(Reuters) ? Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson tried to manage expectations on his first earnings call as the new CEO, broadly addressing numerous issues the Internet company is grappling with — from a potential sale to reviving its core display advertising business — but declined to lay out a detailed strategy.
Analysts prodded Thompson for clues about his plans for Yahoo Inc, which fired former CEO Carol Bartz in September and last week saw co-founder Jerry Yang resign unexpectedly, but all they received were boilerplate comments about how the company needs to “do better” and “get innovative products that matter into the market.”
Thompson, along with Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse, gave few hints about the progress of Yahoo’s strategic review as well, dashing hopes that his arrival might hasten a transaction.
Morse said talks with Yahoo’s Asian partners — Alibaba and Softbank — about a restructuring were continuing but beyond that provided little concrete detail on where things stand.
Thompson, who was only hired as CEO two weeks ago, added that the company’s board has narrowed down its options to the ones that appear “most promising.”
Meanwhile, Yahoo’s net revenue and profit fell slightly in the fourth quarter, as it experienced year-over-year declines in both its search and display ad business.
Shares of the company slipped 4 cents to $15.65 in after-hours trade.
Morse said that macroeconomic factors, particularly in Europe, resulted in weaker than expected display advertising revenue in the fourth quarter and continued to be a concern.
“We still look out, especially upon Europe, with some caution,” Morse told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
But he said Yahoo was seeing some positive trends in the new year, noting that some large advertisers that had limited their ad spending with Yahoo in 2011, had already committed to “meaningful upfronts” in 2012.
The struggling Internet company projected that its net revenue in the first quarter would range between $1.025 billion and $1.105 billion.
The company earned $296 million in net income in the three months ended December 31, or 24 cents a share, compared with $312 million, or 24 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S were expecting 24 cents per share in profit.
In the fourth quarter, Yahoo reported net revenue, which excludes fees that Yahoo shares with Web partners, of roughly $1.17 billion, compared with $1.205 billion the same time last year.
Display ad revenue, Yahoo’s main source of revenue, totaled $612 million for the quarter. Search ad revenue for the quarter came in at $465 million, $48 million of which stemmed from its partnership with Microsoft.
(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bernard Orr)
For the 26 million Americans with diabetes, drawing blood is the most prevalent way to check glucose levels. It is invasive and at least minimally painful. Researchers at Brown University are working on a new sensor that can check blood sugar levels by measuring glucose concentrations in saliva instead.
The technique takes advantage of a convergence of nanotechnology and surface plasmonics, which explores the interaction of electrons and photons (light). The engineers at Brown etched thousands of plasmonic interferometers onto a fingernail-size biochip and measured the concentration of glucose molecules in water on the chip. Their results showed that the specially designed biochip could detect glucose levels similar to the levels found in human saliva. Glucose in human saliva is typically about 100 times less concentrated than in the blood.
“This is proof of concept that plasmonic interferometers can be used to detect molecules in low concentrations, using a footprint that is ten times smaller than a human hair,” said Domenico Pacifici, assistant professor of engineering and lead author of the paper published in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society.
The technique can be used to detect other chemicals or substances, from anthrax to biological compounds, Pacifici said, “and to detect them all at once, in parallel, using the same chip.”
To create the sensor, the researchers carved a slit about 100 nanometers wide and etched two 200 nanometer-wide grooves on either side of the slit. The slit captures incoming photons and confines them. The grooves, meanwhile, scatter the incoming photons, which interact with the free electrons bounding around on the sensor’s metal surface. Those free electron-photon interactions create a surface plasmon polariton, a special wave with a wavelength that is narrower than a photon in free space. These surface plasmon waves move along the sensor’s surface until they encounter the photons in the slit, much like two ocean waves coming from different directions and colliding with each other. This “interference” between the two waves determines maxima and minima in the light intensity transmitted through the slit. The presence of an analyte (the chemical being measured) on the sensor surface generates a change in the relative phase difference between the two surface plasmon waves, which in turns causes a change in light intensity, measured by the researchers in real time.
“The slit is acting as a mixer for the three beams ? the incident light and the surface plasmon waves,” Pacifici said.
The engineers learned they could vary the phase shift for an interferometer by changing the distance between the grooves and the slit, meaning they could tune the interference generated by the waves. The researchers could tune the thousands of interferometers to establish baselines, which could then be used to accurately measure concentrations of glucose in water as low as 0.36 milligrams per deciliter.
“It could be possible to use these biochips to carry out the screening of multiple biomarkers for individual patients, all at once and in parallel, with unprecedented sensitivity,” Pacifici said.
The engineers next plan to build sensors tailored for glucose and for other substances to further test the devices. “The proposed approach will enable very high throughput detection of environmentally and biologically relevant analytes in an extremely compact design. We can do it with a sensitivity that rivals modern technologies,” Pacifici said.
Tayhas Palmore, professor of engineering, is a contributing author on the paper. Graduate students Jing Feng (engineering) and Vince Siu (biology), who designed the microfluidic channels and carried out the experiments, are listed as the first two authors on the paper. Other authors include Brown engineering graduate student Steve Rhieu and undergraduates Vihang Mehta, Alec Roelke.
###
Brown University: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau
Thanks to Brown University for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
Don’t be fooled by records in MMA. It’s all about quality of competition.
Pat Schilling learned that tonight in Nashville. The 5-0 fighter got steamrolled by Daniel Pineda. Pineda, a seven-loss fighter, stormed across the cage and walked through Schilling to post a victory in his UFC debut in just 97 seconds.
Pineda (16-7, 1-0 UFC) got things rolling with a short left with 4:09 left in the round. He grabbed Schilling and scored an easy takedown. Just six seconds later, he mounted the stunned Schilling. Pineda unloaded with some big shots to Schilling’s forehead, who turned to give his back with 3:53 left. Eventually Schilling stood up with Pineda on his back. That only made it easier to slap on the rear-naked. Referee Mario Yamasaki saved Schilling a few seconds after it went back down to the ground.
Denis brutalizes Sandoval in 22-second win
Who could pen a better script for a UFC debut, than what Nick Denis producd on the UFC on FX 1 undercard?
The Canadian let his hands go in the opening seconds then backed it up with four vicious standing elbows to drop Joseph Sandoval and post a win in just 22 seconds in the opener of the prelims on FUEL TV.
Denis (11-2, 1-0 UFC) showed good boxing early and landed a big right just 12 seconds in. When he got a hold of Sandoval’s in a thai clinch, the smaller American was in big trouble. Sandoval has made two trips to the Octagon and dropped both fights in a combined 99 seconds.
Camoes won’t let debutants go 3-for-3, Brazilian subs Hayden
Tommy Hayden was holding his own for a while, but he was stepping up to another level tonight in Fabricio Camoes.
Camoes withstood an early onslaught from the UFC rookie. Hayden got a little too grapple-happy, had his back taken and had to tap to a nasty rear-naked choke at the 4:03 mark of the first round in fight No. 3 of the night.
Camoes hit the decks three times early in the fight. Two times he was on his knees and another on his back, but Hayden couldn’t settle him. Hayden got on top again with 2:35 left, but Camoes eventually scrambled to score a sweep and take top control. After a few seconds, he stood after launched himself back on top landing a hammerfist. Camoes eventually got Hayden’s back where he began to work the finishing choke. With just over a minute left in the round, Hayden was shot. The choke was tight. It appeared he actually tapped twice before referee Josh Rosenthal honored a third tap to end the fight.
Hayden, 25, dropped the first fight of career after an 8-0 start. Camoes () evened his UFC mark at 1-1-1.
People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Joe Paterno’s doctors say the former coach’s condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)
People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Joe Paterno’s doctors say the former coach’s condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)
FILE – In this Nov. 7, 2009, file photo, Penn State Coach Joe Paterno stands with his players before taking the field for an NCAA college football game against Ohio State in State College, Pa. A family spokesman says the former Penn State coach, who is battling lung cancer, is in serious condition after experiencing health complications. The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from cancer treatments. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa., on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Paterno’s doctors say the former coach’s condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)
FILE – In this Oct. 13, 2007, file photo, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno stands with his team before they take the field to play for an NCAA college football game against Wisconsin in State College, Pa. A family spokesman says the former Penn State coach, who is battling lung cancer, is in serious condition after experiencing health complications. The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from cancer treatments. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Candles, flowers, notes and other mementos are placed at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa., on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Paterno’s doctors say the former coach’s condition has become “serious” after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Joe Paterno’s doctors said Saturday that the former Penn State coach’s condition had become “serious,” following complications from lung cancer in recent days.
The winningest major college football coach, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State’s Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. While undergoing treatment, his health problems worsened when he broke his pelvis ? the same injury he sustained during preseason practice last year.
“Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications,” family spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement to The Associated Press. “His doctors have now characterized his status as serious. His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time.”
Paterno’s sons Scott and Jay each took to Twitter on Saturday night to refute reports that their father had died.
Wrote Jay Paterno: “I appreciate the support & prayers. Joe is continuing to fight.”
Quoting individuals close to the family, The Washington Post reported on its website that Paterno remained connected to a ventilator, but had communicated his wishes not to be kept alive through any extreme artificial means. The paper said his family was weighing whether to take him off the ventilator on Sunday.
The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only interview since losing his job, with the Post. Paterno was described as frail and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was conducted from his bedside.
Roughly 200 students and townspeople gathered Saturday night at a statue of Paterno just outside a gate at Beaver Stadium. Some brought candles, while others held up their smart phones to take photos of the scene. The mood was somber, with no chanting or shouting.
“Drove by students at the Joe statue,” Jay Paterno tweeted. “Just told my Dad about all the love & support–inspiring him.”
Penn State student David Marselles held a candle in his right hand and posed next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Paterno that he keeps at his apartment. A friend took a photo on the frigid night.
“I came to Penn State because of Joe Paterno. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been watching the games … screaming ‘We Are … Penn State’ because of him. … He inspired me to go to college,” Marselles said. “With such a tragic event like this, I just thought it was necessary to show my support.”
The final days of Paterno’s Penn State career were easily the toughest in his 61 years with the university and 46 seasons as head football coach.
Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator who was on Paterno’s staff during two national title seasons, was arrested Nov. 5 and ultimately charged with sexually abusing a total of 10 boys over 15 years. His arrest sparked outrage not just locally but across the nation and there were widespread calls for Paterno to quit.
Paterno announced late on Nov. 9 that he would retire at the end of the season, but hours later he received a call from board vice chairman John Surma, telling him he had been terminated. By that point, a crowd of students and media were outside the Paterno home. When news spread that Paterno had been dumped, there was rioting in State College.
Police on Saturday evening barricaded the block where Paterno lives, and a police car was stationed about 50 yards from his home. Several people had gathered in the living room of the house. No one was outside, other than reporters and photographers.
Trustees said this week they pushed Paterno out in part because he failed a moral responsibility to report an allegation made in 2002 against Sandusky to authorities outside the university. They also felt he had challenged their authority and that, as a practical matter, with all the media in town and attention to the Sandusky case, he could no longer run the team.
Paterno testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky that he had relayed to his bosses an accusation that came from graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers of the Penn State football building.
Paterno told the Post that he didn’t know how to handle the charge, but a day after McQueary visited him, he spoke to the athletic director and the administrator with oversight over the campus police.
Wick Sollers, Paterno’s lawyer, called the board’s comments this week self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, Sollers said.
“He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time,” Sollers said.
Sandusky says he is innocent and is out on bail, awaiting trial.
The back and forth between Paterno’s representative and the board reflects a trend in recent weeks, during which Penn State alumni ? and especially former players, including Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris ? have questioned the trustees’ actions and accused them of failing to give Paterno a chance to defend himself.
Three town halls, in Pittsburgh, suburban Philadelphia and New York City, seemed to do little to calm the situation and dozens of candidates have now expressed interest in running for the board, a volunteer position that typically attracts much less interest.
While everyone involved has said the focus should be on Sandusky’s accusers and their ordeals, the abuse scandal brought a tarnished ending to Paterno’s sterling career. Paterno won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and those two national championships, the last in the 1986 season. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.
Throughout his coaching years, Paterno maintained that, yes, winning was important, but even more important was winning with honor.
KANO, Nigeria (AP) ? A coordinated series of bombings and attacks claimed by a radical Islamist sect left “many” dead and injured in northern Nigeria’s largest city, a Nigerian Red Cross spokesman said Saturday, as gunfire still echoed around some areas of the sprawling city.
Soldiers and police officers swarmed over streets Saturday in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious hub in Nigeria’s Muslim north. While witnesses of Friday’s attack said they saw seven dead bodies, the scope of the assault claimed by a sect known as Boko Haram also suggests the death toll could rise.
In a statement issued late Friday, federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said attackers targeted five police buildings, two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police.
“The police have commenced investigation and therefore use this medium to call for calm among the residents of Kano as police are doing their best to bring the situation under control,” Amore said. Police are “appealing to members of the public to come forward with information on the identity and location of these hoodlums. Information given will be treated with utmost confidentiality.”
Amore could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday. Whether anyone trusts the police remains another matter as security agencies remain unable to stop the increasingly bloody sectarian attacks by Boko Haram on Nigeria’s weak central government. Earlier this week, the police acknowledged the alleged mastermind of a Catholic church bombing at Christmas escaped custody, yet another embarrassment for security agencies amid the violence.
Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers continued to offer first aid to the wounded, as well as evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. He said officials continued to collect corpses scattered around sites of the attacks.
Nwakpa said there had yet to be an estimate issued of toll of the attacks.
“From what they are saying, there are many involved, either wounded or dead,” Nwakpa said.
The attacks began at 5 p.m. Friday, following afternoon prayers as workers began to leave their offices in the sprawling, dusty city, witnesses said.
A massive blast at a regional police headquarters shook cars miles (kilometers) away, an Associated Press reporter said. The blast came from a suicide car bomber who drove into the regional headquarters compound and detonated his explosives, deputy superintendent of police Aminu Ringim said. The explosion tore away the headquarters’ roof and blew out the building’s windows.
Inmates at the regional police headquarters fled amid gunfire, witnesses said.
State authorities declared a 24-hour curfew late Friday as residents hid inside their homes amid the fighting.
A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists. He said the attack came as the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.
Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 76 killings, according to an AP count.
Boko Haram’s targets have included both Muslims and Christians. However, the group has begun specifically targeting Christians after promising it will kill any Christians living in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years.
Friday’s attacks also could cause more unrest, as violence in Kano has set off attacks throughout the north in the past, including postelection violence in April that saw 800 people killed. Kano, an ancient city, remains important in the history of Islam in Nigeria and has important religious figures there even today.
Authorities previously believed they destroyed Boko Haram in 2009, after a riot and ensuing security crackdown in Nigeria’s northeast killed 700 people, including its then-leader Mohammed Yusuf. The group began to re-emerge in 2010, as authorities blamed motorcycle-riding gunmen from the sect for targeted assassinations.
However, the sect’s attacks have grown more complex and deadly over time. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100. The sect killed at least 42 people during a series of attacks Christmas Day in Nigeria that included the bombing of a Catholic church outside the country’s capital Abuja.
In a video released last week, Imam Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s current leader, said the government could not handle attacks by the group.
Although President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, has declared emergency rule in some regions, the sect is blamed for almost daily attacks. Jonathan also has said he believes the sect has infiltrated security agencies and government offices in the country, though he has offered no evidence to back up the claim.
___
Associated Press writer Ibrahim Garba contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell reported from Lagos, Nigeria and can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) ? Protesters stormed the Benghazi headquarters of Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) Saturday while its chairman was still in the building.
People in Benghazi, birthplace of the revolt which forced out former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, have been protesting for weeks to demand the sacking of Gaddafi-era officials and more transparency about how the NTC is spending Libyan assets.
The attack is a serious blow to the self-appointed but internationally recognized NTC, and underscores growing discontent over the way it is running the country.
Many of those who fought in the nine-month civil war that ended with the capture and killing of Gaddafi in October are unhappy with cash compensations promised by the government, saying it does not cover their basic needs.
On a Saturday, hundreds of young men, many wounded from the war, rallied outside the NTC’s headquarters.
When Abdul Jalil, NTC chairman, came out in an attempt to address the crowd, some protesters hurled empty plastic bottles at him, prompting security forces to fire tear gas.
“Go away, Go away,” the protesters chanted as Abdul Jalil spoke. He then went back into the building but he is believed to have been pulled to safety from a back door when the crowd charged into the building.
SPOILS OF WAR
Protesters threw stones and metal bars at the building, breaking its windows, before storming the headquarters. One protester left the building carrying a set of loudspeakers and screaming: “Spoils of war!”
Angry protesters also damaged a Toyota Land Cruiser used by Abdul Jalil.
“A large number of wounded people were unhappy because the National (Transitional) Council has not met their demands,” said 30-year-old Tareq al-Gheryani as he watched people attacking the NTC’s headquarters.
“People are not happy with the council because it has also given government posts to people who are known to have links with Gaddafi.”
Interim government officials say it is impossible for them sack hundreds of officials merely because they served under Gaddafi, but stress that those proved to have been involved in human rights abuses or financial fraud will be fired.
The NTC is grappling with problems, including the disbanding of dozens of powerful militias that effectively control the country. The ministries of interior and defense want to integrate them into a military and police force, but militia chiefs have shown little interest in surrendering their arms.
Thursday, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the NTC, was roughed up by university students in Benghazi. He was surrounded by a crowd and jostled before he was pulled away to safety.
(Reporting by Mohamad Al-Tommy; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush and Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Public release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Orenstein david_orenstein@brown.edu 401-863-1862 Brown University
More than half, 51.4 percent, reported not being fully innoculated in 2007 survey
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Although there is an effective vaccine for hepatitis B and public health officials have a strong sense of who is at highest risk for the infectious liver disease, tens of thousands of people in the United States contract the virus every year. According to a new study by researchers at Brown University, missed opportunities to administer the vaccine continue to be a reason why infections persist.
“This is a really simple thing that we could do and if somebody ends up getting the disease because we didn’t make the effort then I think that’s really a shame,” said Brian Montague, assistant professor of medicine in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a physician at The Miriam Hospital.
Yet in an analysis published Jan. 12, 2012, in advance online in the journal Infection, senior author Montague and lead author Farah Ladak found that in a nationally representative sample of high-risk adults, 51.4 percent said they were unvaccinated. More than half of them had the potential to receive the vaccine based on their reported contact with health care providers.
The study is based on responses by more than 15,000 adults to the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which gathers health information from more than 430,000 people across the United States. The respondents in the study’s analysis acknowledged engaging in risk behaviors such as certain sexual practices or needle drug use and could definitively report their hepatitis B status. Previous research has found that more than 95 percent new infections in adults occur among people with such behavioral risk factors.
Montague, Ladak, and their co-authors sought to figure out who among this highly vulnerable population was going unvaccinated and whether and where they could have received the three required shots.
They found that vaccinations were relatively infrequent among adults older than 33 (vaccinations have increased markedly in children since the 1990s), among people with less access to health insurance, and among people who have also not been vaccinated against other diseases such as the flu.
But even among people with access to health care, including people who reported specific contact with health care providers, thousands of people went unvaccinated, Ladak said. The study identifies places where improved vaccine delivery would make a substantial difference for instance when people are tested for HIV, such as at the doctor’s office, in a hospital or clinic, and especially in jail.
For those infected as adults, hepatitis B does not always result in persistent infection and chronic liver disease, but it is especially likely to do so among people infected with HIV. Such co-infections are common because many of the risk factors for contracting either virus are the same.
“In persons visiting [HIV-testing] locations there was a high prevalence of people who had not received the vaccine,” said Ladak, a Brown public health graduate. “One of the areas that really stuck out was jails and prisons. Given that many states have mandates to vaccinate incarcerated individuals, you wonder why in so many of these prisons people have not received vaccinations.”
Ladak noted that the new study’s figures from 2007 closely mirror similar research published in 2000, suggesting that despite widespread awareness among public health officials that vaccinations have been lacking among adults, there has not been clear progress.
Calls to do better
The study lends additional support to the urging of the Institute of Medicine, which in a 2010 report emphasized the importance of seizing opportunities to vaccinate people for hepatitis B and C. The report suggested that officials have not devoted enough resources to vaccination programs, perhaps because the infections sometimes don’t present any symptoms, as a reason for the continued prevalence of the diseases.
Montague said some programs are also structured to ensure missed opportunities. For example, funding for HIV care programs allows testing and vaccination of those who are HIV positive. Funding is often not available, though, for combined screening for hepatitis B together with HIV.
“Given that the risks for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C overlap, what we need is integrated testing and prevention programs and strategies that link those cases identified with effective treatment in the community,” Montague said.
###
In addition to Montague and Ladak, other authors were Annie Gjelsvik, Edward Feller and Samantha Rosenthal.
[ | 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.
Public release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Orenstein david_orenstein@brown.edu 401-863-1862 Brown University
More than half, 51.4 percent, reported not being fully innoculated in 2007 survey
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Although there is an effective vaccine for hepatitis B and public health officials have a strong sense of who is at highest risk for the infectious liver disease, tens of thousands of people in the United States contract the virus every year. According to a new study by researchers at Brown University, missed opportunities to administer the vaccine continue to be a reason why infections persist.
“This is a really simple thing that we could do and if somebody ends up getting the disease because we didn’t make the effort then I think that’s really a shame,” said Brian Montague, assistant professor of medicine in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a physician at The Miriam Hospital.
Yet in an analysis published Jan. 12, 2012, in advance online in the journal Infection, senior author Montague and lead author Farah Ladak found that in a nationally representative sample of high-risk adults, 51.4 percent said they were unvaccinated. More than half of them had the potential to receive the vaccine based on their reported contact with health care providers.
The study is based on responses by more than 15,000 adults to the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which gathers health information from more than 430,000 people across the United States. The respondents in the study’s analysis acknowledged engaging in risk behaviors such as certain sexual practices or needle drug use and could definitively report their hepatitis B status. Previous research has found that more than 95 percent new infections in adults occur among people with such behavioral risk factors.
Montague, Ladak, and their co-authors sought to figure out who among this highly vulnerable population was going unvaccinated and whether and where they could have received the three required shots.
They found that vaccinations were relatively infrequent among adults older than 33 (vaccinations have increased markedly in children since the 1990s), among people with less access to health insurance, and among people who have also not been vaccinated against other diseases such as the flu.
But even among people with access to health care, including people who reported specific contact with health care providers, thousands of people went unvaccinated, Ladak said. The study identifies places where improved vaccine delivery would make a substantial difference for instance when people are tested for HIV, such as at the doctor’s office, in a hospital or clinic, and especially in jail.
For those infected as adults, hepatitis B does not always result in persistent infection and chronic liver disease, but it is especially likely to do so among people infected with HIV. Such co-infections are common because many of the risk factors for contracting either virus are the same.
“In persons visiting [HIV-testing] locations there was a high prevalence of people who had not received the vaccine,” said Ladak, a Brown public health graduate. “One of the areas that really stuck out was jails and prisons. Given that many states have mandates to vaccinate incarcerated individuals, you wonder why in so many of these prisons people have not received vaccinations.”
Ladak noted that the new study’s figures from 2007 closely mirror similar research published in 2000, suggesting that despite widespread awareness among public health officials that vaccinations have been lacking among adults, there has not been clear progress.
Calls to do better
The study lends additional support to the urging of the Institute of Medicine, which in a 2010 report emphasized the importance of seizing opportunities to vaccinate people for hepatitis B and C. The report suggested that officials have not devoted enough resources to vaccination programs, perhaps because the infections sometimes don’t present any symptoms, as a reason for the continued prevalence of the diseases.
Montague said some programs are also structured to ensure missed opportunities. For example, funding for HIV care programs allows testing and vaccination of those who are HIV positive. Funding is often not available, though, for combined screening for hepatitis B together with HIV.
“Given that the risks for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C overlap, what we need is integrated testing and prevention programs and strategies that link those cases identified with effective treatment in the community,” Montague said.
###
In addition to Montague and Ladak, other authors were Annie Gjelsvik, Edward Feller and Samantha Rosenthal.
[ | 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.
LOS ANGELES ? Call it a forgotten paradise, a little brush-covered canyon pushed up against the majestic “Hollywood” sign. Celebrities go there to get away. So do nearby residents, with their dogs or children in tow.
This week, everyone’s been calling it a crime scene.
The seclusion ? the hustle of urban Los Angeles vanishing into Bronson Canyon’s hiking and walking trails ? may have led a killer to think it was the perfect spot to cut up a victim’s body. And get rid of it, quick.
A head. Feet. And hands.
Whoever it was that left the gruesome scene may be long gone now. That’s one mystery, in a town that thrives on them and often rings up millions of dollars making up tales filled with gory scenes just like the one discovered Tuesday.
The other, more pressing mystery: Who do the body parts belong to?
So far, police believe the unidentified man is between 40 and 60 years old.
They also believe the body, found by a dog walker who let one of her animals off the leash, had only been there a short time. Just a few days at the most.
They note that the coyotes that roam the park in packs at night ? their howls are the only sounds people hear after dusk ? would have destroyed the remains if they had been there longer than a few days.
“If it had not been for the dog walker, we might never have found it,” police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said.
As if to make Smith’s point, a coyote strolled by a hillside at that moment, stopping no more than 30 feet away and turning its head curiously toward the assembled reporters as the officer continued to speak.
As 120 officers and firefighters on foot and horseback fought their way through 7 acres of brush, some searchers used ropes to rappel into a steep drainage culvert. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office was attempting to identify the remains.
Smith said they would try to identify the man through fingerprints first and, if that doesn’t work, search DNA databases and dental records.
Police are still searching for a motive, reviewing hundreds of theories provided by both detectives and local residents, Smith said.
They don’t believe the head, feet and hands are connected to a torso police in Tucson, Ariz., found on Jan. 6, Smith said.
That was too long ago for the head and other parts to have survived in the condition they were found. The head was found inside a plastic bag. They also believe the victim was killed somewhere else and brought to the park.
They also don’t believe a serial killer was involved.
“We have no indication there is a serial murderer running around,” Smith said.
The discovery also was the first time police could recall finding a head or other body parts in Bronson Canyon Park. Griffith Park, a huge, rugged expanse on the other side of the hill, is usually the dumping place for bodies, Officer Bruce Borihahn said.
Until the remains turned up, the most serious things residents said they had to worry about were the coyotes and the smash-and-grab robbers who sometimes target hikers’ cars.
“At dusk they all come out in packs,” Mark Hart said as he walked his two pit bull mixes down the hill from the park. “I’ve seen them literally take little dogs right off the leash as people were walking them.”
Renee Dake Wilson, who was walking Sweet Pea, her boxer-pit bull mix, said she was unnerved by the find, especially the fact that the head was uncovered right off the trail where she and her dog walk every day.
“I’m a little worried,” she said. “It’s a concern to have such an event happen in your neighborhood. But I do think it’s an isolated event.”
___
Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.
A new moon, a new animal, a new color, a new year: spectacular fireworks and red envelopes and festive celebrations welcome them, and so do personal greetings maybe sent across the world electronically. Here are some favorite Chinese New Year e-card sites.
4. Yahoo! – Chinese New Year E-Cards
Yahoo! and americangreetings.com make it easy to send happiness, wealth and longevity in a stylish manner to all your friends and family members this festival of lanterns.
5. Care2 – Chinese New Year E-Cards
The Chinese New Year cards at Care2 are mostly simple, but they make up for the simplicity ? if this ever needs to be made up for ? with charm and nicety many times. The selection is big!
6. Hallmark – Chinese New Year E-Cards
Hallmark lets the lion dance in style to drum in the new year, and you can send all your best wishes as well, of course. Zodiac- and animal-themed cards are a given.
9. USA Greetings – Chinese New Year E-Cards
They may not always have the right year on their cards (it is only every dozen years that one is dedicated to the snake after all), but don’t let that take away from USA Greetings New Year’s cards’ innocent charm.
Verizon this morning in a press release talked up the first anniversary of the launch of its LTE network, pimping that 190 markets and 200 million people will be covered by Dec. 15 (that's covered, and not necessarily subscribed). Pretty impressive when you think about it, especially when you compare it to the other established … Continue reading
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman | C-<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/entertainmentweekly/movies/coverage/~4/_e7f-Xa-yf0" height="1" width="1"/> |} link
Brings old style Multi-User Dungeons to Drupal. This project was originally created for a personal website www.in-seine.com and is highly customized for it. My hope at this point is that over time it could be ‘Drupalized’ by users to be more user friendly and able to used by those without PHP programming experience. Currently, requires … Continue reading
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a patent war for most of this year. It?s a complicated situation, and you should check out Digital Trends? full breakdown of the legal dispute if you really want to understand it, but the long and short of it is: Apple alleges that several of Samsung?s Android-based smartphones … Continue reading
krant.ad.nl A Dutch newspaper triggered the controversy with this image and article about the project design on Thursday. By msnbc.com staff A Dutch architectural firm says its design for a South Korean housing complex is simply meant to convey the feeling of being in the?clouds, but others?see something they’d rather not remember: the collapse of … Continue reading
Camoes won’t let debutants go 3-for-3, Brazilian subs Hayden![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 19-Jan-2012
Share ]