To effectively prevent bullying schools need to understand positive school climate, use reliable measures to evaluate school climate and use effective prevention and intervention programs to improve the climate, a recent paper co-authored by a University of California, Riverside assistant professor found.

Cixin Wang, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, co-authored the article, "The Critical Role of School Climate in Effective Bullying Prevention," with Brandi Berry and Susan M. Swearer, both of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was published in the journal Theory Into Practice.

"Bullying is a very complex problem," Wang said. "With this research, we're really trying to provide school personnel with some proven steps to address the problem."

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in reducing bullying behavior by school personnel, parents and students. However, educators have remained challenged about how to assess the factors that cause bullying and select evidence-based prevention and intervention programs.

Studies on Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia have long focused on what's happening inside the brain. Now an international research team studying Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment is reporting potentially significant findings on a vascular abnormality outside the brain.

The finding has potential implications for a better understanding of Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders associated with aging.

The pilot study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Nov. 8 online ahead of print by researchers from the University at Buffalo, the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine in Taiwan. The authors caution that the study is small and that the results must be validated in larger, future studies.

They studied a hemodynamic abnormality in the internal jugular veins called jugular venous reflux or JVR. It occurs when the pressure gradient reverses the direction of blood flow in the veins, causing blood to leak backwards into the brain.

Doctors are urgently trying to contain a potentially fatal superbug that has been found in 21 of the state's most vulnerable babies at Monash Medical Centre and Casey Hospital in Melbourne's south-east.

There are also fears that the antibiotic-resistant bacterium - vancomycin resistant enterococcus, or VRE - may have travelled with one baby to another hospital in Melbourne. This hospital has not yet been identified.

The head of infection control for Monash Health, Dr Rhonda Stuart, said 21 babies at the Monash Medical Centre and Casey Hospital special care and intensive care units had tested positive for VRE in recent weeks.

VRE is a bacterium that can colonise the gut and remain harmless for healthy people. However, it can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems, particularly cancer, transplant and kidney dialysis patients.

As its name suggests, VRE is resistant to vancomycin, an anti-biotic that is used to treat serious infections.

A French teenager has filed a lawsuit against French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur and France's health regulators, her lawyer said on Sunday, over side-effects they say were caused by the Gardasil anti-cervical cancer vaccine.

The lawsuit filed on Friday in Bobigny outside Paris says Sanofi and health regulators violated "obvious safety obligations and breached the principles of precaution and prevention."

The plaintiff's lawyer, Jean-Christophe Coubris, who is based in Bordeaux, said his now 18-year-old client was 15 when she received two injections of Gardasil, which is made by Merck and sold in Europe by Sanofi.

Within months she was hospitalized for multiple sclerosis, he said.

"She temporarily lost her sight and the use of her legs," Coubris said in a statement.

Patients in Cardiff or the Vale of Glamorgan who smoke or are obese will be required to attend intervention courses before having non-emergency surgery from the end of this week.

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board says its optimising outcomes policy, which was approved by the board in July, is designed to support patients live healthier lifestyles and improve their chances of surviving surgery and recovery times.

Under the scheme, any patient listed for elective surgery who smokes or has a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more will have to be offered, accept and complete smoking cessation or weight management support programmes before being put on the waiting list.

Around 2% of adults in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan are thought to have a BMI of more than 40 and 21% smoke.

The Health Board said a test phase for the policy, run with 10 GP practices in the area, proved a success and paved the way for the approach to be adopted across the region from December 1.

Faced with inevitable pain, most people would choose to get it out of the way as soon as possible, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial College London and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL asked 35 volunteers to choose between electric shocks of different intensity occurring at different times.

They found that most people chose to hasten the pain, and would even accept more severe pain to avoid having to wait for it. A smaller proportion preferred to put it off into the future.

The bereaved mother of Utah teen is convinced her otherwise healthy son's death was caused by a flu-shot he was given the day before he fell ill - in a case which baffled doctors.

In the obituary for her son, Chandler, 19, Lori Webb said that her son was given his first ever shot on October 15th after agreeing to travel on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

However, the day after receiving the flu and tuberculosis shots, the Brighton High School graduate began suffering sever vomiting and was admitted to hospital in Salt Lake City wehere he fell into a coma 24-hours later. 'Sicker than he has ever been in his life. He says he's never shook so hard his whole life. He had the worst headache, throw up, and he slept for about two and a half days and didn't eat anything during that time,' said Webb to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Chandler was ultimately taken off life support after a month in a coma and he died on Tuesday after 28 days in the hospital. Chandler Webb's direct cause of death was swelling of the brain, his mother said.

Many of the techniques used to increase one's mental abilities are temporary. These include problem solving methods, exercises in imagination, and stimulants like caffeine or deep breathing. Some people argue that because these only temporarily improve performance, they don't actually increase IQ. On the other hand, you can choose to use them whenever you want to, including during IQ tests, so the "temporary" argument may not be all that relevant.

Of course, to use any technique continually is a difficult goal. Maybe you want to make more permanent improvements? But can you increase brainpower permanently, or at least as permanently as things can be for mortals?

Recent research answers this clearly. Yes, you can actually change the physical structure of your brain, and so improve its function. There are two basic ways you can do this. The first way is to build and strengthen your brain with mental exercises. The second is to strengthen it with certain physical exercises and activities.

This article (The Inuit Paradox by Patricia Gadsby and Leon Steele) presents a conundrum for many of us.

The Inuit demonstrate that humans can survive in good health, without diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay or constipation, on a 70% (saturated) fat carnivorous diet. Without oranges, where do they get vitamin C? Without grains, where do they get vitamin E? Without fiber how can they stay "regular"? How do they maintain their probiotics? Eating so much saturated fat, why didn't traditional Inuit endure chronic illnesses Americans believe come from consuming saturated fats?

While Atkins was mostly correct in his assertion that the human body can maintain normal weight and reasonable health on a very low carbohydrate, carnivorous diet, the Inuit show that he left out a few details. He relied on muscle meat rather than organ meats, overlooked probiotics, did not include bone broth or bone-based foods for minerals and other invaluable elements, and more. This could explain why dietary supplements are required for an Atkins diet, and may also explain why some people do not do well on this diet. In his defense, however, for cultural reasons Americans are unlikely to embrace an Inuit-style diet.

To live successfully on a carnivorous diet we must eat the organs (liver, e.g. - most of us don't eat liver anymore - offal is a source of vitamins and minerals, including B vitamins, and vitamin C), eat raw meat (a source of Vitamin C) and fat, make use of the bones and skin ("snout to tail" dining) and promote fermentation (rotted "stink fish", one Inuit source of probiotics). This is what the Inuit did. Since most of us eat an omnivorous diet sans organ meats (a.k.a. offal, considered "awful" by most Americans) but full of muscle meats, American omnivores are best served by eating nutrient-dense vegetables along with animal foods (meats, fish, eggs, poultry, our ancient B12 source). A clean source of raw animal foods would help us optimize our health. We need properly prepared bone broth (soup stock) to prevent mineral deficiencies, replenish and repair bones and joints, promote regularity and restful sleep, keep skin youthful, etc. (watch any film from the 1940s and notice the popularity of traditional home-made bone-based soups that take a day or two to properly prepare). We need natural fats for energy and organ support. Sadly, and to our peril, most American omnivores no longer value these dietary ways but depend on supplements and government regulated food fortification to make up for what we lack.

Many elderly adults are abused in their own homes, in relatives' homes, and even in facilities responsible for their care. If you suspect that an elderly person is at risk from a neglectful or overwhelmed caregiver, or being preyed upon financially, it's important to speak up. Learn about the warning signs of elder abuse, what the risk factors are, and how you can prevent and report the problem.

What is elder abuse?

As elders become more physically frail, they're less able to stand up to bullying and or fight back if attacked. They may not see or hear as well or think as clearly as they used to, leaving openings for unscrupulous people to take advantage of them. Mental or physical ailments may make them more trying companions for the people who live with them.

Many seniors around the world are being abused: harmed in some substantial way often by people who are directly responsible for their care.

In the U.S. alone, more than half a million reports of abuse against elderly Americans reach authorities every year, and millions more cases go unreported.