Melissa Rycroft just can't contain her baby joy! Shortly after revealing on Good Morning America that she and husband Tye Strickland are expecting their second child together, the Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars alum took to Twitter to express her excitement over her new little son or daughter-to-be.
"Clearly excited to share our big news!!!" she tweeted, along with a close-up of herself holding a Clear Blue pregnancy test. "A new little Strickland will debut this fall!"
Melissa Rycroft shares a pregnancy test on Twitter after announcing she's expecting her second child Credit: Courtesy of Melissa Rycroft
A few hours later, she shared a picture of her whole family celebrating the news. The photo shows all three Stricklands -- her, her husband, and their daughter Ava, 2 -- wearing funny shirts related to the new baby.
Dad-to-be Tye's shirt has a picture of a stork, along with the words "Look What I Did," while Rycroft's tank reads, "Cookin' up a baby Strickland!" Little Ava, meanwhile, has on a pink top that says, "Promoted to Big Sister!" above a pair of tiny handprints.
"Thank you so much for all the sweet congrats!" Rycroft captioned the funny snapshot. "Clearly, we are very excited to meet the newest addition to the family!"
The former reality TV star, 30, was a contestant on season 13 of The Bachelor in 2009. She got engaged to Jason Mesnick on the finale but was dumped on the reunion special weeks later.
All's well that ends well, though. Rycroft later found love with Strickland, whom she married in December 2009. They welcomed daughter Ava on Feb. 16, 2011.
Ashley Hentze (left) gets help signing up for the Affordable Care Act from a volunteer in Florida. The government says that 40 percent of the expected enrollees for 2014 must be young and healthy for health insurance premiums to remain affordable.
Chris O'Meara/AP
Ashley Hentze (left) gets help signing up for the Affordable Care Act from a volunteer in Florida. The government says that 40 percent of the expected enrollees for 2014 must be young and healthy for health insurance premiums to remain affordable.
Chris O'Meara/AP
Relatively few people have enrolled in new health insurance plans since the Affordable Care Act exchanges launched this month. But some health care experts say it's early days yet — and that getting the right proportion of healthy, young new enrollees is just as important as how quickly people sign up.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that 7 million people will buy health insurance for 2014 through the new exchanges, integral to the implementation of the government's new health care law.
Federal officials say that the exchanges have received 700,000 applications since launching Oct. 1. But so far, it appears that most of those being enrolled are signing up for Medicaid, the government health care system for the poor, rather than private insurance plans.
As a result, many health insurance companies say they've received only a trickle of enrollment through HealthCare.gov, the federally run marketplace that serves 36 states and has been plagued by major technical problems.
The Obama administration said Friday that the federal exchange will work smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of November. But some are concerned about the financial consequences for the government and insurers if enrollment on the exchanges falls short.
Health care expert Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says the higher numbers of Medicaid enrollees is not surprising, since Medicaid is free, whereas most people will have to pay something for private insurance.
"As soon as you sign up for a plan, the insurer is going to ask you for the first month's premium," Levitt says. "And given that the coverage won't be effective until Jan. 1, anyway, I certainly wouldn't be in a rush to pay money that won't really help me for a couple months."
Getting The Right Demographic Mix
Levitt says he doesn't expect a surge of enrollments to start before mid-November. But if the exchanges' technical problems and bad publicity dampen enrollment significantly, what might be the financial impact for the government? In the short term, Levitt says, it would actually save the government money.
"If fewer people enroll, not only will the government be paying out less in tax credits, but they'll be taking in more money in the form of penalties, because of the individual mandate," he explains.
Uninsured individuals must sign up by March 31 or face a penalty: 1 percent of their annual income or $95, whichever is higher. The penalty rises in later years.
But for insurance companies participating in the exchanges, it's not just a question of whether the exchanges fall short of the 7 million enrollment target for the first year. Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the association that represents U.S. health insurers, says the demographic mix of participants is crucial.
"It's not simply the absolute number of people that are covered that's ultimately going to determine whether coverage is affordable," he says. "It's the type of people that decide to purchase."
In fact, to keep the premiums low and make the system work financially, the government estimates that 40 percent of those 7 million people projected to sign up in the first year need to be young and healthy.
"Because if only people who are older and have high health care costs decide to purchase coverage now, that's going to mean that next year, when open enrollment comes around again, premiums may be significantly higher than we see today," Zirkelbach says.
Rising premiums could lead to a downward spiral for the exchanges, because the increases could convince young, healthy people to pay the penalty rather than sign up for insurance that costs significantly more.
Also, since some operating costs for the exchanges, like computer servers and call centers, will be paid with fees on each policy sold, fewer policies could undermine the exchanges themselves financially. And higher premiums would end up costing the government more in subsidies.
Expecting A Rush Before Penalties Kick In
Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT, helped develop both the Affordable Care Act and a similar Massachusetts health care system back in the 1990s. He says the Massachusetts program was initially delayed for several months and then signed up just 123 people in its first month of operation.
"We have to stop over-reacting to day-to-day noise," Gruber says. "When we passed this law in Massachusetts, I was on the board that implemented it, [and] we got a report every month on how they were doing. That's probably about the right frequency to be thinking about this."
Gruber also says there was a rush of younger, healthy people signing up in Massachusetts as the prospect of a penalty loomed closer.
"What you saw was a big rush, right at the end, among the healthiest enrollees," Gruber says. "The mandate kicking in really seemed to matter. And remember — in this law, the mandate doesn't effectively kick in until April 1."
The Obama administration can only hope that the early problems don't sink the exchanges before they set sail.
The UFC is heading across the pond today for UFC Fight Night 30 in Manchester, England. The main card will air live via FOX Sports 2 starting at 3PM ET and is headlined by a middleweight showdown between former training partners Lyoto Machida and Mark Muñoz.
Saturday’s preliminary action will take place on Facebook starting at 12:15PM ET and will see Piotr Hallman take on Al Iaquinta in the featured preliminary slot.
Make sure to check back often as MMAFrenzy will have full results and coverage from today’s action.
UFC Fight Night 30 Live Results:
Main Card (FOX Sports 2 3PM ET)
Lyoto Machida vs. Mark Muñoz
Melvin Guillard vs. Ross Pearson
Ryan Jimmo vs. Jimi Manuwa
Norman Parke def. Jon Tuck via unanimous decision (29-28,29-28,30-27)
Nico Musoke def. Alessio Sakara via verbal submission (arm bar) at 3:07 of Round 1
John Lineker def. Phil Harris via TKO (body punch) at 2:51 of Round 1
Preliminary Card (Facebook 12:15PM ET)
Al Iaquinta def. Piotr Hallmann via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Luke Barnatt def. Andrew Craig via submission (rear-naked choke) at 2:12 of Round 2
Jessica Andrade def. Rosi Sexton via unanimous decision (30-26,30-27,30-26)
Cole Miller def. Andy Ogle via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Jimy Hettes def. Robert Whiteford via technical submission (triangle choke) at 2:17 of Round 2
Brad Scott def. Michael Kuiper via submission (front choke) at 4:17 of Round 1
San Francisco (AFP) - Facebook yanked a beheading video from the social network following outrage over its lifting of a ban on the gory imagery.
The flip flop came as Facebook aimed to balance the diverse sensitivities of its billion-plus members with a desire to be a platform for free speech and real-world news stories.
"People turn to Facebook to share their experiences and to raise awareness about issues important to them," it said in a statement emailed to AFP.
"Sometimes, those experiences and issues involve graphic content that is of public interest or concern, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism, and other violence," the California-based company added.
"When people share this type of graphic content, it is often to condemn it. If it is being shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate violence, Facebook removes it."
Facebook was adamant that it did not reverse or change any policies as a result of the controversy, but that criticism of the video prompted it to be scrutinized more closely in the context of existing terms of service.
But it said that, as part of an effort to "combat the glorification of violence" on the social network, it was "strengthening" enforcement of its policies.
Facebook had introduced a temporary ban on videos of beheadings in May following complaints that the graphic footage could cause users long-term psychological harm.
But it confirmed on Monday that it had reversed the decision on the grounds that the site is used to share information about world events, including terrorist attacks and human rights abuses.
According to screen shots, it had added a warning to the beheading video that it "contains extremely graphic content and may be disturbing" before re-evaluating the post and removing it.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday condemned Facebook as "irresponsible" and said "worried parents" needed to hear an explanation from the tech giant.
"It's irresponsible of Facebook to post beheading videos, especially without a warning," Cameron said on Twitter.
Facebook had reasoned that it would allow such material because "people are sharing this video on Facebook to condemn it."
It has been criticized for allowing this type of violence while banning other content such as nudity.
On its standards page, Facebook says "we remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety... Organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity are not allowed to maintain a presence on our site."
The world's biggest social network said it seeks to avoid censorship and its policy notes that "graphic imagery is a regular component of current events, but must balance the needs of a diverse community."
"When we review content that is reported to us, we will take a more holistic look at the context surrounding a violent image or video, and will remove content that celebrates violence," it said.
Facebook will also evaluate whether posted content is being shared responsibly, perhaps with warning messages or age-restrictions for audiences.
"Based on these enhanced standards, we have re-examined recent reports of graphic content and have concluded that this content improperly and irresponsibly glorifies violence," it said of the beheading video.
Don't lie: we know that at least once in the last fourteen years, each and every one of you have pretended you were in the middle of an action scene from The Matrix -- y'know, the slo-mo "bullet time" pan shots that circle around Neo as he fights Agent Smith. Even if you can't bring yourself to admit it, our friends at Qualcomm seem especially inspired by this cinematic effect; enough, at least, to collaborate with HTC to create the "Snapdragon Ultimate Photo Booth." This rig, which is a result of daisy-chaining 130 One devices together, is meant to showcase the power of Qualcomm's SoCs to mimic the sci-fi masterpiece. While bullet time is now frequently used in today's movies, it's not every day that we get to see the concept recreated using nothing but smartphones. Check out the minute-long video below, which features break dancers, fire breathers and plenty of other creative ideas.
FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2012, file photo a television photographer interviews the next door neighbor of terror suspect Jamshid Muhtorov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, in Aurora, Colo., on the day of his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare airport. For the first time the Justice Department says it intends to use information gained from one of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance programs against an accused terrorist, Muhtorov, setting the stage for an expected Supreme Court test. Muhtorov was accused in 2012 of providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek terrorist organization that, authorities say, was engaging NATO coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2012, file photo a television photographer interviews the next door neighbor of terror suspect Jamshid Muhtorov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, in Aurora, Colo., on the day of his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare airport. For the first time the Justice Department says it intends to use information gained from one of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance programs against an accused terrorist, Muhtorov, setting the stage for an expected Supreme Court test. Muhtorov was accused in 2012 of providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek terrorist organization that, authorities say, was engaging NATO coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says for the first time that it intends to use information gained from one of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance programs against an accused terrorist, setting the stage for a likely Supreme Court test of the Obama administration's approach to national security.
The high court so far has turned aside challenges to the law on government surveillance on the grounds that people who bring such lawsuits have no evidence they are being targeted.
Jamshid Muhtorov was accused in 2012 of providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek terrorist organization that, authorities say, was engaging NATO coalition and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
According to court papers in the case, the FBI investigated Muhtorov after his communications with an overseas website administrator for the IJU.
In a court filing Friday, the government said it intends to offer into evidence in Muhtorov's case "information obtained or derived from acquisition of foreign intelligence information conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978."
Last February, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that a group of American lawyers, journalists and organizations could not sue to challenge the 2008 expansion of the law. The court those who sued could not show that the government would monitor their communications along with those of potential foreign terrorist and intelligence targets.
Last month, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had ruled with the majority in the earlier 5-4 decision, said the courts ultimately would have to determine the legality of the NSA surveillance program.
In the majority opinion last February, Justice Samuel Alito suggested a way for a challenge to be heard. He said if the government intends to use information from such surveillance in court, it must provide advance notice. In his argument before the court's decision, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli had made similar comments to the justices on behalf of the administration.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon declined comment Saturday on the new development beyond the court filing.
The program at issue in the Muhtorov case is commonly called "702," a reference to the numbered section of the surveillance law on Internet communication.
In the Muhtorov case, after his contact with the IJU's website administrator, the FBI went to court and obtained email from two accounts that Muhtorov used, according to the court papers.
The FBI also went to court to obtain communications originating from Muhtorov's phone lines. In one call, Muhtorov told an associate that the Islamic Jihad Union said it needed support, an FBI agent said in an affidavit filed in the case. The associate warned Muhtorov to be careful about talking about a founder of group, the affidavit stated.
The FBI also said Muhtorov communicated with a contact in the group by email using code words, telling a contact that he was "ready for any task, even with the risk of dying."
Muhtorov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, resettled in Aurora, Colo., in 2007 with the help of the United Nations and the U.S. government. He was arrested Jan. 21, 2012, in Chicago with about $2,800 in cash, two shrink-wrapped iPhones and an iPad as well as a GPS device.
In March 2012, Muhtorov's attorney, federal public defender Brian Leedy, said at a court hearing that Muhtorov denied the allegations and had been headed to the Uzbekistan region to visit family, including a sister who remains imprisoned in that country.
The IJU first conducted attacks in 2004, targeting a bazaar and police, and killing 47 people, according to court papers in the case. The organization subsequently carried out suicide bombings of the U.S. and Israeli embassies and the Uzbekistani prosecutor general's office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the court papers stated.
Before the recent leak of U.S. documents showing widespread government surveillance, dozens of consumer suits were filed against the government and telecommunications companies over obtaining customer data without warrants. Nearly all the cases were tossed out when Congress in 2008 granted the telecommunication companies retroactive immunity from legal challenges.
FILE - In this Sep. 22 2013 file photo, Ke$ha performs at the IHeartRadio Music Festival, in Las Vegas. Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia have banned a planned concert by U.S. pop singer Ke$ha after deciding it would hurt cultural and religious sensitivities. (Photo by Al Powers/Powers Imagery/Invision /AP, File)
FILE - In this Sep. 22 2013 file photo, Ke$ha performs at the IHeartRadio Music Festival, in Las Vegas. Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia have banned a planned concert by U.S. pop singer Ke$ha after deciding it would hurt cultural and religious sensitivities. (Photo by Al Powers/Powers Imagery/Invision /AP, File)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia have banned a planned concert by U.S. pop singer Ke$ha after deciding it would hurt cultural and religious sensitivities.
Concert organizer Livescape said it received a letter about the decision on the eve of the show that was to be held Saturday at a Kuala Lumpur stadium.
The Ministry of Communications and Multimedia said separately that it was rejecting the application for Ke$ha to perform for reasons of religion and culture.
The ministry's statement did not elaborate. Ke$ha, whose hits include "Tik Tok" and "Die Young," has songs that make explicit references to sex and liquor.
Last month, Malaysian officials also barred a performance by American metal band Lamb of God, accusing the Grammy-nominated group's work of being blasphemous.
Ke$ha and her team had previously agreed to modify their planned show in Malaysia, including making changes to her song lyrics and wardrobe, to comply with the government's general guidelines for performers, Livescape said in its statement.
Livescape said it was losing more than 1.1 million ringgit ($350,000) because of the ban. It urged the Malaysian government to "engage in a productive dialogue" with concert promoters to prevent similar incidents.
Contact: Leah Twilley twilleyl@gvsu.edu 616-331-2221 Grand Valley State University
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. A group of students and faculty at Grand Valley State University have been working with Van Andel Institute to develop new methods to further a growing medical field that aims to improve early detection of cancer and disease.
A group of four Grand Valley students and graduates, and Anthony Chang from VAI, presented three years worth of research at the World Molecular Imaging Congress, one of the largest meetings in the medical imaging field, September 18-21 in Savannah, Georgia.
Chang, research assistant professor and director of the Small Animal Imaging Facility at Van Andel Institute's laboratories, said in the future, if a tumor or lesion is found, a doctor will be able to predict early on if it will spread or grow with the help of advanced imaging technology. "The medical imaging field is booming," said Chang. "Everyone is looking for a person with this type of training and knowledge. It is a new concept, and right now people are starting to realize the power of this technology."
The partnership began when Grand Valley was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to start a biomedical engineering master's program in 2010. "My colleagues and I reached out to local companies and research labs in the medical industry, which is how our relationship with VAI began," said Samhita Rhodes, professor of engineering. "Since then, the program has taken off and our students are doing great things."
Chang and a group of Grand Valley graduate students, including Anderson Peck, helped form the research lab at VAI three years ago.
Peck, who was in the first class of the master's program in 2010, now works at VAI as a full-time researcher. "VAI is the only place in Michigan that's developing these new techniques, and we're right here in West Michigan. We have a few new techniques, and hope they'll be used in the future," said Peck.
Chang said: "We have a strong presence in the imaging research field, which before, only happened at really big universities. We're putting Grand Valley and Grand Rapids on the map in this area. VAI and our students are helping develop new techniques and concepts that could save lives."
Located in the Seymour and Esther Padnos College of Engineering and Computing, the Master's of Science in Biomedical Engineering program was established in 2010 and focuses on medical device design and development.
Rhodes and her colleagues, John Farris and Bruce Dunne, are working to expand the program. "The first grant we received helped us support the program, now we want to move it forward so our students can continue to contribute to the growing field of biomedical engineering," she said.
###
For more information, contact Samhita Rhodes in Grand Valley's School of Engineering at (616) 331-6267 or rhodesam@gvsu.edu.
[
| E-mail
Share
]
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.
GVSU students contribute to growing medical field
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
25-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Leah Twilley twilleyl@gvsu.edu 616-331-2221 Grand Valley State University
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. A group of students and faculty at Grand Valley State University have been working with Van Andel Institute to develop new methods to further a growing medical field that aims to improve early detection of cancer and disease.
A group of four Grand Valley students and graduates, and Anthony Chang from VAI, presented three years worth of research at the World Molecular Imaging Congress, one of the largest meetings in the medical imaging field, September 18-21 in Savannah, Georgia.
Chang, research assistant professor and director of the Small Animal Imaging Facility at Van Andel Institute's laboratories, said in the future, if a tumor or lesion is found, a doctor will be able to predict early on if it will spread or grow with the help of advanced imaging technology. "The medical imaging field is booming," said Chang. "Everyone is looking for a person with this type of training and knowledge. It is a new concept, and right now people are starting to realize the power of this technology."
The partnership began when Grand Valley was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to start a biomedical engineering master's program in 2010. "My colleagues and I reached out to local companies and research labs in the medical industry, which is how our relationship with VAI began," said Samhita Rhodes, professor of engineering. "Since then, the program has taken off and our students are doing great things."
Chang and a group of Grand Valley graduate students, including Anderson Peck, helped form the research lab at VAI three years ago.
Peck, who was in the first class of the master's program in 2010, now works at VAI as a full-time researcher. "VAI is the only place in Michigan that's developing these new techniques, and we're right here in West Michigan. We have a few new techniques, and hope they'll be used in the future," said Peck.
Chang said: "We have a strong presence in the imaging research field, which before, only happened at really big universities. We're putting Grand Valley and Grand Rapids on the map in this area. VAI and our students are helping develop new techniques and concepts that could save lives."
Located in the Seymour and Esther Padnos College of Engineering and Computing, the Master's of Science in Biomedical Engineering program was established in 2010 and focuses on medical device design and development.
Rhodes and her colleagues, John Farris and Bruce Dunne, are working to expand the program. "The first grant we received helped us support the program, now we want to move it forward so our students can continue to contribute to the growing field of biomedical engineering," she said.
###
For more information, contact Samhita Rhodes in Grand Valley's School of Engineering at (616) 331-6267 or rhodesam@gvsu.edu.
[
| E-mail
Share
]
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.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil's government says that a consortium including petroleum companies Shell, Total, two Chinese firms and Petrobras has won the auction to develop a massive offshore oil block.
It's the first oil auction held under Brazil's new rules that give more power to state-run Petrobras.
The Brazilian firm will be the sole operator and owns a 40 percent stake of the Libra oil field. It could hold upward of 12 billion barrels.
Both Shell and Total will own 20 percent, while Chinese companies CNOOC and CNPC each took 10 percent.
Under the new rules for offshore auctions, Petrobras is the sole operator of fields and must hold a minimum 30 percent stake in them.
Critics say that's scared off private oil companies and will the slow the development of the offshore finds, which could hold upward of 100 billion barrels.
Just 11 firms took part in Monday's bidding process, fewer than the 40 the Brazilian government hoped to attract.
Anyone who's picked up an Ouya, or demoed one in-store, knows that the controller, with its sticky buttons and flimsy removable plates, could do with a lot of help. Company founder Julie Uhrman's aware of the issue and, in an interview with Polygon, she revealed that a new version of the Ouya controller is already on the production line. Taking the abundant consumer feedback into account, the company's phased out the old model and made some key fixes, including more secure triggers, improved thumbstick grips and buttons that (hopefully) don't get stuck in the controller's base. Whether or not you'll actually find one at retail is a bit of a crapshoot, however, as Uhrman said the packaging won't highlight the change. Uhrman also touched upon news of the Ouya 2, the release of which falls in line with previous reports of an annual update cycle. Specs for that next console haven't been finalized yet and, further, the company won't really be focusing on it until sometime in 2014. But when it does arrive next year, you can expect to see it receive an slight cosmetic update from designer Yves Behar.
Brags about "reinventing" or "disrupting" this or that kind of technology are so common these days they might as well be white noise. But Seagate seems to have just developed a new kind of storage system for the cloud that might well be quite disruptive -- if it ever gets implemented by cloud builders.
Seagate calls it the Kinetic Open Storage platform, and it's designed as a way to enable cloud data centers to improve the way they handle storage by having the storage system itself offload as much of the processing related to storage as possible.
Here's how it works in plain English: KOS involves hard drives that use Ethernet as their sole physical interconnect. Not Ethernet as in an SATA-attached drive with an Ethernet controller, but Ethernet, period. Instead of using an OS-level filesystem, data is fetched from and stored to the drives using a key/value system serialized with Google's Protocol Buffers mechanism. (The API used for data access is to be open source.) Most everything else you'd associate with cloud data center storage is done away with.
A crucial thing about this setup, Seagate claims, is how it moves many of the issues normally associated with the OS or storage-management layer -- quality of service, migrating data between drives, at-rest encryption, etc. -- to the drives themselves. By getting rid of much of the hardware associated with the traditional storage tier, you make racks denser, use less energy per unit of storage, leverage the existing data-transport fabric in the data center (i.e., Ethernet), and have storage "truly ... disaggregated from compute".
Another professed advantage to ditching all of that cruft is an increase in write performance -- up to 400 percent, according to David Chernicoff at ZDNet. Ditto any common file manipulation, like copying or moving from one drive to another: All of that can be offloaded to the drives themselves.
A break this radical from the way storage traditionally works wouldn't come without a cost, though. Here, the cost would be software development, as every piece of software that touches a file system in some way would have to be reworked to use KOS. Even with the KOS tools offered for free -- e.g., the drive simulator and developer's tools, and the KOS API itself -- the cost of such re-working would be far from trivial.
One of the reasons why drop-in replacements for existing storage systems are so appealing is because, well, they're drop-in replacements. Many of the problems still faced by cloud storage systems -- e.g., write bottlenecks -- are solved either by throwing more hardware at the problem, or at the software level, by more intelligently managing data throughput. Microsoft's new release of Windows Server has some intriguing new storage features in this vein, for instance.
But again, tossing out the entire storage layer as we know it is a colossal project.There isn't even a date set for when the hardware itself will be available to testers, let alone vendors or end users. And the costs of moving to such hardware in the long run can't be ignored -- including the sunk costs of ditching so much existing legacy storage. (There's no word on if existing drives could be retrofit to use this system; I don't think it's likely.)
All this leaves a wide margin of time to see whether or not Seagate's new game-changer really will change any games. But the bare outlines of the idea alone are tantalizing.
Salesforce.com really wants lots of developers to come to its Dreamforce conference next month in San Francisco. As in, really.
On Friday, the cloud software vendor announced a "hackathon" would be held at the conference, with $1 million going to the developer or team who creates the top prize-winning mobile application with Salesforce.com technology.
[ Learn how to work smarter, not harder with InfoWorld's roundup of all the tips and trends programmers need to know in the Developers' Survival Guide. Download the PDF today! | Keep up with the latest developer news with InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. ]
"It's not going to be easy -- $1 million is going to bring out the best of the best," Salesforce.com said in Friday's announcement. "So don't wait until Dreamforce! You're going to want to get started now. With Force.com, Heroku, ExactTarget Fuel, Mobile Services and more -- you've got a killer array of platform technology to use."
Salesforce.com will also be providing some "pretty amazing new technology" for use at the show, the announcement adds.
In order to participate, developers have to either register for a full conference pass or a special $99 hacker pass.
The hackathon reflects Salesforce.com's long courtship of developers to its development technologies, its AppExchange marketplace and recent efforts to build out more tooling for mobile application development.
Developers taking part in the hackathon will have plenty of competition, with some 20,000 programmers expected to attend Dreamforce overall. A "Hack Central" area will be open around the clock, supporting coders who want to work until the wee hours on their application.
In order to qualify, an application can't have been previously released. The entries will be judged on four criteria counting 25 percent each: innovation, business value, user experience, and use of Salesforce.com's platform.
The second-place finisher will receive $50,000, with $25,000 going to the third-place winner. Fourth and fifth place will get $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.
Some 120,000 people are expected to register for Dreamforce this year. While some of that total will be watching online rather than in person, Dreamforce is now operating at a scale rivaling Oracle's OpenWorld event, which happened last month.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Another update surrounding the upcoming "Fifty Shades of Grey" film just went public: Luke Grimes of "True Blood" has just joined the cast, as of today (October 25).
Cast to play Christian Grey’s adopted brother Elliot in the romantic drama, Grimes joins the duo of Jamie Dornan of "Once Upon a Time" as Christian, and "21 Jump Street's" Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele.
In related news, Grimes is coming at us with four upcoming movies, the latest of which is the completed "Squatters," set for release toward the end of 2013.
According to the movie's synopsis, "Home early from their vacation, a wealthy Pacific Palisades couple discovers a pair of homeless young lovers have moved into their home."
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives a horrible life. The world hates the saucer-eyed 10-year-old for who and what he is. The kids in his school hate him because he's brilliant, a strategic savant with the rare gift of being able to analyze any situation and see the way to achieve the most positive outcome, even if that means putting a bully in the hospital. "I wanted to win that fight, and all the fights after that," he explains coolly. His older brother hates him because, well, his older brother is a sociopath who gets his pubescent jollies by causing pain. His parents hate him because they had to get special dispensation to have a third child -- in this unspecified future, population control is in full effect -- and he doesn't seem to be living up to his potential, which, as almost every adult around Ender tells him, is to be nothing less that the savior of all mankind.
Ender's Game, like Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel upon which it's based, is a story about a boy forced to become a weapon and the old man operating the forge. If only adapter-director Gavin Hood's movie had been tempered with craft and care and wasn't such a blunt instrument, one that seems designed as a delivery system for CGI derring-do instead of the heartbreaker it should be. Audiences who show up, undeterred by the stink around Card's public stance against homosexuality and gay marriage, will find that this attempt by Summit to kick-start another sci-fi franchise carries none of that odor, but still falls somewhat short of inspired.
Ender (Hugo's Asa Butterfield, seemingly always red around the eyes) was born some years after mankind's first contact with an alien species, called the Formics, which went about as well as most cinematic first contacts go: with an all-out attack on Earth by a swarming, advanced fleet that almost resulted in humanity's extermination. That invasion was halted due to the brilliance of one man, Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), who discovered the Formics' weakness and exploited it to a devastating result. Since then, the brass who runs Earth's International Fleet has been fearing reprisal from those aliens and preparing for it by scouring the planet for the most brilliant children around.
Children, it is explained by Harrison Ford's Col. Hyrum Graff in one of his many speeches, can make leaps of logic, of intuition, that adults can’t follow. So the Fleet has built a Battle School in Earth's orbit, a rotating, fluorescent cross between boarding school, boot camp and prison for those children so that the childhood can be hammered out of them. Ender has the same brilliance that made his sadistic brother Peter (Jimmy Jax Pinchak), and empathetic sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) candidates for Battle School, but while their tendencies washed them out of the program, his ability to blend both violence and compassion made him Graff's favorite.
And so Ender is admitted into Battle School, in which the dozens of kids are sorted into "armies" and pitted against each other in a constant competition. This is but one of many ways Ender's Game shares more than a few similarities with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories. (And given that Card published his book decades before Rowling, the inspiration can go only one way.) They both center around children who have spent years being brutalized, enduring mental and physical abuse at the hands of grown-ups and kids alike -- and because we see their pain and feel their anguish, we understand why they lash out with violence and forgive them when they do. Here, Ender's story is like a sci-fi passion play; we know him only by the depth of his suffering.
Ender's Game is a film about empathy and the power that resides in empathy. The reason Ender succeeds is because he understands what makes his opponents tick on the battlefield, in the locker rooms and in the classrooms. Oddly, the film doesn't seem to have much empathy for its hero. The first 40 minutes are a parade of exposition where instead it should be inviting us inside Ender's world so that we care about the horrors that are visited upon him in ways that aren’t about the horrors themselves. As Ender evolves through Battle School from a raw "Launchie" to the commander of his own army, showing off his tactical prowess in a number of zero-gravity skirmishes in the spherical Battle Room, Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) skips across the surface of his emotional journey, counting on Graff's discussions with International Fleet shrink Major Anderson (Viola Davis) to fill in the blanks.
The final act of Ender's Game is where the meaning of the title becomes evident: Ender is promoted to Command School, where he's directed to plan and carry out a series of virtual attacks on the Formic fleet, training simulations aided by the friends he made in Battle School -- including HaileeSteinfeld's Petra -- instructed by the legendary Rackham himself. Only here does the film achieve some emotional resonance, as we finally get a real sense of the impossible pressures put upon Ender by the coterie of adults who’ve placed the fate of a civilization in his hands; by his brothers in arms, who’ve hitched their wagons to his; and by himself, to live up to his own destiny.
I wouldn’t dream of giving away the climax to Ender's Game other than to say it is almost worth enduring the shallowness that precedes it to get there. I will say, however, that the 15 minutes that follow are about as pointless as the last stretch in Psycho -- you know, the bit where it's suddenly a chatty courtroom drama. You'll spot the moment where Ender's Game clearly should've ended and gaze fondly in the rear-view mirror as it passes by.
Butterfield does his best to bring you inside Ender Wiggin, using his wide, blue eyes to try and convey a depth that Hood's script just doesn't support. And Ford constructs a man who’s bearing vacillates between being legitimately haunted by the trauma he's got to inflict upon a wee lad and being mildly irked, as if he doesn't want to read the cue cards on SNL. Steinfeld has so little to do as Ender's confidante she just kind of fades into the scenery instead of registering as the surrogate sister and nascent love interest she's designed to be.
The special effects are fine, but Ender's Game has the bad luck to be coming on the heels of Gravity. In the book, the scenes of combat in the Battle Room -- featuring as many as 30 kids streaking through zero-gravity, executing formations and maneuvers on the fly -- seemed to be unfilmable. While Hood and his CG wizards do a more than decent job, anyone who’s seen AlfonsoCuaron's wizardry will have seen it done far, far better.
Production: Summit Entertainment, OddLot Entertainment, Chartoff Productions, Taleswapper, K/O Paper Products, Digital Domain
Cast: Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Hailie Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley
Director: Gavin Hood
Screenwriter: Gavid Hood, based on the novel by Orson Scott Card
Producers: Gigi Pritzker, Linda McDonough, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Robert Chartoff, Lynn Hendee, Orson Scott Card, Ed Ulbrich
Executive producers: Bill Lischak, David Coatsworth, Ivy Zhong, Venkatesh Roddam, Ted Ravinett, Deborah Del Prete, Mandy Safavi
This riboflavin-rich material can be used to print intricate, microscopic structures in three dimensions.
Courtesy of North Carolina State University
This riboflavin-rich material can be used to print intricate, microscopic structures in three dimensions.
Courtesy of North Carolina State University
Almost every day it seems there's a new use for 3-D printing.
In medicine, the printers are already making prosthetic hands, hearing aid cases and parts of human ears.
But the materials used in some 3-D printing processes could be toxic to humans, particularly if the products get inside the body. So researchers have been looking for ways found a way to replace some of the bad stuff with naturally occurring riboflavin, or vitamin B2.
Riboflavin is found in lots of food, including green veggies, nuts and fish. Our cells aren't programmed to reject it, which could make it handy for use in 3-D printed medical implants, microneedles or scaffolding to build custom body parts in the lab.
The researchers focused on a 3-D printing technique called two-photon polymerization, which can produce finely detailed, microscopic structures. The 3-D printer uses lasers to transform a potion of light-sensitive chemicals into a solid structure.
But some of the chemicals in that potion can be bad for us, says biomedical engineer Roger Narayan, one of the researchers behind the new technique. "And if they leach out of the material they can cause problems," he says.
The researchers, from the joint biomedical engineering department at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, say that their new material appears to hold up pretty well, though they are looking into whether they can improve its durability.
Narayan tells Shots that while this technology isn't ready for human use, it could be before long. "I don't think anyone 10 or 20 years ago thought that you'd be making hearing aid shells or ... dental devices using 3-D printing," he says.
So far, the researchers have tested the material with cells taken from cows. They published their findings in the journal Regenerative Medicine. Before testing the material in animals or humans, they plan to refine it further.
Narayan says many 3-D printing techniques originated in the electronics industry, where it doesn't matter as much if something is slightly toxic. The challenge is figuring out how to adapt the techniques to the medical field.
Contact: Dr. Klaus Gerwert gerwert@bph.rub.de 49-234-322-4461 Ruhr-University Bochum
RUB researchers develop label-free automatic cancer diagnostics
Researchers at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) have developed a new spectroscopic method to support pathologists in diagnosing cancer. In the Journal of Biophotonics and the Analyst they compared conventional procedures for colon cancer identification with a novel method called label-free spectral histopathology. "Contrary to previous methods we no longer have to stain the tissue in order to detect cancer," says Professor Klaus Gerwert from the Protein Research Unit Ruhr within Europe (PURE) at the RUB. "In the future, this will give us the opportunity to classify a tissue sample automatically as being either normal or diseased."
Diagnosis: colon cancer
Today pathologists slice tissue obtained from biopsies into thin sections, stain them chemically, and eventually identify colon cancer by visual inspection under the microscope. This is usually done at an advanced stage of the disease, and the method provides no information about the molecular causes of the tumour. However, the method of spectral histopathology (SHP) established at the RUB Department of Biophysics captures molecular alterations directly in the tissues, especially changes of proteins. It works without any labelling agents, such as fluorescent dyes. SHP may even detect alterations occurring in early tumour stages. Since the analysis uses light beams, SHP is not limited to thin sections of biopsy specimens in fact, one can apply the method directly in live tissue, where it allows to inspect a site of interest with the aid of fibre-optics. "In the future, we intend to work together with clinical partners and apply spectral histopathology to patients directly via endoscopes," says Klaus Gerwert.
How spectral histopathology works
In SHP, researchers record spatially resolved vibration spectra of a tissue using either an infrared or a Raman microscope. A vibration spectrum reflects the condition of all proteins in a tissue at the site measured. Alterations induced by cancer are reflected in the respective spectrum. The spectrum is thus representative of the status of the sample, just like a fingerprint is characteristic of an individual person. Approximately ten million infrared spectra are usually recorded to produce one single tissue image. Using sophisticated computational image analysis procedures, researchers compare these spectra with a reference database. This database contains spectra of already known tissues and tumours, and has been established in the PURE consortium as a collaboration between pathologists, biophysicists and bioinformaticians. The analytical programme allocates each spectrum to tissue types that have been stored in the database, represented by a specific colourjust like an offender who can be identified by comparing his fingerprints with previous database entries. This produces a spatially resolved annotated image of the colon tissue section. Both PURE members, Professor Andrea Tannapfel, Director of the Pathology Institute at the RUB, and Professor Axel Mosig, Head of Bioinformatics at the Department of Biophysics, made the essential contributions in creating the database and the evaluation algorithm. By now, the evaluation programme will run on any commercial laptop.
Comparison with conventional tumour detection methods
In order to test the sensitivity and specificity of spectral histopathology, the RUB team compared SHP with classical immunohistochemical methods, in which tumours are identified with the aid of fluorescent labels. "The results match perfectly. It demonstrates impressively that spectral histopathology is capable of determining changes in tissue composition with high sensitivity and in an automated fashion," says Prof Gerwert. In fact, sensitivity and specificity of the method exceed 95 per cent. By extending their method to include Raman imaging, the RUB team achieved a higher spatial resolution than they could with infrared imaging, however, at the cost of prolonged measurement time. "Both methods complement each other excellently," comments Klaus Gerwert. "Infrared spectroscopy gives you a rapid overview of the entire tissue section. We can then analyse suspicious regions in more detail by applying Raman imaging." Raman analysis, for example, reveals altered nuclei which are characteristic of tumours.
###
Project funding
The project receives financial support from the regional state of North-Rhine Westphalia in the scope of the European Protein Research Institute PURE, whose speaker is Prof Gerwert.
Bibliographic record
A. Kallenbach-Thieltges, F. Groerschkamp, A. Mosig, M. Diem, A. Tannapfel, K. Gerwert (2013): Immunohistochemistry, histopathology and infrared spectral histopathology of colon cancer tissue sections, Journal of Biophotonics, DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201200132
L. Mavarani, D. Petersen, S.F. El-Mashtoly, A. Mosig, A. Tannapfel, C. Ktting, K. Gerwert (2013): Spectral Histopathology of colon cancer tissue sections by Raman imaging with 532 nm excitation provides label free annotation of lymphocytes, erythrocytes and proliferating nuclei of cancer cells, Analyst, DOI: 10.1039/C3AN00370A
Figures online
Two figures related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00265.html.en
More information
Prof Dr Klaus Gerwert, Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24461, E-Mail: gerwert@bph.rub.de
Click for more
PURE
http://www.pure.rub.de/index.html.en
Editorial journalist: Dr Julia Weiler
[
| E-mail
Share
]
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.
Recognizing cancer diseases at an early stage
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
25-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Dr. Klaus Gerwert gerwert@bph.rub.de 49-234-322-4461 Ruhr-University Bochum
RUB researchers develop label-free automatic cancer diagnostics
Researchers at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) have developed a new spectroscopic method to support pathologists in diagnosing cancer. In the Journal of Biophotonics and the Analyst they compared conventional procedures for colon cancer identification with a novel method called label-free spectral histopathology. "Contrary to previous methods we no longer have to stain the tissue in order to detect cancer," says Professor Klaus Gerwert from the Protein Research Unit Ruhr within Europe (PURE) at the RUB. "In the future, this will give us the opportunity to classify a tissue sample automatically as being either normal or diseased."
Diagnosis: colon cancer
Today pathologists slice tissue obtained from biopsies into thin sections, stain them chemically, and eventually identify colon cancer by visual inspection under the microscope. This is usually done at an advanced stage of the disease, and the method provides no information about the molecular causes of the tumour. However, the method of spectral histopathology (SHP) established at the RUB Department of Biophysics captures molecular alterations directly in the tissues, especially changes of proteins. It works without any labelling agents, such as fluorescent dyes. SHP may even detect alterations occurring in early tumour stages. Since the analysis uses light beams, SHP is not limited to thin sections of biopsy specimens in fact, one can apply the method directly in live tissue, where it allows to inspect a site of interest with the aid of fibre-optics. "In the future, we intend to work together with clinical partners and apply spectral histopathology to patients directly via endoscopes," says Klaus Gerwert.
How spectral histopathology works
In SHP, researchers record spatially resolved vibration spectra of a tissue using either an infrared or a Raman microscope. A vibration spectrum reflects the condition of all proteins in a tissue at the site measured. Alterations induced by cancer are reflected in the respective spectrum. The spectrum is thus representative of the status of the sample, just like a fingerprint is characteristic of an individual person. Approximately ten million infrared spectra are usually recorded to produce one single tissue image. Using sophisticated computational image analysis procedures, researchers compare these spectra with a reference database. This database contains spectra of already known tissues and tumours, and has been established in the PURE consortium as a collaboration between pathologists, biophysicists and bioinformaticians. The analytical programme allocates each spectrum to tissue types that have been stored in the database, represented by a specific colourjust like an offender who can be identified by comparing his fingerprints with previous database entries. This produces a spatially resolved annotated image of the colon tissue section. Both PURE members, Professor Andrea Tannapfel, Director of the Pathology Institute at the RUB, and Professor Axel Mosig, Head of Bioinformatics at the Department of Biophysics, made the essential contributions in creating the database and the evaluation algorithm. By now, the evaluation programme will run on any commercial laptop.
Comparison with conventional tumour detection methods
In order to test the sensitivity and specificity of spectral histopathology, the RUB team compared SHP with classical immunohistochemical methods, in which tumours are identified with the aid of fluorescent labels. "The results match perfectly. It demonstrates impressively that spectral histopathology is capable of determining changes in tissue composition with high sensitivity and in an automated fashion," says Prof Gerwert. In fact, sensitivity and specificity of the method exceed 95 per cent. By extending their method to include Raman imaging, the RUB team achieved a higher spatial resolution than they could with infrared imaging, however, at the cost of prolonged measurement time. "Both methods complement each other excellently," comments Klaus Gerwert. "Infrared spectroscopy gives you a rapid overview of the entire tissue section. We can then analyse suspicious regions in more detail by applying Raman imaging." Raman analysis, for example, reveals altered nuclei which are characteristic of tumours.
###
Project funding
The project receives financial support from the regional state of North-Rhine Westphalia in the scope of the European Protein Research Institute PURE, whose speaker is Prof Gerwert.
Bibliographic record
A. Kallenbach-Thieltges, F. Groerschkamp, A. Mosig, M. Diem, A. Tannapfel, K. Gerwert (2013): Immunohistochemistry, histopathology and infrared spectral histopathology of colon cancer tissue sections, Journal of Biophotonics, DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201200132
L. Mavarani, D. Petersen, S.F. El-Mashtoly, A. Mosig, A. Tannapfel, C. Ktting, K. Gerwert (2013): Spectral Histopathology of colon cancer tissue sections by Raman imaging with 532 nm excitation provides label free annotation of lymphocytes, erythrocytes and proliferating nuclei of cancer cells, Analyst, DOI: 10.1039/C3AN00370A
Figures online
Two figures related to this press release can be found online at: http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00265.html.en
More information
Prof Dr Klaus Gerwert, Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology at the Ruhr-Universitt, 44780 Bochum, Germany, Tel. +49/234/32-24461, E-Mail: gerwert@bph.rub.de
Click for more
PURE
http://www.pure.rub.de/index.html.en
Editorial journalist: Dr Julia Weiler
[
| E-mail
Share
]
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.
(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Abbott Laboratories' MitraClip medical device, used to stop heart valve leakage in patients deemed unable to endure valve repair through open heart surgery, the company said on Friday.
The MitraClip treats mitral regurgitation, a condition in which the mitral valve of the heart does not close properly, causing blood leakage that can lead to stroke, heart attack or even death.
It has estimated the disorder affects about one in 10 people aged 75 and older.
Those with the condition who are too frail for open heart surgery are typically treated with medicines and have high rates of heart failure and rehospitalizations.
"We think longer term in the U.S., (MitraClip) could be a $500 million product," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Glenn Novarro. "This approval is sooner than we thought. It's a pleasant surprise."
Novarro said the timing of the FDA green light was excellent as it came just ahead of a major U.S. medical meeting for interventional cardiologists where Abbott will be able to showcase the device.
A panel of advisers to the FDA in March voted 5-3 to recommend approval of the implantable heart device. Some panel members questioned whether MitraClip would be effective.
The MitraClip was approved in Europe in 2008 under a system in which medical devices often reach the market several years ahead of the United States.
International sales are running at about $30 million a quarter, with sales growth at about 50 percent over 2012, Abbott said.
U.S. sales are likely to grow slowly at first as the company seeks reimbursement for the device, primarily from the Medicare healthcare program, and as more physicians are trained in its use. The MitraClip is implanted using a minimally invasive procedure in which it is threaded by catheter through a vein into place in the heart to stop the leak.
There are currently 50 centers in the United States that have experience with the device through clinical trials. That number is expected to double over the next year, John Capek, Abbott's head of medical devices, said in an interview.
There are 20,000 to 30,000 patients in the United States who would likely qualify for MitraClip implantation, Capek said.
(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added far fewer workers than expected in September, suggesting a loss of momentum in the economy that will likely add to the Federal Reserve's caution in deciding when to trim its monthly bond purchases.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 148,000 workers last month, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. While the job count for August was raised, the employment gain in July was revised lower and was the weakest since June 2012.
The closely watched report suggested the economy lost steam even before an acrimonious budget fight that led to a damaging 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government.
"The numbers indicate that the economy is growing at a modest pace at best," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. "Considering the uncertainties from the government shutdown, tapering (of the Fed's bond purchases) has been postponed until further notice."
But there was a silver lining in the report. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 7.2 percent, the lowest level since November 2008.
A measure of underemployment that includes people who want a job but who have given up searching and those working part time because they cannot find full-time jobs also fell a tenth of point, to 13.6 percent, the lowest since December 2008.
Economists had expected the economy to add 180,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate to hold at 7.3 percent.
Stocks ended higher as investors welcomed the prospect of continued monetary stimulus from the U.S. central bank. The Standard & Poor's 500 index hit yet another record high.
U.S. Treasury debt prices also advanced and the yield on the benchmark 10-year note touched a three-month low. The dollar dropped to an eight-month low against a basket of currencies.
The employment report was released more than two weeks later than originally scheduled because of the government shutdown that ended last Wednesday. With the extent of the economic damage from the fiscal standoff unclear, the Fed will likely hold off any decision on scaling back its economic stimulus.
Fed officials will meet next Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss monetary policy. They surprised markets last month by sticking to their $85 billion per month bond-buying pace, saying they wanted to see more evidence of a strong recovery.
"We don't look for any material changes to monetary policy at next week's meeting and most likely in December either," said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. "We are now looking at March."
A Reuters poll of big bond dealers conducted after the jobs figures were released found that most expect the central bank to wait until March to begin dialing back its purchases.
SLUGGISH FOURTH-QUARTER GROWTH EYED
While the economy was already struggling before the government shutdown, the brinkmanship in Washington has dampened expectations of a sharp acceleration in fourth-quarter growth.
Economists estimate the shutdown shaved as much as 0.6 percentage point off annualized fourth-quarter gross domestic product, through reduced government output and damage to both consumer and business confidence.
Now there are fears lawmakers will engage in another economically costly fight early next year when Congress must agree on a budget to fund the government and once again raise the nation's borrowing limit.
"With the possibility of a replay of the budget showdown as early as mid-January, why would the Fed want to pull any levers now?" said Cary Leahey, a senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.
Payroll growth in the third quarter averaged 129,000 per month, far less than the 200,000 average in the first half of the year. Economic growth forecasts for the quarter are currently around a 2 percent rate. The economy expanded at a 2.5 percent annualized pace in the second quarter.
The jobless rate has fallen by 0.7 percentage point since the start of the year despite the economy's sluggish growth, partly because many Americans have given up the hunt for work.
In September, however, the drop in unemployment came even as the share of working-age Americans who either have a job or are looking for one held steady, albeit at a 35-year low.
JOB GAINS MIXED BY SECTOR
Employment gains in September were mixed across sectors.
Government payrolls increased by 22,000 jobs after rising by 32,000 in August. Both state and local governments added jobs last month, offsetting a decline in federal employment.
The data showed surprise weakness in the leisure and hospitality industry, which has been adding jobs consistently over the past years. The industry lost 13,000 jobs, the most since December 2009.
Retail employment growth slowed significantly from the solid gains seen for much of this year, with payrolls increasing 20,800.
The retail and the leisure and hospitality sectors have been the leading job creators.
But there was good news in the construction industry, where payrolls increased 20,000. Construction employment had barely increased over the prior two months, and the gain in September could ease fears of a leveling off in home building.
Those concerns were further allayed by a separate report from the Commerce Department showing construction spending at a near 4-1/2-year high in August.
In September, the manufacturing sector added a meager 2,000 jobs as automakers shed workers, despite strong vehicle sales.
Average hourly earnings increased three cents in September. They have risen 49 cents or 2.1 percent over the past 12 months. The length of the average workweek held steady at 34.5 hours.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Freilich in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Krista Hughes and Dan Grebler)
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Share
