He's had his fair share of drama dealing with the custody battle of his little girl, and now it appears Pauly D's baby mama Amanda Markert is finally reaching out to him.
On Wednesday (October 30), Amanda took to her Twitter account to tweet the "Jersey Store" star about their daughter Amabella.
"This is getting out of hand, you've had my number since day 1. Come bond with her any day, any time you and your family want," Miss Markert shared.
This online offering surfaced a week after meeting with lawyers to discuss a custody agreement between the DJ and his former fling.
During a recent interview, the 33-year-old revealed his nerves and excitement about becoming a dad, touching on his relationship with Amanda. "It's for the baby, and it could be best to have the original mother, and I'm obviously the father, so I want to take care of the baby."
He continued, "I want to give the baby the best life she ever had, and when I see the pictures.. she's the first girl to ever steal my heart. She's adorable, I love her and I cannot wait."
Also discussing the situation between he and Amanda, Pauly states that they are in "a custody battle, so I want to see the baby as much as I can, so I don't know how that works my first time, but I want my baby, so we'll see what happens. It's in the lawyers' hands now."
In regards to Miss Markert's intentions, the reality star admits that he believes 100 percent that she's only out for her 15 minutes of fame.
NEW YORK (AP) — A noxious feline odor has some Dell customers caterwauling.
People who own Dell Latitude 6430u laptops are complaining that their pricey new computers are emitting a smell similar to cat urine. Some of them said on the company's online customer forums that the odor seems to be coming from the keyboard or palm rest.
The Round Rock, Texas, company originally advised buyers through its forums to try cleaning their keyboards with a soft cloth or compressed air, but the smell persisted.
"The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcat's litter box," wrote a customer using the handle "three west" on a Dell forum back in June. "It is truly awful!"
On Wednesday, another customer writing under the handle "passflips" said he felt terrible for repeatedly scolding his cat Jerry, because he thought the elderly cat kept spraying the computer. The poster also said he wasted money on veterinarian bills in an attempt to determine whether his cat had a medical problem.
Dell said Thursday that its investigation revealed strange scent is related to a manufacturing process, which the company has since fixed. But if your portable PC isn't purrfect, Dell recommends contacting the company's technical support team to have your laptop's palm rest assembly replaced.
Company spokesman David Frink said the odor isn't related to a "biological contamination" and doesn't present a health hazard. He added that newly assembled laptops that are currently in stores aren't affected.
The laptops in question are ultrabooks designed for business use. The base model starts at $900 on Dell's website, but Dell charges close to $1,300 for higher-end versions that include Windows 8 and Intel Core i5 processors.
While laptop users may find the smell of cat urine offensive, "cat's pee" is a term sometimes used by wine lovers to describe a wine's aroma.
And while the smell coming from the Dell computers is apparently unintentional, more than one group of engineers is working on "Smell-o-Vision" TV to engage viewers' olfactory senses. In addition, a host of recent smartphone add-ons make scents, too, including the Scentee, a Japanese smartphone attachment that plugs into a phone's earphone jack and dispenses scented vapors through dedicated cartridges.
Geoengineering the climate could reduce vital rains
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Simone Tilmes
tilmes@ucar.edu
303-497-1445
NCAR
John Fasullo
fasullo@ucar.edu
303-497-1712
NCAR
BOULDERAlthough a significant build-up in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would alter worldwide precipitation patterns, a widely discussed technological approach to reduce future global warming would also interfere with rainfall and snowfall, new research shows.
The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), finds that global warming caused by a massive increase in greenhouse gases would spur a nearly 7 percent average increase in precipitation compared to preindustrial conditions.
But trying to resolve the problem through "geoengineering" could result in monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia, and other regions dropping by 5-7 percent compared to preindustrial conditions. Globally, average precipitation could decrease by about 4.5 percent.
"Geoengineering the planet doesn't cure the problem," says NCAR scientist Simone Tilmes, lead author of the new study. "Even if one of these techniques could keep global temperatures approximately balanced, precipitation would not return to preindustrial conditions."
As concerns have mounted about climate change, scientists have studied geoengineering approaches to reduce future warming. Some of these would capture carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere. Others would attempt to essentially shade the atmosphere by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere or launching mirrors into orbit with the goal of reducing global surface temperatures.
The new study focuses on the second set of approaches, those that would shade the planet. The authors warn, however, that Earth's climate would not return to its preindustrial state even if the warming itself were successfully mitigated.
"It's very much a pick-your-poison type of problem," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo, a co-author. "If you don't like warming, you can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface and cool the climate. But if you do that, large reductions in rainfall are unavoidable. There's no win-win option here."
The study appears in an online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, published this week by the American Geophysical Union. An international team of scientists from NCAR and 14 other organizations wrote the study, which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor. The team used, among other tools, the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, which is funded by NSF and the Department of Energy.
Future carbon dioxide, with or without geoengineering
The research team turned to 12 of the world's leading climate models to simulate global precipitation patterns if the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, reached four times the level of the preindustrial era. They then simulated the effect of reduced incoming solar radiation on the global precipitation patterns.
The scientists chose the artificial scenario of a quadrupling of carbon dioxide levels, which is on the high side of projections for the end of this century, in order to clearly draw out the potential impacts of geoengineering.
In line with other research, they found that an increase in carbon dioxide levels would significantly increase global average precipitation, although there would likely be significant regional variations and even prolonged droughts in some areas.
Much of the reason for the increased rainfall and snowfall has to do with greater evaporation, which would pump more moisture into the atmosphere as a result of more heat being trapped near the surface.
The team then took the research one step further, examining what would happen if a geoengineering approach partially reflected incoming solar radiation high in the atmosphere.
The researchers found that precipitation amounts and frequency, especially for heavy rain events, would decrease significantly. The effects were greater over land than over the ocean, and particularly pronounced during months of heavy, monsoonal rains. Monsoonal rains in the model simulations dropped by an average of 7 percent in North America, 6 percent in East Asia and South America, and 5 percent in South Africa. In India, however, the decrease was just 2 percent. Heavy precipitation further dropped in Western Europe and North America in summer.
A drier atmosphere
The researchers found two primary reasons for the reduced precipitation.
One reason has to do with evaporation. As Earth is shaded and less solar heat reaches the surface, less water vapor is pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation.
The other reason has to do with plants. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants partially close their stomata, the openings that allow them to take in carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen and water into the atmosphere. Partially shut stomata release less water, so the cooled atmosphere would also become even drier over land.
Tilmes stresses that the authors did not address such questions as how certain crops would respond to a combination of higher carbon dioxide and reduced rainfall.
"More research could show both the positive and negative consequences for society of such changes in the environment," she says. "What we do know is that our climate system is very complex, that human activity is making Earth warmer, and that any technological fix we might try to shade the planet could have unforeseen consequences."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article
Title: The hydrological impact of geoengineering in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
Authors: Simone Tilmes, John Fasullo, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Daniel R. Marsh, Michael Mills, Kari Alterskjr, Helene Muri, Jn E. Kristjnsson, Olivier Boucher, Michael Schulz, Jason N. S. Cole, Charles L. Curry, Andy Jones, Jim Haywood, Peter J. Irvine, Duoying Ji, John C. Moore, Diana B. Karam, Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch, Balwinder Singh, Jin-Ho Yoon, Ulrike Niemeier, Hauke Schmidt, Alan Robock, Shuting Yang, and Shingo Watanabe
Publication:Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
On the Web
For news releases, images, and more:
http://www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
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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.
Geoengineering the climate could reduce vital rains
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Simone Tilmes
tilmes@ucar.edu
303-497-1445
NCAR
John Fasullo
fasullo@ucar.edu
303-497-1712
NCAR
BOULDERAlthough a significant build-up in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would alter worldwide precipitation patterns, a widely discussed technological approach to reduce future global warming would also interfere with rainfall and snowfall, new research shows.
The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), finds that global warming caused by a massive increase in greenhouse gases would spur a nearly 7 percent average increase in precipitation compared to preindustrial conditions.
But trying to resolve the problem through "geoengineering" could result in monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia, and other regions dropping by 5-7 percent compared to preindustrial conditions. Globally, average precipitation could decrease by about 4.5 percent.
"Geoengineering the planet doesn't cure the problem," says NCAR scientist Simone Tilmes, lead author of the new study. "Even if one of these techniques could keep global temperatures approximately balanced, precipitation would not return to preindustrial conditions."
As concerns have mounted about climate change, scientists have studied geoengineering approaches to reduce future warming. Some of these would capture carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere. Others would attempt to essentially shade the atmosphere by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere or launching mirrors into orbit with the goal of reducing global surface temperatures.
The new study focuses on the second set of approaches, those that would shade the planet. The authors warn, however, that Earth's climate would not return to its preindustrial state even if the warming itself were successfully mitigated.
"It's very much a pick-your-poison type of problem," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo, a co-author. "If you don't like warming, you can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface and cool the climate. But if you do that, large reductions in rainfall are unavoidable. There's no win-win option here."
The study appears in an online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, published this week by the American Geophysical Union. An international team of scientists from NCAR and 14 other organizations wrote the study, which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor. The team used, among other tools, the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, which is funded by NSF and the Department of Energy.
Future carbon dioxide, with or without geoengineering
The research team turned to 12 of the world's leading climate models to simulate global precipitation patterns if the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, reached four times the level of the preindustrial era. They then simulated the effect of reduced incoming solar radiation on the global precipitation patterns.
The scientists chose the artificial scenario of a quadrupling of carbon dioxide levels, which is on the high side of projections for the end of this century, in order to clearly draw out the potential impacts of geoengineering.
In line with other research, they found that an increase in carbon dioxide levels would significantly increase global average precipitation, although there would likely be significant regional variations and even prolonged droughts in some areas.
Much of the reason for the increased rainfall and snowfall has to do with greater evaporation, which would pump more moisture into the atmosphere as a result of more heat being trapped near the surface.
The team then took the research one step further, examining what would happen if a geoengineering approach partially reflected incoming solar radiation high in the atmosphere.
The researchers found that precipitation amounts and frequency, especially for heavy rain events, would decrease significantly. The effects were greater over land than over the ocean, and particularly pronounced during months of heavy, monsoonal rains. Monsoonal rains in the model simulations dropped by an average of 7 percent in North America, 6 percent in East Asia and South America, and 5 percent in South Africa. In India, however, the decrease was just 2 percent. Heavy precipitation further dropped in Western Europe and North America in summer.
A drier atmosphere
The researchers found two primary reasons for the reduced precipitation.
One reason has to do with evaporation. As Earth is shaded and less solar heat reaches the surface, less water vapor is pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation.
The other reason has to do with plants. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants partially close their stomata, the openings that allow them to take in carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen and water into the atmosphere. Partially shut stomata release less water, so the cooled atmosphere would also become even drier over land.
Tilmes stresses that the authors did not address such questions as how certain crops would respond to a combination of higher carbon dioxide and reduced rainfall.
"More research could show both the positive and negative consequences for society of such changes in the environment," she says. "What we do know is that our climate system is very complex, that human activity is making Earth warmer, and that any technological fix we might try to shade the planet could have unforeseen consequences."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article
Title: The hydrological impact of geoengineering in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
Authors: Simone Tilmes, John Fasullo, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Daniel R. Marsh, Michael Mills, Kari Alterskjr, Helene Muri, Jn E. Kristjnsson, Olivier Boucher, Michael Schulz, Jason N. S. Cole, Charles L. Curry, Andy Jones, Jim Haywood, Peter J. Irvine, Duoying Ji, John C. Moore, Diana B. Karam, Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch, Balwinder Singh, Jin-Ho Yoon, Ulrike Niemeier, Hauke Schmidt, Alan Robock, Shuting Yang, and Shingo Watanabe
Publication:Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
On the Web
For news releases, images, and more:
http://www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
[
| 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.
Results of DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) trial reported at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
Comparison of 2 third-generation drug-eluting stents establishes comparable safety and efficacy; demonstrates non-inferiorityof newest zotarolimus-eluting stent
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 Results of the DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) clinical trial demonstrate comparable safety and efficacy of two third-generation permanent polymer-based drug-eluting stents with low rates of adverse clinical events and establish the non-inferiority of the newest zotarolimus-eluting stent. The findings 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.
Third-generation permanent polymer-based drug-eluting stents (DES) with novel flexible designs were developed to improve stent deliverability in challenging anatomical lesions and to improve stent alignment within the vessel wall, while maintaining the anti-restenotic potential of newer generation DES systems. DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) follows the TWENTE trial, which was presented at TCT 2011 and examined second-generation drug-eluting stents with the same drugs and coatings but different stent platforms.
DUTCH PEERS was a multicenter, prospective, single-blinded, randomized controlled study in patients requiring percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) with DES implantation. The study was performed in four PCI centers in the Netherlands (Thoraxcentrum Twente, Enschede; Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem; Scheper Hospital, Emmen; Medical Center Alkmaar, Alkmaar). The primary endpoint was the composite target vessel failure (TVF) at one-year, defined as cardiac death, target vessel revascularization, or myocardial infarction (MI) attributable to the target vessel or not attributable to another vessel.
A total of 1,811 patients were randomly assigned to treatment with third-generation cobalt-chromium zotarolimus-eluting stents (906 patients; 1,205 lesions) or platinum-chromium everolimus-eluting stents (905 patients; 1,166 lesions). The study population (age 63.910.8 years, range 21 years; 73.0 percent male) was an "all-comers" population comprising 58.6 percent of patients with acute coronary syndromes (20.4 percent of all patients presented with an acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction). Of all 2,371 lesions, 65.7 percent were ACC/AHA lesion type B2/C. Follow-up data for 99.9 percent of the randomized patients were obtained.
TVF occurred in 6.1 percent (55/905) patients assigned to zotarolimus-eluting stents and 5.2 percent (47/905) assigned to everolimus-eluting stents. Non-inferiority of the zotarolimus-eluting stent was confirmed with an absolute risk difference of 0.88 percent (non-inferiority p-value = 0.006). There was also no significant between-group difference in individual components of the primary endpoint and other secondary clinical endpoints.
In both stent groups, definite-or-probable stent thrombosis rates were low. Definite-or-probable stent thrombosis rates were 0.6 percent (5/905) in the zotarolimus stent and 0.9 percent (8/905) in the everolimus stent (p value=0.40). Notably, there was no definite stent thrombosis beyond three months from stenting, reaffirming the safety of newer generation DES platforms.
"The clinical outcome of this trial was excellent particularly when considering its high proportion of complex patients with acute myocardial infarction at presentation and may represent a challenging touchstone of novel stents and scaffolds," said Clemens von Birgelen, MD PhD, the principal investigator of the trial. Dr. von Birgelen is Co-Director of the Department of Cardiology at Thoraxcentrum Twente and Professor of Cardiology at University of Twente in the Netherlands.
"Both permanent polymer-based stents were similarly efficacious and safe in treating all-comers with an excellent clinical outcome."
###
The DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) trial was equally funded by Boston Scientific and Medtronic. Dr. von Birgelen reported being a consultant to Abbott Vascular, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic. He has also received a travel grant from Biotronik and lecture fees from Biotronik and MSD.
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 DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) trial reported at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
Comparison of 2 third-generation drug-eluting stents establishes comparable safety and efficacy; demonstrates non-inferiorityof newest zotarolimus-eluting stent
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 Results of the DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) clinical trial demonstrate comparable safety and efficacy of two third-generation permanent polymer-based drug-eluting stents with low rates of adverse clinical events and establish the non-inferiority of the newest zotarolimus-eluting stent. The findings 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.
Third-generation permanent polymer-based drug-eluting stents (DES) with novel flexible designs were developed to improve stent deliverability in challenging anatomical lesions and to improve stent alignment within the vessel wall, while maintaining the anti-restenotic potential of newer generation DES systems. DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) follows the TWENTE trial, which was presented at TCT 2011 and examined second-generation drug-eluting stents with the same drugs and coatings but different stent platforms.
DUTCH PEERS was a multicenter, prospective, single-blinded, randomized controlled study in patients requiring percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) with DES implantation. The study was performed in four PCI centers in the Netherlands (Thoraxcentrum Twente, Enschede; Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem; Scheper Hospital, Emmen; Medical Center Alkmaar, Alkmaar). The primary endpoint was the composite target vessel failure (TVF) at one-year, defined as cardiac death, target vessel revascularization, or myocardial infarction (MI) attributable to the target vessel or not attributable to another vessel.
A total of 1,811 patients were randomly assigned to treatment with third-generation cobalt-chromium zotarolimus-eluting stents (906 patients; 1,205 lesions) or platinum-chromium everolimus-eluting stents (905 patients; 1,166 lesions). The study population (age 63.910.8 years, range 21 years; 73.0 percent male) was an "all-comers" population comprising 58.6 percent of patients with acute coronary syndromes (20.4 percent of all patients presented with an acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction). Of all 2,371 lesions, 65.7 percent were ACC/AHA lesion type B2/C. Follow-up data for 99.9 percent of the randomized patients were obtained.
TVF occurred in 6.1 percent (55/905) patients assigned to zotarolimus-eluting stents and 5.2 percent (47/905) assigned to everolimus-eluting stents. Non-inferiority of the zotarolimus-eluting stent was confirmed with an absolute risk difference of 0.88 percent (non-inferiority p-value = 0.006). There was also no significant between-group difference in individual components of the primary endpoint and other secondary clinical endpoints.
In both stent groups, definite-or-probable stent thrombosis rates were low. Definite-or-probable stent thrombosis rates were 0.6 percent (5/905) in the zotarolimus stent and 0.9 percent (8/905) in the everolimus stent (p value=0.40). Notably, there was no definite stent thrombosis beyond three months from stenting, reaffirming the safety of newer generation DES platforms.
"The clinical outcome of this trial was excellent particularly when considering its high proportion of complex patients with acute myocardial infarction at presentation and may represent a challenging touchstone of novel stents and scaffolds," said Clemens von Birgelen, MD PhD, the principal investigator of the trial. Dr. von Birgelen is Co-Director of the Department of Cardiology at Thoraxcentrum Twente and Professor of Cardiology at University of Twente in the Netherlands.
"Both permanent polymer-based stents were similarly efficacious and safe in treating all-comers with an excellent clinical outcome."
###
The DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) trial was equally funded by Boston Scientific and Medtronic. Dr. von Birgelen reported being a consultant to Abbott Vascular, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic. He has also received a travel grant from Biotronik and lecture fees from Biotronik and MSD.
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.
Results of the OPTIMIZE 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 demonstrates potential benefits of shorter-term dual antiplatelet therapy in patients treated with a second generation drug-eluting stent
SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 31, 2013 - A new study demonstrates that some patients may not need to receive prolonged anti-clotting therapy after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation with the Endeavor zotarolimus-eluting stent, and that shortening the duration could reduce bleeding risks and treatment costs. The OPTIMIZE clinical trial findings 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.
Current guidelines recommend long-term (12 month) dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after DES implantation, but the clinical benefits of this regimen remain unclear, especially with newer generation DES. The OPTIMIZE trial enrolled 3,120 patients with largely stable coronary artery disease in a prospective, randomized (1:1) multicenter clinical evaluation that compared short-term (3 month) and long-term (12 month) dual antiplatelet therapy. All patients underwent PCI with Endeavor zotarolimus-eluting stents, a second-generation DES.
The primary endpoint was a composite of Net Adverse Clinical and Cerebral Events (NACCE), which included death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke or major bleeding at one year follow-up.
After one year, NACCE rates for patients receiving short-term DAPT were similar to those who received the longer, standard DAPT (6.1 percent vs. 5.9 percent respectively), establishing non-inferiority of the shorter-term therapy (non-inferiority p-value = 0.002).
After 90 days, both groups showed comparable rates of NACCE, stent thrombosis and revascularization. Patients in the long-term DAPT group also showed a trend towards increased bleeding events.
"To date, OPTIMIZE is the only DAPT duration study using a single second-generation DES, and these promising findings could help shorten antiplatelet therapy time and reduce related complication risks for patients receiving select drug-eluting stents," said lead investigator Fausto Feres, MD of the Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiologia in So Paulo, Brazil.
"These outcomes may be especially relevant for patients who are at a high risk of bleeding complications following PCI, such as the elderly and patients with a history of hemorrhagic events."
###
The OPTIMIZE trial was funded by Medtronic Comercial Ltda in So Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Feres reported consulting fees/honoraria from Biosensors, Eli Lilly, and Medtronic.
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.
Results of the OPTIMIZE trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
New study demonstrates potential benefits of shorter-term dual antiplatelet therapy in patients treated with a second generation drug-eluting stent
SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 31, 2013 - A new study demonstrates that some patients may not need to receive prolonged anti-clotting therapy after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation with the Endeavor zotarolimus-eluting stent, and that shortening the duration could reduce bleeding risks and treatment costs. The OPTIMIZE clinical trial findings 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.
Current guidelines recommend long-term (12 month) dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after DES implantation, but the clinical benefits of this regimen remain unclear, especially with newer generation DES. The OPTIMIZE trial enrolled 3,120 patients with largely stable coronary artery disease in a prospective, randomized (1:1) multicenter clinical evaluation that compared short-term (3 month) and long-term (12 month) dual antiplatelet therapy. All patients underwent PCI with Endeavor zotarolimus-eluting stents, a second-generation DES.
The primary endpoint was a composite of Net Adverse Clinical and Cerebral Events (NACCE), which included death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke or major bleeding at one year follow-up.
After one year, NACCE rates for patients receiving short-term DAPT were similar to those who received the longer, standard DAPT (6.1 percent vs. 5.9 percent respectively), establishing non-inferiority of the shorter-term therapy (non-inferiority p-value = 0.002).
After 90 days, both groups showed comparable rates of NACCE, stent thrombosis and revascularization. Patients in the long-term DAPT group also showed a trend towards increased bleeding events.
"To date, OPTIMIZE is the only DAPT duration study using a single second-generation DES, and these promising findings could help shorten antiplatelet therapy time and reduce related complication risks for patients receiving select drug-eluting stents," said lead investigator Fausto Feres, MD of the Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiologia in So Paulo, Brazil.
"These outcomes may be especially relevant for patients who are at a high risk of bleeding complications following PCI, such as the elderly and patients with a history of hemorrhagic events."
###
The OPTIMIZE trial was funded by Medtronic Comercial Ltda in So Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Feres reported consulting fees/honoraria from Biosensors, Eli Lilly, and Medtronic.
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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Contact: Carol Thorbes cthorbes@sfu.ca 778-782-3035 Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University molecular biologist Lynne Quarmby's adventures in pond scum have led her and four student researchers to discover a mutation that can make cilia, the microscopic antennae on our cells, grow too long. When the antennae aren't the right size, the signals captured by them get misinterpreted. The result can be fatal.
In a newly published paper in the science journal Current Biology, the researchers discovered that the regulatory gene CNK2 is present in cilia and controls the length of these hair-like projections.
This discovery is important because cilia, or flagella, dangle from all of our cells. Their ability to propel some cells, such as sperm, and allow molecular communication in others, for example cellular responses to hormones, determines how we develop from embryos and how our bodies function in adulthood.
When cilia are too short or too long they cause various human hereditary diseases and deformities, such as too many fingers or toes, blindness and Polycystic Kidney Disease, which affects one in 600 people.
Quarmby and her doctoral student Laura Hiltonsenior and lead authors, respectively, on this paperare among the few scientists globally who study cilia-disassembly as opposed to -assembly.
A crucial part of all cells' lifecycle is their cilia's disassembly before cell division and assembly after it. The gene LF4 is a known assembly regulator, and, prior to this study, scientists thought that assembly speed controlled cilia's ultimate length or shrinkage. But Quarmby and Hilton have discovered that disassembly speed is also important, and that the regulatory gene CNK2 plays a key role in controlling it.
Similar to how a balance between water pressure and gravity determines the height of a fountain's stream, a balance of assembly and disassembly speed determines cilia's length. When growing and shrinking happen simultaneously cilia length remains constant.
Pond scum's algae make good lab models for analyzing this because they reproduce quickly, and they have cellular structure and cilia that closely parallel ours. Quarmby and Hilton have been mucking about with pond scum for years and recently started studying algae cilia with defective CNK2 and LF4 genes.
After discovering that cilia with either defective gene are abnormally long, they created an algae cell with four cilia, instead of the normal two, with two of the four engineered to glow green.
Along with two SFU undergrad students and a University of Toronto undergrad, Quarmby and Hilton watched as the fluorescent green tag began to appear at the tip of the untagged pair of cilia.
"We were able to deduce how the mutations affected the cilia's assembly and disassembly by measuring how much and how quickly green fluorescence appeared at the tip of the untagged cilia," explains Quarmby.
"We knew that we had something important when we saw that cells bearing mutations in both CNK2 and LF4 had the most extraordinarily long cilia. They were unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.
"My student Laura ran this experiment and oversaw our undergrad researchers. It gave us unique insights into the potentially key role disassembling cilia have in deciding the tails' length. Further investigation will help us understand how ciliary malfunction causes a progression of diseases."
The SFU undergrads working with Quarmby and Hilton were Kavisha Gunawardane and Marianne Schwarz. The UofT student was Joo Wan (James) Kim.
###
Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.
Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.
Simon Fraser University
Public Affairs/Media Relations (PAMR)
778.782.3210 http://www.sfu.ca/pamr
Contact:
Lynne Quarmby (West Van. resident), 778.782.4474, quarmby@sfu.ca
Laura Hilton (North Van. resident), 778.782.4598, lkh@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Photos: http://at.sfu.ca/UzEqCZ
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Cellular tail length tells disease tale
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Carol Thorbes cthorbes@sfu.ca 778-782-3035 Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University molecular biologist Lynne Quarmby's adventures in pond scum have led her and four student researchers to discover a mutation that can make cilia, the microscopic antennae on our cells, grow too long. When the antennae aren't the right size, the signals captured by them get misinterpreted. The result can be fatal.
In a newly published paper in the science journal Current Biology, the researchers discovered that the regulatory gene CNK2 is present in cilia and controls the length of these hair-like projections.
This discovery is important because cilia, or flagella, dangle from all of our cells. Their ability to propel some cells, such as sperm, and allow molecular communication in others, for example cellular responses to hormones, determines how we develop from embryos and how our bodies function in adulthood.
When cilia are too short or too long they cause various human hereditary diseases and deformities, such as too many fingers or toes, blindness and Polycystic Kidney Disease, which affects one in 600 people.
Quarmby and her doctoral student Laura Hiltonsenior and lead authors, respectively, on this paperare among the few scientists globally who study cilia-disassembly as opposed to -assembly.
A crucial part of all cells' lifecycle is their cilia's disassembly before cell division and assembly after it. The gene LF4 is a known assembly regulator, and, prior to this study, scientists thought that assembly speed controlled cilia's ultimate length or shrinkage. But Quarmby and Hilton have discovered that disassembly speed is also important, and that the regulatory gene CNK2 plays a key role in controlling it.
Similar to how a balance between water pressure and gravity determines the height of a fountain's stream, a balance of assembly and disassembly speed determines cilia's length. When growing and shrinking happen simultaneously cilia length remains constant.
Pond scum's algae make good lab models for analyzing this because they reproduce quickly, and they have cellular structure and cilia that closely parallel ours. Quarmby and Hilton have been mucking about with pond scum for years and recently started studying algae cilia with defective CNK2 and LF4 genes.
After discovering that cilia with either defective gene are abnormally long, they created an algae cell with four cilia, instead of the normal two, with two of the four engineered to glow green.
Along with two SFU undergrad students and a University of Toronto undergrad, Quarmby and Hilton watched as the fluorescent green tag began to appear at the tip of the untagged pair of cilia.
"We were able to deduce how the mutations affected the cilia's assembly and disassembly by measuring how much and how quickly green fluorescence appeared at the tip of the untagged cilia," explains Quarmby.
"We knew that we had something important when we saw that cells bearing mutations in both CNK2 and LF4 had the most extraordinarily long cilia. They were unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.
"My student Laura ran this experiment and oversaw our undergrad researchers. It gave us unique insights into the potentially key role disassembling cilia have in deciding the tails' length. Further investigation will help us understand how ciliary malfunction causes a progression of diseases."
The SFU undergrads working with Quarmby and Hilton were Kavisha Gunawardane and Marianne Schwarz. The UofT student was Joo Wan (James) Kim.
###
Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.
Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.
Simon Fraser University
Public Affairs/Media Relations (PAMR)
778.782.3210 http://www.sfu.ca/pamr
Contact:
Lynne Quarmby (West Van. resident), 778.782.4474, quarmby@sfu.ca
Laura Hilton (North Van. resident), 778.782.4598, lkh@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Photos: http://at.sfu.ca/UzEqCZ
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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.
Forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and Bosnian workers search for human remains at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far , but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and Bosnian workers search for human remains at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far , but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Bosnain Muslim woman Vahida Behlic, 51, cries as she searches for the remains of her mother during an exhumation at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far , but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and Bosnian workers search for human remains at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far , but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and Bosnian workers examine human remains at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far , but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), and Bosnian workers search for human remains at a mass grave in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260 kms north west of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Forensic experts have unearthed the 360 body remains so far, but believe there are many more yet undiscovered as they excavate a 7 meters deep trench to find the remains of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces during their campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
TOMASICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Two decades after Serb soldiers conducted house-to-house searches in a campaign of ethnic killings in Bosnia, forensic scientists are digging up what could turn out to be the largest mass grave from the 1992-95 war.
So far, the remains of 360 people have been found at the Tomasica mass grave discovered in September near the northern town of Prijedor, far more than expected, authorities said Thursday. The number is expected to rise and could one day surpass the 629 bodies found at Crni Vrh in Srebrenica.
The Missing Persons' Institute said the Tomasica grave is linked to a secondary one found in 2003 about 10 kilometers (six miles) away, where 373 bodies were extracted. Authorities believe the perpetrators of the killings moved parts of the remains from one grave to the other in a bid to hide the crime. In some cases, remains from the same person have been found in both graves.
Institute official Mujo Begic said he expects more remains to be found at the Tomasica site, and the bodies are of Bosniak and Croat men, women and children killed in their villages during the war.
"Together with the relocated ones, the number of the bodies here indicates the biggest mass grave so far found in Bosnia," Begic said. "We have found some identification documents in the grave, so we know who these people are."
The grave covers over 5,000 square meters (53,820 sq. feet) and is 10 meters (about 30 feet) deep.
Tomasica is near Prijedor, which was a site of severe crimes against humanity committed by Christian Orthodox Serbs against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats. Many of the victims were killed in one of the three Nazi-style concentration camps Serb authorities had set up near Prijedor. Authorities hope some of the 1,200 still missing from the area are now found in the Tomasica grave. The remains will be definitively identified through DNA matching from samples provided by living relatives.
Most of the victims were killed in their villages and brought to this location to be buried, but teams have also found bullets in the grave which indicates that some were brought here alive and that this was also an execution site, prosecutor Eldar Jahic said, citing evidence and witnesses.
Near the grave, Vahida Behlic, 51, was sobbing as she watched forensic experts dressed in white uniforms and green rubber boots carefully lifting bones from the site, where skeletons were piled on top of each other. She came from Slovenia, where she has lived with her family since she escaped her native village of Zecovi, near Prijedor.
Behlic came with her husband and son because she thinks one of the skeletons could be of her mother Fatima who was 60 when Serb soldiers came, dragged her out of the basement and shot her in front of her house.
"I heard the story from a witness who survived because his own grandmother threw herself on him and covered him with her body," she said.
A boy back then, the witness arrived in Slovenia injured but told her what he saw.
"He said 32 people were killed that day. Standing here, I have the feeling they are watching us from down there."
I knew the NSA drawing was real from the smiley-face. Only an eager and myopic software engineer—seeing the interception of Google and Yahoo’s data as a challenge and game rather than as a security and political matter—would make such a light-hearted and self-satisfied gesture at the prospect of hacking into Google’s internal servers.
Google knows it’s real as well. “Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing,” writes the Washington Post, which broke the story yesterday (with some help from Edward Snowden). Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond issued the fighting words of someone who knows they’re winning: "We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform." Google, clearly fed up, has been rushing to encrypt as much of their traffic as possible. (Full disclosure: I used to work for Google, and my wife still does, though she is refusing to tell me anything she may or may not know—even though it seems unfair that the NSA knows and I don’t.)
The NSA’s spying system is called MUSCULAR, which, according to the Post, can copy “entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.” Even the name MUSCULAR smacks of the brutish attitude that compels the NSA to sweep up petabytes of data without being able to process most of it. Call it Broveillance, or Brotal Information Awareness. The unnamed author of the NSA slides provided to the Post is basically begging the agency to stop collecting so much useless garbage. The slides complain of the data’s “relatively small intelligence value” given that the MUSCULAR data makes up one-quarter of all information acquisition.
Just to be clear, that means that one-quarter of the NSA’s surveillance data comes from Google and Yahoo alone. The NSA intercepted the largest sewer pipes of information on the entire Internet and diverted them to dump into their data centers, so that they could search for pearls.
Combine that with the knowledge that NSA chief Keith Alexander is a macho nerd who had his command center built to look like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise (complete with doors that go whoosh), and we have a nice picture of a group of spooks that fancy themselves as James Bond’s Q but are actually closer to Inspector Gadget.
We now have a nice picture of a group of spooks that fancy themselves as James Bond’s Q but are actually closer to Inspector Gadget.
Although the diagram refers to Google, the leaked presentation only briefly refers to “defeating” Gmail. They also refer to “FB buddylist sampling since last year”—i.e., spying on your Facebook friends list—but mostly the slides talk about Yahoo.
The key passage is this one: “Yahoo has been transferring entire email accounts using the Narchive data format (a proprietary format) ... Narchive traffic is collected and forwarded to NSA for memorialization.” “Narchive” is evidently Yahoo’s archival format that can contain the entire contents of a Yahoo user’s mailbox. The Narchive format is internal to Yahoo—that is, no computer outside of Yahoo ever sees it or should even be aware of its existence. (I can’t even find any references to it on the Web.) So there’s your evidence that the NSA was monitoring Yahoo’s internal operations.
Yahoo uses the Narchive format when transferring mail accounts across data centers. Your email account is located within a single one of Yahoo’s datacenters. If they decide, for one reason or another, that your mailbox should be located on a data center in Australia instead of the United States (say, because you live in Australia and so it’ll be much faster for you there), they package all of your data up into the Narchive format and send it from their United States data center to the Australia data center, where they unpack it and set it up.
This is where the NSA comes in. At least according to the slides, they are unable to monitor email accounts that reside within a data center. Instead, they catch them in the process of being transferred along the intercontinental fiber pipes via “secret access to a cable or switch” offered by “an unnamed telecommunications provider,” according to the Post. This means that the NSA can’t do ongoing monitoring of a particular email account, but they can just happen to catch whichever accounts are being transferred—at which point they just snag the whole thing. Since only a small subset of accounts are transferred intercontinentally, they are effectively capturing snapshots of a random subset of accounts at arbitrary points in time. (The slides point out that over one-half of the mail is more than three months old, and one-quarter of it is more than a year old.)
This is the very opposite of targeted collection, and of course it gives lie to any statement about how the NSA was only collecting metadata and not collecting on Americans. The NSA has no idea which of these accounts belong to Americans and which to foreigners. How would they? They admit they don’t even know what they’re sweeping up.
The slides note that “FISA restrospective [sic] collection” would be just as effective and far more efficient than the sewer pipe approach of MUSCULAR. The slides don’t mention that FISA collection would also have the happy side effect of being legal, but I suppose that issue wasn’t on the NSA’s radar. MUSCULAR: inconvenient, useless, and illegal. The perfect encapsulation of the Broveillance attitude.
Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will say various things in response, in line with the nondenial denial already issued by the NSA, which puts so many conditionals on what it claims not to do that it might as well be a confession. Clapper and Alexander have already both lied to Congress, so there is little reason to listen to them. Alexander is on his way out, and Clapper needs to go too. Nothing short of an agency overhaul will reestablish trust.
If the definition of going mad with power is pissing off people who can cause you real trouble—like Angela Merkel and Larry Page—Alexander went mad with power the day he took the job. He has lied, broken the law, violated trusts, wasted billions of dollars, and damaged the security of the U.S. far more than anyone he has criticized. He will be seen in retrospect as the perfect illustration of a period when a modicum of technical knowledge was enough to create the illusion of competence in the eyes of the establishment.
Obama may accept the mere appearance of NSA reform in the coming months. But the pressure is mounting: When you’ve lost NSA water-carrier Dianne Feinstein, you are indeed “really screwed.” Despite Obama’s evident unwillingness to buck the system on whistleblower persecution, illegal detention, black sites, and drone strikes, he may be forced to do the right thing here and rein in this rogue agency.
She’s been busy touring the world as of late, and Beyoncé Knowles just unveiled a teaser for her forthcoming DVD “Life is But a Dream.”
The “Independent Women” songstress sings her new song “God Made You Beautiful” on the trailer, a song she dedicated to her daughter Blue Ivy.
Beyonce croons, “When you were born/The angels sighed in delight/They never thought they'd see such a beautiful sight.”
Knowles’ ditty is a follow-up to husband Jay Z’s song “Glory,” also dedicated to Blue. He raps, “The most amazing feeling I feel, words can't describe what I'm feeling for real / Baby, I paint the sky blue, my greatest creation was you.”
She’s been busy touring the world as of late, and Beyoncé Knowles just unveiled a teaser for her forthcoming DVD “Life is But a Dream.”
The “Independent Women” songstress sings her new song “God Made You Beautiful” on the trailer, a song she dedicated to her daughter Blue Ivy.
Beyonce croons, “When you were born/The angels sighed in delight/They never thought they'd see such a beautiful sight.”
Knowles’ ditty is a follow-up to husband Jay Z’s song “Glory,” also dedicated to Blue. He raps, “The most amazing feeling I feel, words can't describe what I'm feeling for real / Baby, I paint the sky blue, my greatest creation was you.”
The Lexington Hard Shell Folio Case protects your iPad mini with a vegan leather exterior combined with a rigid plextonium frame that can unfolded to offer multiple viewing angles for easy and comfortable typing. The interior features a microsuede lining to ensure that the screen stays free from scratches while inside the case.
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