Thursday, March 19, 2009

Google to offer content from European news agencies

Content from eight of the national news agencies that own the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) is to be made available on the Internet via Google News, under a new accord announced here.

Users of Google News will be able to access both text and photos from the participating agencies, EPA and Google said in a joint statement Tuesday.

"This new approach not only enhances the experience for users, it also gives proper recognition to journalists and publishers who work hard to break the news," Josh Cohen, Google News' business product manager, said of the initiative.

Jörg Schierenbeck, EPA's managing director, hailed the accord as "good for all".

"EPA, the participating agencies and Google will benefit from the monetisation of our original articles and photos hosted by Google, and users will benefit from the user-friendly approach to this type of display of news agency content," he said.

"Previously, Google News would often display multiple copies of the same news agency articles and photos, with separate links to various sites," Google's Cohen said. "Thanks to the agreement with EPA, Google News will now be able to link directly to the original article, on a page hosted by Google."

The EPA stories will also include links to other websites where the items appear.

"The importance of this agreement is that the news agencies are recognised for the original content they create, and can generate new revenue through the advertising revenue share split with Google for all hosted articles on Google News," according to the chairman of EPA's supervisory board, Walter Grolimund.

Frankfurt-based EPA- is a consortium of 11 European news agencies, including Spain's Efe, which is the entity's second-biggest shareholder.

The consortium distributes more than 1,000 photos per day to hundreds of media outlets worldwide.

Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, is the leading search engine the Internet.

source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Google-to-offer-content-from-European-news-agencies/articleshow/4280939.cms
How to Defrost the microwave ovan

* Remove food from packaging before defrosting. Do not use foam trays and plastic wraps because they are not heat stable at high temperatures. Melting or warping may cause harmful chemicals to migrate into food.
* Cook meat, poultry, egg casseroles, and fish immediately after defrosting in the microwave oven because some areas of the frozen food may begin to cook during the defrosting time. Do not hold partially cooked food to use later.
* Cover foods with a lid or a microwave-safe plastic wrap to hold in moisture and provide safe, even heating.
* Heat ready-to-eat foods such as hot dogs, luncheon meats, fully cooked ham, and leftovers until steaming hot.
* After reheating foods in the microwave oven, allow standing time. Then, use a clean food thermometer to check that food has reached 165 °F.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Diagnosis on Cancer

Although the DRE and PSA tests cannot diagnose prostate cancer, they can signal the require for a biopsy to examine the prostate cells and decide whether they are cancerous. In some men, changes in urinary or sexual function lead to a full evaluation by the doctor, and, if prostate cancer is assumed, a biopsy will be performed.

The Biopsy
During a biopsy, needles are inserted into the prostate to take small samples of tissue, often under the guidance of ultrasound imaging. The biopsy procedure may cause some discomfort or pain, but the procedure is short, and can usually be performed without an overnight hospital stay.

Gleason Grading and Gleason Scores
Under normal conditions, prostate cells, just like all other cells in the body, are constantly reproducing and dying, and each new prostate cell has the same shape and facade as all of the other prostate cells. But cancer cells look different, and the degree to which they look different from normal cells is what determines the cancer grade. "Low-grade" tumor cells tend to look very similar to normal cells, whereas "high-grade" tumor cells have mutated so much that they often barely resemble the normal cells.

The Gleason grading system accounts for the five distinct patterns that prostate tumor cells tend to go during as they change from normal cells. The scale runs from 1 to 5, where 1 represents cells that are very nearly normal, and 5 represents cells that don’t look much like prostate cells at all.

After examining the cells under a microscope, the pathologist looking at the biopsy sample assigns one Gleason grade to the most common pattern, and a second Gleason grade to the next most common pattern. The two grades are added, and the Gleason score, or sum, is determined.

Generally speaking, the Gleason score tends to predict the assertiveness of the disease and how it will behave. The higher the Gleason score, the less the cells behave like normal cells, and the more aggressive the tumor tends to be.

Staging the Disease
Staging determines the extent of prostate cancer. Localized prostate cancer means that the cancer is confined within the prostate. Locally advanced prostate cancer means that most of the cancer is confined within the prostate, but some has started to escape to the immediate surrounding tissues. In metastatic disease, the prostate cancer is growing outside the prostate and its immediate environs, possibly to more distant organs.

A number of tests can be used to help determine the stage of disease. For example, cancers growing outside of the prostate can often be detected through traditional imaging studies, such as CT scans, MRIs, or x-rays, or through more specialized imaging tests such as bone scans. Note that because these tests cannot detect very small groups of cancer cells, results of these tests cannot be used alone to determine the stage of the disease, to guide treatment options, or to predict outcomes.

Metastatic disease can also be detected through imaging studies, and often can be detected in the lymph nodes. Cancers that spread to more distant organs tend to travel through the lymph system, a circulatory system similar to the blood surgery, lymph nodes will be removed and examined for the presence of cancer cells.

Knowing the stage of disease can help to determine how aggressively the disease needs to be treated, and how likely it is to be eradicated by the available treatment options.