Rethinking the costs of highway rest areas

Most of us never give much thought to the small artery that runs along the inside of our wrist, the radial artery. You can feel it easily if you press your fingers just below your thumb. Yet in modern medicine, this little vessel has become one of the most important gateways to the heart. Imagine a doctor threading a tiny tube, called a catheter, through the radial artery to reach your heart. This technique, called transradial access, has transformed modern cardiology. By entering through the radial artery, doctors can perform life-saving cardiac procedures with fewer complications, faster recovery, and even lower costs than older methods that went through the leg. Many people can even walk out of the hospital on the same day. Over the past two decades, doctors have increasingly chosen the radial artery as their entry point for procedures like angiography (imaging of the heart’s blood vessels) and angioplasty (opening blocked arteries). But there’s a catch: sometimes the artery rebels. It tightens suddenly, almost like a muscle cramp, gripping the medical instruments and making the doctor’s job harder. This is known as radial artery spasm (or RAS for short). In rare cases, the spasm is so severe that it traps the catheter or damages the artery wall.

Research from Professor John Willoughby and Christian Fignole at American University in Washington DC examines how diverse ownership structures persist in market economies, challenging the assumption that capitalist ownership automatically emerges as the most efficient form. Using economist Henry Hansmann's institutional framework, they argue that while capitalist owners contribute little to enterprise operations, this does not guarantee that worker ownership would become dominant in post-capitalist societies. Their analysis reveals that heterogeneous ownership forms will likely continue to exist due to the varying conditions that exist in different sectors of a market economy.

In the Autumn of 2022, hopeful college students across the United States clicked through the questions on the Common Application, the digital gateway to more than one thousand colleges and universities. For the first time, alongside their grades, essays, and extracurricular lists, applicants had the chance to provide their gender and pronouns. These questions might seem a small detail, tucked between test scores and teacher recommendations, but their impact is enormous. They mark a turning point in higher education, one where students are able to represent themselves more authentically. Thanks to the work of Dr. Genny Beemyn of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Dr. Abbie Goldberg of Clark University, we now have the first large-scale glimpse into how a new generation of young people is reshaping society’s understanding of gender.

Research from Dr. Andrey Kostyuk at the Grenoble Ecole de Management supervised by Prof. Martina Battisti, a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy, and Director of European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, reveals that successful startup mentoring operates as a complex social exchange where both mentors and entrepreneurs must benefit for ventures to thrive. The findings advance the understanding of entrepreneurial mentoring and provide a blueprint for designing more effective mentoring programs that could accelerate sustainable startup growth worldwide.

Despite decades of awareness about gender equality, a persistent pleasure gap remains between women and men in sexual encounters, with women experiencing significantly fewer orgasms and less sexual pleasure. It is important to note that this gender difference exists primarily in contexts where women have sex with men, while women who have sex with women tend to experience more orgasms and sexual pleasure. Since the gendered pleasure gap cannot be explained by biological factors, researchers continue investigating hidden sociocultural forces that perpetuate this inequality. Two complementary studies from Tanja Oschatz at Johannes Gutenberg University and her colleagues reveal previously overlooked contributors to this gap: women's performance of sexual emotional labor in intimate relationships and biased media representations of sexual pleasure.

Imagine a future where treating cancer doesn't just depend on high-tech machines or potent drugs, but also on something as simple, and as complex, as the bacteria living in your gut. This future might be closer than we think, thanks to groundbreaking research led by Professor Andrea Facciabene at the University of Pennsylvania. In a randomized pilot study recently published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, Prof. Facciabene and an international team of researchers explored a curious and compelling idea: could altering the gut microbiome enhance the effectiveness of radiation therapy in patients with inoperable early-stage lung cancer? The answer, at least in this early stage, appears to be yes.

Research from communication scholars at The Ohio State University reveals fascinating new insights about the dynamics of conversations about race-related issues in the USA. Two complementary studies show that White participants expected more negative outcomes and were more likely to avoid conversations with fellow White people from different political parties than with Black people from different parties. The findings challenge assumptions about racial identity and suggest that partisan divisions have become more influential than racial divisions in shaping willingness to engage in difficult conversations.

When they design mechanical systems, engineers first need to understand how they will behave using mathematical modelling tools that can simulate their movements. In recent years, they have increasingly explored the possibilities of ‘compliant’ mechanisms: highly flexible systems which are now being applied across numerous leading fields of technology. However, because their motions are often incredibly complex, engineers have so far found it difficult to recreate their behaviours in the mathematical tools needed to design them. Because they involve complex, nonlinear behaviour, designing compliant mechanisms has posed a long-standing challenge for engineers. While several advanced synthesis methods are now available, they’re often computationally intensive and can’t readily cope with the inevitable uncertainties in a system’s operating variables. In their latest research, Ahmed Alhindi and Dr. Meng-Sang Chew at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, propose a novel approach that directly accounts for uncertainty in the design process. By reformulating widely used equations, their ‘dimensional synthesis’ method offers a streamlined yet powerful way to design compliant mechanisms under real-world, uncertain conditions.

Loneliness is often described as the invisible epidemic of our time. It creeps quietly into lives, eroding confidence, weakening social bonds, and, at its most dangerous, pushing individuals toward the edge of despair. Stigma can prevent the lonely from seeking help and as loneliness is largely experienced through the prism of isolation, those in need of support may feel they have no-one to turn to. In his chapter “Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Suicidal Behavior: ‘Only Girl, Middle Child’” from the Edited Volume “Loneliness - The Ultimate Suffering in Modern Society”, Dr. Raymond Atwebembere of the Washington University in St. Louis examines this crisis not through abstract statistics alone but through vivid personal stories. His work underscores the truth that loneliness is not just a feeling; if left unaddressed it can be lethal.

Operating and maintaining highway rest areas across the United States has long posed a costly challenge for state transportation departments, especially amid tightening budgets and rising demand. In a new study, Dr. Kishor Shrestha, associate professor at Washington State University finds that one outsourcing method known as method-based contracting is significantly more cost-effective than its two main alternatives. The results offer transport officials a clearer path forward for running rest areas more efficiently, and could help to preventing costly, potentially dangerous closures in the future.