Google Play Books has been on a slow worldtour that hasn't given Asia much love. Google is addressing that regional deficit in grand fashion today by launching its digital bookshop in India. The collection includes the expected blend of local and international titles, although the Books expansion is almost more important as a milestone for Google's overall content strategy in the country -- it's the first instance of anything besides Android apps reaching India's Google Play Store. In an appropriate (if not necessarily intentional) pairing with the launch, Google has also pushed out a worldwide update to the Books app for Android that lets readers filter books by type and identifies place names on the existing page. The news will still be happiest for those eager to read in Rajkot, but there's a little for seemingly everyone at the source link.
The highly regarded maker of remote-computer-control software, LogMeIn, claims that its new file-cloud-syncing and online storage offering, Cubby, attracted more beta testers than any product in the company's history. And it's no wonder: Cubby is a delight to use, and offers all the simplicity, apps, and features you could want in such a service. Of course, it didn't hurt that the service was free with 5GB of online storage space. With the service's exit from beta, the free 5GB offer remains, but paying $6.99 a month ups that limit to 100GB and adds collaboration and more management and security features.
Cubby goes beyond the standard folder-syncing services such as Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and SkyDrive, which keep all your files accessible at all times, using cloud storage. Cubby's twist on the genre makes storage limits a moot point: Its DirectSync feature lets you sync between your own separate computers without taking up space on Cubby's servers. (Unfortunately, this feature is now only available in paid Pro accounts.) But perhaps most important among the new service's claims is that it offers the best middle ground between simplicity and powerful features?"Your digital happy place," is Cubby's motto, and I tend to agree with it. Something you don't get with Cubby, though is device syncing for settings and such, like you get with Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft Skydrive.
Signup and Setup In addition to the free 5GB storage, Cubby still offers a referral program that gets you an extra 1GB for each user you get to sign up, up to a maximum of 25GB. SugarSync actually has a higher cap on referral bonuses, at 32GB and unlimited if your friends sign up for paid accounts. The 100GB you get with a $6.99-a-month Pro account is generous by industry standards, but be aware that that price is prepaid annually?not actually monthly.
Cubby has one of the friendliest setup processes I've seen. After you download and run the tiny 4MB installer, you're greeted with an attractively designed box with a single "get started" button. The small box serves as the desktop interface for all Cubby activities, and there's no need for a full-screen app. Now comes signup: All you need is an email address and password (Cubby ensures your password is strong, too). You can't use Cubby without downloading the desktop client, unlike some services such as SkyDrive.
Using Cubby The desktop program for most syncing services, such as SugarSync, Google Drive, SkyDrive, and FileLocker are simply agents that place an icon in your system tray, show you sync status, and link to your synced folders. Cubby's desktop app is a bit richer, offering new folder syncing via drag and drop, sharing, and the creation of Web links to the folder or file.
Like Dropbox, Cubby creates a master folder whose contents are synced across all your devices. As with any subsequent syncing folders you create, this is called a "cubby." To create a new cubby, you drag and drop any folder in your system onto the Cubby desktop app. It will be synced, too?but the folder's original location won't be moved. This is a fantastic solution to the dilemma of syncing services: Should there be a single synced folder all of whose subfolders get synced, too, or should you let the user sync any folder wherever it is on the hard drive? Two of our Editors' Choice folder-syncing services, SugarSync and Dropbox, show the extremes of each approach. Dropbox has one box, for the ultimate simplicity. SugarSync has great controls for syncing only what you want, so it's more complicated. But Cubby deftly combines the flexibility of SugarSync with the simplicity of Dropbox.
Cubby helpfully marks any synced folders' icons with its green C logo in Windows Explorer. And right-clicking on any folder entry offers just one simple choice: "Make this folder a cubby"?far more straightforward than many other syncing services, such as FileLocker, which has four choices, some with subchoices. For already-Cub-ified folders, you get two simple choices: share now and public link. Choosing the first opens the desktop app, and if the folder is non-cloud synced, you'll be asked if you want to turn that on. Clicking a cubby opens its Windows Explorer window?just as it should.
For Pro accounts, Cubby also has "cloud on" and "cloud off" options on your synced folders. The "on" choice means you'll be able to share live Web links to a cubby and get mobile access to it. The other option is DirectSync, which has the advantage of having no storage cap. ?New cubbies you create are "cloud on" by default, but the checkbox-and-cloud icon lets you easily change this setting, after a confirmation. You could certainly use this feature as a backup system if you have two machines running Cubby at separate locations. But if you try to switch the Cloud off for a folder and you're using a free account, you'll just get a message prompting you to upgrade. Since it doesn't cost the vendor anything, I find this kind of arbitrary.
One of the very few slightly confusing notes in Cubby appeared after I'd already turned off the cloud for a folder: The tooltip for the X button to the right of the folder read "remove this cubby from the cloud." This really just meant the folder would be removed from any Cubby syncing. I was surprised that the main My Cubby was fair game for this remove?a nice show of flexibility. Another veryslightly confusing element was that I couldn't drag a folder onto a cubby, but when I double-clicked on the cubby to open its Windows Explorer window, I could easily drop in a subfolder. A drawback to this method, though, is that the subfolder didn't stay in place on my folder structure but was copied or moved to the Cubby folder. If, however, the Cubby-ized folder already has subfolders, they remain intact in their original locations, and get synced.
SALMON, Idaho, Feb 27 (Reuters) - An Idaho man who lost an eye after being hit by a ball during a minor league baseball game can move forward with a lawsuit against stadium owners and the team, the Idaho Supreme Court said.
Bud Rountree was attending a Boise Hawks game in August 2008 when a foul ball struck him in the eye.
Rountree in 2010 sued the stadium owners and the Boise Hawks, a Chicago Cubs farm team, for negligence in state court.
Attorneys for the defendants, known collectively as Boise Baseball, asked the court to invoke the so-called baseball rule, a legal theory that limits the duty of stadium operators to fans hit by foul balls. In an opinion handed down last week, the court said that courts do have the authority to apply the rule but that it was declining to do so.
"Whether watching baseball is inherently dangerous, and the degrees of fault to be apportioned to Rountree and Boise Baseball, are questions for the jury," justices wrote in the Feb. 22 opinion.
Boise Baseball argued that Rountree tacitly consented to expose himself to the risk of being hit by a baseball by attending a game and by possessing a ticket that said on the back: "The holder assumes all risk and dangers incidental to the game of baseball including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown or batted balls."
An Idaho judge rejected those arguments, contending it was within the purview of the state legislature - not the court - to adopt the baseball rule if it chose.
On appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court, Boise Baseball argued the court had the authority to adopt the baseball rule, as judges have done in New York and elsewhere.
Boise Baseball warned that a decision against it could open the door to lawsuits by amateur and professional athletes "voluntarily playing sports like baseball, softball, basketball . . . despite the fact that there are inherent risks to these sports" that are known and consented to by players.
California lawyer Vered Yakovee, lecturer in sports law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, said that when it comes to rules such as the baseball rule, very few are absolute.
This case "carves out yet another exception to the Baseball Rule limiting liability," she said in an email. (Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Lisa Shumaker)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Click For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
Jessie’s Girl singer Rick Springfield will be reprising his role as Dr. Noah Drake on the soap opera “General Hospital”, with his son Liam Springthorpe making his television debut as an undercover cop on the show. The 63-old singer, who last appeared on the show in March 2012, says his character has lots of personal ...
Feb. 27, 2013 ? A hockey player's birthday strongly biases how professional teams assess his talent, according to a new study by Grand Valley State University researchers. The findings were published in the online journal PLOS ONE.
The research, led by Robert Deaner, associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley, shows that, on average, National Hockey League (NHL) draftees born between July and December are much more likely than those born in the first three months of the year to have successful careers. In particular, 34 percent of draftees were born in the last six months of the year, but these individuals played 42 percent of the games and scored 44 percent of the points accumulated by those in the study. By contrast, those born in the first three months of the year constituted 36 percent of draftees but only played 28 percent of the games and only scored 25 percent of the points.
The study focused on Canadian players because in Canadian youth ice hockey there is a January 1 cut-off date. This means players born later in the year would have been consistently younger than their age group peers.
"There's no doubt that drafting professional athletes is an inexact science," said Deaner. "Plenty of sure-fire first-round picks fizzle while some late-round picks unexpectedly become stars. But our results show that, at least since 1980, NHL teams have been consistently fooled by players' birthdays or something associated with them. They greatly underestimate the promise of players born in the second half of the year, the ones who have always been relatively younger than their peers. For any given draft slot, relatively younger players are about twice as likely to be successful. So if teams really wanted to win, they should have drafted more of the relatively younger players."
Background and Significance
Previous studies have demonstrated relative age effects (RAEs), which occur when those who are relatively older for their age group are more likely to succeed. For example, in elite Canadian youth ice hockey, roughly 40 percent of players are born in the first three months of the year while only 15 percent are born in the last three months. Although RAEs are well established in many sports and educational settings, their underlying causes remain unclear. The new study provides the most direct evidence yet that selection bias is a crucial cause of RAEs. Selection bias means that evaluators, such as teachers and coaches, grant fewer opportunities to relatively younger individuals than is warranted by their talent.
"There are many possible causes of RAEs," said Deaner. "For instance, a youth coach may mainly select relatively older players because those players' greater size means they are actually more likely to help the team. Researchers believe, however, that selection bias is also a big cause of RAEs, but there has never been a direct test of selection bias. We could make this test because we had a good measure of perceived talent, the order or slot in which each player was drafted. And we had good measures of realized talent, how long they were able to stay in the NHL and how many points they scored there. Because relatively younger players consistently performed better than would be expected based on their draft slots, we've shown selection bias."
The researchers admit that they don't fully understand the selection bias they discovered. "We don't know yet why the evaluations of NHL teams are biased, but there are several ways it could work. Because being many months older than one's peers can be a big advantage as a child or early teen, the relatively older players might be more likely to be on the most elite junior teams when they are 17 or 18, and scouts might be swayed by that," said Deaner. "Another possibility, suggested by educational studies, is an 'underdog' effect. This would involve relatively younger individuals developing better work habits so that they improve more in adulthood."
The authors believe their pro hockey results have implications for education. Deaner noted: "We have to be careful about assuming too much because a teacher deciding which children should be tracked into advanced classes is a much different situation than hockey teams assessing which adults are likely to develop into NHL stars. But, for many reasons, one would think that NHL teams should be less biased than educators. First, NHL teams are evaluating adults not children, meaning that relative age differences are proportionally smaller. Second, NHL teams are aware of RAEs, but educators may not be. Third, NHL teams have vast resources to evaluate individuals while educators do not. Fourth, NHL teams pay a steep price for poor evaluation whereas educators may not. So overall, in many situations, evaluations of ability may be greatly colored by an individual's relative age. This may even happen when the teachers and coaches know about RAEs."
Co-authors of the study were Aaron Lowen of Grand Valley State University and Steven Cobley of the University of Sydney.
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Journal Reference:
Robert O. Deaner, Aaron Lowen, Stephen Cobley. Born at the Wrong Time: Selection Bias in the NHL Draft. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57753 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057753
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
An atlas of the human heart is drawn using statisticsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: SINC info@agenciasinc.es 34-914-251-820 FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Researchers at Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) have created a high resolution atlas of the heart with 3D images taken from 138 people. The study demonstrates that an average image of an organ along with its variations can be obtained for the purposes of comparing individual cases and differentiating healthy forms from pathologies.
"This atlas is a statistical description of how the heart and its components such as the ventricles and the atrium look," as explained to SINC by Corn Hoogendoorn, researcher at the CISTIB centre of the Pompeu Fabra University.
Scientists from this university have managed to create a representation of the average shape of the heart and its variations with images from 138 fully functioning hearts taken using multislice computed tomography. This technique offers three-dimensional and high resolution X-ray.
"In our analysis the population group included 138 people but it could be applied to much larger populations," comments Hoogendoorn. "We demonstrated the feasibility of constructing this type of atlas using many subjects, with an acceptable level of manual parameter tuning, while still providing good numeric results".
To create this cardiac map the researchers have developed a statistical model capable of managing high quantities of information provided by individual images. It can also collect temporary variations, given that the heart is never motionless.
The level of detail and the possibility to extend the atlas give it "an advantage over the majority of cardiac models present to date." This is the case according to the conclusions of the study, which was published in the 'IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging' journal.
The researchers believe that the study can be applied to medical image processing, especially when segmenting, or in other words, properly differentiating a structure to be analysed from the rest of the image.
"The statistics of the atlas offer a continuous range of exemplary heart shapes, which allows for the comparison of concrete cases as well as the calculation of probabilities of the latter belonging to the modelled population," says Hoogendoorn.
The scientist also outlines that the method can be applied to the images of any other organ or structure. It has the advantage of providing the ability to classify and diagnose healthy shapes and pathologies as well as to differentiate between different illnesses and even establish grading amongst each.
In addition, computational simulations of the heart electrophysiology and mechanics (as well as the mechanics of other organs) can be based on the atlas, which can help to better plan treatment for patients.
This study is one more of others of its kind that highlight the increasing importance of the statistics in biomedical sciences, a mathematic discipline. What is more, 2013 is the International Year of Statistics.
###
References:
Corn Hoogendoorn, Nicolas Duchateau, Damin Snchez-Quintana, Tristan Whitmarsh, Federico M. Sukno, Mathieu De Craene, Karim Lekadir, Alejandro F. Frangi. "A High-Resolution Atlas and Statistical Model of the Human Heart From Multislice CT". IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging 32 (1): 28-44, 2013. Doi: 10.1109/TMI.2012.2230015.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
An atlas of the human heart is drawn using statisticsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: SINC info@agenciasinc.es 34-914-251-820 FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Researchers at Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) have created a high resolution atlas of the heart with 3D images taken from 138 people. The study demonstrates that an average image of an organ along with its variations can be obtained for the purposes of comparing individual cases and differentiating healthy forms from pathologies.
"This atlas is a statistical description of how the heart and its components such as the ventricles and the atrium look," as explained to SINC by Corn Hoogendoorn, researcher at the CISTIB centre of the Pompeu Fabra University.
Scientists from this university have managed to create a representation of the average shape of the heart and its variations with images from 138 fully functioning hearts taken using multislice computed tomography. This technique offers three-dimensional and high resolution X-ray.
"In our analysis the population group included 138 people but it could be applied to much larger populations," comments Hoogendoorn. "We demonstrated the feasibility of constructing this type of atlas using many subjects, with an acceptable level of manual parameter tuning, while still providing good numeric results".
To create this cardiac map the researchers have developed a statistical model capable of managing high quantities of information provided by individual images. It can also collect temporary variations, given that the heart is never motionless.
The level of detail and the possibility to extend the atlas give it "an advantage over the majority of cardiac models present to date." This is the case according to the conclusions of the study, which was published in the 'IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging' journal.
The researchers believe that the study can be applied to medical image processing, especially when segmenting, or in other words, properly differentiating a structure to be analysed from the rest of the image.
"The statistics of the atlas offer a continuous range of exemplary heart shapes, which allows for the comparison of concrete cases as well as the calculation of probabilities of the latter belonging to the modelled population," says Hoogendoorn.
The scientist also outlines that the method can be applied to the images of any other organ or structure. It has the advantage of providing the ability to classify and diagnose healthy shapes and pathologies as well as to differentiate between different illnesses and even establish grading amongst each.
In addition, computational simulations of the heart electrophysiology and mechanics (as well as the mechanics of other organs) can be based on the atlas, which can help to better plan treatment for patients.
This study is one more of others of its kind that highlight the increasing importance of the statistics in biomedical sciences, a mathematic discipline. What is more, 2013 is the International Year of Statistics.
###
References:
Corn Hoogendoorn, Nicolas Duchateau, Damin Snchez-Quintana, Tristan Whitmarsh, Federico M. Sukno, Mathieu De Craene, Karim Lekadir, Alejandro F. Frangi. "A High-Resolution Atlas and Statistical Model of the Human Heart From Multislice CT". IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging 32 (1): 28-44, 2013. Doi: 10.1109/TMI.2012.2230015.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
It began as a seemingly awkward Jack Nicholson introduction of the very long list on nominees, but the Best Picture denouement?at a very long Oscars ceremony on Sunday turned into a surprise appearance by Michelle Obama, via satellite from the Governors' Ball in Washington, D.C.?where earlier she had sat next to Chris Christie?to introduce and announce the winner,?Argo.?
MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) ? Crews searched by sea and air and sought the public's help Monday as they ramped up their efforts to find a husband and wife and two young children who sent a series of distress calls to the Coast Guard the day before, saying their sailboat was sinking far off the Central California coast and they were fashioning a raft from a cooler and a life ring.
The unidentified family had been sailing a small vessel west of Monterey Bay, where strong winds, cold water and big swells made for perilous conditions. Forecasters had issued a weekend advisory warning boaters of rough seas in the area.
The group ? which included two children under 8 ? made its first distress call late Sunday afternoon, Coast Guard Lt. Heather Lampert said. Investigators used the boat's radio signal and radar to determine the call came from an area about 60 miles west of Monterey, she said.
The boaters reported that their 29-foot sailboat was taking on water and the electronics were failing.
An hour later, the family members reported they had to abandon the boat and were trying to make a life raft out of a cooler and life-preserver ring, Lampert said. The Coast Guard then lost radio contact.
The agency looked for the family through the night and on Monday, with help from the California Air National Guard.
The Coast Guard on Monday also released one of the family's recorded distress calls (http://bit.ly/W90cyv ), in hopes that it will lead to new information from the public that could help in the search. So far the agency has received no reports of missing persons in the case.
The agency believes the boat may have been called "Charmblow." In the crackling recording, a man's voice is heard saying, "Coast Guard, Coast Guard, we are abandoning ship. This is the (Charmblow), we are abandoning ship."
The agency has not identified the family, although investigators were able to determine from the broken distress calls that they were a husband and wife, their 4-year-old son and his cousin, Lampert said.
The family's location initially was reported farther north, but Lampert said investigators using the boat's radio signal and radar now believe the call came in west of Monterey Bay, which is about 100 miles south of San Francisco. The boat did not have a working GPS system.
The National Weather Service had issued an advisory throughout the weekend warning boaters of strong winds and rough seas around the San Francisco Bay Area. Water temperatures in the area typically are in the 40s and 50s, making long-term survival difficult.
Mariners "operating smaller vessels should avoid navigating in these conditions," the advisory said.
Calls to harbors in California have failed to locate the boat, and database searches have come up empty too, Lampert said. The Coast Guard was expanding its search to Hawaii, the Seattle area and north into Canada.
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has consumed its first samples from inside a Martian rock in order to analyze the chemistry and mineralogy of the Red Planet.
The Curiosity rover deposited the powder-like samples, drilled from the interior of the Mars rock "John Klein," into two onboard laboratories so they could be studied in detail, rover mission scientists said in a statement Monday (Feb. 25).
Curiosity's first Mars rock samples were placed inside the Chemistry and Mineralogy (or CheMin) instrument, as well as the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument during a two-day operation on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 22 and 23).
"Data from the instruments have confirmed the deliveries," said Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
The small Mars laboratories are built into the body of the car-size Curiosity rover. They are two of 10 instruments built to determine if Mars is now, or ever has been, capable of supporting microbial life.
Curiosity used a percussive drill mounted on its robotic arm to dig into the Mars rock John Klein on Feb. 8, revealing a surprisingly gray-colored interior of the rock. The discovery is intriguing to Mars scientists because it suggests that the rusty reddish-orange color of Mars is only skin deep.
The gray-colored rock powder "may preserve some indication of what iron was doing in these samples without the effect of some later oxidative process that would've rusted the rocks into this orange color that is sort of typical of Mars," Joel Hurowitz, sampling system scientist for Curiosity at JPL, told reporters on Wednesday (Feb. 20).
NASA's $2.5 billion Mars rover Curiosity landed on the Red Planet on Aug. 5 to begin a two-year primary mission to study its landing site, the vast Gale Crater. The rover is currently studying the John Klein rock target as a pit stop on the way to a destination called Glenelg, which is near the base of a mountain that rises up 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the center of Gale Crater.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?
Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
FILE - In this April 27, 2011 file photo, Katherine Jackson poses for a portrait in Calabasas, Calif. A Los Angeles judge indicated Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, that she is inclined to allow a lawsuit by Katherine Jackson against concert giant AEG Live to go to trial on a single claim. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
FILE - In this April 27, 2011 file photo, Katherine Jackson poses for a portrait in Calabasas, Calif. A Los Angeles judge indicated Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, that she is inclined to allow a lawsuit by Katherine Jackson against concert giant AEG Live to go to trial on a single claim. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 file photo, Michael Jackson follows his mother, Katherine Jackson, as they arrive for court on the opening day of his child molestation trial at Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, Calif. A Los Angeles judge indicated Monday Feb. 25, 2013 that she is inclined to allow a lawsuit by Katherine Jackson against concert giant AEG Live to go to trial on a single claim. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A jury should decide whether the promoter of Michael Jackson's final concerts negligently hired and supervised the physician convicted of causing the singer's death, a judge tentatively ruled Monday.
If the ruling stands, it will allow the case by Jackson's mother, Katherine, to go forward and present the theory that concert giant AEG Live controlled the physician who gave the superstar a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol.
Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos' tentative ruling however eliminates some of Katherine Jackson's claims and an attorney for AEG predicted the company would win at trial.
It is unclear when the ruling will be finalized, or whether the judge will change it. She heard two hours of arguments about the case on Monday but didn't indicate whether her mind had been changed.
AEG attorney Marvin Putnam said he was pleased with the ruling and reiterated his belief that the case should have never been filed.
The case centers on whether AEG did an appropriate investigation of Conrad Murray, a former cardiologist who is serving his sentence after being convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of the pop singer. The case also involves whether AEG controlled him while Jackson prepared for a series of comeback concerts.
Katherine Jackson's attorney, Kevin Boyle, declined comment after the hearing, saying he wanted to see the final order.
He told Palazuelos that AEG created a division of loyalties for Murray between his care of Jackson and maintaining an arrangement that would have paid him $150,000 a month to care for the singer.
Jackson died before Murray's contract was signed, and AEG argues he was not an employee of the company.
"AEG just made this more risky for Michael," Boyle argued Monday.
He said the case was unique and it should proceed intact with claims that AEG is liable for Murray's actions. "This has never happened before, or at least no one's been caught," Boyle said.
Putnam argued that by the time it was negotiating Murray's contract to treat Jackson while performing a series of London concerts, the doctor had already been treating the singer for some time, had relocated from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and had ordered large amounts of propofol to help Jackson sleep.
"Sadly, it appears that Michael Jackson's death would have occurred anyway," Putnam said after the hearing.
Katherine Jackson sued in September 2010 and a trial has been scheduled for early April.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? The CEOs of AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica ? three of the world's largest cellphone companies ? had some rare words of praise for U.S. regulators Monday, saying they're doing better than their European counterparts in promoting faster wireless data networks.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told an audience at Mobile World Congress, the world's largest cellphone trade show, that the U.S. government's practice of selling phone companies large swathes of space of the airwaves for perpetual use was helping encourage companies, including AT&T, to build out large networks using the latest "LTE" technology.
By contrast, many European countries lease out space on their airwaves for eight- to 15-year terms. The perpetual licenses in the U.S. gives phone companies the incentive to invest, Stephenson said. The large, contiguous slices of spectrum the U.S. sold in its latest auctions make it easy to build fast networks, he added.
He was joined in a panel discussion by Vittorio Colao, the CEO of British-based Vodafone Group PLC and Cesar Allerta, his counterpart at Spain's Telefonica SA, both of whom agreed with him. Vodafone and Telefonica have wide international holdings.
Verizon Wireless launched LTE service in the U.S. in 2010, followed by AT&T the year after. Both are using airwaves that regulators reclaimed from TV broadcasters ? a process that has run slower in Europe.
The cellphone trade show is being held in Barcelona, Spain, a country that illustrates the slow build-out of LTE in Europe. There are some LTE pilot projects in the country, but no plans for full nationwide build-outs. There are exceptions in Europe, like Sweden, where four phone companies offer LTE mobile services.
According to trade group 4G Americas, there were 33 million LTE-capable devices in North America at the end of last year, representing 52 percent of global LTE connections. Japan and South Korea also have strong LTE networks. The GSM Association, which organizes the show, said Europe accounts for 6 percent of global LTE devices.
Seth MacFarlane's Oscar hosting gig, full of low-brow and sexist jokes, received mixed reviews. The Academy struggles to reach a younger audience and remain a family-friendly show.
By Gloria Goodale,?Staff writer / February 25, 2013
Oscar host Seth MacFarlane speaks on stage at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Calif, on Sunday. After a performance full of sexist and racist jokes, viewers wonder if he will be asked to host again.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Enlarge
As Oscar host Seth MacFarlane is surely learning Monday, helming the annual awards ceremony dwarfs all other challenges. Rescue hostages from under the nose of armed revolutionaries? Piece of cake! Free American slaves amidst a young nation?s bloody civil war? In my sleep!
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But host a three-hour industry telecast to the satisfaction of a global audience of a billion and counting? The faint-hearted need not apply.
Mr. MacFarlane, the creator of Fox?s ?Family Guy,? has been criticized for making sexist, racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic jokes (does this miss any groups?) as well as general bad taste and lousy clock control (the show ran until midnight EST, a half hour over schedule).
But pop culture audiences seem to be as divided as political ones. According to Fizziology, a social media research firm, 13 percent of Facebook and Twitter users discussing the show ranked MacFarlane as ?the best host ever.? And early Nielsen ratings show the broadcast up nearly 20 percent over the 2012 show with some 37 million US viewers.
But there is one question that all Oscar viewers are asking: Will he be back?
Not if the Academy is a tad more careful next time, suggests Thelma Adams, Yahoo! Movies contributing editor. The ?central conundrum? is having a show that remains true to its film industry audience.
?Watch an episode of ?Family Guy? and you?ll know it?s not a good match for Hollywood honchos sitting in stiff chairs in tuxes and tiaras,? she says. The first thing to acknowledge is that the audience inside the Dolby Theater, where the show is held in Hollywood, ?is a tough and tense crowd.?
There are several groups on whom MacFarlane?s humor was wasted.
Gwendolyn Foster, a film professor at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, says her female students were ?appalled? at what they consider MacFarlane?s outdated and sexist routines.
?Everyone agrees it was like watching an old sexist 'Dating Game' episode,? she says via e-mail. ?Seth McFarlane was as smarmy as the host of the 'Dating Game,' which is perfect because the Dating Game, if memory serves me, was on during the Vietnam War, when many Americans preferred to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the war was not happening, or pretend the war was a good thing.?
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued its own rebuke of MacFarlane?s bit in the guise of his animated Teddy Bear persona, the main character in his 2012 film, ?Ted.??A computer-animated Ted, presenting with actor Mark Wahlberg, made the joke that Jews controlled Hollywood, and that being Jewish was required to work in the industry. "I was born Theodore Shapiro and I would like to donate to Israel and continue to work in Hollywood forever," he said.
So we can have Bears, Dinosaurs, Beavers, British Monarchy, Doctors, Trees, Hockey, Football, Hockey Teams, Football Teams, but no John A. Mcdonald, or Pierre Trudeau.
Why is it that the US "gets it", and honors their icons? Is this Canada's inferiority complex/bulimic humility fearing it's ugly head again?
Feb. 22, 2013 ? A protein known for turning on genes to help cells survive low-oxygen conditions also slows down the copying of new DNA strands, thus shutting down the growth of new cells, Johns Hopkins researchers report. Their discovery has wide-ranging implications, they say, given the importance of this copying -- known as DNA replication -- and new cell growth to many of the body's functions and in such diseases as cancer.
"We've long known that this protein, HIF-1?, can switch hundreds of genes on or off in response to low oxygen conditions," says Gregg Semenza, M.D., Ph.D., a molecular biologist who led the research team and has long studied the role of low-oxygen conditions in cancer, lung disease and heart disorders. "We've now learned that HIF-1? is even more versatile than we thought, as it can work directly to stop new cells from forming." A report on the discovery appears in the Feb. 12 issue of Science Signaling.
With his team, Semenza, who is the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Cell Engineering and Institute for Genomic Medicine, discovered HIF-1? in the 1990s and has studied it ever since, pinpointing a multitude of genes in different types of cells that have their activity ramped up or down by the activated protein. These changes in so-called "gene expression" help cells survive when oxygen-rich blood flow to an area slows or stops temporarily; they also allow tumors to build new blood vessels to feed themselves.
To learn how HIF-1?'s own activity is controlled, the team looked for proteins from human cells that would attach to HIF-1?. They found two, MCM3 and MCM7, that limited HIF-1?'s activity, and were also part of the DNA replication machinery. Those results were reported in 2011.
In the new research, Semenza and his colleagues further probed HIF-1?'s relationship to DNA replication by comparing cells in low-oxygen conditions to cells kept under normal conditions. They measured the amount of DNA replication complexes in the cells, as well as how active the complexes were. The cells kept in low-oxygen conditions, which had stopped dividing, had just as much of the DNA replication machinery as the normal dividing cells, the researchers found; the difference was that the machinery wasn't working. It turned out that in the nondividing cells, HIF-1? was binding to a protein that loads the DNA replication complex onto DNA strands, and preventing the complex from being activated.
"Our experiments answered the long-standing question of how, exactly, cells stop dividing in response to low oxygen," says Maimon Hubbi, Ph.D., a member of Semenza's team who is now working toward an M.D. degree. "It also shows us that the relationship between HIF-1? and the DNA replication complex is reciprocal -- that is, each can shut the other down."
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Journal Reference:
M. E. Hubbi, Kshitiz, D. M. Gilkes, S. Rey, C. C. Wong, W. Luo, D.-H. Kim, C. V. Dang, A. Levchenko, G. L. Semenza. A Nontranscriptional Role for HIF-1? as a Direct Inhibitor of DNA Replication. Science Signaling, 2013; 6 (262): ra10 DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.2003417
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Editor's Choice Academic Journal Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology Article Date: 23 Feb 2013 - 0:00 PST
Current ratings for: GCP Could Lengthen Life Expectancy Of Prostate Cancer Patients
Patient / Public:
5 (1 votes)
Healthcare Prof:
The life expectancy of some prostate cancer patients could be lengthened with a natural, non-toxic substance called genistein-combined polysaccharide (GCP).
The finding came from a new study on prostate cancer cells and mice conducted by researchers from University of California, Davis, and was published in Endocrine-Related Cancer.
The men who have the highest probability to benefit from GCP are those with metastatic prostate cancer - cancer that has spread to other parts of the body - and have already used drug therapy to lower their testosterone levels.
Testosterone lowering, referred to as androgen-deprivation therapy, has been the typical way of treating patients with metastatic prostate cancer, however, life expectancies differ greatly among those who receive it.
The authors explained:
Testosterone is an androgen, the generic term for any compound that stimulates or controls development and maintenance of male characteristics by binding to androgen receptors.
The new research indicates that GCP therapy is an effective way to lengthen the life expectancy of people with low reaction to androgen-deprivation therapy.
The pre-clinical study was led by Paramita Ghosh, an associate professor in the UC Davis School of Medicine, and a team that included UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center Director Ralph de Vere White, a UC Davis distinguished professor of urology, Ruth Vinall in the UC Davis Department of Urology, and Clifford Tepper in the UC Davis Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine directed the research in mice.
The report centered on GCP, a proprietary extract cultivated from shiitake mushrooms and soybeans, which is marketed by Amino-Up of Sapporo, Japan.
The experts discovered that the combination of two compounds found in GCP, genistein and daidzein, assist in the prevention of an important process used by prostate cancer cells to remain alive when there is a deprivation of testosterone.
The experts had previously demonstrated that when a person's androgen level reduces, cancerous prostate cells get rid of filamin A, a protein which in other circumstances is connected to the androgen receptor in the cell's nucleus.
The growth of prostate cancer cells is controlled by the androgen receptor. When filamin A gets kicked out of the cell's nucleus, that cancer cell does not need androgens to stay alive anymore.
Therefore, these cells are able to survive when there is a deprivation of androgen after the loss of filamin A, and the cancer becomes terminal.
This report shows that the new therapy, GCP, detains filamin A in the nucleus.
The cancerous cells require androgens to stay alive and grow when this protein stays connected to the androgen receptor.
When starved of androgens, the cancerous cells die. Consequently, the impact of androgen deprivation extends, which in turn, lengthens the patient's life.
"Metastatic prostate cancer patients with the weakest response to androgen-deprivation therapy could be given GCP concurrently with androgen deprivation therapy to retain Filamin A in the nucleus, thereby allowing cancer cells to die off," according to the experts.
In order to start GCP clinical trials on people, De Vere White is now looking into funding. The authors believe that the trials will proceed quickly after they receive funding since GCP is natural and not a medication, needing fewer approvals from the government.
"We should know within the first eight months or so of human clinical trials if GCP works to reduce PSA levels," explained de Vere White, in reference to prostate-specific antigen levels, a tumor marker to identify cancer.
de Vere White concluded:
"We want to see up to 75 percent of metastatic prostate cancer patients lower their PSA levels, and GCP holds promise of accomplishing this goal. If that happens, it would probably be a greater therapy than any drug today."
Written by Sarah Glynn Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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Promotional materials for "The Wedding Singer'' don't lie.
They warn of adult language and themes, and that's exactly what you will experience if you take in the latest Kankakee Valley Theatre Association production, which returns for two more shows at Kankakee Junior High School this weekend.
There is a liberal amount of profanity. There are references to drug use. And there is a particularly saucy bedroom scene that will raise some eyebrows, just as it did when the musical debuted last weekend.
If these things tend to bother you, don't go.
But if you view late-night television or if you watch a pay cable station like HBO, you can handle the subject matter in "The Wedding Singer.'' What's more, you will allow yourself to see a musical that is quite entertaining.
Popularized by the 1998 movie starring Adam Sandler, "The Wedding Singer'' later became a Broadway production, and differences exist between the two. In the theatrical effort, songs like "You Spin Me Around'' and Love Stinks,'' by Dead or Alive and the J. Giels Band, respectively, aren't heard. What you get is more original content from Broadway, and it's delivered in a quality manner by the decidedly young cast.
The play tells the story of the jilted-at-love wedding singer Robbie Hart (played here by Louis Wood). His fiancee ditches him at the altar, and he descends into a funk that is only lifted when a waitress friend, Julia Sullivan (Becky Lowery) realizes Hart, not her Wall Street shark fiancee Glen Gulia (Frank Lopez), is the right man for her.
The acting and singing that accompany the storyline that brings Robbie and Julia together is exuberant. The eyes of audience members are constantly moving back and forth to take in all that is happening on the stage. The visual appeal, including the costumes and the set, is perhaps the most appealing part of the production.
But the sound is not to be overlooked. The pit musicians, numbering 11 in all, provide backbone to the production.
Directed by Tyler McMahon, "The Wedding Singer'' is arguably the most provocative effort ever put forth by the KVTA during its 50-year history. But it continues the tradition of exceptional local theater. If you have enjoyed the KVTA in the past, "The Wedding Singer'' is worth the price of admission and three hours of your time.
Go!
What: "The Wedding Singer''
When: 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Kankakee Junior High School, 2250 E. Crestwood St., Kankakee
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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA CASE NO. 1402600 ORDER REGARDING SERVICE BY PUBLICATION
RICARDO RAMIREZ dba NEW ERA PLUMBING, Plaintiff, v. DON ALEXANDER aka DONALD KING ALEXANDER; DESERT GREEN BUILDERS, a business entity form unknown; GREEN CONSTRUCTION US, a business entity form unknown; RICHARD G. SCOTT; AND DOES 1 THROUGH 20, INCLUSIVE,
SUMMONS
NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: DON ALEXANDER aka DONALD KING ALEXANDER; DESERT GREEN BUILDERS, a business entity form unknown; GREEN CONSTRUCTION US, a business entity form unknown; Richard G. Scott; AND DOES 1 TO 20, INCLUSIVE
YOU ARE BEING SUED BY Plaintiff: RICARDO RAMIREZ dba NEW ERA PLUMBING
NOTICE! You have been sued. The court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within 30 days. Read the information below. You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff, A letter or phone call will not protect you. Your written response must be in proper legal farm if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use for your response. You can find these court forms and more information as the California Courts Online Self-help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing Fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case may default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements. You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want lo call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at (the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifomia.org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Confer (wv/w.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court?s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case. The name and address of the court is:
Santa Barbara Superior Court 1100 Anacapa Street Santa Barbara, CA 93121
The name, address, and telephone number of plaintiffs attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is: MARIO A. JUAREZ, INC. BRENNEMAN. JUAREZ & ADAM LLP 625 E. Chapel Street Santa Maria, CA 93454 (805) 922-4553 DATE: July 3, 2012 (February 15 & 22, 2013 and March 1 & 8, 2013)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Gay and lesbian couples who are challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage say the Constitution prohibits discrimination against them in the nation's largest state or anywhere else in America.
Prohibitions on gay marriage are enshrined in 30 state constitutions and in statutes in roughly 10 other states. Their brief describes it as a "badge of inferiority, separateness and inequality" that "must be extinguished."
But in the brief filed Thursday with the Supreme Court, the gay group suggests several options in their consideration of California's Proposition 8 that stop short of declaring full marriage equality across the United States.
Feb. 22, 2013 ? Humans have at least two functional networks in their cerebral cortex not found in rhesus monkeys. This means that new brain networks were likely added in the course of evolution from primate ancestor to human.
These findings, based on an analysis of functional brain scans, were published in a study by neurophysiologist Wim Vanduffel (KU Leuven and Harvard Medical School) in collaboration with a team of Italian and American researchers.
Our ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared or have changed in function. This raises the question, 'Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?'. Scientists have entertained the idea before but conclusive evidence was lacking. By combining different research methods, we now have a first piece of evidence that could prove that humans have unique cortical brain networks.
Professor Vanduffel explains: "We did functional brain scans in humans and rhesus monkeys at rest and while watching a movie to compare both the place and the function of cortical brain networks. Even at rest, the brain is very active. Different brain areas that are active simultaneously during rest form so-called 'resting state' networks. For the most part, these resting state networks in humans and monkeys are surprisingly similar, but we found two networks unique to humans and one unique network in the monkey."
"When watching a movie, the cortex processes an enormous amount of visual and auditory information. The human-specific resting state networks react to this stimulation in a totally different way than any part of the monkey brain. This means that they also have a different function than any of the resting state networks found in the monkey. In other words, brain structures that are unique in humans are anatomically absent in the monkey and there no other brain structures in the monkey that have an analogous function. Our unique brain areas are primarily located high at the back and at the front of the cortex and are probably related to specific human cognitive abilities, such as human-specific intelligence."
The study used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans to visualise brain activity. fMRI scans map functional activity in the brain by detecting changes in blood flow. The oxygen content and the amount of blood in a given brain area vary according to a particular task, thus allowing activity to be tracked.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by KU Leuven, via AlphaGalileo.
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Journal Reference:
Dante Mantini, Maurizio Corbetta, Gian Luca Romani, Guy A. Orban, Wim Vanduffel. Evolutionary-Novel Functional Networks in the Human Brain?The Journal of Neuroscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1523/%u200BJNEUROSCI.4392-12.2013
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
LAS VEGAS (AP) ? The Las Vegas Strip became a scene of deadly violence early Thursday when someone in a black Range Rover opened fire on a Maserati, sending it crashing into a taxi that burst into flames, leaving three people dead and at least six injured.
Police believe an altercation earlier at an unspecified casino resort prompted the car-to-car attack in the heart of the Strip at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.
The crossroads is the site of several major hotel-casinos, including Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally's.
"This doesn't happen where we come from, not on this scale," said Mark Thompson, who was visiting from Manchester, England, with his wife. "We get stabbings, and gang violence, but this is like something out of a movie. Like 'Die Hard' or something."
Police said they were contacting authorities in three neighboring states about the Range Rover Sport with dark tinted windows, distinctive black custom rims and paper dealer ads in place of license plates that fled the scene about 4:20 a.m.
In Southern California, the California Highway Patrol alerted officers in at least three counties to be on the lookout for the SUV.
Las Vegas Police Sgt. John Sheahan said the Range Rover was last seen near the Venetian resort as it headed south from the shooting scene on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Witnesses also told police the SUV and Maserati had come from the nearby CityCenter area, just south of the site of the attack.
"We have numerous witnesses to this," Sheahan said. "But what is the genesis of this? We don't know yet."
Police also have video from traffic cameras at the intersection and were checking hotel surveillance systems. The video will not be made public, Sheahan said.
Police said the Maserati hit the taxi cab, which went up in flames, and the driver and passenger were killed. The male driver of the Maserati also died, and his passenger was shot.
The crumpled, gray sports car, which had no license plates, came to rest several feet away from the incinerated taxi.
"The people I feel sorry for are the people in the taxi," said Elvina Joyce, a tourist from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. "Seconds made all the difference in the world for them. Wrong place, wrong time."
Joyce and her husband, Dave Joyce, were among the guests staying in high-rise hotels around the scene who found police tape blocking access to normally busy pedestrian crossings at the intersection. Hotel security officers and police shooed away people with cameras, and footbridges linking resort hotels were closed. Traffic around the area was snarled.
Sheahan said the closures were expected to last most of the day while crime scene investigators collected evidence.
"CSI," said Dave Joyce. "There it is. Real crime scene investigators in Las Vegas."
A convention-goer, Jeff Martin, 33, of Columbus, Ohio, said he was unable to cross the Strip several hours after the attack.
"When you're out at 4 a.m. nothing good's going to happen," he said.
Sheahan said the attack was not a rolling gun battle as previously described. The SUV and Maserati were stopped or approaching a red light when at least one person in the Range Rover opened fire. Several people were inside the SUV, the sergeant said.
Six vehicles were involved in the crash that followed, including the taxi and Maserati. The taxi was affiliated with Desert Cab company, according to general manager Sandy Shaver. He declined to comment further.
The taxi might have been propane-powered, Sheahan said.
The incident marked the latest violence on the Strip since the beginning of the year. Two people were critically wounded in a shooting at a parking garage Feb. 6, and a tourist was stabbed Saturday in an elevator at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay.
A spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Jeremy Handel, reassured people that much is being done to keep them safe.
"Recent incidents, while unfortunate, were isolated events," he said in a statement. "Las Vegas is among the safest travel destinations in the world and utilizes the most advanced technology and training to maintain a secure environment."
Las Vegas Police Officer Jose Hernandez acknowledged that the Strip has seen several violent incidents in recent weeks but said police have made arrests or identified suspects in each case.
"People don't have to worry," he said. "This is an unusual occurrence, as tragic as it may be."
The intersection where the shooting occurred Thursday has been the site of high-profile violence in the past.
Rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by in 1996 about a block away under similar circumstances, as assailants opened fire on his luxury sedan from a vehicle on Flamingo Road. The killing has never been solved.
___
Associated Press writers Michelle Rindels and Hannah Dreier contributed to this report.
Jessie’s Girl singer Rick Springfield will be reprising his role as Dr. Noah Drake on the soap opera “General Hospital”, with his son Liam Springthorpe making his television debut as an undercover cop on the show. The 63-old singer, who last appeared on the show in March 2012, says his character has lots of personal ...![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ucmElaEfC_QSVJE7EzMBF1PfH7NRUT7KlP7GqvIb6nECYDUO-moEpGsXp4H-SVD7RFHdEBIH3C-7m87Q3a-oHd_4qmQJi7s812XPELmXQ=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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