'I'm suing NYPD for illegally entering my apartment, lying about drugs on me,' Bynes tweeted over the weekend.
By Gil Kaufman
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1708056/amanda-bynes-nypd-lawsuit-wild-weekend.jhtml
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the months leading up to the killing of Osama bin Laden, veteran intelligence analyst Robert Cardillo was given the nickname "Debbie Downer." With each new tidbit of information that tracked bin Laden to a high-walled compound in northern Pakistan ? phone records, satellite imaging, clues from other suspects ? Cardillo cast doubt that the terror network leader and mastermind was actually there.
As the world now knows well, President Barack Obama ultimately decided to launch a May 2011 raid on the Abbottabad compound that killed bin Laden. But the level of widespread skepticism that Cardillo shared with other top-level officials ? which nearly scuttled the raid ? reflected a sea change within the U.S. spy community, one that embraces debate to avoid "slam-dunk" intelligence in tough national security decisions.
The same sort of high-stakes dissent was on public display recently as intelligence officials grappled with conflicting opinions about threats in North Korea and Syria. And it is a vital part of ongoing discussions over whether to send deadly drone strikes against terror suspects abroad ? including U.S. citizens.
The three cases provide a rare look inside the secretive 16 intelligence agencies as they try to piece together security threats from bits of vague information from around the world. But they also raise concerns about whether officials who make decisions based on their assessments can get clear guidance from a divided intelligence community.
At the helm of what he calls a healthy discord is Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has spent more than two-thirds of his 72 years collecting, analyzing and reviewing spy data from war zones and rogue nations. Clapper, the nation's fourth top intelligence chief, says disputes are uncommon but absolutely necessary to get as much input as possible in far-flung places where it's hard for the U.S. to extract ? or fully understand ? ground-level realities.
"What's bad about dissension? Is it a good thing to have uniformity of view where everyone agrees all the time? I don't think so," Clapper told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. "...People lust for uniform clairvoyance. We're not going to do that."
"We are never dealing with a perfect set of facts," Clapper said. "You know the old saw about the difference between mysteries and secrets? Of course, we're held equally responsible for divining both. And so those imponderables like that just have to be factored."
Looking in from the outside, the dissension can seem awkward, if not uneasy ? especially when the risks are so high.
At a congressional hearing last month, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., read from a Defense Intelligence Agency report suggesting North Korea is able to arm long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. The April 11 disclosure, which had been mistakenly declassified, came at the height of Kim Jong Un's sabre-rattling rhetoric and raised fears that U.S. territory or Asian nations could be targeted for an attack.
Within hours, Clapper announced that the DIA report did not reflect the opinions of the rest of the intelligence community, and that North Korea was not yet fully capable of launching a nuclear-armed missile.
Two weeks later, the White House announced that U.S. intelligence concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad has probably used deadly chemical weapons at least twice in his country's fierce civil war. But White House officials said the intelligence wasn't strong enough to justify sending significant U.S. military support to Syrian rebels who are fighting Assad's regime.
Because the U.S. has few sources to provide firsthand information in Syria, the intelligence agencies split on how confident they were that Assad had deployed chemical weapons. The best they could do was conclude that the Syrian regime, at least, probably had undertaken such an effort. This put Obama in the awkward political position of having said the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and have "enormous consequences," but not moving on the news of chemical weapons use, when the occasion arose, because the intelligence was murky.
Lamborn said he welcomes an internal intelligence community debate but is concerned that the North Korean threat was cavalierly brushed aside.
"If they want to argue among themselves, that's fine," said Lamborn, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. However, he also said, "We should be cautious when evaluating different opinions, and certainly give credence to the more sobering possibilities. ... When it comes to national security, I don't think we want to have rose-colored glasses on, and sweep threats under the rug."
Clapper said that, in fact, U.S. intelligence officials today are more accustomed to predicting gloom and doom. "We rain on parades a lot," he said.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials say the vigorous internal debate was spawn from a single mistake about a threat ? and an overly aggressive response.
Congress demanded widespread intelligence reform after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, to fix a system where agencies hoarded threat information instead of routinely sharing it. Turf wars between the CIA and the FBI, in particular, were common. The CIA generally was considered the nation's top intelligence agency, and its director was the president's principal intelligence adviser.
The system was still in place in 2002, when the White House was weighing whether to invade Iraq. Intelligence officials widely ? and wrongly ? believed that then-dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. By December 2002, the White House had decided to invade and was trying to outline its reasoning for doing so when then-CIA Director George Tenet described it as "a slam-dunk case."
The consequences were disastrous. There were no WMDs, but the U.S. wound up in a nearly nine-year war that killed nearly 5,000 American soldiers, left more than 117,000 Iraqis dead, and cost taxpayers at least $767 billion. The war also damaged U.S. credibility throughout the Mideast and, to a lesser extent, the world. Tenet later described his "slam-dunk" comment as "the two dumbest words I ever said."
Two years later, Congress signed sweeping reforms requiring intelligence officials to make clear when the spy agencies don't agree. Retired Ambassador John Negroponte, who became the first U.S. national intelligence director in 2005, said if it hadn't been for the faulty WMD assessment "we wouldn't have had intelligence reform."
"It was then, and only then that the real fire was lit under the movement for reform," Negroponte said in a recent interview. "In some respects it was understandable, because Saddam had had all these things before, but we just allowed ourselves to fall into this erroneous judgment."
To prevent that from happening again, senior intelligence officials now encourage each of the spy agencies to debate information, and if they don't agree, to object to their peers' conclusions. Intelligence assessments spell out the view of the majority of the agencies, and highlight any opposing opinions in a process similar to a Supreme Court ruling with a majority and minority opinion.
The result, officials say, is an intelligence community that makes assessments by majority vote instead of group-think, and where each agency is supposed to have an equal voice. In effect, officials say, the CIA has had to lean back over the last decade as officials have given greater credence to formerly marginalized agencies. Among them is the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which warned before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the CIA had overestimated Saddam's prospects to develop nuclear weapons.
Also included is the DIA, which has increased its ability during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to gather ground-level intelligence throughout much of the Mideast and southwest Asia. In an interview, DIA director Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn would not discuss his agency's debated assessment on North Korea, but described a typical intelligence community discussion about "ballistic missiles in name-that-country" during which officials weigh in on how confident they feel about the information they're seeing.
"In the intelligence community we should encourage, what I would call, good competition," Flynn said. He added: "The DIA, in general, is always going to be a little bit more aggressive. ...As a defense community, we're closer to the war-fighting commanders; it may be in that part of our DNA."
Without the all the varying strands of information pieced together from across the intelligence agencies, officials now say the bin Laden raid would not have happened.
The CIA was running the manhunt, but the National Security Agency was contributing phone numbers and details from conversations it had intercepted in overseas wiretaps. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency provided satellite imagery of the Abbottabad compound ? from years past and more recently ? to get a sense of who might be living there. And it produced photos for a tall man walking the ground inside the compound ? even though they were never able to get a close look at his face.
One of the compound's balconies was blocked off by a seven-foot wall, Cardillo said, raising questions about who might want his view obscured by such a tall barrier. Officials also were keeping tabs on the people who lived in the compound, and trying to track how often they went outside.
Cardillo was vocal about his skepticism in each strand of new information he analyzed during the eight months he worked on the case, prompting colleagues to rib him about being a "Debbie Downer."
"I wasn't trying to be negative for the sake of being negative," Cardillo, a deputy national intelligence director who regularly briefs Obama, said in an interview Friday. "I felt, 'Boy, we've got to press hard against each piece of evidence.' Because, let's face it, we wanted bin Laden to be there. And you can get into group-think pretty quick."
To prevent that from happening, officials encouraged wide debate. At one point, they brought in a new four-man team of analysts who had not been briefed on the case to independently determine whether the intelligence gathered was strong enough to indicate bin Laden was there.
Their assessment was even more skeptical than Cardillo's. In the end the call to launch the raid was so close that, as officials have since said, it might as well have come down to a flip of a coin.
In most intelligence cases, the decisions aren't nearly as dramatic. But the stakes are always high.
Over the last four years, the Obama administration has expanded the deadly U.S. drone program in its hunt for extremists in terror havens. The drones have killed thousands of people since 2003 ? both suspected terrorists and civilian bystanders ? among them four U.S. citizens in Pakistan and Yemen.
The Justice Department this week said only one of the four Americans, Anwar al-Awlaki, who officials believe had ties to at least three attacks planned or carried out on U.S. soil, was targeted in the strikes. The other three were collateral damage in strikes aimed at others.
Though policy officials make the final call on when to strike, the intelligence community builds the case. Analysts must follow specific criteria in drone assessments, including near certainty of the target's whereabouts and the notion that bystanders will not be killed. They must also look at the likelihood of whether the terror suspects can be captured instead of killed.
In these sorts of life-and-death cases, robust debate is especially necessary, Clapper said. And if widespread doubts persist, the strike will be canceled.
"It is a high bar, by the way, and it should be," Clapper said. "If there is doubt and argument and debate ? and there always will be as we look at the totality the information we have on a potential target ? we damn well better have those debates and resolve those kinds of issues among ourselves the best we can."
Few have been more skeptical of the decision-making behind the drone strikes than Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2001. Earlier this year, he threatened to block Senate confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan until the White House gave Congress classified documents outlining its legal justification for targeting American citizens in drone strikes. The documents were turned over within hours of Brennan's confirmation hearing.
Generally, Wyden says, spy assessments have become far more reliable over the last decade, and especially since the flawed Iraq intelligence. But he maintains Congress should be given greater access to classified documents to independently verify intelligence analysis and assessments ? and safeguard against being misled.
"Certainly, solid analysis from the intelligence community is one of the most important sources of information that I have," Wyden said in an interview this month. "And if you look back, and the analysis is incorrect or if it's written in a way that portrays guesses at certainties, that can contribute to flawed decision-making.
"That's why I felt so strongly about insisting on actually getting those documents with respect to drones," Wyden said. "I've got to be able to verify it."
Clapper, who has been working on intelligence issues for a half-century, is well aware of how jittery many Americans feel about the spy community. The internal debates, he believes, should bolster their confidence that intelligence officials have thoroughly weighed all aspects of some of the world's most difficult security issues before deciding how high a threat they pose.
"I think it'd be very unhealthy ? and I get a lot of pushback from people ? if I tried to insist that you will have one uniform view and this is what I think, and that's what goes. That just wouldn't work," he said. "There is the fundamental tenet of truth to power, presenting inconvenient truths at inconvenient times. That's part of our system."
___
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-intelligence-embraces-debate-security-issues-122715492.html
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) ? More than 4,000 Russian singers have performed outdoors in St. Petersburg with the aim of setting a world record for the largest choir.
The 4,335 singers of all ages and from nearly all of the city's professional and amateur choirs sang from the steps of St. Isaac's Cathedral before thousands of spectators under an intermittent rain.
The spectators, who closed their umbrellas with the start of Sunday's performance, sang along during the one-hour concert.
The 14 songs performed included some of the most popular and patriotic songs of Russia and the Soviet Union, including a hymn celebrating the country's victory in World War II.
Yulia Alshenina, whose daughter sang in the choir, said the concert was so moving she could not hold back her tears.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-choir-4-335-performs-st-petersburg-130222858.html
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A man carries a drawer and a bag filled with clothes from Rachel Hernandez' home as residents of the Heatherwood Addition, on the south side of SE 4 and Bryant in Moore, Okla., returned to their homes Tuesday, May 21, 2013, to salvage any items after Monday's destructive tornado. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Jim Beckel)
A man carries a drawer and a bag filled with clothes from Rachel Hernandez' home as residents of the Heatherwood Addition, on the south side of SE 4 and Bryant in Moore, Okla., returned to their homes Tuesday, May 21, 2013, to salvage any items after Monday's destructive tornado. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Jim Beckel)
Penny Phillips throws out a bag of salvaged clothing as she goes through the remains of her home on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 in Moore, Okla. that was destroyed by Monday's tornado in the area near 4th and Bryant. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Chris Landsberger)
Brian Mullins and his Father Terry survey tornado damage to the home of Brian's girlfriend Sara Robinson, right, on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 in Moore, Okla. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Steve Sisney)
Jeff Thayer, right, and his son Heath look at a tornado-ravaged pickup truck belonging to another son Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Moore, Okla. A huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
MOORE, Okla. (AP) ? With her son holding her elbow, Colleen Arvin walked up her driveway to what was left of her house for 40 years.
It was the 83-year-old grandmother's first time back at her home since a monstrous and deadly tornado ravaged her neighborhood in suburban Oklahoma City. Part of the roof was sitting in the front yard, and the siding from the front of the house was gone. As her son, Jeff, and her grandsons picked through what was left of her belongings, Arvin found some dark humor in the situation.
"Oh thank God," she said, laughing, when a grandson brought over her keys. "We can get in the house."
Monday's tornado killed at least 24 people, destroyed countless homes and reduced one elementary school almost entirely to rubble, killing seven children inside.
As state and federal officials work to set up disaster recovery centers to provide aid and assistance, Arvin and other residents of Moore are beginning the deliberate process of assessing what's left of their homes and possessions and what comes next.
Officials are still trying to make sense of what will be needed in the coming days, weeks and months: Will homes be rebuilt or torn down? Where will the children go to school? How much will it all cost?
Helmeted rescue workers have been searching tirelessly for survivors and victims, and officials said Tuesday they planned to keep going ? sometimes double- and triple-checking home sites. Officials were not certain of how many homes were destroyed or how many families had been displaced. Emergency crews had trouble navigating devastated neighborhoods because there were no street signs left. Some rescuers used smartphones or GPS devices to guide them through areas with no recognizable landmarks.
Moore Fire Chief Gary Bird said Tuesday he was confident there are no more bodies or survivors in the rubble. Every damaged home had been searched at least once, Bird said, but his goal was to conduct three searches of each building just to be certain there were no more bodies or survivors.
"I'm 98 percent sure we're good," Bird said.
The Arvins and others looked for bright spots throughout an otherwise dark day. Arvin's son Jeff noticed a set of five dishes without a single crack. He and his nephews pulled out golf clubs, pictures and a decorative key and note holder.
It was an ordeal they've faced before.
Monday's tornado, which traveled 17 miles and was 1.3 miles wide at points, loosely followed the path of a twister that brought 300 mph winds in May 1999. This week's tornado was the fourth since 1998 to hit Moore, a middle-class community that has been one of the fastest-growing suburbs of Oklahoma City.
"'99 taught us a lot, especially in Moore ? such as, you've got to have a plan," Jeff Arvin said.
Billy McElrath's entire home was reduced to rubble, and even its concrete foundation was split. His wife and a friend McElrath hired to do some painting managed to make it into an underground shelter moments before the tornado shredded the home.
His 1968 red convertible Corvette was smashed under heaps of bricks and wooden frames inside what was left of his garage.
"My wife got it for my 50th birthday last August," McElrath said. "I haven't driven it since my son and I took it to a car show in Springfield last September."
His plan was simple: "We'll just start over."
Survivors emerged with harrowing accounts of the storm's wrath, which many endured as they shielded loved ones in hallways, closets and bathrooms.
Larry Harjo, his twin brother and their wives headed for the hospital at the end of the street only minutes ahead of the tornado that ripped the roof off their home and blew out its walls.
"We could see the tornado coming. We could see one side of it, but we couldn't see the other so we knew it was big," Harjo, 45, said while standing in his driveway. "There was no surviving that. It was either underground or out of the way kind of thing and we got the hell out of Dodge."
The hospital was their plan. They had sheltered there before, but this time, it took a direct hit.
"We were directly center of the hospital and we could hear the cars hitting the building, so we knew it wasn't going to be nice," he said. "Thump, thump, thump. Loud thumps."
"Ceiling tiles falling everywhere. I thought it was going to cave on us there for a minute," he said.
From the air, large stretches Moore could be seen where every home had been cut to pieces. Some homes were sucked off their concrete slabs. A pond was filled with piles of wood and an overturned trailer. Also visible were large patches of red earth where the tornado scoured the land down to the soil. Some tree trunks were still standing, but the winds ripped away their leaves.
Officials had revised the death toll downward from 51 to 24 on Tuesday after the state medical examiner said some victims may have been double-counted in the confusion immediately after the storm. More than 200 people were treated at area hospitals.
The National Weather Service said the tornado, which was on the ground for 40 minutes, was a top-of-the-scale EF5 twister with winds of at least 200 mph ? the first EF5 tornado of 2013.
___
Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Sean Murphy and Tim Talley contributed to this report.
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IRVING, Texas (AP) ? Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo will miss at least three weeks of offseason workouts after a procedure to remove a cyst from his back.
The team's website reported Tuesday, the first day of organized team workouts, that Romo underwent the procedure last month and could return for the mandatory minicamp that starts June 11. He will be ready for training camp in July.
Romo became the highest-paid player in franchise history in March when he signed a six-year, $108 million extension with $55 million guaranteed, more than Super Bowl winner Joe Flacco of Baltimore.
The Dallas Morning News reported that the outpatient procedure was performed before the NFL draft. Romo was restricted to light conditioning work in April but has been cleared to throw.
"If this was the regular season and I had to play next week, I could," Romo told the newspaper Monday. "That's why I did it now. This will have no effect on training camp."
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has said Romo will have an expanded role in the offense, and his quarterback has committed to "Peyton Manning-type time" in trying to turn Dallas into a Super Bowl contender again.
Backup Kyle Orton will take most of the snaps in Romo's absence. He signed as a free agent last year but played in just one game, a blowout loss to Chicago. The Cowboys also have second-year player Nick Stephens and undrafted rookie Dalton Williams on the roster.
A healthy Romo is a huge factor with coach Jason Garrett's job on the line in 2013. Garrett is unlikely to return if the Cowboys miss the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season.
The last time Romo missed significant playing time, former coach Wade Phillips was fired and replaced by Garrett in the middle of a 6-10 season in 2010. Romo was out 10 games with a broken collarbone.
Romo played through a broken rib early in the 2011 season and stayed healthy last year. Both seasons ended with losses to NFC East rivals in finales with playoff berths on the line.
___
Online: http://pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romo-miss-workouts-cyst-removal-back-124410412.html
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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? Two hot air balloons collided mid-air during a sightseeing tour of volcanic rock formations in Turkey on Monday, causing one of them to crash to the ground, officials said. One Brazilian tourist was killed while 24 other people on board were injured.
The ascending balloon struck another balloon's wicker basket above it, causing a tear that sent it plunging to the ground, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
The passengers on board the balloon that crashed were mostly tourists from Asia, Spain and Brazil, according to Abdurrahman Savas, the governor of Nevsehir province. Many had fractured bones and one of them, an elderly passenger, was in serious condition.
The balloons were flying above scenic canyons and volcanic cones of the Cappadocia region, a popular tourist destination some 300 kilometers (190 miles) from the capital, Ankara. Cappadocia is famed for its "fairy chimney" volcanic cones and its subterranean cities carved out of soft stone.
It was the second fatal accident in Cappadocia since balloon sightseeing tours were launched there more than a decade ago. In 2009, a British tourist died when two balloons also collided mid-air.
In February, a balloon caught fire and crashed in Egypt, killing 19 tourists.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-1-killed-24-injured-balloon-crash-070129371.html
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Public release date: 15-May-2013
Share ] Contact: Bjorn Carey
bccarey@stanford.edu
650-725-1944
Stanford University
Most of us don't ponder our pulses outside of the gym. But doctors use the human pulse as a diagnostic tool to monitor heart health.
Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, has developed a heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill and no wider than a postage stamp. The flexible skin-like monitor, worn under an adhesive bandage on the wrist, is sensitive enough to help doctors detect stiff arteries and cardiovascular problems.
The devices could one day be used to continuously track heart health and provide doctors a safer method of measuring a key vital sign for newborn and other high-risk surgery patients.
"The pulse is related to the condition of the artery and the condition of the heart," said Bao, whose lab develops artificial skin-like materials. "The better the sensor, the better doctors can catch problems before they develop."
Your pulse
To find your pulse, press your index and middle finger into the underside of your opposite wrist. You should feel the steady rhythm of your heart as it pumps blood through your veins.
Each beat you feel is actually made up of two distinct peaks, even though you can't tell them apart with just your fingers. The first, larger peak is from your heart pumping out blood. Shortly after a heartbeat, your lower body sends a reflecting wave back to your artery system, creating a smaller second peak.
The relative sizes of these two peaks can be used by medical experts to measure your heart's health.
"You can use the ratio of the two peaks to determine the stiffness of the artery, for example," said Gregor Schwartz, a post-doctoral fellow and a physicist for the project. "If there is a change in the heart's condition, the wave pattern will change. Fortunately, when I tested this on myself, my heart looked fine."
Petite pyramids
To make the heart monitor both sensitive and small, Bao's team uses a thin middle layer of rubber covered with tiny pyramid bumps. Each mold-made pyramid is only a few microns across smaller than a human red blood cell.
When pressure is put on the device, the pyramids deform slightly, changing the size of the gap between the two halves of the device. This change in separation causes a measurable change in the electromagnetic field and the current flow in the device.
The more pressure placed on the monitor, the more the pyramids deform and the larger the change in the electromagnetic field. Using many of these sensors on a prosthetic limb could act like an electronic skin, creating an artificial sense of touch.
When the sensor is placed on someone's wrist using an adhesive bandage, the sensor can measure that person's pulse wave as it reverberates through the body.
The device is so sensitive that it can detect more than just the two peaks of a pulse wave. When engineers looked at the wave drawn by their device, they noticed small bumps in the tail of the pulse wave invisible to conventional sensors. Bao said she believes these fluctuations could potentially be used for more detailed diagnostics in the future.
Blood pressure and babies
Doctors already use similar, albeit much bulkier, sensors to keep track of a patient's heart health during surgery or when taking a new medication. But in the future Bao's device could help keep track of another vital sign.
"In theory, this kind of sensor can be used to measure blood pressure," said Schwartz. "Once you have it calibrated, you can use the signal of your pulse to calculate your blood pressure."
This non-invasive method of monitoring heart health could replace devices inserted directly into an artery, called intravascular catheters. These catheters create a high risk of infection, making them impractical for newborns and high-risk patients. Thus, an external monitor like Bao's could provide doctors a safer way to gather information about the heart, especially during infant surgeries.
Bao's team is working with other Stanford researchers to make the device completely wireless. Using wireless communication, doctors could receive a patient's minute-by-minute heart status via cell phone, all thanks to a device as thick as a human hair.
"For some patients with a potential heart disease, wearing a bandage would allow them to constantly measure their heart's condition," Bao said. "This could be done without interfering with their daily life at all, since it really just requires wearing a small bandage."
###
The team published its work in the May 12 edition of Nature Communications. The team's research is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Thomas Sumner is a writer at Stanford News Service.
Video available: http://youtu.be/dV11TUcdrgY
Media Contact Zhenan Bao, Chemical Engineering: (650) 723-2419, zbao@stanford.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 15-May-2013 Share ] Contact: Bjorn Carey
bccarey@stanford.edu
650-725-1944
Stanford University
Most of us don't ponder our pulses outside of the gym. But doctors use the human pulse as a diagnostic tool to monitor heart health.
Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, has developed a heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill and no wider than a postage stamp. The flexible skin-like monitor, worn under an adhesive bandage on the wrist, is sensitive enough to help doctors detect stiff arteries and cardiovascular problems.
The devices could one day be used to continuously track heart health and provide doctors a safer method of measuring a key vital sign for newborn and other high-risk surgery patients.
"The pulse is related to the condition of the artery and the condition of the heart," said Bao, whose lab develops artificial skin-like materials. "The better the sensor, the better doctors can catch problems before they develop."
Your pulse
To find your pulse, press your index and middle finger into the underside of your opposite wrist. You should feel the steady rhythm of your heart as it pumps blood through your veins.
Each beat you feel is actually made up of two distinct peaks, even though you can't tell them apart with just your fingers. The first, larger peak is from your heart pumping out blood. Shortly after a heartbeat, your lower body sends a reflecting wave back to your artery system, creating a smaller second peak.
The relative sizes of these two peaks can be used by medical experts to measure your heart's health.
"You can use the ratio of the two peaks to determine the stiffness of the artery, for example," said Gregor Schwartz, a post-doctoral fellow and a physicist for the project. "If there is a change in the heart's condition, the wave pattern will change. Fortunately, when I tested this on myself, my heart looked fine."
Petite pyramids
To make the heart monitor both sensitive and small, Bao's team uses a thin middle layer of rubber covered with tiny pyramid bumps. Each mold-made pyramid is only a few microns across smaller than a human red blood cell.
When pressure is put on the device, the pyramids deform slightly, changing the size of the gap between the two halves of the device. This change in separation causes a measurable change in the electromagnetic field and the current flow in the device.
The more pressure placed on the monitor, the more the pyramids deform and the larger the change in the electromagnetic field. Using many of these sensors on a prosthetic limb could act like an electronic skin, creating an artificial sense of touch.
When the sensor is placed on someone's wrist using an adhesive bandage, the sensor can measure that person's pulse wave as it reverberates through the body.
The device is so sensitive that it can detect more than just the two peaks of a pulse wave. When engineers looked at the wave drawn by their device, they noticed small bumps in the tail of the pulse wave invisible to conventional sensors. Bao said she believes these fluctuations could potentially be used for more detailed diagnostics in the future.
Blood pressure and babies
Doctors already use similar, albeit much bulkier, sensors to keep track of a patient's heart health during surgery or when taking a new medication. But in the future Bao's device could help keep track of another vital sign.
"In theory, this kind of sensor can be used to measure blood pressure," said Schwartz. "Once you have it calibrated, you can use the signal of your pulse to calculate your blood pressure."
This non-invasive method of monitoring heart health could replace devices inserted directly into an artery, called intravascular catheters. These catheters create a high risk of infection, making them impractical for newborns and high-risk patients. Thus, an external monitor like Bao's could provide doctors a safer way to gather information about the heart, especially during infant surgeries.
Bao's team is working with other Stanford researchers to make the device completely wireless. Using wireless communication, doctors could receive a patient's minute-by-minute heart status via cell phone, all thanks to a device as thick as a human hair.
"For some patients with a potential heart disease, wearing a bandage would allow them to constantly measure their heart's condition," Bao said. "This could be done without interfering with their daily life at all, since it really just requires wearing a small bandage."
###
The team published its work in the May 12 edition of Nature Communications. The team's research is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Thomas Sumner is a writer at Stanford News Service.
Video available: http://youtu.be/dV11TUcdrgY
Media Contact Zhenan Bao, Chemical Engineering: (650) 723-2419, zbao@stanford.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/su-sem051513.php
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The IRS acting chief acknowledged Tuesday that the agency demonstrated "a lack of sensitivity" in its screenings of political groups seeking tax-exempt status, but he said those mistakes won't be repeated.
In his first public comment on the case, Steven Miller said there was "a shortcut taken in our processes" for determining which groups needed special screening.
Miller has emerged as a key figure in the controversy over the IRS' singling out of conservative groups for extra scrutiny. President Barack Obama said Monday that if the agency intentionally targeted such groups, "that's outrageous and there's no place for it."
In an opinion piece in Tuesday's editions of USA Today, Miller said conceded that the agency demonstrated "a lack of sensitivity to the implications of some of the decisions that were made." He said screening of advocacy groups is "factually complex, and it's challenging to separate out political issues from those involving education or social welfare."
"The mistakes we made were due to the absence of a sufficient process for working the increase in cases and a lack of sensitivity to the implications of some of the decisions that were made," Miller wrote.
Miller said the agency has implemented new procedures that will "ensure the mistakes won't be repeated."
Meanwhile, two Republican governors urged Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the case. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker call the allegations "Big Brother come to life." They want a special prosecutor to find out if any laws were broken and say Obama should fire any IRS employees responsible for the situation.
On Monday, the IRS said Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny. Congress, though, was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted, even after Miller had been briefed on the matter.
At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny ? despite being asked about it.
Miller's op-ed, however, did not address why he did not inform Congress after he was briefed.
At the congressional hearing, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, told Miller that some politically active tax-exempt groups in his district had complained about being harassed. Marchant did not explicitly ask if tea party groups were being targeted. But he did ask how applications were handled.
Miller responded, "We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases," according to a transcript on the committee's website.
Earlier, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., had raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed. Boustany specifically mentioned tea party groups in his inquiry.
But in a June 15, 2012, letter to Boustany, Miller said that when the IRS saw an increase in applications from groups that were involved in political activity, the agency "took steps to coordinate the handling of the case to ensure consistency."
He added that agents worked with tax law experts "to develop approaches and materials that could be helpful to the agents working the cases."
Miller did not mention that in 2011, those materials included a list of words to watch for, such as "tea party" and "patriot." He also didn't disclose that in January 2012, the criteria for additional screening was updated to include references to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by GOP Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, is holding a hearing on the issue Friday and Miller is scheduled to testify.
The Senate Finance Committee announced Monday that it will join a growing list of congressional committees investigating the matter.
The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status. In some cases, the IRS acknowledged, agents inappropriately asked for lists of donors.
The agency blamed low-level employees in a Cincinnati office, saying no high-level officials were aware.
When members of Congress repeatedly raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed last year, a deputy IRS commissioner took the lead in assuring lawmakers that the additional scrutiny was a legitimate part of the screening process.
That deputy commissioner was Miller, who is now the acting head of the agency.
Camp and other members of the Ways and Means Committee sent at least four inquiries to the IRS, starting in June 2011. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent three inquiries. And Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House oversight committee, sent at least one.
"This was a targeting of the president's political enemies, effectively, and lies about it during the election year so that it wasn't discovered until afterwards," Issa said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning." The fact is this is the kind of investigation that has to be open and transparent to the American people."
None of the agency's responses to Congress acknowledged that conservative groups had ever been targeted, including a response to Hatch dated Sept. 11, 2012 ? four months after Miller had been briefed.
In several letters to members of Congress, Miller went into painstaking detail about how applications for tax-exempt status were screened. But he never mentioned that conservative groups were being targeted, even though people working under him knew as early as June 2011 that tea party groups were being targeted, according to an upcoming report by the agency's inspector general.
The IRS issued a statement Monday saying that Miller had been briefed on May 3, 2012 "that some specific applications were improperly identified by name and sent to the (exempt organizations) centralized processing unit for further review." That was the unit in Cincinnati that handled the tea party applications.
Miller became acting commissioner in November, after Commissioner Douglas Shulman completed his five-year term. Shulman had been appointed by President George W. Bush.
On June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to a draft of the report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
At the meeting, Lerner was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says. Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately."
However, when Lerner responded to inquiries from the House oversight committee, she didn't mention the fact that tea party groups had ever been targeted. Her responses included 45-page letters in May 2012 to Issa and to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs a subcommittee.
Lerner also met twice with staff from the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee to discuss the issue, in March and in May 2012, according to a timeline constructed by committee staff. She didn't mention at either meeting that conservative groups had been targeted, according to the timeline.
Associated Press writers Jim Abrams and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.
___
Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irs-chief-agency-lacked-sensitivity-screenings-131439812.html
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Google announced today at I/O that it made Google Cloud Platform generally available,?marking a milestone for the cloud community and the real arrival of a giant to contend with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its pay-as-you-go pricing.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gKpMQGj-VJM/
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There's a good chance that you, like us, enjoyed a certain Saturday Night Live sketch recently in which Weekend Update's newly branded tech correspondent Randall Meeks gave his raw impressions of Google Glass -- using a prop made of plastic and attached to a pair of sunglasses. There was a lot of shouting, twitching and, for us at least, laughing. Meeks is played by the incredibly talented Fred Armisen, also well-known for IFC's surreally hilarious Portlandia. In reality, we learned, Armisen had never used Google Glass. That was a situation we were happy to fix.
Filed under: Wearables, Google
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At this point, you probably have a working understanding of what bitcoins are (at the very least your handle of bitcoins is like how you can kinda, sorta explain why the sky is blue to a kid). But how does an actual transaction with bitcoins work? That's a bit more complicated. It's not exactly pulling crumpled cash out your pocket and dropping it off at the bodega counter for a soda now is it?
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? New research is raising fresh concern that an age-old treatment for troubled pregnancies ? bed rest ? doesn't seem to prevent premature birth, and might even worsen that risk.
Doctors have known for years that there's no good evidence that bed rest offers any benefit for certain pregnancy complications, and it can cause side effects in the mother, not to mention emotional and financial strain. Yet estimates suggest nearly 1 in 5 moms-to-be is told to cut her activity ? ranging from quitting work to actually staying in bed all day ? at some point during pregnancy.
Now, spurred by the latest study, some specialists are issuing a call for strict studies to finally settle the controversy ? and until then, for doctors not to assume that a prescription to take it easy can't hurt.
"Bed rest is misperceived as an inexpensive, innocuous, logical recommendation," Dr. Joseph Biggio Jr. of the University of Alabama at Birmingham wrote in the latest issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, a journal read by thousands of OB-GYNs.
In a separate review of past studies that failed to support bed rest, a trio of obstetricians and ethicists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, went a step farther: They said it's not ethical to keep prescribing bed rest unless the women are enrolled in a research study, like they are for other unproven treatments.
So why is rest prescribed so often? There aren't a lot of good treatments to prevent prematurity and other problems.
"Patients want you to do something, and physicians want to do something," explained Dr. Catherine Spong, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the National Institutes of Health who co-authored the latest research.
Spong and colleagues took a closer look at a study of treatments for women at risk of premature birth because of an increasingly diagnosed complication called a short cervix. Bed rest is a broad term that doesn't just mean staying in bed all the time ? and during that treatment study, doctors were free to decide if the participants also should restrict their activities, essentially offering a real-world test of the effects. The prescriptions ranged from no sexual activity, to partial or complete work restrictions, to complete restriction of non-work activity as well.
Nearly 40 percent of the 646 pregnant women enrolled in the study were prescribed some type of activity restriction in the second or third trimester. Most were told to restrict all three types of activity ? sexual, work and non-work ? what's usually considered bed rest.
The surprise: Some 37 percent of women who took the precautions had a premature baby, compared with just 17 percent of the women who didn't scale back, the researchers report in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
"The data suggests that bed rest does not prevent preterm birth in this high-risk population, but it doesn't definitively answer that question," cautioned Spong. She wants to see a more strict study ? the kind that randomly assigns women to rest or not ? to prove if there's a difference.
The study also raises questions about harm, although the women who rested merely may have been at higher risk for a preemie. They were older and had somewhat more serious cervical complications. But the researchers pointed to other studies that link bed rest to increased stress and anxiety, both of which are associated with prematurity and smaller babies.
Plus, bed rest is well known to increase a mother's risk of a dangerous blood clot, as well as side effects including bone and muscle loss.
Interestingly, the new study found those who rested were more likely to have private insurance, raising questions about the influence of social rather than medical factors.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says bed rest shouldn't be "routinely recommended" for prevention of preterm birth. And women face a tough decision when their doctors do bring it up.
Sandy Lutton spent the last 18 weeks of her pregnancy lying flat in bed, forbidden even to prop up with her laptop, hoping it would prevent her twins from being born too soon.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it was stressful," said the McLean, Va., woman, whose twins, now 2, were born healthy. "I had a lot of time to sit and worry."
Her first son had been born on time, but she'd lost a second baby due to a weak cervix. With the twins, her doctors stitched her cervix closed and recommended strict bed rest, while making it clear there was no proof it would make a difference. Lutton bombarded them with questions, but eventually decided she had to try. Ultrasound exams showed her cervix stayed fine until doctors removed the stitch and delivered her babies; she even cheated with a little extra movement on exam days.
Amid the uncertainty, March of Dimes medical adviser Dr. Siobhan Dolan said women shouldn't hesitate to ask their doctors about the pros and cons of restricting activity.
"Sometimes you feel less regret if you did something even though it didn't change the outcome," acknowledged Dolan, who herself has prescribed bed rest less often in recent years.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/study-questions-bed-rest-prevents-prematurity-212704604.html
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Airbnb's Android app just scored a significant refresh, including some major design tweaks and additional tools for hosts. Version 2.0 adds two features that should make it easier for property managers to interact with guests efficiently, including the ability to update calendar availability and pre-approve users from any compatible Android handset -- that latter feature hit the iOS app in December. There are also quite a few bug fixes in tow, according to the release notes -- push notifications should now be working, for example. The focus here is on host usability, however. According to a TechCrunch report, only five percent of hosts current use the Android app, and while these additions should streamline operation, they're unlikely to account for a major shift from the web interface.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Airbnb (Google Play)
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1KANFm3c1RU/
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Nigeria relies almost exclusively on its energy sector for export earnings and 75 percent of federal government revenue, Graeber writes, but?a long record of corruption, militancy and banditry has clouded Nigeria's oil prospects.
A man arranges drums at an oil station and depot in Nigeria's capital Abuja. Crude oil production in Nigeria has suffered in recent years because of militant campaigns and sabotage in the Niger Delta region.
Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters/File
EnlargeThe wealthiest man in Africa said he's secured billions of dollars in loans to help kick start the refinery business in Nigeria. OPEC-member Nigeria is forced to import most of its petroleum products because of aging infrastructure. Crude oil production in Nigeria has suffered in recent years because of militant campaigns and sabotage in the Niger Delta region. Last month, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it was launching a campaign to save Christianity in Nigeria. With militant group Boko Haram seeking to establish an Islamic state in a country divided along religious lines, poorly maintained refineries may be the least of Nigeria's concerns.
Skip to next paragraph OilPrice.comoffers extensive coverage of all energy sectors from crude oil and natural gas to solar energy and environmental issues. To see more opinion pieces and news analysis that cover energy technology, finance and trading, geopolitics, and sector news, please visit?Oilprice.com.
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Nigerian business magnate Aliko Dangote?said?he's secured $4.25 billion in loans from domestic and offshore banks to breathe new life into the refinery business in Africa's largest crude oil producer. Nigeria exports about four times as much crude oil as it can handle with its existing refineries. Aging infrastructure and poor maintenance?means?Nigeria has to rely on imports to meet domestic oil requirements and Dangote said such a significant investment makes good business sense.?(Related article:?SOUTH SUDAN: More Good News for Oil Production)
The U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration?said?Nigerian oil production peaked at 2.6 million barrels per day in 2005. Since then, militancy and corruption have contributed to relative declines in production. Last week, Timipre Sylva, former governor of southern oil-rich Bayelsa state was?arrested?for fraud, adding to a steady stream of corruption charges filed against officials in the Niger Delta. Later this week, lawmakers?said?they will look into allegations that Nigerian Oil Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke is loosely connected to some shady deals involving Niger Delta oil blocks.? President Goodluck Jonathan, himself a former Bayelsa governor, said he would crack down on corruption, though recent developments show his efforts so far have lacked teeth.?
DUBAI (Reuters) - Bank Muscat
In a globally coordinated campaign, hackers broke into two unidentified payment processing companies in India that handled the prepaid debit cards for two Middle Eastern banks, including Bank Muscat, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.
The payment processing firms were EnStage Inc, which operates from Bangalore, and ElectraCard Services, which is based in Pune, several sources told Reuters.
Bank Muscat had outsourced its card processing functions to EnStage, according to the sources.
The Omani lender reported in February that its pre-paid travel cards were hit by fraud, forcing it to take a 15 million rial ($39.0 million) loss provision.
"Bank Muscat is aware from press reports that a number of arrests in different jurisdictions have taken place in relation to the prepaid debit card fraud incident which we disclosed on February 25 and 26," it said in a brief statement to the stock exchange on Sunday.
"We reiterate that we are exploring all avenues of recovery so as to protect shareholder interests and will advise the markets accordingly if there are any material developments in this regard."
It gave no additional information in the statement on the measures taken to recover the funds.
The other bank involved hit by the cyber attack, National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAKBANK), said on Friday that none of its customers had lost any money as a result of a cyber fraud which resulted in a loss at the Gulf bank in 2012.
($1 = 0.3850 Omani rials)
(Reporting by Dinesh Nair; Editing by Andrew Torchia and Daniel Magnowski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-muscat-says-looking-options-recover-card-fraud-054928691.html
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LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - Manchester City 0 Wigan Athletic 1 - FA Cup final result at Wembley Stadium Scorer: Ben Watson 90 Red card: Pablo Zabaleta, Manchester City 84th Halftime: 0-0; Att: 86,254 Lineups: Manchester City: 1-Joe Hart; 5-Pablo Zabaleta, 33-Matija Nastasic, 4-Vincent Kompany, 22-Gael Clichy; 21-David Silva, 42-Yaya Toure; 18-Gareth Barry (10-Edin Dzeko 90+1), 32-Carlos Tevez (17-Jack Rodwell 69), 8-Samir Nasri (7-James Milner 54), 16-Sergio Aguero Wigan Athletic: 1-Joel Robles; 17-Emmerson Boyce, 3-Antolin Alcaraz, 33-Paul Scharner, 18-Roger Espinoza; 16-James McArthur, ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-official-says-syria-conference-not-possible-may-090348135.html
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