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Saturday, March 2, 2013
The Price of Ivory: An Illicit Trail of African Ivory to China
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Trade in elephant tusks continues to thrive in China, even as conservation groups call on Beijing to do more to crack down on the slaughter of African elephants.
Choose Good Search Engine Optimisation Services Company ...
If you are a NZ company owner and therefore are looking to increase your awareness on the web, seo tools are vital to learn about. Search engine optimization in Auckland NZ (New Zealand) resources are available in a variety of forms and many may be made use of without an expert a lot of money.
Auckland companies hoping to improve their search engine results positioning, to inspire more and more people to see their business? web site, and also to in the end make a higher revenue, usually stay aggressive online following these easy Search engine optimization in Auckland NZ (New Zealand) ideas.
Make use of Adwords, a Keyword Search engine optimization in Auckland NZ (New Zealand) Device
Google is promoting a free of charge search engine optimization tool with regard to webmasters and entrepreneurs. The keyword tool permits the user to get the best keywords as well as keywords for his or her web site. Adwords is a great seo tool as it can let you know how often Search engines customers look for a particular search term and which words they typically pair it with.
Even though the simple function that this Search engine optimization in Auckland NZ (New Zealand) tool provides is very educational already, designed for companies who?re merely beginning to develop an online presence, Google Adwords will go a step further. Google?s Pay per click key phrase instrument can tell you just how competitive a search term will be, its local New Zealand or Auckland search volume, and it is overall search volume.
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Attempt Search engine optimization in Auckland NZ (New Zealand) by way of Search engines Analytics.
Google Analytics is yet another free Search engine optimization tool provided by Yahoo. Search engines Statistics allows you to find out how lots of people possess visited your internet site, just how long they stayed at, and just what percentage are repeat visitors. A complete breakdown of your own website?s or blog?s visitors can be found by developing a Google account.
Google Statistics is also a great way to additionally understand how you can develop your site making use of search engine optimization. The tool demonstrates to you not just how many people go to your internet site, but exactly how they will noticed your website and also which keywords and phrases these people used.
Utilize Search engine optimization by Using Yahoo Insights
Google Insights is yet another beneficial search engine optimisation tool made available from Google. Google Insights can present you with information about popular key phrases. You are able to research key phrases popularity over a period of time, a place, and also by category.
Auckland companies looking to improve their SEO might as a result lookup their keywords, reducing their search to Nz or even Auckland. This may once again be useful any time choosing or even having your own website?s key phrases.
Due to Search engines, simple search engine optimization resources are plentiful to New Zealand website owners. To enhance your own Search engine optimization, nonetheless, the data supplied by these power tools need to be acted upon expertly, that is in which a specialized seo company can help.
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CEO: Risks key for Merck to succeed, help patients
NEW YORK (AP) ? Merck & Co. CEO Kenneth C. Frazier is convinced nearly everyone, from patients to long-term investors, wants the world's third-largest drugmaker to take big risks.
So Merck is plunging ahead in one of medicine's toughest challenges ? finding a drug to slow Alzheimer's disease ? despite repeated failures that have led most drugmakers to halt or scale back research on the No. 6 killer in the U.S. It's a particularly risky strategy because scientists are still unraveling exactly what drives Alzheimer's.
"When people question me (and ask) 'Aren't you putting a lot of money at risk for something that's hard?' I say, 'Isn't that exactly what the world wants a company like Merck to do?'" says Frazier, 58.
The company, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., is taking risks even though it, like other major drugmakers, is being squeezed by the weak global economy, cuts in health care spending by governments, rising research costs and increased competition from cheap generic versions of drugs that once brought in billions.
Merck is pouring tens of millions into an experimental treatment for a new type of Alzheimer's drug meant to limit the main ingredient in the brain-damaging plaques believed to cause the disease. If it works, it could be the first drug to slow patients' mental and functional decline.
Roughly 100 Alzheimer's drugs have failed in the last couple decades. And the handful of medicines that have been approved only temporarily ease symptoms.
The Alzheimer's gamble is partly personal for Frazier, a Harvard-trained lawyer who became CEO in January 2011 after 19 years in various executive positions at Merck. His father, a janitor who raised Ken and his siblings in Philadelphia, died of Alzheimer's. Frazier and his wife had cared for him in their suburban Philadelphia home during his final years.
"My father, to me, was 10 feet tall," says Frazier, whose mother died when he was very young. "To see this disease take away his brain and to see him rendered like a child, it was devastating."
This isn't the first time Frazier has taken a big chance. After Merck pulled painkiller Vioxx off the market in 2004 because it doubled heart attack and stroke risks, Frazier, then Merck's general counsel, decided to fight about 50,000 patient lawsuits one by one, instead of negotiating a mammoth settlement covering most of them.
The strategy paid off. Merck won enough trials that, after four years of litigation, it was able to persuade plaintiffs' lawyers coordinating the cases to settle nearly all the lawsuits for $4.85 billion. That's a fraction of the $20 billion to $50 billion in liability analysts had initially predicted.
Merck's research bets haven't always paid off, though. The maker of Type 2 diabetes drug Januvia had a few promising drugs fail in tests recently. Among them were the highly touted cholesterol drug Tredaptive and a combo pill for patients with diabetes and high cholesterol called MK-0431E.
Still, the company, which has annual revenue of about $50 billion, got five medicines approved in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012, including breakthrough hepatitis C drug Victrelis. Merck also expects to apply for U.S. approval of five drugs in 2013: two allergy medicines, an anticlotting drug, a fertility treatment and an improved version of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents sexually transmitted cancers. Other drugs already are under review, for conditions including insomnia and hardening of the arteries.
In an interview at The Associated Press headquarters in New York, Frazier talked about his plans for Merck, the future of the U.S. health care system and his meeting with President Barack Obama. Below are excerpts, edited for length and clarity:
AP: After your 14 years as a private practice attorney working with pharmaceutical clients, why did you choose to come to Merck?
FRAZIER: If you worked for Merck, you knew you were working for a company where scientists were driving the company strategy. The core of my job is to keep that cadre of world-class scientists going.
AP: What's your top accomplishment in the two years since you took over as Merck's chief executive officer?
FRAZIER: My biggest accomplishment is staying the course, I would say, at a time when investors are increasingly skeptical of pharmaceutical research and development. We are one of the companies that didn't cut our research budget. We said we weren't going to do that, and our stock got pounded initially. (The stock price fell 17 percent in barely 9 months, then steadily rebounded, climbing from just under $30 to around $43 now.) I'm feeling a lot better about it than I was a year ago.
AP: Why hasn't Merck reduced spending on drug research like many of its rivals?
FRAZIER: I'm going to continue to fund the important work we do in our laboratories. As long as we do that, we'll be able to recruit the world-class people who want to come to industry to do important work to translate basic science into medicines that make a difference to human beings. I think that's the core of what my job is about: to create an environment where the really good science happens inside Merck.
AP: How do you choose which diseases and types of drugs you want to research?
FRAZIER: We look at two things: Where's the scientific opportunity and where's the future patient demand? You don't want to repeat in areas where there are already good drugs available.
AP: As growth slows in developed countries like the U.S., international drug companies are fighting for market share in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. How is Merck's business in those countries?
FRAZIER: We're the fastest-growing company in emerging markets. We have a broad portfolio of products that meet the needs of their people for both infectious and chronic diseases.
Of 7 billion people alive today, 6 billion live in emerging and developing markets. We have a huge opportunity not only to grow our business, but more importantly, going back to what Merck stands for, to actually make a difference in the lives of the people in these countries. That's what gets me up in the morning. It is the next chapter in this company's history.
AP: Like most other big drugmakers, Merck has lost millions in revenue to generic drugs as big sellers such as asthma and allergy medicine Singulair, your top drug until it got U.S. generic competition in August, lose patent protection. How do you make up for that?
FRAZIER: We focus on the underlying growth of what's left of the portfolio. You either innovate or you become defunct. I want to make sure we are spending money wisely and getting a return on investment.
AP: Now that there are good, inexpensive generic drugs available for many common diseases, most big drug companies have switched their focus to specialty drugs ? complex medicines for rare diseases that can command very high prices. What is Merck doing?
FRAZIER: We have a lot of investment in specialty and oncology research, but the next few important products are for primary care and Alzheimer's, too. Merck is still committed to primary care. We stayed in vaccines when everybody got out in the '80s. That's why you have Gardasil today.
AP: The drug industry supported Obama's Affordable Care Act, which will bring health coverage to about 30 million additional people. Now that it's being implemented, how will it affect your company ? and the rest of the industry?
FRAZIER: I think we'll do well. I haven't done the calculations, but probably we'll make a little bit less. What's important is people can take their medicines. What's good for patients in the long run is good for us.
AP: What are some of the changes the U.S. should be making to control medical spending?
FRAZIER: We need to fix the misalignment of incentives, to stop paying for treatment volume rather than better care. I'd like to see a lot more spending on prenatal care and less at the end of life. Eighty percent of health care costs are driven by behaviors that can be controlled or modified ? excessive eating, smoking and drinking. We need a massive behavioral change.
AP: You joined several CEOs in a meeting with Obama in Washington late last year to discuss deficit and debt reduction. What did you tell the president?
FRAZIER: The president invited CEOs from different industries to hear what we thought, and whether or not we were prepared to support his approach, which calls for higher taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent. I support tax revenue increases, including the top 2 percent, but only if accompanied by responsible spending limits. The key is balance.
I talked to him about the importance of innovation, and I think the president understands that. I do worry that as we try to fix this long-term debt and deficit situation that we don't destroy the market incentives for biomedical research. What I fear is the government using its considerable clout to say, 'Here's the price we're setting for your medicines.'
___
Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ceo-risks-key-merck-succeed-help-patients-163143066--finance.html
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Friday, March 1, 2013
Mother, stepfather of starved Georgia teen get 15-year prison terms
ATLANTA (Reuters) - The mother and stepfather of a Georgia teenager who ended up at a Los Angeles bus terminal last September and told police he had suffered from long-term abuse and starvation were each sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to cruelty charges.
Mitch Comer, 18, was so pale and gaunt when he turned up in Los Angeles that police thought he was only 12 or 13. A grand jury in Paulding County, Georgia, later charged that his mother and stepfather had endangered his health by confining him to a room within their home and denying him medical care.
The mother, Sheila Marie Comer, 40, and stepfather, Paul Matthew Comer, 48, both pleaded guilty on Thursday to child cruelty and false imprisonment charges, said Renee Rockwell, attorney for Sheila Comer.
They had faced more than 100 years in prison each if they had been convicted at trial, Rockwell said.
Comer told police that after removing him from school in the eighth grade, his stepfather shut him in a room and fed him only small amounts of food. When he turned 18, his stepfather gave him $200 and put him on a bus with a list of homeless shelters he had located on the Internet.
Rockwell described the family as deeply religious and said when she visited the couple's home shortly after their arrest in September, "there was plenty of food in the house."
Paulding County District Attorney Dick Donovan said little of that food was given to Mitch Comer. "He lived on cereal," Donovan said.
The Los Angeles police who encountered Mitch Comer said he was just over 5 feet tall and weighed only 87 pounds (39 kg).
Avoiding a trial will allow Mitch Comer and his two sisters to be spared from having to "relive the horrors that they went through," Donovan said.
Donovan told Reuters he had no explanation for the way the couple treated Mitch Comer.
"I don't know what makes people mean like that," he said. "I just know that they are."
As part of the plea agreement, the Comers' assets will be sold and the money placed in a trust, with half going to Mitch Comer and the remaining half to his two younger sisters when they turn 25, Rockwell said.
She described the couple's assets as "substantial." Paul Comer had a ninth-grade education but was a successful appliance repairman, the attorney for his wife said.
(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mother-stepfather-starved-georgia-teen-15-prison-terms-000444611.html
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Physicists demonstrate the acceleration of electrons by a laser in a vacuum
Feb. 27, 2013 ? Accelerating a free electron with a laser has been a longtime goal of solid-state physicists. David Cline, a distinguished professor in the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Xiaoping Ding, an assistant researcher at UCLA, have conducted research at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and have established that an electron beam can be accelerated by a laser in free space.
This has never been done before at high energies and represents a significant breakthrough, Cline said, adding that it also may have implications for fusion as a new energy source.
In free space, a plane-wave laser is unable to accelerate an electron, according to the Lawson-Woodward theorem, posited in 1979. However, Yu-kun Ho, a professor at China's Fudan University in Shanghai, and his research group have proposed a concept of what physicists refer to as the capture-acceleration scenario to show that an electron can be accelerated by a tightly focused laser in a vacuum.
In the capture-acceleration scenario, the diffraction from a tightly focused laser changes not only the intensity distribution of the laser but also its phase distribution, which results in the field phase velocity being lower than the speed of light in a vacuum in some areas.
Thus, a channel that overlaps features of both strong longitudinal electric field and low-laser-phase velocity is created, and electrons can receive energy gain from the laser. The acceleration effect increases along with increasing laser intensity, Cline said. This channel for electrons may be useful for other scientific endeavors, such as guiding an electron beam into a specific region of laser fusion applications, he said.
A possible application of this discovery is the use of laser plasma fusion to provide a new energy source for the U.S. and other countries. The focus of the laser generates a natural channel that can capture electrons and drive them into a pellet that explodes, by fusion, to produce excess energy, Cline said.
With federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, a project to carry out a proof-of-principle beam test for the novel vacuum acceleration at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Accelerator Test Facility (BNL-ATF) has been proposed and approved -- a collaboration among the UCLA Center for Advanced Accelerators, of which Cline is principal investigator, Ho's group and the Accelerator Test Facility team.
BNL-ATF is one of the few facilities that can provide both a high-quality electron beam and a high-intensity laser beam for the beam test, Cline said. Ho's group provides theoretical support. UCLA scientists -- Cline, Ding and Lei Shao, a former UCLA physics graduate student of Cline's -- are responsible for the whole experiment and the experimental data analysis.
Simulation research work and hardware design have been done in accordance with BNL-ATF's experimental conditions. The simulation results predict that vacuum laser acceleration phenomena can be observed with ATF's diagnostic system.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- L. Shao, D. Cline, X. Ding, Y.K. Ho, Q. Kong, J.J. Xu, I. Pogorelsky, V. Yakimenko, K. Kusche. Simulation prediction and experiment setup of vacuum laser acceleration at Brookhaven National Lab-Accelerator Test Facility. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2013; 701: 25 DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2012.09.053
- David Cline, Lei Shao, Xiaoping Ding, Yukun Ho, Qing Kong, Pingxiao Wang. First Observation of Acceleration of Electrons by a Laser in a Vacuum. Journal of Modern Physics, 2013; 04 (01): 1 DOI: 10.4236/jmp.2013.41001
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/oRWFsnC7UMg/130228093833.htm
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How To Make Money With Kindle Publishing
Kindle self publishing has given book authors new opportunities to make money. Amazon's ebook reader is the most popular one, which means that the Kindle ebook publishing option is highly profitable.
Several simple strategies will help you make money with Kindle self publishing. You can rely on a number of basic tricks to increase the popularity of your books and to increase revenue.
Kindle Self Publishing : You Need A Great Product!
To make money with Kindle self publishing, you will first have to put a quality ebook together. People that are interested in book purchases have thousands of options to choose among. A well-written, professionally created book is your only opportunity to stand out.
Write about the topics you understand and the things that you love. Your expertise will become evident in the first pages of the book. Refrain from starting a very ambitious project that you are unfamiliar with, just because you believe that the topic has high monetization potential.
Finally, for successful Kindle self publishing, you will have to rely on professional editing. There is no alternative, if you want to turn ebook publishing into a profitable business.
Kindle Self Publishing : A picture Is Worth A Thousand Words!
You have a few seconds to impress Amazon shoppers. A great book cover and a smartly written description will help you stand out. This is your one chance to capture the interest of the audience and to generate sales.
Professional, attractive and relevant cover designs are the first thing sellers see. Many people make shopping decisions on the basis of visuals. Creating a cover on your own is fine, as long as you have image editing knowledge. Using high quality photographs and interesting fonts will help you put an attractive cover together.
The summary of the book should highlight your main points. Including a few lines of positive reviews will create some credibility and increase the willingness of people to purchase.
Drive Traffic To Your Kindle Self Publishing Book Page
To make money with Kindle publishing, you will have to do a lot of marketing. Internet provides excellent, free of charge promotional opportunities. Rely on those to drive traffic to your Amazon ebook description pages.
Social networking is one of the techniques to master. Start a website or a blog and dedicate it to the topics discussed in your ebooks.?Include a link to your Amazon URL in your e-mail signature and on your business card. All marketing opportunities should be utilized cleverly and efficiently to bring up sales and increase your Kindle book publishing success.
Some of the most successful Amazon ebook authors make a lot of money through their work. The generation of sensible revenue is achievable by everyone. You need a great idea and a clever promotion plan. Spending some time on the preliminary steps will help you write an interesting ebook that has a high revenue generation potential.
For more information about Kindle Self Publishing, check out Author Theme Review. I'm sure you'll like it.
Source: http://articles.submityourarticle.com/how-to-make-money-with-kindle-publishing-318578
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Idina Menzel to return to Broadway next year
NEW YORK (AP) ? Idina Menzel, who won a Tony Award as the green witch in "Wicked," is planning a return to Broadway.
Producers of a new musical by the creators of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Next to Normal" announced Thursday that Menzel will star in their "I/Then," a Broadway-bound musical that first takes a stop this fall in Washington, D.C.
Tom Kitt will supply the music, Brian Yorkey will write the story and lyrics, and Michael Greif will direct. All three did the same jobs for "Next to Normal."
The new show will make its world premiere this November at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and then go on to open on Broadway in March 2014.
Producers said the musical will center on the character of Elizabeth, who on the verge of turning 40, moves to New York. "Set against the ever-shifting landscape of modern day Manhattan, 'If/Then' is a romantic and original new musical about how choice and chance collide and how we learn to love the fallout," producers said in a statement.
Menzel made her Broadway debut in "Rent" and won a Tony as Elphaba in "Wicked." Her films include "Enchanted," ''Rent" and "Ask the Dust." She also has launched a solo recording career and had a recurring role on TV in "Glee."
___
Online:
http://www.ifthenthemusical.com
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/idina-menzel-return-broadway-next-201315058.html
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