Monday, March 20, 2006

Fears of contaminated bone and skin grafts are being felt by unsuspecting patients following the revelation that funeral homes may have been looting corpses.

Janet Evans of Marion Ohio was told by her surgeon, “The bone grafts you got might have been contaminated”. She reacted with shock, “I was flabbergasted because I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know I got a bone graft until I got this call. I just thought they put in screws and rods.”

The body of Alistair Cooke, the former host of “Masterpiece Theatre,” was supposedly looted along with more than 1,000 others, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The tissue taken was typically skin, bone and tendon, which was then sold for use in procedures such as dental implants and hip replacements. According to authorities, millions of dollars were made by selling the body parts to companies for use in operations done at hospitals and clinics in the United States and Canada.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, has reportedly been taking body parts from funeral homes across Brooklyn, New York. According to ABC News, they set up rooms like a “surgical suite.” After they took the bones, they replaced them with PVC pipe. This was purportedly done by stealth, without approval of the deceased person or the next of kin. 1,077 bodies were involved, say prosecuters.

Investagators say a former dentist, Michael Mastromarino, is behind the operation. Biomedical was considered one of the “hottest procurement companies in the country,” raking in close to $5 million. Eventually, people became worried: “Can the donors be trusted?” A tissue processing company called LifeCell answered no, and issued a recall on all their tissue.

Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said, “To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another entirely.” Now thousands of people around the country are receiving letters warning that they should be tested for infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis. On February 23, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted Mastromarino and three others. They are charged with 122 felony counts, including forgery and bodysnatching.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor of the deceased singer Michael Jackson, has been given a four year prison sentence by a judge in the US city of Los Angeles, California, based on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, the maximum sentence he could receive for this offense. Steve Whitmore, a spokesperson for Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told CBS News that Assembly Bill 109 would automatically halve the sentence to two years.

In November of this year, after a six week trial, a jury found Murray guilty of providing Jackson with an excessive amount of propofol, which caused his death in 2009. Judge Michael Pastor condemned Dr. Murray’s actions, calling his behavior a “continuous pattern of lies and deceit” and him a “danger to the community”, having committed a “horrific violation of trust”. Murray may also lose his medical license.

In the aftermath of the sentencing, Katherine Jackson, the mother of Michael Jackson, told KTLA: “Four years is not enough for someone’s life. It won’t bring him back but at least he got the maximum.” Jackson expressed thanks to the prosecutors and the judge, calling the latter “very, very fair”. Meanwhile, Jermaine Jackson, Michael Jackson’s brother, said “[o]ne hundred years is not enough”.

The defense had requested probation as Murray already faced “a lifetime sentence of self-punishment” and life-long reputation as “the man who killed Michael Jackson”. The judge refused to allow probation, saying it wasn’t justified by Murray’s actions.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Google News submitted patent applications both in the United States and world-wide in September 2003 for a system of ranking search returns. The patent protection filings seek to control Google’s approach that filters headlines through a complicated algorithm, including the quality of the news organization. How much of this system is currently in use by the search engine giant is unknown.

Primitive search engines are expected to organically evaluate links based on how closely the keywords typed in the search field match an object link, and how many other links are attached to the object. Then a measure of relevance is calculated before returning a reply.

It seems some measure of the work being done at Google is a reaction to search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns which can, if done effectively, skew results to certain domains. A challenge for Google is to develop its technology to nullify efforts on the dark side of SEO and link-spamming.

What also seems to be coming out from this, according to research from the Internet Search Engine Database, is that Google does indeed have a ‘sandbox’ where domains are evaluated first by a human factor before being released into its algorithms.

In its first ever Securities and Exchange Commission filing since the company went public last year, Google indicated that it intends to spend US$500 million on technology development, more than double the $177 million it spent two years ago.

The language used in the lengthy patent application itself is difficult to understand. An excellent article titled “Google United – Google Patent Examined” found below, describes some of the nuts and bolts of Google’s techniques.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Chicago’s Metra is currently considering the possibility of selling the naming rights to its train stations, rail lines, and even bridges to generate more revenue. 

The regional rail system for Chicago and its surrounding suburbs has been experiencing revenue shortfalls, along with other public transportation agencies such as the Chicago Transit Authority and Pace. They all rely on sales taxes and fares to fund their services, but the recent recession has reduced sales tax revenues, and unemployment has caused ridership to fall. Compared to 86.8 million trips in 2008, Metra reported that only 82.3 million trips were provided in 2009. As spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said, “We’re looking at any opportunity to increase non-fare revenue.”

A law approved by former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in 2008 granted free rides to all seniors regardless of income, adding to the decreasing fare revenues as well. State lawmakers are trying to restrict the free rides to low-income seniors; Metra has not yet commented on the issue, however. 

New designs put on the agency’s website last September has attracted more traffic, and Metra is considering selling advertising space online. In addition, advertising space could be sold on the outside of train cars as well. As for the naming rights to stations and routes, Metra plans to hire a consultant that would figure out the details of such a proposal. Spokesperson Meg Reihle did not know how much money Metra could gain from the sale or which organizations would be interested in buying. 

According to Ms. Reihle, public transit agencies in other cities have sold naming rights as well, such as the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority in Cleveland and Long Island Rail Road in Long Island. TECO Energy sponsors a rail line in Tampa’s Hillsborough Area Regional Transit for US$1 million over ten years. 

Throughout its 26-year history, Metra has named several of its locomotives and renamed two stations: Ogilvie Transportation Center, which was previously named North Western Station, and Millennium Terminal, which was previously called Randolph Street. No transactions were made in renaming those two stations, however. There is also a Station named after the candy maker Mars, but that station was named before Metra took it over, and the company doesn’t pay Metra for any naming rights. 

Execuive Director Phil Pagano sees the proposal as a way for businesses to advertise themselves. “I think the business community recognizes that transit is positive for their advertising benefit,” said Mr. Pagano at a board meeting. In addition to businesses, hospitals located near the train stations could purchase naming rights as well. However, Mr. Pagano has also stated that “the agency would be selective about the type of businesses it partners with.”

Metra has said that it will be sensitive to the wishes of the communities near the stops, and town names will not be removed from station names. Rather, both the municipality and the sponsoring organization would share the naming rights, such as in renaming Naperville Station to “Naperville Boeing Station”. “I’m not sure whether [the old name] is first or second, but definitely it’s going to have to be there,” said Mr. Pagano.

Monday, January 2, 2017

On Friday, Tyrus Wong, a Chinese-US painter who inspired the style of Disney animated film Bambi, died at home of natural causes in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles, according to his daughter Kim Wong.

Born on October 25, 1910 in Guangdong province, China, Tyrus Wong left the country with his father at the age of nine under fake names “Look Tai Yow” and “Look Get”. Wong’s father taught him the art of calligraphy using water instead of ink on newspapers.

Wong used to work as a houseboy after school in Los Angeles earning half a dollar per day. Wong’s principal in junior high school helped arrange a scholarship in Otis Art Institute for his art skills. At Otis, Wong studied Western art and graduated in 1935. In 1934, a landscape of Wong’s appeared in an exhibition organised by the Art Institute of Chicago which also featured a Pablo Picasso etching, “Two Nudes”. For two years, from 1934 to 1936, he worked for the Works Progress Administration to create paintings for public buildings.

In 1938, Wong began work in the Disney animation studio as an in-betweener — creating hundreds of intermediate images for the appearance of motion. Walt Disney noticed his work. Wong’s forest paintings of deer strongly influenced the style of Bambi. Wong worked at Disney for only three years before he was sacked in 1941, following an employee’s strike in which Wong did not participate. Next year, Wong became a Warner Bros. concept artist, drawing storyboards and set designs for live-action films. Films he drew concept art for included The Sands of Iwo Jima, Rebel Without a Cause, and The Wild Bunch. After more than a quarter century at Warner Bros., Wong retired in 1968. Wong gained US citizenship in 1946.

Wong influenced animator Andreas Deja, the creator of Lilo from Lilo & Stitch and Jafar from Aladdin. Wong also worked as a janitor, designed greeting cards, and picked asparagus during the lows in his career.

Wong was named a Disney Legend in 2001. Wong is survived by three daughters and two grandchildren.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sun Microsystems has released StarOffice 8 today. StarOffice 8 is a commercial office suite that includes word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database applications.

According to Sun, StarOffice 8 “provides excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office”. This new version improves Word, Excel and PowerPoint import and export filters, improving support for password-protected Word and Excel files and presentations with complex animations, autoshapes and slide transitions. StarOffice 8 also includes a Microsoft Office macro converter allowing many Microsoft Office macros to work in StarOffice.

StarOffice 8 is also the first commercial office suite to support the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument). OpenDocument is an XML based file format created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. Massachusetts has recently announced the plan to switch to OpenDocument format. Microsoft has said it will not support the OpenDocument format.

StarOffice 8 is based on the open source OpenOffice.org project. OpenOffice.org was founded July 2000, by Sun with the release of StarOffice code under two open source licenses.

StarOffice 8 is available as a download from Sun’s Web site for $69.95, or packaged product can be ordered for $99.95. Enterprise customers can purchase StarOffice 8 for $35 (£20) per user. OpenOffice.org is available for free from openoffice.org.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

A third call for boycott and second boycott hit the German online travel agency Hotel Reservation Service (HRS) this week. After a recent boycott against HRS in Münsterland, a boycott in Bremerhaven was next and is soon to be followed by the next round in Bremerhaven starting in the middle of March.

Hotels in the city of Bremerhaven already have to pay a new “bed tax” to the state of Bremen of 2.14 euro per person per night, whilst HRS is trying to increase their commission payments for its service from thirteen to fifteen percent. Further criticism of HRS focused on a preferential treatment clause that denied hotels the right to offer better prices through any other booking channel. The European umbrella organization of the catering facilities HOTREC had already criticized this type of clause and similar contract clauses in May 2011 in a position paper.

Piet Rothe, hotel owner and second chairman of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA) Bremerhaven, explained that in his hotels the boycott hat not decreased bookings, merely shifted their volume to other channels such as, for instance, booking.com, who would only ask for twelve percent commission.

Rüdiger Magowsky, manager of the boarding house in Jaich, confirmed the observation that the volume of bookings had not decreased. Martin Seiffert, manager of the hotel Haverkamp, explained HRS had denied his hotel access to the system because he participated in the boycott. The access has been restored but he is considering participation in the next round of the boycott anyway.

On February 15 the higher regional court of Düsseldorf had ordered HRS in a preliminary injunction not to enforce its preferential treatment clause. Already on February 10 the German Federal Cartel Office had admonished the company for violating §§ 1 and 20 of the German Act against Restraints of Competition.

Meanwhile Markus Luthe, the CEO of the German International Hotel Association (IHA), recommended establishing a “Hotelwiki” as a yellow pages directory of the hotel industry.