BrightTree Studios Creates the Modern Method of Audiovisual Consulting

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Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) September 24, 2014

Distinguished audiovisual professional, David Vargo CTS-D, Principal Consultant of BrightTree Studios, recently shared his modern views on technology consulting for the year 2014 and beyond.

Im rebelling against the current message. The modern method for audiovisual consulting and design is not independence, its agnosticism.

Based on demands from prominent corporations and institutes of higher education across the country, David and his team branded a new company wing, BrightTree Studios, specializing in agnostic technology consulting and design. In his latest blog titled The Modern Method of Audiovisual Consulting, David takes a bold stance in separating his design views from that of his colleagues.

As a professional in the field, your instinct is to design systems with products that you are comfortable with and know will not only function as the client would like, but will stand up against the test of time, says David. Working in an organization that contains a design wing situated within an integration environment, allows our employees to get hands on experience with a wider variety of products live and in the field. We then can take that knowledge and apply it to our client designs.

David's blog centers in on the belief that the best method of developing the sophistication and practicality of designs is hands-on problem-solving, coupled with independent research and industry training.

ABOUT BRIGHTTREE STUDIOS BrightTree Studios is a full service, audiovisual consulting and design firm that partners with architects, owners, and end users to create state-of-the-art environments used to inspire individuals to learn, create, work, and collaborate.

ABOUT DAVID VARGO With over a decade of experience in the audiovisual industry, David Vargo comes from a line of prestigious companies. He has experience designing and installing systems on over 200 projects for clients across the spectrum, including corporate, higher education, healthcare, telemedicine, and broadcast.

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BrightTree Studios Creates the Modern Method of Audiovisual Consulting

Can genetic engineering help food crops better tolerate drought?

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

25-Sep-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ryan kryan@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News @LiebertOnline

New Rochelle, NY, September 25, 2014The staggering growth rate of the global population demands innovative and sustainable solutions to increase food production by as much as 70-100% in the next few decades. In light of environmental changes, more drought-tolerant food crops are essential. The latest technological advances and future directions in regulating genes involved in stress tolerance in crops is presented in a Review article in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the OMICS website.

Coauthors Roel Rabara and Paul Rushton, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, Dallas, TX, and Prateek Tripathi, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, focus on the role of transcription factors, described as "master regulators" because they are important components of many genetic regulatory pathways and may be able to control clusters of genes. Drought tolerance is a complex trait that is regulated by multiple genes.

In the article "The Potential of Transcription Factor-Based Genetic Engineering in Improving Crop Tolerance to Drought," the authors describe current strategies for using transcription factors to improve drought tolerance and discuss how novel, advanced technologies will help study promising, genetically engineered food crops under field growing conditions.

"With limited water supply continuing to constrain food crop production, understanding and improving crop tolerance to drought is a grand challenge for 21st century biology and medicine, and to feed a massive world population," says OMICS Editor-in-Chief Vural zdemir, MD, PhD, DABCP, Gaziantep University, Faculty of Communications and Office of the President, Gaziantep, Turkey, and Co-Founder, the Data-Enabled Life Sciences Alliance International (DELSA Global), Seattle, WA. "Transcription factors are veritable candidates for innovation in the next generation of transgenic crops because of their natural role in plant growth and development. Field studies (not only greenhouse measures) will provide additional insights to measure their actual impact and innovation. This state of the art review article offers a timely analysis and topline summary distilled from the past several decades of leading literature."

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About the Journal

OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly online, which covers genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and multi-omics innovations. The Journal explores advances in the era of post-genomic biology and medicine and focuses on the integration of OMICS, data analyses and modeling, and applications of high-throughput approaches to study biological problems. Social, ethical, and public policy aspects of the large-scale biology and 21st century data-enabled sciences are also considered. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the OMICS website.

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Can genetic engineering help food crops better tolerate drought?

GMO Answers Provides an Overview of GMOs in Medicine

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With genetically engineered therapies for the infectious disease, Ebola, currently undergoing testing for safety and efficacy, GMO Answers is highlighting the use of genetic engineering in other biomedical applications. The posts author, Richard Green, also looks at whyGMOs, though used in both agriculture and medicine, are more controversial in agricultural applications.

The technology of genetic modification orgenetic engineeringwas first developed in the early 1970s, commercialized in pharmaceutical applications in the early 1980s, and then agricultural applications in the early 1990s.

The technology has been around for 40 years. It is hardly new. Perhaps if you compare it to the internal combustion engine it is new, but compared to something as recent and ubiquitous as flat screen HDTVs, DVRs, andWi-Fi-friendly touch screen devices like iPhones and Tablets, it is a time tested technology.

In medicine,genetic engineering(GE) is used to make biopharmaceutical drugs. Various organisms are engineered for use as factories to produce the drug product.Bacteriaare the preferred option, as they are the easiest to grow and scale-up for production, but depending on the complexity of the drugs molecular structure, other organisms such as yeasts, mammalian cells,etc., can also be used toexpressthe drug product. The first GE drug approved for use wasinsulin. By the year 2000, there were over100GE drugs on the market. Currently, peoples lives are changed every day by drugs likeRemicade,Epo,Avastin, andNeulasta

Whilegenetic engineeringis used in both agriculture and medicine, it is far more controversial in agriculture. Here is an explanation that helped shape my point of view: intellectually, I can grasp that adding or silencing a few well-characterizedgenesout of thousands is a drop in thegenomebucket, but for me it makes it a bit more real to think of it in terms of people. Just look at the variety among us. Variations between our thousands ofgenesare why we are all different from each other, but even with those differences, we are all human. It is similar with plants. Changing one, or as we get better, a few genes, in the plantgenomeis barely a blip compared to the normal diversity between individuals. To paraphrase what a wise man once said,GE corn is just corn.

We encourage you to visit our GMO Answers site and read GMOs in Food and Medicine: An Overview in its entirety.

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GMO Answers Provides an Overview of GMOs in Medicine

Gold nanoparticles linked to single-stranded DNA create a simple but versatile genetic testing kit

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Sep 24, 2014 Before (top) and after (bottom) images of gold nanoprobe tests. In DNA samples containing no genetic variations, the pink solution became colorless within 10 minutes. Credit: A*STAR Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology

Tests for identifying genetic variations among individuals, which can be used to develop precisely targeted drug therapies, are a current focus in the emerging field of pharmacogenomics. A*STAR researchers have now developed and patented a customized and elegant nanoprobe for assessing sensitivity to the drug warfarin.

To develop the nanoprobe, Jackie Ying at the A*STAR Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and co-workers in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan devised a relatively simple procedure that uses standard laboratory equipment and can be easily adapted for other genetic tests.

"Our method is faster, more cost-effective and more accurate than existing alternatives," says Ying.

Ying's method detects genetic variations known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that differ in only a single-nucleotide building block of DNA. In the case of warfarinthe most frequently prescribed anticoagulantthere are SNP differences in specific parts of the genome that indicate whether a patient will tolerate the drug or suffer serious side effects.

The researchers used gold nanoparticles attached to short sections of DNA that bind to specific complementary sequences of DNA through the base pairing that holds together double-stranded DNA. These nanoprobes were exposed to fragments of DNA that had been cut out and amplified from a patient's genome.

The nanoprobes are initially pink due to surface plasmonic effects involving ripples of electric charge. When analyzed, if the probes do not bind to the DNA fragments, they aggregate and become colorless on exposure to a salt solution. If they do bind to the target, they will not aggregate but will remain pink until heated to a 'melting temperature' at which the base pairing is disrupted and the DNA strands of the probe and the genome fragments separate. For cases of partial complementarityin which the fragments are mismatched by a single nucleotidethe melting temperature is lowered by an amount depending on the level of mismatch. This allows SNPs to be detected through their different melting temperatures.

The resulting color change is easily visible to the human eye but can also be evaluated automatically (see image). The system can also distinguish between homozygous genotypes (where a person caries the same SNP on each member of a pair of chromosomes) and heterozygous genotypes (where a person carries different SNPs on each chromosome).

"The patented warfarin test kit is available for commercialization or licensing," says Ying. "We have developed and are validating assay kits for several other applications in pathogen detection, pharmacogenomics and genetic disease screening."

Explore further: Using gold nanoprobes to unlock your genetic profile

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Gold nanoparticles linked to single-stranded DNA create a simple but versatile genetic testing kit

Looking for a spouse or a companion

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

25-Sep-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ryan kryan@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News @LiebertOnline

New Rochelle, NY, September 25, 2014The increasing popularity of social media, online dating sites, and mobile applications for meeting people and initiating relationships has made online dating an effective means of finding a future spouse. The intriguing results of a new study that extends this comparison of online/offline meeting venues to include non-marital relationships, and explores whether break-up rates for both marital and non-marital relationships differ depending on whether a couple first met online or offline are reported in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website until October 25, 2014.

In the article "Is Online Better Than Offline for Meeting Partners? Depends: Are You Looking to Marry Or to Date?" Aditi Paul, Michigan State University, East Lansing, provides data showing higher break-up rates for couples who met online compared to offline whether they were in marital or non-marital romantic relationships. Additional factors besides the meeting venue can help predict whether a couple will stay together or break up, according to the author; these may differ for marital versus non-marital relationships and include the quality and duration of the relationship.

"The time-tested qualities of trust and intimacy still remain important factors on determining whether a couple stays together, regardless of whether they meet offline or online," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium and Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California.

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About the Journal

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly online with Open Access options and in print that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding the Internet and interactive technologies, plus cybertherapy and rehabilitation. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website.

About the Publisher

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Looking for a spouse or a companion

New Study Looks Into Hubble Telescope Gender Bias

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September 25, 2014

Image Caption: The Space Shuttle Atlantis moves away from Hubble after the telescopes release on May 19, 2009 concluded Servicing Mission 4. The Soft Capture Mechanism, a ring that a future robotic mission can grapple in order to de-orbit the telescope, is visible in the center. Credit: NASA

April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Out of every four proposals submitted to gain observation time on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), three are denied. You might think that these denials are based strictly on the merits of the study being proposed and the current viewing patterns of the telescope, but you would be wrong.

A new internal study from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), published online currently on arXiv and coming soon to an issue of Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, reveals that gender plays a subtle, but distinct role in proposal acceptance as well. As Clara Moskowitz of Scientific American reports, in each of the last 11 proposal cycles, having a male principle investigator on the proposal made it more likely to be accepted.

Its fascinating and disturbing, Yale University astronomer Dr. Meg Urry, who formerly led the Hubble proposal review committee for several years, told Moskowitz. Urry, who feels frustrated that some of the results were during her tenure, continued, I made a lot of efforts to have women on the review committees, and during the review I spent time listening to the deliberations of each panel. I never heard anything that struck me as discriminationand my antennae are definitely tuned for such thingsso its clear the bias is very subtle, and that both men and women are biased.

First of all, HST proposals are written by teams of both men and women, each of whom contributes to the proposal and ensures its a good one, she told David Freeman of the Huffington Post. So the PI alone doesnt have that much impact on the quality of the proposal. More importantly, biases against women in STEM and other male-dominated professions have been seen in hundreds, perhaps thousands of social science experiments. So it would be very unusual if somehow astronomers were immune to the biases shared broadly by men and women in the U.S.

STScI, which administrates the HST program, initiated the study about two years ago. The research team manually reviewed all of the proposals for the last 11 cycles and then categorized them by principal investigators gender. They found that applications submitted by men fared better than those submitted by women in every cycle.

It isnt a large difference, maybe four or five fewer proposals from women selected each cycle than statistics say should be chosen based on the number of proposals submitted. You can kind of explain it away as just sampling statistics in any given cycle, but it happens every year, Neill Reid, an STScI astronomer who oversees time allocation for Hubble, told Moskowitz. It is a systematic effect. The researchers found that effect is stronger for older principal investigators (PIs); among recent graduates, the success rates for men and women are closer to equal. I could speculate whether the proposals are being written in a different way or whether the younger astronomers are more visible because theyre giving more talks. Maybe it has something to do with the institutions theyre at, Reid said.

The STScI team has no data concerning the cause or causes of the gender imbalance, so they plan to re-analyze the data to find contributing factors before consulting with social scientists who research bias to develop strategies to fight this trend.

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New Study Looks Into Hubble Telescope Gender Bias

Stunning Galaxy Looks Deceptively Young in Hubble Telescope Views (Photo, Video)

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A stunning new photo snapped by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shines a light on a mysterious galaxy that may be considerably older than it looks.

Our own Milky Way galaxy formed about 13 billion years ago, and most galaxies in its neighborhood are similarly old. But one galaxy just 39 million light-years away known as DDO 68 seems to be significantly younger, more like the galaxies lying several billion light-years away.

Galaxiesevolve over billions of years, so astronomers must study snapshots of them in various stages of development in order to understand the process. Because early galaxies lie billions of light-yearsfrom the Milky Way, they appear small and fainter than their older cousins, making them more challenging to observe. If DDO 68 is indeed relatively young, it would offer astronomers a more accessible target.

DDO 68, also known as UGC 5340, bears a strong similarity to early galaxies in its structure, appearance, and composition, researchers said.

For example, DDO 68 appears to have a less metal-rich environment than its older neighbors do. Young galaxies have fewer heavy elements, or metals, in their chemical makeup because such metals are made in the hearts of starsand are released through the star explosions known as supernovas. As each generation of stars reaches an end, more and more metals pollute the otherwise-primordial composition of the galaxy.

Galaxies are also dated by studying the ages of its stars. For some time, the stellar population of DDO 68 was thought to be around 1 billion years old, far younger than the suns 5 billion-year age. A recent examinationof the mysterious galaxy in archival Hubble images, however, revealed red giant stars (the next major phase of the suns evolution), while other studies also suggest the presence of older stars.

When taken with other evidence, the findings suggest that DDO 68 is at least 10 billion years old not a young galaxy after all. But more complex modeling is required to understand its nature, researchers said.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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Stunning Galaxy Looks Deceptively Young in Hubble Telescope Views (Photo, Video)

NATO Says Russia Makes Significant Pullback From Ukraine – Video

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NATO Says Russia Makes Significant Pullback From Ukraine
An alliance military spokesman said on Wednesday, NATO has observed a significant withdrawal of Russian forces from inside Ukraine, but many Russian troops remain stationed nearby. Lieutenant-Colon...

By: WochitGeneralNews

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NATO Says Russia Makes Significant Pullback From Ukraine - Video

NATO observes pullback of Russian troops from Ukraine

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NATO has observed a significant withdrawal of Russian forces from inside Ukraine, but many Russian troops remain stationed nearby, an alliance military spokesman said on Wednesday.

There has been a significant pullback of Russian conventional forces from inside Ukraine, but many thousands are still deployed in the vicinity of the border, Lieutenant-Colonel Jay Janzen said in an e-mailed response to a request from Reuters for comment.

Some Russian troops remain inside Ukraine. It is difficult to determine the number, as pro-Russian separatists control several border crossings and troops are routinely moving back and forth across the border. Further, Russian special forces are operating in Ukraine, and they are difficult to detect, he said.

On September 4, a NATO military officer said Russia had several thousand combat troops and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles inside Ukraine and around 20,000 troops close to the Ukrainian border.

As recently as a week ago, NATO said it believed Russia still had around 1,000 soldiers inside Ukraine despite some cuts in troop numbers since a ceasefire began on Sept. 5.

Janzen said there appeared to be a reduction in incidents, including artillery fire, between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists.

NATO welcomes these positive signs, and encourages all parties to continue to work towards a peaceful solution to this crisis, he said, while still expressing NATOs concern about the large numbers of Russian forces deployed close to the eastern Ukraine border.

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NATO observes pullback of Russian troops from Ukraine

Nato sees significant withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine

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A pro-Russian rebel at a checkpoint following shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday. Photograph: Reuters/Marko Djurica

Nato has observed a significant withdrawal of Russian forces from inside Ukraine, but many Russian troops remain stationed nearby, an alliance military spokesman said on Wednesday.

There has been a significant pull back of Russian conventional forces from inside Ukraine, but many thousands are still deployed in the vicinity of the border, Lieut Col Jay Janzen said in an emailed response to a request for comment.

Some Russian troops remain inside Ukraine. It is difficult to determine the number, as pro-Russian separatists control several border crossings and troops are routinely moving back and forth across the border. Further, Russian special forces are operating in Ukraine, and they are difficult to detect, he said.

As recently as a week ago, Nato said it believed Russia still had about 1,000 soldiers inside Ukraine despite some cuts in troop numbers since a ceasefire began on September 5th. Lieut Col Janzen said there appeared to be a reduction in incidents, including artillery fire, between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists.

Nato welcomes these positive signs, and encourages all parties to continue to work towards a peaceful solution to this crisis, he said.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire between the separatists and government forces in the east of the country was breached as mortar fire struck an apartment block in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. Both sides said there was progress on the ground in fulfilling an agreement to pull back heavy artillery weapons from the front line, but today Kiev accused the rebels of violating the ceasefire.

Col Lysenko also said eight servicemen had been wounded in fighting overnight. A residential building in the north of Donetsk was heavily damaged by shelling, destroying at least two apartments.

While RIA Novosti news agency quoted the rebels as saying two people died in the attack, nobody at the scene could confirm any civilian casualties. That part of the city has been the subject of almost daily shelling despite the ceasefire, as fighting centred around the government-held city airport nearby has caught residential neighbourhoods in the crossfire. (Reuters/PA)

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Nato sees significant withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine