Eideard

A 30-year-old woman who pleaded no contest with her boyfriend to burglarizing the home of a Sonoma Valley family killed in a car crash was sentenced…to a year in the county jail.

Amber True of Redwood City also received five years’ probation for the Nov. 30 break-in at the home of John and Susan Maloney, who died along with their children, Aiden, 8, and Grace, 5, when they were struck by a teen motorist on Highway 37 three days earlier.

Judge Arthur Wick rejected a plea from prosecutors for a six-year state prison term, saying there was no evidence True and boyfriend Michael Gutierrez, 27, knew why the house was empty before they crept in through a doggy door…

Earlier this month, Wicked handed down an eight-year prison sentence for Guitierrez, a longtime drug user with a criminal record that dates back more than half his lifetime. Gutierrez was charged with committing the burglary while on probation for another felony…

Prosecutor Mike Li argued her recent sobriety should not be a factor in determining a sentence for the crime, which he said caused a great hardship for surviving family members.

Also, he questioned how True and Gutierrez could not have seen memorial bouquets and cards scattered around the house. Li said “it was highly improbable that they did not know something was amiss.”

Throw away the key.

Photo by M. Scott Brauer

One constant challenge China faces as its economy continues to explode is finding talent — people with the managerial, technical and creative savvy who can adapt to the country’s distinct culture and working environment.

They find them at home, but they are not sufficient to meet the growing demand. They also find them among Chinese returning from overseas.

China currently sends more students abroad than any country in the world. Between 1972 and 2009, about 1.39 million Chinese went for further studies, according to official data.

In recent years, more than 400,000 of them returned home, lured by prospects of lucrative jobs and a familiar culture, says David Zweig, a professor of political science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who is writing a book on this phenomenon. They are known colloquially as “haigui,” or “sea turtles,” because it sounds the same as the phrase “returned from overseas…”

When Deng Xiaoping initiated his reform and open-door strategy three decades ago, he pushed an overseas-study program. The late leader, who studied briefly in France, believed that scholars and students sent abroad would bring back advanced ideas and expertise needed to modernize China…

For years, critics of the program feared it was creating a “brain drain,” but now the trend has reversed…

RTFA. Anecdotal tales to support Jaime FlorCruz’ analysis.

All of it interesting. All of it worth learning from.

Patients were misdiagnosed with pneumonia at an alarming rate when they were readmitted to the hospital shortly after a previous hospitalization for the same illness, according to two Henry Ford Hospital companion studies.

Researchers say the misdiagnoses led to overuse of antibiotics and increased health care costs. Pneumonia ranks second to congestive heart failure as the reason for readmission within 30 days of a previous hospitalization.

Led by Henry Ford Infectious Diseases physicians Hiren Pokharna, M.D., and Norman Markowitz, M.D., researchers found that:
72 percent of patients were misdiagnosed with pneumonia upon readmission to the same hospital.

African-Americans were twice more likely than Caucasians to be misdiagnosed with pneumonia…

72 percent of the misdiagnoses occurred in the Emergency Department.

Fewer than 33 percent of patients had any outpatient follow-up care prior to their readmission.

“This also points to the importance of using X-ray for ruling out pneumonia. And once pneumonia is ruled out, the antibiotics can be discontinued…”

Health care associated pneumonia is a newly recognized form of pneumonia in patients who had recent close contact with a health care system, either through a hospital, outpatient dialysis center, nursing home or long-term care facility. The classification was added with the shift from hospital-based care to home-based care.

Cripes. So, adding another human aspect to medicine seems to increase the likelihood of misdiagnosis. Or is it just reliance on ER treatment for people without healthcare insurance?

Not inspiring a lot of confidence here, folks.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Halliburton and BP knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job…

In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.

The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners…

Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well on April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, yet those findings were never sent to BP, Mr. Bartlit found.

Although Mr. Bartlit does not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he makes clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident…

The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. The blowout preventer, which sits on the ocean floor atop the well and is supposed to contain a well bore blowout, also failed…

The commission obtained from Halliburton samples of the same cement recipe used on the failed well, including the same proportion of nitrogen used as a leavening agent and a number of chemicals used to stabilize the mixture. The cement slurry was sent to a laboratory owned by Chevron for independent testing.

The mixture failed nine separate stability tests designed to reproduce conditions at the BP well and did not pass any, according to Chevron’s test results, which were returned to the commission this week.

Enough said. Now, we can look forward to years of politicians, pundits, pimps and lawyers delaying resolution of the disaster. Survivors be damned will be the rule of the day.

Across Eastern Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and the Gobi Desert — it certainly was a long way to go without getting lost.

Two driverless electric vans successfully ended an 8,000-mile (13,000-kilometer) test drive from Italy to China — a modern-day version of Marco Polo’s journey around the world — with their arrival at the Shanghai Expo on Thursday.

The vehicles, equipped with four solar-powered laser scanners and seven video cameras that work together to detect and avoid obstacles, are part of an experiment aimed at improving road safety and advancing automotive technology.

The sensors on the vehicles enabled them to navigate through wide extremes in road, traffic and weather conditions, while collecting data to be analyzed for further research, in a study sponsored by the European Research Council.

“We didn’t know the route, I mean what the roads would have been and if we would have found nice roads, traffic, lots of traffic, medium traffic, crazy drivers or regular drivers, so we encountered the lot,” said Isabella Fredriga, a research engineer for the project.

Though the vans were driverless and mapless, they did carry researchers as passengers just in case of emergencies. The experimenters did have to intervene a few times — when the vehicles got snarled in a Moscow traffic jam and to handle toll stations.

Modern-day adventures in travel. Must have been a fun trip for the participating engineers.

I couldn’t find a photo of the incident; but, one of the best was a Moscow policeman who tried to give a “driver” a ticket – and found no one in the front seat.

Tianhe-1A powered by Nvidia GPUs

A Chinese scientific research center has built the fastest supercomputer ever made, replacing the United States as maker of the swiftest machine, and giving China bragging rights as a technology superpower.

The computer, known as Tianhe-1A, has 1.4 times the horsepower of the current top computer, which is at a national laboratory in Tennessee, as measured by the standard test used to gauge how well the systems handle mathematical calculations, said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who maintains the official supercomputer rankings.

Although the official list of the top 500 fastest machines, which comes out every six months, is not due to be completed by Mr. Dongarra until next week, he said the Chinese computer “blows away the existing No. 1 machine.” He added, “We don’t close the books until Nov. 1, but I would say it is unlikely we will see a system that is faster…”

The race to build the fastest supercomputer has become a source of national pride as these machines are valued for their ability to solve problems critical to national interests in areas like defense, energy, finance and science. Supercomputing technology also finds its way into mainstream business; oil and gas companies use it to find reservoirs and Wall Street traders use it for superquick automated trades. Procter & Gamble even uses supercomputers to make sure that Pringles go into cans without breaking.

And typically, research centers with large supercomputers are magnets for top scientific talent, adding significance to the presence of the machines well beyond just cranking through calculations.

Over the last decade, the Chinese have steadily inched up in the rankings of supercomputers. Tianhe-1A stands as the culmination of billions of dollars in investment and scientific development, as China has gone from a computing afterthought to a world technology superpower.

RTFA. It contains all the predictable whines, forecasts and excuses.

In truth, there would be little notice of this bit of technological advance if the nation in question was Western and white.

Cheryl Eckard, center – N.Y.TIMES photo by Gunther

A former quality control manager at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has received £61million, believed to be the largest ever reward for a whistleblower, after exposing a series of contamination problems at a drugs factory in Puerto Rico, and a subsequent cover-up by company bosses.

Cheryl Eckard, 51, will pocket the $96m share of a $750m criminal and civil settlement between US regulators and the British pharmaceuticals group. The case showed that the company repeatedly ignored serious failings, including allegations that staff were “skimming” drugs to sell them on the Latin American black market and that its factory had mixed drug types and doses in the same bottle.

Eckard first warned of the numerous violations after being sent by GSK to investigate problems in the group’s huge factory in Cidra, Puerto Rico, in July 2002, following a warning letter to the company from US health officials.

Over the next 10 months, she repeatedly alerted a string of GSK executives to a catalogue of breaches, only to be blocked and eventually sacked in 2003. In July of that year, Eckard phoned JP Garnier, the then chief executive, who declined to take the call to speak to her about the findings and the cover-up. Eckard, who is from North Carolina and is married with children, now works as a freelance consultant for the pharmaceutical industry…

Court documents show how Eckard was gradually sidelined, despite increasing complaints to a growing number of senior bosses.

I’m hard-pressed to comprehend companies that display this kind of pigheadedness. I’ve been peripherally involved with a few similar cases in major American firms – one of which resulted in an arrest – and time and again the fault lies with management that [a] refuses to believe that one of their peers could possibly be stupid, criminal or incompetent; and [b] they can’t believe that an ordinary mortal down in the bowels of the firm has turned up this foolishness – even with evidence staring them in the face.

I’m pleased as Punch to see a whistleblower rewarded. Especially after being harassed and fired for her efforts.

Truly one of New York’s finest
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A New York police officer getting her hair done over the weekend thwarted a would-be robber in a beauty salon, shooting the weapon from the gunman’s hands, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in awarding the officer a promotion.

Kelly praised the actions of newly promoted Det. Feris Jones Tuesday, saying she “showed the steely courage and professionalism that epitomizes the finest traditions of the New York City Police Department.”

“Well done and congratulations,” the commissioner said as he pinned a gold detective shield to Jones’ uniform…

Kelly said Jones was a customer in a salon Saturday when a man walked in with a gun. “‘This is no joke, this is a robbery. I will kill you,”‘ Kelly quoted the gunman as saying.

After the man ordered the customers and employees into the bathroom, Jones reemerged with her weapon drawn, identified herself as a police officer, and told the man not to move, Kelly said.

The suspect fired four shots at Jones, narrowly missing her head with one, the commissioner recounted. She fired five shots back — emptying her service revolver and marking the first time she’d ever fired her weapon in the line of duty — and hit both of the man’s hands, causing him to drop his 44-caliber gun.

Her shots also knocked the handle off the door of the salon, briefly trapping the man as he tried to escape, Kelly said. He eventually broke the window in the door and fled on foot…

The accused gunman was arrested Monday, police said. Winston Cox, 19, is charged with attempted murder, attempted aggravated robbery, and criminal possession of a weapon.

Rock on, Jonesy!

Apple has launched its online Apple Store for China alongside a Simplified Chinese-language version of the App Store, as part of its efforts to strengthen its brand in the Chinese market…Despite having four successful retail stores in China, the Chinese Apple website, apple.com.cn, had lacked a digital storefront…

With free shipping, personalized engraving, and a gift wrapping option, the China online Apple store is ready for the holiday season. The store will also “let eligible students and faculty members take advantage of special education pricing on Apple products…”

Customers can now directly purchase the iPhone online, instead of having to first reserve the device and schedule a pick-up time. In recent weeks, Apple retail stores have struggled to keep the iPhone 4 in stock, with scalpers quickly snatching them up and then selling the smartphones right outside the store.

The China App Store will now offer “localized featured apps and charts of the most popular paid and free apps in China,” in addition to the over 300,000 apps that are available.

Working things out for a different language + a different system of constructing words ain’t ever easy. Chinese students learning English will appreciate the dedication and effort that went into the reverse process.

UPDATE: They sold out of available iPhone 4′s the first day!

Har!