lombardy septic: May 2013

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

NASA's Landsat satellite looks for a cloud-free view

Public release date: 22-May-2013
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Contact: Kate Ramsayer
kate.d.ramsayer@nasa.gov
301-286-1742
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

For decades, Landsat satellites have documented the desiccation of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Once one of the largest seas in the world, it shrunk to a tenth of its original volume after Russia diverted its feeder rivers in the 1960s. Scientists studying the Aral Sea's changing ecology and retreating shoreline have looked to Landsat -- and a new feature of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission will help ensure they get a clear, cloud-free view.

One of two new spectral bands identifies high-altitude, wispy cirrus clouds that are not apparent in the images from any of the other spectral bands. The March 24, 2013, natural color image of the Aral Sea, for example, appears to be from a relatively clear day. But when viewed in the cirrus-detecting band, bright white clouds appear.

"Cirrus clouds are popping out," said Pat Scaramuzza, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Sioux Falls, S.D. "Cirrus clouds can be so thin, they won't be visible in a typical image. But the cirrus band will see it, and it will tell users: There's a thin cloud layer and it can affect your results."

Landsat picks up different wavelengths of light reflected off Earth's surface, and clouds can obscure the view. Because of this, scientists will often disregard images or pixels gathered on cloudy days. That's easy to do when big, puffy cumulus clouds appear like popcorn strewn across a landscape -- but harder when the thin, almost transparent cirrus clouds move in.

To identify cirrus-covered areas, LDCM's Operational Land Imager instrument has detectors for a specific wavelength of light -- 1.38 microns -- that bounces off of ice crystals of the high altitude clouds, but is absorbed by the water vapor in the air closer to the ground.

"Cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals. So, at this wavelength they are reflecting sunlight, very high up in the atmosphere," said Lawrence Ong, a research scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Below that, the energy is being absorbed by the water vapor in the air."

The cirrus band's key job will be to alert scientists and other Landsat users to the presence of cirrus clouds, so they know the data in the pixels under the high-altitude clouds could be slightly askew. Scientists could instead use images taken on a cloud-free day, or correct data from the other spectral bands to account for any cirrus clouds detected in the new band.

"The science people are still looking to how they can best use this, since it's a new band," Ong said. "It's like roads, you build them and people will find a better use for them."

LDCM, the newest spacecraft in the Landsat family, was launched on Feb. 11, 2013. When the on-orbit calibration and checkout phase of LDCM is over, scheduled for late May 2013, the satellite will be renamed Landsat 8 and handed over for operation by the U.S. Geological Survey.

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NASA's Landsat satellite looks for a cloud-free view Public release date: 22-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kate Ramsayer
kate.d.ramsayer@nasa.gov
301-286-1742
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

For decades, Landsat satellites have documented the desiccation of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Once one of the largest seas in the world, it shrunk to a tenth of its original volume after Russia diverted its feeder rivers in the 1960s. Scientists studying the Aral Sea's changing ecology and retreating shoreline have looked to Landsat -- and a new feature of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission will help ensure they get a clear, cloud-free view.

One of two new spectral bands identifies high-altitude, wispy cirrus clouds that are not apparent in the images from any of the other spectral bands. The March 24, 2013, natural color image of the Aral Sea, for example, appears to be from a relatively clear day. But when viewed in the cirrus-detecting band, bright white clouds appear.

"Cirrus clouds are popping out," said Pat Scaramuzza, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Sioux Falls, S.D. "Cirrus clouds can be so thin, they won't be visible in a typical image. But the cirrus band will see it, and it will tell users: There's a thin cloud layer and it can affect your results."

Landsat picks up different wavelengths of light reflected off Earth's surface, and clouds can obscure the view. Because of this, scientists will often disregard images or pixels gathered on cloudy days. That's easy to do when big, puffy cumulus clouds appear like popcorn strewn across a landscape -- but harder when the thin, almost transparent cirrus clouds move in.

To identify cirrus-covered areas, LDCM's Operational Land Imager instrument has detectors for a specific wavelength of light -- 1.38 microns -- that bounces off of ice crystals of the high altitude clouds, but is absorbed by the water vapor in the air closer to the ground.

"Cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals. So, at this wavelength they are reflecting sunlight, very high up in the atmosphere," said Lawrence Ong, a research scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Below that, the energy is being absorbed by the water vapor in the air."

The cirrus band's key job will be to alert scientists and other Landsat users to the presence of cirrus clouds, so they know the data in the pixels under the high-altitude clouds could be slightly askew. Scientists could instead use images taken on a cloud-free day, or correct data from the other spectral bands to account for any cirrus clouds detected in the new band.

"The science people are still looking to how they can best use this, since it's a new band," Ong said. "It's like roads, you build them and people will find a better use for them."

LDCM, the newest spacecraft in the Landsat family, was launched on Feb. 11, 2013. When the on-orbit calibration and checkout phase of LDCM is over, scheduled for late May 2013, the satellite will be renamed Landsat 8 and handed over for operation by the U.S. Geological Survey.

###
[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/nsfc-nls052213.php
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New technique may open up an era of atomic-scale semiconductor devices

May 22, 2013 ? Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating high-quality semiconductor thin films at the atomic scale -- meaning the films are only one atom thick. The technique can be used to create these thin films on a large scale, sufficient to coat wafers that are two inches wide, or larger.

"This could be used to scale current semiconductor technologies down to the atomic scale -- lasers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), computer chips, anything," says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper on the work. "People have been talking about this concept for a long time, but it wasn't possible. With this discovery, I think it's possible."

The researchers worked with molybdenum sulfide (MoS2), an inexpensive semiconductor material with electronic and optical properties similar to materials already used in the semiconductor industry. However, MoS2 is different from other semiconductor materials because it can be "grown" in layers only one atom thick without compromising its properties.

In the new technique, researchers place sulfur and molybdenum chloride powders in a furnace and gradually raise the temperature to 850 degrees Celsius, which vaporizes the powder. The two substances react at high temperatures to form MoS2. While still under high temperatures, the vapor is then deposited in a thin layer onto the substrate.

"The key to our success is the development of a new growth mechanism, a self-limiting growth," Cao says. The researchers can precisely control the thickness of the MoS2 layer by controlling the partial pressure and vapor pressure in the furnace. Partial pressure is the tendency of atoms or molecules suspended in the air to condense into a solid and settle onto the substrate. Vapor pressure is the tendency of solid atoms or molecules on the substrate to vaporize and rise into the air.

To create a single layer of MoS2 on the substrate, the partial pressure must be higher than the vapor pressure. The higher the partial pressure, the more layers of MoS2 will settle to the bottom. If the partial pressure is higher than the vapor pressure of a single layer of atoms on the substrate, but not higher than the vapor pressure of two layers, the balance between the partial pressure and the vapor pressure can ensure that thin-film growth automatically stops once the monolayer is formed. Cao calls this "self-limiting" growth.

Partial pressure is controlled by adjusting the amount of molybdenum chloride in the furnace -- the more molybdenum is in the furnace, the higher the partial pressure.

"Using this technique, we can create wafer-scale MoS2 monolayer thin films, one atom thick, every time," Cao says. "We can also produce layers that are two, three or four atoms thick."

Cao's team is now trying to find ways to create similar thin films in which each atomic layer is made of a different material. Cao is also working to create field-effect transistors and LEDs using the technique. Cao has filed a patent on the new technique.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/27kcmlQl6-k/130522112032.htm

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Senate panel approves immigration bill

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, confers with the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013, as the committee assembles to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions. The panel is aiming to pass the legislation out of committee this week, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Judiciary Committee members Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. confer on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013, as the committee assembled to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions. The panel is aiming to pass the legislation out of committee this week, setting up a high-stakes debate on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Far-reaching legislation that grants a chance at citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a solid bipartisan vote Tuesday night after supporters somberly sidestepped a controversy over the rights of gay spouses.

The 13-5 vote cleared the way for an epic showdown on the Senate floor on legislation that is one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities ? yet also gives the Republican Party a chance to recast itself as more appealing to minorities.

The action sparked rejoicing from immigration activists who crowded into a Senate committee room to witness the proceedings. "Yes, we can! Si, se puede" they shouted, reprising the campaign cry from Obama's first run for the White House in 2008.

In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million immigrants, the legislation creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels than is currently the case.

At the same time, it requires the government to take costly new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.

In a statement, Obama said the measure is "largely consistent with the principles of common-sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system."

There was suspense to the end of the committee's deliberations, when Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who serves as chairman, sparked a debate over his proposal to give same-sex and heterosexual spouses equal rights under immigration law.

"I don't want to be the senator who asks people to choose between the love of their life and the love of their country," he said, adding he wanted to hear from others on the committee.

In response, he heard a chorus of pleas from the bill's supporters, seconding private appeals from the White House, not to force a vote that they warned would lead to the collapse of Republican support and the bill's demise.

"I believe in my heart of hearts that what you're doing is the right and just thing," said one, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "But I believe this is the wrong moment, that this is the wrong bill."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who has played a central role in advancing the legislation, said he would have voted against the proposal if Leahy had pressed the case ? a defection that would have caused it to fail on a tie.

In the hours leading to a final vote, the panel also agreed to a last-minute compromise covering an increase in the visa program for high-tech workers, a deal that brought Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah over to the ranks of supporters.

Under the compromise, the number of highly skilled workers admitted to the country would rise from 65,000 annually to 110,000, with the possibility of a further increase to 180,000, depending in part on unemployment levels.

Firms where foreign labor accounts for at least 15 percent of the skilled work force would be subjected to tighter conditions than companies less dependent on H-IB visa holders.

The compromise was negotiated by Hatch, whose state is home to a growing high tech industry, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It is designed to balance the interests of industry, which relies increasingly on skilled foreign labor, and organized labor, which represents American workers.

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka attacked the deal sharply as "anti-worker," although he also made clear organized labor would continue to support the overall legislation.

Robert Hoffman, senior vice president for government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council, welcomed the deal. "We obviously want to keep moving the bill forward and building support for the legislation, and this agreement allows us to do so," he said.

The issue of same-sex spouses hovered in the background from the start, and as the committee neared the end of its work, officials said Leahy had been informed that both the White House and Senate Democrats hoped he would not risk the destruction of months of painstaking work by putting the issue to a vote.

"There have been 300 amendments. Why shouldn't we have one more?" he told reporters at one point, hours before called the committee into session for a final time to debate the legislation.

A few hours later, Republicans and Democrats both answered his question bluntly.

"This would fracture the coalition. I could not support the bill," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was a member of the bipartisan so-called Gang of Eight that drafted the core elements of the bill.

Republicans and Democrats alike also noted that the Supreme Court may soon issue a ruling that renders the controversy moot.

In a statement issued after Leahy's action, Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said his group was "extremely disappointed that our allies did not put their anti-LGBT colleagues on the spot and force a vote on the measure that remains popular with the American people."

The issue is certain to re-emerge when the full Senate debates the legislation, although it is doubtful that sponsors can command the 60 votes that will be needed to make it part of the legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he will bring the legislation to the Senate floor early next month for a debate that some aides predict could consume a month or more, with an outcome that is impossible to predict.

The fate of immigration legislation in the House is even less clear, although it is due to receive a hearing in the Judiciary Committee there on Wednesday.

Despite the concern that bipartisan support for the legislation was fragile, there was no doubting the command over committee proceedings that Senate backers held.

In a final reminder, an attempt by Sen. Ted Cruz., R-Texas, to delete the pathway to citizenship failed on a 13-5 vote.

In defeat, he and others said they, too, wanted to overhaul immigration law, but not the way that drafters of the legislation had done.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, recalled that he had voted to give "amnesty" to those in the country illegally in 1986, the last time Congress passed major immigration legislation. He said that bill, like the current one, promised to crack down on illegal immigration, but said it had failed to do so.

"No one disputes that this bill is legalization first, enforcement later. And, that's just unacceptable to me and to the American people," he said shortly before the vote.

The centerpiece provision of the legislation allows an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally to obtain "registered provisional immigrant status" six months after enactment if certain conditions are also met.

Applicants must have arrived in the United States before Dec. 31, 2011, and maintained continuous physical presence, must not have a felony conviction of more than two misdemeanors on their record, and pay a $500 fine.

The registered provisional immigrant status lasts six years and is renewable for another $500. After a decade, though, individuals could seek a green card and lawful permanent resident status if they are up to date on their taxes and pay a $1,000 fine and meet other conditions.

Individuals brought to the country as youths would be able to apply for green cards in five years.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-21-Immigration/id-d616b7cf43604496a026a4acc2fd5fb1

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Jessica Alba's Anniversary Message to Cash Warren!

The couple celebrate their special day! Check out other cute and candid moments from the stars.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/celebrity-twitter-pictures/1-b-229669?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Acelebrity-twitter-pictures-229669

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

What do we eat? New food map will tell us

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) ? Do your kids love chocolate milk? It may have more calories on average than you thought.

Same goes for soda.

Until now, the only way to find out what people in the United States eat and how many calories they consume has been government data, which can lag behind the rapidly expanding and changing food marketplace.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are trying to change that by creating a gargantuan map of what foods Americans are buying and eating.

Part of the uniqueness of the database is its ability to sort one product into what it really is ? thousands of brands and variations.

Take the chocolate milk.

The government long has long classified chocolate milk with 2 percent fat as one item. But the UNC researchers, using scanner data from grocery stores and other commercial data, found thousands of different brands and variations of 2 percent chocolate milk and averaged them out. The results show that chocolate milk has about 11 calories per cup more than the government thought.

The researchers led by professor Barry Popkin at the UNC School of Public Health, are figuring out that chocolate milk equation over and over, with every single item in the grocery store. It's a massive project that could be the first evidence of how rapidly the marketplace is changing, and the best data yet on what exact ingredients and nutrients people are consuming.

That kind of information could be used to better target nutritional guidelines, push companies to cut down on certain ingredients and even help with disease research.

Just call it "mapping the food genome."

"The country needs something like this, given all of the questions about our food supply," says Popkin, the head of the UNC Food Research Program. "We're interested in improving the public's health and it really takes this kind of knowledge."

The project first came together in 2010 after a group of 16 major food companies pledged, as part of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign to combat obesity, to reduce the calories they sell to the public by 1.5 trillion. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation agreed to fund a study to hold the companies accountable, eventually turning to UNC with grants totaling $6.7 million.

Aided by supercomputers on campus, Popkin and his team have taken existing commercial databases of food items in stores and people's homes, including the store-based scanner data of 600,000 different foods, and matched that information with the nutrition facts panels on the back of packages and government data on individuals' dietary intake.

The result is an enormous database that has taken almost three years so far to construct and includes more detail than researchers have ever had on grocery store items ? their individual nutritional content, who is buying them and their part in consumers' diets.

The study will fill gaps in current data about the choices available to consumers and whether they are healthy, says Susan Krebs-Smith, who researches diet and other risk factors related to cancer at the National Cancer Institute.

Government data, long the only source of information about American eating habits, can have a lag of several years and neglect entire categories of new types of products ? Greek yogurt or energy drinks, for example.

With those significant gaps, the government information fails to account for the rapid change now seen in the marketplace. Now more than ever, companies are reformulating products on the fly as they try to make them healthier or better tasting.

While consumers may not notice changes in the ingredient panel on the back of the package, the UNC study will pick up small variations in individual items and also begin to be able to tell how much the marketplace as a whole is evolving.

"When we are done we will probably see 20 percent change in the food supply in a year," Popkin says. "The food supply is changing and no one really knows how."

For example, the researchers have found that there has been an increase in using fruit concentrate as a sweetener in foods and beverages because of a propensity toward natural foods, even though it isn't necessarily healthier than other sugars. While the soda and chocolate milk have more calories on average than the government thought, the federal numbers were more accurate on the calories in milk and cereals.

Popkin and his researchers are hoping their project will only be the beginning of a map that consumers, companies, researchers and even the government can use, breaking the data down to find out who is eating what and where they shop. Is there a racial divide in the brand of potato chips purchased, for example, and what could that mean for health? Does diet depend on where you buy your food ? the grocery store or the convenience store? How has the recession affected dietary intake?

"It's only since I've really started digging into this that I have realized how little we know about what we are eating," says Meghan Slining, a UNC nutrition professor and researcher on the project.

Steven Gortmaker, director of the Harvard School of Public Health Prevention Research Center, says the data could help researchers figure out how people are eating in certain communities and then how to address problems in those diets that could lead to obesity or disease.

"The more information we have, the more scientists can be brainstorming about what kinds of interventions or policy changes we could engage in," Gortmaker said.

But the information doesn't include restaurant meals and some prepared foods, about one-third of what Americans eat. If the project receives continued funding, those foods eventually could be added to the study, a prospect that would be made easier by pending menu labeling regulations that will force chain restaurants to post calories for every item.

Popkin and his researchers say that packaged foods have long been the hardest to monitor because of the sheer volume and rapid change in the marketplace.

The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, an industry group representing the 16 companies that made the pledge to reduce 1.5 trillion calories, says it will report this summer on how successful they've been, according to Lisa Gable, the group's president. The first results from Popkin's study aren't expected until later this year.

Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, says the data could be useful in pressuring companies to make more changes for the better. Companies often use "the research isn't there" as a defense against making changes recommended by public health groups, she notes, and it can be hard to prove them wrong.

"What people eat is the great mystery of nutrition," Nestle says. "It would be wonderful to have a handle on it."

___

Find Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eat-food-map-tell-us-174342840.html

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Young and loveless - Teenage prostitute pushing for a fresh start ...

This is the second in a series of stories for Child Month, focusing on some of Jamaica's most vulnerable adolescents and young people. All names have been changed for confidentiality.

Theresa speaks with her eyes. They dance in tandem with her hands as she talks about the future she wants. Her eyes look away wistfully as she searches for memories of a mother she never knew. And they become entirely flat with images of the life she leads at night.

Theresa has sex with men in exchange for money. She is 17.

"I didn't want to do it when I was just starting," she says of her first encounter, one year ago.

"I was wondering, 'Why am I doing this?' It never felt right, but I had to get a food."

At the time, Theresa had recently dropped out of school and had given birth to a daughter.

She went through a harrowing experience in a children's home before returning to her household.

The expectation of her family was made clear: she had a child to take care of so she had to go out and make a living.

Saddled with adult responsibilities and unarmed - without an education or employable skill - Theresa took the advice of an older friend, who was already involved in prostitution, to make money through sex.

Like scores of other teen moms without a marketable skill, prostitution became a means of survival.

It was a decision, she told herself, for her own survival - and above that, for the survival of her infant daughter.

For three to four days each week, Theresa would leave her daughter with a relative while she hit the streets at 7 p.m. working - selling the most valuable thing she possessed, her body, until 4 a.m.

This allowed her to earn between $4,000 and $5,000 each day to meet the needs of her daughter and herself.

Theresa has never been proud of her choices and many of her family members are not aware that this young, diligent mother by day is a street girl by night.

The members of her family who know of her prostitution do not openly admonish her, but she knows, they do not approve.

Her job is also hidden from two key people in her life - her daughter and her boyfriend.

MORE SELF-AWARE

After a year on the streets, Theresa remains soft-spoken, but firm in her convictions to forge ahead. She is far more self-aware now than the younger misguided version of herself.

Cradling her chin with one hand, she reflects on the course her life could have taken.

"I feel like if I had my mom around, I would not have gotten pregnant," she says. "I didn't have a mommy to hug me up and talk to me and make me feel special. I didn't have that kind of love. So I started to search for it."

Theresa looked all over for love.

In the absence of her mother, who died when she was very young, and her father, who worked out of town, Theresa tried to form a relationship with her stepmother.

They did not get along and the teenager was beaten, violently and repeatedly.

"I would rather stay in school. [I would] rather have an understanding relationship with my stepmother and the people who made me feel appreciated and happy," said Theresa, reflecting on a life hardened with the realities that face so many young girls in Jamaica.

"My first exposure to sex was in grade eight, when I was 13," she recalls. The boy was 18.

"I loved him, but he didn't love me. I got hurt. After that, I just went from man to man." The loveless pattern of her young life continued when she got pregnant and sought prenatal care.

"At the health centre, they treat you like nobody. The nurses cuss me, and keep asking 'Why you put yourself in this situation?' They made me feel so embarrassed and left out."

Theresa wants young mothers to get a more gentle response from health-care workers.

"They should be more caring, make us feel like somebody. They could say, 'We know you made a mistake, but you don't have to get here again'."

SEARCHING FOR SENSE OF VALUE

While Theresa knows that love will never come from the men who pay her for sex, she still longs for an elusive sense of value.

"The worst thing is the way the men look at you, like you are nothing. I see nice women, all dressed up, and I wonder if I am able to have a normal life like that."

According to Theresa, she has been threatened but never physically harmed.

"It's very scary because you never know what's coming and who you are dealing with.

"Lots of times the men don't want to use condoms, but I have to use them. I don't want to die."

Older prostitutes have reported instances where their clients "beat them up" and take back the money after paying.

In one case in the Corporate Area, the prostitute had her throat cut by a client. She died in the abandoned lot where she had sold her sexual favours.

Faced with these possibilities, Theresa is determined to define a new norm for herself.

REFUGE

She has found refuge and support through the National HIV/STI Programme (NHP) of the Ministry of Health.

The NHP, one of a range of services offered by the health ministry for teenagers in trouble, funds a second-chance education programme in which Theresa is enrolled.

"You know when you have friends and you can really talk to them?" Theresa asks with a wide grin, referring to one of the NHP outreach workers with whom she has become close.

"She makes me feel appreciated. Sometimes when I feel down, she says, 'Just keep working towards what you want'."

Theresa also credits her strong will to her one-year-old daughter. "I want it to be different for her," she says. "I want her to have everything she needs, because I didn't have that. I have to be a role model, set an example and make her look up to me."

Her determination to prevent her daughter from having to move into a life of prostitution is a driving force for Theresa.

Data from the latest National Knowledge, Attitudes, Behaviours and Practices Survey indicate that participation in sex for favours or money (transactional sex) increased in the 15-24 age group from 39 per cent in 2008 to 43 per cent in 2012.

Females ages 10-19 are almost three times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys of the same age.

Almost 18 years into her life, Theresa may be damaged, but she is hardly broken. Her resilience shines when she talks about her plans to go back to school. "This is just a stepping stone to further me," she says with dazzling eyes. "I am going to make it."

The Gleaner is presenting this series in partnership with UNICEF Jamaica which addresses several challenges facing HIV+ adolescents and young women through its Adolescent Health and Empowerment programme.

Working closely with the Ministry of Health and other partners, UNICEF advocates for the provision of more adolescent-friendly policies and services to reduce vulnerability and infection rates among young populations.

UNICEF also supports the provision of school-based sexual and reproductive health education, and programmes by government agencies and NGOs that seek to provide care and treatment for most at-risk populations.

To talk about the 'We Matter Too' Child Month series online, follow UNICEF on Twitter: @UNICEF_Jamaica and join the conversation using the #WeMatterToo hashtag; like UNICEF Jamaica on Facebook; visit the website: http://www.unicef.org/jamaica

Contributed photos

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130519/lead/lead2.html

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Did Merkel's politics hurt Germany at Eurovision? - The Local

Eurovision Song Contest favourite Denmark won the competition on Saturday night, while Germany plunged to 21st place ? the worst showing in five years ? amidst speculation that it was payback for Angela Merkel?s hated policies.

The German commentator for the show said the country?s weak showing might not be the fault of its entry Cascada.

?We are in a difficult situation,? said Thomas Schreiber from the ARD TV network. ?There is surely a political situation.? He said he didn?t want to say that Germany?s poor showing was a slap in the face for Angela Merkel, but ?you also have to see that it wasn?t just Cascada, but Germany on stage.?

The live song contest took place in Malm?, as last year?s winner was the Swedish singer Loreen.

Emmelie de Forest, at 20 the youngest contestant, won as expected with the song ?Only Teardrops.? Azerbaidjan, the 2011 winner, was second followed by the Ukraine. Some 125 million people watched the show, organisers said.

Cascada?s lead singer Natalie Horler said she was ?super disappointed? with her placement, but the lead up to the competition was ?the most awesome week of my life, of my career.? She said it was hard to know how the vote would come in.

Since Denmark won, next year?s competition will likely take place in Copenhagen, with the final set for May 17, 2014.

The Local/DPA/mw

Source: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20130519-49795.html

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New Xbox more than a game console for Microsoft

By Malathi Nayak and Bill Rigby

SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is set to make a splash this week with the eagerly awaited unveiling of its new Xbox game console, eight years after the last version, as it seeks a larger share of the $65 billion a year global computer gaming industry.

But the small device faces some big competition from the PlayStation 4 by Sony Corp and the Wii U by Nintendo Co Ltd in a shifting market.

Gamers are gravitating to online play - suggesting the hey-day of console games are over - while Microsoft wants its sleek new toy to finally cross the bridge to the mainstream and become the family's entertainment center.

"Core gamers are very hungry for a new machine but the difference between 2005 and now is that the stakes are so much higher," said Ryan McCaffrey, executive editor at entertainment website IGN.com, harking back to Microsoft's last Xbox release. "The entire Xbox experiment from Microsoft was for it to be the center piece of your living room."

To that end, industry-watchers are expecting a raft of improvements from the new Xbox, when Microsoft unveils it at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters on Tuesday, from closer integration with the TV and link-ups with mobile devices to access to new and even exclusive content.

Console gaming still takes the lion's share of a growing gaming market - about 42 percent of the $65 billion world market, according to Microsoft. But playing games on smartphones and tablets, or as an offshoot to online social networks, is gaining ground fast.

Console sales have been in decline for the last four years, chiefly because of aging devices, but the first of the new generation of machines has not reignited the sector.

Nintendo's Wii U, launched in November, had sold only 3.45 million units through the end of March, well below the company's initial forecast of 5.5 million. Hopes for Sony's PS4, teased in March, are low key.

"The next wave crest isn't as high as the previous one," said Lewis Ward, research manager at International Data Corp, who calculates that about 250 million Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii units were sold between 2005 and 2012.

"I do think that consoles as a product category have peaked and the next gen devices won't match those totals," he said.

LOW MARGINS

The Xbox itself is not a key financial factor for the world's largest software maker. Its Entertainment & Devices unit is set to break $10 billion in sales for the first time this year, but that's half the sales of its Windows unit, and a lot less profitable, averaging less than 15 percent margin compared to 60 percent or higher for Windows or Office.

The company has more than 46 million members who subscribe to its online gaming and digital entertainment service Xbox Live, but that's still a fraction of the people who pay for its software.

However, the Xbox is still a key weapon in Microsoft's strategic battle with Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and others for a central place in consumers' lives.

"This (the new Xbox) is of massive importance to Microsoft. It is a piece of a larger war for the consumer that it is battling. They want to be fully integrated with the consumer whether it's in the living room or mobile," said P.J. McNealy, CEO and founder of Digital World Research. "Arguably the battle against both Apple and Google for dominating a consumer's time share more so than taking on Sony and Nintendo directly."

That means Microsoft will be aiming for many markets at the same time, from the core and casual gamer to the TV watcher and music fan.

To do that, industry watchers expect Microsoft to integrate the new Xbox much more closely to the TV and cable or satellite box, perhaps allowing users to change channel or buy movies with a wave of the hand through its motion-control Kinect sensor. They also expect to hear more about SmartGlass, Microsoft's app that lets you link an Xbox to a tablet or smartphone.

Users can already get Netflix through the Xbox, and Microsoft recently started its own studio to produce exclusive content, meaning the new device is a gateway to much more than games.

"I think they're going to try to have their cake and eat it too - they will try to get casual people for entertainment while keeping the hardcore gamers interested," said McCaffrey at IGN.com. "They want their console on all the time, whether it's a mom watching Amazon video, the son playing a game and the dad watching (Major League Baseball) TV on another app - that's their goal."

(Additional reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/xbox-more-game-console-microsoft-140456734.html

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

'Obamagate' danger for the GOP: political overreach

Benghazi terrorist attack ... IRS and the tea party ... snooping on Associated Press reporters ... losing track of terrorists in the witness protection program.

What the heck, let?s just call the whole thing ?Obamagate,? a cluster of what Washington calls ?scandals? threatening to undermine whatever President Obama hoped to achieve in his second term.

?Impeachment? is being flung around by some opponents as congressional committee chairmen in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives line up to fire rhetorically at administration officials.

But there?s a danger for the GOP too, some Republicans warn ? particularly since Congress already labors under a 79 percent disapproval rate, according to the latest Gallup survey.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich concedes that Republicans ?overreached? in 1998 when they pushed for then-President Bill Clinton?s impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Today, Gingrich told NPR Friday, House Republicans leading the investigative parade ?need to be calm and factual,? proceeding with caution as they sniff out any administration wrongdoing.

"For example,? he said, ?a [House] subcommittee ... should invite every single tea party, conservative, patriot group that was messed over by the IRS ? every single one of them ? to come in and testify, so that they build this deadening record of how many different people were having their rights abused by this administration.?

RECOMMENDED: Briefing IRS 101: Seven questions about the tea party scandal

New York Times writer Jonathan Weisman echoes Gingrich?s point: ?The most pressing question for Congressional Republicans is no longer how to finesse changes to immigration law or gun control, but how far they can push their cases against President Obama without inciting a backlash of the sort that has left them staggering in the past.?

?I?m being very cautious not to overplay my hand,? US Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R) of Louisiana, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee investigating the IRS, told the Times.

An editorial this week in the conservative National Review picks up the same theme. Its headline: ?Scandal Is Not an Agenda.?

?Democratic scandal does not take the place of a Republican agenda,? the magazine?s editors write. ?It does not reform the tax code or reduce the debt or ease regulatory burdens on small business. It cannot substitute for a strategy to replace Obamacare.?

?By all means, Republicans should run against the president and his party,? the editorial continues. ?They should at the same time understand that a purely negative message, however justified, will not produce the governing majority Republicans should be aiming for in the next two elections.?

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Mike Allen and Jim Vanderhei at Politico.com put it more colorfully: ?Republicans are worried one thing could screw up the political gift of three Obama administration controversies at once: fellow Republicans.

?Top GOP leaders are privately warning members to put a sock in it when it comes to silly calls for impeachment or over-the-top comparisons to Watergate,? they write. ?They want members to focus on months of fact-finding investigations ? not rhetorical fury.?

Some of the most furious Republicans: Rep. Michele Bachmann asserting that the IRS probe of tea partiers ?is far worse than Watergate;? Sen. James Inhofe suggesting Obama?s impeachment; Sen. Ted Cruz likening Obama to Richard Nixon; former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee predicting darkly that ?before it?s all over, this president will not fill out his full term.?

?We have to be persistent but patient,? counters Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who told Politico, ?You don?t call for impeachment until you have evidence.?

Amitai Etzioni, professor of international relations at George Washington University, wonders about the longer-term impact of scandal mania.

?There is little doubt about the side effects of hearings, investigations, and media hoopla to follow: they will eat up much of whatever little political capital exists in Washington for bipartisan deals and constructive action,? he writes in The Atlantic. ?And they are sure to further delegitimize our political institutions, which the public already holds in unprecedented contempt.?

Obama?s current troubles may include some genuinely scandalous behavior. But if Republicans are perceived as bogging down legitimate government activity for political gain, they may be scarred as well.

RECOMMENDED: Briefing IRS 101: Seven questions about the tea party scandal

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Saudi Arabia has another case of new coronavirus: WHO

LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has reported another case of infection in a concentrated outbreak of a new strain of a virus that emerged in the Middle East last year and spread into Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

In a disease outbreak update issued from its Geneva headquarters, the WHO said the latest patient is an 81-year-old woman with multiple medical conditions. She became ill on April 28 and is in a critical but stable condition.

Worldwide, there have now been 41 laboratory-confirmed infections, including 20 deaths, since the new coronavirus was identified by scientists in September 2012.

The novel coronavirus, which had been known as by the acronym nCoV but which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, belongs to the same family as viruses that cause common colds and the one that caused a deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.

MERS cases have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Britain, Germany and France, but Saudi Arabia has had the vast majority of cases.

The WHO said that latest patient was in the same clinic in eastern Saudi Arabia that has seen 22 cases, nine of them fatal, since April 8.

WHO experts visiting Saudi Arabia to consult with the authorities on the outbreak have said it seemed likely the new virus could be passed between humans, but only after prolonged, close contact.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-another-case-coronavirus-214258217.html

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Ice wave comes ashore in Minnesota

Ice wave comes ashore: High winds on a Minnesota lake have pushed a wave of ice right into people's front yards.?

By Associated Press / May 13, 2013

Amateur video captures a wave of ice blanketing backyards and threatening houses in the Mille Lacs Lake area of Minnesota. (May 12)

?Strong winds have pushed huge?ice?sheets ashore at a northern?Minnesota?lake and right up to people's doorsteps.

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WCCO-TV reports that the?ice?from Lake Mille Lacs reached the doors and windows at the Izatys Resort on Saturday morning.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Shawn Devinny says 30 to 40 mile an hour winds pushed the water into the?ice, driving it ashore. He says the winds were lighter Sunday and the shoreline got a reprieve.

The Department of Natural Resources says about 10 miles of shoreline are covered, with some reaching up to 30 feet high.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/IQ4OImlixmE/Ice-wave-comes-ashore-in-Minnesota

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Electric and magnetic characteristics of a material which could be used in spintronics: Promising doped zirconia

May 17, 2013 ? Materials belonging to the family of dilute magnetic oxides (DMOs) -- an oxide-based variant of the dilute magnetic semiconductors -- are good candidates for spintronics applications. This is the object of study for Davide Sangalli of the Microelectronics and Microsystems Institute (IMM) at the National Research Council (CNR), in Agrate Brianza, Italy, and colleagues.

They recently explored the effect of iron (Fe) doping on thin films of a material called zirconia (ZrO₂ oxide). For the first time, the authors bridged the gap between the theoretical predictions and the experimental measurements of this material, in a paper about to be published in The European Physical Journal B.

Spintronics exploit an intrinsic property of the electrons found in semi-conductors called spin, akin to the electrons' degree of freedom. This determines the magnetic characteristics, known as magnetic moment, of the material under study. The challenge is to create such material with the highest possible temperature, as this will ensure that its magnetic properties can be used in room-temperature applications.

To study iron-doped zirconia, they examined its magnetic properties and its electronic structure from both a theoretical and experimental perspective. They then compared theory and experiments to find the most stable configuration of the material. Theoretical work included first-principles simulations. In parallel, their experimental work relied on many different well-established analytical techniques, including X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and alternating gradient force magnetometer measurements.

Sangalli and colleagues therefore gained a better understanding of doped zirconia, which features oxygen vacancies, playing a crucial role in providing its unique electronic and magnetic characteristics. They have also predicted theoretically how the deviation from the standard structure influences this material's properties. They are currently investigating, experimentally, how the magnetism evolves with changing concentrations of iron and oxygen vacancies to confirm theoretical predictions.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Springer Science+Business Media.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Davide Sangalli, Elena Cianci, Alessio Lamperti, Roberta Ciprian, Franca Albertini, Francesca Casoli, Pierpaolo Lupo, Lucia Nasi, Marco Campanini, Alberto Debernardi. Exploiting magnetic properties of Fe doping in zirconia. The European Physical Journal B, 2013; 86 (5) DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2013-30669-3

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/GcElie8Nbh8/130517094600.htm

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South Florida Insurance Fraud: Feds Charge 92 Over $20 Million In ...

The vehicle collisions looked like typical South Florida accidents with motorists and passengers reporting they needed treatment from chiropractors and massage therapists.

But investigators said the crashes were carefully staged by willing participants who were trained how to defraud the insurance system to make money for themselves and a highly organized group of medical professionals, clinic owners and recruiters.

Investigators announced charges Thursday against 33 people they said were involved in staging accidents for insurance fraud -- the latest hit in a three-year investigation that identified about $20 million in fraudulently obtained payouts from insurers.

"If you get upset about your car insurance premiums going up, this crime is one of the reasons why," said William J. Maddalena, the assistant special agent in charge of FBI Miami. "Every time an insurance payout is made for a staged accident in Florida, we all feel the pain in the pocketbook."

Operation Sledgehammer, a state and federal investigation, has led to charges being filed against a total of 92 defendants from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Those already convicted have been ordered to pay more than $5 million in restitution to insurance companies so far, prosecutors said.

The operation got its code name when undercover investigators saw suspects using a sledgehammer to make vehicles look like they'd been in an accident.

The fraud involved a "massive," complicated, highly organized scheme that investigators said included everyone from clinic owners and medical staff who provided fraudulent diagnoses and prescribed fake treatment, to office workers who billed for the services, and recruiters who found accident "victims" and trained them to stage collisions on the streets and highways of South Florida.

The criminal charges filed this week targeted 33 people from West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Weston, Parkland, Davie, Hollywood, Boynton Beach, Greenacres, Doral, Miami and Hialeah with a slew of charges including mail fraud and money-laundering conspiracies, structuring financial transactions and participating in staged-accident fraud.

The scheme dated from about October 2006 to December 2012 and the defendants staged accidents and submitted false insurance claims through 21 chiropractic clinics in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties that they controlled, authorities said.

Of the 33 charged, 26 have been arrested or agreed to surrender, federal and state law enforcement officials said at a Thursday afternoon news conference in the U.S. Attorney's Office in West Palm Beach.

The ringleaders recruited chiropractors Lazaro Rodriguez, 58, of Doral, and Kenneth Karow, 53, of Boynton Beach, and others to serve as the named owners of some of the clinics, investigators said.

Five of the defendants, including alleged ringleaders Vladimir Lopez, 38, and Lazaro Vigoa Mauri, 45, both formerly of West Palm Beach, have fled to Cuba and they and the other defendants who have not yet been caught are considered fugitives, authorities said.

Maddalena said the investigation was kicked off by a tip from a member of the public and urged anyone with information to call their local police department.

The participants in the fraud were trained by recruiters on how to make the accidents look realistic, how to file police reports and insurance claims, how to fake injuries and where to go for treatment, Maddalena said. The ringleaders made sure that insurance checks were deposited into accounts they controlled so they could pay the participants, he said.

Of the 92 people charged to date in the fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed federal charges against 56 of them and the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office filed state charges against 36 of them.

Lawrence Schechtman, 45, a chiropractor from Parkland, Olinda Rodriguez, 39, a massage therapist from West Palm Beach, and Iris Roca, 41, a massage therapist from Davie, were charged separately with participating in staged accident fraud schemes and are expected to surrender in the next few days.

pmcmahon@tribune.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula ___

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/south-florida-insurance-fraud_n_3289964.html

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Friday, May 17, 2013

Surviving the High-Deductible Health Insurance Labyrinth | MyFDL

For various reasons I am not going to use names in this post.

High deductible insurance seems designed to cost money through confusion.

Several years ago we (my family and I) were forced to change our health insurance from a classic HMO plan to a ?high-deductible? one. That plan is effectively incomprehensible; ever since we were switched to that plan, we?ve been in collection or sued several times every year. As has everyone else ? literally ? that I have spoken to, who is on one of these plans. All of them. Every single person I?ve spoken to who is on a high-deductible plan has faced multiple medical collections and/or lawsuits. I am not kidding.

The cost has been staggering.

Now, the supposed principle behind high-deductible plans is to force medical consumers (i.e. everyone) to be ?wiser?. To make better choices. Not to get wasteful and expensive MRIs, for example, when an x-ray will do just as well.

There?s just one problem with that noble concept: it?s bullshit. Who among us is qualified to know whether an MRI is more or less suitable than an x-ray for any particular case? A doctor, that?s who. And certainly not the vast majority of patients! Most patients couldn?t tell you the difference between an MRI and an x-ray if you pointed a gun at their heads.

But of course, the real purpose of such plans isn?t to make health consumers wiser. It?s to shift costs, away from the employer and health insurer, and onto ? you guessed it ? the patient. Never mind that since 1980 wages for the middle class and working class have flatlined or declined, while health costs have skyrocketed; we?re scheduled to get the shaft on medical costs nonetheless. Which is why medical bankruptcies have skyrocketed in recent decades.

As has, I strongly suspect, the medical collection industry. Who might be profiting from this explosion in medical costs and lawsuits? Somehow I doubt that it?s the middle class or the poor.

So here?s the most recent thing that happened to us. We got a collection letter from a local hospital. Teri?s doctor had sent her there for some tests a few months ago; nothing terribly unusual, just the kind of test that every woman probably ends up having done sooner or later.

Just to be clear, she?s fine. But there was good and sufficient reason for her doctor to order those tests ? they were certainly appropriate and necessary. She?d had such tests before and they?d been fully covered without question.

But this time we got a bill from the hospital where she?d had the test for $1560.00. Need I say that we were horrified? I?ve been through hell with these medical situations before; the thought of going through all that again was really almost unbearable. Still, I girded my mental loins and plunged in.

There are several things to remember when you?re dealing with this sort of situation:

1. Document everything. I normally make the calls sitting in front of my desktop, with an open Gmail to myself (and I?m running the Lazarus add-on for Firefox, so even if power fails I won?t lose anything). Write down the phone number, the name of the person you?re speaking to, the time of the call and? which organization it is, and anything specific they tell you.

2. Always get confirmation numbers. You WILL need these when speaking to other parties to the issue ? and there are almost always other parties. Pulling as many different parties into the issue is what makes them so hellishly effective. I suspect that most people give up and pay rather than persist against a multifarious bureaucracy in which different organizations never seem to speak to each other.

3. Collect as much information as you can. Speak to each party initially just to get a record of anything that they can tell you. Don?t commit to anything ? especially payments.

4. If you?re calling for a family member, make sure to have their birth date and Social Security number on hand. The Social Security number should not be required (and I?d be damned careful before giving it out), but it?s better to be prepared.

5. Get any documentation that has been mailed to you in front of you before you start making calls. Plus your health insurance card ? as well as the card number of the family member, if you?re not calling for yourself. You don?t want to have to call back because you didn?t have an account number or diagnosis or procedure code, or didn?t know the precise date of service.

6. Don?t lose your temper. The system was designed by the most brilliant experts money could buy, and I believe that it was designed to frustrate and confuse ~~victims~~ ? that is, ?patients? ? so much that they will give up and simply pay, even for services that they?ve already paid for via their health insurance premiums. It?s almost certainly a billion-dollar industry. If you lose your temper, they don?t necessarily win ? but you will lose. Also, remember that the people you?re dealing with are generally low-paid customer service workers, which must be a thankless job. They aren?t responsible for the system, but they can make your progress much harder. A kind word can make a big difference.

So here?s what I did: I called the hospital where the test was performed (who were the ones who had billed us) and asked for the precise procedure that had been performed. That information had not been included on our bill; under the ?Description of Services? section, it only said ?Total Charges?. I also confirmed the date of the test.

That done, I called the referring doctor?s office. I had to wait for a call-back from their billing office, but they gave me the? diagnosis code ? which was vital. Without a diagnosis code, you?re very often lost. I also chatted with them a little to get an idea of some of the referral process.

Next, I called my health insurance company. From them I discovered that the diagnosis code that they had didn?t match the code that the doctor had sent to the hospital when she?d requested the test.

(Here?s how the flow worked, in this case: The doctor sent the patient to the hospital with a diagnosis code. The hospital ran the test and submitted a claim to the health insurance company, passing along the doctor?s diagnosis code. The health insurer told the hospital to go fly a kite, because the code they?d received apparently indicated that this painful test wasn?t medically necessary, and had apparently been chosen by an ?unwise? patient purely for fun. The hospital then billed us directly ? at a grossly inflated cost. Q.E.D. R.I.P.)

Cue sound of trumpets: aha! Somewhere along the way the code had changed from a medically-valid diagnosis to an ?unnecessary? code. Whose fault was that? We?ll never know.

Oh, something funny: when I had first called the health insurer, weeks earlier, they had told me that if the hospital hadn?t told us that we would have to pay those costs when the test was performed, WE should tell the hospital that we weren?t obligated to pay for them.

Let that soak in for a moment. Either the hospital or the health insurer screwed up ? not us. But the health insurer told us to tell the hospital to go fuck themselves, in so many words. Why don?t I think that this would have worked out well? Somehow I don?t see the hospital simply ?letting it go?. They use collection agencies, and those guys are nasty.

With that critical piece of information, I fished for a bit more information. I asked the health insurance rep if the correct code ? which I was able to give her exactly ? would have been a covered service. She confirmed that it was. She also offered to initiate a re-check on the claim; it would take a month or two, but they?d go back to the hospital and see if the diagnosis code had been correct. She volunteered that it would be faster if I contacted the hospital directly and had them re-submit with the correct code.

As one last belt-and-suspender check, I asked her if doing BOTH processes at once ? that is, having the health insurance revisit the claim, but also having the hospital re-submit it ? would be a potential problem. She assured me that it couldn?t hurt.

I thanked her profusely, and got a confirmation code. Then I called the doctor?s office and told them what had happened. They offered to contact the hospital with the correct diagnosis code and have them re-submit the claim. I gratefully accepted.

Lastly I called the hospital, gave them the health-insurance confirmation code and the correct diagnosis code from the doctor, and told them to re-submit.

All in all this took quite a bit of time and caused me a lot of stress. The scary thing is that this sort of thing happens several times a year just to my family ? and this was a relatively easy? incident. Multiply that by the millions of Americans who are on high-deductible and similar plans, and you have?what?

A medical system designed to plunder, rob, and deny services that patients have paid for ? that?s what!

Photo by 401(K) 2013 released under a Creative Commons Share Alike license.

Source: http://my.firedoglake.com/quasit/2013/05/17/surviving-the-high-deductible-health-insurance-labyrinth/

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AstraZeneca accelerates cancer drug testing

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca has enrolled the first patient into a final-stage clinical trial of a new drug for a rare type of leukemia as the group's new CEO delivers on a promise to accelerate its oncology programs.

Britain's second-biggest drugmaker said on Thursday the Phase III clinical trial would test moxetumomab pasudotox in patients with hairy cell leukemia who have not responded to or have relapsed after standard therapy.

AstraZeneca also announced plans to move two other oncology drugs - olaparib for ovarian cancer and selumetinib for lung cancer - into Phase III trials in the second half of 2013.

New Chief Executive Pascal Soriot has made accelerating the company's cancer drug pipeline a priority as he tries to rebuild its portfolio of new medicines after past setbacks that have undermined near-term growth hopes.

The drugmaker badly needs new products to revive its sales line because its current top sellers have lost, or are about to lose, patent protection.

Accelerating the drug pipeline means taking more calibrated risks, according to Menelas Pangalos, head of innovative medicines.

"We are becoming more aggressive as a company and less fearful of taking smart risks," Pangalos told Reuters.

AstraZeneca previously said at an investor day in March that it expected to start Phase III trials on the three drugs sometime in 2013. It believes olaparib and selumetinib each have the potential for peak sales of more than $1 billion a year, while moxetumomab sales are estimated at up to $1 billion.

Confidence in prospects for the three new cancer drugs has been building following promising results from initial tests, more of which are now being made public.

Data on both olaparib and selumetinib are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congress in Chicago from May 31 May to June 4 and scientific abstracts, or brief summaries, from studies involving the drugs were published on ASCO's website on Thursday (http://chicago2013.asco.org/).

Moxetumomab is jumping to Phase III testing in a trial sponsored by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, after impressive results in Phase I.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/astrazeneca-accelerates-cancer-drug-testing-101024361.html

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IRS Has Long History of Dirty Tricks (ABC News)

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Texas tornadoes: 6 dead, 7 missing, dozens injured, officials say

A man injured in a tornado is carried to an ambulance in Granbury, Texas, May 15, 2013. (Mike Fuentes/AP)

Officials and residents in north-central Texas had to wait until daybreak to assess the damage caused by a string of tornadoes that touched down Wednesday night, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless.

At least seven people remained unaccounted for Thursday morning, Hood County spokesman Tye Bell said.

In Granbury, Texas, about 65 miles southwest of Dallas, about 50 people were injured, Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said at a midnight briefing. Of those, 14 were admitted to the hospital, and two were transferred to a hospital in nearby Fort Worth. Another 50 gathered at an elementary school in the town of about 8,000 to "have their injured children examined by paramedics," the Associated Press said.

[Slideshow: Deadly tornadoes rip through north Texas]

Some of the dead were found in houses, Deeds said. Others "were found around houses."

"There was a report that two of these people that they found were not even near their homes," he added. "So we're going to have to search the area out there."

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, many homes in the hardest-hit neighborhood in Granbury?Rancho Brazos?were constructed by Habitat for Humanity.

?Most of the neighborhood is heavily damaged to destroyed,? Deeds said. ?Very little is untouched.?