NEW YORK, Sept. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Awareness of nanotechnology is still low, but there are some surprising differences in opinion. Perhaps not surprisingly, reports of having heard at least a little ...
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Nanotechnology Awareness May Be Low, But Opinions Are Strong
CALGARY The city of Medicine Hat, Alta., has opened a new front in the war against a nest of rats that took hold of the border-towns landfill last month.
In a bid to recapture the provinces status as one of the few rat-free regions on Earth, the city launched Operation Haystack: A large roll of hay was baited with poison and placed downhill from the landfill. Gnawing signs near the stack, which are near-perfect homes for rats, indicated there had been activity, said Brandy Calvert, spokesperson for Medicine Hat. So far, although the battle has not yet been won, she said the city remained hopeful the rat population was dwindling.
The grand total is 111 [dead carcasses found] at the landfill. We have 18 in the county and in the city weve had 19, she said.
Promisingly, all of the rats found outside the landfill have been singletons, indicating no breeding pairs had established themselves.
We got them before they went anywhere else, she said.
City workers followed a trail of reports of rat sightings to the landfill in August. Since then, theyve left poisoned food and water in the hopes the population would die.
City staff have stopped finding rat bodies in the landfill a sharp improvement from several weeks ago when the bait would routinely kill as many as nine rats per day.
Not as much bait is being taken, were not finding as many bodies, she said.
Were not seeing as much evidence of activity. We have had many locations throughout the city checked, the city facilities have all been checked and theres been no sign of activity.
At the initiatives peak, as many as 60 people left poisoned bait or inspected nearby residences for signs of the vermin. Ten of those specialists kept a near round-the-clock vigil full time. The team has also been using cameras to spot the rats.
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Alberta’s rat battle: Medicine Hat in poison war with nest of rodents
By Yeoh Lai Lin – The Online Citizen Spoke to Associate Professor Paul Ananth Tambyah, associate professor at a local medical school and infectious diseases specialist, member of the SDP Advisory Healthcare Panel and one of the engineers of the plan. 1. Since its official launch, The SDP National Healthcare Plan has yet to [...]
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Government has tabled a parliamentary resolution to transfer the Medical School site at Guardamangia to the Augustinian Order to use it as a primary school for 400 children.
Government is proposing to lease it to the Order for 99 years for 1,000 a year as rent. Sports and other educational facilities can be developed on the site and even the 2,177 sq m car park in front of the Medical School building can be made use of by the school.
The Augustinian Order is committing itself to spend at least 1,000,000 on the primary school project and that the work on it will start within 10 weeks of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) issues the necessary permits.
In exchange for the Medical School site, the Augustinian Order will transfer to government the site on which they were going to build the primary school for a lease of 99 years at 900 per year. Government will pass back this land to the Order on condition that no development is carried out on it.
After working hard for more than three years on a new primary school for St Augustines College, MEPA last February turned down the application by five votes to four and wanted the extension to have two and not three floors as planned, making the whole project too small and costly to be viable.
On 9 February 2012 the Prime Minister was given a petition signed by parents after the students of the school, parents and teachers met near the War Monument in Floriana and walked to Castille.
Neighbours of the college had objecting to the project as the new building would block their view and devalue their property.
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TUCSON, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Liberty Star Uranium & Metals Corp. (Liberty Star or the Company)(LBSR: OTCQB) announces that work completed on the Big Chunk Super Project (BCSP) north and south blocks will satisfy Alaska State requirements for the Annual Labor year September 1, 2011 to September 1, 2012 on Liberty Stars State Mining Claims.
Liberty Star will submit Affidavits of Annual Labor valued at USD $121,648.48 for the north block (184 claims) and USD $535,795.76 for the south block (428 claims). These sums exceed yearly requirements and the overage will carry over to next years requirements. The Company will file complete documentation for this assessment work within 90 days from September 1, as prescribed by the Alaska Department of Mines and Mineral Resources (ADMMR) regulations for Alaska State Mining Claims.
James A. Briscoe James A. Briscoe, Professional Geologist, AZ CA CEO/Chief Geologist Liberty Star Uranium & Metals Corp.
About Liberty Stars Big Chunk Super Project:
Liberty Star, through its wholly owned Alaska subsidiary, Big Chunk Corp., holds exclusive mineral exploration rights to 612 state mining claims in two blocks covering approximately 177 square miles in southwestern Alaska. The Big Chunk claims were initially staked in 2003 along the Big Chunk caldera, which is believed to host Northern Dynasty Minerals/Anglo Americans Pebble Project. Liberty Star has recently conducted exploratory drilling on specific targets for porphyry copper, gold, molybdenum (moly), silver and zinc. SRK Consulting submitted a NI 43-101 compliant technical report on the Big Chunk Super Project in 2010: available on Liberty Stars web site http://www.libertystaruranium.com/.
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TUCSON, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Liberty Star Uranium & Metals Corp. (Liberty Star or the Company)(LBSR: OTCQB) is pleased to announce Pete OHeeron of Houston, Texas has joined the Liberty Star Board of Directors. Mr. OHeeron is a significantly large and longtime LBSR shareholder and was instrumental in forging a relationship between Liberty Star and Northern Dynasty Minerals, resulting in a strategic partnership and the resurgence of Liberty Star in the southwestern Alaska mining region. Mr. Charles D. Vollmer has resigned as Director to pursue his Jobenomics Movement full time. If the opportunity presents itself, Liberty Star will team with Mr. Vollmers Jobenomics on future projects.
About Mr. OHeeron:
Mr. OHeeron leads an operationalinvestmentgroup which identifies early stage opportunities in the medical field with strong intellectual property positions. Through his 20+ years of medical product development experience, Mr. OHeeron brings together the resources from strategic disciplines necessary to commercialize unique technologies. Prior to founding Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, Mr. OHeeron founded NeoSurg Technologies, Inc. to develop a minimally invasive access system. As a result of his efforts, NeoSurg Technologies was successful in developing the T2000 Minimally Invasive Access System, the world leader in reposable surgical instrumentation. Mr. OHeeron completed the sale of NeoSurg Technologies to CooperSurgical in 2005. Mr. OHeeron graduated from Texas StateUniversitywith a BS in Healthcare Administration and a minor in Business Administration. He received his Masters in Healthcare Administration from the University of Houston. Mr. OHeeron currently holds 5 patents and has 4 patents pending.
Jim Briscoe, Liberty Star CEO and Chief Geologist, comments, Petes business acumen and natural ability connecting with people will definitely stimulate our growth potential. Even before becoming a Liberty Star Director, Petes support benefitted us materially. I have found there to be a real similarity between the scientific methodology of practicing medicine and exploration geology and I especially appreciate Petes achievements in the field of medical technology; he understands what we do as mineral explorers. Pete is a very energetic entrepreneur who will introduce Liberty Star to investors that are attracted to our commitment to using cutting-edge technology in mineral exploration.
James A. Briscoe James A. Briscoe, Professional Geologist, AZ CA CEO/Chief Geologist Liberty Star Uranium & Metals Corp.
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A specter is haunting Robert Frank's latest book the specter of libertarianism. For him, it is a doctrinaire view with little to recommend it; yet he again and again seems drawn both to try to refute it and to deflect it. Libertarianism he takes to be wrong; but even those who accept it, he thinks, ought to see that his proposals for progressive taxation and assorted welfare measures are reasonable. One might at first be inclined to explain Frank's behavior by saying that it responds to the bad influence, as he sees it, that libertarian positions have on discussions of public policy. I suspect that there is more to it than that, though. Libertarianism exerts a peculiar fascination over him.
He says about libertarianism,
Unlike most critics on the left, I will grant the libertarians' most important basic assumptions about the world that markets are competitive, that people are rational, and that the state must meet a heavy burden of proof before restraining any individual citizen's liberty of action. Although there are reasons to question each assumption, the internal contradictions of the libertarian framework emerge clearly even if we accept these assumptions uncritically. (p. 11)
What is the internal contradiction at the heart of libertarianism that Frank claims to discern? Here Frank reprises a theme familiar to readers of his earlier books.
The fatal flaw in that [libertarian] framework stems from an observation that is itself completely uncontroversial namely that in many important domains of life, performance is graded on the curve. The dependence of reward on rank eliminates any presumption of harmony between individual and collective interests, and with it, the foundation of the libertarian's case for a completely unfettered market system. (p. 11)
A recent news item illustrates what Frank has in mind. The US Anti-Doping Agency has stripped Lance Armstrong of his Tour de France victories on the grounds that he used forbidden performance-enhancing drugs. The merits of that controversy aren't here our concern, but it serves to raise the question, Why do athletes ingest substances that may harm them? Obviously, they do so to gain an advantage over their competitors. But so long as a substantial number of rival athletes do this, none will gain an advantage over the others. You would get a jump on the competition if only you took the substances and no one else did, but this is irrelevant to what happens in the actual world. Athletes have gone to useless trouble and put their health at risk, and the result is that they are exactly where they were before in their battles with one another.
The dependence of reward on rank of course affects many others besides athletes, and one particular instance of it especially bothers Frank. People want their children to attend the best available school, and schools in richer neighborhoods are better than those in poorer areas. This leads parents to work longer and harder and under riskier conditions than they otherwise would have, in order to afford to move into a better neighborhood. Once more, though, their efforts do not gain for them the result they hope for: each parent is thwarted by the similar efforts of other parents.
A worker might well accept a riskier job at a higher wage because doing so would cover the monthly payments on a house in a better school district. But the same observation applies to other workers. And because school quality is an inherently relative concept, when others also trade safety for higher wages, no one will move forward in relative terms. They'll succeed only in bidding up the prices of houses in better school districts. (p. 40)
Frank draws an analogy between this type of futile struggle and a phenomenon studied by Charles Darwin. An example is the bull elk, which has developed outsized antlers. These "function not as weaponry against external predators but in the competition among bulls for access to females" (p. 21). The antlers make them less speedy and thus easier for wolves to attack them. They are even worse off than Lance Armstrong and his fellow cyclists. Darwin's study of this phenomenon leads Frank to "offer the following prediction. One century hence, if a roster of professional economists is asked to identify the intellectual father of their discipline, a majority will name Charles Darwin" (p. 16).
This is all very well, you may say or actually, as we'll soon see, not so very well but what does it have to do with libertarianism? The answer is simple. The government can rescue us from these futile competitive struggles by imposing a heavy progressive consumption tax. People would then have less money to waste on trying to get ahead of one another, but they would be no worse off: remember, the money that we spend on clawing our way to the top does us no good. All of our efforts leave us where we were before we spent the money. Given the good offices of the government, people could still attempt to surpass one another, but the government can now spend the money it extracted in all sorts of useful projects.
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Franklin Perez sets a sign in a wooded lot off of Mitchell Hammock Road.
By Alicia Mandigo | September 06, 2012
A Libertarian candidate for District 28 of the State House of Representatives said he is planning to sue the Libertarian Party of Florida in small claims court.
Franklin Perez, who was featured in a Seminole Chronicle story last April, said he became at odds with the state party after taking a public stance on the Trayvon Martin case. He said the party de-vetted him as a candidate after he announced his position on the case.
On Feb. 26, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed while walking through a gated Sanford community. Suspect George Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self-defense and initially was not arrested in the shooting. At the time Perez spoke out, calling for Zimmerman's arrest. Although Zimmerman was ultimately arrested in the case, Perez said the Libertarian Party took issue with his public position, saying that it was in conflict with the party's non-initiation-of-force policy.
"I really felt I needed to take a position on this because Sanford is in my district," Perez said.
This is Perez's fourth attempt to win a seat in the state House in District 28.
The Libertarian Party's official platform states this:
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7 September 2012 Last updated at 00:32 ET
South Korea's coast guard is leading military exercises near islands also claimed by Japan, amid ongoing tension over the territorial row.
The operation near islands known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan also involves the army, navy and airforce, South Korean media said.
Tensions have risen since a visit to the islands by South Korea's leader.
Japan wants international arbitration over the islands, but South Korea has rejected the proposal.
Last month Japan briefly recalled its ambassador to Seoul in protest over a surprise visit to the islands by President Lee Myung-bak.
South Korea, which controls the islands, has maintained a small police force there since 1954.
"The exercise is carried out under the scenario in which coast guard takes a leading role in repelling foreign civilians invading territorial waters near Dokdo or trying to land on Dokdo," Col Lee Boong-woo was reported as saying by Yonhap news agency.
South Korea has decided to exclude exercises that involve landing on the islands in a move that is ''mindful'' of the diplomatic row with Japan, the Yonhap report said.
Previous exercises had involved marines landing on the island, it added.
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06-09-2012 04:00 ENCODE, the Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements, is the most ambitious human genetics project to date. It takes the 3 billion letters described by the Human Genome Project in 2000, and tries to explain them. Remarkably, ENCODE scientists have managed to assign a biochemical function to 80% of the genome, including the genes and the parts of the genome that tell those genes what to do. This information is helping us understand how genomes are interpreted to make different types of cells and different people -- and crucially, how mistakes can lead to disease. In this video, ENCODE's lead coordinator, Ewan Birney, and Nature editor Magdalena Skipper talk about the challenges of managing this colossal project and what we've learnt about our genomes. To read the research papers and more, visit
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Newswise Bethesda, MD -- (September 6, 2012) Mary Gehring, Ph.D., of the Whitehead Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Valerie Horsley, Ph.D., of Yale University are the 2013 recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Awards funded by The Gruber Foundation and administered by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) and the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). Dr. Gehring received the award for her research in imprinting and epigenetic regulation in Arabidopsis, and Dr. Horsley for her studies of the epithelial stem cell niche delineated by mouse genetic models. Each of the recipients will receive a $75,000 (USD) award administered over three years ($25,000 per year).
The recipients were selected from among early career female applicants from all over the world. Their work and goals reflect the spirit and dedication of British scientist Rosalind Franklin, for whom the award is named. Their originality, scientific creativity and seminal discoveries within their fields, exemplify the innovative thinking Franklin used while working to determine the structure of DNA in the early 1950s.
The Rosalind Franklin Award honors a founder of modern genetics by honoring the achievements of her academic granddaughters. For those of us with the privilege of selecting the Rosalind Franklin Award winners, this is one of our most joyful and challenging tasks. The depth and breadth of accomplishments of this year's nominees are extraordinary. We congratulate the winners and welcome them as our colleagues and sisters in science, said Mary-Claire King,President, American Society of Human Genetics, and Chair, 2013 Rosalind Franklin Award Committee.
Dr. Gehring, now a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and an assistant professor of biology at MIT, has a bachelors degree from Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and worked with Robert L. Fischer, Ph.D., at the University of California, Berkeley, for her Ph.D. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Steven Henikoff, Ph.D., at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Dr. Gehring is awarded the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award based on her work in Arabidopsis on epigenetic processes, on the evolution and mechanisms of imprinting, on the fidelity of epigenetics inheritance between generations, and on the comparative genetics of imprinting among species. Her work deepens our understanding of the developmental program in plants and is likely to reveal shared features of methylation across plants and animals. This demonstrates a profound impact that foundational research can have on our understanding of epigenetics.
Dr. Horsley earned her undergraduate degree from Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina), her doctoral degree from Emory University, where she worked with Grace Pavlath, Ph.D., and did her postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University with Elaine Fuchs, Ph.D., on mechanisms of stem cell lineage commitment and quiescence. She is now the Maxine F. Singer 57, Ph.D. assistant professor of molecular, cellular and development biology at Yale University. Dr. Horsley receives the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award for her accomplishments in the genetic dissection of the regulation of skin stem cells, and for her elegant and groundbreaking independent work using a genetic approach to characterize the role of adipocyte cells in the skin stem cell niche.
Drs. Gehring and Horsley will be acknowledged at the 62nd ASHG Annual Meeting in San Francisco, on Friday, November 9, 2012, in conjunction with the Gruber Genetics Prize presentation.
The Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Awards were developed by The Gruber Foundation to support and inspire the next generation of women in genetics. Two early career female scientists are selected every three years as recipients of these awards. One award is for research in genetics of humans and other mammals, and one award is for research in genetics of other model organisms. Recipients must be within their first three years of an independent research position in any area of genetics.
"All of us at The Gruber Foundation derive profound satisfaction from the announcement of the top two young women investigators who are named Rosalind Franklin awardees each three years. We take particular pleasure this year in welcoming Dr. Mary Gehring, and Dr. Valerie Horsley to a growing roster of cutting-edge women scientists. We thank the dedicated committee members at the American Society for Human Genetics, and the Genetics Society of America for their diligence and commitment, knowing that the numbers of stunningly brilliant young women doing breakthrough science make the selection challenging," said Patricia Gruber, co-founder and president emeritus of The Gruber Foundation.
Applications were reviewed by a distinguished committee that included past recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Award and members of both the GSA and ASHG. The committee, which was chaired by ASHG President Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle, also included Sally Camper, Ph.D., University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor; Mary Lou Guerinot, Ph.D., Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Ruth Lehmann, Ph.D., New York University; Trudy Mackay, Ph.D., North Carolina State University in Raleigh; and Cynthia Morton, Ph.D., Brigham & Womens Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. Past Rosalind Franklin Award recipients on the review committee were Amy Pasquinelli (2004), Ph.D., University of California, San Diego; Molly Przeworski (2007), Ph.D., University of Chicago, Illinois; Iiris Hovatta (2010), Ph.D., University of Helsinki, Finland; and Jue D. Wang (2010) Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
ABOUT THE GENETICS SOCIETY OF AMERICA: Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers, educators, bioengineers, bioinformaticians and others interested in the field of genetics. Its nearly 5,000 members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. The GSA is dedicated to promoting research in genetics and to facilitating communication among geneticists worldwide through its conferences, including the biennial conference on Model Organisms to Human Biology, an interdisciplinary meeting on current and cutting edge topics in genetics research, as well as annual and biennial meetings that focus on the genetics of particular organisms, including C. elegans, Drosophila, fungi, mice, yeast, and zebrafish. GSA publishes GENETICS, a leading journal in the field and a new online, open-access publication, G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. For more information about GSA, please visit http://www.genetics-gsa.org. Also follow GSA on Facebook at facebook.com/GeneticsGSA and on Twitter @GeneticsGSA.
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06-09-2012 16:41 Florida Retiree Carol Berman of West Palm Beach, Florida, addressed the Democratic National Convention about the Affordable Care Act and how it has benefitted her after falling into the so-called "Donut Hole" with prescription medication. "I'm one of the seniors who retired to this piece of heaven on earth and I'm as happy as a clam. But it's not just the sunshine; it's Obamacare."
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Florida Retiree Carol Berman Talks Health Care Reform at DNC - Video
06-09-2012 19:13 "As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously," Kennedy said, "and today, it is under attack. This year alone, more than a dozen states have passed more than 40 restrictions on women's access to reproductive health care. That's not the kind of future I want for my daughters or your daughters."
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Caroline Kennedy Speaks to DNC on Health Care, Women's Health, Voting - Video
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, The Associated Press
Updated: 12:01 p.m.
WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste, the influential Institute of Medicine said Thursday in a report that ties directly into the presidential campaign.
President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are accusing each other of trying to slash Medicare and put seniors at risk. But the counter-intuitive finding from the report is that deep cuts are possible without rationing, and a leaner system may even produce better quality.
"Health care in America presents a fundamental paradox," said the report from an 18-member panel of prominent experts, including doctors, business people, and public officials. "The past 50 years have seen an explosion in biomedical knowledge, dramatic innovation in therapies and surgical procedures, and management of conditions that previously were fatal ...
"Yet, American health care is falling short on basic dimensions of quality, outcomes, costs and equity," the report concluded.
If banking worked like health care, ATM transactions would take days, the report said. If home building were like health care, carpenters, electricians and plumbers would work from different blueprints and hardly talk to each other. If shopping were like health care, prices would not be posted and could vary widely within the same store, depending on who was paying.
If airline travel were like health care, individual pilots would be free to design their own preflight safety checks or not perform one at all.
How much is $750 billion? The one-year estimate of health care waste is equal to more than ten years of Medicare cuts in Obama's health care law. It's more than the Pentagon budget. It's more than enough to care for the uninsured.
Getting health care costs better controlled is one of the keys to reducing the deficit, the biggest domestic challenge facing the next president. The report did not lay out a policy prescription for Medicare and Medicaid but suggested there's plenty of room for lawmakers to find a path.
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WASHINGTON
The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year - roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar - through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste, the influential Institute of Medicine said Thursday in a report that ties directly into the presidential campaign.
President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are accusing each other of trying to slash Medicare and put seniors at risk. But the counter-intuitive finding from the report is that deep cuts are possible without rationing, and a leaner system may even produce better quality.
"Health care in America presents a fundamental paradox," said the report from an 18-member panel of prominent experts, including doctors, business people, and public officials. "The past 50 years have seen an explosion in biomedical knowledge, dramatic innovation in therapies and surgical procedures, and management of conditions that previously were fatal ...
"Yet, American health care is falling short on basic dimensions of quality, outcomes, costs and equity," the report concluded.
If banking worked like health care, ATM transactions would take days, the report said. If home building were like health care, carpenters, electricians and plumbers would work from different blueprints and hardly talk to each other. If shopping were like health care, prices would not be posted and could vary widely within the same store, depending on who was paying.
If airline travel were like health care, individual pilots would be free to design their own preflight safety checks - or not perform one at all.
How much is $750 billion? The one-year estimate of health care waste is equal to more than ten years of Medicare cuts in Obama's health care law. It's more than the Pentagon budget. It's more than enough to care for the uninsured.
Getting health care costs better controlled is one of the keys to reducing the deficit, the biggest domestic challenge facing the next president. The report did not lay out a policy prescription for Medicare and Medicaid but suggested there's plenty of room for lawmakers to find a path.
Both Obama and Romney agree there has to be a limit to Medicare spending, but they differ on how to get that done. Obama would rely on a powerful board to cut payments to service providers, while gradually changing how hospitals and doctors are paid to reward results instead of volume. Romney would limit the amount of money future retirees can get from the government for medical insurance, relying on the private market to find an efficient solution. Each accuses of the other of jeopardizing the well-being of seniors.
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Yesterday, Aetna Inc. (AET)announced results of the Accountable Care Organization it formed with Portland, Maine, based NovaHealth. The results reflected the collaborations success in achieving its goal of improving health care quality, while at the same time bringing down the cost of care. Aetna started working with the later by forming an Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) back in 2008.
An ACO is a collaboration of healthcare providers, who voluntarily forge alliances to provide coordinated, high-quality care to patients. An ACO is accountable for the quality, cost, and overall care offered to members. By focusing on the needs of patients and linking payments to outcomes, this model of care is intended to improve the health of individuals and communities and curb the rising healthcare costs.
Some of the main result highlights of Aetna ACO model with NovaHealth show that, patients who were a part of the program witnessed a 50% reduction in their inpatient hospital days, 45% lower hospital admissions, and 56% fewer readmissions, compared with other Medicare population, throughout the state and outside the scope of the ACO.
The results also feature that 99% of the members taking Medicare Advantage service visited their doctors in 2011 to get preventive and follow up care. The report also shows a reduction in cost of the Medicare Advantage members who were served by Aetna-NovaHealth ACO by 16.5% to 33%, as compared with those who were not included in the service.
Aetnas provider collaboration with NovaHealth successfully delivered quality care to its members. It is basically a setup where insurance companies and health care providers work together to improve care while lowering expenses relating to it.
The results also reflect that there was an increase in the percentage of Aetna Medicare Advantage members, who visited the doctors office each calendar year. The members who were suffering from serious illness, such as chronic heart failure (:CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (:COPD) or diabetes were encouraged to go through a checkup once every six month.
Those who have diabetes were instructed to take blood glucose tests each calendar year. Moreover, the members were kept under observation for follow-up visits within 30 days of being discharged from hospital stay.
Through these tight control and follow-up measures on the early stages of illness, Aetna is focused on controlling health care costs, make patients healthier and create value for the health care system.
Another important feature of Aetna-NovaHealth Collaboration is the nurse case management. With this service Aetna strives to provide a continuum of health care services for defined groups of patients.
It is a dynamic and systematic collaborative approach wherein nurse case managers actively participate with their clients to identify the best options and services for meeting individuals' health related needs. Aetnas primary objective is to decrease fragmentation and duplication of care, enhancing quality and cost-effective clinical outcomes.
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Public release date: 6-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, September 6, 2012The naturally occurring cytokine interleukin-18, or IL-18, plays a key role in inflammation and has been implicated in serious inflammatory diseases for which the prognosis is poor and there are currently limited treatment options. Therapies targeting IL-18 could prove effective against inflammatory diseases of the lung including bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as described in a review article published in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (http://www.liebertpub.com/jir), a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research website. (http://www.liebertpub.com/jir)
Tomotaka Kawayama and coauthors from Kurume University School of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan, University of Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan, and Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD, review the growing evidence to support the important role IL-18 has in inflammation and how it may help to initiate and worsen inflammatory disorders such as arthritis, dermatitis and inflammatory diseases of the bowel and immune system. In the article "Interleukin-18 in Pulmonary Inflammatory Diseases" (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jir.2012.0029) they describe the potential benefits of therapies aimed at blocking the activity of IL-18 to treat inflammatory lung disease.
"This review provides an interesting and thorough summary of the biology and potential application of IL-18 in the setting of inflammatory pulmonary disease," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Thomas A. Hamilton, PhD, Chairman, Department of Immunology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
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About the Journal Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (http://www.liebertpub.com/jir), led by Co-Editors-in-Chief Ganes C. Sen, PhD, Chairman, Department of Molecular Genetics, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and Thomas A. Hamilton, PhD, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online that covers all aspects of interferons and cytokines from basic science to clinical applications. Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research is the official journal of the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research. Complete tables of content and a sample issue (http://online.liebertpub.com/toc/jir/31/6) may be viewed online at the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research website. (http://www.liebertpub.com/jir)
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com) is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Viral Immunology, AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, and DNA and Cell Biology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website. (http://www.liebertpub.com).
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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/96czlk/gene_therapy_tec) has announced the addition of Jain PharmaBiotech's new report "Gene Therapy - Technologies, Markets and Companies" to their offering.
Gene therapy can be broadly defined as the transfer of defined genetic material to specific target cells of a patient for the ultimate purpose of preventing or altering a particular disease state. Genes and DNA are now being introduced without the use of vectors and various techniques are being used to modify the function of genes in vivo without gene transfer. If one adds to this the cell therapy particularly with use of genetically modified cells, the scope of gene therapy becomes much broader. Gene therapy can now combined with antisense techniques such as RNA interference (RNAi), further increasing the therapeutic applications. This report takes broad overview of gene therapy and is the most up-to-date presentation from the author on this topic built-up from a series of gene therapy report written by him during the past decade including a textbook of gene therapy and a book on gene therapy companies. This report describes the setbacks of gene therapy and renewed interest in the topic
Gene therapy technologies are described in detail including viral vectors, nonviral vectors and cell therapy with genetically modified vectors. Gene therapy is an excellent method of drug delivery and various routes of administration as well as targeted gene therapy are described. There is an introduction to technologies for gene suppression as well as molecular diagnostics to detect and monitor gene expression.
Clinical applications of gene therapy are extensive and cover most systems and their disorders. Full chapters are devoted to genetic syndromes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurological disorders and viral infections with emphasis on AIDS. Applications of gene therapy in veterinary medicine, particularly for treating cats and dogs, are included.
Research and development is in progress in both the academic and the industrial sectors. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the US is playing an important part. As of 2011, over 2030 clinical trials have been completed, are ongoing or have been approved worldwide.A breakdown of these trials is shown according to the areas of application.
Since the death of Jesse Gelsinger in the US following a gene therapy treatment, the FDA has further tightened the regulatory control on gene therapy. A further setback was the reports of leukemia following use of retroviral vectors in successful gene therapy for adenosine deaminase deficiency. Several clinical trials were put on hold and many have resumed now. The report also discusses the adverse effects of various vectors, safety regulations and ethical aspects of gene therapy including germline gene therapy.
The markets for gene therapy are difficult to estimate as there is only one approved gene therapy product and it is marketed in China since 2004. Gene therapy markets are estimated for the years 2011-2021. The estimates are based on epidemiology of diseases to be treated with gene therapy, the portion of those who will be eligible for these treatments, competing technologies and the technical developments anticipated in the next decades. In spite of some setbacks, the future for gene therapy is bright.The markets for DNA vaccines are calculated separately as only genetically modified vaccines and those using viral vectors are included in the gene therapy markets
The voluminous literature on gene therapy was reviewed and selected 700 references are appended in the bibliography.The references are constantly updated. The text is supplemented with 72 tables and 14 figures.
Profiles of 187 companies involved in developing gene therapy are presented along with 208 collaborations. There were only 44 companies involved in this area in 1995. In spite of some failures and mergers, the number of companies has increased more than 4-fold within a decade. These companies have been followed up since they were the topic of a book on gene therapy companies by the author of this report. John Wiley & Sons published the book in 2000 and from 2001 to 2003, updated versions of these companies (approximately 160 at mid-2003) were available on Wiley's web site. Since that free service was discontinued and the rights reverted to the author, this report remains the only authorized continuously updated version on gene therapy companies.
See more here:
Research and Markets: Gene Therapy - Technologies, Markets and Companies - Updated 2012 Report