Corruption in the former Soviet Union threatens the European Union's attempts to standardize university degrees, warns Stephen P. Heyneman.
Photo by Daniel DuBois.

Graduates of universities in the former Soviet Republic may find their degrees losing value as corruption among higher education programs continues to rise, two Vanderbilt professors find in a new study published in the February issue of Comparative Education Review.

The study confirms what many educators have learned anecdotally: Educational corruption in the former U.S.S.R. and other former communist regimes has increased since the end of the Cold War.

"Education corruption is among the most serious new problems in economic development today," says Stephen P. Heyneman, co-author of the study along with Kathryn H. Anderson, professor of economics at Vanderbilt, and Nazym Nuralyeva, lecturer in sociology at a university in Kazakhstan.

Heyneman, professor of international educational policy at Vanderbilt's Peabody College of education and human development, presented the results to a meeting of the Kazakhstan cabinet in February.

"Although educational corruption existed under the Soviet Union, we hypothesize that it was modest by comparison to the level today," the authors said. Among the immediate problems for the students is that a devalued degree adversely affects their earning power.

Devaluation of degrees has serious international policy implications, degrades the entire social system of those countries, and decreases the likelihood that those graduates will be able to improve their economic standing, say the researchers. Perceived corruption also could jeopardize funding from international development-assistance organizations that might rethink their participation.

Since 1999 members of the European Union have been working to make university degrees equivalent in hopes of facilitating transfer students and greater mobility in the labor market. Ministers of education from 29 European countries in the Italian city of Bologna signed what has come to be known as the "Bologna Process," which was then opened up to other countries signatory to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe. Further governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005) and London (2007).

But the taint of scandal might abruptly halt that process, Heyneman says. "It is difficult to imagine why a country or a university with a high reputation would allow its degrees to be made equivalent to those of a university or a university system with a reputation for corruption," the authors said in the report.

The study surveyed universities in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic using the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2005.

"By design, one function of education is to purposefully teach the young how to behave in the future," the study points out. "If the education system is corrupt, one can expect future citizens to be corrupt as well." V

Nicolas P.B. Bollen's research suggests the purposeful avoidance of reporting hedge-fund losses. Photo by Steve Green.

Significant numbers of hedge-fund managers purposefully and routinely avoid reporting losses by marking up the value of their portfolios, according to research from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management.

In the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and its effect on global financial markets, the analysis adds to the debate over hedge-fund regulation. Most hedge funds--private investment funds open only to a limited range of investors--are not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are audited less frequently than other investment vehicles.

In-depth analysis of more than 4,200 hedge funds found a significant number of distortions--nearly 10 percent--in hedge-fund returns. These distortions were absent in the three months leading up to an audit or when funds were invested in more liquid securities such as common stock.

Overall, funds tend to report small monthly gains more frequently than small monthly losses, suggesting that hedge-fund managers tend to round up returns to make sure they are slightly positive, rather than adjusting both gains and losses. The study's results, say researchers, point toward purposeful avoidance of reporting losses.

"This type of manipulation could result in investors underestimating the potential for future losses or overestimating the performance of hedge-fund managers," says Nicolas P.B. Bollen, E. Bronson Ingram Research Professor and associate professor of management. "Perhaps even more worrisome, this manipulation could be indicative of even more serious violations of an adviser's fiduciary responsibility."

Using data from the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets, Bollen and Veronika K. Pool of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business analyzed more than 215,000 hedge-fund return observations from 1994 to 2005. Their research debunks the argument that historically low numbers of fraud cases prosecuted by the SEC indicates additional oversight is unwarranted.

Investors should question the accuracy of hedge-fund returns, says Bollen, and exercise caution when using the number of positive returns as a measure of fund performance. "If a hedge fund is inflating returns and concealing losses, an investor who withdraws capital following a month or two of return inflation would benefit from somewhat overvalued fund shares," he says, "but investors who deposit capital--which would be the more usual response in such a situation--would likely suffer."

New technology could help pilots, fighters and commanders to communicate seamlessly.
getty images/CHECK SIX

A computer freeze-up in the office is a hassle. In a fighter jet peppered with enemy fire, it's a matter of life and death.

Getting the increasingly large and complex systems people have come to rely on to interface and interact without shutting down has been the focus of Doug Schmidt's career. As part of a recent Air Force grant, an engineering school team led by Schmidt will help develop a system to link war fighters seamlessly to the Global Information Grid.

Schmidt, professor of computer science and associate chair of the department, and his team are part of a $2.8 million grant to develop a system that will allow soldiers to access information they need no matter where they are or in what circumstances, and regardless of their connection device and available bandwidth.

The funding comes from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. BBN Technologies, an advanced technology firm that was one of the original pioneers of the Internet, is the lead contractor for a team that, in addition to Vanderbilt, includes Boeing and the Institute for Human Machine Cognition.

The Air Force has asked the team to create technological improvements that, for example, would allow a convoy traveling through a hostile city to immediately access information--from historical data to up-to-the-minute traffic details for the planned route. Even a stalled truck along the road could create a life-threatening situation for the soldiers, so the need to access data and make rapid changes using all available technology is critical.

"We can now build things that are so big, we can't test them with conventional techniques," says Doug Schmidt. Photo by Steve Green.

The prototype system under development for the Air Force, called Quality of Service Enabled Dissemination, not only would help improve the quality of complex systems but also increase tolerance for disruptions to ensure that troops in tactical situations get the information they need on time and intact.

Schmidt has spent his career developing ways to test the increasingly complex systems--many of which were developed separately--that have become integral to so many facets of modern life. He has focused on testing these large systems in a sort of simulated technological wind tunnel in order to get all the complex parts to talk to each other. The Air Force grant funds one of four such projects Schmidt is leading at Vanderbilt.

The software tools and platforms developed at Vanderbilt are designed to empower pilots, fighters and their commanders to communicate with each other seamlessly. The software harnesses the powers of the Global Information Grid, which includes all communications networks, from the Internet to cell phones to satellite communication to land lines.

"One of the great things about complexity is that we can now build things that are so big, we can't test them using conventional techniques and tools," says Schmidt. "But the more we become reliant on these systems, the more we need to become more certain they're going to work. Our role is to make sure they work as advertised."

istockphoto.COM

Basic lifestyle changes could save children with obesity-related diabetes from a lifetime of complications. But making changes in areas such as diet and exercise is more difficult than adjusting to medical management of the disease, a Vanderbilt study shows.

"Type 2 diabetes in children is such a new problem that we don't know a lot about these kids," says Dr. Russell Rothman, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics and deputy director of the Prevention and Control Division of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center. "This study is one of the most comprehensive to date to examine who these kids are and the challenges they and their families face."

The study of 103 adolescents with Type 2 diabetes, most of whom are overweight, shows many children and teens do not possess good self-management behaviors. Most children in the study were either overweight or obese, with a body mass index (BMI) at more than 85 percent of the average for their age and weight.

Russell Rothman
Photo by Anne Rayner

The study was conducted by the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center, working with patients at the Vanderbilt Eskind Pediatric Diabetes Clinic. Rothman and Shelagh Mulvaney, assistant professor of pediatrics and nursing, along with physicians and nurses from the diabetes clinic, questioned adolescents about their diabetes management in a telephone survey.

Respondents reported that medical management included daily medicines, blood-sugar monitoring and injections of insulin. More children (37 percent) reported the most difficult part of managing their disease was changing health habits like diet and exercise; 31 percent perceived taking insulin to be the most difficult part, and 18 percent had the toughest time adjusting to finger sticks for blood-sugar tests.

More than 80 percent of patients reported taking medication regularly, and nearly 60 percent monitored their glucose twice daily. However, about 70 percent reported watching at least two hours of TV each day, and 63 percent said they did not currently participate in physical education classes. Children reported that barriers to making healthy lifestyle changes included difficulty in dealing with cravings or temptations, feeling stressed or sad, and frequently eating outside the home.

The study also found racial disparities. African American patients had worse blood-sugar control and were slightly more likely to act like adolescent peers without diabetes--such as drinking sugary drinks and eating junk foods with regularity. The reasons for the disparities are not clear, opening up the possibility for future surveys to explore reasons for the differences.

"These results indicate children are having a very difficult time now, and so you might think it would be very difficult to take care of themselves long-term," Rothman says. "This will mean a major health crisis for the country to deal with later. We owe it to ourselves, as well as to these young patients, to find better ways to help them manage their obesity and diabetes."

The study's findings were published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Staph bacteria, shown here growing on a culture dish in Professor Eric Skaar's laboratory, is the leading cause of deadly infections acquired in hospitals. Photo by Neil Brake

Antibiotic-resistant forms of Staphylococcus aureus (staph) have made staph the leading cause of infectious heart disease, the No. 1 cause of hospital-acquired infection, the leading cause of pus-forming skin and soft-tissue infections, and one of four leading causes of food-borne illness.

By some estimates the number of deaths caused by the antibiotic-resistant strain MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) exceeds the number of deaths attrib-utable to HIV/AIDS in the United States.

"Staph is arguably the most important bacterial pathogen impacting the public health of Americans," says Eric Skaar, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology. "And it seems as if complete and total antibiotic resistance of the organism is inevitable at this point."

That dire outlook has motivated Skaar, postdoctoral fellow Brian Corbin, and a team of researchers in their search for new techniques to use against staph infections. The researchers reasoned that proteins present at the site of a staph infection might be important to the battle between the bug and the immune system.

Even bacteria need to eat. And one of the ways our bodies defend themselves against these foes is to "hide" their food, particularly the metals they need to survive. Vanderbilt researchers discovered that a protein inside certain immune-system cells blocks growth of staph bacteria by sopping up manganese and zinc--supporting the notion that binding metals to starve bacteria is a viable option for fighting localized bacterial infections.

They took advantage of the fact that staph forms abscesses --pimple-like infected areas--in internal organs like the liver. "Because we can tell exactly where the infection is, we can look for proteins that are present only at the site of infection," Skaar says.

Using technology called imaging mass spectrometry, developed at Vanderbilt by Richard Caprioli, the Stanley Cohen Professor of Biochemistry and director of the Mass Spectrometry Center, investigators identified dozens of proteins specifically expressed in staph abscesses in mice. They focused on one that was particularly abundant--calprotectin, a calcium-binding protein that has been extensively studied by Walter Chazin, Chancellor's Professor of Biochemistry and Physics and director of Vanderbilt's Center for Structural Biology. Calprotectin is known to inhibit bacterial and fungal growth in test tubes, but how it kills bugs was unclear.

Postdoctoral fellow Brian Corbin is part of a team investigating new ways to fight staph infections, which are becoming dangerously resistant to antibiotics.
Photo by Neil Brake

The team demonstrated in a series of experiments that calprotectin inhibits staph growth by binding--chelating--nutrient metals, specifically manganese and zinc.

"It basically starves the bacteria by stealing its food," Skaar says.

To confirm calprotectin's role, investigators infected mice lacking the calprotectin gene and showed that those animals were more susceptible to abscess formation than normal mice.

Then researchers examined levels of metals in staph abscesses in normal and cal-protectin-negative mice. Free manganese and zinc were strikingly absent in the abscesses of normal mice, but present in abscesses missing calprotectin, demonstrating the critical role of calprotectin in binding these two metals.

Calprotectin makes up about half the internal content of neutrophils, the primary immune cells that respond to a staph infection. The researchers propose that calprotectin is a second weapon neutrophils employ as they wage battle in the abscess. First, neutrophils try to gobble up the bacteria. If they fail and die (staph is expert at secreting toxins that kill neutrophils), then they spill their guts, which are filled with metal-binding calprotectin sponges that soak up the metals.

"The neutrophil gets the last laugh," Skaar says.

These findings suggest that drugs which bind metals, as calprotectin does, would make good antibiotics. "If we can figure out how to make a molecule that transiently binds metals and that can be targeted to abscesses, I think that would be a great drug," Skaar says.

Findings are detailed in a study published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science, with Corbin as lead author and Skaar as senior author.

In its ability to learn, the cockroach is a numskull in the morning and a genius in the evening. Dramatic daily variations in the cockroach's learning ability were discovered by a new study performed by Vanderbilt University biologists and published last fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is the first example of an insect whose ability to learn is controlled by its biological clock," says Terry L. Page, the professor of biological sciences who directed the project. Undergraduate students Susan Decker and Shannon McCon-naughey also participated in the study.

The few studies that have been done with mammals suggest their ability to learn also varies with the time of day. A recent experiment with humans found that people's ability to acquire new information is reduced when their biological clocks are disrupted, particularly at certain times of day. Similarly, several learning and memory studies with rodents have found that these processes are modulated by their circadian clocks. One experiment with rats found an association between jet lag and retrograde amnesia.

In the current study the researchers taught individual cockroaches to associate peppermint--a scent they normally find slightly distasteful-- with sugar water, causing them to favor it over vanilla, a scent they find universally appealing.

The researchers trained individual cockroaches at different times in the 24-hour day/night cycle and then tested them to see how long they remembered the association. They found that the individuals trained during the evening retained the memory for several days. Those trained at night also had good retention. During the morning, however, when the cockroaches are least active, they were totally incapable of forming a new memory, although they could recall memories learned at other times.

"It is very surprising that the deficit in the morning is so profound," says Page. "An interesting question is why the animal would not want to learn at that particular time of day. We have no idea."

Most previous studies of circadian rhythm have focused on the visual system. "The advantage of eyes becoming more sensitive at night is so obvious that people haven't looked much at other sensory systems," says Page. "The fact that our study involves the olfactory system suggests that the circadian cycle could be influencing a number of senses beyond vision."

In the study the researchers used cockroaches of the species Leucophaea maderae.

The discovery that the cockroach's memory is so strongly modulated by its circadian clock opens up new opportunities to learn more about the molecular basis of the interaction between biological clocks and memory and learning in general. Much of the new information about the molecular basis of memory and learning has come from the study of other invertebrates (animals without backbones) such as the sea slug (Apylsia) and the fruit fly (Drosophila).

"Studies like this suggest that time of day can have a profound impact, at least in certain situations. By studying the way the biological clock modulates learning and memory, we may learn more about how these processes take place and what can influence them," Page says.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Middle school students teach a cartoon character and then test her comprehension. Photo by Jason Tan

Anyone who has ever helped children with homework knows how much they resist checking their answers. Now a new animated computer program created by Vanderbilt engineers is showing students that self-checking is an effective--and enjoyable--way to learn.

Teachers in Nashville and California public school classrooms are using a program called "Betty's Brain" to teach fifth- and sixth-grade students about river ecosystems. But Betty's Brain teaches much more than middle school science content. It also teaches students how to learn.

Supported by $2.5 million in joint funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt and Stanford universities--headed by Gautam Biswas, Vanderbilt professor of electrical engineering and computer science--has demonstrated that students learn science content much better by using "Betty's Brain." Studies at middle schools in Nashville and California show that the students also carry over that learning into new subjects, practice monitoring themselves along the way, and have fun in the process.

Using a simplified visual representation called a concept map, the students teach a cartoon character named Betty about river-ecosystem processes, such as the food chain, photosynthesis and the waste cycle. Then they test her to see if she has learned her lesson. Unless the students periodically check whether Betty understands the concepts and their relations, she will refuse to take the test. In checking her, the students are really checking themselves and discovering that self-monitoring is an important strategy that applies to all learning situations.

"In order to teach, they first have to learn," Biswas says. "Students are much more motivated to monitor someone else, but in the process they are actually monitoring themselves. It's more entertaining for the students, and they feel a sense of responsibility. Because they are teaching her, they want her to do well."

At the bottom of the computer screen is an animated cartoon of Betty. A shared concept map, which represents what Betty and the student have learned, is in the middle of the screen. Using speech and animation processes, Betty can demonstrate how she reasons and answers questions with that information.

"The program's strongest effect is on student reasoning processes," says Rod Roscoe, a research associate in computer science whose field is the psychology of learning. When students are introduced to new science concepts weeks or months after using "Betty's Brain," studies show that they carry over those learning strategies in mastering the new material.

Student tools include Mr. Davis' Library, which contains text explaining the concepts, and simulations that provide animated pictures of what happens to fish in a river if food, sunlight, microorganisms and wastes increase or decrease.

The system gives science teachers tools for incorporating the program into regular classroom activities. Teachers have access to the students' concept maps, which can be projected on a screen for classroom study and discussion.

The teacher can view each student's progress, identify where problems are occurring, and receive suggestions on how best to help each individual. "It helps struggling students see that they are not alone, and they learn from each other," says teacher Sharon Melton.

Biswas, whose field of expertise includes modeling and analysis of complex systems, describes himself as "an engineer or computer scientist who knows cognitive science." Several years ago he helped design the successful "Adventures of Jasper Woodbury" interactive videodisc series, which focused on mathematics and problem solving. Now he and his colleagues from the fields of cognitive science and science education are working on developing software to teach reading to elementary school students and introductory computer science to college students. V

Learn more about "Betty's Brain": www.teachableagents.org

Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming, dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes.

The research team made its discovery in the Ñanchoc Valley, which is approximately 500 meters above sea level on the lower western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru. The discovery was published last year in Science.

"We believe the development of agriculture by the Ñanchoc people served as a catalyst for cultural and social changes that eventually led to intensified agriculture, institutionalized political power, and new towns in the Andean highlands and along the coast 4,000 to 5,500 years ago," says Tom D. Dillehay, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt and lead author of the publication. "Our new findings indicate that agriculture played a broader role in these sweeping developments than was previously understood."

Dillehay and his colleagues found wild-type peanuts, squash and cotton as well as a quinoa-like grain, manioc, and other tubers and fruits in the floors and hearths of buried pre-ceramic sites, garden plots, irrigation canals, storage structures and on hoes. The researchers used a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the radiocarbon dates of the materials. Data gleaned from botanists, other archaeological findings, and a review of the current plant community in the area suggest the specific strains of the discovered plant remains did not naturally grow in the immediate area.

"The plants we found in northern Peru did not typically grow in the wild in that area," Dillehay says. "We believe they therefore must have been domesticated elsewhere first and then brought to this valley by traders or mobile horticulturists.

"The use of these domesticated plants goes along with broader cultural changes we believe existed at that time in this area, such as people staying in one place, developing irrigation and other water-management techniques, creating public ceremonials, building mounds, and obtaining and saving exotic artifacts."

The researchers dated the squash from approximately 9,200 years ago, the peanut from 7,600 years ago, and the cotton from 5,500 years ago.

In separate research studies a Vanderbilt economist has found a disappointing answer to the age-old wage debate regarding pay inequity, and also has pinpointed which professions are best and worst at pay parity. Research by Joni Hersch, professor of law and economics, found that even when taking into consideration characteristics that might affect wages--such as choices over household and child-related responsibilities, market characteristics, working conditions, occupational segregation (field dominated by one sex or another), experience or job turnover rates--sex discrimination remained a strong explanation for the gender pay gap.

"If the unexplained pay disparity sometimes favored women and sometimes favored men, there would be no reason for concern," says Hersch. "But systematically and without exception, finding that women earn less than men raises some questions."

Hersch's research found that there is little difference between men and women when it comes to the amount of time they stay in a job. "Although women quit more often for family-related reasons, men quit more often to move to another job," says Hersch.

What about family and housework? Hersch found some evidence that the presence of children lowers women's earnings. "But overall the evidence is mixed," Hersch says. "Any effect varies by education and over the life cycle." Hersch's research found that, contrary to popular belief, family and housework responsibilities are not the major causes for the gender pay gap. She also found that women are almost as likely as men to take high-risk jobs.

"Coupled with recent class-action sex-discrimination litigation involving the securities industry, grocery stores and now Wal-Mart, it's hard to continue attributing the remaining disparity to intangibles like effort and motivation, and ignore the possibility of discrimination," she says.

Does education help level the playing field? Not necessarily, says Vanderbilt Associate Professor of Economics Malcolm Getz. Getz's research found earnings of women at every level of education are lower than the earnings of men. Despite this, Getz found female enrollment in college grew from 32 percent in 1950 to 57 percent in 2004.

"Some argue that, on average, women place a greater value on the nonmonetary rewards from education than men do--the opportunity to choose careers for their intrinsic satisfaction, a greater sense of serving broader civic goals and cultural advancement, the pleasure of learning for its own sake. In this view, education pays higher dividends for women than for men even if it doesn't necessarily lead to financial parity," says Getz.

Getz's research found that, in general, women yielded a higher economic value after earning an advanced degree, even though they still earned less than men. "The payoff of professional degrees for women is much greater than for men because the earnings they can expect in other careers are so much lower," Getz says.

Getz used data from the U.S. Census' Current Population Survey 1996-2002 to show the sometimes huge financial gaps between men and women. He found pay disparities are greatest in the fields of accounting, insurance, finance and marketing.

On the plus side, Getz found that female police officers and engineers earned about the same as their male counterparts, even though there are far fewer women in these fields. He also says the law profession is getting closer to pay parity.

Hersch's research was published in Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics. Getz's research on salaries and the economics of education is included in his new book, Investing in College: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Research from Vanderbilt shows for the first time that the brain processes aggression as a reward--much like sex, food and drugs--offering insights into our propensity to fight and our fascination with violent sports like boxing and football. The research was published online the week of Jan. 14 by the journal Psychopharmacology.

"Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food," says Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics. "We have found that the 'reward pathway' in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved."

"It is well known that dopamine is produced in response to rewarding stimuli such as food, sex and drugs of abuse," says Maria Couppis, who conducted the study as her doctoral thesis at Vanderbilt. "What we have now found is that it also serves as positive reinforcement for aggression."

For the experiments, a pair of mice--one male, one female--was kept in one cage, and five "intruder" mice were kept in a separate cage. The female mouse was temporarily removed, and an intruder mouse was introduced in its place, triggering an aggressive response by the "home" male mouse. Aggressive behavior included tail rattle, a sideways stance, boxing and biting.

The home mouse was then trained to poke a target with its nose to get the intruder to return, at which point it again behaved aggressively. The home mouse consistently poked the trigger, which was presented once a day, indicating it experienced the aggressive encounter with the intruder as a reward.

The same "home" mice were then treated with a drug that suppressed their dopamine receptors. After this treatment they decreased the frequency with which they instigated the intruder's entry.

In a separate experiment the mice were treated with the dopamine-receptor suppressors again, and their movements in an open cage were observed. They showed no significant changes in overall movement compared to times when they had not received the drugs. This was done to demonstrate that their decreased aggression in the previous experiment was not caused by overall lethargy in response to the drug, a problem that had confounded previous experiments.

The Vanderbilt experiments are the first to demonstrate a link between behavior and the activity of dopamine receptors in response to an aggressive event.

"We learned from these experiments that an individual will intentionally seek out an aggressive encounter solely because they experience a rewarding sensation from it," Kennedy says. "This shows for the first time that aggression, on its own, is motivating, and that the well-known positive reinforcer dopamine plays a critical role."

Kennedy is chair of the special education department in Peabody College and director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development's Behavior Analysis Clinic.

Couppis conducted her research in affiliation with the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. She is also affiliated with the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience.

The toddler entertainment market has exploded in recent years: Infants, toddlers and preschoolers in the United States watch an average of one to three hours of video media and television programming per day. But new research suggests parents should choose videos with high interactive content if they want their children to be educated as well as entertained by their time in front of the tube.

The findings were published in the May 17 issue of Child Development by Vanderbilt University psychologists Georgene Troseth and Megan Saylor.

"By age 2, children have figured out that other people are a primary source of information about the world, and they use social cues such as facial expression and where a person looks or points to gather that information. As a result, they are more likely to learn from a person on video whom they perceive as a conversational partner," says Troseth, an assistant professor of psychology in Peabody College. "In our study, if a video was not interactive, children were much more likely to dismiss the information being conveyed."

Troseth, Saylor, and research assistant Allison Archer conducted two experiments to better understand which type of video best engaged toddlers. In the first, they tested differences in learning from video and from face-to-face interactions among 24 2-year-olds. A woman on a TV screen told the children where to find a stuffed animal hidden in another room. She then gave a second group of children the same information in person. The first group of toddlers rarely found the stuffed animal, suggesting they didn't believe or listen to the woman on the screen. The children given the instructions in person usually found the toy.

In the second experiment, researchers used a closedcircuit video system to make the experience interactive. The woman on the screen could see, hear and respond to the children through conversation and games. After five minutes of interacting with the woman on the TV, children used the information she provided to find the hidden object.

Troseth and her colleagues believe the results indicate that because toddlers understand the difference between their "real" environment and what they see on videos, they are likely to dismiss information offered by someone on television unless that person is clearly interacting with them. This interaction can include tactics such as asking children questions, using their names, or referring to something they can see and touch in their real environment.

Troseth served as a consultant for Sesame Workshop on its new DVD series, which uses Muppet babies and caregivers to encourage and model good social interaction. She is a member of the Vanderbilt Learning Sciences Institute and an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development

Illegal immigration is hurting African Americans, according to research by a Vanderbilt professor of law and political science. In Debating Immigration, a book of essays that Carol Swain edited and contributed to, she says African Americans are losing more jobs to illegal immigrants than other racial or ethnic groups; yet, low-income black workers don't have political input in the debate.

"African Americans have been left devoid of a strong black voice in Congress on a topic that affects them deeply, given their high unemployment rates and historic struggle to get quality housing, health care, education, and other goods and services," says Swain, citing a study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, which found high unemployment rates among African Americans and Hispanics were partly attributed to the large number of low-skilled immigrants in America.

"The greatest competition occurs among people at the margins of society, a multiracial group that includes poorly educated blacks, whites and Hispanics who compete against each other and against new immigrants for low-wage, lowskill jobs." Swain found that cuts in governmental programs like student loans make it harder for low-income African American students to train for higher-paying jobs.

The Congressional Black Caucus, Swain writes, does not list immigration reform as a legislative priority. Some lawmakers in the CBC have large numbers of Hispanic constituents in their districts, which may lead to a conflict of interest, she says.Unless big changes take place within the CBC, there will be no official black representation on the immigration issue, which she believes is hurting the African American community.

The study, led by senior author Joseph McLaughlin and Loren Lipworth, both cancer epidemiologists with the Vanderbilt- Ingram Cancer Center, documented the increased suicide risk. This risk suggests plastic surgeons should consider mental health screening and follow-up for women who seek breast implants.

Lipworth and colleagues performed an extended followup study of 3,527 Swedish women who underwent cosmetic breast-implant surgery between 1965 and 1993.

At an average follow-up of nearly 19 years, the suicide rate was three times higher for women with breast implants as compared to the general population (based on 24 deaths). The risk was greatest--nearly seven times higher--for women who received their breast implants at age 45 or older. The average age at the time of surgery was 32 years.

Suicide risk did not increase significantly for the first 10 years after implant surgery.However, the risk increased with time: 4.5 times higher from 10 to 19 years' follow-up and six times higher after 20 years.

Women with breast implants also had higher rates of death from mental disorders, including a threefold increase in deaths from alcohol and drug dependence. Several additional deaths, classified as accidents or injuries, might have been suicides or involved psychiatric disorders or drug and alcohol abuse as a contributing cause.

"Thus, at least 38 deaths (22 percent of all deaths) in this implant cohort were associated with suicide, psychological disorders, and/or drug and alcohol abuse or dependence," according to the researchers.

There was no increase in the risk of death from cancer, including breast cancer, among women with breast implants, reports Lipworth. Increases in deaths from lung cancer and respiratory diseases, such as emphysema, likely reflected higher smoking rates among women with breast implants.

Several epidemiological studies have also found an increased suicide rate among women with cosmetic breast implants. The current study provides extended follow-up data on a previous nationwide study of Swedish women with breast implants, more than doubling the number of deaths analyzed.

The increases in suicide and in deaths related to alcohol and drug dependence suggest that a "nontrivial proportion of women undergoing breast augmentation may bring with them--or develop later-- serious long-term psychiatric morbidity and eventually mortality," Lipworth and colleagues write.

Because the study includes only deaths, the true rates of psychological and substanceabuse problems among women with cosmetic implants are likely much higher. The researchers conclude, "Such findings warrant increased screening, counseling, and perhaps post-implant monitoring of women seeking cosmetic breast implants."

Winnter Reynolds may have within her body a clue to the legendary Hatfield- McCoy feud. The 11-year-old is a descendant of McCoys who harken from West Virginia and are, according to her grandmother, Goldie, kin to the family known for its long-running clash with the Hatfield family.

Winnter came to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt because of a tumor on her adrenal gland. Her grand-aunt and guardian, Rita Reynolds, had similar tumors removed at Vanderbilt a couple of years ago.Winnter's family has a theory about a connection between these tumors, which run in their family, and the famous feud carried on by their forebears.

"These tumors can send your moods up and down," Rita Reynolds says. "They diagnosed Winnter with attention deficit disorder, but I think it's the adrenal tumor that's been making her hyperactive at times."

Winnter's doctors say the theory that a genetic predisposition for adrenal tumors--caused by a genetic disorder called von Hippel-Lindau disease, which Winnter's family carries--is a possible explanation for why the feuding McCoy family members were so violent and angry.

"Adrenal tumors cause the release of massive amounts of catecholamines--chemicals like adrenalin," says Dr.Wallace "Skip"Neblett,MD'71, chair of the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Children's Hospital and Winnter's surgeon.

The Hatfield and McCoy feud took place in the mountain terrain of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.While some say it started over a pig, historians maintain it began when Southern-sympathizing Hatfields murdered a McCoy who had served in the Union Army.

That led to the first of many retaliations. In 1878 "Old Randall" McCoy thought he spotted one of his pigs being stolen by Hatfields. An ensuing string of accusations, botched trials and killings took place until the climactic burning of Old Randall's home and the murder of his son and daughter in 1888.

Before it was all over, 13 members of the families died violent deaths. There was no further violence after the deaths of the two clan leaders,Old Randall McCoy and Devil Anse Hatfield, in 1914 and 1921, respectively.

In 2002 a symbolic peace treaty was signed by Hatfield and McCoy descendants. Members ofWinnter Reynolds' family have attended Hatfield-McCoy reunions for years and have been swapping stories about their distant cousins all their lives.

"The theory is, maybe those early McCoys had these adrenal tumors as well and that's what helped to set them off," says Winnter's uncle, Frank Hankins.

"From the scientific point of view, the genetic condition the McCoy family has, von Hippel- Lindau disease, is associated with too much adrenaline and related compounds because of a condition called pheochromocytoma, a type of tumor of the adrenal gland," says Dr. Revi Mathew, associate professor of pediatrics and Winnter's endocrinologist.

"It does produce hypertension, headache and sweating intermittently depending on when the surge of these compounds occurs in the bloodstream. I suppose these compounds could possibly make somebody very angry and upset for no good reason."

Last spring Winnter underwent surgery to remove a tumorous adrenal gland. Because von Hippel-Lindau can cause tumors in several organs during the span of a person's life, it could be the first of many surgeries.

Combine a mechanical arm with a miniature rocket motor, and the result is the closest thing yet to a bionic arm.Vanderbilt mechanical engineers have developed a radically designed prototype as part of a $30 million federal program.

"Our design is closer in terms of function and power to a human arm than any previous self-powered prosthetic device, and it weighs about the same as a natural arm," says Michael Goldfarb, the professor of mechanical engineering who is leading the effort.

The prototype can lift (curl) about 20 to 25 pounds--three to four times more than current commercial arms--and can do so three to four times faster. The mechanical arm also functions more naturally than previous models. Conventional prosthetic arms have only two joints, the elbow and the claw. The prototype's wrist twists and bends, and its fingers and thumb open and close independently.

The Vanderbilt arm is the most unconventional of three prosthetic arms under development by a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) program. The other two are being designed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who head the program. Those arms are powered by batteries and electric motors. The program is also supporting teams of neuroscientists at the University of Utah, California Institute of Technology, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago who are developing advanced methods for controlling the arms by connecting them to nerves in the users' bodies or brains.

"Battery power has been adequate for the current generation of prosthetic arms because their functionality is so limited that people don't use them much," Goldfarb says. "The more functional the prosthesis, the more the person will use it and the more energy it will consume." Increasing the size of the batteries is the only way to provide additional energy for conventionally powered arms, and at some point the weight of batteries becomes prohibitive.

It was the poor power-toweight ratio of batteries that drove Goldfarb to look for alternatives in 2000 while working on another exoskeleton project for DARPA.He miniaturized the monopropellant rocket-motor system that is used by the space shuttle.His adaptation impressed Johns Hopkins researchers, so they offered him $2.7 million in funding to apply this approach to a prosthetic arm.

Goldfarb's power source is about the size of a pencil and contains a special catalyst that causes hydrogen peroxide to burn and produce pure steam.

The steam is used to open and close a series of valves. The valves are connected to the spring-loaded joints of the prosthesis by belts made of a special monofilament. A small canister of hydrogen peroxide that fits in the upper arm can provide energy to power the device for 18 hours of normal activity. The steam generated by the device is heated to 450 degrees Fahrenheit by the hydrogen peroxide reaction, so a concern about the device was the need to protect the wearer and others nearby from the heat. Researchers covered the hottest part with special insulating plastic that reduces the surface temperature.Hot steam exhaust is vented through a porous cover, where it condenses and turns into water droplets.

"The amount of water produced is about the same as a person would normally sweat from their arm on a warm day," Goldfarb says.

"DARPA has set a goal of developing a commercially available arm in two years," Goldfarb adds. "Because of our novel power source, the process of proving that our design is safe and getting regulatory approval for its use will probably take longer than that." If DARPA decides it cannot continue supporting the arm's development for this reason, Goldfarb says he is confident he can get alternative funding.