WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is casting himself as America's business pitchman.
Facing a sluggish economy, Obama on Thursday announced an expanded government role to draw foreign companies to the United States, arguing that the American workforce, cheaper energy costs and an improving economy make the U.S. an attractive home for investments.
"Officials at the highest levels, up to and including me, are going to do even more to make the case for investing in America," Obama told a summit of investors, business CEOs and state and local officials.
Obama said the goal is to make that outreach more efficient, making better use of the federal government to promote the U.S. overseas, a job that had previously been left primarily to states and cities, which had to compete against foreign countries to attract foreign investors.
Using a salesman's delivery, Obama told the SelectUSA 2013 Investment Summit: "So, to all the business leaders here today, and around the world, we want to be your partner in helping to write the next chapter in our history."
Obama singled out steps designed to improve the marketing of the United States:
—Attracting foreign investment will be a priority for U.S. ambassadors.
—Giving businesses a single point of contact within the federal government to cut through national, state and local red tape.
—Providing cities, states and regions with research and analysis to help them attract foreign investors.
A new White House economic report says foreign direct investments to the U.S. totaled $166 billion in 2012. The report says most of that investment comes from a small number of industrialized countries.
Obama said some U.S. based firms are bringing back some of their foreign-based operations, singling out Ford Motor Co. and Caterpillar Inc. among them.
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Dr. Conrad Murray listens to testimony seated near his attorney Nareg Gourjian, right, during Murray's trial in the death of pop star Michael Jackson, in Los Angeles. Murray, who was convicted in Jackson's death is suing the state of Texas for stripping his right to practice medicine, and his attorney said Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, that the cardiologist has former patients eager for him to work again.(AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool, File)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas doctor convicted in the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson is suing the state for stripping his right to practice medicine, and his attorney said Thursday that the cardiologist has former patients eager for him to work again.
Conrad Murray, who was released from a California jail this week after serving less than two years for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death, accuses the Texas Medical Board of prematurely revoking his license. Murray claims in his lawsuit filed in Austin that his 2011 conviction isn't final in California until his appeals are exhausted.
Murray states in an affidavit that he is more than $400,000 in debt and can't afford to pay court costs.
"Anybody who wants to work in this country ought to be able to have the right to do so. Dr. Murray is like everyone else, in that he needs to be able to do his line of work," said Charles Peckham, Murray's attorney.
Texas Medical Board spokesman Jarrett Schneider said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.
Murray was convicted of causing Jackson's death in June 2009 by providing him with the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. Jackson was in the midst of preparations for a series of comeback concerts and Murray was serving as his physician.
Murray filed the lawsuit Friday, three days before he was freed after serving half of a maximum four-year sentence.
Murray previously maintained clinics in Houston and Las Vegas. His medical license is currently suspended in California.
In court papers filed in Texas, Murray expresses concern that the revocation of his Texas license could give California reason to take the same action.
"The Texas Medical Board, in taking my license puts me in imminent harm of irreparable injury," Murray said in court papers.
Brian Panish, an attorney for the Jackson family, has said Murray should not have "a chance to hurt anyone else" by practicing medicine.
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
Results of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
New study evaluates outcomes of providing access to platelet function testing in a clinical setting
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a new study of heart attack patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), free access to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on anti-clotting drug selection and dosing. Findings of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
While previous trials have examined platelet function testing-guided antiplatelet treatment strategies among patients undergoing PCI, little is known regarding how this testing impacts real world practice. The TRANSLATE-POPS trial evaluated whether routine availability of platelet function testing alters clinician selection and dosing of anti-clotting therapy, as well as patient outcomes after acute myocardial infarction treated with PCI. The primary end point was the rate of in-hospital therapeutic adjustments to anti-clotting therapy.
The prospective, cluster randomized trial randomly assigned sites not already routinely testing platelet function (
A total of 2,013 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the device arm and 1,853 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the usual care arm. Platelet function testing was performed in 66 percent of patients in the device arm and 1.4 percent of patients in the usual care arm. Compared to the usual care arm, device arm patients were more likely to have an in-hospital therapeutic adjustment of their antiplatelet regimen (15.9 percent in the device arm vs. 11.6 percent in the usual care arm). The device arm had a higher rate of switching antiplatelet agents (14.5 percent vs. 10.6 percent). The odds ratio for therapeutic adjustment, accounting for clustering effect within a site, was 1.54 for device vs. usual care.
However, after 30 days, patients in the device arm experienced a similar percentage of major adverse cardiac events compared to the usual care arm (4.5 percent vs. 5.1 percent, respectively). Both groups reported a similar rate of bleeding events (4.2 percent in the device arm vs. 4.3 percent in the usual care arm).
"TRANSLATE-POPS demonstrated that accessibility to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on ADP receptor inhibitor selection and dosing," said lead investigator Tracy Wang MD, MHS, MS of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
"However, access to testing had no observed impact on early bleeding complications or major adverse cardiac events. An investigation of long-term outcomes is ongoing."
###
The TRANSLATE-POPS trial is funded by Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Wang reported research grants to the Duke Clinical Research Institute from Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline; and honoraria from AstraZeneca and the American College of Cardiology Foundation.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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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.
Results of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
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]
Share
Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
New study evaluates outcomes of providing access to platelet function testing in a clinical setting
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 According to a new study of heart attack patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), free access to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on anti-clotting drug selection and dosing. Findings of the TRANSLATE-POPS trial were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
While previous trials have examined platelet function testing-guided antiplatelet treatment strategies among patients undergoing PCI, little is known regarding how this testing impacts real world practice. The TRANSLATE-POPS trial evaluated whether routine availability of platelet function testing alters clinician selection and dosing of anti-clotting therapy, as well as patient outcomes after acute myocardial infarction treated with PCI. The primary end point was the rate of in-hospital therapeutic adjustments to anti-clotting therapy.
The prospective, cluster randomized trial randomly assigned sites not already routinely testing platelet function (
A total of 2,013 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the device arm and 1,853 patients at 50 sites were enrolled in the usual care arm. Platelet function testing was performed in 66 percent of patients in the device arm and 1.4 percent of patients in the usual care arm. Compared to the usual care arm, device arm patients were more likely to have an in-hospital therapeutic adjustment of their antiplatelet regimen (15.9 percent in the device arm vs. 11.6 percent in the usual care arm). The device arm had a higher rate of switching antiplatelet agents (14.5 percent vs. 10.6 percent). The odds ratio for therapeutic adjustment, accounting for clustering effect within a site, was 1.54 for device vs. usual care.
However, after 30 days, patients in the device arm experienced a similar percentage of major adverse cardiac events compared to the usual care arm (4.5 percent vs. 5.1 percent, respectively). Both groups reported a similar rate of bleeding events (4.2 percent in the device arm vs. 4.3 percent in the usual care arm).
"TRANSLATE-POPS demonstrated that accessibility to platelet function testing had only a modest impact on ADP receptor inhibitor selection and dosing," said lead investigator Tracy Wang MD, MHS, MS of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
"However, access to testing had no observed impact on early bleeding complications or major adverse cardiac events. An investigation of long-term outcomes is ongoing."
###
The TRANSLATE-POPS trial is funded by Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Wang reported research grants to the Duke Clinical Research Institute from Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline; and honoraria from AstraZeneca and the American College of Cardiology Foundation.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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Share
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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.
In less than 24 hours, the first UK iPad Air customers will be walking out of stores across the land with their new hotness, but for those looking for something a little more subsidized, Three might have you covered. Leaving it almost as late as possible, the carrier has announced pricing for the iPad Air and associated data plans. If you're going subsidized, then you're looking at dropping at least £119 up front.
For that, you'll get a 16GB WiFi + Cellular iPad Air with 15GB of data per month for two-years, at a monthly rate of £29. Pay £179 up front for the same iPad Air and you'll drop the monthly cost down to £25. Prices monthly remain the same and with 15GB of data for the 32GB and 64GB models, but prices up front then start from £219 and £289 respectively. And of course, these prices will include 4G LTE when Three launches it sometime in December.
If you're OK with buying your iPad Air outright – either from Apple or from Three – then you're open to a pretty good 10GB 1-month rolling contract for just £15 per month. The iPad Air will go on sale both online and in-stores at Three tomorrow, November 1. The iPad mini with Retina Display will follow later in November, though when is still anybodies guess. We'll update with pricing as and when we learn more. So, anyone buying this way?
London-based duo Dentaku have made digital instruments out of beer bottles, text messages, and color-sensing robots. But, for their latest trick, Yuri Suzuki and Mark McKeague want to let you make music. Meet Ototo, a tiny synthesizer that lets you make almost anything—from oranges to origami—into an instrument.
Google showed off its new Android version 4.4 (or KitKat) operating system, running on a new flagship phone, the Nexus 5. Google uses its Nexus line to show off its new operating systems, and the device and OS are reflections ...
In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, Saw Min lies still on a bed with weights on her eye after receiving local anesthesia ahead of a cataract operation at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Saw Min waited with hundreds of Myanmar's poorest villagers to be prepped for the simple, free surgery she hopes will restore her sight. My heart is racing," said the 38-year-old mother of five, who lost all vision in her left eye one year ago and, in the months that followed, all but 20 percent in her right. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, Saw Min lies still on a bed with weights on her eye after receiving local anesthesia ahead of a cataract operation at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Saw Min waited with hundreds of Myanmar's poorest villagers to be prepped for the simple, free surgery she hopes will restore her sight. My heart is racing," said the 38-year-old mother of five, who lost all vision in her left eye one year ago and, in the months that followed, all but 20 percent in her right. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, a patient with an eye patch rests inside a makeshift mosquito-net at a Buddhist monastery following a simple operation to remove a cataract in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an “assembly line” surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, patients receive assistance after undergoing cataract surgeries at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Accurate statistics concerning public health are difficult to come by in Myanmar, which only opened up to the outside world two years ago. The World Health Organization puts blindness prevalence rates at under 1 percent, high for the region in Myanmar, but one outside survey showed it peaking at 8.1 percent in some rural areas. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Oct. 23, 2013 photo, Buddhist monks with eye patches exit a room in a Buddhist shrine following simple operations to remove cataracts in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an “assembly line” surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, a woman suffering from blindness has tears dripping from her eye as she waits to enter an operation room to follow a simple surgical procedure to remove cataracts at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions, a technique pioneered by Nepalese master surgeon Sandut Ruit. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
BAGON, Myanmar (AP) — Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with a particularly high rate of blindness. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks in part to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions.
Nepalese surgeon Sandut Ruit, who helped pioneer the technique, oversaw nearly 1,300 operations at two massive eye camps in 10 days in October, with dozens of local ophthalmologists looking on and helping.
Despite improvements over the last two decades, the vast majority still use a microincision surgical technique that requires two sutures. Doctors were confident the no-stitch procedure — cheap, easy to learn and taking as little as five minutes — would catch on quickly.
"This is a turning point in our cataract history," said Dr. Tin Win, the chief of Yangon Eye Hospital. He said his goal is to have all 60 eye centers in the nation of 60 million using the procedure by the end of next year. He says he will pass on the information to all doctors, together with training manuals and videos, at a nationwide eye conference in early November.
"If we succeed, we can double our cataract surgical rate," he said. "We can start getting rid of our cataract backlog."
Several organizations focused on preventing blindness have focused on Myanmar as a country in particular need of help. A 2005 survey conducted by the South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology in the rural Meiktila district of central Myanmar found that 8.1 percent of the population there was blind.
Ruit, who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps, was working in Myanmar for the first time.
He and his team were initially scheduled to perform 1,000 surgeries, but added nearly 300 patients due to the overwhelming response by potential candidates.
After the operation, some patients expressed hope they would be able to work again. Others were eager to see the faces of their children and grandchildren.
Rory Mcllory of Northern Ireland plays on the 8th fairway during the first round of the HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. McIlroy looked more like a two-time major champion Thursday when he opened with a 7-under 65 to build a two-shot lead in HSBC Champions. McIlroy was at his best around the turn when he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Rory Mcllory of Northern Ireland plays on the 8th fairway during the first round of the HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. McIlroy looked more like a two-time major champion Thursday when he opened with a 7-under 65 to build a two-shot lead in HSBC Champions. McIlroy was at his best around the turn when he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Rory Mcllory of Northern Ireland hits out of a bunker on the 8th hole during the first round of the HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. McIlroy looked more like a two-time major champion Thursday when he opened with a 7-under 65 to build a two-shot lead in HSBC Champions. McIlroy was at his best around the turn when he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Rory Mcllory of Northern Ireland tees off the 8th hole during the first round of the HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. McIlroy looked more like a two-time major champion Thursday when he opened with a 7-under 65 to build a two-shot lead in HSBC Champions. McIlroy was at his best around the turn when he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Martin Kaymer of Germany chips onto the 9th hole during the first round of the Shanghai HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. (AP Photo)
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano of Spain kisses his ball on the 9th hole during the first round of the Shanghai HSBC Champions golf tournament at the Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. (AP Photo)
SHANGHAI (AP) — The graceful combination of power and balance. The bounce in his step after every birdie. His name at the top of the leaderboard. For at least one round, Rory McIlroy finally looked like the former No. 1 player in the world instead of a guy who hasn't won a tournament all year.
With eight birdies and hardly any stress, McIlroy opened the HSBC Champions on Thursday with a 7-under 65 for a two-shot lead over Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and Jamie Donaldson. It was the first time since he won in Dubai last November that McIlroy has been in the outright lead after any round.
"It felt good to be out there and in control of my golf ball," McIlroy said.
Maybe it was just a coincidence that McIlroy's only win of any variety was earlier this week at Mission Hills when he rallied to beat Tiger Woods in an 18-hole exhibition. That didn't hurt his confidence, though the 24-year-old from Northern Ireland pointed to other factors that have been leading him in this direction.
He took a four-week break, spending most of that time in Northern Ireland with swing coach Michael Bannon and "getting back to what we used to do." He has a new driver and a golf ball that is softer, giving him more spin around the greens.
And perhaps most importantly, he hasn't lost his mind or his patience during the most difficult season of his young career.
"It's obviously frustrating when you've had a couple of seasons previous where you've had success, and not being able to emulate that," he said. "The way I look at it, if I have a 25-year career, nine months isn't actually that long. I wouldn't say 'restless,' but obviously there's a point in time where you're thinking to yourself, 'Right, come on, let's get this back on track.' But I've tried to stay as patient as possible."
More patience is required against a strong field at Sheshan International for this World Golf Championship.
Fernandez-Castano is coming off his first win of the year last week at the BMW Masters. The group at 4-under 68 included U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, former Masters champion Bubba Watson and 20-year-old Jordan Spieth, playing as though last season never ended. Another shot behind were Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey and Graeme McDowell, who remains second on the European Tour money list with hopes of catching Henrik Stenson.
The timing was crucial for McIlroy.
Not only has he failed to win a tournament, he is at No. 62 in the Race to Dubai with only two tournaments remaining to get into the top 60 and qualify for the season-ending World Tour Championship in Dubai. McIlroy won the money title a year ago.
"It's only 18 holes. It's only one round of golf," McIlroy said. "But it's definitely the way I wanted and needed to start, keeping in mind that I obviously want to play myself into Dubai and try to pick up my first win of the season, as well."
British Open champion Phil Mickelson had a chance to join McIlroy in the lead until it all went wrong. One shot behind with two holes to play, Mickelson hit two wedges into the water fronting the par-5 eighth green and took a quadruple-bogey 9. His second wedge landed some 30 feet beyond the pin and had so much spin that it raced off the green and down the bank into the water.
He hit another shot into the water on No. 9, and followed that with a brave shot to 2 feet to escape with only a bogey. He fell back to a 71.
Spieth, who went from no status at the start of the year to a spot in the Presidents Cup and No. 20 in the world, didn't arrive until Monday and has been battling jet lag this week after his first trip to China. He was 2-over through eight holes, and then played 6-under the rest of the way, as if last season never ended.
"I didn't really know what to expect out of the game this week, traveling over here and limited practice," he said. "But maybe it was good for me. My caddie helped me stay calm and stay positive, and once the putts started going in, we were just in our normal routine."
But this day ultimately was about McIlroy.
McIlroy hit a 3-wood just over the back of the par-4 16th hole and chipped to 3 feet for birdie. His 3-iron from light rough was about 20 yards short of the green on the par-5 18th, and he chipped to 5 feet for birdie. And on the par-5 second hole, another 3-iron from the rough left him 30 yards short, and he pitched that to 6 feet for birdie. The other birdie during that stretch was on No. 1, his only tee shot off line. From the rough, his 9-iron from 160 yards covered the flag and settled about 7 feet away.
"It's just learning from each week and just trying to put the pieces together," McIlroy said. "A little bit of confidence from Monday, of course, but I think it was these two previous weeks just getting back into competitive play and learning what I needed to do to improve and sort of work on those things coming into this week."
NEW YORK (AP) — In her teenage dream? Mick Jagger says he never hit on Katy Perry when she was 18.
During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Jagger's 2004 song "Old Habits Die Hard." Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that "he hit on me when I was 18."
In a statement Thursday, a representative for Jagger says he "categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry." The rep adds: "Perhaps she is confusing him with someone else."
Perry was one of the singers to make a guest appearance on the Rolling Stones' tour this year. The 29-year-old singer also said in the interview that the 70-year-old Jagger has been "very kind" to her.
POLACCA, Ariz. (AP) — The group of boys head out toward the mesa, setting their feet upon dirt trails lined with scrub brush and corn fields. It's the same earth that their Hopi ancestors would tread as they ran in prayer for rain, prosperity and all of mankind.
For these boys, the drive is as much about the competitive spirit as the enduring spirit of their culture.
Hopi High School, where they are students, has earned 23 state cross-country titles in a row, and according to its coach, is one of three schools in the country to earn a perfect score at a state meet.
No high school in the nation is as dominant when it comes to winning consecutive championships, and the team wants to make sure the streak continues.
"We have a lot of pressure at every race," said junior Kelan Poleahla. "Everyone wants to beat us. Our job is to not let that happen."
Running is deeply rooted in the northern Arizona tribe's tradition as a way to carry messages from village to village and bless the reservation that gets little moisture with rain. Tribal members regularly challenge each other to footraces on the trails considered the veins of the villages, and running is prominent in ceremonies.
The boys on the team draw from that tradition and a desire to remain champions, as the school has done since shortly after it opened in 1987 to keep Hopis rooted in their culture and attending classes on their own land.
The team is led by coach Rick Baker, a high school and college runner known as "The Legend." His program encourages students to rack up 500 to 1,000 miles in the summer. During the cross-country season, the team meets for at least one early morning practice and daily afternoon practices during the school week, with a long run on Sundays.
Baker insists there's nothing special about his coaching. He simply wants athletes who believe in themselves and the school, and who are disciplined and dedicated.
The girls team also brings pride to the small, remote reservation with 21 championships, making them fifth in the nation for most state titles, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. They're shooting for a seventh consecutive championship this year.
"It's not just going to be an easy go in and win kind of thing," said girls coach LaVerne Lomakema. "We're going to have some competition, a lot of competition."
Crowds of Hopi fans make the more than four-hour drive to watch both teams during the state tournament, shouting a Hopi phrase that pushes the teams to dig deeper and run with passion — nahongvita.
The boys team became so confident in its ability to win at one point that championship T-shirts were printed ahead of the state meet and handed out to the runners on the winners' stage. The team acknowledged it was bad form and stopped.
In the Hopi's story of running glory, there is inspiration that comes from a Hopi man who competed at the 1908 Olympics and earned a silver medal in 1912. The federal government shipped Louis Tewanima off to boarding school, and he rose to become one of Indian Country's most famous athletes, along with fellow Carlisle Indian Industrial School classmate Jim Thorpe. Tewanima's American record in the 10,000 meter race stood for more than 55 years before being broken by Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota.
Even though Tewanima was a celebrated athlete, he knew others on the Hopi reservation could beat him. When he returned home, Tewanima quit a 12-mile footrace he initiated against two men in their fifties at Second Mesa because they were so far ahead at the halfway point, Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert writes in an article about Tewanima and the continuity of Hopi running.
Despite Hopi High School's successes in cross-country, few of the runners have taken their skills to the collegiate level. Juwan Nuvayokva, who holds the top five times for the school in cross-country, is one of them and now serves as an assistant to Baker.
After being pushed onto the team by his mother, who was concerned he would otherwise get in trouble, Nuvayokva became a high school state champion and an All-American at Northern Arizona University. The difficulty he sees in getting other runners to strive for college is a focus on the reservation on immediate, not future, plans.
Instead of talking about college applications, he says the conversation around Hopi dinner tables focuses more on ceremonies, going to the kiva and tending to the fields. When he was approached by the cross-country coach at NAU, Nuvayokva had no idea what Ron Mann meant when he said Nuvayokva was Division I material.
"I think it was a gamble he was taking because I'm Native American, and we're known for not finishing what we start," Nuvayokva said.
Coaches from other schools see the cultural tie with Hopis and running. The elevation of the mesas on the Hopi reservation that rise thousands of feet above the surrounding desert doesn't hurt for training grounds either. The Hopi culture calls for tribal members to rise before dawn to run and in ceremonies to deliver prayers to fields and shrines on the reservation.
The school's major competitors in Division 4, made up of the school's that are least populated, have been Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff and Pusch Ridge Christian Academy in Tucson. For a brief time when Hopi moved up a division, Northland Prep was the state champion in the lower division but that changed when Hopi rejoined that division.
Northland Prep's boys coach at the time, Mike Elder, thought there was a good chance the school where he now serves as athletic director could beat Hopi in 2011. He was disappointed.
"It wasn't that anybody ran badly," he said. "It was just that Hopi ran better."
While Hopi tops the state's smallest division, it ranked 16th at an early October meet in Arizona that pitted the 27 best cross country teams in the state and some out-of-state teams against each other regardless of size. Two schools with predominantly Native American populations — Page and Tuba City — were among the top five.
This regional cross-country meets start Friday, and the state cross-country meet is scheduled for Nov. 9 in Cave Creek. Baker will take his seven best runners to state if the team qualifies. Only then will he stress what they've had on their minds all season long.
"The pressure is on the present team. You don't want to be the team that breaks the streak," he says. "There's a lot of tradition riding on this."
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Follow Felicia Fonseca on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FonsecaAP
___
Online: Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert's blog: beyondthemesas.com
Demi and Ash are finally, officially, legally ready to move on. Nearly two years after the Hollywood super couple's very bitter split, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are ready to finalize their divorce; according to the New York Post's Page Six, Moore, 51, and Kutcher, 35, have already signed paperwork and are set to file the documents next week.
After six years of marriage, Moore and Kutcher announced their separation in November 2011 on the heels of Kutcher's stunning San Diego hotel romp with a young, blonde local, Sara Leal. As Moore unraveled in early 2012 -- briefly entering a rehab facility following a breakdown -- Kutcher rebounded with Mila Kunis, his That '70s Show costar. The pair are closer than ever. Moore has recently been romantically connected to Australian pearl diver Will Hanigan, 30.
Why so long to finalize the split, then? "There had been lengthy negotiations between lawyers for both sides about the financial settlement — in particular, how much he owed her from their marriage," one source is quoted as saying in Page Six. Moore was once one of Hollywood's highest paid actresses, while Kutcher is now the highest-paid actor on television, thanks to his role on Two and a Half Men, and is also a successful tech entrepreneur.
The forecast doesn't make it sound as severe as the storm that dumped a couple feet of snow on the northern Rockies and some Plains states earlier this month, but the National Weather Service is warning that people in those regions should be ready for a strong winter storm system in coming days.
Or, as The Weather Channel says, there's going to be a "Halloween week snowstorm." Already, it reports, "snow is spreading or will spread into the interior Northwest, northern Rockies, adjacent High Plains and parts of the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada."
The channel adds that:
"The heaviest accumulations over the next 48 hours should occur in parts of western and central Montana and the mountains of northern Wyoming. Some moderate accumulations are also expected in western South Dakota."
Racing sperm to boost results of in vitro fertilization
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Michael Cohen mcohen@wpi.edu 508-868-4778 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital receive National Science Foundation grant to develop new device that identifies healthy sperm cells, potentially helping couples conceive
Worcester, Mass. The World Health Organization estimates more than 70 million couples worldwide are unable to conceive each year, with close to a third of those cases attributable solely to issues with male fertilityincluding low sperm count and low sperm motility (a limited ability to swim). Now, with recently published data showing encouraging results, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to refine a new device that races sperm through a microscopic obstacle course to select those most likely to successfully fertilize an egg.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most widely used assisted reproductive technology and can help overcome problems with male fertility. Its potential for success is significantly enhanced when sperm can be sorted so only the healthiest calls and the best swimmers are used. Unfortunately, current clinical techniques for sorting sperm are inefficient or are likely to damage sperm DNA.
To solve this sorting problem, a new approach has been developed that uses advanced mathematical models and high-powered computer simulations to analyze and predict how sperm swim under varying conditions. The approach is the product of a novel research collaboration between Erkan Tzel, PhD, assistant professor of physics at WPI, and Utkan Demirci, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Divisions of Biomedical Engineering and Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Demirci's lab is developing microfluidics (small devices sometimes referred to as "lab on a chip") to test new ways to sort sperm. Tzel and his team use the physics of fluid dynamics and customized algorithms to model how sperm cells move through narrow channels. Funded by a new three-year, $293,000 grant from the NSF, Tzel will use simulations to optimize the design of the sperm-sorting chip. As the simulations and computer modeling progress, Demirci's lab will build and test new microfluidic chips based on Tzel's refinements.
"We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for this grant," Tzel said. "With our collaborators, we hope to be able to build on our research to develop clever microfluidic designs that will be even more effective in sorting sperm and improving the success of assisted reproductive technologies."
Demerici added, "the NSF has supported a true interdisciplinary effort at the convergence of medicine and fluid dynamics addressing a significant reproductive medicine challenge by a new type of thinking for sorting cells."
There are now two standard techniques used to separate out the most motile sperm. One is called the swim-up technique, in which sperm swim from a droplet of liquid into a denser layer of media; the cells reaching the denser layer most quickly are recovered and used for IVF. In the other technique, known as density gradient separation, a sperm sample is placed in a tube filled with layers of liquid of different densities. When the tube is spun in a centrifuge, the strongest swimming sperm are able to cross into the denser liquids.
Neither of these methods is particularly effective at dealing with low sperm counts or low sperm motility; in addition, the density gradient technique is known to cause damage to sperm DNA. Also, both techniques use chemical agents that may damage cells. So Tzel and Demirci have taken a different approach.
The microfluidic device they are collaborating on uses no chemicals or centrifugation. It relies only on the cells' own ability to move through channels. Within the female reproductive tract, sperm swim through a variable fluidic environment with watery micro-channels that help guide them to the egg. In the new device, sperm are placed at one end of a narrow channel and allowed to swim toward the other end. After a set period of time (called the incubation period), the sperm that have made it to the finish line are removed from the channel's end. The idea is to mimic what happens naturally.
In May, Tzel and Demirci reported results of initial studies in the paper "Exhaustion of Racing Sperm in Nature Mimicking Microfluidic Channels During Sorting" published in the journal Small. This work combined mathematical modeling and the actual results of human and mouse sperm cells tested in a prototype of the microfluidic chip. The team found that the microfluidic channels yielded sperm with significantly higher motility and produced samples with a greater concentration of highly motile sperm than either the swim-up or density gradient techniques. This study showed the potential for developing a new technique for sorting sperm that could effectively, reliably, and safely separate out the most active swimmers. The coarse-grained model Tzel's group built accurately recapitulated experimental results, and made predictions on the exhaustion time.
"To obtain quantitative agreement with experiments, our simulations predicted an exhaustion time of about 30 minutes for mouse sperm, whereas for human sperm the exhaustion time is more than an hour," Tzel said. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate exhaustion time of sperm using modeling coupled to microfluidics experiments."
Next, Tzel's group will refine the model of sperm locomotion to produce a more realistic simulation, and model differing designs of the microfluidic channels to improve the yield of healthy and motile sperm. "We know, for example, that through hydrodynamic interactions, sperm synchronize their movements to swim more efficiently," Tzel said. "And we are starting to understand more about how the presence of walls can impact the speed at which multiple sperm move. But we are in need of novel, efficient approaches to model complex interactions between groups of swimming sperm, and how they interact with their surroundings. That is our focus through the new grant."
###
About Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation's first engineering and technology universities. Its 14 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. WPI's talented faculty work with students on interdisciplinary research that seeks solutions to important and socially relevant problems in fields as diverse as the life sciences and bioengineering, energy, information security, materials processing, and robotics. Students also have the opportunity to make a difference to communities and organizations around the world through the university's innovative Global Perspective Program. There are more than 35 WPI project centers throughout North America and Central America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
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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.
Racing sperm to boost results of in vitro fertilization
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Michael Cohen mcohen@wpi.edu 508-868-4778 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital receive National Science Foundation grant to develop new device that identifies healthy sperm cells, potentially helping couples conceive
Worcester, Mass. The World Health Organization estimates more than 70 million couples worldwide are unable to conceive each year, with close to a third of those cases attributable solely to issues with male fertilityincluding low sperm count and low sperm motility (a limited ability to swim). Now, with recently published data showing encouraging results, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to refine a new device that races sperm through a microscopic obstacle course to select those most likely to successfully fertilize an egg.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most widely used assisted reproductive technology and can help overcome problems with male fertility. Its potential for success is significantly enhanced when sperm can be sorted so only the healthiest calls and the best swimmers are used. Unfortunately, current clinical techniques for sorting sperm are inefficient or are likely to damage sperm DNA.
To solve this sorting problem, a new approach has been developed that uses advanced mathematical models and high-powered computer simulations to analyze and predict how sperm swim under varying conditions. The approach is the product of a novel research collaboration between Erkan Tzel, PhD, assistant professor of physics at WPI, and Utkan Demirci, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Divisions of Biomedical Engineering and Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Demirci's lab is developing microfluidics (small devices sometimes referred to as "lab on a chip") to test new ways to sort sperm. Tzel and his team use the physics of fluid dynamics and customized algorithms to model how sperm cells move through narrow channels. Funded by a new three-year, $293,000 grant from the NSF, Tzel will use simulations to optimize the design of the sperm-sorting chip. As the simulations and computer modeling progress, Demirci's lab will build and test new microfluidic chips based on Tzel's refinements.
"We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for this grant," Tzel said. "With our collaborators, we hope to be able to build on our research to develop clever microfluidic designs that will be even more effective in sorting sperm and improving the success of assisted reproductive technologies."
Demerici added, "the NSF has supported a true interdisciplinary effort at the convergence of medicine and fluid dynamics addressing a significant reproductive medicine challenge by a new type of thinking for sorting cells."
There are now two standard techniques used to separate out the most motile sperm. One is called the swim-up technique, in which sperm swim from a droplet of liquid into a denser layer of media; the cells reaching the denser layer most quickly are recovered and used for IVF. In the other technique, known as density gradient separation, a sperm sample is placed in a tube filled with layers of liquid of different densities. When the tube is spun in a centrifuge, the strongest swimming sperm are able to cross into the denser liquids.
Neither of these methods is particularly effective at dealing with low sperm counts or low sperm motility; in addition, the density gradient technique is known to cause damage to sperm DNA. Also, both techniques use chemical agents that may damage cells. So Tzel and Demirci have taken a different approach.
The microfluidic device they are collaborating on uses no chemicals or centrifugation. It relies only on the cells' own ability to move through channels. Within the female reproductive tract, sperm swim through a variable fluidic environment with watery micro-channels that help guide them to the egg. In the new device, sperm are placed at one end of a narrow channel and allowed to swim toward the other end. After a set period of time (called the incubation period), the sperm that have made it to the finish line are removed from the channel's end. The idea is to mimic what happens naturally.
In May, Tzel and Demirci reported results of initial studies in the paper "Exhaustion of Racing Sperm in Nature Mimicking Microfluidic Channels During Sorting" published in the journal Small. This work combined mathematical modeling and the actual results of human and mouse sperm cells tested in a prototype of the microfluidic chip. The team found that the microfluidic channels yielded sperm with significantly higher motility and produced samples with a greater concentration of highly motile sperm than either the swim-up or density gradient techniques. This study showed the potential for developing a new technique for sorting sperm that could effectively, reliably, and safely separate out the most active swimmers. The coarse-grained model Tzel's group built accurately recapitulated experimental results, and made predictions on the exhaustion time.
"To obtain quantitative agreement with experiments, our simulations predicted an exhaustion time of about 30 minutes for mouse sperm, whereas for human sperm the exhaustion time is more than an hour," Tzel said. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate exhaustion time of sperm using modeling coupled to microfluidics experiments."
Next, Tzel's group will refine the model of sperm locomotion to produce a more realistic simulation, and model differing designs of the microfluidic channels to improve the yield of healthy and motile sperm. "We know, for example, that through hydrodynamic interactions, sperm synchronize their movements to swim more efficiently," Tzel said. "And we are starting to understand more about how the presence of walls can impact the speed at which multiple sperm move. But we are in need of novel, efficient approaches to model complex interactions between groups of swimming sperm, and how they interact with their surroundings. That is our focus through the new grant."
###
About Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation's first engineering and technology universities. Its 14 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. WPI's talented faculty work with students on interdisciplinary research that seeks solutions to important and socially relevant problems in fields as diverse as the life sciences and bioengineering, energy, information security, materials processing, and robotics. Students also have the opportunity to make a difference to communities and organizations around the world through the university's innovative Global Perspective Program. There are more than 35 WPI project centers throughout North America and Central America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
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| 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.
In this Oct. 29, 2013 photo, physicist Dan McKinsey of Yale University explains an experiment being conducted deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D., to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter. In an announcement released Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, scientists at the Sanford Underground Research Facility say they found absolutely no evidence of dark matter in what is the most technologically advanced Earth-based search for the material that has mass but cannot be seen. They’ll keep looking for another year, but scientists were not optimistic about finding dark matter with the current setup and are already planning to build a more sensitive experiment on the site. (AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker)
In this Oct. 29, 2013 photo, physicist Dan McKinsey of Yale University explains an experiment being conducted deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D., to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter. In an announcement released Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, scientists at the Sanford Underground Research Facility say they found absolutely no evidence of dark matter in what is the most technologically advanced Earth-based search for the material that has mass but cannot be seen. They’ll keep looking for another year, but scientists were not optimistic about finding dark matter with the current setup and are already planning to build a more sensitive experiment on the site. (AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker)
In this Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013 photo, is monitoring equipment at the Large Underground Xenon Experiment at Sanford Underground Research Facility deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D. Scientists in the experiment to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter announced Wednesday the experiment found absolutely no evidence of dark matter in what is the most technologically advanced Earth-based search for the material that has mass but cannot be seen. They’ll keep looking for another year, but scientists were not optimistic about finding dark matter with the current setup and are already planning to build a more sensitive experiment on the site. (AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker)
In this Oct. 29, 2013 photo, a 6-foot-tall titanium tank is filled with almost a third of a ton of liquid xenon at the Large Underground Xenon Experiment at Sanford Underground Research Facility deep in an abandoned gold mine in Lead, S.D. Scientists in the experiment to search for elusive and mysterious dark matter announced Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, the experiment found absolutely no evidence of dark matter in what is the most technologically advanced Earth-based search for the material that has mass but cannot be seen. They’ll keep looking for another year, but scientists were not optimistic about finding dark matter with the current setup and are already planning to build a more sensitive experiment on the site. (AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker)
LEAD, S.D. (AP) — Nearly a mile underground in an abandoned gold mine, one of the most important quests in physics has so far come up empty in the search for the elusive substance known as dark matter, scientists announced Wednesday.
But physicists on the project were upbeat, saying they had developed a new, more sensitive method of searching for the mysterious material that has mass but cannot be seen. They planned to keep looking.
"This is just the opening salvo," said Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, a scientist working on the Large Underground Xenon experiment, or LUX, the most advanced Earth-based search for dark matter. A detector attached to the International Space Station has so far failed to find any dark matter either.
The researchers released their initial findings Wednesday after the experiment's first few months at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, which was built in the former Homestake gold mine in South Dakota's Black Hills.
With more than 4,800 feet of earth helping screen out background radiation, scientists tried to trap dark matter, which they hoped would be revealed in the form of weakly interacting massive particles, nicknamed WIMPS. The search, using the most sensitive equipment in the world, is looking for the light fingerprint of a WIMP bouncing off an atomic nucleus of xenon cooled to minus 150 degrees.
But nothing has been found. The team will continue looking for another year and plans to build a more sensitive experiment on the site, using a bigger tank of xenon. Scientists involved in the experiment said it had eliminated some theoretical candidates for dark matter, and there are many more theoretical models to search for.
"The short story is that we didn't see dark matter interacting, but we had the most sensitive search for dark matter ever performed in the world," said Daniel McKinsey, a physicist at Yale University.
The LUX experiment was 20 times more sensitive than any previous experiments, scientists said. The proposed next experiment would be 1,000 times more sensitive still.
The lab, in a bright, clean space at the end of an old mining tunnel filled with pipes and electric cables, is reached by a 10-minute ride in an elevator that once carried miners. Gaitskell and McKinsey said the experiment has far less radiation interference from cosmic rays than any other dark-matter lab.
Essentially, scientists are searching for something they are fairly sure exists and is crucial to the entire universe. But they do not know what it looks like or where to find it. And they are not sure if it is a bunch of light particles that weakly interact or if it is more like a black hole.
"It's ghost-like matter," McKinsey said.
Researchers "are really searching in the dark in a way," said Harvard University physicist Avi Loeb, who is not part of the LUX team. "We have no clue. We don't know what this matter is."
Even more so than the recently discovered Higgs boson, dark matter is central to the universe.
About one-quarter of the cosmos is comprised of dark matter — five times that of the ordinary matter that makes up everything we see. Dark matter is often defined by what it isn't: something that can be seen and something that is energy.
Scientists are pretty sure dark matter exists, but they are not certain what it is made of or how it interacts with ordinary matter. It is considered vital to all the scientific theories explaining how the universe is expanding and how galaxies move and interact.
"We know there's stuff out there that is something else, and that makes these searches hugely important because we know we are missing most of the universe," said Neal Weiner, director of the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at New York University, who was not part of the search.
The lack of success could mean the instruments are inadequate, Gaitskell and McKinsey said.
Or, considering the lack of knowledge about what dark matter really is, "perhaps we're going in the wrong direction," Loeb said.
___
Borenstein reported from Washington. He can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears .
Chet Brokaw can be followed at http://twitter.com/ChetBrokaw .
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