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Monday, March 11, 2013
Defense chief Hagel's Afghan news conference canceled over security fears
March 10 (Reuters) - Ageless American Bernard Hopkins bettered his own record as the oldest man to win a world boxing title on Saturday, claiming the IBF light heavyweight crown with a convincing victory against an opponent 17 years his junior. The 48-year-old boxer claimed a unanimous decision against Tavoris Cloud, winning 116-112, 116-112, and 117-111 on the judges' cards at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Saturday night to eclipse his 2011 WBC light heavyweight title victory over Jean Pascal at the age of 46. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-defense-chiefs-afghan-news-conference-canceled-over-125044354.html
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Producers pay tribute to TV gun-show host shot dead in Montana
(Reuters) - Producers of a popular cable program about hunting and guns said on Saturday they were saddened by the "sudden untimely death" of the show's host, Gregory Rodriguez, who police said was shot to death in Montana by a man who later apparently killed himself.
Authorities in the resort town of Whitefish in northwestern Montana said Rodriguez, 43, host of "A Rifleman's Journal" on the Sportsman Channel and contributing editor at Guns & Ammo magazine, was killed by the husband of a woman with whom Rodriguez was meeting on Thursday night.
The unidentified woman told police that her husband, Wayne Bengston, entered the house where she and Rodriguez were visiting and shot and killed him before brutally beating her, Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said in a statement.
Bengston, 41, fled to a relative's house with the couple's 2-year-old son, who was later found unharmed. Authorities tracked Bengston to the couple's home in nearby West Glacier, where he was found dead early on Friday of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Dial said.
At a news conference on Friday, Dial said he did not believe Rodriguez was involved with Bengston's wife but that Bengston may have acted in a jealous rage.
The producers of Rodriguez's show said they were saddened by his "sudden untimely death."
"He truly epitomized Sportsman Channel's position of being a leader in the outdoors," Sportsman Channel spokeswoman Michelle Scheuermann said in a statement.
Rodriguez of Sugar Land, Texas, was an authority on firearms and hunting and owned an outfitting business that booked hunting trips to Africa.
He was a former vice president of the Houston Safari Club, a nonprofit group that advocates for wildlife conservation and sporting rights.
"A Rifleman's Journal" chronicled Rodriguez's global pursuit of big-game animals in Africa, Asia and Europe, according to the Sportsman Channel.
Rodriguez and his wife had two children, said the website of his Global Adventure Outfitters business.
(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Cooney)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/producers-pay-tribute-tv-gun-show-host-shot-101721909.html
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Thursday, March 7, 2013
Putting HiFi into cochlear implants
Mar. 5, 2013 ? Imagine suddenly being able to hear the words and tone of the person across the table from you in a crowded restaurant when once you only heard overwhelming noise. Or speaking on the telephone with confidence because what you hear is now crisp and clear. Longtime cochlear implant users are reporting such dramatic improvements in their hearing, thanks to new image-guided programming methods developed by Vanderbilt University researchers.
Using Vanderbilt's patent-pending nonsurgical process, audiologists are able to fine-tune and customize cochlear implant programming, providing improved sound quality and clarity. "Our automated image-guided programming method can dramatically improve a person's hearing with a cochlear implant, even if implantation happened a long time ago. Study subjects have called it life-changing," said Benoit M. Dawant, the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering and director of the Vanderbilt Initiative in Surgery and Engineering (ViSE). "This is an excellent example of collaborative effort between engineering and medicine that ViSE promotes."
More than 200,000 people worldwide have cochlear implants and the number of newly implanted recipients is increasing dramatically each year. All recipients from the newly implanted to the long-term user could experience better hearing with Vanderbilt's new programming process.
Cochlear implants provide hearing restoration to people with severe-to-profound hearing loss. The devices use a combination of surgically implanted electrodes that stimulate auditory nerve pathways and an external sound processor worn behind the ear to provide hearing sensations. Although cochlear implants are considered standard-of-care treatment for severe-to-profound hearing loss, the quality of hearing is not on par with normal fidelity and a number of recipients may experience only marginal hearing restoration.
Vanderbilt's interdisciplinary research team sought to improve those results by drawing on the work of students, professors and medical professionals from the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center. In addition to Dawant, the team included Ren? H. Gifford, audiologist and assistant professor of hearing and speech sciences; Robert F. Labadie, associate professor of otolaryngology and associate professor of biomedical engineering; and Ph.D. student Jack H. Noble, now graduated and a research assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer science.
Cochlear implants use from 12 to 22 electrodes, depending on the device manufacturer. Although the implanted electrodes can be seen on a CT scan, the nerve cells they stimulate are not easily identified due to their locations and microscopic size (on the order of one millionth of a meter). Traditionally, all the electrodes are turned on and programmed to stimulate any surrounding nerve cells. This one-size-fits-all approach can result in less-than-clear hearing when adjacent electrodes stimulate the same region of nerve cells. Complicating the challenge is that each person's anatomical structure varies and thus every implant must be programmed -- commonly termed as "mapped" -- in a comprehensive, time-consuming process postoperatively.
Vanderbilt's research project included several stages. One was to determine a reliable method of locating spiral ganglion nerve cells (which connect to the auditory nerve) by mapping the corresponding external cochlear anatomy using a statistical shape model and to determine the position of the electrodes with respect to these nerve cells. Achieving this, the next step was to develop a technique that would use the information to generate a customized plan for postoperative cochlear implant programming that could be implemented by individual audiologists in almost any patient.
The new automatic technique uses patients' pre- and postoperative CT scans to determine the location of the implanted electrodes and where overlap is occurring, possibly causing interference in the transmission of signals. The image-guided strategy and software, which Noble developed as a Ph.D. student, then pinpoint which electrodes can be turned off without loss of hearing fidelity -- and in fact, improving it. An audiologist uses this programming plan to create a revised custom map for that person's needs. The process is completely noninvasive -- no surgery is required -- and can be accomplished in one office appointment.
The new programming seeks to improve sound quality and spectral resolution (frequency selectivity). "Spectral resolution is basically your ability to take a complex sound and break it down into its individual components," Gifford said. "It's something we do very well with the normal-hearing ear and it's something that the electric-hearing ear with an implant does poorly."
"If you can improve one's spectral resolution, what that typically translates to is better speech recognition in noise," Gifford said. "That's the holy grail of research. There have been no consistently significant improvements in spectral resolution for implant patients since the introduction of CIS [a speech-coding strategy] in 1991."
Participant Kelly Harris said the reprogramming improved her hearing so much, it was almost as great as getting the implant in the first place. "I love it. When I left the clinic the day Ren? changed the program, I immediately knew I could hear better," Harris said. "Before the reprogram, I never knew which direction sound came from. Just last night, my friend thought my TV was making a noise and I knew that it was coming from the other direction. I am also hearing lots more soft sounds and even more music."
Ally Sisler-Dinwiddie, herself an audiologist, has had cochlear implants in both ears since 2006. The study focused on adjusting her right implant, which provided poor results before the study. "The overall sound quality of my right ear used to be somewhat monotone -- anytime someone talked, it sounded like they had a mouth full of marshmallows," Sisler-Dinwiddie said. "While the overall volume of my right ear was always balanced with my left ear, it lacked the crispness and clarity that my left ear was always right on target with." She said it's like the difference between night and day since she participated in the study. "I can tell speech is clearer and a lot more crisp. I can now pick out the intonation in one's voice with my right ear alone," she said. "My confidence has soared since the moment I realized I'm actually able to understand speech in a noisy restaurant without relying on my left ear anymore."
The project continues to enroll new study participants. Currently, they are recruiting adults, although Gifford, who is also director of pediatric audiology and audiology director of the cochlear implant program at Vanderbilt, said that she believes children in particular will benefit from the new programming because it can be mapped with or without responses from the patient.
Cochlear implant recipients can find additional information at vanderbilt.edu/CAOS/research-projects/.
Harris said she has encouraged several people to try the reprogramming. "They should know that it only takes a short time to do this reprogram and if they are not hearing well with their current processor, they should give it a try," Harris said. "A lot of people don't want their programs messed with. I really understand this feeling -- usually I am very cautious about changes, but this one worked out to my advantage."
Gifford said that if patients try the new mapping and don't like the results, they can have their old programs put back on the implant.
The research is supported by the National Institute of Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and National Center for Advancing Translational sciences (NIH/NIDCD R21DC012620, R01DC008408 and R01DC009404 grants and UL1TR000011 grant).
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Vanderbilt University. The original article was written by Nancy Wise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/EAZW1tthrD4/130305200208.htm
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Bank of Japan policy seen on hold as Shirakawa gives way to bolder leadership
TOKYO (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan is likely to keep monetary policy unchanged on Thursday, holding fire to wait for new leaders who are expected to usher in bolder measures to try to end nearly 20 years of mild deflation.
The two-day meeting that started on Wednesday is the last for Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his two deputies. They leave on March 19 after a five-year term spent battling crises including the aftermath of Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008 and the devastating March 2011 earthquake in Japan.
Investors expect the central bank to hold off announcing new stimulus measures until its next meeting on April 3-4, when Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda, a vocal advocate of aggressive easing, is expected to be installed as the central bank's new governor.
He was nominated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to shake up the BOJ. The main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has indicated its support for Kuroda, suggesting he will be confirmed in the job.
Kuroda advocated in a confirmation hearing this week that buying longer-dated Japanese government bonds would help end deflation.
"The BOJ's new leadership is trying to generate inflation expectations, and the main tool will be aggressive buying of long-term JGBs," said Hiroshi Shiraishi, senior economist at BNP Paribas Securities.
"The new leadership views deflation as a monetary phenomenon. In contrast, the BOJ under Shirakawa focused on the real economy and whether or not there was demand for funds."
The BOJ may revise up its assessment of the economy on Thursday to say gains in factory output and signs of recovery in exports suggest it is bottoming out, sources familiar with the central bank's thinking said. That would be a slightly brighter view compared with last month when it said the economy "appears to have hit bottom".
Still, the upward revision is unlikely to relieve pressure on the BOJ's new management to come up with more innovative ways to end deflation.
The BOJ doubled its inflation target to 2 percent in January and made an open-ended pledge to buy assets from next year, under relentless pressure from Abe for bolder efforts to revive the economy. It stood pat in February.
Under Shirakawa, the BOJ has agreed to buy assets or make loans totaling 101 trillion yen ($1 trillion) by the end of this year, part of which includes buying government bonds with a maturity of up to three years.
Abe nominated Kuroda to head the BOJ and Kikuo Iwata, an advocate of unconventional monetary steps, as deputy governor. In winning an election in December, Abe pledged to overhaul monetary policy to revive the stagnant economy. The other nominated deputy governor, Hiroshi Nakaso, is a career central banker.
Abe's push for bolder monetary stimulus has helped weaken the yen to a near three-year low against the dollar, giving the export-reliant economy some relief and the BOJ some breathing space.
(Editing by Neil Fullick)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-japan-policy-seen-hold-shirakawa-gives-way-210144196--business.html
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Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Daily-use HIV prevention approaches prove ineffective among women, study suggests
Mar. 4, 2013 ? Three antiretroviral-based strategies intended to prevent HIV infection among women did not prove effective in a major clinical trial in Africa. For reasons that are unclear, a majority of study participants -- particularly young, single women -- were unable to use their assigned approaches daily as directed, according to findings presented today by one of the study's co-leaders at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta.
The Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) study, or MTN 003, was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of three HIV prevention strategies compared to placebo. Specifically, the trial tested an investigational vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, a pill form of tenofovir (brand name Viread), and a pill containing a combination of tenofovir and emtricitabine (brand name Truvada). The study was sponsored and largely funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
In the trial, the three strategies were tested among 5,029 sexually active women 18 to 45 years of age at 15 sites in South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Nearly half of the study participants were under the age of 25, and most were unmarried (79 percent). Participants in each of the three groups were counseled to use their assigned pill or gel once daily and received free condoms, ongoing counseling on how to reduce their HIV risk, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Prior to enrollment, all potential study participants engaged in an oral and written consent process explaining the details of the study.
Study results presented today indicate that most VOICE participants did not adhere to the daily use schedule. Moreover, single women 25 years of age and younger were the least likely to use the investigational products and the most likely to become infected with HIV. The rate of new HIV infections among these young women was nearly 10 percent at some of the study sites in South Africa, reflecting a very high incidence of HIV infection among young women in these communities.
"We do not know why many participants in the VOICE study did not adhere to daily use of these HIV prevention strategies," said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "We must continue to conduct research to find additional HIV prevention tools that women will find acceptable and use consistently to protect themselves against infection."
In other HIV prevention studies involving different study populations, including men and women, both oral Truvada and oral tenofovir have demonstrated an ability to reduce the risk of HIV infection when used consistently. However, the VOICE study results are consistent with another clinical trial known as the FEM-PrEP study, which tested daily use of oral Truvada among a similar population of women. Like the VOICE study, researchers found that the majority of FEM-PrEP participants did not follow the daily regimen.
The VOICE study, which launched in 2009, was led by co-investigators Zvavahera Mike Chirenje, M.D., of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, and Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of Washington, Seattle. In fall 2011, oral tenofovir and tenofovir vaginal gel were dropped from the VOICE trial after separate routine reviews of the study data by an independent data and safety monitoring board determined that while each product was safe, neither was effective in preventing HIV compared with placebo. Researchers continued to evaluate oral Truvada until the study's scheduled conclusion in August 2012. Results presented today at the CROI meeting by Dr. Marazzo provided an analysis for each of the study's three product arms.
Of the 5,029 women who enrolled in the VOICE study, 312 became infected with HIV for an overall 5.7 percent rate of new HIV infections -- reflecting a very high overall rate of infection among women in these areas. Twenty-two women were found to be HIV-infected at time of enrollment; therefore, the study's primary analysis was based on 5,007 participants.
There was no statistically significant difference in the rate of new infections between women assigned to the three investigational products and women using placebo. Among the 994 women who were assigned to daily use of Truvada, 61 women became infected with HIV (4.7 percent rate of new infections) compared with 60 of 1,008 women who became infected in the oral placebo group (4.6 percent rate of new infections). Of the 1,002 participants in the daily oral tenofovir group, 60 women acquired HIV. However, the rate of new HIV infections was calculated to reflect what had occurred up until Oct. 3, 2011, when study sites began informing participants that testing of oral tenofovir would end. At this time, 52 women acquired HIV (6.3 percent rate of new infections) compared with 35 of 1,008 women who became infected in the placebo arm (4.2 percent rate of new infections). Of the 1,003 women assigned to use daily tenofovir gel, 61 became infected with HIV (5.9 percent rate of new infections), and 70 infections occurred among the 1,000 women in the placebo gel group (6.8 percent rate of new infections). Women who became infected with HIV during the VOICE study were referred to local sites for appropriate medical care and treatment.
During the course of the study, adherence to each of the three approaches was anticipated to be roughly 90 percent based on what study participants reported to clinic site staff and monthly counts of unused gel applicators and leftover study pills that were returned to the sites. However, in a blood sample analysis of 773 participants, including 185 participants who became HIV-infected, it became clear that adherence was low across each of the study's three investigational product groups. Drug was detected in the blood of 29 percent of the women in the Truvada group, 28 percent in the oral tenofovir group and 23 percent among those in the tenofovir gel group. When examining the data by age, young, single women were less likely to use their assigned treatment strategy. For example, among the women assigned to use oral Truvada, drug was detected in the blood of only 21 percent of young, single women compared to 54 percent of those married and over the age of 25.
"Based on our findings, it is clear that young, single women in Africa continue to be at very high risk for HIV infection and may need the greatest assistance with using prevention strategies consistently," said Dr. Marrazzo. Among VOICE study participants, the rate of new HIV infections was nearly 9 percent among unmarried women under the age of 25 compared to 0.8 percent for older married women, a statistically significant difference.
Through two ongoing behavioral studies involving VOICE participants, researchers are hoping to gain insight as to why the women did or did not use the investigational products. Results from those two studies are expected later this year.
NIAID funded the VOICE study with co-funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, also part of the NIH. The trial was conducted by the NIH-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN). Gilead Sciences, Inc., of Foster City, Calif., donated the tenofovir and Truvada tablets. CONRAD of Arlington, Va., provided the tenofovir gel and applicators used to insert the product.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/c3MrH1OsvV4/130304151856.htm
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Daily Report: TV Pilots Turn to Internet, Not Networks - NYTimes.com
Internet-delivered TV, which until recently was unready for prime time, is the new front in the war for Americans? attention spans, Brian Stelter reports in Tuesday?s New York Times.
Netflix is following up on the $100 million drama ?House of Cards? with four more series this year. Microsoft is producing programming for the Xbox video game console with the help of a former CBS president. Other companies, from AOL to Sony to Twitter, are likely to follow.
The companies are, in effect, creating new networks for television through broadband pipes and also giving rise to new rivalries ? among one another, as between Amazon.com and Netflix, and with the big but vulnerable broadcast networks as well.
The competition has only just begun. Amazon is making pilot episodes for six comedies and five children?s shows. Sometime this spring it will put the episodes on its Amazon Prime Instant Video service and ask its customers which ones they like and dislike, then order full seasons of some of them.
Netflix has been ordering entire seasons of its shows without seeing pilots first. Reed Hastings, Netflix?s chief executive, said last week that ?House of Cards,? the political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, had been a ?great success? for the company. Its next program, a horror series called ?Hemlock Grove? from the film director Eli Roth, premieres in April.
The two companies are commissioning TV shows because they have millions of subscribers on monthly or yearly subscription plans. Though the shows may be loss leaders, executives like Mr. Hastings say that having exclusive content ? something that cannot be seen anywhere else ? increases the likelihood that existing subscribers will keep paying and that new subscribers will sign up.
The proliferation of shows is generally seen as a good thing for viewers, who have more choices about what to watch and when, and for producers and actors, who have more places to be seen and heard. But the trend may inflame cable companies? concerns about cord-cutting by subscribers who decide there?s enough to watch online. At the same time, the rise of Internet-only shows may make viewers more dependent on the broadband cord. (In many cases, both connections are supplied by the same company.)
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/daily-report-tv-pilots-turn-to-internet-not-networks/
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