Question: "Where I work, our Internet usage is monitored, our time is tracked to the minute, we have to log in and out of every application so the managers can see who is doing what and when, and the steps of every project are time-logged to make sure we?re using our time efficiently. This has all begun to feel oppressive?even though HR tells us that it facilitates our performance reviews and makes the raises and promotions process orderly and noncontroversial. Does anyone but me feel caged in by the way so many jobs now keep such a close eye on us?? ?? Blair, Broker?s Assistant
See Comments Below
Like what you've read? ...Republish it and share great business tips!
Attention: Readers, Publishers, Editors, Bloggers, Media, Webmasters and more...
We believe great content should be read and passed around. After all, knowledge IS power. And good business can become great with the right information at their fingertips. If you'd like to share any of the insightful articles on BusinessManagementDaily.com, you may republish or syndicate it without charge.
The only thing we ask is that you keep the article exactly as it was written and formatted. You also need to include an attribution statement and link to the article.
" This information is proudly provided by Business Management Daily.com: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/35670/how-closely-does-your-employer-watch-you "
Given how simple and common it is to do it on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, you'd think being able to share images as part of a status update wouldn't be anything novel at this point. But for those inhabiting the popular (and inspiring) social networking site LinkedIn, this hasn't exactly been the case -- and that's about to change. As of today, users are able to add a little more flavor to things shared on the site, with LinkedIn letting it be known that they can now easily enclose more than just text when using the share box. And while picture uploads are certainly all the buzz, LinkedIn's also making it possible to include other file types, such as documents and presentations. Currently, the new feature only allows uploads to be done via the desktop version of the website, however LinkedIn did tell CNET that the content "will be viewable inside the mobile apps."
The Wall Street Journal will soon launch a business-minded social network along the lines of LinkedIn, according to a report from The Times of London. The news comes amid reports of restructuring and new financial offerings from the media giant, including a personal messaging system for investors and a newswire service called Dow Jones X. Of course, this isn't News Corp's first social network rodeo, as it had a dubious fling with Myspace that ended rather badly. Though there's no word on an exact date, The Times said it should be arriving in several months -- but we're not sure if corporate types will be high on trusting the Rupert Murdoch-helmed outfit with their personal info.
May 29, 2013 ? Though its surface has been turned to carbon, the bunny-like features can still be easily observed with a microscope. This rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, is one of several whimsical shapes created by a team of Japanese scientists using a new material that can be molded into complex, highly conductive 3-D structures with features just a few micrometers across. Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, the new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses.
The research team, which includes physicists and chemists from Yokohama National University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the company C-MET, Inc., presents its results in a paper published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optical Materials Express.
The work opens a door for researchers trying to create conductive materials in almost any complex shape at the microscopic or cellular level. "One of the most promising applications is 3-D microelectrodes that could interface with the brain," says Yuya Daicho, graduate student at Yokohama National University and lead author of the paper. These brain interfaces, rows of needle-shaped electrodes pointing in the same direction like teeth on combs, can send or receive electrical signals from neurons and can be used for deep brain stimulation and other therapeutic interventions to treat disorders such as epilepsy, depression, and Parkinson's disease. "Although current microelectrodes are simple 2-D needle arrays," Daicho says, "our method can provide complex 3-D electrode arrays" in which the needles of a single device have different lengths and tip shapes, giving researchers more flexibility in designing electrodes for specialized purposes. The authors also envision making microscopic 3-D coils for heating applications.
Currently, researchers have access to materials that can be used to make complex 3-D structures. But the commercially available resins that work best with modern 3-D shaping techniques do not respond to carbonization, a necessary part of the electrode preparation process. In this stage, a structure is baked at a temperature high enough to turn its surface to carbon. The process of "carbonizing," or charring, increases the conductivity of the resin and also increases its surface area, both of which make it a good electrode. Unfortunately, this process also destroys the resin's shape; a sphere becomes an unrecognizable charred blob. What researchers needed were new materials that could be crafted using 3-D shaping techniques but that would also survive the charring process.
The Japanese team, led by Daicho and his advisor Shoji Maruo, sought to develop materials that would fit these needs. Trained as a chemist, Daicho developed a light-sensitive resin that included a material called Resorcinol Diglycidyl Ether (RDGE), typically used to dilute other resins but never before used in 3-D sculpting. The new mixture had a unique advantage over other compounds -- it was a liquid, and therefore potentially suitable for manipulation using the preferred 3-D sculpting methods.
Daicho, Maruo, and colleagues tested three different concentrations of RDGE in their new compounds. Though there was shrinkage, the materials held their shapes during the charring process (controlled shrinkage of a microstructure can be a good thing in cases where miniaturization of a structure is desired). The resin with the lowest concentration of RDGE shrank 30 percent, while that with the highest concentration shrank 20 percent.
The researchers also tested their new resin's ability to be manipulated using techniques specifically suited for 3-D shaping. In one technique, called microtransfer molding, the light-sensitive liquid was molded into a desired shape and then hardened by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. The other technique, preferred because of its versatility, made use of the liquid resin's property of solidifying when exposed to a laser beam. In this process, called two-photon polymerization, researchers used the laser to "draw" a shape onto the liquid resin and build it up layer by layer. Once the objects were shaped, they were carbonized and viewed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM).
In addition to crafting pyramids and discs, the researchers reproduced the well-known "Stanford bunny," a shape commonly used in 3-D modeling and computer graphics. Maruo says that when he first saw a picture of the rabbit structure taken with the SEM, he was delighted at how well it had held up during the charring process.
"When we got the carbon bunny structure, we were very surprised," Maruo says. It was exciting, he continues, to see that "even with a very simple experimental structure, we could get this complicated 3-D carbon microstructure." The rabbit's shape would be much more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to create using any of the existing processes compatible with carbonization, he adds.
Next steps for the team include fabricating usable carbon microstructures, as well as charring the resins at temperatures above the 800 degrees Celsius tested in this study. Moving to higher temperatures may destroy the microstructures, Maruo says, but there is a chance they will turn the surfaces into graphite, a higher-quality conductor than the carbonized surfaces they have created so far.
Microsoft has been fielding some new anti-iPad commercials that, on the surface (see what I did there?) seem to take a page out of Apple's old "I'm a Mac" ads of days long gone by, or even Motorola's "Droid Does" campaign of a few years back. They show an iPad side by side against a Windows 8 tablet, and then demonstrate several areas in which they, Microsoft, think the Windows 8 tablet beats to iPad.
The ad shows Live Tiles, and contrasts them with the iPad's static Home screen. It shows multi-window computing, and contrasts it with the iPad's one-at-a-time app experience. It shows Power Point, and contrasts it with Apple's Keynote. They show the price of the cheapest Windows 8 tablet and contrast it with Apple's mid-capacity, full-sized iPad.
A second spot shows similar comparisons, but adds bullet points like built-in support for SD card support vs. requiring an adapter, and printing only to AirPrint-capable printers compared to printing to standard Windows-compatible printers.
Ads like these, comparisons like these, can work and work well. "Droid Does" helped put Android on the map. When it comes to tablets, however, they been tried before, and haven't proven successful in the least. In most cases, they've touted the advantages of a more desktop-like experience, and Windows is, perhaps, the most desktop of desktops.
And it's precisely what mainstream customers have resoundingly said is the absolute last thing they want on a tablet.
BlackBerry tried it with the Playbook. Various Android manufacturers have tried it with their Galaxy, Xoom, and other tablets. Hell, Microsoft made Tablet PC for years, based on full-on Windows XP or other releases. Nobody besides us geeks cared, not in any number, and not any more then than they do today.
For years mainstream customers have felt alienated by desktop operating systems.
For years mainstream customers have felt alienated by desktop operating systems. They've struggled with their archaic file systems and confusing windows management, their intermediated control schemes and their sheer complexity. And those frustrations are the last thing those mainstream customers want on mobile.
They want to pick up a device that they can understand. That doesn't make them feel stupid but rather makes them feel empowered. They want their apps, they want their media, and they want it without all the inhuman bullshit traditional computing platforms like Windows (and OS X for that matter) have been forcing on them for decades.
They want iPads.
Steve Jobs understood that. Even after helping launch the Apple II and bringing about the Mac, Jobs understood the need for ever simpler, ever more direct ever more mainstream computing.
Bill Gates once said what he envied most about Apple was Steve Jobs' taste. But Jobs didn't have taste in the fashionable sense of the word. He had product sense. He had the ability to look forward, past his own current product portfolio, beyond his corporate investments to date, beyond any brands he might hold dear, and see what his customers needed. He had sensibility.
With these latest commercials, Microsoft shows they're no closer to learning that lesson today than they were back with Bill Gates and the Tablet PC. They're still mired in Windows and in Office. They're so afraid of letting go of past success that they'll take future failure instead. They'll refuse to compromise on anything other than making the user experience horribly, needlessly, compromised.
The features shown in Microsoft's ad are compelling to existing Windows users who want to replace their PC and might be interested in or at least open to a tablet form factor. That's the audience Microsoft has, because it's the audience they've targeted.
To mainstream customers, tiles that change pictures seemingly at random are disorienting, multiple apps at once is stressful, Power Point is something best left locked in beige cubicles (even though Microsoft could make it, and all of Office, available for iPad any time they so choose), and the price paid up-front isn't always as important as the value obtained throughout the life of a product.
They go, they buy an iPad, they use it. They don't have to worry about RT or Pro, "Metro" mode or "Desktop" mode, and which version of the same named browser does what and when. There's no duality, no confusion, no feeling caught -- and yes, compromised -- between the OS that was and the OS that needs to be. There's just the iPad.
There's the escape of the Home button, the consistency of the Home screen, and simplicity of full screen apps, and the singularity of the experience. Those things, taken together, for the vast non-geek market, make the iPad the best personal computer they've ever owned.
it doesn't matter what something can do, it only matters what you can do with that something.
Instead of competing with that, trying to out do Apple at that, Microsoft, like almost everyone else before them, has fallen into the feature set trap. Here's the problem with that -- it doesn't matter what something can do, it only matters what you can do with that something.
These ads will help Microsoft convince some people to buy a Windows 8 tablet rather than an Android tablet or another kind of Windows PC. It won't convince the hundreds of millions of iPad customers and iPad-inclined customers to do anything other than to continue buying iPads.
To do that, Microsoft will need to find the testicular fortitude to let go of Windows. To let go of the desktop. To do on mobile what they did on gaming and create an a Xpad (or whatever) as courageously as they created an Xbox. (I'd use Windows Phone as a better, closer example, but shoehorning the name Windows into that product, good as it is, highlight the same symptoms of the same fear and creates a similar problem.)
In 2010 Apple showed everyone in the world how to sell hundreds of millions of tablets. 3 years later, there's no evidence that most competitors have paid the slightest attention. It's 2013 and Microsoft is still trying to sell a PC in a post-PC world, and a truck to a family that just wants a car to get around the suburbs.
And that's unfortunate not only for the tablet market, but for all of us.
May 30, 2013 ? Weak bones, broken bones, damaged bones, arthritic bones. Whether damaged by injury, disease or age, your body can't create new bone, but maybe science can. Researchers at North Dakota State University, Fargo, are making strides in tissue engineering, designing scaffolds that may lead to ways to regenerate bone. Published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, the research of Dr. Kalpana Katti, Dr. Dinesh Katti and graduate student Avinash Ambre includes a novel method that uses nanosized clays to make scaffolds to mineralize bone minerals such as hydroxyapatite.
The NDSU research team's 3-D mesh scaffold is composed of degradable materials that are compatible to human tissue. Over time, the cells generate bone and the scaffold deteriorates. As indicated in the NDSU team's published scientific research from 2008 to 2013, the nanoclays enhance the mechanical properties of the scaffold by enabling scaffold to bear load while bone generates. An interesting finding by the Katti group has shown that the nanoclays also impart useful biological properties to the scaffold.
"The biomineralized nanoclays also impart osteogenic or bone-forming abilities to the scaffold to enable birth of bone," said Dr. Kalpana Katti, Distinguished Professor of civil engineering at NDSU. "Although it would have been exciting to say that this finding had a 'Eureka moment,' this discovery was a methodical exploration of simulations and modeling, indicating that amino acid modified nanoclays are viable new nanomaterials," said Katti. The work was initially published in the Journal of Biomacromolecules in 2005. The current findings point toward the potential use of nanoclays for broader applications in medicine.
The NDSU's group most recent study in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, published online Feb. 15, 2013, reports that nanoclays mediate human mesenchymal stem cell differentiation into bone cells and grow bone. The Katti research group uses amino acids, the building blocks of life, to modify clay structures and the modified nanoclays coax new bone growth. "Our current research studies underway involve the use of bioreactors that mimic fluid/blood flow in the human body during bone tissue regeneration," said Dr. Kalpana Katti.
The Katti group at NDSU has pioneered the use of nanoclays in bone regeneration since 2008, with research results appearing in Biomedical Materials, ASME Journal of Nanotechnology for Engineering and Medicine, Materials Science and Engineering C, along with the February 2013 publication in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A.
Bone tissue engineering represents important promise for regenerative medicine, according to Dr. Kalpana Katti. National Institutes of Health information shows that more than one million Americans have a hip or knee replaced each year. An aging population, in addition to orthopedic injuries of military veterans, and diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis mean that the promise of scientific research to generate human bone could have far-reaching implications in the future.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Dakota State University, via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Avinash H. Ambre, Dinesh R. Katti, Kalpana S. Katti. Nanoclays mediate stem cell differentiation and mineralized ECM formation on biopolymer scaffolds. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.34561
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
The social media has broken down the difficult communication barriers. The social media is not only effective in socializing but it?s a great marketing tool as well. Let?s talk about social news sites. What is the distinguishing element between a common news site and a social news site? The social new site allows you to express yourself. You can discuss your view points, give comments and most importantly you can directly access a business which has given its profile.
When we talk of social news sites on internet marketing ?sphinn? comes to our mind. It is one of the famous social news sites. There are always pros and cons of a site; Sphinn doesn?t follow the voting system anymore because it thought UN ethical means were used for voting system. On the other hand the absence of voting system doesn?t portray the picture of a link?s popularity and worth. Here comes ?SPERD search engine & internet marketing news? for you. It provides you the voting system with controlled monitoring.
What is SPERD?
It is a new social media voting site which provides you a chance to submit your quality and valuable content associated to pay per click, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media and blogging or in short ?Internet Marketing?. You can always vote on other quality content.
Why SPERD
The biggest reason of joining SPERD is that it is the only Internet marketing news? site which is catering social media, SEO and blogging industry. Clearly it has a competitive edge. It has a very special interface which is very user friendly and twitter like friends making procedure. Moreover it is proving to be an alternate of Sphinn.
SPERD staff
The staff is experienced and professional. That?s what a company wants. The company considers its staff as assets. It?s not just about voting, we are community The best thing is that SPERD doesn?t consider itself as just a voting site, their vision is clear. They claim that they are the real community.
Guest blogging
The site always welcomes the guest bloggers to come and discuss their precious thoughts. The situation is very much a win-win situation.
Provide opportunities
SPERD spins the top post submissions of the week into a weekly webcast show. It provides you a chance to become SPERD guest who can earn you fame.
Users? guidelines
It was not always that Sphinn didn?t have voting site; basically it was a voting site but changed its status due to unethical voting means for instance repetitive voters and local community voters. This can take a poor quality content on top. Here are some of the guidelines which users should follow:
? We need to be honest to ourselves and the best way to make it successful is to vote according to the quality of content honestly. ? Another thing to make it successful is to use SPERD as a real community. ? Set up your profile in a decent manner which should provide all the information about you e.g. display picture, information about yourself, contact information etc. ? Please don?t spam, it will ruin up the site and your own credibility. ? Always share worthy content, interact and communicate with your other community members regarding quality content.
Your valuable opinions
What are your thoughts about SPERD? How do you compare it with Sphinn? What do you think what measures should be taken to make SPERD more effective.
Related posts:
10 Easy Ways To Enhance Your Social News Profile Using Twitter
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey launched construction on Wednesday of a third bridge linking its European and Asian shores, the latest in a slew of multi-billion dollar projects that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan sees as embodying its emergence as a major power.
Erdogan, who has led a decade-long transformation of a once crisis-prone economy into Europe's fastest growing, has prioritized the building frenzy as the nation's infrastructure struggles to keep up with its growth.
With an eye to an election cycle ending in parliamentary polls in 2015, Erdogan called on the Turkish, Italian and Korean firms involved to complete the Istanbul bridge within two years.
"This is how we are building a powerful Turkey," he told a crowd of several thousand people, some waving Turkish flags, who gathered at a construction site on the shores of the Bosphorus strait to the north of Europe's largest city.
"For the seven hills of Istanbul, we have seven grand projects, one is this bridge, a third necklace over the Bosphorus," he said of the $3 billion project, set to be the world's widest and longest combined road and rail bridge.
A huge 150 billion lira ($80 billion) is being invested in projects including a third Istanbul airport, billed to be one of the world's biggest, as well as rail and road tunnels under the Bosphorus, a high-speed train line to the capital Ankara and a shipping canal designed to rival Panama or Suez.
The bridge is meant to ease congestion in the city of 14 million people. Its population was less than 2.5 million when the first Bosphorus Bridge was opened to traffic in 1973.
With the population forecast to hit 17 million and the number of vehicles seen rising to 4.4 million from 3 million within a decade, the government is under pressure to act fast.
Environmental groups have said the highway and airport projects will cause significant damage, leading to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of trees and harming natural water basins, accusations rejected by Erdogan.
OTTOMAN LEGACY
Wednesday's ceremony, timed to coincide with the 560th anniversary of Istanbul's conquest by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, harked back frequently to the Ottoman Empire, which crumbled to be replaced by modern Turkey 90 years ago.
Such references have become commonplace under Erdogan's rule as the country regains prominence across the Middle East, encouraging critics of the authoritarian prime minister to accuse him of behaving like a modern-day sultan.
Hundreds of military officers have been jailed on charges of plotting a coup against Erdogan; others including academics, journalists and politicians are facing trial on similar accusations.
Barred from running for prime minister again, Erdogan is widely expected to bid for a newly empowered presidency in an election next year, cementing his status as Turkey's most significant leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern secular republic.
Erdogan frequently embraces Istanbul's imperial past, when the Ottoman Empire sprawled across three continents.
"In all the lands where they were present, the Ottomans left behind creations which conquered the people's hearts. Just like our ancestors we are continuing to write history and leave behind creations," he said.
An Ottoman military band banged drums and smashed cymbals while Erdogan, President Abdullah Gul and their wives said a Muslim prayer before launching the project near the village of Garipce on the European side of the city.
The bridge will be named Yavuz Sultan Selim, commonly known in English as Selim the Grim, whose 16th century reign brought huge expansion in the Ottoman Empire and dominance across the Middle East.
($1 = 1.8580 Turkish liras)
(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Alison Williams)
Reports suggest the Pentagon is preparing no-fly zone plans for Syria, but experts and Pentagon officials say such a strategy might not accomplish much.
By Anna Mulrine,?Staff writer / May 29, 2013
This image taken from video obtained from Ugarit News shows a Syrian fighter jet in a hangar after rebels captured Jarrah airfield in Aleppo province in February. The Syrian Air Force is responsible for only a small fraction of the attacks against rebel forces, Pentagon officials say.
Ugarit News via AP video/File
Enlarge
Reports this week that the Pentagon is putting together plans for a no-fly zone over Syria came as little surprise to most defense analysts ? after all, senior US military officials are constantly planning for war possibilities.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Western leaders are trying to put together a peace conference in Geneva to end Syria's two-year-old civil war, but Syrian opposition leaders are divided. Holly Williams reports on their difficulties.
What is surprising, however, are concerns both within the halls of the Pentagon and among analysts as to whether a no-fly zone would actually be very helpful in protecting civilians and antigovernment fighters on the ground.
What?s more, a US military operation to create a no-fly zone could easily go awry, they add.?
Pentagon spokesman George Little dismissed the notion of any new strategizing on the Syrian front. ?There is no new military planning effort underway with regard to Syria,? he said in a statement, adding that the Joint Staff is forging ahead with ?prudent planning for a range of possible military options.?
But just how prudent would a no-fly zone be? ?For all the talk of no-fly zones, Syrian aircraft are not that relevant,? says a senior US military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.?
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey has noted that only 10 percent of casualties sustained by Syrian opposition forces are being imposed by air power. The other 90 percent come from direct fire or artillery.?
What?s more, he added in remarks at a Monitor breakfast last month, ?whether the military effect would produce the kind of outcome I think that not only members of Congress but all of us would desire ? which is an end to the violence, some kind of political reconciliation among the parties, and a stable Syria ? that?s the reason I?ve been cautious, is the right word, about the application of the instrument of power, because it?s not clear to me that it would produce that outcome.??
The outcome of such an operation has the potential to ignite a larger regional war, says Aram Nerguizian, senior fellow at the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
?The risk is that things are bad enough regionally that if you have a US pilot who ends up killed or captured by [Syrian President Bashir] Assad?s forces, it offers, at best, a diplomatic opportunity for communication, but at worst, the sort of incident that leads to a larger war,? Mr. Nerguizian says.
The shoot-down of a US fighter jet is far from a remote possibility. Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, on the heels of his highly-publicized visit with Syrian rebel forces this week, acknowledged that US fighter jet pilots would have to ?fly into the teeth of Syria?s air defenses? in the event of a no-fly zone.
What?s more, though a no-fly zone may seem like a highly compartmentalized military operation, its impacts could ripple in a region where a number of world powers have a stake.
?A no-fly zone cannot be disconnected from the fact that this war for Syria is a regional war,? Nerguizian says, citing Sunni-Shia fault lines within Syria, as well as US-Iranian competition.
There is, too, a ?third layer that many allies thought was nonexistent for years: a US-Russia dynamic. All of these things are overlapping in a way that makes this a powder keg,? he adds. ?We don?t have visibility on how Hezbollah could retaliate, how Iran would respond, and how the Russians would handle it.??
That doesn?t mean that a no-fly zone ?is a nonoption, but it does mean that the costs are, frankly, very difficult to predict.?
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Bombings and gunfire in central and northern Iraq killed at least 11 people and wounded 35 others on Tuesday, officials said, in the latest bloody chapter of a wave of violence that has edged the country closer to all-out internal warfare.
A day earlier, 70 people were killed, and more than 450 have died this month. Most of the attacks are sectarian in nature, with Sunni and Shiite areas targeted frequently.
The sudden spike in bloodshed is reminiscent of the upheavals of the last decade, when U.S. forces were still in Iraq in large numbers. The sectarian carnage has resumed with new ferocity since the last U.S. troops withdrew last December.
Tuesday's violence spread across the country.
A bomb explosion inside a bus killed five commuters in Sadr City, a poor Shiite district in the Baghdad's east, a police officer said. Five policemen and 20 civilians were wounded.
In the town of Tarmiyah north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden truck after passing a police checkpoint, killing a policeman and a civilian, police said. Nine people were wounded.
In the northern city of Mosul, clashes erupted out between police and gunmen, killing three policemen, two officers said. Four gunmen were killed and 15 others arrested. South of Mosul, a bomb hit a police patrol, killing an officer and wounding another, police said.
Mosul, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad, is a former stronghold of Sunni militants.
Three medical officials confirmed the casualties. All spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information to reporters.
No one has claimed responsibility for the recent wave of attacks, but such systematic bombings bear the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents under the leadership of the al-Qaida branch in Iraq, known as the Islamic State of Iraq. They appear aimed at drawing the country's majority Shiites into an exchange of attacks like that which brought the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.
On Monday, more than a dozen car bombs hit commercial areas in mostly Shiite areas of the Iraqi capital, killing 71 people and wounding nearly 200.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki charged that the motive behind the current flare-up was to return Iraq to the "dark days" of the past decade. He vowed to hunt down all militant groups, regardless of their religious and political affiliations.
"The recent attacks that killed dozens of innocents expose the criminal intentions and the goals of the terrorist organizations to send Iraq back to sectarian fighting," al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad.
On Tuesday, U.N. envoy Martin Kobler pressed Iraqi leaders to do more to halt the violence, saying it is "their responsibility to stop the bloodshed now."
Kobler has repeatedly urged Iraqi officials to engage in dialogue as violence and political tensions have increased in recent weeks.
He warned political leaders Tuesday that "the country will slide into a dangerous unknown if they do not take immediate action."
___
Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed to this report.
KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The leader of Boko Haram Islamist rebels has said in a video that the Nigerian military offensive is failing in its goal of crushing the four-year-old insurgency.
Abubakar Shekau's statement, in a video seen by Reuters on Wednesday, was the first word from Boko Haram since President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on May 14 in the three northeastern states worst hit by the insurgency.
Thousands of extra troops were sent to the region and Boko Haram camps were hit with air strikes. The military has since claimed that insurgents have been halted.
The intervention followed a surge in violence in Nigeria's northeast by Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state there, but Shekau denied he was losing the battle.
"My fellow brethren from all over the world I assure you that we are strong, hail and hearty since they launched this assault on us following the state of emergency declaration," he said, dressed in camouflage with an AK-47 rifle resting behind him.
"When they launch any attack on us you see soldiers fleeing and throwing away their weapons like a rabbit that is been hunted down," he added, speaking in a mixture of Arabic and the Hausa language common in northern Nigeria.
The defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the video.
Shekau asked his brethren in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria to join what he called Boko Haram's Holy War. It was not clear when the video was recorded but the mention of the state of emergency dates it to after May 14.
The hour-long footage goes on to show apparently dead bodies in military uniform and charred armoured vehicles which Shekau said were evidence of victories in clashes with soldiers.
Stood outside in the sort of dusty plains common in northeast Nigeria, a dozen armed and masked men in military style uniforms then display weapons to the camera, including a ground-to-air rocket launcher and rocket propelled grenades.
MILITARY SURGE
The military assault in the semi-deserts along the borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger is Jonathan's biggest effort yet to end the insurgency. Security sources said soldiers from Niger and Cameroon are also involved.
Nigeria's population of 170 million is split roughly evenly between Christians, who dominate in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.
Boko Haram and other Islamist groups like the al Qaeda linked Ansaru have become the biggest risk to stability in Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer and second largest economy.
Western governments are concerned that Nigerian Islamists are strengthening ties with al Qaeda linked groups in the Sahel, drawing on weapons from recent Libyan and Malian conflicts.
The military has said it has arrested more than 100 insurgents, freed hostages and killed several Boko Haram members in recent days. But its statements made no mention of the sort of counter-strikes Boko Haram have launched in the past.
The military said this week it killed a "high profile terrorist" known as Abba, while a close associate of Shekau's was found dead on the border between Nigeria and Niger.
Shekau said only seven Boko Haram members have been killed since the offensive began.
The Defence Ministry said last week that the insurgents had been dislodged but security experts doubt it will be easy to defeat an enemy adept at re-arming and counter-attacking in remote regions where they have operated for years.
It has been impossible to verify the claims of Shekau or the military because telephone services have been disconnected for 12 days in Borno state, where the bulk of the fighting has taken place.
Jonathan said last week he would free a number of Islamist suspects, mostly women and children, in what security sources believe was a move to build popular support. He has also offered an amnesty to insurgents who lay down their weapons but Shekau has shown no interest in proposed peace talks.
Nigeria's military have been criticised by rights groups and western governments following accusations of extra-judicial killings, unlawful detentions and high civilian casualties.
The military denies it commits rights abuses and says civilians are killed because Boko Haram uses them as a shield.
DETROIT (AP) ? A three-day search for one of the winningest college quarterbacks ever ended in a remote wooded area in Michigan, where authorities found his body and were left with a mystery of how he died.
Cullen Finnerty, 30, a former Grand Valley State University quarterback, went missing Sunday while fishing near his family's cottage. His body was found in Webber Township about a mile from where he disappeared, but authorities said no foul play was suspected. An autopsy will be needed to determine how he died, they said.
Finnerty led Grand Valley State University to three Division II national titles and more than 50 wins during his four years as a starter in Allendale, Mich., last decade. His body was found about 8 p.m. in woods within a mile of where he disappeared, said Lake County Undersheriff Dennis Robinson.
Robinson said the body was not in the water and was found in a wooded area in near the family's cottage.
The search drew scores of police and volunteers, including staff and players from Grand Valley State.
Finnerty last spoke to a family member that night in a phone call in which he said "he was nervous about something," Sheriff Robert Hilts said earlier Tuesday. Based on that call, the family suspected "he might be having some kind of a mental episode ? that he was either afraid or something and ran off into the woods," Hilts said.
The sheriff said authorities had been tracking Finnerty's cellphone "until it went dead." The terrain made the search for the 6-foot-3, 230-pound ex-athlete difficult, Hilts said.
"This is the last river that I'd pick to fish," he said, citing logjams and dense brush. "And it's a very tough river to navigate."
Searchers from the sheriff's office, state police and area fire departments fanned out Tuesday across a square-mile area of Webber Township, which is about 65 miles north of Grand Rapids.
In addition, dozens of current and former Grand Valley State players, coaches and staff hopped on a bus and headed north to Lake County to lend a hand in the search effort.
Grand Valley coach Matt Mitchell, who was a defensive assistant when Finnerty led the Lakers to national titles in 2005 and 2006, as well as former Grand Valley coach and current Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin were among those helping out.
Finnerty, who starred at Brighton High School, originally accepted an offer to play at the University of Toledo but transferred to Grand Valley after redshirting in 2001.
The dual-threat QB played for Grand Valley teams that won Division II titles in 2003, 2005 and 2006. He briefly was a member of the Baltimore Ravens and later the Denver Broncos.
Mitchell said Finnerty was "held in very high regard. He was the starting quarterback on national championship teams. But he's more than that: He's one of the most loyal teammates we've ever had."
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly was Grand Valley's coach during the 2003 national championship season.
"It's very chilling," Kelly said Tuesday, before Finnerty's body was found. "He led me to a national championship as a true freshman. When I left, coach Martin took over and won two more national championships. My heart goes out to the family and to his beautiful wife."
___
AP reporter Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind., contributed to this story.
___
Mike Householder can be reached at mhouseholder(at)ap.org and http://twitter.com/mikehouseholder
Study helps explain growing education gap in mortality among US white womenPublic release date: 30-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Fowler pubinfo@asanet.org 202-527-7885 American Sociological Association
WASHINGTON, DC, May 28, 2013 Less-educated white women were increasingly more likely to die than their better-educated peers from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, according to a new study, which found that growing disparities in economic circumstances and health behaviorsparticularly employment status and smoking habitsacross education levels accounted for an important part of the widening mortality gap.
"Based on the information we get from the news, it seems that life expectancy just keeps going up, and we're all riding this wave," said Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the study and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Harvard University. "But, the reality is, life expectancy is not increasing for everyone. In fact, for low-educated white women, it appears to be declining. And, this is disturbing."
Titled, "Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women," the study, which appears in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, relied on National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File data on 46,744 white women aged 45-84 from 1997-2006.
Montez and co-author Anna Zajacova, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wyoming, divided the women into two groups: those without a high school credential ("low educated") and those with at least a high school credential ("high educated"). The researchers found that the odds of dying among low-educated white women were 37 percent greater than among their high-educated peers during 1997-2001, and 66 percent greater during 2002-2006.
"Previous research has shown that over the past half century, the gap in adult mortality across education levels has grown in the United States for white and black men and women, and since the mid-1980s, the growth has been especially pronounced among white women," said Montez. "Those of us who have studied this disturbing trend have been really good at documenting it, but we have not been very good at explaining why it is happening. The reasons for the growing mortality gap are poorly understood."
Montez said the few attempts researchers have made to try to explain the growing gap in adult mortality across education levels have focused on trends in specific causes of death or in health behaviors, and generally concluded that diverging smoking patterns played an important role. They have not revealed why diverging health behavioral patterns emerged, nor have they addressed non-behavioral explanations such as economic policy, labor market participation, and social integration.
"In our study, we focused on white women aged 45 to 84 years and examined three explanations social-psychological factors, economic circumstances, and health behaviors for the widening education gap in mortality from 1997 to 2006," Montez said. "We found that social-psychological factors contributed little to the increasing gap. However, economic circumstances and health behaviors played important roles."
Among eight components of economic circumstances (employment, occupation, poverty, home ownership, and health insurance) and health behaviors (smoking, obesity, and alcohol consumption) tested in the study, two employment and smoking were by far the most important contributors to the widening gap, Montez said.
"The role of employment is intriguing and, to our knowledge, has not been previously examined as a potential explanation of the growing education gap in mortality," Montez said. "Employment matters a lot is what the data is telling us, and that has implications for what can be done to stop the troubling trend. Employment provides both manifest and latent benefits, such as social networks and a sense of purpose. It also enhances self-esteem and offers mental and physical activity. Access to social networks and support through employment may have become more important in recent decades, with high divorce rates, smaller families, and geographic mobility disrupting other avenues of support."
Given previous research that identifies diverging smoking patterns as an explanation for the growing education gap in mortality among white women Montez said, "It it would have been problematic had our study not found that smoking was important."
According to Montez, the study has several policy implications. "Disparities in longevity in the United States have grown during the last several decades, despite major policy initiatives to eliminate the disparities," she said. "This study suggests that a promising strategy for reversing the trend among women should focus on employment, specifically on implementing work-family policies for example, paid parental leave and subsidized childcare to mitigate the obstacles that women disproportionately face in combining employment and childrearing. The obstacles are particularly high for low-educated women, who tend to have low-paying jobs with inflexible schedules."
Continued policy efforts to reduce smoking may also stem the growing longevity gap, Montez said. "However, these efforts must go beyond conventional tobacco controls oriented at changing individual behavior and instead address the adverse conditions faced by low-educated women that shape smoking behavior," she said.
###
This research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar Program at Harvard University and a National Institutes of Health grant.
About the American Sociological Association and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The Journal of Health and Social Behavior is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
[ | 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.
Study helps explain growing education gap in mortality among US white womenPublic release date: 30-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Fowler pubinfo@asanet.org 202-527-7885 American Sociological Association
WASHINGTON, DC, May 28, 2013 Less-educated white women were increasingly more likely to die than their better-educated peers from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, according to a new study, which found that growing disparities in economic circumstances and health behaviorsparticularly employment status and smoking habitsacross education levels accounted for an important part of the widening mortality gap.
"Based on the information we get from the news, it seems that life expectancy just keeps going up, and we're all riding this wave," said Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the study and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Harvard University. "But, the reality is, life expectancy is not increasing for everyone. In fact, for low-educated white women, it appears to be declining. And, this is disturbing."
Titled, "Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women," the study, which appears in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, relied on National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File data on 46,744 white women aged 45-84 from 1997-2006.
Montez and co-author Anna Zajacova, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wyoming, divided the women into two groups: those without a high school credential ("low educated") and those with at least a high school credential ("high educated"). The researchers found that the odds of dying among low-educated white women were 37 percent greater than among their high-educated peers during 1997-2001, and 66 percent greater during 2002-2006.
"Previous research has shown that over the past half century, the gap in adult mortality across education levels has grown in the United States for white and black men and women, and since the mid-1980s, the growth has been especially pronounced among white women," said Montez. "Those of us who have studied this disturbing trend have been really good at documenting it, but we have not been very good at explaining why it is happening. The reasons for the growing mortality gap are poorly understood."
Montez said the few attempts researchers have made to try to explain the growing gap in adult mortality across education levels have focused on trends in specific causes of death or in health behaviors, and generally concluded that diverging smoking patterns played an important role. They have not revealed why diverging health behavioral patterns emerged, nor have they addressed non-behavioral explanations such as economic policy, labor market participation, and social integration.
"In our study, we focused on white women aged 45 to 84 years and examined three explanations social-psychological factors, economic circumstances, and health behaviors for the widening education gap in mortality from 1997 to 2006," Montez said. "We found that social-psychological factors contributed little to the increasing gap. However, economic circumstances and health behaviors played important roles."
Among eight components of economic circumstances (employment, occupation, poverty, home ownership, and health insurance) and health behaviors (smoking, obesity, and alcohol consumption) tested in the study, two employment and smoking were by far the most important contributors to the widening gap, Montez said.
"The role of employment is intriguing and, to our knowledge, has not been previously examined as a potential explanation of the growing education gap in mortality," Montez said. "Employment matters a lot is what the data is telling us, and that has implications for what can be done to stop the troubling trend. Employment provides both manifest and latent benefits, such as social networks and a sense of purpose. It also enhances self-esteem and offers mental and physical activity. Access to social networks and support through employment may have become more important in recent decades, with high divorce rates, smaller families, and geographic mobility disrupting other avenues of support."
Given previous research that identifies diverging smoking patterns as an explanation for the growing education gap in mortality among white women Montez said, "It it would have been problematic had our study not found that smoking was important."
According to Montez, the study has several policy implications. "Disparities in longevity in the United States have grown during the last several decades, despite major policy initiatives to eliminate the disparities," she said. "This study suggests that a promising strategy for reversing the trend among women should focus on employment, specifically on implementing work-family policies for example, paid parental leave and subsidized childcare to mitigate the obstacles that women disproportionately face in combining employment and childrearing. The obstacles are particularly high for low-educated women, who tend to have low-paying jobs with inflexible schedules."
Continued policy efforts to reduce smoking may also stem the growing longevity gap, Montez said. "However, these efforts must go beyond conventional tobacco controls oriented at changing individual behavior and instead address the adverse conditions faced by low-educated women that shape smoking behavior," she said.
###
This research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar Program at Harvard University and a National Institutes of Health grant.
About the American Sociological Association and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The Journal of Health and Social Behavior is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
[ | 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.
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine prosecutor accused Iran on Wednesday of establishing terrorist networks in Latin America dating back to the 1980s and said he would send his findings to courts in the affected countries.
State prosecutor Alberto Nisman is investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Argentine courts have long accused Iran of sponsoring the attack.
Iran, which remains locked in a stand-off with world powers over its disputed nuclear program, denies links to the blast. No one was immediately available to comment at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.
In a 500-page-long document, Nisman cited what he said was evidence of Iran's "intelligence and terrorist network" in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname - among others.
In the case of the AMIA (Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina) center bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina has secured Interpol arrest warrants for nine men - eight Iranians and one person presumed to be Lebanese. Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi is among the officials sought by Argentina, which is home to Latin America's largest Jewish community.
Another Iranian with an outstanding arrest warrant against him in the case is Mohsen Rezaie, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards who is running for president.
Nisman said new evidence underscored the responsibility of Mohsen Rabbani, the former Iranian cultural attache in Argentina, as mastermind of the AMIA bombing and "coordinator of the Iranian infiltration of South America, especially in Guyana."
Nisman said U.S. court documents showed Islamist militant Abdul Kadir - who was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for participating in a foiled plan to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York - was Rabbani's disciple.
Kadir "received instructions" from Rabbani "and carried out the Iranian infiltration in Guyana, whose structure was nearly identical ... to that established by Rabbani in Argentina," the prosecutor wrote.
Nisman urged Interpol to intensify its efforts to execute the arrest warrants.
In February, Argentina's Congress approved an agreement with Iran to set up a "truth commission" to shed light on the AMIA bombing after years of legal deadlock. But many Argentine Jewish community leaders feared the pact could undermine the ongoing judicial investigation, led by Nisman.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has close ties with other Latin American leaders who are on good terms with Tehran, such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Ecuador's Rafael Correa.
Her government had no immediate comment on Nisman's report, which reinforced concerns voiced by Jewish leaders in Buenos Aires about the Argentine-Iranian commission.
The forming of the commission was seen as a diplomatic win for Iran as it confronts a U.S.-led effort to isolate Tehran because of its nuclear program, which Western nations fear is aimed at attaining nuclear weapons.
Also on Wednesday, Canada said it will freeze all remaining trade with Iran to protest the Tehran's nuclear ambitions and its human rights record.
(Writing by Hilary Burke and Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Paul Simao)
FILE - This undated file image provided by Amazon shows actors Joe Dinicol, left, and Sarah Stouffer in a scene from an episode of ?Betas,? one of 14 TV show pilots being made by Amazon.com Inc. Amazon said Wednesday, May 29, 2013, that it will produce a pair of new comedy shows and three new kids shows for viewing on its video streaming service, capping a one-of-a-kind experiment that gave viewers a say in the selections. The five shows were culled from 14 pilots that were put up for free on its website and made available over Amazon?s video apps on mobile devices and game consoles starting in April. (AP Photo/Amazon, File)
FILE - This undated file image provided by Amazon shows actors Joe Dinicol, left, and Sarah Stouffer in a scene from an episode of ?Betas,? one of 14 TV show pilots being made by Amazon.com Inc. Amazon said Wednesday, May 29, 2013, that it will produce a pair of new comedy shows and three new kids shows for viewing on its video streaming service, capping a one-of-a-kind experiment that gave viewers a say in the selections. The five shows were culled from 14 pilots that were put up for free on its website and made available over Amazon?s video apps on mobile devices and game consoles starting in April. (AP Photo/Amazon, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday that it will produce a pair of new comedy shows and three new kids shows for viewing on its video streaming service, capping a one-of-a-kind experiment that gave viewers a say in the selections.
The five shows were culled from 14 pilots that were put up for free on its website and made available over Amazon's video apps on mobile devices and game consoles starting in April. Executives looked at ratings, reviews and view counts in a process that upended traditional TV show development. Traditional TV studios generally screen pilot episodes before small focus groups and executives before determining which go into production.
The shows announced are Amazon's first original series.
Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, said he was gratified that the pilots generated hundreds of thousands of views from people in the U.S. and Britain. He said the company looks forward to repeating the process again.
"Once you have hundreds of thousands of people watch a specific pilot, you're not talking about a focus group anymore," Price said in a phone interview from Amazon's Seattle headquarters. "You're asking your actual audience how they feel about it."
The comedies selected include "Alpha House," created by Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman. It's about four senators who rent a house together in Washington. Meanwhile, "Betas" follows four friends and the new mobile social networking app they are developing.
The new kids shows are "Annebots," which centers on a young scientist and her robot helpers, "Creative Galaxy," an animated series, and "Tumbleaf," which is aimed at preschoolers.
Amazon has been trying to develop movies and TV shows based on thousands of scripts it has received since soliciting them in November 2010, although only one of the 14 pilots made for viewer feedback came out of that process. It was "Those Who Can't" and wasn't ultimately selected.
Another show that didn't make the cut was "Zombieland," which came from the creators of the hit Columbia Pictures movie of the same name. Price said it is possible for some failed pilots to be reworked and tested again.
Price said that 10 episodes will be made for each of the two comedies. Amazon has yet to determine how many episodes of each kids show will be made. The series are to air in the U.S., Britain and Germany later this year or next year.
Other than some possible free sampling, the videos will be made available only to subscribers of Amazon Prime, the online retailer's $79-a-year membership plan. Amazon Prime also provides customers with free two-day shipping on certain items bought at Amazon.com, a book borrowing club and other videos to watch.
Amazon is still considering whether to release all the episodes for a season at once ? the way Netflix Inc. has done with its original series such as "Arrested Development" ? or to release them in spurts or one at a time.
Amazon competes in subscription video with such services as Netflix and Hulu Plus, which have made their own significant forays into original programming. But Amazon has an added motivation to get people to sign up for Prime memberships, which make them more likely to purchase other things from Amazon.
Although Netflix didn't have subscribers watch pilots before committing to a full season, the service has extensive data on viewer habits. With "Arrested Development," Netflix studied how the first three seasons performed on its service after the series' cancellation by Fox in 2006.
___
AP Business Writer Bree Fowler in New York contributed to this story.
May 27, 2013 ? An international team led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reports that a single injection of human neural stem cells produced neuronal regeneration and improvement of function and mobility in rats impaired by an acute spinal cord injury (SCI).
The findings are published in the May 28, 2013 online issue of Stem Cell Research & Therapy.
Martin Marsala, MD, professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, with colleagues at UC San Diego and in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands, said grafting neural stem cells derived from a human fetal spinal cord to the rats' spinal injury site produced an array of therapeutic benefits -- from less muscle spasticity to new connections between the injected stem cells and surviving host neurons.
"The primary benefits were improvement in the positioning and control of paws during walking tests and suppression of muscle spasticity," said Marsala, a specialist in spinal cord trauma and spinal injury-related disorders. Spasticity -- exaggerated muscle tone or uncontrolled spasms -- is a serious and common complication of traumatic injury to the spinal cord.
The human stem cells, said the scientists, appeared to vigorously take root at the injury site.
"In all cell-grafted animals, there was robust engraftment, and neuronal maturation of grafted human neurons was noted," Marsala said. "Importantly, cysts or cavities that can form in or around spinal injuries were not present in any cell-treated animal. The injury-caused cavity was completely filled by grafted cells."
The rats received the pure stem cell grafts three days after injury (no other supporting materials were used) and were given drugs to suppress an immune response to the foreign stem cells. Marsala said grafting at any time after the injury appears likely to work in terms of blocking the formation of spinal injury cavities, but that more work would be required to determine how timing affects functional neurological benefit.
The grafted stem cells, according to Marsala, appear to be doing two things: stimulating host neuron regeneration and partially replacing the function of lost neurons.
"Grafted spinal stem cells are rich source of different growth factors which can have a neuroprotective effect and can promote sprouting of nerve fibers of the host neurons. We have also demonstrated that grafted neurons can develop contacts with the host neurons and, to some extent, restore the connectivity between centers, above and below the injury, which are involved in motor and sensory processing."
The scientists used a line of human embryonic stem cells recently approved for Phase 1 human trials in patients with chronic traumatic spinal injuries. Marsala said the ultimate goal is to develop neural precursor cells (capable of becoming any of the three main cell types in the nervous system) from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients, which would likely eliminate the need for immunosuppression treatment.
Pending approval by UC San Diego's Institutional Review Board, the next step is a small phase 1 trial to test safety and efficacy with patients who have suffered a thoracic spinal cord injury (between vertebrae T2-T12) one to two years earlier, and who have no motor or sensory function at or below the spinal injury site.
"This is exciting, especially because, historically, there has been very little to offer patients with acute spinal cord injury," said study co-author Joseph Ciacci, MD, professor of surgery and program director of the Neurosurgery Residency at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Ciacci, who is also chief of neurosurgery for the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, will oversee the clinical trial at UC San Diego and the VA.
Ciacci said if the initial study confirms safety and efficacy, as well as the viability of the implanted cells, neural regeneration and decreased spasticity, the protocol can be expanded to other patients with other forms of severe spinal cord injury.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 30-May-2013
Share ]