“Early diagnosis is the cornerstone of preventive approaches to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Milan Fiala, lead author of the UCLA study and a researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

“We are pleased that the process we’ve identified using immune cells to help predict Alzheimer’s risk will be further developed by MP Biomedicals.”

A certain peptide called amyloid beta is a suspected indicator of Alzheimer’s, and the blood test shows how much of the peptide is being absorbed by immune cells in the blood, according to the researchers. If the immune system isn’t adequately clearing amyloid beta, it may indicate a risk of developing Alzheimer’s risk.

Orange County-based MP Biomedicals LLC has a contract to commercialize the UCLA technology and create a diagnostic blood test for public use to screen for Alzheimer’s risk.

“We are excited by the opportunity to forward the UCLA science in creating a cost-effective blood test to screen for Alzheimer’s risk that could be used in any hospital or lab,” said Milan Panic, the chief executive of MP Biomedicals.

The May issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology carried an article on the UCLA research.

Researchers took blood samples and isolated monocytes, which from birth act as the immune system’s janitors, traveling through the brain and body and gobbling up waste products — including amyloid beta, according to Fiala.

The monocytes were incubated overnight with amyloid beta, which was labeled with a fluorescent marker. Using a laboratory method known as flow cytometry, researchers measured the amount of amyloid beta ingested by the immune cells by assessing how much fluorescence was being emitted from each monocyte cell, Fiala said.

The 18 Alzheimer’s disease patients in the study showed the least uptake of amyloid beta; the healthy control group, which consisted of 14 university professors, demonstrated the highest uptake. Researchers then were able to distinguish with adequate specificity the Alzheimer’s disease patients.

The results were found to be positive in 94 percent of the Alzheimer’s patients, negative in 100 percent of the control group and positive in 60 percent of study participants who suffered from mild cognitive impairment, a condition that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, according to Fiala.

“Patients and control subjects were also tracked over time to see if their immune response changed,” Fiala said. For example, an Alzheimer’s disease patient over time showed declining results, while a university professor continued to demonstrate a high uptake of amyloid beta.

source : http://dailynews.com

In his decision, which came to light Monday, Judge David P. Yaffe sharply criticized the state panel that oversees contested teacher firings for disregarding earlier judicial orders.

The commission’s decisions show their “profound contempt for, and disrespect of, the judgments and orders of the courts of this state,” Yaffe wrote.

The ruling involves Matthew Kim, who was accused of touching co-workers’ breasts and making improper advances toward students. He was featured in a Times article last spring as an example of the district’s inability to act swiftly against teachers accused of egregious or immoral acts.

The decision is a result of years of legal wrangling before a state board that oversees contested teacher firings. The Los Angeles Unified School District has spent nearly $2 million, including Kim’s pay and benefits while he was barred from the classroom.

Known as a “housed” employee, he and about 160 others reported every day to administrative offices, where they were assigned no work.

Kim was born with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. He has argued that any touching was involuntary, an assertion he made again Monday in an e- mail. “I have not touched anybody intentionally,” Kim said.

Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines said Monday he would order the district to stop paying Kim, a move that the teacher’s attorney opposes.

Benchmark crude for August delivery fell 17 cents to settle at $59.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Doubts about the strength of the economy have left crude prices hovering around $60 a barrel for the last few days – pausing after a drop from an eight-month intraday high of $73.38 on June 30.

Crude was up more than a dollar earlier Tuesday, as oil traders sought to cover short sales with the expiration of the August contract approaching, said Alaron Trading Corp. analyst Phil Flynn.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that retail sales rose 0.6 percent last month, better than the 0.4 percent gain that economists had expected. And the Labor Department reported a 1.8 percent jump in the Producer Price Index, which tracks the costs of goods before they reach store shelves.

“If there was more of a deflationary tone to that, I think oil would have been under a lot more pressure,” Flynn said.

But prices slipped as the day wore on, a possible indication that those deflationary pressures are creeping back into the energy complex, Flynn said.

The economy seems to be shifting back to neutral, he said, and a further drop in oil demand could follow.

Major stock index averages were little changed from market open.

Goldman Sachs’ second-quarter results easily surpassed analysts’ expectations thanks to big gains in trading and underwriting. Johnson & Johnson, one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, said its profit fell 3.5 percent but still topped analysts’ estimates.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama conceded Tuesday that the unemployment rate will keep growing for “several months” as he headed to battered Michigan to unveil a plan to help train people for the next generation of jobs.

Retail gasoline prices dropped overnight by slightly more than a penny to a new national average of $2.517 for a gallon of regular unleaded, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That’s nearly 9 cents below what it was a week ago, and more than 14 cents below the month-ago average.

Motorists have pumped about 1 percent more gas this summer driving season compared to 2008, but the amount remains significantly lower than in 2005 through 2007, according to the weekly SpendingPulse report by MasterCard released Tuesday afternoon.

For the week ended Friday, consumption was down 6.3 percent compared with the prior week and 4.3 percent from the same week a year ago. MasterCard’s report is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments network, coupled with estimates for all other payment forms, including cash and check.

With this year’s July 4 holiday falling on Saturday, the week-to-week decline is not necessarily reflective of a significant drop in holiday gas demand this year, said Michael McNamara, vice president of SpendingPulse.

But a comparison between this summer’s gas demand and 2005, 2006 and 2007 numbers shows that the struggling economy continues to weigh on driving decisions.

“While the year-over-year numbers are definitely up from last year, it’s hard to say that we’re in any kind of robust demand environment at all here,” McNamara said.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for August delivery rose 0.72 cent to settle at $1.6466 a gallon and heating oil gained 0.8 cent to settle at $1.5119 a gallon. Natural gas for August delivery rose 16.6 cents, settling $3.429 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices rose 17 cents to settle at $60.86 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Associated Press Writers Alex Kennedy in Singapore and George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.

source : http://www.dailynews.com/ci_12834229

While Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak was feeling frustrated and flustered in Las Vegas after a day of non-productive negotiations with Lamar Odom’s agent Jeff Schwartz, Odom showed up at a party at Club Nokia on Monday night celebrating the launch of the DVD of the Lakers championship run and said he was still “hopeful” of returning to the team.

“It’s business,” Odom said. “It takes a little bit of the fun out of the game, but it’s part of it.”

Odom acknowledged disappointment with the pace of the negotiations and the Lakers reluctance to meet his asking price, but said he still “hoped” to return to the team in the fall.

“What’s hard to do as an individual is separate the business. It’s not personal. I know that.

That’s why I have a representative,” he said.

“It’s just crazy because if you think about my career and playing basketball and somebody trying to do all the things to help a team win a championship, I felt like I’ve done that.”

The strange turn of events Monday were an interesting public interlude in what has so far been a private negotiating process.

What’s clear is that Odom would like to return to the Lakers and the team wants to have him back.

What’s not clear is how serious the impasse between the two sides now is following Monday’s turn of events.

“I’m not sure we’re on the same page,” Kupchak said while attending the Lakers summer league opener in Las Vegas against the Clippers.

“It’s just a eeling you get. You have conversations with the player’s representative and, right now, I’m not sure we’re on the same page.

“I understand it’s a process. I am surprised it’s taken us so long to get to this point.”

Kupchak added he had no further plans to speak with Odom’s agent.

With the Lakers facing stiff luxury-tax penalties, no serious competition for Odom’s services having arisen, and the financial future of the NBA as muddled as ever, the negotiations have dragged on longer than anyone imagined.

Odom would not divulge the financial terms he is seeking, but it is believed that he was asking for around $10 million a year. Lakers sources Friday afternoon acknowledged the team’s current offer was around $8 million a year.

With so little separating the two positions, a deal seemed imminent until Monday’s breakdown in negotiations.

When told of Kupchak’s comments, Odom shrugged his shoulders and kept his eyes on the television screen showing the championship DVD.

“That’s how negotiations are,” he said. “Sometimes you’re right on the same page and sometimes you’re way off, that’s just part of it.”

Asked if he was feeling unappreciated, Odom paused a moment, then said, “Umm, it’s just the way it is. It’ll pay off. It’ll pay off.”

Odom showed up a half-hour after the celebration was supposed to start and organizers had initially been told he had decided not to come. After the information coming out of Las Vegas, his absence seemed to be related.

It turned out that he was just running late.

“In that case, I’m glad I came,” he joked. “I mean, we have a whole DVD about our season. It just seems surreal. You don’t ever know when or how or if you’re going to experience this again.”

Lakers teammates Derek Fisher, Luke Walton and Jordan Farmar also attended the premiere but said they would not be quizzing Odom on the progress in his negotiations.

“That’s not for me to do. I’ll just be happy to see him,” Fisher said. “I haven’t seen him since the season was over, and a month to not see a teammate is like a lifetime. I’m just excited to see him, but I won’t bug him or pester him to see what’s going on. I’m sure he knows in his heart what he wants to do and where he wants to be.”

source : http://dailynews.com

“Hopefully we’ll have something to report at the end of next week,” Ed Winter, assistant chief coroner for Los Angeles County told the Daily News Monday. “We’re still on track.”

The official coroner’s report should help resolve speculation that’s become as dizzying as the King of Pop’s signature spins.

Jackson, 50, went into cardiac arrest on June 25 after his personal physician reported finding him unconscious in bed with only a faint pulse.

Investigators later found prescription drugs and a personal stash of the surgery-strength sedative Diprivan, known generically as propofol, at Jackson’s rented Bel-Air mansion.

A registered nurse told the Associated Press that Jackson begged her for Diprivan earlier this year to treat insomnia.

Jackson’s dad Joe Jackson told ABC he suspects “foul play.”

“I was worried about his health because all the shows,” Joe Jackson said in an interview excerpt aired Monday on “Good Morning America.”

He said his son told him that he had agreed to only 10 shows, not the 50 shows that promoter AEG Live eventually scheduled.

AEG Live vigorously disputes that claim, saying Michael originally agreed to 31 shows and then extended the run to 50 based on overwhelming demand.

“Michael himself [said] that it was important that we spaced the additional shows out over an extended period of time and that we would rent an estate for him and his family so that they would not be ‘trapped’ in a hotel suite while they were in London,” AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips said in a statement Monday.

“He told us he was also motivated by the opportunity to establish a record to be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for the run he was about to embark on,” Phillips said.

Phillips earlier told the News that Michael Jackson passed a physical in February with “flying colors” and appeared “energetic and engaged” during a three-hour rehearsal the night before his death.

source : http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/michael_jackson/2009/07/13/2009-07-13_coroner_says_daily_news_mystery_of_jacksons_death_could_be_solved_next_week.html

n a letter to senior members of congressional committees and the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Cuomo said Lewis met then U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke in Washington in mid-December.

Cuomo said the SEC, which is charged with protecting investor interests, “appears to have been kept in the dark” about talks between the banks and federal officials that followed.

“During those meetings, the federal government officials pressured Bank of America not to seek to rescind the merger agreement,” Cuomo wrote. “We do not yet have a complete picture of the Federal Reserve’s role in these matters because the Federal Reserve has invoked the bank examination privilege.”

A spokesman for Paulson said on Thursday that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve believed there was no reasonable legal basis for Bank of America to terminate the Merrill deal.

Lewis testified in a probe by Cuomo that Paulson wanted the Merrill acquisition to go through “to stem a financial disaster in the financial markets.”

He also testified that Paulson and Bernanke pressured him to keep quiet about losses at Merrill, which rose to $12 billion from $9 billion in a matter of days in December. The fourth-quarter loss reported ultimately totaled more than $15 billion.

“No one at the Federal Reserve advised Ken Lewis or Bank of America on any questions of disclosure,” Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith said in an email on Thursday in response to a question.

Bank of America, which got additional government bailout money after the deal with Merrill, halted its attempt to scrap the merger on December 21, the attorney general said.

Cuomo, who released testimony by Lewis, said his office uncovered details during a probe into the circumstances of $3.6 billion of bonuses paid to Merrill executives before the completion of the Bank of America takeover on January 1.

“As you will see, while the investigation initially focused on huge fourth quarter bonus payouts, we have uncovered facts that raise questions about the transparency of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), as well as about corporate governance and disclosure practices at Bank of America,” Cuomo wrote.

Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri said in a statement: “We believe we acted legally and appropriately with regard to the Merrill Lynch transaction,”

The revelations are unlikely to relieve shareholder pressure on Lewis to give up his job as chairman, or even to step down as chief executive. A shareholder proposal at the bank’s April 29 annual meeting calls for the bank to appoint an independent chairman to replace Lewis.

According to Lewis’s testimony, made public on Thursday, Paulson told him the management and board of the bank would be replaced if it pulled out of the deal.

“I can’t recall if he said ‘we would remove the board and management if you called’ or if he said ‘we would do it if you intended to,’” according to the transcript.

Cuomo said that, in an interview, Paulson “largely corroborated” Lewis’s account.

“Secretary Paulson’s threat swayed Lewis,” Cuomo said. The letter also stated that Paulson “has informed us that he made the threat at the request of Chairman Bernanke.”

Researcher Beth Young of the Corporate Library corporate governance research group said if the government wanted influence it needed to be transparent about it.

“Ken Lewis is responsible to shareholders first,” Young said. “He is a fiduciary to the company, not the U.S. economy, and if the government wanted to replace him, he should let that happen.”

Cuomo sent the letter to SEC head Mary Schapiro, U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, U.S. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and Congressional Oversight Panel Chairwoman Elizabeth Warren. It was copied to Neil Barofsky, the inspector general of TARP.

In Washington, Barofsky said he was looking into the reports that Bank of America faced pressure to minimize public disclosure about the takeover of Merrill.

source : newsdaily.com

In written content, use the name of the company in the first sentence; preferably first word. It is not pleasing to start with ‘we’. Following it, give a brief introduction about the company. In todays busy world people don’t have time to waste so deliver the message right away. Using catchy adjectives will do the trick. The sentence should be framed so that the client knows about the company, what it does and how it is unique from others. Pose questions before creating the writing material, like what is that the customer will expect and do they demand high quality. Don’t hesitate to use ‘you ’ very often. The reader will feel that he is directly being referenced and it will be easier for him to relate to.

Play with customer’s psychology. Understand the difficulties faced by them and then show them how the company or the company’s product can solve it. Call of action can be given then and offer to clear their doubts. It should be more than just a helpline. The action should be really immediate. Simply don’t let the client slip away.

After the initial writing, write in detail about the product or service provided. This is in-dept information for those concerned about your company’s product. Point out the advantages of using them. Write them in a hierarchical form with numbering or bullets. If writing short paragraphs, strong sub-titles can be used as heading of individual paragraphs. Again, using adjectives will be good.

A good amount of entertainment factor should be added. This will retain the interest of the customer and will not distract him. But if lots of it is used, it will simply become shabby. It’s a nice idea to use product noun as a verb along with other adjectives.

Submit website and advertisements to search engines. Millions of people use it everyday to find what they need. If the website is search engine optimized, it will surely get lots of traffic. The name of the company and keywords should densely populate the website content. Make it a compulsion for the visitor to go through the advertisement before moving on to the registration or payment process. Some B2B websites don’t allow adding an email address or URL in the advertisement. They can be tracked in by actually spelling out dot or at in the email address or website link.

Once the customer is lured, they should be maintained. Product should be delivered on time. Quality should be maintained. Once it is done, not only will they start trusting the company but also at the same time they will spread the word about the company. They will advertise for free. Their experience with the company will motivate others to join the bandwagon.

source : barackoli.com

They say the effect of MDMA should allow PTSD patients bond more easily with their therapists, take control of their emotions, and re-learn how to respond to past trauma.

People with PTSD “are usually running away from what they experienced as very scary, and then they never have this inhibition learning, this fear-learning,” Pal-Orjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim commented to Reuters Health. “When the clients are getting MDMA we believe it is easier for them. It becomes more bearable, it becomes easier to regulate, to be in the situation and not run away.”

A couple of small studies in which people with PTSD were given MDMA in addition to standard therapy have had promising results, Johansen and his colleague Teri Krebs, a graduate student in neuroscience at the university, note in their report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. Meanwhile, three controlled clinical trials of MDMA plus therapy are now underway.

A minority of people will develop PTSD after surviving traumatic events, such as being raped or serving in combat. They will continually re-experience the traumatic event in an intrusive way, while trying to avoid things that will trigger these memories or remind them of the traumatic experience.

Currently, the standard treatment for PTSD is extinction-based exposure therapy, in which a therapist guides the person to revisit the traumatic memories repeatedly, until he or she is able to experience them without fear. However, more than 40% of people still have PTSD after undergoing this treatment.

In their article, the researchers describe three mechanisms for how MDMA might benefit people who aren’t cured by therapy alone, and even speed up treatment and make it more effective.

First, they say, MDMA drug triggers the release of oxytocin, the so-called “cuddle chemical,” which reduces fear while boosting trust. This could make it easier for PTSD victims to build a strong relationship with their therapist — which is key to treatment success.

Second, the drug could help re-balance the dysfunctional relationship between two brain regions seen in people with PTSD. These individuals show excessive activation of the amygdala and less activity in the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC).

“The amygdala is the most connected region of your brain, it’s doing a lot of stuff, it’s really important for emotional regulation and triggering emotional responses to fear,” Krebs explained in an interview. In a healthy person’s brain, the amygdala and vmPFC are in “constant communication,” she added, but in PTSD the overactive amygdala may overpower the vmPFC, making it much more difficult for a person to control their emotional responses to traumatic memories, while making it harder for them to confront these memories.

The opposite occurs when a person takes MDMA, according to Krebs; his or her amygdala activity is dampened down, while the vmPFC becomes more active. This could help a person feel more in control and better able to revisit traumatic memories, the researchers say.

Finally, Krebs and Johansen say, MDMA boosts the release of norepinephrine and cortisol, brain chemicals that are essential for emotional learning. Sedative drugs like Valium are sometimes given to people with PTSD, the researchers note, and these may actually blunt the effectiveness of therapy by completely wiping out the stress response to fearful memories, which is needed for re-learning to occur.

The current report is meant to provide a “framework” for researchers interested in investigating how MDMA might help people with PTSD and other anxiety-related conditions, said Krebs, who with Johansen has received a grant from the Research Council of Norway to investigate the topic. “What we’d really like to see is more research in this area.”

SOURCE: Journal of Psychopharmacology, online March 9, 2009.

If next year’s trial of the first five robotic fish in the northern Spanish port of Gijon is successful, the team hopes they will be used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world.

The carp-shaped robots, costing 20,000 pounds ($29,000) apiece, mimic the movement of real fish and are equipped with chemical sensors to sniff out potentially hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from vessels or underwater pipelines.

They will transmit the information back to shore using Wi-Fi technology.

Unlike earlier robotic fish, which needed remote controls, they will be able to navigate independently without any human interaction.

Rory Doyle, senior research scientist at engineering company BMT Group, which developed the robot fish with researchers at Essex University, said there were good reasons for making a fish-shaped robot, rather than a conventional mini-submarine.

“In using robotic fish we are building on a design created by hundreds of millions of years’ worth of evolution which is incredibly energy efficient,” he said.

“This efficiency is something we need to ensure that our pollution detection sensors can navigate in the underwater environment for hours on end.”

The robot fish will be 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) long — roughly the size of a seal.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Tim Pearce)

source : reuters.com