Internet junkie children have parents worried

By JOSHUA FOONG
joshuafoong@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Parents and teachers have been left in a quandary as the onslaught of Internet games and social networking sites are bringing out a rebellious streak in many children.

“Why are you controlling my life?” – is the question often thrown back by children to their parents or teachers when they are confronted with their obsession with the Internet.

 

Teenagers playing online games at a cyber cafe in Kelana Jaya, a common scenario at almost any cyber cafe. - AZMAN GHANI/THE STAR

 

Norton, an Internet security company, produced a family report in 2010 which stated that Malaysian children spent an average of 64 hours online every month.

National Union of the Teaching Profession secretary general Lok Yim Pheng described the students’ obsession with the Internet as a silent killer which was “killing off” the interest of students in class.

There had been reported cases of students falling asleep in class after a whole night of playing Internet games and on-line chatting.

Lok had been ringing the alarm bells over this issue for the last five years.

She said there were also students who starved themselves during recess time because they wanted to save up for trips to cyber cafes.

“There have also been cases where stealing is involved,” she said.

Public complaints go-to man, Datuk Michael Chong said many parents had come crying to him saying they were at a loss over what to do.

“Their children spend countless hours on the Internet – with some cases involving primary school students surfing pornographic sites,” said the head of the MCA Public Service and Complaints Department.

Psychologist Dr Goh Chee Leong said the Internet was enticing because it was “very engaging and stimulating.”

“This problem is more prevalent in the middle and higher class families because they can afford to buy computers,” said the vice-president of HELP University College.

Mary (not her real name), an ex-addict, said that at the height of her obsession with online games, she only slept once every two days.

“I was 16 then. I was having teenage angst and like my peers, I needed a world where I could be in control and I could win,” said the undergraduate.

Luckily, she grew out from the phase when she was 19. Her bad grades were a nasty wake-up call, said the 21-year-old.

Father of three and marketing manager Simon Lee worries that his children will neglect their studies if they spend too much time on the computer.

But he could soon have a solution.

Software engineer Wayne Koong has invented a programme which slows down Internet programmes tremendously, to make the viewers get impatient and lose interest.

To know more about it, you have to log on and go to www.internetoveruse.com.

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Potential Prostate Cancer Marker Discovered

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2010) — Studies by a Purdue University-led team have revealed a potential marker for prostate cancer that could be the starting point for less invasive testing and improved diagnosis of the disease.

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Images from the desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry analysis of prostate tissue samples are shown next to stained slides of the same samples. The images show that cholesterol sulfate is present in cancerous tissue and precancerous legions called high grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, or PIN. A Purdue University-led research team discovered that cholesterol sulfate is a potential marker for prostate cancer. (Credit: Demian Ifa/Purdue Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development)

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The team used a new analysis technique to create a profile of the lipids, or fats, found in prostate tissue and discovered a molecular compound that appears to be useful in identifying cancerous and precancerous tissue. The profile revealed that cholesterol sulfate is a compound that is absent in healthy prostate tissue, but is a major fat found in prostate cancer tumors.

Graham Cooks, Purdue's Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Timothy Ratliff, the Robert Wallace Miller Director of the Purdue Center for Cancer Research, led the team.

"It was surprising to find a single compound that is distinctly present in cancerous tissue and not present in healthy tissue," said Cooks, who is co-director of Purdue's Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development. "We've been able to differentiate cancerous from healthy tissue using this new method in the past, but the difference was in the amounts of the same chemical compounds found in healthy tissue. There was no single differentiator of which one could say if it was present there was cancerous tissue."

Ratliff said this characteristic makes the compound a potential marker for the disease, which could lead to new blood or urine tests to screen for prostate cancer.

"Aside from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths," Ratliff said. "Unfortunately, the current screening test has a significant number of false positives because it uses a marker that is present with other non-cancerous conditions. As a result, many men have unnecessary biopsies, which are invasive, expensive and have the potential to cause infection. This new compound appears to be highly specific to prostate cancer cells, which would mean very few false positives."

The current prostate cancer test screens for a protein called prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, that is produced by the cells of the prostate. Elevated levels of PSA in the blood can signify prostate cancer, but non-cancerous conditions such as an enlarged or inflamed prostate also cause an increase in its levels, he said.



The findings of the study, which was funded by the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research and the National Institutes of Health, were published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The study was performed in collaboration with physician scientists from Indiana University School of Medicine, who co-authored the paper. They also provided the tissue samples and pathological analysis of the samples to check the new technique's results.

The team used a mass spectrometry analysis technique developed by Cooks and coworkers called desorption electrospray ionization, or DESI, to measure and compare the chemical characteristics of 68 samples of normal and cancerous prostate tissue.

Mass spectrometry works by first turning molecules into ions, or electrically charged versions of themselves, so that they can be identified by their mass. Conventional mass spectrometry requires chemical separations, manipulations of samples and containment in a vacuum chamber for ionization and analysis. The DESI technique eliminates these requirements by performing the ionization step in the air or directly on surfaces outside of the mass spectrometers, making the process much simpler, faster and more applicable to medical examination or surgical settings.

Cooks' research team also has developed software that turns the distribution and intensity of selected ions within a sample into a computer-generated image, much like what would be seen from a stained slide under the microscope. This chemical map of the sample can precisely show the location of cancerous tissue and the borders of tumors, Cooks said.

Livia Eberlin, co-author of the paper and a graduate student in Cooks' group, said the study showed promise in detecting precancerous lesions, as well.

"The DESI examination was able to distinguish a precancerous lesion in a small area of a sample made up of mostly healthy tissue," Eberlin said. "By evaluating the difference in the chemistry of cells, this technique can detect differences in diseased tissue that are otherwise indistinguishable. It could provide a new tool for pathologists to complement microscopic examination."

The team also plans to study differences in the chemistry of different types of prostate cancer tumors to see if there is a way to identify which are aggressive and which are not, she said.

Ratliff said the inability to tell the difference between aggressive and nonaggressive forms of prostate cancer causes problems in its treatment.

"A nonaggressive form of prostate cancer can be very slow to progress, and sometimes it is in the best interest of the patient not to go through rigorous treatments that reduce one's quality of life," he said. "The tests currently used to determine the probability that the cancer is an aggressive form are not very accurate, and about 30 percent of patients are misdiagnosed as having an aggressive form."

Additional co-authors of the paper include graduate students Allison Dill and Anthony Costa, and post doctoral researcher Demian Ifa from Purdue's Department of Chemistry and the Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development; Dr. Liang Cheng from the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; and Dr. Timothy Masterson and Dr. Michael Koch from the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Urology.

The team is already in the process of performing larger studies and plans to investigate the biological processes responsible for the expression of cholesterol sulfate in cancerous tissue.



Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Purdue University. The original article was written by Elizabeth K. Gardner.

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See Also:

Health & Medicine

• Prostate Cancer
• Men's Health
• Urology
• Prostate Health
• Cancer
• Diseases and Conditions

Reference

• Metastasis
• Embryonic stem cell
• Lavender oil
• Cellulite

So long, new deepwater drilling regulations

By Shelley DuBois, reporterAugust 4, 2010: 3:44 PM ET

FORTUNE -- Yesterday, Democrats in the Senate rejected taking up a new oil spill response bill because of a dispute over who foots the costs of future spill cleanups and more importantly, how much those parties -- largely oil and exploration companies -- will pay. The Senate is voting on the bill, vaguely titled "a bill to promote clean energy jobs and oil accountability, and for other purposes" in response to BP (BP)'s spill in the Gulf at the Macondo well.

Other parts of the over 400-page bill about energy in general and offshore drilling in particular include safety measures. Until some version of the bill passes, important issues with offshore drilling will remain caught in legislative limbo.

That's a problem. Oil companies have argued that they have stringent safety policies on offshore rigs, regardless of holes in the regulatory system. Many of them do. But this spill has highlighted the need for more efficient oversight.

This block will slow that. The Senate, according to Politico, is supposed to vote again next month, but there's no sign anything will change in that time to help the bill pass.


The major point of contention was the lifting of the liability cap. Generally, Democrats want to hold companies accountable for spill-related damage over $75 million(See editor's note.) Republicans think that the liability cap should stay, so that spills won't bankrupt oil companies.

0:00 /2:57BP oil spill's silver lining

Either way, the debate is holding up policy that should have been in place long before the spill.
Some examples of actions from the defunct bill that will now live in limbo:

• SEC. 104. OIL AND HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCE RESPONSE PLANNING: This section mandates that the government must have a plan if another spill of this size happens again. The US has never had to deal with a spill of this magnitude, nor has it ever had to intervene at the level it has with the Gulf spill. As a result, it stumbled from strategy to strategy. A well thought-out and well described plan should help in future catastrophes 
• 204. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ADVICE AND GUIDANCE. A non-government, non-industry group of science and technology experts would weigh in on whether the government's oil spill response plan is adequate.
• SEC. 205. OIL POLLUTION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: This would allow the Department of the Interior to research ways to clean up oil spilled in the continental shelf and figure out how much damage this spill actually caused. There generally isn't good follow-up to spill damage once the slicks are gone. This would be a welcome change.
• SEC. 626. CERTIFICATE OF INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS: Under this section, floating rigs would have to adhere to the highest safety requirements. The key part of this is regulating blowout preventers - the section demands that all rigs have one that works. Most rigs out there do. Still, given the blow out preventer problems with the Deepwater Horizon, it couldn't hurt to put this requirement more firmly on the books.

For any of these regulations to win passage, both political parties will have to agree about how much to charge companies that spill, with Republicans seeking to limit damages for future spills. Otherwise, other important parts of deepwater drilling regulation will be bereft of a much-needed update.

Editor's note: Due to an editing error the damage cap was reported as $75 billion. It is $75 million. 
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Web Startups: Tips For Raising Money

Great products, teams and business models are still most important.

As the market continues to recover from the 2008 dive and subsequent fallout, many investors are understandably jittery about throwing money at early-stage companies and have instead opted to join less risky rounds for more mature startups.

But for young startups with solid Web products, there's a silver lining: Statistics are showing slightly better numbers for seed and early-stage deals at Web startups than for startups in other verticals.

Have a killer product. Product is still the most important consideration when you're trying to raise capital.
Being the original is trumped by being the best, and sometimes--just sometimes--having an intriguing product is better than making money right out of the gate. One of social media's biggest startup success stories in recent years is Twitter, which without a doubt has turned out to be a killer product, one that the Twitter team focused on to the exclusion of almost every other business consideration, including revenue.

Most importantly, having a killer product is one of the few things that will help you raise money in the face of stiff and ever-increasing competition. In the current tech ecosystem, a clone is born every minute, but fighting off your competitors won't help you as much as looking inward and building the absolute best product you can.

Examples:
--TweetPhoto's Series A: This startup had competitors in spades--and popular, well-entrenched ones, too. But that didn't detract from its focus. When I spoke with the founders at Chirp, creators of TweetPhoto, they displayed single-minded confidence in their product; they believed that what they were building was better than anything else on the market. And they were able to convince investors that this was the case, as well.

 --Foursquare's Series B: Foursquare's core offering--a mobile check-in application--has seen iteration after iteration over the past year or so. As a result, the application has gone from being a spin-off, nerd-centric game to a potentially scalable location and marketing application.

--Collecta's Series B: The folks on this team were facing some serious competition last year, and not just in the company's vertical of real-time Web search. When Google ( GOOG - news - people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) simultaneously announced they'd be entering the real-time search market, the startups on that scene were definitely shaken. But Collecta focused on creating more value, more relevant results and a better algorithm, and investors rewarded that dedication.

Have a killer team. Quora, Brizzly, SimpleGeo and Square have all gotten funding over the past year, and it would be fatuous to think that their founders' backgrounds at Facebook, Google, Digg and Twitter had nothing to do with those deals. We suspect that the access to high-quality networks of investors, which generally comes along with working at one of the larger tech companies, helps in securing funding. But also, having been an important part of a world-famous and innovative team proves a lot to would-be investors. And look at Internet phenom Ze Frank; the meme master got $500,000 in seed money for his stealth social gaming startup.

But a "killer team" doesn't necessarily mean all-star tech pedigrees and Internet fame. Investors are looking for, to put it plainly, good people who are intelligent in their disciplines and flexible in how they see the product.

As VC Sumeet Jain of CMEA Capital wrote to us, "If we can't think of a better team, we're excited ... Seed and Series A companies can pivot several times, and the company at the end of several years of development can be radically different than what was first envisioned. The bet, therefore, has to be on the team to a much greater degree than any one idea or business."

Examples:
--SimpleGeo's Series A: Matt Galligan was the boy genius behind SocialThing, a product of the TechStars program and an AOL acquisition in its early stages. Joe Stump was the chief architect of Digg. When Galligan told us last year that they were working together on a social, location-based startup, his passion for the project was on par with his team's expertise. Funding a team like that was a safe bet.

--Quora's Series A: Facebook's engineers are reportedly some of the best in Silicon Valley. So when a few of Facebook's early hires--including the company's CTO, Adam D'Angelo--bolted to start something new, investors were certain that whatever came out of the company would be scalable and beautifully coded.

--Square's $10M Series A: It's true that investors love apps dealing with shopping and finance, but what jump-started Square's success early on was the big-name appeal of its CEO, Jack Dorsey. As a Twitter co-founder, Dorsey carried that most elusive of Silicon Valley trophies: mass adoption. Dorsey's cachet undoubtedly helped Square secure its atypically large Series A.

Have a killer business model and revenue opportunities. While we've seen a few examples of new apps getting funded as the founders steadfastly refuse to focus on revenue during formative product-development stages, we're seeing many more deals being made around apps that show solid, money-making potential out of the gate.

The technology market may boom and bust, the global financial market may crash and recover, but VCs will never get tired of companies that can make money.

Even if the tech world is full of bigger competitors than your company, your startup still has a chance at raising money (and at longer-term success) when there's a proven revenue model and enough customers, users and revenue to go around.

Examples:
--Shopkick's $15M Series B: Shopping and location apps are among the hottest for investors right now, and it's easy to see why. They connect to a direct revenue pipeline (advertising dollars for marketing campaigns and, depending on how the app is executed, user dollars for special features) and a huge amount of pursuant data on how, where and when people spend money. Shopkick is capitalizing on both trends at once and is primed to snag consumer and brand attention and cash.

--Blip.tv's $10M Series C: Blip.tv did revenue the old-fashioned way: It asked users to pay for their service. And although YouTube, which has chronically struggled to turn a profit, has proved to be the Goliath of the online video world, Blip.tv and a handful of scrappy video startups have fared well through offering clever partnerships and freemium benefits.

--LivingSocial's Series C: LivingSocial is competing with Groupon, the large and fairly well-known bargain-hunters' app. But when it comes to this market and this economy, there's enough room for more than a few smart-shopping sites and applications. By linking their product directly to consumers' buying habits and creating a built-in opportunity to partner with large brands and small local businesses alike, LivingSocial crafted an attractive investment opportunity.

Jolie O'Dell is a technology and social media journalist for Mashable.

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Computing at the Speed of Light

Replacing metal wiring with fiber optics could change everything from supercomputers to laptops.

By Tom Simonite

The world of computing could change rapidly in coming years thanks to technology that replaces the metal wiring between components with faster, more efficient fiber-optic links.

Seeing the light: A chip in the center of this circuit board contains four lasers that convert electrical signals into light pulses. The pulses travel at high speeds along a fiber-optic link. Credit: Intel

"All communications over long distance are driven by lasers, but you've never had it inside devices," says Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics lab in Santa Clara, CA. "Our new integrated optical link makes that possible."

Paniccia's team has perfected tiny silicon chips capable of encoding and decoding laser signals sent via fiber optics. Today, when data arrives at a computer via a fiber optic connection it has to be moved from a separate photonic device to an electronic circuit. This new system promises to speed things up because everything works in silicon.

Last week, Paniccia's team demonstrated the first complete photonic communications system made from components fully integrated into silicon chips. Electronic data piped into one chip is converted into laser light that travels down an optical fiber and is transferred back into electrical signals a few fractions of a second later. The system can carry data at a rate of 50 gigabytes per second, enough to transfer a full-length HD movie in less than a second.

The silicon photonic chips could replace the electronic connections between a computer's key components, such as its processors and memory. Copper wiring used today can carry data signals at little more than 10 gigabytes per second. That means critical components like the central processing unit and the memory in a server cannot be too far apart, which restricts how computers can be built.

The new Intel setup has four lasers built into its transmitter chip that shine data into a single optical fiber at slightly different wavelengths, or "colors." Chips with even more lasers should make it possible to communicate at 1,000 gigabytes per second, or one terabit per second.

"Having a chip the size of your fingernail that can deliver a terabit per second changes the way you can think about design," says Paniccia. Such chips could make a big difference inside the sprawling data centers operated at great expense by Web giants like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. "Data centers today are big piles of copper--that imposes the limits on how you arrange components inside a server," Paniccia says.

 "If I could just move the memory a foot away [from the processors], I could add a whole board of memory for a single CPU instead," says Paniccia, whose team is experimenting with prototype servers to work out how to build them with photonics links inside.

Moving a server's memory away from the CPUs would also make ventilating them easier. Since roughly half the cost of running a data center, used for everything from services like Facebook to banking records, comes from cooling, that could have a significant impact.

Further savings may come from the fact that optical links require less power to operate, says Keren Bergman, who leads a silicon photonics research group at Columbia University. "With electrical wires, the longer you go, the more energy you spend in an exponential fashion," she says. Optical fiber allows low-power signals to travel farther faster. Bergman's group has used data on the performance of computers at Lawrence Berkeley and MIT's Lincoln Laboratories to simulate how systems with optical interconnects might perform. "You can get an order of magnitude gain in energy efficiency," she says, with the largest gains seen for applications such as high-bandwidth image processing and video streaming, she says.

Data centers aren't the only things that may see their insides lit up with lasers. "We've developed this technology to be low-cost so we can take it everywhere, not just into high-performance computing or the data center," says Paniccia. The components of the Intel system, including the lasers, are made with the same silicon-sculpting methods used to construct computer chips in vast quantities. "I'm drafting Moore's law," says Paniccia. "We've enabled the benefits of using light with the low-cost, high-volume, scalability of silicon."In consumer computers like laptops, that would allow innovations in industrial design. I could put the memory in the display instead, and change the design of the whole thing."

This could make it easier to swap in new components without having to open up a machine. It would also allow core components to be installed in peripherals. Extra memory could, for example, be hidden in a laptop or smart phone dock to increase a portable device's computing power when plugged in.

Fully exploiting the benefits of the optical age will, however, means changes to the components being linked up. "It's not just a case of whip out the electrical wires and replace them with optical fiber," says Bergman.
Ajay Joshi, an assistant professor at Boston University, who is also exploring design options for high-performance computers with optical interconnects, agrees. "If we speed up the channel between logic [processors] and memory, we need to rethink the way you design that memory."

The speed gap between processors and optical links is smaller, but ultimately, that too will likely change. "It would be nice to also see processors that work optically instead of electronically," Joshi says.