Chronic conditions currently account for more than half of the global disease burden and are a primary challenge for 21st century healthcare systems. This is a dramatic shift from the health concerns of the 20th century, when acute infectious diseases were the primary focus in every country. While the world is experiencing a rapid transition from acute diseases to chronic health problems, train...

13 Italian Undergraduates Join Facebook, but Keep a Critical Distance: “It is Useless, but I’m Using It” Paolo Ferri, Observatory on New Media NumediaBios & Department of Educational Sciences, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Nicola Cavalli, Observatory on New Media NumediaBios, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Andrea Mangiatordi, Observatory on New Media NumediaBios, Universi...

In our world of rapid technological change, occasionally it is instructive to contemplate how much has altered in the last few years. Remembering life without the ability to view the World Wide Web (WWW) through browser windows will be difficult, if not impossible, for less “mature” readers. Is it only seven years since YouTube first appeared, a Web site that is now ingrained in many facets of ...

In the US the dominant sources of lead through much of the 20th Century (eg, vehicular emissions, plumbing, household paint) have been significantly diminished. The reductions in adult and pediatric average blood lead levels in the US have been extraordinary. Progress continues: the US Environmental Protection Agency recently developed a new air standard for lead. In the 21st Century, the avera...

Study of the cell will never be complete unless its dynamic behavior is understood. The complex behavior of the cell cannot be determined or predicted unless a computer model of the cell is constructed and computer simulation is undertaken. Rapid accumulation of biological data from genome, proteome, transcriptome and metabolome projects can bring us to the point where it is no longer purely sp...

The incidence of ovarian cancer is highest in women over 70 years old, and the disease is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies in the United States and Europe. Nevertheless, improving the quality of medical care for elderly women with ovarian cancer continues to be a challenge. This paper presents the major issues related to the surgical management of presumed early-stage ov...

One of the key 21st century challenges in population health is the challenge of improving the global urban condition. 2 Starting in 2007, and for the first time in human history, the majority of the world's population will live in urban areas. According to the latest UN projections, 3 by 2030, the world's urban population will increase by more than two billion, while the rural population will d...

The government of Singapore is launching a new university, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), that is scheduled to take in its first freshman class in April, 2012. SUTD, in collaboration with MIT and Zhejiang University, is striving to establish a 21st century innovation paradigm that recognizes the synergy between innovation and design. Many aspects of...