CATHY STAZIO MCKITTRICK.(CAPITAL REGION)

COLONIE -- Catherine (Cathy) A. Stazio McKittrick, 43, died suddenly October 12, 1998. Born in Albany, she was a lifelong resident. She was employed as a homecare giver for many years. She was a communicant of the Church of St. Francis deSales in West Albany. She was the daughter of Kate Kille Stazio of Melbourne, FL, and the late Michael V. (Muzzy) Stazio. Wife of Joseph F. McKittrick; mother of Christopher Stazio of Melbourne, FL and Joseph McKittrick of Colonie; sister of Michael J. Stazio of Colonie, JoAnne Silverman of Clifton Park, and …

Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare CEO tells employers: Let workers help choose plan.

Byline: Robin Lord

Dec. 11--Double-digit increases in health-insurance premiums will continue unless employers do more to involve workers in the process of choosing a health plan, says the top executive of Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare.

The most common response by business owners to rising health-insurance costs is to shift the increase to employees, Charles Baker, CEO of Harvard Pilgrim told members of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce at a breakfast meeting in Hyannis yesterday.

As a result, in the four years from 2000 to 2004, the average worker's share of a family's insurance went from $1,620 to $2,700 -- a 67 percent increase, he said.

…

Bush returning to the Mideast with tempered hopes for peace agreement before term ends

When President George W. Bush began his first energized pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord just over five months ago, confidence was his constant companion. "I'm optimistic," he said over and over about the prospects for ending one of the world's longest-running disputes within little more than a year.

As the president prepares to leave Tuesday for a Mideast trip, his second in four months, he is trading that unfailingly upbeat tone for something a bit more reserved. He was due to arrive in Israel early Wednesday.

It is a nod to Mideast realities.

Old barriers to peace such as distrust, violence and little movement on the …

Heal Thyself? // Stress, Drug Access Lead Many Doctors To Substance Abuse

While he was in medical school, Al, a 46-year-old familyphysician, felt "a hole inside of me that needed filling." He filledit with alcohol.

By the time he was practicing at a major academic medicalcenter, he was getting drunk nightly to escape from feeling insecureand also from his distress over being a closeted homosexual.

"I drank in isolation. I needed to drink to deal with stress.I needed to drink to get to sleep," he said.

Eventually, he said, the alcohol and the hangovers began to getin the way of his work.

"My problems were painfully obvious to my colleagues. I waslate to work. I called in sick all the time," said Al, who askedthat his …

Business Appraisers; KATZ SAPPER MILLER - HEALTHCARE VALUATION SERVICES.

Experienced business appraisers specializing in the healthcare industry. Common analyses performed include physician practices, medical ancillary businesses, hospitals, outpatient services, etc. Services performed include traditional valuation calculations, fair value reporting, litigation support, fairness opinions, and compensation analyses for the sale goods and services subject to regulatory scrutiny.

Area of …

`Be Cool' runs amok in stream of old scenes.(Life - Scene)

Byline: ROGER EBERT Universal Press Syndicate

John Travolta became a movie star by playing a Brooklyn kid who wins a dance contest in "Saturday Night Fever" (1977). He revived his career by dancing with Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction" (1994). In "Be Cool," Uma Thurman asks if he dances. "I'm from Brooklyn," he says, and then they dance. So we get it: "Brooklyn" connects with "Fever," Thurman connects with "Pulp." That's the easy part. The hard part is, what do we do with it?

"Be Cool" is a movie that knows it is a movie. It knows it is a sequel, and contains disparaging references to sequels. All very cute at the screenplay stage, where everybody can sit …

Evita convenes Kitchen Kabinet to help the underprivileged.(News)

BYLINE: KAREN BREYTENBACH

HIGH society ladies with more than a little influence in the world of business were treated to a grand lunch at the Cape Grace yesterday by the most famous white woman in the country.

Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout, dressed in black out of respect for the recently departed former state president PW Botha, had convened her first Kitchen Kabinet. The tough issues Evita wished to tackle lay at the heart of the Darling community where she has built her famous "peron".

Three years ago Evita, aka Pieter-Dirk …

Wall Street pares losses as markets digest JPMorgan Chase buyout of Bear Stearns

Wall Street fell in temperamental trading Monday as investors grappled with news of JPMorgan Chase & Co. buying the stricken Bear Stearns & Co. in a deal backed by the government. The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 200 points in the early going, fluctuated into positive territory and then sank again by more than 100 points.

A buyout of Bear Stearns was certainly more appealing than the alternative: letting the investment bank collapse and causing huge losses for anyone linked to it. And some unprecedented moves by the Federal Reserve gave the market a bit of solace on what many predicted would be a day of precipitous losses in the stock market.

…

Lollapalooza mixes it up

In its sixth year as a Chicago-based "destination festival," Lollapalooza will be headlined by a mix of best-selling modern rockers, a reunited alternative-era legend and a cutting-edge dance-pop diva when it rolls into Grant Park on Aug. 6-8.

As in years past, and much to the chagrin of Austin, Texas-based promoters C3 Presents, the names of the top six main-stage acts all leaked to the press over the last few months. But the list was made official Monday, when the complete roster of 123 acts was announced.

The headliners are the reunited Seattle grunge merchants Soundgarden, long-running Broadway-bound pop-punks Green Day, avant-garde dance-pop phenom Lady Gaga, Canada's …

New Transit Project Near Los Angeles International Airport.

Staff

Los Angeles, Calif.- Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) has been retained by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) to evaluate alternative alignments, prepare an environmental impact report (EIR), and provide conceptual engineering services for the Crenshaw-Prairie Transit Corridor project.

The study will evaluate the feasibility of implementing a high-capacity transit system within a 10.5-mile corridor from Wilshire Boulevard south to El Segundo Boulevard, near the Los Angeles Airport. The analysis will determine the type of transit improvements needed in …

ANTARCTIC ICE CAP HOLES MAY SHAPE CLIMATE.(Living Today)

Byline: William C. Hidlay Associated Press

Mysterious holes that periodically form in the ice covering Antarctic seas may serve as vents for excess heat and trapped gas, helping to shape the Earth's climate and influencing the "greenhouse effect."

These ice-free regions, some as large as France, weren't discovered until 1974 when scientists began examining new satellite images of Antarctica and the frozen ocean encircling it. Scientists don't know if the holes called polynyas existed before then or even how frequently they develop in the vast ice cover.

Teams of scientists from the Soviet Union, the United States and West Germany have worked since 1981 to figure out how the holes form, what role they play in ocean circulation and how they affect the climate.

Polynya (pronounced "pa-lean-yah"') is a …

Libya: NATO hits gov't missile launchers, boats

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — NATO warplanes on Saturday struck a missile launching position that Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi's forces used to target the civilians in western Libya, the alliance said in a statement.

Government troops used the missile site outside the rebel-held port city of Misrata to fire indiscriminately on civilians in the area, NATO said.

Since the uprising against Gadhafi's 42-year rule broke out in February, armed rebels saying they seek democracy have seized much of the country's east, where they've set up an administration in the city of Benghazi. They also control much of the western Nafusa mountains and Misrata, Libya's third largest city.

The civil …

Ban Urges Reconciliation in Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Lebanon's prime minister and parliament speaker to reconcile and try to elect a new president, warning that failure could lead to two governments and two presidents.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's U.S.-backed government has been locked in a fierce power struggle for months with the pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian opposition, led by the military group Hezbollah and backed by opposition-aligned Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

It is the most serious political crisis since the end of the country's 1975-90 civil war.

Berri has set Sept. 25 for parliament to meet to start voting on a new head of state to replace …

Ex-professor pleads innocent to stalking.

RUSSELLVILLE - A former chemistry professor at Arkansas Tech University pleaded innocent Monday in Pope County Circuit Court to a charge of Internet stalking of a child. …

Review: 'Arthur' gets neutered in Brand's hands

Put an infinite number of studio executives in a room, and sooner or later one will green-light a truly good remake of a classic film.

Sadly, Russell Brand's "Arthur" is not it, although it is at least a benign bit of fluff that should please younger audiences unfamiliar with the 1981 comedy, even if purists who adore the original may hate this version.

"Arthur" is respectful of and faithful to Dudley Moore's original; maybe too much so. The filmmakers tweak things here and there to modernize the story and fit the persona of drunken, debauched, billionaire man-child onto Brand (not surprisingly, it is no stretch for the British comic with the party-boy past).

Yet the …

Preventing CVD in women: updates focus on real-world advice

In 2004, the American Heart Association (AHA) sponsored the Evidence-Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women. These guidelines were updated in 2007, and have been updated again in 2011.1 The updated guidelines focus on what works best in the real-world; considering personal and socioeconomic factors that keep women from adhering to lifestyle and medical recommendations.2

In an accompanying editorial, Dr Lori Mosca, chair of the guidelines writing committee, says, "Many women seen in provider practices are older, sicker, and experience more side effects than patients in research studies. Factors such as poverty, low literacy level, psychiatric illness, poor English skills, and vision and hearing problems can also challenge clinicians trying to improve their patients' cardiovascular health."2 The 2011 guidelines outline key strategies for addressing these obstacles.

While coronary heart disease accounts for a greater proportion of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in men than stroke, the ratio is the opposite for women.1 In the US, 55 000 more women die of stroke each year than men. Since atrial fibrillation is an independent risk factor for stroke, the expert panel voted to include recommendations for the prevention of stroke among women with atrial fibrillation.

Women have a greater prevalence of hypertension at older age than men, and undertreatment with anticoagulants has been shown to double the risk of recurrent stroke.1 Women also have unique risk factors for stroke, such as pregnancy and hormone therapy. Pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced hypertension, along with other illnesses such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, have been incorporated into the guidelines as risk factors for CVD in women.2 Also, some commonly considered therapies for preventing CVD in women are specifically noted in the guidelines as lacking strong clinical evidence and, in fact, being potentially harmful to some women. These include hormone replacement therapy, antioxidants and folic acid.2

A comprehensive review of current literature on the cost effectiveness of interventions has been added, recognising that cost effectiveness may differ by sex. However, the expert panel emphasises that more cost-effective analyses need to be conducted according to gender.1 The guidelines continue to prioritise lifestyle approaches for the prevention of CVD, since these are likely to be the most cost-effective strategies.

[Reference]

1. Executive Writing Committee, Expert Panel Members.Effectiveness-Based Guidelines for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women 2011 Update: a Guideline from the American Heart Association. Internet Document: [21 pages], 16 Feb 2011. Available from: URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/cir.0b013e31820faaf8. .

2. American Heart Association.Updated Heart Disease Prevention Guidelines for Women Focus More on 'Real-World' Recommendations Than Clinical Research. Media Release: 15 Feb 2011. Available from: URL: http://www.prnewswire.com. .

Disney/ABC, ESPN sign YouTube video deal

The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it has agreed to provide short-form videos from its ABC and ESPN television properties to run on Google Inc.'s YouTube under an ad-revenue sharing arrangement.

Disney has yet to announce a deal with YouTube to share full episodes of such programs as "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives," despite the shows being available in full on ABC.com and sites such as Comcast Corp.'s Fancast or Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.

"This deal provides us with the opportunity to reach a broader online audience, to experiment with different monetization models and to extend the reach of our advertisers," said Anne Sweeney, …

Team achieves record 1 trillion bits per second speed on single chip - 12

Washington, March 1 -- A development team at at Infinera Corp. in Sunnyvale, Calif. Has achieved a record one trillion bits per second (1 Terabit/s) speed on a single integrated indium phosphide chip.

'Traditional transponder-based system architectures are inflexible and costly and time-consuming to upgrade,' said Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagarajan, research fellow at Infinera and a senior member of Infinera's PIC development team.

'Our PIC approach enables us to make optical networks more powerful, flexible and reliable than ever before using equipment that is significantly smaller, less expensive and uses much less energy.'

Their latest PIC is at the heart of a new 10-channel receiver, each channel operating at 100 Gbit/s data rates ' the first in the industry to achieve a capacity of 1 Terabit/s on a single photonic integrated chip.

It contains more than 150 optical components'such as frequency tunable local oscillator (LO) lasers, devices for mixing the LO and incoming signals, variable optical attenuators for LO power control, a spectral demultiplexer to separate the individual wavelength channels, and 40 balanced photodetector (receiver/transmitter) pairs'all integrated onto a chip.

The key technical advance operating behind 100-Gbit/s-per-channel technology is the ability to detect incoming data encoded using the optical industry's most spectrally efficient modulation technique, called polarization multiplexed Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying, or PM-QPSK.

PM is similar to the wireless communications technique of alternating the polarization of adjacent channels. QPSK modifies the light's phase to represent the data. Together, PM-QPSK permits four times more information to be conveyed each second than was possible with the previous method, which simply switched the laser light on and off.

'But just as important as a transmitter's clever and efficient encoding method is a fast and reliable way for the receiver to convert the information back to its original form,' said Nagarajan.

'For PM-QPSK, we designed and integrated narrow-linewidth lasers that detect the phase encoded data very efficiently.'

Infinera expects PICs with a capability of a terabit or more to be commercially available within a few years.

PICs enable massive amounts of cost-effective bandwidth and facilitate the networks at the heart of the Internet to become more scalable and quicker to react to sudden changes in demand.

'In many ways, PIC-based optical networks are starting to take on the intelligent features of routed (IP) networks, like the ability to reroute traffic in the event of a break in the fiber'but at a fraction of the cost and power consumption,' Nagarajan added.

Nagarajan's presentation at OFC/NFOEC will take place Monday, March 7 at 3:15 p.m. in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian News International.

For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com

Minn. Sen. Klobuchar Endorses Obama

Barack Obama picked up the endorsement of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar Sunday night, giving him another superdelegate supporter.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Klobuchar said Obama "has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time."

Klobuchar, a freshman Democrat, said Obama speaks "with a different voice, bringing a new perspective and inspiring a real excitement from the American people." She compared him to the late Hubert Humphrey, who served as a senator from Minnesota and as vice president.

Obama carried Minnesota by a large margin over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton last month.

"My endorsement reflects both Barack's strong support in my state and my own independent judgment about his abilities," Klobuchar said.

She cited their work together on issues such as ethics reform and toy safety.

"Barack has been a proven agent for change and advocate for middle-class Americans," Klobuchar said.

In a statement, Obama said he's grateful for Klobuchar's support. According to the Obama campaign, Klobuchar is the 64th superdelegate to endorse him since the Feb. 5th Super Tuesday contests.

Last week, Obama picked up the support of Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., giving the candidate a boost heading into the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

USPTO ISSUES TRADEMARK: VANGUARD

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 21 -- The trademark VANGUARD (Reg. No. 3847021; International Reg. No 1013191) was issued on Sept. 14 by the USPTO.

Owner: The Vanguard Group, Inc. CORPORATION PENNSYLVANIA V26 100 Vanguard Blvd Malvern PENNSYLVANIA 19355.

The trademark application serial number 77712848 was filed on April 13, 2009 and was registered on Sept. 14.

The description of the mark registered is "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark. The mark consists of Ship with 3 masts and the word "Vanguard" placed to the right of the ship."

Goods and Services: Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of newsletters, reports, guides, charts, worksheets, forms, instructional materials, educational materials, presentations, bulletins, pamphlets, and booklets in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management; computer software for use in electronic trading of securities and portfolio management in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management; computer software for use by financial services providers to prepare documents relating to the dissemination of information; computer software for use by financial services providers to conduct surveys and to assemble and manage information relating to retirement plans; computer software for managing the distribution of information about retirement plans to employees; computer software for producing printed informational materials and records in the field of retirement plans; computer software for use by businesses to manage employee compensation planning; computer software for managing investment portfolios; computer software for maintaining, managing and reporting financial information; computer software for use by financial services providers to obtain investment transaction and account information; computer software for initiating, processing and tracking financial transactions; computer software for use by investment fund administrators to enter securities trading orders, to receive confirmation of such orders, and to obtain price information, balance information and other data about funds and accounts; computer software for use in obtaining access to, and enhancing the user's experience of, an internet web site which provides news, information, transaction capability and online financial services. computer software for use by retirement plan sponsors to transmit and receive account information and other information by means of an online connection; computer software for use by financial investment advisors in portfolio allocation, sector analysis, portfolio modeling and portfolio rebalancing. FIRST USE: 20050104. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050104

Publications and printed matter, namely, newsletters, reports, books, guides, charts, worksheets, forms, instructional materials, educational materials, presentations, bulletins, pamphlets, booklets, posters, and leaflets in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management; computer software user's manuals for computer software used in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management. FIRST USE: 20050104. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050104

Providing an interactive website that provides commercial financial transaction data, transaction capability, account management, financial reporting, accounting features and related reference information; providing reports of payroll related tax information to governmental agencies and to employers; accounting and bookkeeping services; providing business information to financial services providers by means of an internet web site in the field of business marketing; business consulting services in the field of employee compensation; consulting services in the field of marketing financial services provided to financial services providers that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc.'s financial products and services; market research services rendered to financial services providers that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc.'s financial products and services; marketing services rendered to members of the financial services industry, namely, creating and designing promotional materials for use by financial services providers and assisting financial services providers that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc.'s financial products and services to develop their own marketing plans and to implement their own direct mail campaigns, advertising campaigns and public relations campaigns; business marketing and direct mail consulting services in the financial field provided to financial services providers that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc.'s financial products and services; providing facilities for business meetings; promoting public awareness of the need for investment planning; business outsourcing services; business outsourcing and back-office support services, namely, bookkeeping and administration of operational support services for investment advisors; financial records management; database management of data records containing customer and business information; data processing services. business management services, namely, client account information management services. marketing consultation services provided to financial services providers that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc's financial products and services; development of marketing strategies and concepts for use by investment advisors that sell The Vanguard Group, Inc.'s financial products and services in brochures, advertisements, web sites and presentations; tax consultation services. FIRST USE: 20050104. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050104

Full line of financial and investment services; house mark for providing a full range of services in the investment and financial fields, namely, mutual fund investment services, exchange-traded funds investment services, investment and insurance brokerage, investment management, asset management, investment advice and advisory services, securities lending, financial, investment, tax and actuarial consultation, financial and investment research, banking, administration of college savings plans, charitable fund raising, donor-advised investment of funds for charitable purposes, administration of charitable giving programs offering a variety of financial investment options, retirement planning, and annuities investment; providing information in the financial and investment fields; providing information in the financial and investment fields through electronic means; providing an interactive website and online computer database in the fields of investing, finance, saving, financial planning, financial news, financial information, analysis in the fields of investing, finance, and financial planning, financial portfolio management, financial decision making, investment research, monitoring investment value and performance of investments, analyzing investment performance, evaluating asset allocation, risk tolerance, financial alternative plans and investment time frames; administration of employee benefit plans, defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans and employee pension plans; financial planning and investment advisory services; financial, tax, insurance and actuarial consulting services; debit card services; check processing, checkwriting and bill payment services; assisting others with the completion of financial transactions for mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, stocks, bonds, securities and equities; cash management services; electronic funds transfer and payment services. providing information by phone and by online means in the fields of investment account information and financial research; research in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management; donor advised investment of funds for charitable purposes; charitable fund raising services; automated securities trade execution services; financial administration and investment management services rendered to non-profit organizations; financial services rendered primarily to states, municipalities and tax exempt organizations, namely, providing financial news and information and investment account information by means of the internet; life insurance and annuity services; risk management services; estate planning, trust and administration services. FIRST USE: 20050104. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050104

Educational services, namely, workshops, classes, seminars and conferences in the fields of investing, finance, saving, business, financial planning, portfolio management, retirement planning, money management, investment strategy, and asset allocation and the distribution of course materials in connection therewith; providing webcasts in the fields of investing, finance, saving, business, financial planning, portfolio management, retirement planning, money management, investment strategy, and asset allocation; providing podcasts in the fields of investing, finance, saving, business, financial planning, portfolio management, retirement planning, money management, investment strategy, and asset allocation; providing online publications in the nature of newsletters, reports, guides, charts, worksheets, forms, instructional materials, educational materials, presentations, bulletins, pamphlets, and booklets in the fields of finance, saving, investing, investments, investment brokerage, and asset management; providing online seminars and workshops in the fields of investing, finance, saving, business, financial planning, portfolio management, retirement planning, money management, investment strategy, and asset allocation; providing information in the field of financial education to financial services providers by means of an internet web site; development and dissemination of educational materials for others in the field of financial services and investing; entertainment and educational services in the nature of periodic television programs concerning financial topics. FIRST USE: 20050104. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20050104

For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com