Fred Savage has welcomed another child with wife Jennifer Lynn Stone.?The ?Wonder Years? actor-turned-director announced the birth of his little baby boy -- the couple?s third child -- on Twitter on November 26, Tweeting, ?He?s here.?
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Through the years: TV?s favorite families
The actor included in his post a link to an Instagram photo of his newborn?s hand. Click HERE to see the adorable pic!
No further information was immediately available.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Behind the lens: Hollywood?s directors
The new little boy will have an older brother and sister -- Oliver, 6, and Lily, 4.
Fred nowadays is behind the scenes in Hollywood. He?s directed for shows like ?Modern Family,? ?It?s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? and ?Happy Endings.?
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Former child stars
?I?m doing what I?ve always wanted to be doing, ever since I was a little kid? to be directing, shooting and producing television shows,? he told Access earlier this year.
According to a recent survey from the New York-based PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, 42 percent of voters want cuts in health IT. The survey, which was based on the thoughts of 1,202 consumer son their post-election thoughts on healthcare, found that 69 percent of respondents said President Barack Obama has to rein in healthcare costs.
November 29, 2012
A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has determined that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) faces obstacles in the Medicare EHR incentive program because it does not verify whether the self-reported information from providers is accurate and thus the integrity of the program is in question. The OIG charges CMS with not implementing ?strong prepayment safeguards,? in the 38-page report, released this week.
November 28, 2012
More than 400 healthcare facilities across Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont will participate in a new telehealth network. The effort is buoyed by Ethernet services from the Portland, Maine-based FairPoint Communications, a broadband internet network provider. It will aim to strengthen the New England Telehealth Consortium?s (NETC), which is a three-state group that has been awarded a $24.6 million Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rural Health Care Pilot Program award to bring telemedicine to the region.
November 28, 2012
A group of researchers from Kansas State University are exploring the effect social media platforms could have on preventing infectious diseases from spreading. The researchers say that a tweet from an influential source could be just as effective as a flu shot.
November 28, 2012
According to a report from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), nearly half of doctors using an EHR are e-prescribing, a sharp increase from just four years ago. In June of this year, ONC said 48 percent of doctors using an EHR were e-prescribing. In December of 2008, this number was at only 7 percent.
November 27, 2012
Alere Home Monitoring, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of patient home monitoring services, recently disclosed that a company-owned laptop containing protected health information including Social Security numbers and diagnosis codes, was recently stolen from a locked vehicle that belonged to one of the firm?s employees. The company says it has notified approximately 116,000 individuals of the incident.
November 27, 2012
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), a large academic medical center, recently announced a data breach that affected approximately 1,500 patients. UAMS says a former physician, who was fired in 2010, kept patient lists and notes after leaving the hospital in June of that year.
November 27, 2012
According to a recent report from the Mountain View, Calif.-based research company, Frost & Sullivan, the health information exchange market is set to grow significantly over the next 18-24 months thanks to various regulatory factors. The report, U.S. Health Information Exchange Market: A Comprehensive Guide to Market Dynamics, Technology Vendors, and Future Trends, looks at the specific opportunities in this space.
November 27, 2012
In addition to its recently announced patient engagement framework, the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) is releasing an affiliated online assessment tool that will help providers and payers evaluate where they stand in this area. NeHC, which worked with HealthCAWS on the platform, says its Consumer eHealth Readiness Tool (CeRT) can be used as a real-time progress evaluator for payers and providers looking to gauge their patient engagement activities. It also can give recommendations to providers on how they can improve.
November 26, 2012
Improving medication adherence remains one of the healthcare system?s greatest challenges. According to a recent study from the Oakland, Calif.-based integrated system, Kaiser Permanente, patients who receive automatic reminders are 1.6 times more likely to fill prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering statins than those who don?t get one.
November 26, 2012
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the first three participants in a new data sharing initiative aimed at getting more information to consumers to improve healthcare quality. The organizations in the Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement program are Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati, Kansas City Quality Improvement Consortium (serving the Greater Kansas City area in Missouri and Kansas), and Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation.
November 26, 2012
Intermountain Healthcare, a Salt Lake City-based healthcare system with 22 hospitals, recently announced it signed a multi-year contract with Siemens Healthcare (Malvern, Pa.) for $11.7 million to improve upon the system?s enterprise-wide imaging system. The agreement will allow Intermountain to deploy a vendor neutral archive from Siemens, which will allow images of multiple modalities to be stored in a Dell data center and managed with Dell?s clinical data management software.
November 26, 2012
A recent report from the Orem, Utah-based KLAS Research, indicates that as the market for picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) grows, providers are looking for vendors that can rapidly improve in the middle of a changing industry. The report, Radiology PACS Technology: The World Looks Under the Covers, looks at various PACS-related feedback from customers and finds the top vendors are those who can offer ?meaningful and timely upgrades with expanded usability.?
November 21, 2012
Pediatricians are not as up to par in the usage of EHRs as some of their fellow doctors, a recent survey led by researchers at Seattle Children's Hospital and East Carolina University with accompanying data from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), revealed. According to the researchers, pediatricians are up to two years behind the overall rate of EHR adoption, while those that have systems are without basic functionality.
November 21, 2012
Deloitte and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) recently conducted a study and found that for providers, life sciences companies, and payers there is clear correlation between return on investment (ROI) from clinical IT systems and high organizational support from health informatics. The organizations where respondents didn?t buy into the idea that health IT leads to significant ROI didn?t have as strong organizational support, alignment, and executive sponsorship as those that did.
A cartoon public safety video has taken YouTube by storm.
By Leslie Meredith, TechNewsDaily
A Melbourne Metro public safety announcement has taken the Internet by storm. "Dumb Ways to Die" snagged the top spot on Visible Measure's Viral Video Ads chart, a measurement of online video views, with 18 million views, twice the number of the second-place video, "LeBron's Day" from Samsung.
"Dumb" is an understatement. Paired with a catchy jingle, animated characters die in the video in various ways, including taking their helmets off in outer space, poking grizzly bears and getting asphyxiated in a dryer. The campaign got its own website,?Tumblr blog?with animated gifs and a YouTube channel, along with radio and TV spots ? all this to remind Melbourne drivers to stay off the Metro tracks.?
Who says safety can't be funny? Watch the video:
Other popular ad videos included Rovio's "Angry Birds Star Wars," Nintendo's "Wii U" and a second video by Samsung, "Overly Attached Computer."
Experts project that Cyber Monday sales grew 28 percent over last year with a projected $1.5 billion in receipts, many of them coming from mobile devices such as tablets and cell phones. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.
Copyright 2012 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
On the afternoon of the election, I sat counting ceiling tiles at my local Planned Parenthood clinic.
?Have you ever been to a Planned Parenthood clinic before?? the receptionist asked me when I approached the front desk.
?No ma?am.?
?Please fill out these forms. All your information will be kept confidential.?
?Okay, thanks.?
I found a seat in the back corner of the waiting area and slowly raised my eyes to look around the crowded room. To my right, there was a young girl ? maybe 15 or 16 years old ? with her arms crossed rigidly over her chest. She was wearing fishnet stockings, a transparent black tank top, and dark eyeliner painted thickly along the lids under her eyes. I wondered why she was here. She looked too young for an annual pap smear.
I looked back down at the forms on my clipboard:
Name: Chelsea Roff
Birthdate: 7/30/1989
Insurance? No
To my right, I heard the door open again and in walked another woman ? probably 35 ? wearing lululemon pants and a long, flowy shirt that easily could have served as a dress. Her hair was dark and curly, her skin a sun-kissed bronze. She approached the reception desk timidly, her eyes darting rapidly around the room.
?I?m not an American citizen,? she said to the receptionist. Her accent sounded British? maybe South African. ?Will they still see me??
?Yes, of course, honey. Do you have an appointment?
?No.?
?Fill out these forms. We?ll get you in.?
I ?looked back down at the clipboard in my lap, subconsciously breathing a sigh of relief for the woman at the desk. What was she here for? Emergency contraception? Abortion? STD test? Was she pregnant? I wondered if she had a national health care system in her country of origin, and thought about how frightening it would be to have a medical emergency happen and be so far from home.
Finishing my paperwork, I re-approached the reception desk, getting in line behind a mother-daughter couple and a ?young man. To my left I saw a small framed sign on the wall adjacent to me:
THE TRUTH ABOUT TEEN PRIVACY
We encourage teens to discuss their health care concerns with their parents or other adults, but you can give us your own permission for the following:
Birth Control
Pregnancy test
Abortion services
Sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment
You can also talk to us about the following and be sure they will remain private:
Alcohol, cigarettes, tobacco, or drugs
Personal, school, or family issues
Sex and sexuality issues
I thought about my younger sister, about the handful of times I?d walked her into a clinic like this. I?d forgotten what that was like? being underage and in the foster care system, Planned Parenthood the only place you knew to go.
Referrals and networking?these business-development activities look different, feel different, and are different.
Networking and referrals are related, and there is a big difference between them.
Showing Up Counts
Networking is what we do to expand our connections, get ourselves and our brand known, and exchange ideas. You network to make friends, sell a product, promote your company, find a job, find new clients, learn the latest from others, or gain more visibility in the business community. (Network like a pro and pack your pipeline.)
Business networking opportunities exist everywhere: meetings, professional associations, alumni groups, sports groups, community groups, weddings, parties, and any place people come together.
Woody Allen said, ?Eighty percent of life is showing up.? No matter how you slice it, showing up counts! That?s one of the best networking tips around.
I recommend that all of my clients attend at least one networking event a week. Before you freak out, a networking event can be a group meeting, a 1:1 with a colleague, or a prospect.? Decide on your personal outreach every week, calendar it, and pay for it. (The secret to a strong sales network is showing up: book your sales calendar.)
Personal Connections Deliver
Referral selling is an intentional, disciplined, business-development strategy. Networking helps build the relationships that ultimately become Referral Sources.
Once you get to know people and they get to know you, you will identify many opportunities to provide business referrals. You might refer someone to a potential client, alliance partner, or to a person in a similar business. You might even have a personal referral?to an accountant, banker, or mechanic?a resource that will help another person.
We become referral-marketing sources for others, and others do the same for us. What a great way to build business!
Make the Connection, Build the Network
Networking and referrals go hand in hand. Each business-development activity supports and strengthens the other (like a family that gets along). Support, strengthen, and grow your business: network, build your referral network, and see double-digit returns on your time investment. Relationships still rule.
Comment & Connect
What?s your biggest networking hurdle? It?s always the season to connect: what?s holding you back (can?t find the time, too uncomfortable?)? Share your latest in-person networking and referral success stories and challenges here. I personally respond to all comment.
I was taking a more general application of "what's the point?" The first connection to what would become the Internet was made between UCLA and SRI in Menlo Park, CA after all. That was a big deal for them, but a bigger deal for us. What the point of that was is rather subjective.
100PB seems like a lot of data today - 3,000 times the 3TB storage available in a standard PC. But I am so old I wear an onion on my belt, as was the fashion in my day. 1/3000th of that 3TB is 1GB. I can remember when to have 1GB of storage in your PC was an undreamt of wealth of storage richness: a bottomless well that might never be filled. Hell, I can remember a day when 3TB of digital info storage was more storage than there was - everywhere on Earth. In fact in my early days there was talk of a terabyte being the sum of human knowledge (silly, I know). It's reasonable to expect that when that much more time has passed again, 100PB will not be a big deal either.
So now we carry around a 1TB 2.5" USB drive in our shirt pocket like it's no big deal. And when guys like this do things like this we talk about what it means to them - and that's fine. But there is a larger story, like there was a larger story at UCLA - and that is "what does this mean to the rest of us?"
Now 339Gbps isn't such a big deal. NEC wizards have already passed 101 Tbps - 300 times as much over a single fiber [wikipedia.org], though not to this distance. That's enough bandwidth to pass your 100PB in 20 minutes, over a single strand of glass fiber.
The LA Metro area is about 15 million people, or 3 million homes. To deliver 1Gbps to a reasonable half of 3 million homes and mesh it out for global distribution is going to require a lot of these links. The aggregate demand would probably be under 1% of peak potential of 3,000 Tbps or about 30Tbps. 100 times the bandwidth of this link. Using CDNs(*) - particularly for YouTube, CableTV, the usual porn suspects and BitTorrent you could diminish the need for wider bandwidth considerably but you still need a wide pipe to the outside world. And all the Internet servers in the world would need to be updated to support the crushing demand with higher performance, SSD storage and the like. And that's great for the economy, and it's just LA.
These innovations are neat, but they're neater still when they come home to all of us.
TL;DR: Get off my lawn.
/(*) Define CDN: A CDN, or Content Delivery Network [wikipedia.org] is a facility for moving high bandwidth, high demand or high transaction content closer to a nexus of consumers. An example would be Netflix, which delivers streaming video content to 21 million subscribers, comprising by some estimates a full third of Internet traffic. Netflix provides for free to Internet providers BackBlaze boxes [gigaom.com] that move Netflix content closer to the end user, reducing backbone usage. Similar boxes are provided by advertising networks and other content providers.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? Pound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by MIT's Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk's unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks.
Now Buehler -- together with David Kaplan of Tufts University and Joyce Wong of Boston University -- has synthesized new variants on silk's natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material.
And an ear for music, it turns out, might be a key to making those structural improvements.
The work stems from a collaboration of civil and environmental engineers, mathematicians, biomedical engineers and musical composers.?
"We're trying to approach making materials in a different way," Buehler explains, "starting from the building blocks" -- in this case, the protein molecules that form the structure of silk. "It's very hard to do this; proteins are very complex."
Other groups have tried to construct such protein-based fibers using a trial-and-error approach, Buehler says. But this team has approached the problem systematically, starting with computer modeling of the underlying structures that give the natural silk its unusual combination of strength, flexibility and stretchiness.
Buehler's previous research has determined that fibers with a particular structure -- highly ordered, layered protein structures alternating with densely packed, tangled clumps of proteins (ABABAB) -- help to give silk its exceptional properties. For this initial attempt at synthesizing a new material, the team chose to look instead at patterns in which one of the structures occurred in triplets (AAAB and BBBA).
Making such structures is no simple task. Kaplan, a chemical and biomedical engineer, modified silk-producing genes to produce these new sequences of proteins. Then Wong, a bioengineer and materials scientist, created a microfluidic device that mimicked the spider's silk-spinning organ, which is called a spinneret.
Even after the detailed computer modeling that went into it, the outcome came as a bit of a surprise, Buehler says. One of the new materials produced very strong protein molecules -- but these did not stick together as a thread. The other produced weaker protein molecules that adhered well and formed a good thread. "This taught us that it's not sufficient to consider the properties of the protein molecules alone," he says. "Rather, [one must] think about how they can combine to form a well-connected network at a larger scale."
The results are reported in a paper published in the journal Nano Today.
The team is now producing several more variants of the material to further improve and test its properties. But one wrinkle in their process may provide a significant advantage in figuring out which materials will be useful and which ones won't -- and perhaps even which might be more advantageous for specific uses. That new and highly unusual wrinkle is music.
The different levels of silk's structure, Buehler says, are analogous to the hierarchical elements that make up a musical composition -- including pitch, range, dynamics and tempo. The team enlisted the help of composer John McDonald, a professor of music at Tufts, and MIT postdoc David Spivak, a mathematician who specializes in a field called category theory. Together, using analytical tools derived from category theory to describe the protein structures, the team figured out how to translate the details of the artificial silk's structure into musical compositions.
The differences were quite distinct: The strong but useless protein molecules translated into music that was aggressive and harsh, Buehler says, while the ones that formed usable fibers sound much softer and more fluid.
Buehler hopes this can be taken a step further, using the musical compositions to predict how well new variations of the material might perform. "We're looking for radically new ways of designing materials," he says.
Combining materials modeling with mathematical and musical tools, Buehler says, could provide a much faster way of designing new biosynthesized materials, replacing the trial-and-error approach that prevails today. Genetically engineering organisms to produce materials is a long, painstaking process, he says, but this work "has taught us a new approach, a fundamental lesson" in combining experiment, theory and simulation to speed up the discovery process.
Materials produced this way -- which can be done under environmentally benign, room-temperature conditions -- could lead to new building blocks for tissue engineering or other uses, Buehler says: scaffolds for replacement organs, skin, blood vessels, or even new materials for use in civil engineering.
Elliott Schwartz, professor emeritus of music at Bowdoin College, says: "For centuries, mathematics, logic and science have provided important models for musical structures, processes, and our understanding of sonic materials. The present research may well lead to one more important chapter in this ongoing story of mutual interaction."
It may be that the complex structures of music can reveal the underlying complex structures of biomaterials found in nature, Buehler says. "There might be an underlying structural expression in music that tells us more about the proteins that make up our bodies. After all, our organs -- including the brain -- are made from these building blocks, and humans' expression of music may inadvertently include more information that we are aware of."
"Nobody has tapped into this," he says, adding that with the breadth of his multidisciplinary team, "We could do this -- making better bio-inspired materials by using music, and using music to better understand biology."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Joyce Y. Wong, John McDonald, Micki Taylor-Pinney, David I. Spivak, David L. Kaplan, Markus J. Buehler. Materials by design: Merging proteins and music. Nano Today, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.nantod.2012.09.001
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
It's frustrated many a Drive user, and Google has taken heed, adding on-the-go spreadsheet editing to the service's iOS and Android apps. In addition to making tweaks to existing cells, users will also be able to create new spreadsheets from their iPads, iPhones or any Android device. You'll also have realtime access, letting you see changes from friends and colleagues as they're made. Other app tweaks include improved formatting reproduction for content pasted between Google documents, along with the ability to add Android home screen shortcuts to any Drive file. Hit up Google Play for the updated application today.
The year of 2012 is nearly over (as is everything else if the Mayans are right about December 21st) which means that it?s time once again to round up our favorite people, places and things of the year in our annual survey! This is where we ask you, our loyal readers, to decide what stands out as the absolute best of the best when it comes to local restaurants, artists, festivals, events and other cultural happenings that went down during 2012.
This year we?re sweetening the pot with a bonus incentive to complete the survey and giving away a Columbus Underground Gift Basket to one lucky random survey completer. The package includes a Patron level membership to the Wexner Center, an Annie Leibovitz T-Shirt, a Wexner Center Tote Bag & Mug, a signed copy of the Breakfast with Nick book and 2 Tickets to The Drexel Theatre!
So without further ado, let?s get to it!
CLICK HERE to fill out this year?s Best of 2012 Survey!
The categories of our reader survey are as follows:
The Best Food and Drinks of 2012
Best NEW Restaurant
Best Cheap Eats
Best Everyday Restaurant
Best Fine Dining Restaurant
Best Brunch
Best Desserts
Best Food Cart/Truck
Best Bar
Best Happy Hour
Best Local Drink (Beer, Wine or Spirits)
Best Coffee
The Best Arts and Entertainment of 2012
Best Local Artist
Best Art Gallery
Best Arts/Cultural Organization
Best Arts Show
Best Public Art Display
Best Theatrical Show/Performance
Best Local Band
Best Columbus Event
Best Urban Living of 2012
Best Neighborhood
Best Suburb
Best Urban Development Project
Best Community Ambassador
Best Apparel/Fashion Store
Best Local Product
Best Home Decor Store
Best Grocery/Food Retailer
Best Specialty Store
The Best of Columbus Underground 2012
Best Interview or Featured Article
Best Messageboard Topic/Discussion
Best Columbus Underground Contributor
Miscellaneous Best Ofs for 2012
Best Nonprofit
Best Local Sports Team
Best 200Columbus Moment/Event
Best Hidden Gem
Best Word to Describe 2012 in Columbus
This survey will close at 11:59pm on Thursday, December 20th. Thanks in advance for your votes!
Author: Walker Walker is the founder of ColumbusUnderground.com and co-founder of TheMetropreneur.com along with his wife and business partner Anne Evans. Walker has turned local media from a hobby into a full time career over the past decade and serves on multiple boards and committees throughout the community.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? The primary source of light for more than a billion people in developing nations is also churning out black carbon at levels previously overlooked in greenhouse gas estimates, according to a new study led by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois.
Results from field and lab tests found that 7 to 9 percent of the kerosene in wick lamps -- used for light in 250-300 million households without electricity -- is converted to black carbon when burned. In comparison, only half of 1 percent of the emissions from burning wood is converted to black carbon.
Factoring in the new study results leads to a twenty-fold increase in estimates of black carbon emissions from kerosene-fueled lighting. The previous estimates come from established databases used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others. One kilogram of black carbon, a byproduct of incomplete combustion and an important greenhouse gas, produces as much warming in a month as 700 kilograms of carbon dioxide does over 100 years, the authors said.
"The orange glow in flames comes from black carbon, so the brighter the glow, the more black carbon is being made," said study principal investigator Tami Bond, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "If it's not burned away, it goes into the atmosphere."
The findings, published online this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, are coming out at the same time that the United Nations Climate Change Conference kicks off in Doha, Qatar. While officials from around the world are seeking effective policies and guidelines for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the study authors note that the simple act of replacing kerosene lamps could pack a wallop toward that effort.
"There are no magic bullets that will solve all of our greenhouse gas problems, but replacing kerosene lamps is low-hanging fruit, and we don't have many examples of that in the climate world," said study co-author Kirk Smith, professor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and director of the Global Health and Environment Program. "There are many inexpensive, cleaner alternatives to kerosene lamps that are available now, and few if any barriers to switching to them."
Smith pointed to lanterns with light-emitting diodes that can be powered by solar cells or even advanced cookstoves that generate electricity from the heat produced. Such technology, said Smith, is already available in developing countries.
The researchers used kerosene lamps purchased in Uganda and Peru and conducted field experiments there to measure the emissions. They repeated the tests in the lab using wicks of varying heights and materials, and kerosene purchased in the United States as well as in Uganda.
The study authors noted that converting to cleaner light sources would not only benefit the planet, it would help improve people's health. A recent epidemiological study in Nepal led by Smith and other researchers at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, for example, found that women who reported use of kerosene lamps in the home had 9.4 times the rate of tuberculosis compared with those who did not use such lamps.
"Getting rid of kerosene lamps may seem like a small, inconsequential step to take, but when considering the collective impact of hundreds of millions of households, it's a simple move that affects the planet," said study lead author Nicholas Lam, a UC Berkeley graduate student in environmental health sciences.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, U.S. Agency for International Development and Environmental Protection Agency helped support this research.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Berkeley.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Nicholas Lam, Yanju Chen, Cheryl Weyant, Chandra Venkataraman, Pankaj Sadavarte, Michael Johnson, Kirk R. Smith, Benjamin Brem, Joseph Arineitwe, Justin Ellis, Tami Bond. Household Light Makes Global Heat: High Black Carbon Emissions From Kerosene Wick Lamps. Environmental Science & Technology, 2012; : 121119133048006 DOI: 10.1021/es302697h
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The fate of the free Internet will be decided at a private meeting in Dubai next month. UN member nations will argue for or against a plan that would give up control of the Internet to the ITU. Some within the US government have already voiced their opposition, and now the EU is joining them.
Wired UK reports that the European Parliament has issued a resolution against a potential takeover of the Web by the ITU. The resolution contains many of the same arguments that people like Vint Cerf have said about the proposed UN regulation. There?s a lot of good stuff here, and other nations would be wise to wied these arguments during negotiations next month:
1. Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure that any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations are compatible with the EU acquis and further the Union?s objective of, and interest in, advancing the internet as a truly public place, where human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly freedom of expression and assembly, are respected and the observance of free market principles, net neutrality and entrepreneurship are ensured;
2. Regrets the lack of transparency and inclusiveness surrounding the negotiations for WCIT?12, given that the outcomes of this meeting could substantially affect the public interest;
3. Believes that the ITU, or any other single, centralised international institution, is not the appropriate body to assert regulatory authority over either internet governance or internet traffic flows;
4. Stresses that some of the ITR reform proposals would negatively impact the internet, its architecture, operations, content and security, business relations and governance, as well as the free flow of information online;
5. Believes that, as a consequence of some of the proposals presented, the ITU itself could become the ruling power over aspects of the internet, which could end the present bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model; expresses concern that, if adopted, these proposals may seriously affect the development of, and access to, online services for end users, as well as the digital economy as a whole; believes that internet governance and related regulatory issues should continue to be defined at a comprehensive and multi-stakeholder level;
6. Is concerned that the ITU reform proposals include the establishment of new profit mechanisms that could seriously threaten the open and competitive nature of the internet, driving up prices, hampering innovation and limiting access; recalls that the internet should remain free and open;
7. Supports any proposals to maintain the current scope of the ITRs and the current mandate of the ITU; opposes any proposals that would extend the scope to areas such as the internet, including domain name space, IP address allocation, the routing of internet-based traffic and content-related issues;
8. Calls on the Member States to prevent any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations which would be harmful to the openness of the internet, net neutrality, the end-to-end principle, universal service obligations, and the participatory governance entrusted to multiple actors such as governments, supranational institutions, non-governmental organisations, large and small businesses, the technological community and internet users and consumers at large;
9. Calls on the Council to coordinate the negotiation of the revision of the ITRs on behalf of the European Union, on the basis of inclusively gathered input from multiple stakeholders, through a strategy that primarily aims at ensuring and preserving the openness of the internet, and at protecting the rights and freedoms of internet users online;
10. Recalls the importance of safeguarding a robust best-effort internet, fostering innovation and freedom of expression, ensuring competition and avoiding a new digital divide;
11. Stresses that the ITRs should state that the ITU recommendations are non-binding documents which promote best practices
There?s a lot here, but the central fears of an ITU takeover are two-fold. For one, the proposed Internet tax system would greatly affect how companies do business around the world. A leaked document said that some nations are pushing for a global Internet tax. In effect, nations would have the power to tax companies like Google in return for being allowed to operate in those nations. You can already see the potential abuse this system would bring.
The other is far more serious, and one of the reasons why nations like Iran and China are pushing so hard for this. It would allow individual nations to control how the Internet operates in their country even more thus leading to even more censorship. Iran is already developing its own private Internet, but a change to the ITU would make that internationally endorsed.
As you can see, there?s a lot at stake here and many are concerned about the potential impact the ITU meeting will have on the Web. Companies like Google are already beginning protest movements and asking for people to submit their stories on why a free and open Internet is important to them.
ACTA and SOPA were expected to pass with little to no resistance, but the Internet proved those assumptions wrong. The ITU would be wise to heed the voice of the Internet, and not go forward without taking its users into account. If not, it?s only a matter of time before it?s deemed irrelevant alongside everything else that refuses to acknowledge the Internet as a living, breathing entity that can?t be contained.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) ? People with an overactive thyroid gland (hyperthyroidism) carry a greater risk of developing irregular heart rhythm (known as atrial fibrillation) than those with normal thyroid function, finds a study published on bmj.com today.
As such, the researchers suggest there should be an increased focus on atrial fibrillation in patients with raised thyroid function.
Hyperthyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland makes too much thyroxine (thyroid hormone), causing many of the body's functions to speed up. About 1 in 100 women and 1 in 1,000 men develop hyperthyroidism at some stage of their life and it can happen at any age.
It is well known that overt hyperthyroidism is associated with atrial fibrillation, but it's still not clear whether milder (subclinical) hyperthyroidism has a similar effect. Data on the risk of atrial fibrillation in patients with an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) is also limited.
So a team of researchers in Denmark set out to examine the risk of atrial fibrillation in relation to the whole spectrum of thyroid disease in a large group of patients.
Using nationwide registries, they identified 586,460 patients who had consulted a general practitioner in Copenhagen from 2000 to 2010 and had a thyroid function blood test. This measures the amount of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) circulating in the blood. In people with hyperthyroidism the level of TSH will usually be low, whereas in people with hypothyroidism the level of TSH will usually be high.
During an average five and a half years follow-up, 17,154 (3%) of patients had a diagnosis of a first atrial fibrillation, 53% of whom were women.
Compared to patients with normal thyroid function, the risk of atrial fibrillation increased with decreasing levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone. For example, patients with subclinical hyperthyroidism had a 30% increased risk of atrial fibrillation, while patients with high-normal thyroid function had a 12% increased risk.
In contrast, hypothyroidism was associated with a lower risk of atrial fibrillation.
The authors stress that, although atrial fibrillation was closely associated with thyroid activity, they cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship. However, they say their study is "the first to assess the association between the whole spectrum of thyroid disease and the subsequent risk of atrial fibrillation in a population of primary care patients."
They conclude: "These results support long term screening for atrial fibrillation in patients with thyroid disease."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BMJ-British Medical Journal.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
C. Selmer, J. B. Olesen, M. L. Hansen, J. Lindhardsen, A.-M. S. Olsen, J. C. Madsen, J. Faber, P. R. Hansen, O. D. Pedersen, C. Torp-Pedersen, G. H. Gislason. The spectrum of thyroid disease and risk of new onset atrial fibrillation: a large population cohort study. BMJ, 2012; 345 (nov27 1): e7895 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e7895
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.
Raise a Smarter, Healthier Child America?s fight against childhood obesity starts in your own home
EXERCISE MAKES YOUR CHILD SMARTER
The fitter children are, the better their brains work. That?s hard science from researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who tested elementary-school students.
Physically fit kids had greater P3 amplitude, a measurement of brain activity related to memory and focus, and faster P3 latency, meaning they were able to process information faster. ?Parts of your brain don?t develop until the late teenage years,? says Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D., the study?s lead author. ?These data show that those who are fit are better able to use what they have.?
The number of students taking phys ed fell 30 percent in the past 10 years. Read the Men?s Health special report on The 7 Ways to Reform America?s Physcial Education
Elementary-school students may have the most to gain from physical education. In a review of 44 studies examining the relation-ship between physical activity and cognition in children of varying ages, researchers at Arizona State University found that the youngest kids (grades one through five) improved cognitive development the most, followed by middle-school students.
The California Department of Education found that the fittest students in the state scored best on academic tests. For instance, the average reading score of students who achieved one of six goals on the statewide fitness evaluation was 38; students who achieved all six fitness goals averaged a reading score of 52.
At Arrowhead High School, organized exercise helped Corey Wise organize his schoolwork. ?I started taking as much time with my homework as I did with my workout,? he says. Class became fun, and it showed in his grades. Your child may benefit from planned activity, too.
3 WAYS TO HELP YOUR KIDS EAT BETTER
Promise Academy, a charter school in Harlem, New York, closed its doors to vending machines and food brought in from outside. It serves only healthy food. Until your school does the same, it?s up to you to take control. Use these simple strategies to help your kids eat healthfully.
1. Enroll in a cooking class
And involve the kids. Children who learn about cooking learn about food. ?Cooking classes open your mind to a variety of different ways to prepare healthy food,? says Andrew Benson, head chef at Promise Academy. Benson offers a cooking class for parents and students; the children aren?t the only ones who develop healthy habits. ?Parents become interested in learning how to change their diets and their lives,? he says. Go to cookingschools.com to find a class near you.
2. Make friends with a farmer
?If you go to a farmers? market, they?ll usually give advice on how to prepare the foods,? says Benson. Fresher food is more nutritious food. And the closer a child is to the source of food (visit a farm if you can), the more interested he or she will be in nutrition. That?s crucial ? because even children who consume excess calories have nutrient deficiencies. Canadian researchers found that 87 percent of kids don?t get enough vitamin E, 28 percent lack magnesium, and 45 percent miss out on vitamin D. And a study in Pediatrics found that more than 60 percent of kids are calcium deficient, which, along with a lack of exercise, may have caused a rise in bone fractures.
3. No more soda
Stock up on milk and bottled water (if your tap water doesn?t taste good). Kids get more than 50 percent of their beverages at home. When researchers at Children?s Hospital Boston sent bottled water to families to replace their sugary drinks, kids lost about a pound a month. And a study in the journal Pediatrics found that overweight preschool children are twice as likely to remain overweight if they drink sugar-sweetened beverages. Note that 100 percent juice is okay ? it supplies fiber and key nutrients.
BY THE NUMBERS
29: Percentage of kids who take no physical-education class at all
8: Percentage of schools that meet nationally recommended exercise requirements
45: Percentage of kids who are overweight or obese
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal mediators are entering the stalled NHL labor talks, with the season's first 2? months already lost because of the lockout.
George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said Monday the parties had agreed to use the agency. He assigned three mediators to assist negotiations ? deputy director Scot Beckenbaugh, director of mediation services John Sweeney and Commissioner Guy Serota.
The sides are to meet separately with the mediators Wednesday.
"While we have no particular level of expectation going into this process, we welcome a new approach in trying to reach a resolution of the ongoing labor dispute at the earliest possible date," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
Cohen has worked with the players' associations for Major League Baseball, helping end the 1994-95 strike as an outside counsel, and the NBA. He was an adviser to the NHL players' union before joining FMCS three years ago.
"We look forward to their involvement as we continue working to reach an equitable agreement for both the players and the owners," said Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Association.
Cohen mediated during the 2010 negotiations in Major League Soccer and 2011 talks in the NFL and NBA, along with this year's dispute between the NFL and its on-field officials.
Hockey players and management have not negotiated since last Wednesday. The NHL has canceled more than one-third of its regular season, including all games through Dec. 14, the New Year's Day outdoor Winter Classic and the All-Star weekend scheduled for Jan. 26-27 at Columbus, Ohio.
"I have had separate, informal discussions with the key representatives of the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association during the course of their negotiations for a successor collective bargaining agreement," Cohen said in a statement.
"Due to the extreme sensitivity of these negotiations and consistent with the FMCS's longstanding practice, the agency will refrain from any public comment concerning the future schedule and/or the status of the negotiations until further notice."
WASHINGTON (AP) ? When the next Congress cranks up in January, there will be more women, many new faces and 11 fewer tea party-backed House Republicans from the class of 2010 who sought a second term.
Overriding those changes, though, is a thinning of pragmatic, centrist veterans in both parties. Among those leaving are some of the Senate's most pragmatic lawmakers, nearly half the House's centrist Blue Dog Democrats and several moderate House Republicans.
That could leave the parties more polarized even as President Barack Obama and congressional leaders talk up the cooperation needed to tackle complex, vexing problems such as curbing deficits, revamping tax laws and culling savings from Medicare and other costly, popular programs.
"This movement away from the center, at a time when issues have to be resolved from the middle, makes it much more difficult to find solutions to major problems," said William Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a private group advocating compromise.
In the Senate, moderate Scott Brown, R-Mass., lost to Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who will be one of the most liberal members. Another GOP moderate, Richard Lugar of Indiana, fell in the primary election. Two others, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Olympia Snowe of Maine, are retiring.
Moderate Democratic senators such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jim Webb of Virginia are leaving, as is Democratic-leaning independent Joe Lieberman.
While about half the incoming 12 Senate freshmen of both parties are moderates, new arrivals include tea party Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, conservative Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and liberals such as Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Hawaii's Mazie Hirono.
There's a similar pattern in the House, where 10 of the 24 Democratic Blue Dogs lost, are retiring or, in the case of Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., are moving to the Senate. That will further slash a centrist group that just a few years ago had more than 50 members, though some new freshmen might join.
Among Republicans, moderates like Reps. Judy Biggert of Illinois and New Hampshire's Charles Bass were defeated while others such as Reps. Jerry Lewis of California and Steven LaTourette of Ohio decided to retire.
"Congress seems to be going in the opposite direction of the country, just as the country is screaming for solutions to gridlock," said Democratic strategist Phil Singer.
Whether the changes are good is often in the eye of the beholder.
Seventy-one of the 83 House GOP freshmen of 2010 were re-elected Nov. 6, but 11 lost, including one of the group's highest profile members, conservative Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. Another faces a runoff in December.
"Some of the people who are the anti-government ideologues, some of them are gone," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "And that message has been rejected by the American people."
Sal Russo, strategist for the Tea Party Express, said such departures would be balanced by newly elected conservatives, including the Senate's Cruz and GOP Reps.-elect Ted Yoho of Florida and Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
"Pretty much everybody that ran in 2012 was talking about the economic woes we face, stopping excessive spending, controlling unsustainable debt," he said.
Overall, the new House is on track for a 234-201 Republican majority, a narrowing of their 242-193 advantage today, which includes five vacancies. Democrats will control the Senate 55-45, up from 53-47.
A dozen of the 100 senators and at least 81 of the 435 House members, almost one-fifth, will be in their first term, slightly above historic averages. The Associated Press hasn't declared winners in two House races.
Many newcomers, in Washington for orientation sessions after their election, described a need to compromise. Some also made it clear there will be plenty of fuel for partisan clashes.
"I'm going in open-minded," said conservative Rep.-elect Roger Williams, R-Texas. "But I have certain core values like we all do and I'm not going to waver on that."
All together, there will be 73 women in the House and 20 in the Senate. Both are records.
For the first time, more than half of House Democrats ? 105, in this case ? will not be white males.
One white male will be Rep.-elect Joseph Kennedy III, a Massachusetts Democrat whose father was Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., and grandfather was New York Sen. and Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. When the newest Kennedy takes office, it will end the only two years since 1947 without a member of his family in Congress.
Those leaving include several who have been in the middle of recent years' policy battles.
Among them are Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the GOP's No. 2 Senate leader; Indiana's Lugar, a longtime GOP power on foreign policy; North Dakota's Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman and one of his party's chief deficit foes; and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Gone from the House will be California Democratic Reps. Pete Stark, a major force on health issues, and Howard Berman, long influential in foreign affairs, plus liberal Massachusetts stalwart Barney Frank, whose name is on the new law overhauling the government's regulation of banks and other financial institutions.
Also leaving: House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., and Ron Paul, 77, who charted his own libertarian course in Congress and long-shot campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012.
"The status quo will continue," Paul, who sees little difference between the two political parties, said of the new Congress. As for his own departure, he said, "Nobody will notice."
WASHINGTON (AP) ? For decades, conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist vowed to drive Republicans out of office if they didn't pledge to oppose tax increases. Many lawmakers signed on.
But now, several senior Republicans are breaking ranks, willing to consider raising more money through taxes as part of a deal with Democrats to avoid a catastrophic budget meltdown.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says the only pledge he will keep is his oath of office. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says no one in his home state of Virginia is talking about what leaders in Washington refer to simply as "The Pledge," a Norquist invention that dates to 1986. Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss says he cares more about his country than sticking to Norquist's pledge.
It's quite an about-face for senior members of a party that long has stood firmly against almost any notion of tax increases. And while GOP leaders insist they still don't want to see taxes go up, the reality of a nation in a debt crisis is forcing some to moderate their opposition to any movement on how much Americans pay to fund their government. Republican legislators and Democratic President Barack Obama's White House are haggling vigorously as they look for ways to reach agreement on detailed tax adjustments and spending cuts before automatic, blunt-force changes occur at the new year.
"Oh, I signed it," Sen. Jeff Sessions said on Fox News about Norquist's pledge. "But we've got to deal with the crisis we face. We've got to deal with the political reality of the president's victory."
The naysaying about the pledge is raising the question of whether Norquist ? a little-known Republican outside of Washington ? is losing his position of power within the GOP. It's a notion that he calls ridiculous.
"Nobody's turning on me," Norquist said Monday.
But he indicated he would turn on lawmakers who defy him, starting with Corker, who Monday published an opinion piece in The Washington Post outlining an alternative to the budget breakdown that includes more revenue.
"Corker was elected to the Senate because he took the pledge," Norquist said on Fox News. "He would not be a senator today if he hadn't made that commitment. If he breaks it, he's going to have to have a conversation with the people of Tennessee about his keeping his word. And the same thing with other people who are elected because they made that written commitment to the people of their state."
At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the shifting away from Norquist signaled an opportunity for Republicans to work with President Obama.
"They represent what we hope is a difference in tone and approach to these problems and a recognition that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is the right approach," Carney said.
Norquist, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, opposes tax increases of any kind, whether eliminating deductions, a position some GOP lawmakers say they're open to, or raising rates. He has insisted on hardline positions from lawmakers and, for years, has held outsized sway in the party for someone who does not hold public office. His pledge doesn't allow any change to the tax code that adds a dollar to revenues.
House Speaker John Boehner has called that notion unrealistic and has dismissed Norquist as "some random person."
Nevertheless, Norquist has maintained a certain level of clout for years.
Heading into the 2012 elections, 279 lawmakers had signed Norquist's' pledge, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
But some who have signed the pledge are having second thoughts. And when the new House is seated next year, no more than 212 of them consider themselves bound by the promise.
"I'm not obligated on the pledge," Corker told CBS News. "I was just elected. The only thing I'm honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I'm sworn in this January."
He's not alone in his stance on the pledge.
"When I go to the constituents that have re-elected me, it is not about that pledge," Cantor said on MSNBC. "It really is about trying to solve problems."
Chambliss, a veteran senator from Georgia, said he signed the pledge during an earlier campaign when the country's debt was nowhere near its current $16 trillion level.
"Times have changed significantly, and I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss told his local television station. "If we do it (Norquist's) way, then we'll continue in debt."
"I'm frankly not concerned about the Norquist pledge," Chambliss added.
Raising taxes, whether by closing loopholes or raising tax rates, is seldom a vote-winning strategy.
President George H.W. Bush broke his campaign promise to not raise taxes; he ended up losing re-election 1992.
Other Republicans, however, now are willing to put additional tax revenues on the table as a bargaining chip for a deal with Democrats to get changes in Social Security and Medicare and pare down federal deficits.
"I agree with Grover, we shouldn't raise rates. But I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"I will violate the pledge ? long story short ? for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform," he added.
Rep. Peter King of New York told Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC that the pledge is good for a two-year term only.
"A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress," King said. "For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a support of declaration of war against Japan. I'm not going to attack Japan today. The world has changed, and the economic situation is different."
And Sen. John McCain, his party's presidential nominee in 2008, said the pledge is losing its clout.
"Fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge," he told an audience recently.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in DE, CAT, DD over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.(More...)
Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors ever, has said "it's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price." In this article, I will discuss three companies which I believe are wonderful companies selling at a fair price. I will also mention three companies which appear to be quality companies selling at cheap valuations that I would avoid.
This stock discussed in this article will meet the following criteria:
1. High quality
2. Cheap or fair valuation relative to historic norms
3. Dividend yield greater than the current 10 year Treasury yield
I have chosen these criteria because I believe that for a company to be considered a "wonderful company at a fair price", it must meet these criteria.
Caterpillar (CAT)
CAT shares have come under pressure of late as investors have reacted to weak results. In particular, CAT's exposure to emerging markets such as China, Brazil, and other Latin American nations has been a cause for concern. However, despite these near term worries, I am confident that, over the long-term, CAT will continue to achieve great things. As shown by the chart below, over the past 10 years, CAT has gained more than 242% while the S&P 500 has gained just 50%. Caterpillar, which traces its roots back to 1925, is the global leader in construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives.
CAT data by YCharts
In addition to being a high quality company, as shown by the chart below, CAT is also trading at a cheap valuation relative to his historical norm.
CAT PE Ratio TTM data by YCharts
Finally, as shown by the chart below, CAT currently pays a dividend of 2.5%, which is well above the current 10 year Treasury yield of 1.66%
CAT Dividend Yield data by YCharts
Deere & Co (DE)
This year, DE is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Without doubt, DE is one of the oldest companies around. If you are interested, the company's website gives a terrific overview of DE's storied history. DE is the leading provider of machinery to farmers throughout the world. Recently, legendary investor Warren Buffett purchased a stake in DE. This move does not come as a surprise because DE fits so many of the typical Buffett investment qualifications. DE is engaged in a relatively easy-to-understand business, DE has outstanding brand recognition, and DE is trading at a reasonable valuation. Also, DE is exposed to what I believe, like Jim Rogers, will be an agriculture super cycle over the next decades, driven by demand from emerging economies such as India and China. Over the past 10 years, as shown by the chart below, DE has risen more than 230% while the S&P 500 has risen only 50%.
DE data by YCharts
In addition to being a high quality company, as shown by the chart below, DE is also trading at a cheap valuation relative to his historical norm.
DE PE Ratio TTM data by YCharts
Finally, as shown by the chart below, DE currently pays a dividend of 2.1%, which is well above the current 10 year Treasury yield of 1.66%
DE Dividend Yield data by YCharts
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co (DD)
From the company's website:
For more than 200 years, DuPont has brought world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace through innovative products, materials and services. Our market-driven innovation introduces thousands of new products and patent applications every year, serving markets as diverse as agriculture, nutrition, electronics and communications, safety and protection, home and construction, transportation and apparel.
Today, DuPont is proud to build on this heritage by partnering with others to tackle the unprecedented challenges in food, energy and protection now facing our world. With global population expected to approach nine billion by 2050, DuPont is working with customers, governments, NGOs and thought leaders to discover solutions to today's toughest challenges.
Together, we believe we can provide enough healthy food for people everywhere, decrease dependence on fossil fuels, and protect people and the environment for generations to come.
We look forward to what a third century of science and innovation can do.
Like CAT & DE, Dupont has as storied a history as any modern company. However, as shown by the chart below, unlike CAT & DE, Dupont has not had a great past 10 years. The weak stock performance over the past 10 years does not change the fact that DD is a high quality company. I view the recent underperformance as a chance to pick up a great long-term growth story.
DD data by YCharts
Currently, as shown by the chart below, DD is trading at a cheap valuation relative to its historic norms.
DD PE Ratio TTM data by YCharts
Finally, as shown by the chart below, DD currently pays a dividend of 4%, which is well above the current 10 year Treasury yield of 1.66%
DD Dividend Yield data by YCharts
Avoid Microsoft, Ford, and Wal-Mart
There are many companies that fit the criteria used in this article including Microsoft (MSFT), Ford (F), and Wal-Mart (WMT). I am not certain about the long-term outlook for these companies as they are all closely tied to the tastes and preferences of consumers, which tend to change with time. While the average age of CAT, DD, and DE is well over 100 years, the average age of MSFT, WMT, and F is just over 65 years. Age is not the only difference between CAT, DE, and DD vs MSFT, WMT, and F. It must be noted that F came very close to bankruptcy during the 2008 recession, proving that it is at best fair quality. MSFT has stagnated over the past decade as other companies such as Oracle (ORCL) and Apple (AAPL) have caused problems for Microsoft. With PC sales on the decline, the future for Microsoft looks mixed, at best. Finally, the global retail leader, WMT will continue to face increased online competition from the likes of Amazon.com for the foreseeable future. Another risk facing WMT over the long-term is a change in consumer behavior. What if, perhaps, the economy proves stronger than most expect and consumers decide to switch from WMT to more expensive, higher quality retailers?
Cyclical vs Secular Headwinds
While CAT, DE, and DD certainly face headwinds, I believe these headwinds are of a cyclical nature, not a secular nature. Throughout history, there have always been ups and downs with the global economy and CAT, DE, and DD seem to always emerge as stronger after each cycle. Comparably, I view the potential headwinds facing MSFT, F, and WMT as secular. Companies facing secular issues have often fallen on difficult times despite the cyclical outlook. Some examples today include Hewlett- Packard (HPQ), Radio Shack Corp (RSH), and Eastman Kodak (EKDKQ.PK). At one time, all of these companies were considered "high quality value plays" however, they all turned out to be value traps as the issues they faced were of a secular nature. Let me be clear, I am not saying that MSFT, F, and WMT will go the way of Kodak, HPQ, or RSH. Rather, I am saying that I cannot endorse MSFT, F, and WMT as buy and hold forever investments.
Conclusion
No, this article does not address the outlook for these companies over the next six weeks, six months, or even six years. For those looking for a shorter-term view, there are many terrific pieces available on Seeking Alpha. Rather, I believe that now is good time to purchase CAT, DD, or DE as a long-term investment. Warren Buffett has often said that his favorite holding period is "forever" and I believe that now is a great time to buy CAT, DD, or DE with the intention of holding forever. Contrastingly, despite fitting my criteria, I cannot endorse MFST, F, or WMT as a buy and hold forever.
You can save a bundle on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but oftentimes to get the best savings you have to settle for a gadget that's not necessarily exactly what you want just because it's deeply discounted. So Dealzmodo went out and scored Black Friday savings for Gizmodo readers on cool stuff that you actually want. You're welcome, and enjoy. More »
Contact: Linda Brooks lbrooks@rsna.org 630-590-7762 Radiological Society of North America
CHICAGO All patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) lose brain cells, which leads to a shrinking, or atrophy, of the brain. But the pattern of gray matter loss is significantly different in men and women, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
"We found that the extent and distribution of regional gray matter volume loss in the brain was strongly influenced by gender," said lead researcher Maria Vittoria Spampinato, M.D., associate professor of radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans have AD, the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. Currently, there is no cure for AD, which lends urgency to research efforts designed to better understand, diagnose and treat this devastating illness.
"There is a strong interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess brain atrophy with the purpose of monitoring dementia progression noninvasively and to aid in understanding which factors can influence brain atrophy progression and distribution in the Alzheimer's brain," Dr. Spampinato said.
In the study, Dr. Spampinato and colleagues analyzed data on 109 patients, including 60 men and 49 women (mean age 77), who participated in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a major study that followed hundreds of cognitively healthy individuals and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD over a period of five years.
During the five-year period, each of the 109 patients progressed from amnestic MCI (in which the patient suffers memory loss but maintains cognitive function) to AD. Using MR images of the patients' brains taken when they were diagnosed with AD and 12 months before and after the diagnosis, the researchers created brain maps that illustrated gray matter changes.
The brain maps revealed that compared to male patients, the women had greater atrophy in gray matter 12 months prior to their AD diagnosis and at the time of their diagnosis. The brain maps also showed that the men and women in the study lost gray matter volume in different areas of the brain as their disease progressed from MCI to AD.
"The female patients in our study initially had more gray matter atrophy than the male patients but over time, the men caught up," Dr. Spampinato said. "In the men, the disease developed more aggressively in a shorter period of time."
Dr. Spampinato said the gender differences in atrophy patterns have important implications for the development of therapies for MCI and AD.
"These differences should be taken into consideration when testing new drugs in clinical trials," she said. "Knowing the difference between the male and female patterns of atrophy will help researchers better decipher a patient's response to drug therapy."
###
Coauthors are Zoran Rumboldt, M.D., Markus Weininger, M.D., Vavro Hrvoje, M.D., Karen Patrick, M.D., and Ryan O'Neal Parker, Ph.D.
Note: Copies of RSNA 2012 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press12 beginning Monday, Nov. 26.
RSNA is an association of more than 50,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists, promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill.
Editor's note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-949-3233.
For patient-friendly information on MRI of the brain, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
[ | 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.
Contact: Linda Brooks lbrooks@rsna.org 630-590-7762 Radiological Society of North America
CHICAGO All patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) lose brain cells, which leads to a shrinking, or atrophy, of the brain. But the pattern of gray matter loss is significantly different in men and women, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
"We found that the extent and distribution of regional gray matter volume loss in the brain was strongly influenced by gender," said lead researcher Maria Vittoria Spampinato, M.D., associate professor of radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans have AD, the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. Currently, there is no cure for AD, which lends urgency to research efforts designed to better understand, diagnose and treat this devastating illness.
"There is a strong interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess brain atrophy with the purpose of monitoring dementia progression noninvasively and to aid in understanding which factors can influence brain atrophy progression and distribution in the Alzheimer's brain," Dr. Spampinato said.
In the study, Dr. Spampinato and colleagues analyzed data on 109 patients, including 60 men and 49 women (mean age 77), who participated in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a major study that followed hundreds of cognitively healthy individuals and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD over a period of five years.
During the five-year period, each of the 109 patients progressed from amnestic MCI (in which the patient suffers memory loss but maintains cognitive function) to AD. Using MR images of the patients' brains taken when they were diagnosed with AD and 12 months before and after the diagnosis, the researchers created brain maps that illustrated gray matter changes.
The brain maps revealed that compared to male patients, the women had greater atrophy in gray matter 12 months prior to their AD diagnosis and at the time of their diagnosis. The brain maps also showed that the men and women in the study lost gray matter volume in different areas of the brain as their disease progressed from MCI to AD.
"The female patients in our study initially had more gray matter atrophy than the male patients but over time, the men caught up," Dr. Spampinato said. "In the men, the disease developed more aggressively in a shorter period of time."
Dr. Spampinato said the gender differences in atrophy patterns have important implications for the development of therapies for MCI and AD.
"These differences should be taken into consideration when testing new drugs in clinical trials," she said. "Knowing the difference between the male and female patterns of atrophy will help researchers better decipher a patient's response to drug therapy."
###
Coauthors are Zoran Rumboldt, M.D., Markus Weininger, M.D., Vavro Hrvoje, M.D., Karen Patrick, M.D., and Ryan O'Neal Parker, Ph.D.
Note: Copies of RSNA 2012 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press12 beginning Monday, Nov. 26.
RSNA is an association of more than 50,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists, promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill.
Editor's note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-949-3233.
For patient-friendly information on MRI of the brain, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
[ | 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.
Referrals and networking?these business-development activities look different, feel different, and are different.
CAT
CAT PE Ratio TTM
CA
D
DE PE Ratio T
D
DD
D
D
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Nov-2012
Share ]