Dilip Soman, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, has been named as one of three finalists for an Impact Award in the partnership category from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). He is receiving the honour for his work leading the Behaviourally Informed Organizations (BI-Org) partnership which was funded through a SSHRC Partnership Grant. The Impact Awards are a major national award for academic research in Canada.

Magnetic resonance imaging often yields inconsistent results when assessing the brain’s structural characteristics in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To address this, scientists from Japan have used a harmonization method called traveling-subject (TS) to reduce measurement bias in brain imaging datasets from multiple sites. The TS harmonized datasets showed significant reductions in measurement bias and revealed apparent volumetric changes in specific brain regions, indicating promise for developing a more robust diagnosis for ADHD.

Singers appearing in opera singing competitions are typically ranked based on an overall score assigned by the judges. However, it has remained unclear exactly what elements in the singer’s voice contribute to these scores. In a new study, researchers analyzed opera singing recordings to identify the impact of various vocal characteristics and acoustic features on the scores assigned by the judges. Their findings could provide a scientific basis for future vocal training and education.