Daily non-political popular news in brief.

New software advances photo search and management in online systems

10-15-2007 · EurekAlert!

Searching for digital photographs could become easier with a Penn State-developed software system that not only automatically tags images as they are uploaded, but also improves those tags by 'learning' from users' interactions with the system.

Keywords: software, advances, photo, search, management, online, systems, advance, system

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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Insect gut detects unhealthy meal
12-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
Plant leaves and surfaces are teeming with microbial life, yet the insects that feed on plants lack adaptive immune systems to fend off any intruding microorganisms they eat along with their greens. Now research published in the online open access journal, BMC Biology shows how food-borne bacteria affect an insect's immune system.
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Fresh use of targeted therapy advances treatment of early HER2-positive breast cancer
11-16-2006 · EurekAlert!
The news that the world's first targeted therapy, trastuzumab (Herceptin), is now available for many women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer "highlights a truly significant advance in the management of breast cancer," says Edith Perez, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Breast Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Drive-by-wire and human behavior systems key to Virginia Tech's Urban Challenge vehicle
08-10-2007 · EurekAlert!
Virginia Tech's entry in DARPA's Urban Challenge is moving forward to the qualifying rounds, thanks in part to a custom-designed drive-by-wire control system and unique navigation software that makes the vehicle's driving decisions almost human. "VictorTango," a team of Virginia Tech engineering and geography students, is among 36 semi-finalists selected by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to vie for the $2 million Urban Challenge prize.
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Stanford study highlights cost-effective method of lowering heart disease risks
08-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
As US policy experts continue to search for ways to reengineer the country's health-care system, a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that a case-management approach helped a diverse group of patients reduce their overall risk of heart disease by roughly 10 percent, and did so in a cost-effective way.
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Researchers design pulsed mircrojet system to deliver protein drugs without pain or bruising
03-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
A team of UCSB researchers, in collaboration with colleagues from UC Berkeley and StrataGent Life Sciences, of Los Gatos, Calif., has designed a novel pulsed microjet system engineered to deliver protein drugs into the skin without the pain or bruising that deeper penetration injection systems cause. The research was published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Hospitals miss most patient safety incidents
12-14-2006 · EurekAlert!
Hospital reporting systems may significantly under-report patient safety incidents, particularly those resulting in harm, warns a study published in the British Medical Journal online today.The authors suggest that the current system, which relies on voluntary reporting, may not be sufficient if the NHS is to gather accurate information on the extent of harm resulting from patient safety incidents.
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OHSU researchers reveal the science of shivering
12-17-2007 · EurekAlert!
OHSU researchers have uncovered the system that tells the body when to perform one of its most basic defenses against the cold: shivering. The scientists have discovered the brain's wiring system, which takes temperature information from the skin and determines when a person should start shivering. Their findings are published in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
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Researchers double cell phone memory through software alone
09-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
Computer engineers at Northwestern University and NEC Laboratories America, Inc. are the first to do what many thought impossible -- they have developed technology that doubles the usable memory on cell phones and other embedded systems without any changes to hardware or applications. The improvement was made in the operating system software alone. This innovation is featured in millions of new NEC-manufactured smartphones that first hit shelves in Japan this summer.
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Genomic variation easier to identify with UCSD/Brown software
12-22-2006 · EurekAlert!
Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and Brown University have created a software system that more accurately detects "microinversions," mutations that consist of tiny sequences of reversed DNA. The software gives biologists a powerful new tool to study genomic variation between and within species. The system is explained in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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