, led the research examining interdependencies of economic networks as complex systems. The paper, among other things, notes a need for advancing research on the complexities of the international financial network that in turn could lead to revision and extension of established paradigms in economic theory. Steve Chaplin Indiana University


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