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Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Virgin Media announced weak results last week, in part due to competition from Sky. Virgin Media lost 47,000 customers from January to March 2007, while Sky gained 51,000 customers in the same time period.

Franklin Mutual Advisers, which has 9.4% of the Virgin Media shares (Sir Richard Branson owns 11%) wants to have a meeting with Virgin Media about its “strategic direction, corporate governance and management”. Franklin Mutual Advisers is known to take great interest in the companies in which it invests.

This has caused many of the other investors of Virgin Media to demanding meetings with the management of the company. The demands are due to confusion among shareholders at the direction in which the company is heading, The Guardian reports. After the attempt to buy ITV was stopped last year, the shareholders think that Virgin Media may lose its battle with Sky and TalkTalk.

Another issue causing concerns amongst investors is the £25.2 million pay cheques for the top seven executives of Virgin Media. Virgin Media reported a £15.3 million loss last year.

Monday, July 7, 2008

The Philippine shipping company Sulpicio Lines has asked a court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) stopping the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) from proceeding with its investigation into the loss of MV Princess of the Stars. The passenger ferry capsised and sank off Sibuyan island on June 21 during Typhoon Fengshen (known locally as Typhhon Frank) with hundreds of casualties.

Sulpicio told the Manila Regional Trial Court that both Republic Act 9295 and the Domestic Shipping Development Act of 2004 removed the BMI’s power to investigate maritime incidents and that the investigation the board launched on June 25 is “irregular, illegal, and null and void”. They say only the Maritime Industry Authority is allowed to investigate accidents at sea.

Sulpicio also described the investigation as an ‘inquisition’ that was biased against Sulpicio from the start. They say “prejudgment” has increased the “pervasive negative publicity” surrounding the line, since negative accusations are most often published in newspapers. The company says one comment the board made was “Your vessel is not stable!” “You have no business being a safety officer!”

As a result Sulpicio is seeking ?650,000 from the BMI. This is split down as ?500,000 in moral damages, ?100,000 lawyer’s fees and ?50,000 further costs.

The House Committee on Transportation also launched its own inquiry into the disaster today. The case for the TRO will be heard tomorrow.

Monday, January 19, 2009

New reports indicate that the proliferation of the Conficker computer worm (also known as Kido or Downadup) has nearly quadrupled in the last four days. The worm has gone from just over 2 million Microsoft Windows computers infected to 8.9 million, according to estimates by anti-virus company F-Secure. Though Microsoft issued a patch with a severity rating of “critical” in mid-October 2008, just days after Conficker was first discovered, many business computers still have not applied the patch.

Most to all of the infected computers are on corporate networks; Conficker cannot spread through the Internet or e-mails. Instead, when an infected laptop connects to a corporate network, the worm searches for vulnerable computers and attempts to guess its password. Conficker also infects any network shares the user may be connected to. The worm has a list of about one hundred common passwords, including “password” and “qwerty“. Conficker also infects USB sticks, which then infect any Microsoft Windows computer the stick is plugged in to.

After it gains access to the computer, Conficker adds itself to the Windows processes “services.exe”, “explorer.exe” and “svchost.exe”, then makes a copy of itself as a DLL file with a random five- to eight-character name. The worm also disables Windows services such as Windows Update and Windows Defender. Conficker also blocks access to most security-related sites, including Windows Update. The worm then checks several websites for the current date, then generates a domain name based on that date and downloads infected files from that domain. This domain is believed to be in Ukraine. Conficker makes itself very hard to remove by registering the downloaded files as kernel drivers and the DLL copy of itself of a service.

Microsoft has advised users to install the patch (security bulletin MS08-067), then run the latest edition of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

As of 10:00 p.m EST November 8, 2006, the Democratic Party is projected to have gained control of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in the 2006 United States general elections. MSNBC projects that the Democrats now control 234 seats in the House of Representatives, 16 more seats than the 218 needed to control the House of Representatives as all 435 seats were up for election. In the Senate, where the balance of power is closer, one-third of all seats were up for grab. As of 10:00 p.m. EST, AP and Reuters were projecting that the Democrats had picked up all six seats they needed to retake the Senate, including the seats of incumbents Rick Santorum (Penn.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Jim Talent (Missouri), Mike DeWine (Ohio), Jon Tester (Montana), and Jim Webb (VA). The Tester victory by less than 3,000 votes was projected at approximately 2 p.m. EST after the State of Montana announced the results of overnight recounts. Democrat Jim Webb has prevailed in that race by slightly more than 7,000 votes, though his opponent has not conceded and a recount may still occur.

Monday, December 31, 2007

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2007 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 year’s time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2007, what would the question be? The year that you first signed on to Facebook? The year Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse fell apart? The year author Kurt Vonnegut or mime Marcel Marceau died, both at 84?

Let’s take a look at some of the international stories of 2007. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in bold.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Texas city of Chandler, with a modest population of just over 2,700, is hosting the Texas Teenage Baseball-Softball Association’s 8U [age 8 and under] Boys State Tournament. The event’s opening ceremony was held on Sunday July 22nd. Some of the city’s citizens have expressed excitement about and anticipation of the tournament for several weeks.

Including players and coaches, about 800 people attended the opening ceremonies, which began at 7pm CDT at the Winchester Park baseball complex and were led by the city’s Mayor, Ann Hall. Local businesses sponsored a hotdog supper at the complex before the ceremony. Overall, the tournament is to feature all 17 teams competing in about 40 games. Games are set to start at 8:30am each day, and play through 11:00pm nightly.

During the opening ceremony, teams lined up along the main competition field and each player and coach received a souvenir bag provided by the city of Chandler. The lead-up to the ceremony also featured a Kids Zone area with water slides, and bounce houses and a dunking booth staffed by coaches from the visiting teams.

The city’s major, Ann Hall, welcomed the team to Chandler and wished them salutations during their tournament play.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

India is the latest of the countries where the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) experiment has started. Children from the village of Khairat were given the opportunity to learn how to use the XO laptop. During the last year XO was distributed to children from Arahuay in Peru, Ban Samkha in Thailand, Cardal in Uruguay and Galadima in Nigeria. The OLPC team are, in their reports on the startup of the trials, delighted with how the laptop has improved access to information and ability to carry out educational activities. Thailand’s The Nation has praised the project, describing the children as “enthusiastic” and keen to attend school with their laptops.

Recent good news for the project sees Uruguay having ordered 100,000 of the machines which are to be given to children aged six to twelve. Should all go according to plan a further 300,000 machines will be purchased by 2009 to give one to every child in the country. As the first to order, Uruguay chose the OLPC XO laptop over its rival from Intel, the Classmate PC. In parallel with the delivery of the laptops network connectivity will be provided to schools involved in the project.

The remainder of this article is based on Carla G. Munroy’s Khairat Chronicle, which is available from the OLPC Wiki. Additional sources are listed at the end.

Sunday, February 6, 2005A United Nations report has shown that sports footwear companies are making progress towards ending the use of sweatshops and are implementing more worker-friendly codes of practice than clothing companies and retailers.

The study, published by the International Labour Organisation, suggests that consumer pressure is behind the changes. As a result of consumer’s concerns, footwear companies have been diverting financial and human resources towards developing and implementing better codes of conduct for suppliers. Large teams have been established within companies to work toward the goal of better conditions for factory workers.

The study, based upon interviews with hundreds of managers, activists, government officials, factory workers and worker representatives and visits to companies all over the world, goes on to suggest that workers should be given more powers to oversee conditions in their places of work.

Clothing companies have been failing to make such good progress due the large number of constantly-changing suppliers they use, with the ILO study describing progress as “spotty.” A major retailer may have a supply base of over 5,000 different companies, making it more difficult to establish stronger, more effective links with supply companies. They have also assigned less manpower to the task of compliance with codes of practice.

In some areas of the retail industry, there has been almost no compliance with codes of practice.