Childhood – Santa doesn’t exist
Adolescence – Love is not forever
Youth – A degree doesn’t guarantee a JOB
Adulthood – Ideals have a price
Old Age – Life is wasted
domingo, 7 de setembro de 2014
6 Boldest Moments in the History of Apple
With the release of the iPhone 6 just days away, and breathless press predicting major upgrades, it's hard to believe that just seven short years ago, the debut of the iPhone completely revolutionized the mobile computing market.
Big reveals, transformation and innovative ideas are par for the course for Apple, a company that has been changing the way consumers interact with technology since its inception in a California garage in the seventies.
And so, in honor of the release of the iPhone 6, here are the six biggest and boldest moment in Apple history -- along with the lessons they hold for entrepreneurs.
Photo by Flickr user Ed Uthman.
1. 1976 -- Apple's First Order for the Apple I
Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met through an electronics engineering club called the Homebrew Computer Club. Sensing that his partner was onto something with a his prototype Apple I, Jobs approached local computer store The Byte Shop about purchasing a kit the duo would produce.
The owner of the Byte Shop, Paul Terrell, made an order of 50 with this stipulation: that the guys would assemble the computers before delivery. Jobs went to Cramer Electronics to order the parts he would need and asked to get them on credit, furnishing the purchase order from the Byte Shop as proof of the first order. Cramer Electronics was stunned by the audacity of Jobs' request, but nonetheless called Terrell to confirm the order.
Through this creative and bold bit of financing, Apple Computers was off and running, without investors or loans.
Lesson for Entrepreneurs: You can start a business with minimal startup cash. Check out the ideas here for more.
1984 Apple Macintosh commercial by Ridley Scott. Screengrab via YouTube
2. 1984 -- Macintosh Debuts in Ridley Scott Superbowl Ad
Apple has long been famous for going against the grain with its marketing and advertising and nothing is a better example of that they its splashy, multi-million dollar commercial for brand-new Macintosh computer during the 1984 Superbowl.
In the ad, a heroine runs through a dystopian future modeled on George Orwell's famous novel and hurls a sledgehammer at a televised vision of conformity, signaling that Macintosh would save the world from plain grey boxes. The commercial certainly turned out to be prophetic.
The Lesson for Entrepreneurs: Great advertising comes out of great storytelling. Do you know how to tell your business' story?
Steve Jobs at the WDC 2007. Photo by Flickr user Ben Stanfield
3. 1996 -- The Return of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was famously removed from the company he founded in 1985 by the board of directors, leading him to sell all but one of his 6.5 million shares of the company. With the proceeds, Jobs bought the young visual effects and animation company Pixar, and founded NeXT, a computer company that laid the groundwork for what would eventually become pivotal design and engineering features in the personal computer market.
In 1996, Apple bought NeXT, returning Jobs to Apple management, and Jobs took the role of interim CEO in 1997. He would stay in the job until illness forced him to step down in 2011. In those intervening years, he took a company that was struggling to stay relevant and enhanced focus on innovative product development and design to make Apple one of the world's most entrepreneurial organizations.
The Lesson for Entrepreneurs: Jobs' comeback is one of business' best. Here are some tips on grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat.
Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft. Photo by Flickr user Joi Ito
4. 1997 -- Partnering with Microsoft
While they were long set up as dueling enemies by the press, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates actually had plenty in common. Both had dropped out of college and formed their respective computer companies in the mid-seventies.
However, at the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into a partnership with Microsoft that would allow the company to release Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer on its machines. The reason why? "If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose," Jobs explained to the audience at the Expo.
The Lesson for Entrepreneurs: Be smart about competition. Here's how.
iPod display in an Apple Store in Cupertino, CA. Photo by Flickr user Alejandro Mallea
5. 2001 -- The iPod Upends the Music Business
The iPod, a portable digital music player, debuted on October 23, 2001, but the product's real impact lay in the way it changed the way people bought music. Instead of buying cassettes, CDs or records, people now downloaded from the iTunes store at a rate of $0.99 per song. The iTunes store also set the stage for Apple's later innovation in the apps and mobile phone market.
The Lesson for Entrepreneurs: Sometimes you want less to find a market than to invent one. Learn about disruption in the automobile industry here.
iPhone. Photo by Flickr user William Hook
6. 2007 -- The iPhone Debuts
On January 9, 2007, the company shortened its name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc. Why? It was about to make a major play in the mobile phone market. While not the first smartphone, the iPhone brought the concept to the masses with sleek design, a fully touch-enabled surface, and a fully functioning web browser.
The Lesson for Entrepreneurs: Want to make money with a mobile app? It pays to do your homework.
New smartphone app can detect newborn jaundice in minutes
News and Information
Posted under: Engineering, Health and Medicine, News Releases, Science, Technology
Newborn jaundice: It’s one of the last things a parent wants to deal with, but it’s unfortunately a common condition in babies less than a week old.
Skin that turns yellow can be a sure sign that a newborn is jaundiced and isn’t adequately eliminating the chemical bilirubin. But that discoloration is sometimes hard to see, and severe jaundice left untreated can harm a baby.
University of Washington engineers and physicians have developed a smartphone application that checks for jaundice in newborns and can deliver results to parents and pediatricians within minutes. It could serve as a screening tool to determine whether a baby needs a blood test – the gold standard for detecting high levels of bilirubin.
“Virtually every baby gets jaundiced, and we’re sending them home from the hospital even before bilirubin levels reach their peak,” said James Taylor, a UW professor of pediatrics and medical director of the newborn nursery at UW Medical Center. “This smartphone test is really for babies in the first few days after they go home. A parent or health care provider can get an accurate picture of bilirubin to bridge the gap after leaving the hospital.”
The research team will present its results at the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing in September in Seattle.
The app, called BiliCam, uses a smartphone’s camera and flash and a color calibration card the size of a business card. A parent or health care professional would download the app, place the card on her baby’s belly, then take a picture with the card in view. The card calibrates and accounts for different lighting conditions and skin tones. Data from the photo are sent to the cloud and are analyzed by machine-learning algorithms, and a report on the newborn’s bilirubin levels is sent almost instantly to the parent’s phone.
“This is a way to provide peace of mind for the parents of newborns,” said Shwetak Patel, a UW associate professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. “The advantage of doing the analysis in the cloud is that our algorithms can be improved over time.”
A noninvasive jaundice screening tool is available in some hospitals and clinics, but the instrument costs several thousand dollars and isn’t feasible for home use. Currently, both doctors and parents assess jaundice by looking for the yellow color in a newborn’s skin, but this visual assessment is only moderately accurate. The UW team developed BiliCam to be easy to use and affordable for both clinicians and parents, especially during the first several days after birth when it’s crucial to check for jaundice.
Jaundice, or the yellowing of the skin, can happen when an excess amount of bilirubin collects in the blood. Bilirubin is a natural byproduct of the breakdown of red blood cells, which the liver usually metabolizes. But newborns often metabolize bilirubin slower because their livers aren’t yet fully functioning. If left untreated, severe jaundice can cause brain damage and a potentially fatal condition called kernicterus.
The UW team ran a clinical study with 100 newborns and their families at UW Medical Center. They used a blood test, the current screening tool used in hospitals, and BiliCam to test the babies when they were between two and five days old. They found that BiliCam performed as well as or better than the current screening tool. Though it wouldn’t replace a blood test, BiliCam could let parents know if they should take that next step.
“BiliCam would be a significantly cheaper and more accessible option than the existing reliable screening methods,” said Lilian de Greef, lead author and a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering. “Lowering the access barrier to medical applications can have profound effects on patients, their caregivers and their doctors, especially for something as prevalent as newborn jaundice.”
The researchers plan to test BiliCam on up to 1,000 additional newborns, especially those with darker skin pigments. The algorithms will then be robust enough to account for all ethnicities and skin colors. This could make BiliCam a useful tool for parents and health care workers in developing countries where jaundice accounts for many newborn deaths.
“We’re really excited about the potential of this in resource-poor areas, something that can make a difference in places where there aren’t tools to measure bilirubin but there’s good infrastructure for mobile phones,” Taylor said.
Within a year, the researchers say BiliCam could be used by doctors as an alternative to the current screening procedures for bilirubin. They have filed patents on the technology, and within a couple of years hope to have Federal Drug Administration approval for the BiliCam app that parents can use at home on their smartphones.
Other members of the research team are Mayank Goel and Min Joon Seo, UW doctoral students in computer science and engineering; Eric Larson of Southern Methodist University; and James Stout of the UW pediatrics department. Southern Methodist University is a collaborator on the machine learning design and app development.
This research is funded by the Coulter Foundation and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
For more information, contact the research team at bilicam@cs.washington.edu.
Tagged with: College of Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, James Taylor, Shwetak Patel
Breast cancer specialist reports advance in treatment of triple-negative breast cancer
William M. Sikov, a medical oncologist in the Breast Health Center and associate director for clinical research in the Program in Women's Oncology at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, served as study chair and lead author for a recently-published major national study that could lead to improvements in outcomes for women with triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that disproportionately affects younger women.
"Impact of the Addition of Carboplatin and/or Bevacizumab to Neoadjuvant Once-Per-Week Paclitaxel Followed by Dose-Dense Doxorubicin and Cyclophosphamide on Pathologic Complete Response Rates in Stage II to III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: CALGB 40603 (Alliance)" was accepted as a rapid publication and published online this month by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. It will come out in print in September.
Because of its rapid growth rate, many women with triple-negative breast cancer receive chemotherapy to try to shrink it before undergoing surgery. With the standard treatment, the cancer is eliminated from the breast and lymph nodes in the armpit before surgery in about one third of women. This is referred to as a pathologic complete response (pCR). In patients who achieve pCR, the cancer is much less likely to come back, spread to other parts of the body, and cause the patient's death than if the cancer survives the chemotherapy.
Sikov and his collaborators studied the addition of other drugs -- carboplatin and/or bevacizumab -- to the standard treatment regimen to see if they could increase response rates. More than 440 women from cancer centers across the country enrolled in this randomized clinical trial.
"Adding either of these medications significantly increased the percentage of women who achieved a pCR with the preoperative treatment. We hope that this means fewer women will relapse and die of their cancer, though the study is not large enough to prove this conclusively. Of the two agents we studied, we are more encouraged by the results from the addition of carboplatin, since it was associated with fewer and less concerning additional side effects than bevacizumab," Sikov explains.
"More studies are planned to confirm the role of carboplatin in women with triple-negative breast cancer, and also to see if we can better identify which of these patients are most likely to benefit from its use. Until we have those results, medical oncologists who treat women with triple-negative breast cancer will have to decide whether the potential benefits of adding carboplatin outweigh its risks for each individual patient."
Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for 15 to 20 percent of invasive breast cancers diagnosed in the United States each year, and is more common in younger women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and BRCA1-mutation carriers. With no identified characteristic molecular abnormalities that can be targeted with medication, the current standard of treatment is chemotherapy.
"Overall prognosis for women with this type of breast cancer remains inferior to that of other breast cancer subtypes, with higher risk of early relapse," Sikov says.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Women & Infants Hospital. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
- W. M. Sikov, D. A. Berry, C. M. Perou, B. Singh, C. T. Cirrincione, S. M. Tolaney, C. S. Kuzma, T. J. Pluard, G. Somlo, E. R. Port, M. Golshan, J. R. Bellon, D. Collyar, O. M. Hahn, L. A. Carey, C. A. Hudis, E. P. Winer. Impact of the Addition of Carboplatin and/or Bevacizumab to Neoadjuvant Once-per-Week Paclitaxel Followed by Dose-Dense Doxorubicin and Cyclophosphamide on Pathologic Complete Response Rates in Stage II to III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: CALGB 40603 (A. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2014; DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2014.57.0572
When offering someone a job hurts more than it helps
New Vanderbilt research finds that unsolicited job leads can increase symptoms of depression in some people.
In the paper, "Does Receiving Unsolicited Support Help or Hurt? Receipt of Unsolicited Job Leads and Depression," Lijun Song, assistant professor of sociology and medicine, health and society, and Wenhong Chen of the University of Texas at Austin, used nationally representative data from 2004-05 to examine at the effect of unsolicited job leads -- information about job opportunities and openings -- on depressive symptoms in working-age American adults.
Not surprisingly, unsolicited job leads tended to relieve depression symptoms in people who were not employed full time or were unhappy with their financial situation. But the researchers were surprised to see that similar offers increased feelings of depression in people who had full-time jobs or were satisfied with their financial situation.
The strength of the effect depended on how long a person had been in their current situation: Unsolicited job leads were the most beneficial to people who lacked full-time jobs for five or more years and needed them most, and the most distressing to those who were employed full time and needed them least.
Although the researchers did not study the mechanisms explaining why they observed the opposite effect in people who were employed full time or happy with their financial situation, they speculated that several reasons could apply. The offer could be perceived by the recipient as meddling, for example, or make the recipient feel indebted, inadequate or less capable than the person providing the lead or people who already have that kind of job. "This kind of negative social comparison is not good for mental health," Song said. And, she added, simply applying for the job can add to a person's stress.
This study answered another question, too: Previous studies examining the effect of social support on health have resulted in inconsistent findings. Song and Chen wanted to investigate whether the circumstances of the support recipient could explain why some benefited from social support while others didn't -- a layer of detail previous studies had not examined. By examining the employment and financial status of the respondents as well as their reactions to the unsolicited job lead, Song and Chen were able to show that in this scenario, the circumstances of the recipient did explain the discrepancies.
In the paper, Song and Chen cautioned that their observations wouldn't necessarily apply to all kinds of social support: Unsolicited offers of food or advice about medical care may be received quite differently because they are related to survival. They also noted that unsolicited offers of purely emotional support -- like calling a friend out of the blue to say "I love you" -- may be received more positively.
A final caveat: Song examined data from 2004, predating the financial crisis. The results might look a little different today. Moving forward, Song wants to examine the reasons behind the depressive effect she observed more systematically.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Vanderbilt University. The original article was written by Liz Entman. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
- L. Song, W. Chen. Does Receiving Unsolicited Support Help or Hurt? Receipt of Unsolicited Job Leads and Depression. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2014; 55 (2): 144 DOI: 10.1177/0022146514532816
Global epidemic of diabetes threatens to jeopardize further progress in tuberculosis control
A series of papers indicates that 15% of adult TB cases worldwide are already attributable to diabetes. These diabetes-associated cases correspond to over 1 million cases a year, with more than 40% occurring in India and China alone. If diabetes rates continue to rise out of control, the present downward trajectory in global TB cases could be offset by 8% (ie, 8% less reduction) or more by 2035, warn the authors.
Diabetes increases the risk of developing active TB, and is associated with a poorer TB prognosis. Conversely, TB infection worsens glucose control in patients with diabetes. Thus, as diabetes becomes more common in TB-endemic regions, health care systems will increasingly be faced with the challenge of this double disease burden.
Diabetes is making an increasingly important contribution to the TB epidemic [Paper 1]. A 52% increase in diabetes prevalence recorded over the last 3 years in the 22 highest TB burden countries is thought to be responsible for a rise in diabetes-associated TB cases from 10% in 2010 to 15% in 2013.
New estimates produced for the Series [Paper 1] reveal that the top 10 countries with the highest estimated number of adult TB cases associated with diabetes are India (302,000), China (156,000), South Africa (70,000), Indonesia (48,000), Pakistan (43,000), Bangladesh (36,000), Philippines (29,000), Russia (23,000), Burma (21,000), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (19,000) [see table 2, page 4].
"These findings highlight the growing impact of diabetes on TB control in regions of the world where both diseases are prevalent," says Series author Dr Knut Lönnroth from the Global TB Programme at WHO in Geneva. "TB control is being undermined by the growing number of people with diabetes, which is expected to reach an astounding 592 million worldwide by 2035."
This double disease burden creates obstacles for the prevention and care of both diseases [Paper 2]. Dr Reinout van Crevel, Series co-author and infectious disease specialist at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, explains, "People with diabetes have a three times greater risk of contracting TB than people without diabetes, are four times more likely to relapse following treatment for TB, and are at twice the risk of dying during treatment than those without diabetes. These figures suggest we need to improve care for these patients at multiple levels."
Worryingly, the impact of diabetes on TB rates could worsen in future decades [Paper 3]. Over the next 20 years, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that the number of people with diabetes will rise by 21%, which corresponds to an overall diabetes prevalence in adults of more than 10%. Mathematical modelling conducted for the Series [Paper 3] estimates that as a result of diabetes on this scale, global tuberculosis incidence would be 3% higher than the projected downward trend by 2035, or even 8% higher in a pessimistic scenario (a large 25% increase in the number of people with diabetes) -- which might be the reality in regions where diabetes risk factors are increasing fastest.
However, the authors also calculate the maximum positive effect of public health efforts to prevent and improve care for diabetes globally (eg, improved case identification, glucose control in patients with diabetes, and chemoprophylaxis in people with latent TB infection). Such efforts could further reduce tuberculosis cases by 15% or more by 2035 compared with the present rate of decline.
According to Dr Lönnroth, "If we are to achieve the ambitious post-2015 global TB target to reduce TB incidence by 90% by 2035, increased efforts to diagnose and treat both TB and diabetes, especially in countries with a high burden of both diseases, will be crucial."
An Editorial accompanying the Series warns that, as papers from the Series clearly show, continued progress in reducing communicable diseases like TB cannot be made without adequate provision of resources to combat diabetes. According to the Editorial, this knowledge should be a wake-up call to the global community and local providers to invest further in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes, which continue to be relatively ignored when it comes to health care funding.
The series can be found online at: http://www.thelancet.com/series/tuberculosis-and-diabetes
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by The Lancet. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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