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Saturday, May 25, 2013
Humane Society Reunites 44 Dogs With Families - NewsOn6.com ...
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Syrian opposition struggles for unity as battle rages
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria's opposition resumed talks on Saturday aimed at closing their fractious ranks, as government forces launched a fierce onslaught on a rebel-held border town to try to gain the upper hand in the civil war.
A failure of the opposition to unite could weaken the hand of Russia and the United States, co-sponsors of a proposed peace conference on the war, which has killed 80,000 and threatens to spill over borders and whip up wider sectarian violence.
The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers are to meet in Paris on Monday to discuss how to shepherd Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition into the talks in Geneva.
As opposition leaders met in Istanbul, Assad's forces reinforced by Iranian-backed Shi'ite Lebanese Hezbollah fighters unleashed heavy artillery and tank fire to try to seize more rebel terrain in the Sunni Muslim border town of Qusair on Saturday, sources on both sides said.
Syria is becoming a proxy conflict between Shi'ite Iran which backs Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi'ism, and Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar which support Assad's mostly Sunni enemies.
George Sabra, the acting head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, said thousands of fighters from Iran and Hezbollah were involved in the attack on Qusair, close to the Lebanese border, and in battles in the capital Damascus.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group would stay in the Syrian conflict "to the end of the road" and would win the war for Assad's government.
"We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position," he said in a televised speech, speaking from an undisclosed location. "We will be the ones who bring it victory, God willing."
Assad's forces are believed to have seized about two-thirds of Qusair and largely surrounded the rebels. But the price was high and rebels insisted they were preventing further advances.
The insurgents see Qusair as a critical battle to preserve cross-border supply lines and deny Assad a victory they fear may give him the edge in the prospective peace talks next month.
More than 22 people in opposition-held areas were killed by Saturday afternoon, most of them rebels, and dozens wounded, according to pro-opposition monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The pro-opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights said 73 people were killed by Assad's forces, and opposition campaigner Adib Shishakly said Nasrallah lost 75 fighters in the battle for Qusair and that rebel defenders were doing "an excellent job."
U.S. CONCERNS
The United States, concerned by the rising influence of hardline Islamists, has pressed the Syrian National Coalition to resolve its divisions and bring more liberals into the fold.
Sources at the coalition, which began its third day of meetings, said major players would focus on such international demands for a broadening of the Islamist-dominated group, leaving leadership issues for later.
Attempts to strike a grand bargain involving veteran liberal campaigner Michel Kilo and businessman Mustafa al-Sabbagh, Qatar's point man in the coalition, went nowhere in talks that stretched overnight, senior coalition sources said.
"We are back to square one," one of them told Reuters.
In Addis Ababa, on the sidelines of an African Union summit, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry appealed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "to try to get something moving with respect to Syria", according to a pool reporter. Ban told Kerry he and his special Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi "are working very hard to convene, to make this Geneva conference a success".
Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab adversary of Assad, will want to see the Geneva conference, which could convene in the next few weeks, put the exit of Assad at the top of the agenda, diplomats and coalition members said.
But they said Russia, a longtime ally of Assad, wanted it to focus on a ceasefire although there is scant rapport between opposition politicians abroad and rebels inside Syria.
The inability of the coalition to alter its Islamist-dominated membership and replace a leadership damaged by power struggles is playing into the hands of Assad who, according to Russia, intends to send representatives to the peace conference.
PIVOTAL BATTLE
"The coalition risks undermining itself to the point that its backers may have to look quickly for an alternative with enough credibility on the ground to go to Geneva," a senior opposition source at the talks said.
Senior opposition figures said the coalition was likely to attend the conference, but doubted the meeting would secure their central demand - an immediate deal for Assad to quit.
While the opposition remained riven by differences, the assault by Assad's forces and their Hezbollah allies on Qusair over the past week is evolving into a pivotal battle.
Qusair controls access to Syria's Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite community, and the battle may prove a weighty test of his ability to withstand the revolt.
Hezbollah's intervention is hardening fears that the civil war will cross borders at the volatile heart of the Middle East.
"It is ironic that Lebanon's civil strife is playing itself out in Syria. The opposition remains without coherence and the regime is intent on taking back anything it promises with violence," said one diplomat.
The diplomat was referring to a deepening sectarian divide between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon, where Syrian troops were present for 29 years, including for most of the Lebanese civil war that ended in 1990.
The death toll in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli reached 25 on Saturday in the seventh straight day of clashes between Alawite and Sunni factions backing opposing sides in Syria's war, security sources said.
(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut and Arshad Mohammed in Addis Ababa; Editing by Pravin Char)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-resumes-unity-talks-key-peace-conference-115841731.html
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Asia stock markets edge up after big sell-off
BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets staged a mild recovery Friday, a day after being routed by unexpectedly weak Chinese manufacturing and fears the Federal Reserve will start withdrawing its monetary stimulus.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index, which plummeted more than 7 percent Thursday, bounced back a sizeable 2.8 percent to 14,892.57. South Korea's Kospi gained 0.1 percent to 1,971.46. Benchmarks in Indonesia, Taiwan and mainland China also rose.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng spent the morning bobbing between slight gains and slight losses before falling nearly 0.1 percent to 22,656.15. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 tumbled 1.4 percent to 4,992.80. Benchmarks in the Philippines and New Zealand also fell.
The Nikkei's dramatic fall Thursday was attributed on the spike in the interest rate on the country's benchmark 10-year bond to above 1 percent for the first time in a year, which came after Fed meeting minutes showed some of its policy makers want the U.S. central bank to start scaling back its monetary stimulus.
The swing in Japanese bonds unnerved investors at a time when Japan's already overburdened government finances are vulnerable to rises in interest rates. The interest rate, or yield, later slipped back to about 0.9 percent.
The sell-off is a reminder of Japan's vulnerability as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tries to end two decades of stagnation with unprecedented monetary easing, increased government spending and reforms to make the world's No. 3 economy more competitive.
Mixed messages from the Federal Reserve about when it might start scaling back its bond-buying program also stirred investor anxiety.
The Fed is buying $85 billion worth of bonds every month as part of its stimulus program. That has kept interest rates low and encouraged investors to put money into stocks and other risky assets. If the Fed slows down its bond purchases, investors fear it could lead to an outpouring of money from stocks.
Benchmark oil for July delivery was down 4 cents to $94.20 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 3 cents to close at $94.25 per barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2920 from $1.2932 late Thursday in New York. The dollar strengthened to 102.23 yen from 101.91 yen.
___
Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asia-stock-markets-edge-big-sell-off-025630695.html
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Friday, May 24, 2013
In Iowa, GOP's Walker preps for presidential run
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Scott Walker tried to introduce himself to Iowa Republicans Thursday as so many would-be presidential candidates often do ? one of their own.
After all, the Wisconsin governor weighing a 2016 bid for president spent seven years as a young child living in Plainfield, a tiny town in northeast Iowa Walker referred to a half-dozen times during a 40 minute speech at a Republican fundraiser.
More broadly, the rising GOP figure prescribed what he characterized as a Midwestern approach to politics and the way for Republicans, back-to-back White House losers, to win again.
"I would encourage us all to be more optimistic, more relevant and more courageous," Walker told 600 GOP activists in a suburban Des Moines hotel ballroom. "I think when we do, we win in Iowa, we win in Wisconsin, and all across this great country, and we transform this place we live in."
The first-term governor, who has won party acclaim for taking on unions and overcame a contentious recall election, has been raising his national profile with speeches to national Republican audiences in recent months and headlined fundraisers in New York and Connecticut this week.
Walker was making his first visit Thursday to the state that has traditionally held the first presidential caucuses. He was the keynote speaker at the Polk County Republican Party's annual spring fundraising dinner and also met privately with leaders at a separate fundraiser before the banquet.
The audience applauded when he noted during the speech how he won a larger victory in defeating Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee during the recall vote last year than he did in his 2010 election. They cheered again when he described the budget surplus Wisconsin has today, compared with the $3.6 billion deficit in place when he took office.
"Scott Walker is a great example of a courageous governor who made the tough decisions and has the state going in the right direction," said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican who attended the event.
Walker opponents, including some who traveled from Milwaukee, said earlier Thursday that Walker had overpromised the number of jobs he would bring in. Wisconsin's unemployment has dropped during his time in office, albeit less dramatically than in other Midwestern states such as Michigan and Ohio.
Walker kept returning in his remarks to his time in Iowa, as a boy, and the son of a Baptist minister. Walker moved to southern Wisconsin when he was 10.
He ticked through the name of a former teacher, a neighbor and the state legislator-turned congressman, "a farmer down the way from us named Chuck Grassley." Grassley is now Iowa's senior U.S. senator, serving his sixth term.
Should he decide to run for president, Walker's Iowa ties and evangelical upbringing could serve him well in Iowa's Republican caucuses, where Christian conservatives make up an influential bloc.
Walker didn't touch social issues. Instead, he urged the party to reach out to voting blocs Republicans have struggled to win, such as Latinos. Walker trumpeted his success winning Hispanic-leaning precincts when he was Milwaukee County executive before being elected governor.
"We've got a message of opportunity and optimism. We've got to be willing to go to places that Republicans typically don't go," he said.
It's a style that works for Connie Schmett, a Des Moines-area Republican who contributed money to Walker's recall campaign and attended the event Thursday.
"He's like your brother, your neighbor," she said. "I've seen a lot of these guys. And he just seems like a good guy."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gops-walker-touts-state-ties-during-trip-iowa-020745385.html
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Cause of infantile amnesia revealed: New neuron formation could increase capacity for new learning, at expense of old memories
May 24, 2013 ? New research presented today shows that formation of new neurons in the hippocampus -- a brain region known for its importance in learning and remembering -- could cause forgetting of old memories by causing a reorganization of existing brain circuits. Drs. Paul Frankland and Sheena Josselyn, both from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, argue this reorganization could have the positive effect of clearing old memories, reducing interference and thereby increasing capacity for new learning.
These results were presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience -- Association Canadienne des Neurosciences (CAN-ACN).
Researchers have long known of the phenomenon of infantile amnesia: This refers to the absence of long-term memory of events occurring within the first 2-3 years of life, and little long-term memories for events occurring until about 7 years of age. Studies have shown that though young children can remember events in the short term, these memories do not persist. This new study by Frankland and Josselyn shows that this amnesia is associated with high levels of new neuron production -- a process called neurogenesis -- in the hippocampus, and that more permanent memory formation is associated with a reduction in neurogenesis.
Dr. Frankland and Dr. Josselyn's approach was to look at retention of memories in young mice in which they suppressed the usual high levels of neurogenesis in the hippocampus (thereby replicating the circuit stability normally observed in adult mice), but also in older mice in which they stimulated increased neurogenesis (thereby replicating the conditions normally seen in younger mice). Dr. Frankland was able to show a causal relationship between a reduction in neurogenesis and increased remembering, and the converse, decreased remembering when neurogenesis increased.
Dr. Frankland concludes: " Why infantile amnesia exists has long been a mystery. We think our new studies begin to explain why we have no memories from our earliest years."
This research was supported by funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the "Chase an Idea in Paediatric Neuroscience" grant from The Centre for Brain & Behaviour at the Hospital for Sick Children.
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Proxy advisory firm settles SEC charges over data breach
By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Institutional Shareholder Services has settled civil charges by U.S. regulators that an employee of the prominent proxy advisory firm shared nonpublic voting data in exchange for meals and concert tickets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that ISS, a unit of MSCI Inc, will pay a $300,000 penalty and hire an independent compliance consultant.
In settling, ISS neither admitted nor denied the SEC allegations that it violated financial adviser rules designed to prevent misuse of material non-public customer information.
Mutual funds, pension organizations and other institutional investors hire firms such as ISS to advise them on how to vote on important corporate issue such as executive compensation and board appointments.
The SEC alleged that, from 2007 through early 2012, an ISS employee provided a proxy solicitor, a firm that gathers shareholder votes, with nonpublic information revealing how more than 100 ISS clients were voting their proxy ballots.
Cheryl Gustitus, a spokeswoman for ISS, said the firm took "swift action of its own" and also cooperated with the SEC.
"The confidentiality of our clients' information is essential," she said. "We now consider this matter closed."
The company previously disclosed in its regulatory filings that both the SEC and Department of Justice were investigating the matter.
Gustitus said ISS does not expect the DOJ to take any action and a DOJ spokesman said he was not aware of any charges.
"We understand the matter to be closed there," she said.
The case marked the first time the SEC sued a proxy advisory firm, according to an agency spokesman.
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have long complained about the influence that proxy advisory firms such ISS can wield in corporate elections.
Most recently, ISS urged JPMorgan Chase & Co shareholders to vote against the re-election of three board members, saying they failed to oversee the bank's risk-taking that led to $6.2 billion in losses from bad credit known as the "London Whale" trades.
Those directors won re-election earlier this week, but they received less than 60 percent of the vote.
The SEC alleged the ISS employee who revealed the voting intentions of clients received $11,500 worth of sporting and concert tickets, as well as $20,000 in meals.
"Based on emails between the ISS employee and the proxy solicitor, the ISS employee provided the information to the proxy solicitor as a quid pro quo for the tickets and meals he received," the SEC said.
The SEC did not name the ISS employee or the proxy solicitor employee.
Gustitus told Reuters the ISS employee was fired in March 2012.
A spokesperson for Georgeson, a proxy solicitation firm owned by Computershare Ltd, confirmed late on Thursday that its employees were involved in the matter, but declined to comment on details of the "ongoing SEC investigations" or the SEC's case against ISS.
"When the allegations surfaced last year, Georgeson proactively and promptly contacted the SEC and cooperated fully with the investigation. Upon further investigation, Georgeson determined that two employees acted outside of our policies and placed them on administrative leave in April 2012, and subsequently terminated the employment of these two employees," the spokesperson said.
The SEC has been mulling new regulations for proxy advisory firms for several years. In July 2010, it published a 150-page document soliciting comments from the public.
Since then, however, the SEC has not followed up with any new rules.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Tim Dobbyn, Leslie Gevirtz and Andre Grenon)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/proxy-advisory-firm-settles-sec-charges-over-data-210543313.html
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Average U.S. 401(k) balance tops $80,000, up 75 percent since 2009
BOSTON (Reuters) - The average 401(k) retirement balance for U.S. workers hit a record high of $80,900 in the first quarter, a growth spurt of 75 percent since the stock market's nadir in March 2009, Fidelity Investments said on Thursday based on a survey of its accounts.
Most of the recovery is linked to a stock market rally that has lifted the broad S&P 500 Index 145 percent since the close of trading on March 9, 2009.
The 401(k) recovery looks even better for workers 55 and older, according to Boston-based Fidelity, the largest U.S. administrator of 401(k) retirement plans. Those pre-retirement workers have seen their average balance nearly double to $255,000 since the first quarter of 2009 when the average balance was $130,700. The analysis covers people who have been with their current employer 10 or more years, Fidelity said.
But a small percentage (1.6 percent) of pre-retirees have not seen as much of a rebound because they abandoned stocks during the tumult of the financial crisis. Their average balance grew only 26 percent to $101,000 over the same period, Fidelity said.
(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/average-u-401-k-balance-tops-80-000-040228901.html
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Financial, emotional tolls mount as Oklahoma tornado recovery effort begins
A group of men pray with tornado survivor Tim Wardwell. (Jason Sickles/Yahoo News)
MOORE, Okla.?Atop a pile of rubble that had been his home, Tim Wardwell choked back tears, grateful for the strangers who prayed with him to give thanks that he wasn?t among the 24 tornado fatalities.
?I don?t know how I?m here, dude,? Wardwell told Yahoo News.
Wardwell and his wife, Kelsey, had biked back to the house?which had collapsed on him and their two dachshunds?to survey the damage. They managed to recover their family birth certificates, a handful of photos and a few keepsakes for their children.
?The bear still squeaks,? said Kelsey, pointing to a tattered toy.
An upended car rests on what was once a house. (Jason Sickles/Yahoo News)
Nearly 13,000 homes are believed to have been damaged or destroyed in the Oklahoma tornado, affecting more than 33,000 people. The 200-mph twister cut a path of destruction 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.
On Wednesday, the Medical Examiner's office identified 16 of the victims by name. Ten are children, including two infants. At a press conference, officials said they were still trying to account for six missing adults.
President Barack Obama will visit the region on Sunday, according to White House press secretary Jay Carney.
FEMA will open two disaster relief shelters on Wednesday with more to come.
"We know that people are really hurting," Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said in Moore. "There is a lot of recovery yet to do."
The Red Cross is operating six shelters and has a fleet of trucks canvassing the troubled neighborhoods.
"I'm no stranger to disaster, but this is a rough one," said Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern at a Wednesday afternoon press conference. "Our prayers are with the people of Moore."
Officials said the first of the 24 funerals is scheduled for Thursday morning.
Albert Ashwood, Oklahoma's director of emergency management, pushed back against questions from reporters about why the hardest-hit schools were not equipped with safe rooms. Ashwood said he believes everyone involved did what they could to survive a tornado of this magnitude, and that tornadoes this fierce are very rare.
"This is the anomaly that flattens everything to the ground," Ashwood told reporters.
Economic experts fear the storm?s financial toll could top $3 billion. Donations have been coming in from kids with piggy banks to professional athletes. And charity groups said more cash will be needed for the months ahead.
The Moore Fire Department announced on Wednesday morning that its search for victims at the hard-hit Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children reportedly died, had ended with no new casualties discovered.
Danielle Stephan holds boyfriend Thomas Layton as they pause between salvaging through the remains of a family member's home one day after a tornado devastated the town Moore, Oklahoma, in the ... more? Danielle Stephan holds boyfriend Thomas Layton as they pause between salvaging through the remains of a family member's home one day after a tornado devastated the town Moore, Oklahoma, in the outskirts of Oklahoma City May 21, 2013. Rescuers went building to building in search of victims and thousands of survivors were homeless on Tuesday after a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, wiping out whole blocks of homes and killing at least 24 people. REUTERS/Adrees Latif (UNITED STATES - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTXZVON less? Wednesday will be a big day in the recovery effort. With rescue missions for trapped victims winding down, authorities are allowing more residents back into devastated neighborhoods. Government officials are setting up disaster centers to help thousands of people begin the process of applying for aid.And Mother Nature is finally cooperating. Sunny skies are forecast for Wednesday before a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms through Saturday.
?Take advantage of today?s good weather,? KFOR-TV meteorologist Emily Sutton told listeners.
On Wednesday morning, displaced residents swapped advice and encouragement in the breakfast room at a Hampton Inn.
Allen Anderson and his wife, JoAnn, had made it back to their demolished home on Tuesday. He said the piles of muddy broken bricks and boards make it difficult to determine what?s what.
?You can?t go through the house like you normally would,? Allen, 63, told Yahoo News.
The Andersons said their longtime insurance company dropped them last year when it decided to quit covering houses in Oklahoma. JoAnn said she breathed a sigh of relief when their new carrier immediately gave them emergency cash and approved the hotel for 31 days.
?We?re going to have to find a house to rent, and we?re going to have to find a car,? she said.
--Yahoo News reporter Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
!!yEs!! LIVE}} Watch San Jose Sharks vs Los Angeles Kings live ...
Welcome to watch San Jose Sharks vs Los Angeles Kings live National Hockey League (NHL) 2012-2013 season online coverage on your device.Don?t miss the live actions of NHL 2011-2012 whole season in HD quality.NHL Regular season 2011 will be kick off on 06 October 2011.So, You have a great opportunity to watch your favorite team and your favorite star player live online if you don?t have enough time to visit the stadium.Enjoy the hot NHL preseason 2011 today?s match which will defeat San Jose Sharks vs Los Angeles Kings.
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Team :? San Jose Sharks vs Los Angeles Kings
Date : Friday, May 24, 2013
Kick Off Time : 08:30 GMT
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Russian drunk driver who killed orphans sentenced
MOSCOW (AP) ? A Russian drunken driver who sparked a nationwide debate after killing seven, including five orphan children, in a road accident last year has been sentenced to prison.
Moscow's Nikulinsky court ordered Alexander Maximov to serve eight and a half years Wednesday.
Maximov scandalized Russia last fall when he crashed his Toyota sedan into a bus stop at 200 kilometers (125 miles) per hour while drunk and high on cannabis, killing seven.
Officials, including President Vladimir Putin, scrambled to propose stronger drunk driving penalties and road safety measures.
Each year, approximately 30,000 Russians die in road accidents. According to official statistics, only about 1,000 of those deaths are attributable to drunken drivers, though many Russians suspect lax investigation and widespread bribery mean the real figure is much higher.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-drunk-driver-killed-orphans-sentenced-134019953.html
Wall Street rises as concern eases over Fed tapering
By Leah Schnurr
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank needed to see further signs of traction in the economy before it tapered its stimulus efforts.
The head of the central bank said the Fed's monetary stimulus was helping the economy recover, but emphasized the high costs of unemployment and inflation that continues to run below the Fed's target. The testimony before a Congressional panel helped boost indexes by as much as 1 percent.
But markets came off their highs by midday as Bernanke said the Fed could "take a step down in our pace of (bond) purchases" in the next few committee meetings if the job market continues to improve.
The market had a hawkish bend ahead of Bernanke's speech and cheered when the Fed chief's comments appeared dovish, according to Art Hogan, managing director at Lazard Capital Markets in New York.
"His prepared comments were as dovish as the market was expecting," Hogan said. "Then the market settled into the fact there was no new news."
The Fed is currently buying $85 billion a month in bonds as part of its efforts to boost the economy. The ultra loose monetary policy is one of the main forces behind a rally in U.S. equities that has helped the S&P 500 and Dow industrials gain about 18 percent so far this year.
But investors are turning their attention to when the Fed might alter or halt its bond-buying program and will parse the minutes from the central bank's last policy meeting, due at 2:00 p.m. EDT.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 102.52 points, or 0.67 percent, to 15,490.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 10.07 points, or 0.60 percent, to 1,679.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 15.53 points, or 0.44 percent, at 3,517.65.
Adding to the bullish tone, data showed U.S. home resales rose in April to the highest in nearly 3-1/2 years as surging prices lured sellers back into market, which should support the housing sector and the overall economic recovery.
Health stocks led the S&P 500 higher, with Pfizer
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Shares of luxury department store chain Saks Inc
Target Corp
Toll Brothers
(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/futures-tick-higher-ahead-bernanke-testimony-114035874.html
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Lost in translocation? How bird song could help save species
May 22, 2013 ? Translocation -- or moving animals to safer places -- is a vital tool for saving species from extinction. Many factors influence the success of these new populations, including habitat quality, predators, capture and release techniques, the number and sex of individuals, and their genetic diversity. Now new research, the first of its kind, published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology suggests bird song could also be important.
Ecologists from the University of Waikato and Lincoln University in New Zealand studied the North Island k?kako, an iconic bird with a haunting, organ-like song. Once widespread in the North Island, loss of habitat by deforestation and predation by rats, possums and stoats decimated the population. By 1999, fewer than 400 pairs remained, and between 2001 and 2007, several pairs were moved from Te Urewera National Park to two other reserves: Boundary Stream Mainland Island and Ngapukeriki.
To find out how moving the k?kako has affected their song, the researchers made hundreds of recordings in the three populations and analysed differences in song using sonograms. They then used playback experiments to discover how birds from one population reacted to another populations' song.
They found the songs of translocated birds had diverged substantially from the source population, becoming less diverse with shorter and higher-pitched elements. According to Dr Laura Molles from Lincoln University: "Not only how k?kako sing in translocated populations, but also what they sing differs from k?kako in the source population."
The greatest changes were found in the population that had been translocated for longest, indicating the songs may become more different over time. But despite the divergence between each population's song, the playback experiments showed that the birds could not yet tell them apart.
"The songs diverge because birds such as k?kako learn their songs from parents, siblings and neighbours. As translocation usually involves only a small number of indivuals, they will take with them only a small portion of all the song elements in the larger source population. Subsequent variation in small populations will depend on that subset of songs and will then differ from the larger song pool in the source population," Dr Molles explains.
The study has important implications for conservation. Although in this study the k?kako populations have not been separated for long enough to cause song incompatibility, it will occur in time, the authors say. Once that happens, releasing additional birds into these populations could be problematic because song incompatibility could make interbreeding difficult.
As a result, says Dr Molles, conservationists should consider song variation as part of bird reintroductions: "We need to be aware that behavioural factors like song can also affect translocation success and recovery of endangered birds, and adapt our management of these populations accordingly. This means that we may have to work harder but the good news is that if we consider one more factor that we now know may also affect translocation, we will be more likely to succeed in conserving birds."
The North Island k?kako is one of New Zealand's most iconic bird species. The size of a common pigeon, both males and females have blue-grey plumage with black masks and striking bright blue wattles. Both sexes sing, and pairs duet, with a haunting voice and the birds' astonishingly varied organ-like notes can be heard over 1km away.
They have limited flying power, instead moving like squirrels through the branches and gliding from hill tops to valleys. They live in the temperate rainforest, feeding mainly on fruit and leaves. Once widespread, their numbers collapsed due to deforestation and predation by rats, stoats and possums, and by 1999 fewer than 400 pairs remained. Thanks to translocation to safe offshore islands, numbers have increased to around 800 pairs today.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/IyZIhnh9iHk/130521230046.htm
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Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek dies at 74
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ray Manzarek, a founding member and keyboardist of 1960s rock group The Doors, died on Monday at age 74 , the group's manager said.
Manzarek died in Rosenheim, Germany, following a battle with bile duct cancer, the band said in a statement.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/keyboardist-ray-manzarek-doors-dies-age-74-214701694.html
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Senate panel OKs changes sought by tech firms in immigration bill
A teenager from?Saratoga, California took home one of the top prizes at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair?late last week after showing off her invention, which can fully charge a cell phone in 30 seconds or less.?Eesha Khare was given the?Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award and a $50,000 prize for being runner-up in the competition, which was won by a 19-year-old who unveiled a new spin on?self-driving car technology.?Khare?s battery technology requires a new component to be installed inside the phone battery itself, and Intel notes that it also has potential applications for car batteries.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-panel-oks-changes-sought-tech-firms-immigration-232332037.html
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Xbox One: Everything You Need to Know About Microsoft's New Console
It's been eight years and nine days since Microsoft showed the world the Xbox 360 on May 12th, 2005. Today, we see what's next. The Xbox One.
We're on-site in at Microsoft's Xbox HQ in Redmond, Washington, to check out the new Xbox. You can watch the livestream here. (Refresh this page to update)
New consoles are exciting in a way that it's hard for other product releases to match, even anticipated ones like an iPhone, because they're so infrequent. This is at least a five-year bet on Microsoft's part about what the future of gaming will look like. We've already seen what Sony
Microsoft can only hope it's half as right as it was last time around. The 360 was built to last. That eight-year stretch of dominance makes it the oldest of the current generation of systems, and the last to be cast off in favor of a new system. Over that time the Xbox has picked up new features, like the Kinect motion sensor and ever more media streaming capabilities, but its core has remained the same.
Today's event is only supposed to run for an hour?far shorter than the almost three hours the Sony crew was on stage for the PS4 event?which means it should have a bunch of information packed into a very short time. We'll have impressions from further sessions.
All-in-One Entertainment
We're underway, and the intro video for the new Xbox has users saying that the new Xbox is going to "recognize my name, my voice, my movies" and know what you like. That's a big cue that this generation is going to focus heavily on entertainment. Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, says that Xbox 360 is leading the industry in entertainment, because gamers are quick to adopt new tech.
The focus for the next gen is going to focus on different types of content, and use new tech, like cloud interfacing and streaming. It's the all-in-one home entertainment system.
New Controls
The console turns on just from you saying "Xbox on". It will launch into what you were doing last. This passive listening is a huge deal for natural interface. It seems incredibly responsive in the demo, but for now it's unclear if this is an actual demo or if it's being simulated.
It also integrates right into your TV. "Xbox, watch TV" drops you right into a live television feed. The amazing part of this is that you can switch quickly from movies, TV, games, a browser or anything else, just by saying "Xbox, go to", or even just "Go to movies".
Two at Once
You can also use Windows 8's snap mode (with one app "snapped" to the side of the screen" to run another app on the side of the screen while your movie, or TV or game is playing. This is kind of an amazing addition, not just for browsing movies while watching one, like an onscreen IMDB, which is what the demo is showing, but you can also, say, snap a walkthrough for a game you're playing.
Oh, and Skype! You can use Skype while watching a movie or playing a game, too.
Watching TV
Or! You can go to ESPN to watch sports ("Xbox, go to ESPN"), and get update cards in the top of your screen whenever one of your fantasy team scores or accumulates other stats (or just snap in the full panel).
Microsoft also added its own TV guide, with full voice Kinect voice controls (which seem FAR more accurate than current Kinect voice controls in this demo). You can go to any channel or program by telling the Xbox to go to it, or you can just go to a Trending page with the most popular content.
Hardware
There are three ways the Xbox One is upgraded. Hardware and new architecture, the new accessories like Kinect and SmartGlass, and a new Xbox Live.
The new architecture is what is responsible for the fast switching between apps and content. But it also means it's not backward compatible with older Xbox games. Microsoft did not address this at the show, but it's been speculated that it will use game streaming, like the PS4, to play older games on the new hardware. We'll update you once we get a chance to shake down some Microsoft employees.
Kinect is "complete redesigned" to respond to you and your voice, and is made to be more conversational. It picks up motion at 13 billionths of a second, the time it takes light photons to bounce off of you and make it back for the sensors.
New Kinect
The new Kinect has a 1080p sensor, and captures videos at 60fps and far finer detection. It detects the twist of a wrist, or how balanced you are. it can read your heartbeat while watching you exercise. This is next level stuff. The sensor field is expanded by 60 percent, and uses a modulated IR beam, and uses "time-of-flight" tech to measure the time it takes photos to travel back to the Kinect. Microsoft claims it works in complete darkness.
The controller has a ton of new features, too, like the ability for designers to send feedback right into the triggers.
SmartGlass also gets a ton of upgrades, because it's going to be treated as a native part of the platform, and not just an add-on, as it previously was.
Xbox Live is getting a massive overhaul as well. It currently runs on 15,000 servers, but it's going to go to 300,000 this year. Insane. You'll be able to access your movies, music, games, and saves from anywhere. The Xbox One is NOT always online. But developers will be able to use Microsoft's Azure computing (perform rendering tasks remotely), which would require even single player games to be online if those are used. Those aren't mandatory, but Microsoft hopes developers use them.
It also seems the new online gaming feature will restrict your ability to use used games, since they will be tied to your specific used Xbox Live account once activated online.
It will have a native editing and sharing DVR tool to snap highlights of your gameplay, and share them. Matchmaking is also more advanced, to hopefully make sure you're not repeatedly sent up against the same jerk who wipes out your whole party before they even get out of the APC. And it's going even further globally, so hopefully bring in more people to the games (though it's unclear how latency plays into this).
EA Partnership
EA's making an effort to use the new innovations from Microsoft and Xbox Live especially with a roster of new titles. FIFA 14, Madden 25, NBA Live 14, and UFC will all launch in the next 12 months, and EA promises that they will all change the way you play. They'll be powered by a new game engine called EA Sports Ignite, unveiled today.
EA Sports Ignite is supposed to make decision making and contextual contact more realistic. It will supposedly have 10 times more animation detail, called "True Player Motion", and the crowds are 3D, with dynamic sidelines. Basically, everything's going to look even more realistic.
Oh, and FIFA 14's Ultimate Team mode, the most popular mode, is exclusive to the new Xbox.
Watching the demos of the new engine on Xbox One, where you really see the detail is in the lighter contacts, like a defensive lineman trying to slip a block, or Lionel Messi shedding a tackler trying to drag him down by the arm. You can really see intricate movements and motions in a way you can't on current hardware.
Exclusive Games
Obviously, there will be some exclusive games through Microsoft Studios. It will release 15 games in the first year of the Xbox One, eight of which will be brand new franchies. Microsoft is trying to focus on new ways to play games. We got to see Forza Motorsport 5 running on the Xbox One, and the reflections, textures of the materials, and lighting looked awesome, but driving game eye porn always looks great in the cinematic cuts.
We also got a look at a new game from Remedy, responsible for the Max Payne series, called Quantum Break. It will let the choices you make affect the entire world around you. The preview was deeply confusing, with some adults talking to a little girl, a cut to a boat tearing through a bridge, the tagline "Time is the fire", and a character landing in the wreckage.
All Call of Duty downloadable content (DLC) will launch first on Xbox One.
(EA also showed new Call of Duty Ghosts features, which you can check out in full over at Kotaku, but let us just say YOU GET YOUR OWN WAR DOG WHO FOLLOWS YOU AROUND. A WAR DOG. FOR YOU. YOUR WAR DOG.)
Original Xbox Content
Xbox One wants to be immersive, personal (with smart recommendations), and social. The Studios are going to use the immersive capabilities to do new stuff with comedy, drama, sports, and all the rest of the stuff you watch on TV. It's starting with Halo.
343 Studios announced a new live-action HALO TV show created by Steven Speilberg. So, like, holy holy holy crap. Microsoft and 343 promise this will be a premium show, on par with Game of Thrones, which is mighty big talk, but we'll see.
There's also a new NFL partnership with exclusive content for the Xbox, but it seems like some in-depth fantasy stats and the ability to use natively formatted apps next to live broadcasts. Nice, but not as groundbreaking as Microsoft is making it out to be.
The New Future
This is what we were hoping Microsoft would show us. We saw a new and massively updated Kinect. New game engines, with improved graphics (but still such cold, dead eyes). There are new entertainment, and even some original content. Some issues, like backwards compatibility and streaming games, we hope will be cleared up throughout the day of events.
The Xbox One will be available "later this year," which almost certainly means in time for the holiday shopping season. For some frame of reference, the Xbox 360 was announced in May of 2005 and went on sale six months later.
Check back for more impressions and hands on later in the day.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-new-xbox-everything-you-need-to-know-about-microso-509033619
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Week two of Cannes film festival gets off to explosive start
By Alexandria Sage
CANNES (Reuters) - Japanese director Takashi Miike got the final week of the Cannes film festival off to an explosive start on Monday, with big budget cop thriller "Shield of Straw" a sharp contrast to the more intense, intimate movies screened so far.
Typically for Cannes, where critical passions run high, both exuberant cheers and boos rang out after an advance press screening of "Wara No Tate" ("Shield of Straw"), one of 20 entries vying for the top Palme d'Or prize awarded on Sunday.
Miike, whose last appearance at the world's most important cinema showcase was in 2011, said the selection committee's decision to include his high-octane cop movie in the main lineup came as a shock.
"When I learned this film was selected I was very surprised, I was really astonished," Miike told reporters ahead of its official Monday evening premiere.
"If I got the Palme d'Or I'd be delighted of course," he said. "But I don't really think this is a film made for the Palme d'Or. But I'm delighted to know that a rather different kind of film, another class of film is in the selection."
Halfway through the festival, critics have seen a varied array of films, from Ethan and Joel Coen's quirky ode to folk music "Inside Llewyn Davis" to Amat Escalante's powerful "Heli" about Mexico's drug war.
The competition has also included the intense psychological drama "Le Passe" ("The Past") directed by Iran's Asghar Farhadi, whose "A Separation" won a best foreign language Oscar.
Eagerly-awaited movies to launch this week include U.S. director Steven Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra" about pianist Liberace and starring Michael Douglas, and "La Venus a la Fourrure" ("Venus in Fur") by Roman Polanski about an actress trying to convince a director to cast her in his latest play.
MANHUNT
Since starting out in motion pictures in the early 1990s, Miike has made over 80 films, including the 1999 horror flick "Audition" and 2004's "Zebraman" about a family man superhero.
In "Wara No Tate," four elite police officers are charged with protecting and transporting a high-profile criminal across the country after a billionaire puts a huge bounty on his head for the murder and rape of his granddaughter.
Apparently everyone is after the criminal, played by Tatsuya Fujiwara, raising the stakes for lead cop Kazuki Mekari (Takao Osawa) who is charged with protecting him but who resolutely refuses to kill him himself to reap the reward.
"All of the characters in the film have their own ideas of justice ... even the criminal, he has his own approach," Osawa told journalists. "There are two sides, good and evil, and everyone tries to find a balance to survive."
Despite his fondness for action, Miike also explores darker themes in the film including the morality of protecting criminals at the expense of victims and how financial desperation breeds violence.
In one early review, Screen magazine's Tim Grierson cited the "pulpy thrills" of the premise and a gripping lead performance by Osawa, but added that "plausibility issues and an unconvincing exploration of the limits of justice noticeably dampen the fun."
(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; editing by Mike Collett-White)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/week-two-cannes-film-festival-gets-off-explosive-131839225.html
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Indexes edge higher on Wall Street in midday trade
NEW YORK (AP) ? Stock indexes are edging higher in midday trading on Wall Street as investors look ahead to the Federal Reserve's next moves.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 32 points at 15,367 at noon Eastern Daylight Time Tuesday, a gain of 0.2 percent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up a point at 1,667, or 0.08 percent. The Nasdaq composite was up two points at 3,498, or 0.05 percent.
Home Depot rose 2 percent, or $1.64, to $78.40 after the home improvement retailer reported an 18 percent increase in income for its first quarter as the housing market continued to recover.
JPMorgan rose 89 cents or 1.7 percent to $53.17. Shareholders are voting on a measure that would split the roles of chairman and CEO.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/indexes-edge-higher-wall-street-midday-trade-155914289.html
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Page Not Found - Yahoo!
Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! homepage or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services.
Please try Yahoo Help Central if you need more assistance.
Source: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/oddlyenough
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PSD Templates - Real Homes - Real Estate Theme | ThemeForest
Here we come with Clean and Minimal Real Estate theme with lots of options and pages.
PSD files Includes following pages
1. Homepage
2. Property Listing
3. Property Listing Grid View
4. Property Details
5. Agent Listing
6. Agent Details
7. About Us
8. Blog
9. Blog Post
10. Contact Us
11. Features
12. Grid
13. Gallery (3 variations)
Credits
Images ? Images used from Theme Forest Bundle for Demo Purpose only, & All are copyrighet to their respective owners.
Fonts ? Roboto, Lato (All are available on google web fonts ? www.google.com/webfonts)
Source: http://themeforest.net/item/real-homes-real-estate-theme/4760422
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Monday, May 20, 2013
Having a nighttime critical care physician in the ICU doesn't improve patient outcomes
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Public release date: 20-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Steve Graff
stephen.graff@uphs.upenn.edu
215-349-5653
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Penn Medicine study raises questions about added costs and physician resources
PHILADELPHIAWith little evidence to guide them, many hospital intensive care units (ICUs) have been employing critical care physicians at night with the notion it would improve patients' outcomes. However, new results from a one-year randomized trial from researchers at Penn Medicine involving nearly 1,600 patients admitted to the Hospital of the University Pennsylvania (HUP) Medical ICU suggest otherwise: Having a nighttime intensivist had no clear benefit on length of stay or mortality for these patients, not even patients admitted at night or those with the most critical illnesses at the time of admission.
The research will be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in Philadelphia May 20 by senior study author Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and published online the same day in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The findings raise a pertinent question in today's financially-conscious healthcare setting: Why invest financial resources to staff a nighttime intensivist if it's not improving patient outcomes?
"This is an important finding that affects a lot of stakeholders," said first author Meeta Prasad Kerlin, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Medicine in the division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Staffing an intensivist at night is probably quite costly, because the total billing will likely be at a higher rate, which could trickle down to the insurance provider or patient. There's also the operating cost associated with staffing that impacts hospitals."
"Based on these results, if an academic hospital's primary goal is to improve patient outcomes, then I don't think having an attending physician physically there overnight in a medical ICU is necessary," she added. "In fairness, this study doesn't tell us what might happen with nighttime intensivists in ICUs that aren't like Penn's."
Today, one third of academic hospitals in the U.S. and three quarters in Europe staff a nighttime physician in the ICU, despite a lack of clear evidence demonstrating its effectiveness. Previous studies on the topic lacked experimental designs and produced mixed results.
The medical ICU at HUP is a closed system, also called "high-intensity," where patients are cared for by designated intensivists during the day, as opposed to "low-intensity" systems, where patients are not routinely cared for by intensivists during the day. A multicenter study published last year found that among ICUs with low-intensity daytime staffing, those employing nighttime intensivist staffing had lower-risk adjusted mortality compared to those without it. However, this larger multicenter study in NEJM, also presented at this year's conference by Dr. Kerlin, refutes this finding, demonstrating no clear benefit with nighttime intensivist staffing in any type of ICU.
For this trial, at Penn Medicine's 24-bed high-acuity medical ICU at HUP, researchers compared nighttime staffing (7 pm to 7 am) with in-hospital intensivists plus the usual complement of medical residents to residents alone (control). During the control periods at night, daytime intensivists were available by phone. The team randomly assigned one-week blocks and staff to the control or intervention nighttime staffing model. They enrolled patients (1,598) admitted to the ICU during one year, from September 2011 to September 2012, and conducted in-hospital follow-up for an additional 90 days.
Nighttime intensivists, they found, had no effect on ICU length of stay, hospital length of stay, ICU or hospital mortality, ICU readmission among ICU survivors, or discharge to home. Surprisingly, patients admitted at night and those with the most severe illnesses at the time of admission also saw no benefit in outcomes.
"There's another way to look at these results," said Dr. Kerlin. "This tells me that residents and nurses are well qualified and completely competent to handle these patients. As long as nurses and residents have access to an on-call attending physician, then the patient will do as well as if the senior doctor was at their bedside."
Interestingly, the authors also found that residents believed nighttime intensivists improved their educational experience and provided desirable support for decision making. Given that, academic centers may wish to consider residents' perspectives in choosing to adopt or keep this model, the authors write.
However, because adoption of nighttime intensivist staffing by well-resourced hospitals may siphon intensivists away from less-resourced hospitals, the researchers call for further studies outside of academic medical centers.
###
Dylan S. Small, PhD, Elizabeth Cooney, MPH, Barry D. Fuchs, MD, MS, Lisa M. Bellini, MD, Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, William D. Schweickert, MD, Rita N. Bakhru, MD, Nicole B. Gabler, PhD, MHA, Michael O. Harhay, MPH, MBE, and John Hansen-Flaschen, MD, are co-authors on the study.
[ | 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: 20-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Steve Graff
stephen.graff@uphs.upenn.edu
215-349-5653
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Penn Medicine study raises questions about added costs and physician resources
PHILADELPHIAWith little evidence to guide them, many hospital intensive care units (ICUs) have been employing critical care physicians at night with the notion it would improve patients' outcomes. However, new results from a one-year randomized trial from researchers at Penn Medicine involving nearly 1,600 patients admitted to the Hospital of the University Pennsylvania (HUP) Medical ICU suggest otherwise: Having a nighttime intensivist had no clear benefit on length of stay or mortality for these patients, not even patients admitted at night or those with the most critical illnesses at the time of admission.
The research will be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in Philadelphia May 20 by senior study author Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and published online the same day in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The findings raise a pertinent question in today's financially-conscious healthcare setting: Why invest financial resources to staff a nighttime intensivist if it's not improving patient outcomes?
"This is an important finding that affects a lot of stakeholders," said first author Meeta Prasad Kerlin, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Medicine in the division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Staffing an intensivist at night is probably quite costly, because the total billing will likely be at a higher rate, which could trickle down to the insurance provider or patient. There's also the operating cost associated with staffing that impacts hospitals."
"Based on these results, if an academic hospital's primary goal is to improve patient outcomes, then I don't think having an attending physician physically there overnight in a medical ICU is necessary," she added. "In fairness, this study doesn't tell us what might happen with nighttime intensivists in ICUs that aren't like Penn's."
Today, one third of academic hospitals in the U.S. and three quarters in Europe staff a nighttime physician in the ICU, despite a lack of clear evidence demonstrating its effectiveness. Previous studies on the topic lacked experimental designs and produced mixed results.
The medical ICU at HUP is a closed system, also called "high-intensity," where patients are cared for by designated intensivists during the day, as opposed to "low-intensity" systems, where patients are not routinely cared for by intensivists during the day. A multicenter study published last year found that among ICUs with low-intensity daytime staffing, those employing nighttime intensivist staffing had lower-risk adjusted mortality compared to those without it. However, this larger multicenter study in NEJM, also presented at this year's conference by Dr. Kerlin, refutes this finding, demonstrating no clear benefit with nighttime intensivist staffing in any type of ICU.
For this trial, at Penn Medicine's 24-bed high-acuity medical ICU at HUP, researchers compared nighttime staffing (7 pm to 7 am) with in-hospital intensivists plus the usual complement of medical residents to residents alone (control). During the control periods at night, daytime intensivists were available by phone. The team randomly assigned one-week blocks and staff to the control or intervention nighttime staffing model. They enrolled patients (1,598) admitted to the ICU during one year, from September 2011 to September 2012, and conducted in-hospital follow-up for an additional 90 days.
Nighttime intensivists, they found, had no effect on ICU length of stay, hospital length of stay, ICU or hospital mortality, ICU readmission among ICU survivors, or discharge to home. Surprisingly, patients admitted at night and those with the most severe illnesses at the time of admission also saw no benefit in outcomes.
"There's another way to look at these results," said Dr. Kerlin. "This tells me that residents and nurses are well qualified and completely competent to handle these patients. As long as nurses and residents have access to an on-call attending physician, then the patient will do as well as if the senior doctor was at their bedside."
Interestingly, the authors also found that residents believed nighttime intensivists improved their educational experience and provided desirable support for decision making. Given that, academic centers may wish to consider residents' perspectives in choosing to adopt or keep this model, the authors write.
However, because adoption of nighttime intensivist staffing by well-resourced hospitals may siphon intensivists away from less-resourced hospitals, the researchers call for further studies outside of academic medical centers.
###
Dylan S. Small, PhD, Elizabeth Cooney, MPH, Barry D. Fuchs, MD, MS, Lisa M. Bellini, MD, Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, William D. Schweickert, MD, Rita N. Bakhru, MD, Nicole B. Gabler, PhD, MHA, Michael O. Harhay, MPH, MBE, and John Hansen-Flaschen, MD, are co-authors on the study.
[ | 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/uops-han051613.php
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