Researchers develop simplified climate change modeling program
Researchers including Professor of Physics James Marston presented a new technique that could simplify the process of modeling climate change in a study published Tuesday in the journal Physical Review Letters. The process generally requires supercomputers that can perform complex analysis of changes in a variety of weather variables.
The new approach, known as direct statistical stimulation, focuses on general forces that affect climate change rather than single details of weather history. Marston and his co-author spent the past years developing the computational tools necessary for the approach, according to a University press release.
The study tested the model’s effectiveness in simulating fluid jets, such as those found underwater or in the atmosphere, according to the press release. The authors found their approach yielded similar results to the traditional modeling approach.
The authors have made the modeling technology available on Apple’s App Store so other researchers in the field can test it further, according to the release.
Study examines effect of political conflict on HIV therapy
Brown researchers explored how political conflict often impedes HIV patients from taking their medications in a review published online in the journal AIDS Reviews last week. When HIV treatment is interrupted, patients often develop resistance to the drugs used for treatment.
In the review, the researchers examined how factors such as HIV subtype and genes alter the effectiveness of therapy once resumed. They advocated researching the best ways to stop and resume therapy when doing so is necessary.
“Increased awareness of such associations by clinicians as well as politicians and stakeholders is essential,” the authors wrote in the study.
Gestational diabetes does not require daily monitoring
Researchers at Alpert Medical School found doctors can efficiently detect which cases of gestational diabetes require drug treatment without daily monitoring of blood glucose levels in a study published in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine last week.
Gestational diabetes is a form of glucose intolerance that develops during pregnancy. Generally a temporary condition, gestational diabetes usually affects women in their third trimesters of pregnancies and occurs in 2-10 percent of pregnancies, according to the National Institutes of Health. Though dietary changes are often enough to address the condition, gestational diabetes occasionally requires drug intervention.
The study examined how long it took doctors to identify patients who required drug treatment when doctors were given values of blood glucose levels each day, every other day and every third day. Doctors could recommend drug therapy within a week in 97 percent of cases that required therapy based on blood glucose level values received every three days, and the start of drug therapy was not delayed relative to when doctors received daily values.
ADVERTISEMENT
