A brand-new report on China?s gaming industry shows that the whole sector ? covering PC and mobile online games and also single-player games ? shows that it has grown 18.5 percent in the past year, hitting sales revenues of 24.84 billion RMB (US$3.93 billion) in 2012 H1.
As for mobile gamers, the report counted up 78 million players of mobile online games up to the end of last month, which is up 70.9 percent year-on-year. That?s predicted??to rise to 98 million by the end of 2012. But the mobile online games sector in China saw relatively pitiful revenue, brining in just 126 million RMB ($19.94 million) of that marquee total. Little wonder that Chinese iOS developers are thought to earn, on average, a?mere 3 cents per download.
First, here?s a summary in graph form:
The big bucks were brought in by MMO-style games and general PC-based (and browser-based) social gaming titles. All those raked in 23.55 billion RMB ($3.73 billion), up 16.9 percent year-on-year. Clearly, those titles ? from sprawling games like Shanda?s (NASDAQ:GAME)?World Zero?to social network integrated games like?The Sims?on QZone?? dominate gaming revenue in the country. In that sector, Tencent (HKG:0700) has long?led the way,?and runs the afore-mentioned QZone.
In good news for Chinese game developers ? well, in PC-based titles ? locally developed games accounted for 71.6 percent of the whole PC online games sector. Their revenue was 16.86 billion RMB (from the afore-mentioned 23.55 billion RMB slice), which was up 63 percent year-on-year at 2012 H1.
Monetizing mobile games clearly has a long way to go.
[UPDATE:?Clarified in second paragraph that the 126 million RMB figure relates to the mobileonline?games sector]
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone took their romance from on-screen to real life.
Fake it 'til you make it? A recent study found that people who act in love often end up in love.
A study conducted on 100 speed-daters found that singles who acted like they were in love on speed dates were more likely to make a genuine connection with the person across the table from them. From physical affection to sharing your dirty secrets, "faking" love with someone, no matter how small the gestures, can land you in real love.
The speed-daters who acted like they were already in love expressed affection "through intense eye-gazing, touching, and the sharing of secrets," ? all demonstrative actions that indicated they had an interest in seeing each other again.
As disappointing as the whole concept sounds, the truth is, even in long-term relationships partners fake love to some extent, even if real love is present. Everybody has nights when they try to act romantic even when they don't particularly feel like it: He buys you flowers, you put on a nice dress and do your hair. And most of the time, it works! You feel, if not more "in love," much more connected after making a true attempt to look good for each other and treat each other well.
This theory of fake love leading to real love is well-illustrated on the big screen ? consider Brangelina, Bennifer, Emma Stone and her on and off screen beau Andrew Garfield, just to name a few ? each of the couples started as an onscreen romance, but continued in real life.
So if you want to make a relationship work, consider those small lovey-dovey gestures: They could make all the difference.
Read more on Gurl:?Can Fake Love Lead To The Real Thing?
A hand-written sign hanging on the gate in front of the entrance for Penn State students at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa., as seen on Monday, July 30, 2012. Penn State players have until the start of training camp on Aug. 6 to decide whether they will transfer following the NCAA sanctions against the program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. (AP Photo/Genaro C. Armas)
A hand-written sign hanging on the gate in front of the entrance for Penn State students at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa., as seen on Monday, July 30, 2012. Penn State players have until the start of training camp on Aug. 6 to decide whether they will transfer following the NCAA sanctions against the program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. (AP Photo/Genaro C. Armas)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Backup Penn State safety Tim Buckley has become the first player to transfer from Penn State in the wake of NCAA sanctions, while the future of a more prominent player, star tailback Silas Redd, remains in question.
Redd, a 1,200-yard rusher who would be a focal point of O'Brien's reconfigured Penn State offense, visited Southern California over the weekend. Another good season could have the junior with the dazzling open-field spin move headed to the NFL draft a year early next spring.
Still, the majority of coach Bill O'Brien's core players appear to be sticking with Penn State, determined to weather out what could be a stormy season after the NCAA meted out landmark punishments on the program for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
O'Brien said at Big Ten media days last week in Chicago that more than 50 players have re-affirmed their commitment to Penn State, though he did expect some transfers. Two Class of 2013 recruits have de-committed over the last week, but six prospects visited O'Brien over the weekend before standing by their verbal commitments.
"We have a really unique opportunity at Penn State to do something really special," one of the six recruits, Cedar Cliff High senior Adam Breneman, said in a phone interview. Breneman, of Camp Hill, Pa., is considered one of the top tight end prospects in the country.
"We have a chance to bring a community together. We have a chance to be remembered for a long time and give a community hope."
Buckley won't be part of Breneman's future team. North Carolina State released a statement Monday announcing Buckley, a North Carolina native, would join the Wolfpack for the team's first practice Tuesday.
The former walk-on redshirted last season at Penn State, so he'll have four years of eligibility left.
"The opportunity to come here and play at my state university, so close to home, was something that I couldn't pass up," Buckley said in the statement that made no mention of the scandal.
Other Nittany Lions appear to be at least looking around, most notably Redd.
He voiced support for former coach Joe Paterno as late as two weeks ago, after former FBI director Louis Freeh released the results of his investigation in the Sandusky scandal for the university. Freeh said Paterno, who died in January, and three other school officials concealed allegations against Sandusky ? conclusions vehemently denied by Paterno's family and the officials.
"It has nothing to do with us," Redd had said about the findings. Penn State later handed the results of Freeh's investigation to the NCAA.
Redd had also said his opinion of Paterno, the coach that recruited him to Penn State, hadn't changed. He said Paterno, in his view, remained "the best college football coach of all time."
Since then, the NCAA banned Penn State from postseason play for the next four seasons, including the last two years of Redd's eligibility. College sports' governing body is allowing Redd and all other Nittany Lions to transfer to another school and get on the field right away.
The only restriction is they cannot practice or play with Penn State this year and still play for another school this season, meaning the Penn State roster should finally be set once training camp starts in a week.
But the process sets up college version of NFL free agency, in which other schools have been busy trying to cherry-pick Nittany Lions.
USC could be a landing spot if Redd decides to leave. With an offense led by quarterback Matt Barkley, the Trojans will be highly ranked and one of the favorites to win the Pac-12 Conference.
A person familiar with Redd's decision said the running back was returning from California on Monday and could make his decision as early as Tuesday. The person requested anonymity because no one was authorized to speak for Redd.
If Redd is back in State College by early Tuesday, he might find a bevy of fans urging him to stay.
Tim Sweeney, a businessman who hosts an online radio show, said he and his fellow host Keith Conlin, came up with the "Rise and Rally" event that has garnered community support. Sweeney said more than 1,000 people have indicated on Facebook they will attend the rally, which is scheduled to start at 6 a.m., in order to greet Nittany Lions scheduled to arrive at the football building for early-morning workouts.
"What these guys have had to endure and overcome, nobody has ever been faced before in college football," said Sweeney, who like Conlin is also a former Penn State player. "There aren't any better representatives of our university than our football team."
Most downtown businesses are displaying "Proud to Support Penn State Football" signs on windows. Some stores have started selling shirts with the slogan "Billeave," playing off of the first name of O'Brien, the former New England Patriots offensive coordinator.
Penn State fans and students have also started a Twitter campaign to sway Redd with the hashtag "StaySilas."
"With Silas Redd, or without Silas Redd, I would not discount Coach O'Brien's ability to make an offense and put points on the board," said Sweeney, who also heads the Penn State football Lettermen's Club, a group of former players.
Members of the football alumni group also plan to speak with players at a team meeting later Tuesday. Sweeney said he hopes hundreds of lettermen attend the meeting that O'Brien asked they attend.
"They're going to be overwhelmed when they see how many guys are there. These are their Penn State brothers," Sweeney said. "I'm sure the messages that will be delivered will be strong and impactful."
Penn State spokesman Jeff Nelson said any plans by players to transfer would come from the players themselves or his new school, not Penn State.
Nelson did confirm that former starting quarterback Rob Bolden has been allowed by O'Brien to speak with other schools. Permission was given before the NCAA had announced its sanctions on July 23, Nelson said.
Bolden began the season as starter the previous two seasons before losing the job at the end of the year to Matt McGloin. Bolden had also pondered transferring last offseason.
This spring, O'Brien tabbed McGloin the outright starter and demoted Bolden to the third team. Bolden was with the team as late a player charity event on July 13, the day after the Freeh report was released.
He was no longer on the team's online roster as of Monday.
___
Follow Genaro Armas at http://twitter.com/GArmasAP
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's supreme leader has outlined a new approach to overcome Western sanctions ? stop selling oil and build knowledge-based industries instead.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's says what he calls a "resistant economy" can effectively counter the sanctions.
This month the European Union enforced a ban on oil imports from Iran, after the U.S. stepped up its banking sanctions.
The sanctions aim to force Iran to stop enriching uranium. The West suspects Iran is aiming to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies that.
Khamenei said Iran should stop selling raw materials, including oil, and instead promote "knowledge-based companies which can make a resistant economy more sustainable."
He gave no timetable or details of what would amount to a total overhaul of Iran's economy.
Khamenei's remarks were broadcast on state TV Sunday night.
Contact: Daniel Cochlin daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk 0044-161-275-8387 University of Manchester
Sandwiching individual graphene sheets between insulating layers in order to produce electrical devices with unique new properties, the method could open up a new dimension of physics research.
Writing in Nature Materials, the scientists show that a new side-view imaging technique can be used to visualize the individual atomic layers of graphene within the devices they have built. They found that the structures were almost perfect even when more than 10 different layers were used to build the stack.
This surprising result indicates that the latest techniques of isolating graphene could be a huge leap forward for engineering at the atomic level.
This development gives more weight to graphene's suitability as a major component in the next generation of computer chips.
The researchers' side-view imaging approach works by first extracting a thin slice from the centre of the device.
This is similar to cutting through a rock to reveal the geological layers or slicing into a chocolate gateaux to reveal the individual layers of icing.
The scientists used a beam of ions to cut into the surface of the graphene and dig a trench on either side of the section they wanted to isolate. They then removed a thin slice of the device.
Wonder material graphene is a two dimensional material consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb or chicken wire structure. It is the thinnest material in the world and yet is also one of the strongest. It conducts electricity as efficiently as copper and outperforms all other materials as a conductor of heat.
Demonstrating its remarkable properties won Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov the Nobel prize for Physics in 2010. The University of Manchester is building a state-of-the-art National Graphene Institute to continue to lead the way in graphene research.
Dr Sarah Haigh, from The University of Manchester's School of Materials, said: "The difference is that our slices are only around 100 atoms thick and this allows us to visualize the individual atomic layers of graphene in projection.
"We have found that the observed roughness of the graphene is correlated with their conductivity. Of course we have to make all our electrical measurements before cutting into the device. We were also able to observe that the layers were perfectly clean and that any debris left over from production segregated into isolated pockets and so did not affect device performance.
"We plan to use this new side view imaging approach to improve the performance of our graphene devices."
###
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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.
Contact: Daniel Cochlin daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk 0044-161-275-8387 University of Manchester
Sandwiching individual graphene sheets between insulating layers in order to produce electrical devices with unique new properties, the method could open up a new dimension of physics research.
Writing in Nature Materials, the scientists show that a new side-view imaging technique can be used to visualize the individual atomic layers of graphene within the devices they have built. They found that the structures were almost perfect even when more than 10 different layers were used to build the stack.
This surprising result indicates that the latest techniques of isolating graphene could be a huge leap forward for engineering at the atomic level.
This development gives more weight to graphene's suitability as a major component in the next generation of computer chips.
The researchers' side-view imaging approach works by first extracting a thin slice from the centre of the device.
This is similar to cutting through a rock to reveal the geological layers or slicing into a chocolate gateaux to reveal the individual layers of icing.
The scientists used a beam of ions to cut into the surface of the graphene and dig a trench on either side of the section they wanted to isolate. They then removed a thin slice of the device.
Wonder material graphene is a two dimensional material consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb or chicken wire structure. It is the thinnest material in the world and yet is also one of the strongest. It conducts electricity as efficiently as copper and outperforms all other materials as a conductor of heat.
Demonstrating its remarkable properties won Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov the Nobel prize for Physics in 2010. The University of Manchester is building a state-of-the-art National Graphene Institute to continue to lead the way in graphene research.
Dr Sarah Haigh, from The University of Manchester's School of Materials, said: "The difference is that our slices are only around 100 atoms thick and this allows us to visualize the individual atomic layers of graphene in projection.
"We have found that the observed roughness of the graphene is correlated with their conductivity. Of course we have to make all our electrical measurements before cutting into the device. We were also able to observe that the layers were perfectly clean and that any debris left over from production segregated into isolated pockets and so did not affect device performance.
"We plan to use this new side view imaging approach to improve the performance of our graphene devices."
###
[ | 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.
STUDIO CITY (CBS)?? While family history plays a role in breast cancer risk, doctors say you have control over one of the biggest factors that could prevent the disease.
To talk more about this and offer breast cancer prevention tips, Dr. Lawrence D. Wagman appeared on KCAL9 News on Saturday morning.
Dr. Wagman, an oncologic surgeon, serves as the executive medical director at the Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment at St. Joseph Hospital.
His breast cancer prevention tips include:
1. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle through exercise, as well as, maintaining a correct weight, healthy diet and moderate alcohol intake;
2. Know your family history of breast and ovarian cancer;
3. Know your calculated risk;
4. Ask your doctor about medications to prevent cancer such as Tamoxifen, Raloxifene and Exemestane.
To learn more about him, click here. To schedule a mammogram, visit St. Joseph Health at everymomentmatters.org.
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A pulsar with a tremendous hiccupPublic release date: 26-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Holger J. Pletsch holger.pletsch@aei.mpg.de 49-511-762-17171 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Max Planck scientists discover a young and energetic neutron star with unusually irregular rotation
This press release is available in German.
Pulsars are superlative cosmic beacons. These compact neutron stars rotate about their axes many times per second, emitting radio waves and gamma radiation into space. Using ingenious data analysis methods, researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy, in an international collaboration, dug a very special gamma-ray pulsar out of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The pulsar J1838-0537 is radio-quiet, very young, and, during the observation period, experienced the strongest rotation glitch ever observed for a gamma-ray-only pulsar.
Pure gamma-ray pulsars are difficult to identify because their characteristics, such as its sky position, the period of rotation and its change in time, are unknown. And astronomers can only determine their approximate position in the sky from the original Fermi observations. They must therefore check many combinations of these characteristics in a blind search, which requires a great deal of computing time. This is the only way of finding a hidden periodicity in the arrival times of the gamma-ray photons.
Even high-performance computers quickly reach their limit in this process. Therefore, the researchers used algorithms originally developed for the analysis of gravitational-wave data to conduct a particularly efficient hunt through the Fermi data. "By employing new optimal algorithms on our ATLAS computer cluster, we were able to identify many previously-missed signals," says Bruce Allen, Director of the AEI. Back in November 2011, Allen's team announced the discovery of nine new Fermi gamma-ray pulsars, which had escaped all previous searches. Now the scientists have made a new extraordinary find with the same methods.
The name of the newly discovered pulsar J1838-0537 comes from its celestial coordinates. "The pulsar is, at 5,000 years of age, very young. It rotates about its own axis roughly seven times per second and its position in the sky is towards the Scutum constellation," says Holger Pletsch, a scientist in Allen's group and lead author of the study which has now been published. "After the discovery we were very surprised that the pulsar was initially only visible until September 2009. Then it seemed to suddenly disappear."
Only a complex follow-up analysis enabled an international team led by Pletsch to solve the mystery of pulsar J1838-0537: it did not disappear, but experienced a sudden glitch after which it rotated 38 millionths of a Hertz faster than before. "This difference may appear negligibly small, but it's the largest glitch ever measured for a pure gamma-ray pulsar," explains Allen. And this behaviour has consequences.
"If the sudden frequency change is neglected, then after only eight hours, a complete rotation of the pulsar is lost in our counting, and we can no longer determine at which rotational phase the gamma-ray photons reach the detector aboard Fermi," adds Pletsch. The "flashing" of the neutron star then disappears. If the researchers take the glitch into account and correct the change in rotation, the pulsar shows up again in the observational data.
The precise cause of the glitches observed in many young pulsars is unknown. Astronomers consider "star quakes" of the neutron star crust or interactions between the superfluid stellar interior and the crust to be possible explanations. "Detecting a large number of strong pulsar glitches makes it possible to learn more about the inner structure of these compact celestial bodies," says Lucas Guillemot from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, the second author of the study. "This is a good example of the collaboration of two Max Planck institutes with complementary research foci," says Michael Kramer, Director and Head of the Fundamental Physics in Radio Astronomy research group.
After the discovery in data from the Fermi satellite, the researchers pointed the radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia/USA at the celestial position of the gamma-ray pulsar. In an observation of almost two hours and by analysing a further, older, one-hour observation of the source they found no indications of pulsations in the radio range, indicating that J1838-0537 is a rare gamma-ray-only pulsar.
There were, however, noticeable overlays with observations of the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in Namibia, which searches for very-high-energy gamma radiation from the depths of space. In a survey with H.E.S.S., astronomers found an extended source of this radiation near the now discovered pulsar, but have not yet been able to clarify its nature.
The discovery of the pulsar suggests that the H.E.S.S. source is a pulsar wind nebula. These are produced by particles moving at almost the speed of light, which the pulsar accelerates in its extremely strong magnetic field. Since the exact position of the pulsar is now known, H.E.S.S. can take this into account in the future and to make more precise measurements than before in this celestial region.
The ATLAS computer cluster of the Albert Einstein Institute has thus already assisted in the discovery of the tenth previously unknown gamma-ray pulsar; however, Allen's team has meanwhile mobilised further computing capacity. "Since August 2011, our search has also been running on the distributed computing project Einstein@Home, which has computing power a factor of ten greater than the ATLAS cluster. We are very optimistic about finding more unusual gamma-ray pulsars in the Fermi data," says Bruce Allen. One goal of the expanded search is to discover the first gamma-ray-only pulsar with a rotation period in the millisecond range.
###
Original publication:
Holger J. Pletsch, L. Guillemot, B. Allen, M. Kramer et al.
PSR J1838-0537: Discovery of a young, energetic gamma-ray pulsar
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, gone to press
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.5333
[ | 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.
A pulsar with a tremendous hiccupPublic release date: 26-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Holger J. Pletsch holger.pletsch@aei.mpg.de 49-511-762-17171 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Max Planck scientists discover a young and energetic neutron star with unusually irregular rotation
This press release is available in German.
Pulsars are superlative cosmic beacons. These compact neutron stars rotate about their axes many times per second, emitting radio waves and gamma radiation into space. Using ingenious data analysis methods, researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy, in an international collaboration, dug a very special gamma-ray pulsar out of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The pulsar J1838-0537 is radio-quiet, very young, and, during the observation period, experienced the strongest rotation glitch ever observed for a gamma-ray-only pulsar.
Pure gamma-ray pulsars are difficult to identify because their characteristics, such as its sky position, the period of rotation and its change in time, are unknown. And astronomers can only determine their approximate position in the sky from the original Fermi observations. They must therefore check many combinations of these characteristics in a blind search, which requires a great deal of computing time. This is the only way of finding a hidden periodicity in the arrival times of the gamma-ray photons.
Even high-performance computers quickly reach their limit in this process. Therefore, the researchers used algorithms originally developed for the analysis of gravitational-wave data to conduct a particularly efficient hunt through the Fermi data. "By employing new optimal algorithms on our ATLAS computer cluster, we were able to identify many previously-missed signals," says Bruce Allen, Director of the AEI. Back in November 2011, Allen's team announced the discovery of nine new Fermi gamma-ray pulsars, which had escaped all previous searches. Now the scientists have made a new extraordinary find with the same methods.
The name of the newly discovered pulsar J1838-0537 comes from its celestial coordinates. "The pulsar is, at 5,000 years of age, very young. It rotates about its own axis roughly seven times per second and its position in the sky is towards the Scutum constellation," says Holger Pletsch, a scientist in Allen's group and lead author of the study which has now been published. "After the discovery we were very surprised that the pulsar was initially only visible until September 2009. Then it seemed to suddenly disappear."
Only a complex follow-up analysis enabled an international team led by Pletsch to solve the mystery of pulsar J1838-0537: it did not disappear, but experienced a sudden glitch after which it rotated 38 millionths of a Hertz faster than before. "This difference may appear negligibly small, but it's the largest glitch ever measured for a pure gamma-ray pulsar," explains Allen. And this behaviour has consequences.
"If the sudden frequency change is neglected, then after only eight hours, a complete rotation of the pulsar is lost in our counting, and we can no longer determine at which rotational phase the gamma-ray photons reach the detector aboard Fermi," adds Pletsch. The "flashing" of the neutron star then disappears. If the researchers take the glitch into account and correct the change in rotation, the pulsar shows up again in the observational data.
The precise cause of the glitches observed in many young pulsars is unknown. Astronomers consider "star quakes" of the neutron star crust or interactions between the superfluid stellar interior and the crust to be possible explanations. "Detecting a large number of strong pulsar glitches makes it possible to learn more about the inner structure of these compact celestial bodies," says Lucas Guillemot from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, the second author of the study. "This is a good example of the collaboration of two Max Planck institutes with complementary research foci," says Michael Kramer, Director and Head of the Fundamental Physics in Radio Astronomy research group.
After the discovery in data from the Fermi satellite, the researchers pointed the radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia/USA at the celestial position of the gamma-ray pulsar. In an observation of almost two hours and by analysing a further, older, one-hour observation of the source they found no indications of pulsations in the radio range, indicating that J1838-0537 is a rare gamma-ray-only pulsar.
There were, however, noticeable overlays with observations of the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in Namibia, which searches for very-high-energy gamma radiation from the depths of space. In a survey with H.E.S.S., astronomers found an extended source of this radiation near the now discovered pulsar, but have not yet been able to clarify its nature.
The discovery of the pulsar suggests that the H.E.S.S. source is a pulsar wind nebula. These are produced by particles moving at almost the speed of light, which the pulsar accelerates in its extremely strong magnetic field. Since the exact position of the pulsar is now known, H.E.S.S. can take this into account in the future and to make more precise measurements than before in this celestial region.
The ATLAS computer cluster of the Albert Einstein Institute has thus already assisted in the discovery of the tenth previously unknown gamma-ray pulsar; however, Allen's team has meanwhile mobilised further computing capacity. "Since August 2011, our search has also been running on the distributed computing project Einstein@Home, which has computing power a factor of ten greater than the ATLAS cluster. We are very optimistic about finding more unusual gamma-ray pulsars in the Fermi data," says Bruce Allen. One goal of the expanded search is to discover the first gamma-ray-only pulsar with a rotation period in the millisecond range.
###
Original publication:
Holger J. Pletsch, L. Guillemot, B. Allen, M. Kramer et al.
PSR J1838-0537: Discovery of a young, energetic gamma-ray pulsar
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, gone to press
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.5333
[ | 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.
Network IT security has become an increasingly complex challenge for today?s retailers. Recently, JC Penney and Burberry announced plans to equip their sales staffs with iPads. Loyalty programs are now conducted via sophisticated point-of-sale (POS) terminals. Credit card transactions are processed on a multitude of devices. Securing the retail store computing environment has never been more important than it is today.
Store technology is shifting from closed, proprietary systems to open, flexible systems that allow greater interaction with customers and partners, as well as better control of retail store operations. Due to the nature of the applications they introduce and the functionality they expose, new retail store technologies such as remote frequency identifiers (RFIDs), wireless networking, store Internet access, multifunction POS devices, customer kiosks, handheld devices, Voice-over-IP (VOIP), etc. require more retail network security.
While a retailer?s headquarters may have the right network IT security infrastructure in place, the individual stores and the technologies they use represent a major liability in the exchange of information across the entire organization. Retail IT environments are distributed, mixed and complex by nature. IT departments don?t have the time or staffing resources to be everywhere these technologies and devices are deployed. Yet, these technologies and devices should be secured as reliably as systems in the data center.
As in-store systems and devices become increasingly interconnected, the need to secure the retail environment grows exponentially. Below is a list of common retail network IT security threats?you may currently be experiencing.
Applications running under a shared, privileged account
Credit card theft by both hackers and employees
Data stolen on un-secure, un-managed mobile devices
Insecure stores that provide an easy entry into the corporate network
Physically insecure computers and networks that are an easy target
Viruses, spyware, and other cyber attacks
Wireless spoofing
Retail IT departments have done their best to secure multiple locations with the resources available. Until recently, retail network IT security technology has required that it be executed by dispatching IT staff to stores. The IT team, already overburdened managing day-to-day help desk and systems administration, must also monitor, manage and deploy firewalls and other network devices. In this scenario, support personnel can spend more time traveling between stores, just to keep security patches up to date and services running, than they spend proactively identifying network security threats and preventing attacks.
A more secure retail store enables easier and safer connectivity with customers and business partners. But, managing distributed retail environments containing multiple types of technologies and devices doesn?t have to be thankless. Nor does it have to be difficult or require excess amounts of overtime. Embracing a retail network security solution such as the Kaseya IT Systems Management Solution?allows you to manage your retail IT environment more efficiently without requiring downtime, helping you to do your part to drive sales.
Learn more about how Kaseya can support your store?s retail network IT security issues.
WEDNESDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- People who have had a colonoscopy during which a high-risk potentially cancerous polyp was removed may not need another colonoscopy for five years, German researchers report.
If this suggestion were to be adopted, it would be a change from the current recommendation in the United States, which calls for another colonoscopy three years after a high-risk polyp -- one that is likely to become cancerous -- is removed.
"This is a case control study, so they didn't follow a group of individuals over time to assess the impact of polyp removal," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancers at the American Cancer Society.
That kind of patient follow-up, however, did take place in the study that established the current U.S. recommendations for colonoscopy, he noted.
In addition, while the German study looks at the odds of cancer developing over time, the older study that set the U.S. guidelines looked at the odds of a new polyp developing, Brooks said.
"The time frames they are recommending are something that might be considered, but you cannot make changes in current guidelines based on this study," he said.
The report was published online July 23 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
For the new study, a team lead by Dr. Hermann Brenner, at the German Cancer Research Center, in Heidelberg, looked at medical records of more than 2,500 people who had a cancerous polyp removed and compared them to nearly 1,800 people without such polyps.
They compared surveillance intervals of less than three years, three to five years, and six to 10 years before receiving another colonoscopy.
Looking at the risk of finding colorectal cancer, even for those with high-risk polyps, "strong, statistically significant risk reduction by 60 percent was seen for the less-than-three-years time window and by 50 percent for the three-to-five-years time window," the researchers wrote.
This was true for men, women, young and old, they added.
Their results suggest that surveillance colonoscopy could take place five to 10 years after the a low-risk polyp was found and removed, and possibly also be prolonged to five years for high-risk polyps, the researchers concluded.
The current recommendation for people with high-risk polyps is to have another colonoscopy three years after the polyp was removed, Brooks said.
If new polyps aren't found, then another colonoscopy isn't needed for 10 years, he said.
The 10-year span between colonoscopies is the recommendation for anyone who has a normal colonoscopy, Brooks added.
The advantage of extending the time between colonoscopies from three to five years in patients with high-risk polyps is the use of resources, he said.
The problem is that doctors don't follow the current guidelines.
"If we could get clinicians just to follow the current recommendations we could expand our resources considerably," Brooks said. "Right now far too many people are getting colonoscopies done at intervals that are not recommended by anyone's guidelines."
Some people who have had high-risk polyps get a colonoscopy every year. Many people who have normal colonoscopies get another after five years, Brooks said.
All the evidence shows that colonoscopies every five years is much too frequent, he said.
"We are doing far too many colonoscopies on people who are in the system, but there are at least 40 percent of adults at risk who have never been screened," Brooks said. "If you're 50 and older and never been screened -- get screened."
More information
For more about colon cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
LONDON (AP) ? Security jitters were being felt across the British capital on the eve of the London Olympics, with the biggest mall in Europe briefly evacuated Thursday and noticeable security changes in place at the Olympic Park.
Prime Minister David Cameron said, however, that he was confident that the games which Britain has worked to produce for years will be successful and safe.
"You can never provide a 100 percent guarantee but what I've seen, and what I've helped to coordinate is, I think, a fully joined-up effort that involves one of the best armed services anywhere in the world," Cameron told reporters Thursday. "I'm confident we can deliver on that, working with visiting delegations as well."
A fire alarm forced authorities to briefly clear the massive Westfield shopping mall beside the Olympic Park on Thursday afternoon. Hundreds of people flooded into the street, a day before the opening ceremony Friday night at nearby Olympic Stadium.
Police allowed shoppers to return after a few minutes. Westfield mall authorities said the alarm was triggered in a restaurant area.
Fears of terrorism have been at the center of preparations for the London Olympics, and authorities have twice been forced to deploy more troops in the last two weeks ? first an extra 3,500, then another 1,200 ? when security arrangements fell short.
Britain's Ministry of Defense also scrambled a Typhoon fighter jet Wednesday after an airplane lost contact with air traffic controllers. Communications were quickly restored and no further action was required.
Britain's terror threat level is at substantial, which means a terror attack is a strong possibility. It is a notch below severe, the level Britain has been at for most of time since the 2005 suicide bombings when 52 people were killed in morning rush-hour attacks on London trains and buses.
One British security official told The Associated Press there was no existing intelligence to indicate the threat level would change immediately. Several terror suspects have been arrested in the last month but none have been accused of plotting directly against the games. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Dozens of FBI agents and other U.S. personnel are helping their British counterparts secure the games.
At some Olympic Park security entrances on Thursday, there was a noticeable shift from having military personnel man the airport-like security machines to having civilian security guards. At one entrance, an AP reporter put his bags through security but the scanning machine that checks Olympic credentials was broken and the staff waved him through.
The G4S security firm, responsible for the bulk of Olympic security, said Thursday it was getting hundreds more workers each day and hoped to replace some military personnel. Company spokesman Adam Mynott said many new workers had passed the accreditation process or completed training. The hope, he said, is to numerically replace the extra military personnel.
The security firm was lambasted earlier this month by the government for failing to provide enough security personnel for the games.
Mynott said he would look into why the AP reporter's credential wasn't scanned but said the changes Thursday were routine station changes between civilian and military guards.
Cameron has promised to go after G4S if they don't fulfill their contract and to make sure the company helps pay for the cost of the additional military personnel. The firm expects to lose between 35 million and 50 million pounds ($54 million-$78 million) on its Olympic contract, equal to about 12 percent of its annual profit.
Still, both London residents and some visitors were on edge.
"It's sunny and I think a lot of people are really excited about the Olympics but there's also this sense of dread that something will happen," said Tally Winfield, a 25-year-old London bartender.
One American tourist said the extra security seemed a tad daunting.
"With the police all around and troops, you definitely feel like something could happen at any time," said Melissa Johnson, a 36-year-old tourist from Los Angeles. "I'm not sure if I feel safer or just more worried. Then again, at least there are fewer guns here, right?"
Our best to Ed Schultz whose wife, he has just announced, is now battling ovarian cancer.
In the past hour, I was a guest on his radio show which is being guest hosted this week by Mike Papantonio of Ring Of Fire. Afterwards, the MSNBC prime time TV and radio host called in to the show to make the teary announcement and offer an update on his wife Wendy, who, he says, is just out of surgery, and will soon be recovering at home, after learning just last Wednesday about her illness.
Schultz said her fight to recover would take a while, so his radio and TV shows were, understandably, not at the front of his mind right now. The fiery and feisty progressive thanked his staff at both shows for covering for him during what he expects to be a prolonged absence from each program.
We've been on Ed's radio show many times over the years, and appeared as well on his TV program late last year. Our thoughts and prayers go out to him, Wendy and their family during this difficult time.
* * *
UPDATE: Here is Ed's call into his own show (appx 6 mins), just after the top of the 1p ET hour, announcing his wife's battle with cancer. Thanks to the crews at Ring Of Fire and the Ed Schultz Show for sending over the audio...
ScienceDaily (July 24, 2012) ? Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have developed a new computational method that will make it easier for scientists to identify and prioritize genes, drug targets, and strategies for repositioning drugs that are already on the market. By mining large datasets more simply and efficiently, researchers will be able to better understand gene-gene, protein-protein, and drug/side-effect interactions. The new algorithm will also help scientists identify fellow researchers with whom they can collaborate.
Led by Avi Ma'ayan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Neil Clark, PhD a postdoctoral fellow in the Ma'ayan laboratory, the team of investigators used the new algorithm to create 15 different types of gene-gene networks. They also discovered novel connections between drugs and side effects, and built a collaboration network that connected Mount Sinai investigators based on their past publications.
"The algorithm makes it simple to build networks from data," said Dr. Ma'ayan. "Once high dimensional and complex data is converted to networks, we can understand the data better and discover new and significant relationships, and focus on the important features of the data."
The group analyzed one million medical records of patients to build a network that connects commonly co-prescribed drugs, commonly co-occurring side effects, and the relationships between side effects and combinations of drugs. They found that reported side effects may not be caused by the drugs, but by a separate condition of the patient that may be unrelated to the drugs. They also looked at 53 cancer drugs and connected them to 32 severe side effects. When chemotherapy was combined with cancer drugs that work through cell signaling, there was a strong link to cardiovascular related adverse events. These findings can assist in post-marketing surveillance safety of approved drugs.
The approach is presented in two separate publications in the journals BMC Bioinformatics and BMC Systems Biology. The tools that implement the approach Genes2FANs and Sets2Networks can be found online at http://actin.pharm.mssm.edu/genes2FANs and http://www.maayanlab.net/S2N.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Ruth Dannenfelser, Neil R Clark, Avi Ma'ayan. Genes2FANs: connecting genes through functional association networks. BMC Bioinformatics, 2012; 13 (1): 156 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-13-156
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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.
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Survival rates for premature babies in high-level NICUs are better than previously reportedPublic release date: 23-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Ashley Moore MooreA1@email.chop.edu 267-426-6071 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers analyze medical outcomes in 3 states
Premature babies are more likely to survive when they are born in high-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) than in hospitals without such facilities, and this benefit is considerably larger than previously reported.
The likelihood that an extremely premature baby will survive if born in a high-technology, high-volume hospital unit was already known, but the current study, the largest to date, revealed a stronger effect. Pediatric researchers who analyzed more than 1.3 million premature births over a 10-year span found that the survival benefits applied not only to extremely preterm babies, but also to moderately preterm newborns.
The research team performed a retrospective study of all hospital-based deliveries of infants with a gestational age between 23 and 37 weeks in Pennsylvania, California and Missouria total of over 1,328,000 births. The study focused on preterm deliveries in high-level NICUs, compared to preterm deliveries at all other hospitals.
"Prior studies from the early 1990s found increased survival rates of 30 to 50 percent among preterm infants delivered at high-level NICUs, compared to preterm infants delivered elsewhere," said study leader Scott A. Lorch, M.D., a neonatologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "However, our research found rates as high as 300 percent improvement, when our study design controlled for the effect of sicker patients who typically deliver at high-level NICUs." Complication rates were similar for both types of hospitals.
The retrospective study, which appeared online July 9 in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed records for all births occurring between 1995 and 2005 in Pennsylvania and California, and all births between 1995 and 2003 in Missouri. Lorch added that the results varied slightly among the states, possibly reflecting state-level differences in health policies, such as whether or not the state government designated hospitals within a regional perinatal system.
Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks gestational age (full term is 40 weeks). In this study, the researchers defined extremely preterm infants as those born before 32 weeks and moderately preterm infants as those born between 32 and 37 weeks. They defined a high-level NICU as a level III facility that delivered at least 50 very low birth weight infants annually. "We found survival benefits in high-level NICUs for both extremely premature and moderately premature infants," said Lorch. "This suggests that the choice of a delivery hospital may influence the outcomes for the full range of preterm infants."
Unlike many previous analyses of birth outcomes, said Lorch, the current study covered more than a single state system. Using hospital data from states in three regions of the country suggests that the results may be more generalizable throughout the United States than in more limited studies, he added.
However, concluded Lorch, "this research does not imply that every hospital should aspire to build a high-tech NICUthere just aren't enough babies born prematurely for every birth hospital in the U.S. to have a high-level, high-volume NICU. Instead, the results may assist health care policy makers in organizing regional and statewide care systems to more efficiently provide the best care for premature infants within a geographical area."
###
Financial support for this study came from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Lorch's co-authors were Michael Baiocchi, Ph.D., and Dylan S. Small, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, and Corinne E. Ahlberg, M.S., of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition to his position as an attending neonatologist at Children's Hospital, Lorch is also on the staff of the Hospital's Center for Outcomes Research and is a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"The Differential Impact of Delivery Hospital on the Outcomes of Premature Infants," Pediatrics, published online July 9, 2012, and in print, August 2012.
doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2820
About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 516-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
Survival rates for premature babies in high-level NICUs are better than previously reportedPublic release date: 23-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Ashley Moore MooreA1@email.chop.edu 267-426-6071 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers analyze medical outcomes in 3 states
Premature babies are more likely to survive when they are born in high-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) than in hospitals without such facilities, and this benefit is considerably larger than previously reported.
The likelihood that an extremely premature baby will survive if born in a high-technology, high-volume hospital unit was already known, but the current study, the largest to date, revealed a stronger effect. Pediatric researchers who analyzed more than 1.3 million premature births over a 10-year span found that the survival benefits applied not only to extremely preterm babies, but also to moderately preterm newborns.
The research team performed a retrospective study of all hospital-based deliveries of infants with a gestational age between 23 and 37 weeks in Pennsylvania, California and Missouria total of over 1,328,000 births. The study focused on preterm deliveries in high-level NICUs, compared to preterm deliveries at all other hospitals.
"Prior studies from the early 1990s found increased survival rates of 30 to 50 percent among preterm infants delivered at high-level NICUs, compared to preterm infants delivered elsewhere," said study leader Scott A. Lorch, M.D., a neonatologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "However, our research found rates as high as 300 percent improvement, when our study design controlled for the effect of sicker patients who typically deliver at high-level NICUs." Complication rates were similar for both types of hospitals.
The retrospective study, which appeared online July 9 in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed records for all births occurring between 1995 and 2005 in Pennsylvania and California, and all births between 1995 and 2003 in Missouri. Lorch added that the results varied slightly among the states, possibly reflecting state-level differences in health policies, such as whether or not the state government designated hospitals within a regional perinatal system.
Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks gestational age (full term is 40 weeks). In this study, the researchers defined extremely preterm infants as those born before 32 weeks and moderately preterm infants as those born between 32 and 37 weeks. They defined a high-level NICU as a level III facility that delivered at least 50 very low birth weight infants annually. "We found survival benefits in high-level NICUs for both extremely premature and moderately premature infants," said Lorch. "This suggests that the choice of a delivery hospital may influence the outcomes for the full range of preterm infants."
Unlike many previous analyses of birth outcomes, said Lorch, the current study covered more than a single state system. Using hospital data from states in three regions of the country suggests that the results may be more generalizable throughout the United States than in more limited studies, he added.
However, concluded Lorch, "this research does not imply that every hospital should aspire to build a high-tech NICUthere just aren't enough babies born prematurely for every birth hospital in the U.S. to have a high-level, high-volume NICU. Instead, the results may assist health care policy makers in organizing regional and statewide care systems to more efficiently provide the best care for premature infants within a geographical area."
###
Financial support for this study came from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Lorch's co-authors were Michael Baiocchi, Ph.D., and Dylan S. Small, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, and Corinne E. Ahlberg, M.S., of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition to his position as an attending neonatologist at Children's Hospital, Lorch is also on the staff of the Hospital's Center for Outcomes Research and is a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"The Differential Impact of Delivery Hospital on the Outcomes of Premature Infants," Pediatrics, published online July 9, 2012, and in print, August 2012.
doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2820
About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 516-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.
[ | 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.
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Public release date: 29-Jul-2012
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Our best to Ed Schultz whose wife, he has just announced, is now battling ovarian cancer.
