Samsung will launch new variants of its Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S4 Mini handsets with dual-mode TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE connectivity, the company has announced. While current LTE networks are primarily based upon FDD-LTE the standard, Samsung's new devices will be able to operate on these networks in addition to TDD-LTE networks expected to launch soon in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Samsung said its new dual-mode LTE Galaxy S4s will be the first handsets to market to support "seamless handover" between the two standards, with "continuous and seamless voice and data communications even as the devices switch between two different types of LTE networks." While Samsung hasn't specified which countries will be getting these new dual-mode handsets, smooth handover between the two standards will be particularly important in markets where both TDD and FDD are deployed.
Gov. Scott Walker stirred things up Monday with talk about extending the state ban on public sector union rights to police and firefighters, before downplaying the idea Tuesday.
Walker and Republican lawmakers exempted police and firefighters from Act 10 of 2011, saying that they couldn?t risk strikes by public safety personnel.
At a public event in Milwaukee on Monday, Walker said he would consider expanding the law, and that police and fire workers may now be willing to forgo union rights taken from other government workers ? collective bargaining, paycheck dues withdrawals and arbitration to settle disputes with management.
?I think now, for those areas, having seen that the world didn?t come to an end for other municipal employees, there might be a greater opening going forward because they?d say, ?Hey, you know, things worked out,?? Walker said at the annual Governmental Research Association policy conference.
Leaders of two police unions said their members wouldn?t accept any such change, and they believe the governor knows that.
?He understands that there is an absolute difference between public safety and general employees in this regard,? said Milwaukee Police Association president Mike Crivello.
Crivello said he cautioned officers who called him Tuesday not to jump to conclusions. Walker knows public safety workers face personal danger on the job, and that the union has allowed them to advocate effectively for weaponry and equipment that makes them safer, Crivello said.
?Certainly there is a concern when you hear something like the statement we heard,? Crivello said. ?(But) the reason this association has supported the governor in the past is because he truly had an understanding of public safety.?
Public safety unions in Milwaukee are among the few unions that backed him in the 2010 election and a 2012 recall. Fire union officials couldn?t be reached for comment.
The leader of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association union said Walker was speaking as a potential candidate in the 2016 presidential election, not as Wisconsin?s governor.
?What he said would appeal to some extreme conservatives on a national basis,? said Jim Palmer, WPPA director.
The Wisconsin League of Municipalities has pushed to apply Act 10 equally to all local government workers, and assistant director Curt Witynski said he hoped to hear more from the governor.
But Walker on Tuesday said he merely responded to a question about whether Act 10 might ever be expanded.
?This issue is not something Governor Walker is pursuing,? said spokesman Tom Evenson. ?If the issue were to arise in the legislature, the governor would take a look at it as he does with many other issues.?
Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature said nothing is in the works.
?There has not been any caucus discussion on the topic of expansion,? said Kit Beyer, spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
?Senate Republicans have not discussed it as a full caucus, and there are no plans to discuss it in the near future,? said Dan Romportl, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.
Walker also riled critics by comparing his collective bargaining law to statements by liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
?The position I pushed is not unlike the principle that Franklin Delano Roosevelt ? not exactly a conservative ? pushed as well when it came to public sector collective bargaining,? Walker said. ?He felt that there wasn?t a need in the public sector to have collective bargaining because the government is the people. We are the people. And so what we?ve done is to be able to empower our great employees, to affirm them.?
Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the state AFL-CIO, scoffed. ?Gov. Walker is no Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Wisconsin knows it,? Neuenfeldt said. ?FDR brought us out of the Great Depression with strong investment in workers and jobs programs that worked. Scott Walker is drowning in a jobs deficit and to compare himself to FDR is laughably delusional.?
? The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Twitter is going public (at some point) and it's looking for help.?
USA Today found a Twitter job listing on LinkedIn for a financial reporting manager.?
The listing says the person who gets the job will be, "Responsible for preparation of monthly reporting materials, quarterly/annual financial statements and Form S-1 when we are ready to go public."
When is Twitter going to be ready to go public? Sooner than later, it seems.
There was a report last week that it was planning to file for the IPO at the end of the year, and get listed at the start of next year.?
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? Britain's Home Office confirmed Monday it will demand a 3,000-pound ($4,630) refundable bond for visas for "high-risk" visitors from six former colonies in Africa and Asia ? a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.
Britain said in a statement Monday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation.
The statement sent by email did not say when the pilot would start. But it said it could apply the scheme in the future for all visas and any country.
"The pilot will apply to visitor visas, but if the scheme is successful we'd like to be able to apply it on an intelligence-led basis on any visa route and any country," it said.
For now, the targeted countries are Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Government data shows citizens of those countries applied for more than half a million visa applications last year.
Nigeria's government made a formal demand last month that Britain renounce the proposal as it was being discussed. Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru called in the British high commissioner to express "the strong displeasure of the government and people of Nigeria" over the "discriminatory" policy.
Ashiru warned the move would "definitely negate" the two country's commitment to double trade by 2014. Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and a huge market with its more than 160 million people. British government figures indicate 101,000 Nigerians were issued visas in 2012.
There were protests in India last month when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited, causing him to declare that a final decision had not been taken on the policy.
The Home Office said it hopes the bond system deters overstaying of visas and recovers costs of foreign nationals using public services like hospitals and schools.
Immigration was a key issue in Cameron's election campaign for his Conservative Party. Cameron has pledged to cut net immigration from 252,000 a year in 2010 to 100,000 a year by 2015.
One move that has come under heavy criticism recently has been a government campaign targeting people who overstay their visas. Billboards were put on two vans for a week in six of London's boroughs. Their message said: "In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest." Leaflets with the same message will be distributed for a month.
The Home Office statement said the visa bond "is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain."
___
Associated Press writer Paisley Dodds contributed to this report from London.
NASA is reviewing public proposals for how to handle a hypothetical asteroid bound for impact with Earth.
By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / July 29, 2013
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visits the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in May to inspect a prototype for a spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid. The agency has received some 400 submissions in response to its Asteroid Grand Challenge, a call for the public's help in defending Earth from asteroids.
Nick Ut/AP
Enlarge
NASA has received more than 400 responses to its Asteroid Grand Challenge, issued last month as part of the agency?s ramped-up effort to build its asteroid-wrangling know-how before an Earth-bound asteroid is spotted.
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The response comes after NASA announced last month that it has identified about ten thousand Near Earth Objects, that is, asteroids and comets that come within 28 million miles of Earth?s orbit. Just ten percent of those objects are large enough to causes substantial global damage to Earth ? bigger than about 100 feet wide ? and none of them are on an impact trajectory toward our planet.
Still, precedent suggests that we should be prepared: Most research still indicates that it was an errant asteroid that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, clearing the world of its million-of-years-in-the-making ecosystem packed with Brobdingnagian animals. That asteroid was about 9 miles wide.
And in the latest harbinger of what a massive asteroid impact could do to the Earth, a meteor exploded above?Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February, injuring about 1,500 people. NASA telescopes had not seen that meteor coming; the agency?s programs are largely focused on monitoring larger objects.
So NASA?s asteroid-mastering timeline is ambitious: NASA plans to have identified an asteroid target for snatching?at the latest in 2016. That asteroid will then be lassoed in 2019 and flung into a trans-lunar orbit in 2021. The agency also hopes to ferry humans to an asteroid as early as 2025, about five years before the projected date that astronauts are to land on Mars.?
The expensive plan???NASA had?asked for $17.7 billion?for?the fiscal year 2014, $105 million of which would go to the Asteroid Initiative???has been the subject of major discord between the House and the Senate. Earlier this month, the?House Committee on Science, Space and Technology passed a NASA authorization bill that would prohibit NASA from pursuing the?Asteroid Redirect Mission?without further clarifying its vague points.??At the same time, the Senate has proposed legislation that would authorize giving NASA $18.1?billion and a full go-ahead on the project.
Meanwhile, though, the asteroid plan is slowly rolling forward, and NASA wants ? needs, perhaps ? the public?s help. Last month, the agency announced a Grand Challenge,?an open call for proposals tackling some of the most vexing questions in astroengineering, for its Asteroid Initiative.
And the response has been enthusiastic. About a month into the challenge, NASA has received some 400 submissions proposing possible asteroid targets and means of nabbing them. The applications are now under review for possible incorporation into the agency?s plans.
Earth has some built-in asteroid deflection techniques of its own, but our atmosphere protects us from asteroids smaller than about 130 feet in diameter, roughly the length of the long-necked dinosaur, Argentinosaurus huinculensis.
As part of our tour of new digital media companies throughout L.A., we checked out Machinima, which is one of the largest multichannel networks on YouTube. Over the course of that tour, we found out how the company has evolved and what its plans are for the future.
HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) ? A gunman moving floor to floor in a South Florida apartment complex killed six people and took two others hostage before a SWAT team stormed the building and killed him early Saturday, police said.
Police got a call around 6:30 p.m. Friday that shots had been fired in the building, a five-story structure with dozens of apartments in Hialeah, a suburb a few miles north of Miami, according to Sgt. Eddie Rodriguez.
Ester Lazcano lives two doors down from where the shooting began and said she was in the shower when she heard the first shots, then there were at least a dozen more.
"I felt the shots," she said.
Miriam Valdes, 70, lives on the top floor ? one floor above where the shooting began. She said she heard gunfire and later saw smoke and what smelled like burned plastic entering her apartment, and ran in fear to the unit across the hall.
Rodriguez said the gunman moved from floor to floor, and "eventually he barricades himself in an apartment" with two hostages.
A crisis team was able to briefly establish communication with the man. Rodriguez said negotiators and a SWAT team tried talking with him from the other side of the door of the unit where he held the hostages.
Valdes said she heard about eight officers talking with him as she stayed holed up at the neighboring apartment. She said officers told him to "let these people out."
"We're going to help you," she said they told him.
She said the gunman first asked for his girlfriend and then his mother but refused to cooperate.
Rodriguez said the talks eventually "just fell apart." Officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman in an exchange of gunfire.
"They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages," Rodriguez said. Both hostages survived.
Rodriguez said police discovered two people, a male and female, shot to death in the hallway in front of one unit. Three more, a male and two females, were found shot and killed in another apartment on a different floor.
Another man who was walking his children into an apartment across the street also was killed. Rodriguez said it wasn't immediately clear whether the gunman took aim at him from an upper-level balcony or if he was hit by a stray bullet.
Neighbor Fabian Valdes lives across the street and said he heard shots fired, then looked out his window and saw a man lying on the floor, outside the front lobby. He was on his back and had his arms and legs outstretched.
Fabian Valdes said he was in shock. "It's something you never expect," he said.
Miriam Valdes and other neighbors said the shooter lived in the building with his mother, but police would not confirm that information or give any other details on the gunman. As of Saturday afternoon, they had not provided information on victims or a possible motive.
But Zulima Niebles said police told her that three of her family members were among the victims. She said her sister Merly Sophia Niebles, her sister's husband, and her sister's daughter Priscila Perez, 16, were all shot and killed.
Zulima Niebles' husband, Agustin Hernandez, was moving the family's things out of the apartment building and into his car Saturday. Among them were several photos, one showing the teen girl smiling in a red graduation gown, another of his sister-in-law in a white dress and pearls.
Marcela Chavarri, director of the American Christian School, said Priscila Perez, 16, was about to enter her senior year at the school.
"She was a lovely girl," Chavarri said through tears. "She was always happy and helping her classmates."
In Hialeah ? a suburb of about 230,000 residents, about three-quarters of whom are Cuban or Cuban-American ? the street in the quiet, apartment-building-lined neighborhood where the shootings occurred was still blocked by tape Saturday afternoon.
The building where the standoff occurred is an aging, beige structure with an open terrace in the middle. The apartment where neighbors said the shooting started was charred, the door and ceiling immediately outside burned black.
The building across the street where the man was shot is called Casa Royal, or Royal House in English.
___
Associated Press writer Suzette Laboy contributed to this report.
"Animal House" isn't over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
If you see a lot of explosions and car crashes this weekend, never fear. It's just Delta House returning to Faber College for their anniversary.
Saturday marks the 35th anniversary of the release of "National Lampoon's Animal House," the college movie to end all college movies, the film that taught a generation how to throw a toga party and how to impersonate a zit, all while cementing the late legend John Belushi's image as the ultimate party animal.
In honor of the anniversary, we present our seven favorite "Animal House" quotes:
1, "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
2. "Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
3. "As of this moment, they're on double secret probation."
4. "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
5. "See if you can guess what I am now. I'm a zit!"
6. "Toga! Toga! Toga!"
7. "Seven years of college down the drain."
Got a better "Animal House" line? Share it in the comments.
NEW YORK?Anthony Weiner?s campaign manager reportedly quit Saturday amid turmoil over the mayoral hopeful?s admission that he exchanged lewd messages with women he met online even after a sexting scandal forced him out of Congress.
Citing unnamed sources, the New York Times reported late Saturday that Danny Kedem, Weiner?s campaign manager, had resigned. A spokeswoman for Weiner did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment from Yahoo News.
The development comes after a tumultuous week for Weiner, who admitted Tuesday that he had continued to send raunchy messages and lewd photos to women he met online long after he left Congress.
On Thursday, Weiner estimated that he had exchanged sexual messages with at least three women after he resigned from office in June 2011?including Sydney Leathers, a 22-year-old Indiana woman who went public last week with the messages and photos she received from Weiner.
The revelations sent Weiner?s poll numbers plummeting and raised questions about his political viability in the race for the City Hall?especially as he had already lacked the ground operation and campaign infrastructure of rivals including Christine Quinn.
But Weiner has repeatedly insisted he won?t drop out of the race, saying he wants voters to ultimately decide whether he deserves the ?second chance? he?s been asking for since he officially kicked off his mayoral bid in May.
?Citizens have to decide for themselves whether this personal behavior, when one thing happened or it didn?t happen, is important to them. All I am saying is that these things were personal in nature,? the Democratic mayoral candidate told reporters Thursday. ?I have worked them out between me and my wife and ... they?ve been behind me. They?ve been behind me for some time now. And it wasn?t until they were behind me that I decided to run for mayor. I understand that might not be a satisfying answer for some people.?
Kedem, who could not be reached for comment, previously worked for Hillary Clinton?s 2008 presidential campaign and managed a successful mayoral campaign in Connecticut before he joined the Weiner campaign. He had been credited for helping Weiner, originally considered a long-shot bid for mayor, surge to the top of the polls.
Before last week?s revelations, Weiner had been statistically tied with Quinn?in spite of the fact he?s spent little money on ads and was running the campaign with almost no staff compared to other campaigns.
With the Democratic primary a little over a month away, Weiner?s rivals were busy on the campaign trail Saturday, but the ex-congressman, who has struggled to turn the subject away from his online behavior, stayed out of sight.
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From upset consumers whose gadgets broke prematurely to stranded air travelers stuck on the tarmac, Twitter has been an effective outlet to publicly shame companies, sometimes resulting in VIP treatment.
Those days may be over.
Some recent incidents suggest tweeting is starting to resemble being stuck on hold, or worse yet ? trapped in an automated telephone system pressing #1, #2, or #3.
NBC News
The most extreme example involved Bank of America's @BofA_Help account, which last month repeatedly responded to a vitriolic cycle of foreclosure criticism with robotic-sounding, "Please let us know if you need assistance," messages. Public embarrassment soon followed. When an account called @OccupyLA wrote, "You can help by stop stealing people's houses!!!," @BofA_Help responded, "We'd be happy to review your account." And on it went from there.
Frank Eliason, often considered the founder of Twitter-based customer service as the voice behind @ComcastCares and author of "@YourService," said the latest trend is "breaking my heart." (NBC News is part of NBC Universal, which is owned by Comcast.)
"Companies are really looking at this more as a PR play as opposed to fixing the root cause of the problem, and that makes me really sad," Eliason said. "Companies do not want to talk to you, and it shows. The fact is most do not want to tweet with you either."
Cheesy stunts As the Twitter customer service channel has matured, companies have turned to automated "bots" and scripted responses, ruining the personal touch that had made Twitter help so valuable, Eliason said. Rather than trying to be purely helpful, and enhance customer relationships, Twitter has become the land of cheesy public relations stunts, such as Chipotle faking that its account had been hacked to gain more followers.
"They haven't devoted the staff it would take to respond in real time with real answers,? said Carri Bugbee, a social media expert, discussing Twitter failures in general. "Whether it's a bot or a person with a script, it's a failure, and it's tantamount to outsourcing customer service to the lowest-level employee."
There's a pretty straightforward reason that Twitter help might be in trouble. When the channel was narrow, and the number of potential users was small, a single tweeter like Eliason could handle the volume. As success stories have proliferated, more consumers have tried, forcing firms to replace single agents with teams and processes.
In other words, the personal touch is hard to scale.
"Obviously, large companies that have a lot of relationships to manage are looking for ways to make it scale, to automate, but it really doesn't work," Bugbee said. "(Companies are) looking for cheap or easy ways to do things that aren't cheap or easy."
Making things worse? Social media is hard work, and many companies aren?t getting it right. Simply Measured, which studies Twitter response, says 32 of the Interbrand top 100 companies have a dedicated customers service Twitter handle, meaning they have gone over and above the others to invite tweets.
Even among those 32 Twitter-focused firms, performance isn't great: The average response time to a tweet is 4.6 hours, and the average response rate is 45 percent, says Nate Smitha of Simply Measured.
"We have seen those continue to improve every time we take the study," Smitha said. "But the numbers do come across as low."
Of course, simply responding to a tweet doesn't equal a successful customer service exchange, as Bank of America proved. In fact it's easy to imagine that companies targeting improved response metrics by using bots or scripts actually make things worse.
"Those canned responses have to go the way of the past because (companies) will become a laughingstock ... and it will reach Wall Street," said Marsha Collier, author of several books on social media customer service.
Turn down the temperature Failures come when company cultures won't allow Twitter agents to do the right thing, limiting their responses to scripts and legalese.
"These are large corporations who [are] bogged down in silos, who do not give their social media team the latitude to decide on the fly how to handle things," Collier said.
Collier says good Twitter responses also require deft hiring. Twitter agents must have a good sense of humor, be willing to take a punch, and be artful in written responses, she said ? a skill set over and above what companies are used to hiring in call centers.
Studies show most consumers who take to Twitter are already angry ? they've probably tried and failed using traditional channels ? so being able to deftly turn down the temperature of a conflict is a must.
"You have to know customer service, but you also have to understand marketing, understand corporate communication, human resources ? you have to understand all these components," she said.
'One of the crowd' But Collier disagrees that Twitter help is dying out. The mistakes, she says, are a bump in the road.
"I argue that it isn't a death knell. We are observing an education," she said. "We are in our infancy ... We will always have examples of companies that don?t do it right, but the tools are getting better and better." Tools like HootSuite help firms do a better job of not missing angry tweets and managing responses, she said.
Still, Eliason is worried because he thinks there's only one way for Twitter help to work ? when consumers know they are working with a real human being who genuinely cares about their problem. And it also helps it the person behind the accounts is, as Eliason puts it, ?humanized.? When he tweeted for Comcast, he would also tweet personal pictures and thoughts, and just generally act like any other Twitter user.
"I was one of the crowd," he said. "There's an aspect to that that is actually important if you want to be a trust agent ... it's about being one with the community, not being the center of it. "
Migraine is associated with variations in structure of brain arteriesPublic release date: 26-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim Menard kim.menard@uphs.upenn.edu 215-662-6183 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Incomplete circle of Willis more common in subjects with migraine
PHILADELPHIA The network of arteries supplying blood flow to the brain is more likely to be incomplete in people who suffer migraine, a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reports. Variations in arterial anatomy lead to asymmetries in cerebral blood flow that might contribute to the process triggering migraines.
The arterial supply of blood to the brain is protected by a series of connections between the major arteries, termed the "circle of Willis" after the English physician who first described it in the 17th century. People with migraine, particularly migraine with aura, are more likely to be missing components of the circle of Willis.
Migraine affects an estimated 28 million Americans, causing significant disability. Experts once believed that migraine was caused by dilation of blood vessels in the head, while more recently it has been attributed to abnormal neuronal signals. In this study, appearing in PLOS ONE, researchers suggest that blood vessels play a different role than previously suspected: structural alterations of the blood supply to the brain may increase susceptibility to changes in cerebral blood flow, contributing to the abnormal neuronal activity that starts migraine.
"People with migraine actually have differences in the structure of their blood vessels - this is something you are born with," said the study's lead author, Brett Cucchiara, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology. "These differences seem to be associated with changes in blood flow in the brain, and it's possible that these changes may trigger migraine, which may explain why some people, for instance, notice that dehydration triggers their headaches."
In a study of 170 people from three groups - a control group with no headaches, those who had migraine with aura, and those who had migraine without aura - the team found that an incomplete circle of Willis was more common in people with migraine with aura (73 percent) and migraine without aura (67 percent), compared to a headache-free control group (51 percent). The team used magnetic resonance angiography to examine blood vessel structure and a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging method pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania, called Arterial spin labeling (ASL), to measure changes in cerebral blood flow.
"Abnormalities in both the circle of Willis and blood flow were most prominent in the back of the brain, where the visual cortex is located. This may help explain why the most common migraine auras consist of visual symptoms such as seeing distortions, spots, or wavy lines," said the study's senior author, John Detre, MD, Professor of Neurology and Radiology.
Both migraine and incomplete circle of Willis are common, and the observed association is likely one of many factors that contribute to migraine in any individual. The researchers suggest that at some point diagnostic tests of circle of Willis integrity and function could help pinpoint this contributing factor in an individual patient. Treatment strategies might then be personalized and tested in specific subgroups.
###
In addition to Dr. Cucchiara and Dr. Detre, the research team at Penn includes Scott Kasner, MD, Ritobrato Datta, PhD, Geoffrey Aguirre, MD, PhD from Neurology, and Ronald Wolf, MD, PhD, from Radiology. Radiologists Lidia Nagae, MD, from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Quan Zhang, PhD, from Tianjin Medical University in Tianjin, China, contributed to the study.
The study was funded by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (R01 NS061572).
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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Migraine is associated with variations in structure of brain arteriesPublic release date: 26-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim Menard kim.menard@uphs.upenn.edu 215-662-6183 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Incomplete circle of Willis more common in subjects with migraine
PHILADELPHIA The network of arteries supplying blood flow to the brain is more likely to be incomplete in people who suffer migraine, a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reports. Variations in arterial anatomy lead to asymmetries in cerebral blood flow that might contribute to the process triggering migraines.
The arterial supply of blood to the brain is protected by a series of connections between the major arteries, termed the "circle of Willis" after the English physician who first described it in the 17th century. People with migraine, particularly migraine with aura, are more likely to be missing components of the circle of Willis.
Migraine affects an estimated 28 million Americans, causing significant disability. Experts once believed that migraine was caused by dilation of blood vessels in the head, while more recently it has been attributed to abnormal neuronal signals. In this study, appearing in PLOS ONE, researchers suggest that blood vessels play a different role than previously suspected: structural alterations of the blood supply to the brain may increase susceptibility to changes in cerebral blood flow, contributing to the abnormal neuronal activity that starts migraine.
"People with migraine actually have differences in the structure of their blood vessels - this is something you are born with," said the study's lead author, Brett Cucchiara, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology. "These differences seem to be associated with changes in blood flow in the brain, and it's possible that these changes may trigger migraine, which may explain why some people, for instance, notice that dehydration triggers their headaches."
In a study of 170 people from three groups - a control group with no headaches, those who had migraine with aura, and those who had migraine without aura - the team found that an incomplete circle of Willis was more common in people with migraine with aura (73 percent) and migraine without aura (67 percent), compared to a headache-free control group (51 percent). The team used magnetic resonance angiography to examine blood vessel structure and a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging method pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania, called Arterial spin labeling (ASL), to measure changes in cerebral blood flow.
"Abnormalities in both the circle of Willis and blood flow were most prominent in the back of the brain, where the visual cortex is located. This may help explain why the most common migraine auras consist of visual symptoms such as seeing distortions, spots, or wavy lines," said the study's senior author, John Detre, MD, Professor of Neurology and Radiology.
Both migraine and incomplete circle of Willis are common, and the observed association is likely one of many factors that contribute to migraine in any individual. The researchers suggest that at some point diagnostic tests of circle of Willis integrity and function could help pinpoint this contributing factor in an individual patient. Treatment strategies might then be personalized and tested in specific subgroups.
###
In addition to Dr. Cucchiara and Dr. Detre, the research team at Penn includes Scott Kasner, MD, Ritobrato Datta, PhD, Geoffrey Aguirre, MD, PhD from Neurology, and Ronald Wolf, MD, PhD, from Radiology. Radiologists Lidia Nagae, MD, from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Quan Zhang, PhD, from Tianjin Medical University in Tianjin, China, contributed to the study.
The study was funded by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (R01 NS061572).
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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io9's wrap up of San Diego Comic-Con 2013?the yearly Big Bang of sci-fi and fantasy news?has a selection of the best and shiniest movies, TV shows and comic books that will keep you entertained this year, the next and beyond. It's packed with really good stuff.
Opera Mediaworks today released its State of Mobile Advertising Report for Q2 2013, and the news from the largest mobile ad platform is that mobile ad impressions are growing globally, with U.S. share dipping to below 50 percent, though American impressions still account for just under 75 percent of revenue, meaning its dropping share doesn't make it any less important for advertisers going after mobile users.
(JTA) ? Four Syrians injured in their country?s civil war were brought to Israel for medical treatment.
The injured, including a 15-year-old girl who lost her foot and an 8-year-old girl, were brought to Ziv Medical Center in the northern Israeli city of Safed, according to The Associated Press.
In recent months, Israel has treated 100 Syrians injured in the unrest across the border. Israel has also set up a field hospital on the border to treat wounded Syrians. More than 90,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which began 2 1/2? years ago.
?Our policy is to help in humanitarian cases, and to that end we are operating a field hospital along the Syrian border,? Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya?alon told the Knesset?s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in June, according to the Times of Israel. ?In cases where there are badly wounded, we transfer them to Israeli hospitals. We have no intention of opening refugee camps.?
We, the undersigned jurors, understand there is a great deal of interest in this case. But we ask you to remember that we are not public officials and we did not invite this type of attention into our lives.
George Zimmerman trial jurors
From a statement released by 4 jurors after the trial.
Eight out of 10 UK patients diagnosed with the most dangerous form of skin cancer - malignant melanoma - will now survive their disease, compared with five out of 10 in the early 70s.?
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The figures, published by Cancer Research UK, show that 10-year survival has hit 80% in men and 90% in women, compared to 38% in men and 58% in women 40 years ago.?
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This is good news for patients, particularly as 35 people a day are diagnosed with the condition.
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The substantial leap in survival is likely to be because of the availability of better treatments, earlier diagnosis and a greater awareness of the symptoms, the charity said.
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Nevertheless, skin cancer "is one of the fastest rising cancers in the UK, which is likely to be down to our sunbathing habits and the introduction of cheap package holidays in previous decades," noted Harpal Kumar, CR UK?s chief executive.
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"More and more people are beating skin cancer but we can?t stop there and we need to develop better treatments for the two out of 10 where things don?t look so good," added Professor Richard Marais, director of the CR UK Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, which is based at the University of Manchester.
Source: www.fosspatents.com --- Tuesday, July 23, 2013 Two weeks ago Samsung filed a motion for a new trial concerning its liability for infringement of the '381 rubber-banding patent or, in the alternative, a partial final judgment with respect to that patent in order to appeal the decision right away to the Federal Circuit. Either way, the limited damages retrial scheduled for November would have to be postponed, which is what Samsung is also pursuing through another motion it brought earlier this month , alleging a failure by Apple to comply with court orders, which Apple calls an attempt to "delay and derail" the limited damages retrial. Yesterday Apple responded to Samsung's motion relating to the rubber-banding patent, which Samsung argued was narrowed in scope due to Apple's statements during the reexamination process, suggesting a different outcome of the infringement analysis. Here's the public redacted version of Apple's opposition brief (this post continues below the document): 13-07-22 Apple's Opposition to New Rubber-banding Patent Trial in Samsung Case I have also uploaded to Scribd the declaration attached to Apple's brief . Apple has multiple attack vectors in place against Samsung's motion. Some are procedural (among other things, Apple argues that Samsung's motion is "time barred") while others are substantive: According to Apple, Samsung's motion can be denied simply on the basis that "[t]he evidence to which Samsung points--Apple's statements during reexamination ...
Source: feedgrids.com --- Sunday, July 21, 2013 Like the previous iPhones, iPhone5 still carries the word of ?quality?, other than that, it also now owns the word, ?elegant? ? in which, to its very meaning of taste, ease and wealth, that really corresponds to what iPhone5 can bring. As most iPhone 5 owners will know, it can be difficult to get hold [...] ...
BERLIN (Reuters) - In rare remarks on Egypt's government crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that the fall of the president, Mohamed Mursi, demonstrates the weaknesses of political Islamist movements.
"I believe that over the long haul these radical Islamic regimes are going to fail because they don't offer the adequate enfranchisement that you need to develop a country economically, politically and culturally," Netanyahu told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
He said he thought radical Islamism was wholly unsuited to dealing with a global economic and information revolution, and "goes right back to medievalism against the whole thrust of modernity, so over time it's bound to fail".
Israel had previously responded more cautiously to Mursi's removal by the Egyptian army on July 3. Netanyahu avoided any comment at the time, though a confidant expressed hope that Egypt's new leaders may restore largely frozen contacts with Israel.
In the interview, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's concern that a U.S.-brokered 1979 peace treaty with Egypt should remain intact, alluding also to a surge of violence in a Sinai border region since Israel's ally Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power in Egypt two years ago.
"Preserving the peace with Egypt through these convulsions is of central importance to us," Netanyahu said.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Pope Francis is reaching out over social media to young followers gearing up for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro.
Francis posted a message on Twitter Saturday touching base with young Catholics en route to Rio and wishing them a safe journey.
Francis leaves Monday for Rio, where more than a million young Catholics are expected to celebrate their new pope.
The 76-year-old Argentine became the church's first pontiff from the Americas in March, and the trip to Brazil is his first international journey since becoming pontiff.
Catholic youth festivals are meant to reinvigorate the faithful, and Francis is expected to inspire young people with his humble ways.
Our legal system doesn?t always deliver justice, and this case points to several ways in which Florida?s version of law and police work should change.
By EMILY BAZELON
NEW HAVEN, Conn. ? It feels wrong, this verdict of not guilty for George Zimmerman. It feels wrong to say that Zimmerman is guilty of no crime. If he hadn?t approached 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, if he hadn?t pulled his gun, Martin would be alive.
But that doesn?t mean Zimmerman was guilty of murder, not in the state of Florida. It doesn?t even mean he was guilty of manslaughter, though that was the middle ground I had hoped the jury would find its way toward.
Here?s the problem: To convict Zimmerman of murder, the six women of the jury had to find that he killed Martin out of ill will, hatred or spite, or with a depraved mind. The law didn?t account for Zimmerman?s fear or feeling of being physically threatened.
But the physical evidence suggested that in the heat of the moment, Zimmerman could have felt both of those things.
A forensics expert testified that from the angle of his wounds, it appeared that Martin was on top of Zimmerman when he was shot. The neighbor who came closest to being an eyewitness ? there were none ? said it looked to him like he saw a fight in which the person on top, straddling the person below, was wearing a red or a light-colored shirt.
That, too, suggested Martin was on top.
Zimmerman did have injuries: lacerations to the back of his head from the pavement and a swollen bloody nose.
It?s true that there was also evidence on the other side: None of Zimmerman?s DNA was found under Martin?s fingernails. None of Martin?s DNA was found on the gun. These facts contradict key aspects of the account Zimmerman gave police.
Why believe him about the rest of his account?
And even if you do give him the benefit of that doubt, why did Zimmerman feel so very threatened? Why did he pull his gun and shoot to kill?
I don?t know. I don?t think we ever will. Zimmerman didn?t testify; he was never cross-examined. ?Zimmerman the man may remain as much an enigma as the events of the night in question,? Jelani Cobb wrote in The New Yorker last week.
And all of this focus on the moment of the shooting telescopes this story in a way that feels misleading. It leaves out Zimmerman?s history of calling the cops on black people and his decision that night to follow Martin. It leaves out his excruciatingly terrible, patently racist judgment.
But that doesn?t mean the jury?s verdict was racist. In Florida, a person ?who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked? has no duty to retreat. He or she has the right to ?meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.?
The jury could have faulted Zimmerman for starting the altercation with Martin and still believed him not guilty of murder, or even of manslaughter, which in Florida is a killing that has no legal justification.
If the jury believed that once the physical fight began, Zimmerman reasonably feared he would suffer a grave bodily injury, then he gets off for self-defense.
Maybe that is the wrong rule. Maybe people like George Zimmerman should be held responsible for provoking the fight that they then fear they?ll lose.
And maybe cuts to the back of the head and a bloody nose aren?t enough to show reasonable fear of grave bodily harm. After all, as writer Adam Weinstein points out, the lesson right now for Floridians is this: ?in any altercation, however minor, the easiest way to avoid criminal liability is to kill the counterparty.?
But you can see the box the jurors might have felt they were in. Even if they didn?t like George Zimmerman ? even if they believed only part of what he told the police ? they didn?t have a charge under Florida law that was a clear fit for what he did that night.
This is what Slate?s Justin Peters meant when he reminded us last week that the state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. ?That hasn?t happened,? he wrote. ?And if the prosecution can?t prove its case, then Zimmerman should walk.?
This is our legal system. It doesn?t always deliver justice, and this case surely points to several ways in which Florida?s version of law and police work should change. It may demonstrate that Zimmerman should face federal civil rights charges.
But what matters most is that Zimmerman was charged with Martin?s killing, even if he wasn?t convicted.
The state was late to indict him, yes, and acted only after a sorry spell of botched police work that may have affected the evidence presented at trial. But Florida did try to hold George Zimmerman liable for Trayvon Martin?s death.
Martin?s family and all his supporters get most of the credit. His father, Tracy Martin, wrote on Twitter this weekend, ?God blessed Me & Sybrina with Tray and even in his death I know my baby proud of the FIGHT we along with all of you put up for him GOD BLESS.?
Yes, they did fight, and their battle meant something ? meant a great deal ? to so many parents of black boys in hoodies, and to the rest of the country, too.
Tracy Martin is right to stress that fight for justice at this sorrowful, painful moment. No ill-conceived law, and no verdict, can take that away.
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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids.
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Opera Mediaworks today released its State of Mobile Advertising Report for Q2 2013, and the news from the largest mobile ad platform is that mobile ad impressions are growing globally, with U.S. share dipping to below 50 percent, though American impressions still account for just under 75 percent of revenue, meaning its dropping share doesn't make it any less important for advertisers going after mobile users.
Like the previous iPhones, iPhone5 still carries the word of ?quality?, other than that, it also now owns the word, ?elegant? ? in which, to its very meaning of taste, ease and wealth, that really corresponds to what iPhone5 can bring. As most iPhone 5 owners will know, it can be difficult to get hold [...] ...
