DOVER, Del. ? A bankruptcy judge on Thursday blasted Fox Sports for claiming that the Los Angeles Dodgers' plan to sell media rights to future games is intended to enrich team owner Frank McCourt after Fox negotiated a failed deal that would have left McCourt with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Judge Kevin Gross took Fox to task in a formal opinion authorizing the Dodgers to begin the media rights marketing process as part of the team's plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
The Dodgers sought bankruptcy protection in June after baseball Commissioner Bud Selig rejected a new TV deal with Fox that McCourt was counting on to keep the franchise solvent.
Fox is now challenging the team's plan to sell media rights to games starting in 2014, saying the sale process violates Fox's exclusive rights under its existing contract with the Dodgers.
Gross pointed out that in the deal rejected by Selig, Fox was willing to advance more than $300 million to McCourt with no restrictions. He noted the irony in Fox now arguing that the media rights sale is unnecessary and alleging that it is timed to help McCourt meet an April 30 deadline to pay his ex-wife, Jamie, $131 million as part of their divorce settlement.
"Now, when Fox faces changes to the rights amendment, Fox raises arguments about what is in the debtors' best interests," the judge wrote. "Fox is not a credible party to raise such issues."
But Fox is pressing its challenge, filing an appeal in federal district court in Delaware seeking to overturn Gross' ruling.
Fox Sports is asking the district court judge to immediately halt the implementation of Gross' order while he considers Fox's appeal. The district judge has scheduled a teleconference with attorneys Friday to discuss the appeal.
The plan to sell media rights is a key component of a settlement between the Dodgers and Major League Baseball that also calls for McCourt to sell the team.
The Dodgers' plan calls for initial bids by Jan. 13 and completion of the sale by April 30.
Fox argues that the sale process violates its exclusive rights under the existing contract, which gives Fox an exclusive 45-day period starting in October 2012 to negotiate a contract extension with the Dodgers.
But the Dodgers say a media rights sale now in conjunction with selling the team itself is the best way to maximize value for creditors and emerge from bankruptcy.
In his ruling, Gross agreed with the Dodgers that Fox will maintain many of the same rights under the proposed sale process as it has under its existing contract, including the exclusive negotiating period. The judge said the only changes to the rights agreement with Fox were moving up the exclusive negotiating period by about 10 months, and a requirement that any deal between the Dodgers and Fox be approved not just by MLB, as in the contract, but any buyer of the team as well.
Gross said Fox will have the opportunity later to argue that it is entitled to damages for breach of contract, and the Dodgers will be able to decide whether those damages, if any, make a media rights deal with someone else economically unwise.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks rose on Thursday as signs of strength in the economy and higher-than-expected profit at FedEx outweighed a stark warning from the IMF about inaction over Europe's debt crisis.
Trading was volatile before Friday's quadruple witching expiration when not only equity options expire, but also stock index futures, stock index options and individual stock futures.
Stocks pared some of their gains after Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said the world economic outlook is "quite gloomy" and will require action by all countries to head off an escalating crisis that carries risks of a global depression.
But investors were cheered by the latest data that suggested the U.S. economy was showing modest growth.
Applications for unemployment insurance fell to a 3-1/2 year low, while a gauge of New York state manufacturing activity rose to its highest level since May and a separate measure of factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region showed a surge in new orders.
The market's gains were concentrated in defensive sectors such as utilities, suggesting uncertainty was causing risk-takers to put their portfolios in neutral as the week draws to an end, said Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co in Florham Park, New Jersey.
"Unfortunately austerity without a plan for structural changes will cap economic growth and potentially could bleed into earnings. Going into the new year, portfolio managers are squaring their books for that scenario," Morganlader said.
"There's a continued rotation into safety and stability in a global austerity environment."
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was up 69.32 points, or 0.59 percent, at 11,892.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was up 6.57 points, or 0.54 percent, at 1,218.39. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was up 6.82 points, or 0.27 percent, at 2,546.13.
FedEx Corp (FDX.N) shares shot up 7.2 percent to $82.87 after the package delivery company, seen as a bellwether of economic activity, reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit.
The news from FedEx was welcome after a number of high-profile companies warned about revenues and profits in recent days. On Thursday, Honeywell International (HON.N) said Europe's slowing economy would take a toll on orders. But Honeywell's stock rose 1.2 percent to $52.16 after it forecast profit in line with expectations.
On Wednesday, Wall Street fell for a third day to its lowest level in two weeks with the market highly sensitive to developments in Europe.
Big-cap technology shares slipped, including Apple Inc (AAPL.O) off 0.2 percent to $379.33 and International Business machines (IBM.N), which fell 0.5 percent to $187.77.
Novellus Systems Inc (NVLS.O) jumped 17.3 percent to $40.72 a day after it agreed to be bought by larger rival Lam Research Corp (LRCX.O) for $3.3 billion in stock.
Michael Kors Holdings Ltd (KORS.N) shares jumped 22 percent to $24.37 in their debut on the New York Stock Exchange after the luxury goods company went public at $20 per share on Wednesday, above the expected range. Earlier Thursday, the stock climbed as much as 25 percent to a session high at $25.23.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
New study reassures on heart risks of prostate cancer treatmentPublic release date: 6-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Anne Doerr Anne_Doerr@dfci.harvard.edu 617-632-4090 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Study finds no evidence that androgen deprivation therapy causes heart attacks
BOSTONHormone-blocking therapy for prostate cancer doesn't raise the risk of fatal heart attacks as some recent studies had suggested according to a new report from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center.
For men with high-risk prostate tumors, a combination of local treatment and drugs that block male hormones that feed prostate tumors can significantly lengthen survival. In the past few years, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and some professional organizations have raised a caution flag about this treatment regimen, citing a few studies that linked androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to a higher risk of heart attacks.
But those fears appear unwarranted at least for men without a history of heart disease according the Dana-Farber/Brigham study that is being published in the Dec. 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Led by Paul Nguyen, MD, and Toni Choueiri, MD, the scientists performed a meta-analysis of randomized studies involving 4,141 prostate cancer patients. The analysis found no difference in the rate of cardiovascular deaths in men receiving ADT compared with those who didn't. The study couldn't rule out that ADT might elevate the risk of fatal heart attacks in patients with a history of heart disease; the investigators said they plan to look more closely at that population.
"This message should be reassuring for the vast majority of patients considering androgen deprivation therapy," said Nguyen, a radiation oncologist at Dana-Farber/Brigham. "If you need ADT for your prostate cancer, go ahead and have it. Hormones can save lives."
ADT is frequently used in combination with radiation therapy to treat men whose tumors have unfavorable characteristics or have spread beyond the gland. Side effects from this treatment approach can include weight gain, insulin resistance and imbalances in blood lipids like cholesterol all of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. But whether ADT treatment actually is a risk factor for dying of cardiovascular disease has been controversial.
Concerns were raised in 2006, when researchers reported that ADT was associated with a 44 percent risk of diabetes, an 11 percent increase in heart attacks, and a 16 percent increase in sudden cardiac death. A more recent study found that men older than 65 years who received ADT suffered heart attacks sooner than those who had heart attacks but weren't on hormone-blocking drugs.
Other studies, however, did not find an elevated heart disease risk.
In 2010, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Urological Association issued a joint statement alerting physicians to the potential risk, but said the doctors should decide what therapies to recommend. That same year, the FDA called for labeling on hormone-blocking drugs warning of an increased risk of diabetes, heart attack, sudden cardiac death, and stroke.
"In the past year, these types of warnings were turning public opinion against the therapy," said Nguyen.
Because the risk estimates had emerged from studies that weren't randomized, controlled trials, the researchers undertook a meta-analysis of trials that met these standards and included data on adverse side effects, as well as the efficacy of ADT. The 4,174 patients enrolled in the eight randomized trials in the meta-analysis mostly had "locally advanced" prostate cancer that had spread beyond the prostate gland, but hadn't metastasized to other organs.
Nguyen and Choueiri found that cardiovascular deaths occurred in 11 percent of the patients who underwent ADT versus 11.2 percent in the control patients an insignificant difference. ADT did prolong survival, as shown by the finding that all-cause mortality in the treated patients was 37.7 percent compared with 44.4 percent in the control group.
The researchers broke down the results for shorter versus longer duration of treatments, whether patients had undergone surgery or not, and older versus younger age. This further analysis did not uncover any differences in cardiovascular death risk.
The remaining question, said Choueiri, an oncologist at Dana-Farber/Brigham is whether androgen deprivation might increase risk in men with an established history of previous heart disease, but those data weren't available. "That's a subgroup of about 5 or 10 percent of the patients," he said, and merits further study.
"It's still prudent to be cautious with these patients, and have them be evaluated by a cardiologist before starting treatment," Choueiri said.
He added that the findings "don't exonerate ADT from the increased risks of diabetes, insulin resistance, and weight gain. We don't discount that, but there is benefit in ADT for patients with high-risk prostate cancers."
###
The report included other authors from Dana-Farber/Brigham, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Boston University School of Medicine.
Support for the study included funding from the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy Foundation; a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship, and several private donors.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and it provides pediatric care with Children's Hospital Boston as Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. Dana-Farber is the top ranked cancer center in New England, according to U.S. News & World Report, and one of the largest recipients among independent hospitals of National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grant funding. Follow Dana-Farber on Twitter: @danafarber and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is the home of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), www.brighamandwomens.org/research, BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 900 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $537 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org
Editor's note: Video of Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Choueiri discussing their findings is available online for download at http://resources.dana-farber.org/pr/media/default.asp
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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.
New study reassures on heart risks of prostate cancer treatmentPublic release date: 6-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Anne Doerr Anne_Doerr@dfci.harvard.edu 617-632-4090 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Study finds no evidence that androgen deprivation therapy causes heart attacks
BOSTONHormone-blocking therapy for prostate cancer doesn't raise the risk of fatal heart attacks as some recent studies had suggested according to a new report from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center.
For men with high-risk prostate tumors, a combination of local treatment and drugs that block male hormones that feed prostate tumors can significantly lengthen survival. In the past few years, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and some professional organizations have raised a caution flag about this treatment regimen, citing a few studies that linked androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to a higher risk of heart attacks.
But those fears appear unwarranted at least for men without a history of heart disease according the Dana-Farber/Brigham study that is being published in the Dec. 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Led by Paul Nguyen, MD, and Toni Choueiri, MD, the scientists performed a meta-analysis of randomized studies involving 4,141 prostate cancer patients. The analysis found no difference in the rate of cardiovascular deaths in men receiving ADT compared with those who didn't. The study couldn't rule out that ADT might elevate the risk of fatal heart attacks in patients with a history of heart disease; the investigators said they plan to look more closely at that population.
"This message should be reassuring for the vast majority of patients considering androgen deprivation therapy," said Nguyen, a radiation oncologist at Dana-Farber/Brigham. "If you need ADT for your prostate cancer, go ahead and have it. Hormones can save lives."
ADT is frequently used in combination with radiation therapy to treat men whose tumors have unfavorable characteristics or have spread beyond the gland. Side effects from this treatment approach can include weight gain, insulin resistance and imbalances in blood lipids like cholesterol all of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. But whether ADT treatment actually is a risk factor for dying of cardiovascular disease has been controversial.
Concerns were raised in 2006, when researchers reported that ADT was associated with a 44 percent risk of diabetes, an 11 percent increase in heart attacks, and a 16 percent increase in sudden cardiac death. A more recent study found that men older than 65 years who received ADT suffered heart attacks sooner than those who had heart attacks but weren't on hormone-blocking drugs.
Other studies, however, did not find an elevated heart disease risk.
In 2010, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Urological Association issued a joint statement alerting physicians to the potential risk, but said the doctors should decide what therapies to recommend. That same year, the FDA called for labeling on hormone-blocking drugs warning of an increased risk of diabetes, heart attack, sudden cardiac death, and stroke.
"In the past year, these types of warnings were turning public opinion against the therapy," said Nguyen.
Because the risk estimates had emerged from studies that weren't randomized, controlled trials, the researchers undertook a meta-analysis of trials that met these standards and included data on adverse side effects, as well as the efficacy of ADT. The 4,174 patients enrolled in the eight randomized trials in the meta-analysis mostly had "locally advanced" prostate cancer that had spread beyond the prostate gland, but hadn't metastasized to other organs.
Nguyen and Choueiri found that cardiovascular deaths occurred in 11 percent of the patients who underwent ADT versus 11.2 percent in the control patients an insignificant difference. ADT did prolong survival, as shown by the finding that all-cause mortality in the treated patients was 37.7 percent compared with 44.4 percent in the control group.
The researchers broke down the results for shorter versus longer duration of treatments, whether patients had undergone surgery or not, and older versus younger age. This further analysis did not uncover any differences in cardiovascular death risk.
The remaining question, said Choueiri, an oncologist at Dana-Farber/Brigham is whether androgen deprivation might increase risk in men with an established history of previous heart disease, but those data weren't available. "That's a subgroup of about 5 or 10 percent of the patients," he said, and merits further study.
"It's still prudent to be cautious with these patients, and have them be evaluated by a cardiologist before starting treatment," Choueiri said.
He added that the findings "don't exonerate ADT from the increased risks of diabetes, insulin resistance, and weight gain. We don't discount that, but there is benefit in ADT for patients with high-risk prostate cancers."
###
The report included other authors from Dana-Farber/Brigham, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Boston University School of Medicine.
Support for the study included funding from the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy Foundation; a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship, and several private donors.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and it provides pediatric care with Children's Hospital Boston as Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. Dana-Farber is the top ranked cancer center in New England, according to U.S. News & World Report, and one of the largest recipients among independent hospitals of National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grant funding. Follow Dana-Farber on Twitter: @danafarber and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is the home of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), www.brighamandwomens.org/research, BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 900 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $537 M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org
Editor's note: Video of Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Choueiri discussing their findings is available online for download at http://resources.dana-farber.org/pr/media/default.asp
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
As Egyptians go to the polls today for runoff races, the battle in Cairo's Nasr City neighborhood offers a window into the national race for second behind the Muslim Brotherhood.
As Egyptians went to the polls again today to decide runoffs in the parliamentary elections, two candidates facing off in a Cairo district illustrate the national battle for second place behind the Muslim Brotherhood.
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On one side in Cairo's Nasr City neighborhood is Mustafa El Naggar, a young revolutionary who helped organize the throngs of protesters in Tahrir Square earlier this year that brought down former President Hosni Mubarak.
On the other is Mohamed Yousri, an Islamic scholar who adheres to a strict strain of Islam known as salafism ? much like what is practiced in Saudi Arabia.
Salafi candidates like Mr. Yousri took about 25 percent of the vote last week, stunning many liberal candidates who had hoped their secular parties would take the second-largest percentage of parliamentary seats after the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.
While the victory of the Brotherhood, Egypt's most organized group, was expected, the handy and unexpected success of the salafi parties has sparked alarm among some liberal and non-Muslim Egyptians, and amplified the religious tone of the elections. Some Islamist parties have been using religious language to attract voters, and some have accused liberal parties of casting themselves simply as the anti-Islamist choice, using fear instead of platforms to attract voters.
Those positions are now deepening as Egypt moves toward the next two rounds of elections for the lower house of parliament, which will be more difficult for liberal parties because it involves more rural and conservative areas.
?I am 120 percent afraid of the salafis,? says Ehab Emil, a Nasr City resident who works as a tour guide, after casting his ballot. Mr. Emil says that he knew little about Naggar, but voted for him because he was running against a salafi.
?We care about the future of Egypt,? he says. ?We are against salafis. All the normal people are afraid that they won so many seats. I think today many people will vote for Naggar out of fear.?
Mr. Naggar cofounded El Adl, a liberal-leaning party, after the uprising that swept Mubarak from power in February. In between greeting voters as his campaign team toured polling stations to watch for fraud today, he expressed concern about the low turnout. That helps his opponent, who is backed by the well-organized Muslim Brotherhood, called the Ikhwan in Arabic.
?Ikhwan and salafis have very good organizational capabilities. They can mobilize people, especially in poor areas. We can?t do that,? he says. While visiting a poor area in his district Sunday, he said, he found minibuses organized by his opponent ready to transport poor voters to the polls. He said residents told him they were promised meat ? which many Egyptians cannot afford ? if they participated.???
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 ($599.99 direct with 14-42mm kit lens) is the smallest camera in the Panasonic Micro Four Thirds family, taking many of its design cues from point-and-shoot models. The 12-megapixel camera doesn't do as well in low light as some other interchangeable lens cameras, like our Editors' Choice Sony Alpha NEX-C3 ($649.95, 4.5 stars), and its kit lens is a little larger than the one bundled with the Olympus PEN E-PM1 ($499.99, 4 stars). The camera is easy enough for anyone to use, but offers the image quality and manual controls to satisfy enthusiastic shutterbugs?in a very compact package.
Design and Features Available in black, red, silver, or brown, the GF3 measures ?2.6 by 4.2 by 1.3 inches and weighs 7.9 ounces without a lens. Despite having a larger image sensor, the camera itself is only slightly larger than the 2.4-by-4.2-by-1.2 inch, 8.3-ounce Nikon J1 ($649.95, 3.5 stars). The GF3's 14-42mm (28-84mm, 35mm equivalent) is a bit larger than that of the J1, and is actually about the same size of that of the Sony NEX-C3?a camera with a much larger image sensor. Olympus also includes a 14-42mm lens with its Micro Four Thirds cameras, but that lens features a collapsing design that helps to cut down on its size. Panasonic recently unveiled its own collapsing Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ($399.95), which is available separately or bundled with the GF3 for $749.99. If zoom isn't a necessity, you can opt for the Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH lens ($399.95). The pancake prime is quite light and small, although its fixed focal length design means that it won't zoom. The GF3 is also available in a kit with that lens for $699.99.
Wrapped in a metal exterior, the camera feels quite solid in your hands. The pop-up flash, which is hidden in the top of the camera, can be revealed via a release switch. There is no hot shoe or accessory port, so you won't be able to add an external flash, electronic viewfinder, or other accessory as you could with its predecessor, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 ($699.95, ?4 stars). A 3-inch, 460k-dot, touch-screen LCD dominates the rear of the camera. The display is bright and crisp, but it doesn't tilt like the one found on the Olympus PEN E-PL3 ($649.99, 3.5 stars), so you'll have to contend with glare on very bright days. The Sony NEX-C3 also has a tilting display, but its resolution is 920k dots, twice that of the GF3. To its right are a thumb grip, four-way command dial, an image playback button, and the Q.Menu/Function button. You'll find the On/Off switch, a dedicated movie record button, the shutter release, and a button to toggle iAuto mode on the top of the camera. You can use these controls to adjust camera functions, or interact directly via its touch screen. This approach is not dissimilar to that taken by Sony with its Alpha NEX-5N ($699.95, 4.5 stars)?that camera also uses a touch interface to supplement physical controls.
The menu system has the look and feel of that of other Panasonic cameras. Numerous indicators overlay the edges of the display, without obscuring too much of the frame. The Q.Menu button brings up an overlay display that allows you to adjust some of the more common camera functions. You can customize what items are included and the order in which they appear to best suit your shooting style. The camera's full menu, which allows you to adjust every conceivable camera setting, is broken up into six sections, one of which is a virtual mode dial. You'll have to go through this interface to change from Program to Aperture Priority or another shooting mode. Changing the shooting mode can also be accomplished by tapping the indicator of the current mode on the top-left corner of the LCD. You can also tap the screen to spot focus, meter, and fire the shutter.
Performance and Conclusions The GF3 is a rather speedy camera. It can start up and take a shot in 1.1 seconds and its shutter lag is about 0.2 second. It offers a few different continuous shooting modes, the fastest of which can capture about 22 images with 0.26 second between shots before the buffer starts to fill and the camera slow down. A medium speed burst mode allows you to shoot continuously with a 0.35-second display between shots. These numbers are almost identical to those of the Olympus E-PM1, although that camera's buffer fills after 12 shots. It does compare very favorably to the smallest interchangeable lens camera on the market, the Pentax Q ($799.95, 3 stars). That camera requires a full 3.8 seconds to start up and shoot, records a 0.4-second shutter lag, and can only buffer five shots in high-speed burst mode.
I used Imatest to test the sharpness and noise in images captured by the camera. I tested the 14-42mm lens at three focal lengths at both maximum aperture and at a more modest aperture to test its performance. At its widest focal length and aperture, 14mm f/3.5, the lens recorded 1,668 lines per picture height of sharpness. This falls short of the 1,800-line mark that denotes a sharp image, but stopping the lens down to f/5.6 increased its score to 1,885 lines. The corresponding 14-42mm lens that is included with the Olympus E-PM1 is much sharper at 14mm f/3.5?it records 2,186 lines.
At 25mm the lens sharpens up a bit, scoring 1,736 lines at f/4.6 and 1,935 lines at f/5.6. At the maximum zoom setting, 42mm, the lens softened a bit, which is typical for a zoom lens. At 42mm f/5.6 it recorded 1,685 lines, improving to 1,943 lines when stopped down to f/8. The E-PM1 lens also softened as it zoomed, dipping to 1,738 lines at 28mm and 1,508 lines at 42mm.
In terms of image noise, the camera was rather disappointing. If an image is made up of more than 1.5 percent noise it looks overly grainy. The GF3 was only able to stay under this threshold through ISO 400, just crossing it at ISO 800. This is a fine number if you are a lens with an aperture of f/2 or faster, but will make it hard to grab a crisp shot in lower light using the included kit lens. It lets in considerably less light, especially at the longer end of its zoom range. The Olympus PEN E-PM1 is clean through ISO 800, barely crossing the 1.5 percent mark at ISO 1600. Our Editors' Choice, the Sony Alpha NEX-C3, offers the best high-ISO performance in a compact camera?it keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 6400.
Video is recorded in 1080i60 or 720p60 format using AVCHD compression. This requires you to connect the camera to your computer to download the footage, and convert it using the included software or software of your choice before you can share it on the web. ?Video quality is excellent?fine details are evident in the footage, and colors are very nice. The camera has a mini HDMI port so you can connect it to an HDTV to watch your footage on a large screen, and a proprietary USB port for computer interface. The memory card slot supports SD, SDHC and SDXC cards.
The Panasonic GF3 is a nice take on the Micro Four Thirds concept?a compact camera system built around a large sensor and interchangeable lenses. Its touch screen may appeal to some users, and it performs admirably in terms of speed and responsiveness. It's brought down by poor image quality in lower light and a kit lens that isn't as sharp as that of the competition. If you're willing to forgo touch input, the Olympus PEN E-PM1 has a sharper, more compact lens and better low light capability?for $100 less. You can also move up to our Editors' Choice Sony Alpha NEX-C3, a camera with a comparably sized kit lens, larger image sensor, and a higher-resolution tilting LCD for only $50 more. If your heart is set on touch, the NEX-5N gives you everything that the C3 does, but adds the touch-screen and 1080p video recording for $700. This is not to say that the GF3 is a bad camera?it is one that is quite capable, well designed, and offers a nice photographic experience?just that there are other options available that may make more sense when you weigh the cost and features.
More Digital Camera reviews: ??? Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 ??? JVC GC-PX10 ??? Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera ??? Kodak EasyShare Touch M5370 ??? Canon PowerShot S100 ?? more
PARIS ? France is temporarily downsizing its embassy in Iran and will bring some employees and their families home, a French official said Saturday. The move is the latest fallout from protesters' storming of the British embassy in Tehran and adds to the international pressure on the Iranian government.
The French diplomatic official described the decision as a preventative security measure, and acknowledged it was a response to the attack on the U.K. mission. But he stressed the French embassy will remain open and declined to specify how many staffers will be sent home.
Some 20 to 30 French citizens, including some French-Iranian dual nationals, work at the embassy, he said. Decisions about who gets to leave will be made on a "case by case basis," the official said. He added that the repatriations could begin as early as Sunday or Monday.
The French Lycee, or high school, in Tehran will also remain open, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
London alleges Tuesday's attack ? by protesters angry over the proposed toughening of sanctions over Iran's nuclear program ? was sanctioned by Tehran's ruling elite.
It has prompted Iran's most serious diplomatic fallout with the West since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy after the Islamic Revolution, and some Iranian political figures have voiced doubts over whether anything can be gained from escalating the diplomatic battle.
Britain has pulled its diplomats out of Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats from its soil. France announced earlier this week that it was recalling its ambassador for consultations following the attack, as have Germany and the Netherlands. Italy and Spain summoned Iranian envoys to condemn the attacks.
The embassy attack has helped fuel support for additional sanctions on the Iranian government over its nuclear program. The U.S. and Western allies including Britain suspect Iran is trying to build a weapons program, but Tehran says it is only interested in nuclear energy.
On Saturday, the Iranian diplomats expelled from London arrived home, the official IRNA news agency reported. The roughly two dozen diplomats and their families were greeted at Tehran's Mehrabad airport and given a hero's welcome by about 150 hard-liners.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) ? Traumatic brain injury is associated with a profound suppression of the patient's ability to fight infection. At the same time the patient also often suffers hyper-inflammation, due to the brain releasing glucocorticoids in response to the injury. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care shows that including probiotics with nutrients, supplied via the patient's feeding tube, increased interferon levels, reduced the number of infections, and even reduced the amount of time patients spent in intensive care.
In a small scale trial, based at North Sichuan Medical College and Hospital in China, 52 patients who had suffered traumatic brain injuries, and who were being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU), were either treated as usual or had their nutrition supplemented with probiotics.
Suppression of the immune system can be measured by an alteration of helper T-cells (Th) from Th1, which stimulate the action of macrophages to fight infection, to Th2. Th2 cells recruit B-cells which in turn are involved in antibody production. This switch from Th1 to Th2 leaves patients vulnerable to infections including ventilator-associated pneumonia and sepsis. Researchers involved in this trial monitored the TH1/Th2 switch by measuring levels of the Th1-associated signaling molecules (cytokines) IL-12 and interferon gamma (IFNy).
No differences were found between the groups of patients when they began the trial, and throughout the study all the patients had lower levels of IL-12 and IFN? than uninjured healthy controls. However by day 15 the patients who received the probiotics had significantly higher levels of both IL-12 and IFNy than the control patients. They also showed a decrease in the Th2-associated factors IL-4 and IL-10.
Prof Jing-Ci Zhu, the supervisor of this study from the Third Military Medical University School of Nursing in China, explained, "Probiotic treatment appeared to swing the Th1/Th2 balance back towards normality and, in our study, had beneficial effects. Possibly due to the small size of our study there was no significant difference in the number of infections between the groups (9 for the probiotic group, 16 for the control patients). However probiotic therapy reduced the number of infections occurring after seven days, reduced the number of different antibiotics needed to treat infections, and shortened the length of time the patients were required to stay in ICU."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central.
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Journal Reference:
Min Tan, Jing-Ci Zhu, Jiang Du, Li-Mei Zhang, Hua-Hua Yin. Effects of probiotics on serum levels of Th1/Th2-cytokine and clinical outcomes in severe traumatic brain-injured patients: a prospective randomized pilot study. Critical Care, 2011; (in press) [link]
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Public release date: 6-Dec-2011
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