Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new treatment for a type of leukemia (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) that uses a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer cells. Scientists extracted the blood from three male patients, all of whom suffered from advanced leukemia. They inserted a gene into the patients’ T-cells (the cells normally responsible for ridding the body of foreign pathogens such as viruses), and the gene reprograms the cells to actively seek out and kill cancer cells within the blood. They then returned the modified blood to the patients.

The patients initially reported symptoms similar to those of a bad case of the flu, but the researchers pointed out that this was likely due to the body’s response to rapid cancer cell death all at once. However, once the symptoms subsided, the scientists found that two of the three patients had no signs of leukemia and the third, while still sick, showed significant improvement. Additionally, they discovered that the modified T-cells not only killed existing cancer cells, but brand new ones as well.

Though optimistic, experts say that more research needs to be done to determine if this will be a viable treatment on a large scale and warn that this therapy would not be available as an approved treatment for several more years.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

In the past few days in Italy, several municipalities have started asking religious schools to pay taxes for property and local services, despite the resistance of the Catholic Church.

The request of the municipalities results from the sentence of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation on July 8, recognising as legitimate the request of the Municipality of Livorno asking religious schools to pay property taxes.

Requests have come from the Municipality of Bogliasco, next to Genova, and from the deputies of Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) of the regional counsel of Lombardy. The first case is of the mayor Luca Pastorino that in last years received several refusals of his requests for payment because of the religious nursery school and retirement home. In the second case, the M5S party asks to the regional government to assure the local administrations of the region regularly apply the sentence of the Supreme Court.

The case on which the Court has ruled was of the religious schools Santo Spirito and Immacolata in Livorno, Tuscany, to pay over 422,000 euros in arrears for the period from 2004 to 2009. The request was advanced by the Municipality of Livorno in 2010.

The city reasoned, “because the users of the private schools pay a frequency fee, this kind of activity is considered as a commercial one” ^{((it))Italian language: ?poiché gli utenti della scuola paritaria pagano un corrispettivo per la frequenza, tale attività è di carattere commerciale}.

In 2014 the Italian municipal tax discipline has changed from the ICI system to the IMU system by the Monti government. A mean cost per student criterion is used to tax only the schools that receive a fee higher than the mean cost per student fixed by the State. The new law is not retroactive, so the taxes requested in arrears from 2006 to 2009 are under the ICI system.

Minister of Education Stefania Giannini said a “more general reflection” ^{((it))Italian language: ?riflessione più generale} is needed. Claudio De Vincenti, undersecretary to the prime minister, said “a discussion table will be opened with the non-profit associations, religious association included” ^{((it))Italian language: ?apriremo quindi un tavolo di confronto con le organizzazioni non profit, comprese quelle religiose}.

Undersecretary for Education Mr. Toccafondi says “many schools will increase their fees or they will quit. Then the State will have to find new resources to build new structures and manage them” ^{((it))Italian language: ?Molti istituti aumenteranno le rette o chiuderanno. Così lo Stato dovrà trovare nuove risorse per costruire nuove strutture e gestirle}.

Also the president of the Lombardy region, Roberto Maroni, has reacted by proposing some regional counter-measures to finance private schools.

The secretary general of CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference), Nunzio Galantino, has called the sentence “dangerous” ^{((it))Italian language: ?pericolosa} and “ideological” ^{((it))Italian language: ?”ideologica}: “We face a dangerous sentence. Who takes the decisions, do it with less ideology. Because I have the clear sensation that with this way of thinking, they wait the praise of some ideologized supporters. Indeed, they don’t understand what kind of good service private schools held” ^{((it))Italian language: ?Siamo davanti a una sentenza pericolosa. Chi prende decisioni, lo faccia con meno ideologia. Perché ho la netta sensazione che con questo modo di pensare, si aspetti l’applauso di qualche parte ideologizzata. Il fatto è che non ci si sta rendendo conto del servizio che svolgono le scuole pubbliche paritarie}.

Italian secularist associations are concerned the Government will modify the law in order to maintain an exception for religious schools. The secularist magazine MicroMega describe the court’s judgement as historic.

The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR) has launched a petition which now has more than 11,000 signatures, asking the government to respect and execute the sentence of the Supreme Court. It is also encouraging citizens to ask for application of the law in their local municipalities.

Friday, December 18, 2020

Last week, on December 8, US-based software company Red Hat announced plans to shift their focus away from CentOS in favour of CentOS stream.

Started in 2004, CentOS has been a free-of-cost free/libre open source software which provided binary-code compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) — Red Hat’s GNU General Public Licensed paid operating system. Gregory Kurtzer told Wikinews he started CAOS Linux around the time when Red Hat announced End of Life for their Red Hat Linux in favour of subscription-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CAOS was succeeded by CentOS when Rocky McGaugh, a developer of CAOS rebuilt the source code of RHEL to provide a monetarily free alternative. CentOS was absorbed into Red Hat in 2014, with Red Hat gaining the trademark rights of “CentOS”.

Red Hat also sponsors the development of the Fedora operating system. Until now, software development took place on Fedora, which was later adopted in RHEL, which the Red Hat maintained and provided support for, for those customers who had RHEL subscription. CentOS would then follow RHEL’s release cycle to provide the same features free of cost, but without the support.

Stream was announced in September 2019, just two months after Red Hat was acquired by IBM. CentOS Stream’s development cycle had new features added to it before the features became a part of RHEL. Stream receives more frequent updates, however, it does not follow RHEL’s release cycle.

With CentOS Stream, developments from the community and the Red Hat employees would take place beforehand on both Fedora, and Stream as a rolling release, before those features are absorbed into RHEL. CentOS followed the release cycle of RHEL and therefore it was a stable distribution. Features available in CentOS were tried and tested by Fedora, and then RHEL maintainers.

Red Hat’s Chief Technical Officer Chris Wright wrote in the announcement “CentOS Stream isn’t a replacement for CentOS Linux; rather, it’s a natural, inevitable next step intended to fulfill the project’s goal of furthering enterprise Linux innovation.” Since the announcement was made, many people expressed their anger on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Reddit and CentOS project’s mailing list. CentOS 8’s End of Life (EOL) has been moved up from May 2029 to December 31, 2021, while CentOS 7 is expected to receive maintenance updates through June 2024, outliving CentOS 8.

Soon after Red Hat’s announcement, Kurtzer announced his intentions to develop Rocky Linux, to fill the role CentOS had been playing for so long. Kurtzer said Rocky Linux was named after Rocky McGaugh. “Thinking back to early CentOS days… My cofounder was Rocky McGaugh. He is no longer with us, so as a H/T [hat tip] to him, who never got to see the success that CentOS came to be, I introduce to you…Rocky Linux”, Kurtzer wrote. Wikinews discussed with Kurtzer the beginning of CentOS, and future of Rocky Linux.

While no formal date of release has been announced for Rocky Linux, Kurtzer said they are planning to release the CentOS replacement before the end of life of CentOS 8. Kurtzer also said Rocky Linux will run on both x86-64 and ARM-based processors, and CentOS users would be able to convert their OS to Rocky Linux just by running a single command.

Saying Rocky Linux is for the community, Kurtzer said he “take[s] the responsibility of ensuring that all decisions are in favor of the community and the project and free from corporate control” including his own company. Talking about the attention from the userbase Rocky Linux has received, Kurtzer said, “I have never seen an open community come together this fast and be this passionate about working together towards a common goal.”

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Robert Gibbs, the former press secretary for the U.S. White House, has been said to be in talks with Facebook about possible future employment as a manager for the communications aspect of the company.

According to an anonymous source close to the company, Gibbs is being pressed to quickly accept the job, in which Mr. Gibbs may receive millions of dollars in both salary and initial stock options for a planned public offering of Facebook Inc. in 2012.

Both Facebook and Gibbs have declined to comment.

Mr. Gibbs, who has worked for the Obama administration for two years, left in February 2011, and was reportedly “relaxing” and had denied rumors that he was planning to campaign for chairman of the Democratic National Committee if Tim Kaine were to leave the committee to run for a position in the senate.

In recent months, Facebook has stepped up lobbying the US capital to communicate its public image to policy makers, and may use Gibbs for their public relations stratagem in the future.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Brett McKenzie is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the London North Centre riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Wayne Allyn Root, one of the candidates for the Libertarian Party nomination for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Root is the founder and chairman of Winning Edge International Inc., a sports handicapping company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition, he is an author and a television producer, as well as an on-screen personality both as host and guest on several talk shows.

Root, a long-time Republican, declared his candidacy for the Libertarian Party on May 4, 2007.

He says he is concerned about the qualities of many who run for president, and fears that they do not know the needs of American citizens. He also says that they cater to big businesses instead of small ones.

He has goals of limiting the federal government and believes that the US went into Iraq for wrong reasons. A strong supporter of the War on Terror, he feels that it was mishandled. He has conservative values and came from a blue collar family in New York. He graduated from Columbia University with fellow presidential hopeful Barack Obama in 1983.

Root believes that America is in trouble and hopes to change that if elected.