LG reveals X-Note Z330 Ultrabook, claims it cold boots in ten seconds originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A UCSF study suggests patients with chronic pain may experience greater relief if their doctors add cannabinoids ? the main ingredient in cannabis or medical marijuana ? to an opiates-only treatment. The findings, from a small-scale study, also suggest that a combined therapy could result in reduced opiate dosages.
More than 76 million Americans suffer from chronic pain ? more people than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined, according to the National Centers for Health Statistics.
"Pain is a big problem in America and chronic pain is a reason many people utilize the health care system," said the paper's lead author, Donald Abrams, MD, professor of clinical medicine at UCSF and chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH). "And chronic pain is, unfortunately, one of the problems we're least capable of managing effectively."
In a paper published this month in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, researchers examined the interaction between cannabinoids and opiates in the first human study of its kind. They found the combination of the two components reduced pain more than using opiates alone, similar to results previously found in animal studies.
Researchers studied chronic pain patients who were being treated with long-acting morphine or long-acting oxycodone. Their treatment was supplemented with controlled amounts of cannabinoids, inhaled through a vaporizer. The original focus was on whether the opiates' effectiveness increased, not on whether the cannabinoids helped reduce pain.
"The goal of the study really was to determine if inhalation of cannabis changed the level of the opiates in the bloodstream," Abrams said. "The way drugs interact, adding cannabis to the chronic dose of opiates could be expected either to increase the plasma level of the opiates or to decrease the plasma level of the opiates or to have no effect. And while we were doing that, we also asked the patients what happened to their pain."
Abrams and his colleagues studied 21 chronic pain patients in the inpatient Clinical & Transitional Science Institute's Clinical Research Center at SFGH: 10 on sustained-release morphine and 11 on oxycodone. After obtaining opiate levels from patients at the start of the study, researchers exposed them to vaporized cannabis for four consecutive days. On the fifth day, they looked again at the level of opiate in the bloodstream. Because the level of morphine was slightly lower in the patients, and the level of oxycodone was virtually unchanged, "one would expect they would have less relief of pain and what we found that was interesting was that instead of having less pain relief, patients had more pain relief," Abrams said. "So that was a little surprising."
The morphine group came in with a pain score of about 35, and on the fifth day, it decreased to 24 ? a 33 percent reduction. The oxycodone group came in with an average pain score of about 44, and it reduced to 34 ? a drop of 20 percent. Overall, patients showed a significant decrease in their pain.
"This preliminary study seems to imply that people may be able to get away perhaps taking lower doses of the opiates for longer periods of time if taken in conjunction with cannabis," Abrams said.
Opiates are very strong powerful pain medicines that can be highly addictive. They also can be deadly since opiates sometimes suppress the respiratory system.
As a cancer doctor, Abrams was motivated to find safe and effective treatments for chronic pain. Patients in the cannabis-opiates study experienced no major side effects such as nausea, vomiting or loss of appetite.
"What we need to do now is look at pain as the primary endpoint of a larger trial," he said. "Particularly I would be interested in looking at the effect of different strains of cannabis."
For instance, Delta 9 THC is the main psychoactive component of cannabis but cannabis contains about 70 other similar compounds with different effects. One of those is cannabidiol, or CBD. It appears to be very effective against pain and inflammation without creating the "high" created by THC.
"I think it would be interesting to do a larger study comparing high THC versus high CBD cannabis strains in association with opiates in patients with chronic pain and perhaps even having a placebo as a control," Abrams said. "That would be the next step."
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Article: http://www.nature.com/clpt/journal/v90/n6/full/clpt2011188a.html
University of California - San Francisco: http://www.ucsf.edu
Thanks to University of California - San Francisco for this article.
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FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2008 file photo, an agent with the Transportation Security Administration works at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2008 file photo, an agent with the Transportation Security Administration works at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? With age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old ? having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.
Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag.
While not confirming some of the details, the TSA said a preliminary review shows officers followed the agency's procedures in both cases. But experts said the potential for such searches will increase as the U.S. population ages and receives prosthetics and other medical devices, some of which cannot go through screening machines.
"You have pacemakers, you have artificial hips, you have artificial knees," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "As we get older and we keep ourselves together, it's going to take more and more surgery. There's going to be more and more medical improvements, but that can create what appears to be a security issue."
Prosthetic devices can set off metal detectors, and certain devices such as catheters and bags are visible on body scanners, making those passengers candidates for more thorough inspections. Metal detectors and wands can disrupt some devices such as implanted defibrillators, so those passengers must ask for pat-downs instead.
Ruth Sherman, 88, of Sunrise, Fla., said she was mortified when inspectors pulled her aside and asked about the bulge in her pants as she arrived for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 28.
"I said, 'I have a bag here,'" she said on Monday, pointing to the bulge, which is bigger or smaller depending on what she eats. "They didn't understand."
She said they escorted her to another room where two female agents "made me lower my sweatpants, and I was really very humiliated." She said she stood with her arms and legs outstretched, warning the agents not to touch her colostomy bag. Touching the bag can cause pain, she said.
"It's degrading. It's like someone raped you," Sherman said. "They didn't know how to handle a human being."
The next day, agents took 85-year-old Lenore Zimmerman, of Long Beach, N.Y., into a private room to remove her back brace for screening after she decided against going through a scanning machine because of her heart defibrillator. Zimmerman said she had to raise her blouse and lower her pants and underwear for a female TSA agent.
Bruce Zimmerman, her son, said the agents "should've patted her down."
"To have her pants and underpants pulled down is just beyond humiliating," he said Monday. "This is my mother we are talking about."
The TSA said Monday that it is still investigating the cases.
"Our officers are committed to treating every passenger with dignity and respect," the agency said in a statement.
The agency insists that security concerns come first, even if it means getting into passengers' drawers. In 2009, a Nigerian man tried to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day with explosives in his underpants.
"Terrorists and their targets may also range in age," the agency argued in a blog post after Zimmerman went public. It cited the November arrest of four Georgia men, ages 65 to 73, on charges of plotting an attack with the poison ricin. Prosecutors said the men were part of a fringe militia group.
Last June, the daughter of a 95-year-old woman said TSA agents wouldn't let her mother board a flight from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to Detroit because her wet adult diaper set off alarms.
A TSA screener said Lena Reppert had a suspicious spot on her adult diaper, according to her daughter, Jean Weber. Weber ultimately took off the wet diaper so Reppert could be cleared in time for their flight.
The TSA said its inspectors handled the situation correctly and didn't ask Reppert to remove her diaper.
Such cases raise serious privacy questions, said Chris Calabrese, a legislative expert with the American Civil Liberties Union.
"It's a pretty fundamental invasion of privacy when you have to take your clothes off," Calabrese said.
Even lawmakers have complained about their treatment. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who has an artificial knee, told fellow members of a congressional committee that she dreads running into a certain TSA agent when it comes time for a pat-down at the St. Louis airport.
"I see her coming ... I like, you know, just tense up, because I know it's going to be ugly in terms of the way she conducts her pat-downs," McCaskill said.
The TSA says it has been trying to tailor its screening procedures for different types of passengers. In September it eliminated pat-downs for most children under 12 because of complaints from parents. In October it began testing an express screening program for frequent fliers at four airports.
The agency has formed an advisory committee of 70 disability groups to help adapt its screening techniques.
TSA chief John Pistole has said the agency is trying to train screeners to more quickly identify medical devices, such as catheters, to save passengers from embarrassment. He also said the agency might give preference to senior citizens going through the screening lines.
"We are looking at ways that we can recognize those of a certain age ... I don't want terrorists to game the system ? but of a certain age that would be given an expedited screening," Pistole told a Senate committee last month.
___
Kelli Kennedy reported from Sunrise, Fla. Associated Press writer Colleen Long in New York also contributed to this story.
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(Reuters) ? At least four brokerages slashed their price targets on Research in Motion's U.S.-listed stock after the BlackBerry maker warned of lower profit amid falling sales and an inventory pile up of its PlayBook tablet.
CIBC slashed its price target on RIM's stock to $25 from $55 saying "continued negative sentiment will likely keep the share price depressed in the near-term."
The brokerage said it sees the possibility of a deal with a company that could find RIM's Blackberry Internet Service and Blackberry Enterprise Service business model attractive.
Nomura said the PlayBook could remain a negative factor for the company through the next two quarters as 1.2 million PlayBooks may remain on RIM's inventories.
The brokerage cut its price target on the stock to $18.9 from $26 saying "this is the highest price we think any financial bidder is likely to offer in a take-over bid."
Speculation has been rife that RIM could be the target of a strategic buyout.
Barclays cut its price target on the stock to $16 from $23 and said it expects the company to "lose money in devices - as did Motorola and Palm - and cannot close it without inflicting great harm on the services unit."
In early October, millions of BlackBerry customers across four continents went without email, messaging and browsing service on their smartphones after a series of failures in RIM's private network.
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM on Friday said it no longer expects to meet its full-year earnings forecast due to weak sales, a charge to write down inventories of its PlayBook tablet and a charge related to a damaging service outage in October.
"An indefinite period of decline has now begun," analysts at Wunderlich Securities said and cut their price target on RIM's stock to $16 from $24.
Shares of RIM closed at $16.77 on Friday on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Maneesha Tiwari in Bangalore; Editing by Supriya Kurane)
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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) ? Saab's Dutch owner and China's Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile have agreed that the Bank of China, the nation's fourth-largest bank by market value, will come in as part owner of the ailing carmaker, according to a source familiar with the deal.
Under the new deal, the Bank of China will replace Chinese investor Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. Youngman and the Bank of China will own just under 50 percent of the company.
The move could help pave the way for an approval by General Motors, which still has preferential shares in Saab and rejected an earlier rescue plan. It said in November it would stop supplying components and technology if Youngman and Pang Da succeeded with their acquisition bid.
Saab has lurched from crisis to crisis in the past year. The company has not produced a car in months because of unpaid salaries and bills.
The new plan has been handed over to GM.
Saab was not immediately available to comment.
The company is currently under court protection from creditors in Sweden after unions representing Saab employees began proceedings to put it into bankruptcy over unpaid wages.
Pang Da operates auto dealerships in China while Youngman produces commercial vehicles, including buses and trucks, and sells cars under the Lotus brand.
GM operates in China in a partnership with state-run automaker SAIC Motor Corp Ltd.
(Reporting by Mia Shanley in Stockholm and Sara Webb in Amsterdam; Editing by Jan Paschal)
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Apple appeals Samsung tablet ruling, Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales still blocked in Australia originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |ABC News, Reuters | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/apple-appeals-samsung-tablet-ruling-galaxy-tab-10-1-sales-still/
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