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How Cuba's ace pitcher escaped political oppression to become part of a great American success story.
If all went well, their slow route to a better world would be complete in about six hours, and the ace who had once pitched for the Cuban national team and been banned for life on charges of aiding his half-brother's defection to the United States would be free to start a new baseball career.
But so much could go wrong. They had only a gallon of water, some brown sugar, three cans of Spam and gas. The weather was warm, the sea calm and the wind with them, so the journey wasn't high on adventure. But it was high on anxiety. What if the Cuban Coast Guard interrupted their clandestine journey? What if their poorly built vessel began taking on water? What if the seas got rough or the wind turned on them? In some ways their journey replicated the experience of countless immigrants to America. The America Hernandez sought was a freer, more abundant place. But he was leaving behind two daughters from a previous marriage, Yahumara, 9, and Steffi, 3, and his mother, Maria Julia Pedrosa.
Hernandez, 29, is sitting in the coffee shop of an East Side Manhattan hotel, telling the story of his defection and all that has happened since. Joe Cubas, 38, his agent and friend who played a crucial part in getting Hernandez safely to the United States, is translating for him. Hernandez sports a hair style now in vogue among athletes--which is to say, no hair at all. He describes his journey with enthusiasm. He works to use the right words in Spanish. He smiles easily, his face lighting up like a new bulb. Expressions of piety, such as "God had a hand in this" or "With God's help..." repeatedly find their way into his speech. After one hears his tale, the reasons for his devotion are evident.
The trip was only about 35 miles but took 12 hours. "This was the work of God, because on top of everything the water was very calm and the winds were in our favor. So I expected the good Lord's hand was there. We were all thinking about what we had left behind, our families, and about everything that awaits you on the frontier."
When the boat began taking on water, the crew landed on Anguilla Cay, an uninhabited island in the Bahamas. There they waited to be picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. Hernandez had told acquaintances in Cuba to get the word out to America 10 hours after he was gone.
Day one came and went, and on day two it rained. Still no sign of a rescue. Food was scarce and water even more so. Several of his companions ate seaweed. Hernandez ate shellfish found in the shallow waters. The wait afforded him ample time to think. So many things ran through his mind. He knew little about the world he was going to and too much about the one he left.
His life after his banishment from baseball in 1996 had become a living hell. Still needing to provide for his family, he had found work three days after his suspension in a psychiatric facility for $8.75 a month.
People in the street had taunted him: "You were 'El Duque,' now you're nothing." The government had called him a "traitor to the revolution." He had been picked up, arrested and taken to state security interrogation at least three times. He had once told Joe Cubas that while he was on the Cuban national team, he would never defect. But he had lost the upper hand in this game and the Castro government was winning by a wide margin.
His childhood had been far better. "My father [Arnaldo] had many different wives," El Duque says with a laugh, his face lighting up broadly, realizing the question of how many brothers and sisters he has is a difficult one. His father, a prominent pitcher on the Cuban national team in the 1960s, who remains popular in Cuba today, divorced his mother when Orlando was very young. "When he lived with me, I was [influenced by his pitching style]," Hernandez recalls. His mother worked in a psychiatric hospital as an occupational therapist for many years. "I was a very happy person because my family worked very hard," he says. "I didn't have the best material things in the world, but in my heart my life was the best in the world."
Across the changing landscape of his childhood, baseball was a constant. "My father was a guide for me in baseball," he says. "I slept with my bat and ball and glove." His father called all of his brothers "duques" (or dukes). The oldest children were "big duques" and the youngest "little duques." "I started playing at about seven years old. I would not cry for food when I was young, but I did cry for baseball. When I was a kid I played many positions; I played shortstop and I had good hands. I never caught. I played mini-baseball at seven years old."
The crowning glory of the right-handed pitcher's young career was making the Cuban national team, in 1988, at the age of 18. While being selected for the team is the apex of baseball achievement in Cuba, even that doesn't pay a living wage. Cuban team players now make about 280 pesos a month, about 12 dollars. "Everyone is on the black market there or they can't survive," says Joe Cubas. "You don't see red meat. If a pound of rice is going for 50 pesos, that's a quarter of your monthly salary right there. So everyone is on the black market: one will make napkins, one will make forks, the other makes this, the other makes that. It's a barter system."
In addition to playing for the national team, Hernandez pitched for the Industriales, one of Cuba's strongest teams and a perennial champion of the country. The Havana-based club is one of 16 teams, each representing a different town in Cuba, that compete in a national series (similar to the major leagues' regular season in America). The teams, which are divided between the Orientales and the Occidentales zones, comprise of the best players in each province. A series of playoffs winnows the talent from Occidentales and Orientales down to two teams that play a seven-game series akin to the World Series. The winner of the seven-game series is Cuba's champion.
Hernandez's first chance to display his talents in front of the world came in 1992, when Cuba won the gold medal in the Olympics. "I was bombed in the fourth game against the United States," Hernandez remembers. "We won, but I didn't pitch well. Then I beat China, 6-1." The glory was short-lived.
Three years later when his half-brother, Livan Hernandez, defected, Orlando was suspected of helping him and was considered a risk to do the same. "When Livan said he was leaving, all I did was wish him well. They tried to implicate me entirely in Livan leaving. But I wasn't the one who picked him up in the boat."
His voice turns scornful in describing what happened next. "It hurt very much not to pitch in the 1996 Olympics [in Atlanta, where Cuba won its second consecutive gold medal], because the government circulated many, many lies. They said that I was hurt.
"But there was a contradiction, because the [Cuban] press at the time, prior to the Olympics, began listing the skills and the results of the players by position. The Cubans were saying that I didn't have the skills, but the first pitcher on that list was Orlando 'El Duque' Hernandez. It was a contradiction, a true lie."
Anyone who maintains that El Duque couldn't pitch, at that or any other time, is flying in the face of the facts. He amassed a lifetime record of 127 wins and 49 losses (.722), the best ever in the history of the Cuban national league. At Havana's Central Park, where fans gather to argue about Cuban and American baseball, one of the regulars, Diosvel Rojas, was quoted as saying, "I know it is hard for Americans to believe, but as good as Livan [who won the World Series Most Valuable Player award for leading the Florida Marlins to the 1997 title] is, Duque is even better, and everyone in Cuba will tell you that."
So his career had been derailed in Cuba. And not all was going as planned as he made his escape, either. "When we first got to Anguilla Cay, we walked around and found pots and pans," Hernandez recounts. "We also took a little bit of gas, with which we were able to light a fire and cook. On that island, there have been millions that have come through--from Cuba, from Haiti, from a lot of countries--and they've left things behind. You see rafts, you see boats, you see sails, engines of boats. We were isolated there for three days, and on the fourth day [December 29] we were rescued. Less than one can of Spam was left, water was very short and we were already thinking of desalting the seawater to make fresh water. I felt very strong, but if I had to wait any longer I would have had to search deeper into the island for food."
A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter finally spotted their party. Several hours later the refugees were on a cutter heading toward Freeport in the Bahamas.
They were not out of danger yet. Earlier in 1997, before El Duque arrived there, the Bahamas had signed a treaty with the Cuban government that allows it to deport Cubans who arrive there. It was that treaty that prompted Cubas into action. "I immediately flew into the Bahamas and put pressure on the Bahamian government not to have these guys deported. We were bombarded by the media with calls about El Duque being there and people thinking I was involved in his escape from Cuba, which I was not." By January 6, after days of meetings with U.S. immigration officials, countless phone calls to members of Congress and officials of the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican governments--and after receiving a stern 24-hour notice from the Bahamas that unless he got the refugees out, they'd be deported to Cuba--Cubas was able to secure humanitarian visas and get them out just ahead of the deadline.
Once in Costa Rica, Cubas first got everyone's immigration documentation squared away. If Hernandez were a Costa Rican resident, he could enter baseball as a free agent and would stand to make more money than he would if he were a U.S. resident and subject to the amateur draft.
Cubas now had to prepare Hernandez, physically and mentally, to pitch. He hadn't thrown off a mound for two years. The first task was to get the leg and arm strength back, to throw hard and to see if the breaking stuff was still there.
In February, Cubas invited 62 scouts and representatives from all of the major league teams to take a look at the pitcher. El Duque pitched impressively in his audition, throwing two innings in an exhibition game and three in another.
Several teams opened the bidding in the neighborhood of $1 million a year. But Cubas reports that only two made a strong bid. "Seattle wasn't in the picture and Anaheim was only minimally involved in the picture. The decision came down to the Indians and the Yankees."
While negotiations went on, Hernandez badgered Cubas to close a deal with New York. Since his childhood, El Duque had heard primarily about two major league teams: the Dodgers and the Yankees. "We heard about Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford and all those players who had gone through the Yankees," says Hernandez. "I didn't want to lose out on that opportunity. In reality, my first objective was to play baseball. But when I saw the opportunity to play for the Yankees--Joe may not want to say this, but I was driving him crazy!--I told him, 'Get the Yankees, get the Yankees!'"
Cubas urged Hernandez, "Let me do this." His objective was to find the best deal.
As it turned out, compromise was not necessary. The Yankees were singing the sweetest tune. With Cubas seeking $8 million for his client and the Yankees offering $5 million, the two sides compromised; the offer was for a four-year deal totaling $6.6 million.
Once the terms were agreed to, Hernandez moved to the States and set about the business of becoming "El Duque" again. "The rest is history," says Cubas, in a voice that reflects a measure of pride for whatever part he played in the "Orlando Alger" tale that followed.
El Duque went to spring training and then was assigned to the Yankees' single-A team in Tampa, Florida. Another conversion would also have to take place. Now El Duque--taking the nickname of his father, who hurled a ball and dressed with equal verve--would get the chance to see if the 127-49 record he had compiled with the Cuba national team would mean anything when he pitched against the world's best competition. From the outset, all indications were good.
Some in the Yankees organization had not expected him to make it to the big leagues in his first year, thinking that he might spend the entire season in the minors building arm strength and fine-tuning his stuff after such a long hiatus. He surprised them.
The minor leagues were a lark. He struck out 15 hitters in two outings with Tampa, earning him a quick promotion to Columbus, the Yankees' top farm team. In seven starts, he went 6-0 while striking out an amazing 59 batters in 42 1/3 innings. Then when Yankees hurler David Cone went down with--of all injuries, a dog bite to his finger--El Duque got the call. On June 3, he hurled one-run, five-hit ball in seven innings against Tampa Bay. As Yankee Stadium fans waved Cuban flags, New York won easily, 7-1. "It had been years since I pitched in front of so many people," he says. "I was very moved and very emotional about it because it was my beginning. I will always remember my first game. I was going to walk out on the field dressed with my number for life, my number 26. Although it was said that I wore 26 because of July the 26th, the date of [Castro's first uprising against Batista], that's not so. I wore 26 because my father did."
Jorge Posada played catcher, then interpreter. El Duque cried when he said, "I'm dedicating this to my mom and family in Cuba." Posada blinked back tears. Even Norman Rockwell might have found this story too corny. It all had the ring of a fairy tale, and it was only beginning.
Getting along off the field, however, was not as easy. "Just put it this way," Yankees first base coach Jose Cardenal said at the time, "El Duque's going through the same thing that [Japanese pitcher] Hideki Irabu went through last year. It's a big adjustment for El Duque. But he's trying. He doesn't speak the language. That's hard." (Cardenal left Cuba legally in 1961 at the age of 16. The next time he saw his family was in 1979, after his 18-year major league career had ended. His mother passed him in an airport without recognizing him.)
Cardenal attributed El Duque's desire for privacy to his language difficulties. "He can't participate in conversations. He doesn't know what anyone is saying." But even other Latino players on the team, like relief ace Mariano Rivera, don't know Hernandez that well. "There are things we don't talk about," Rivera said last year. "When he's ready to talk to me, he will. He has to realize one thing--he's not in Cuba anymore. He's here. He has to learn how to communicate with people." Even Cardenal concedes, "Maybe there are things he should share with someone he trusts. Not me, necessarily, but he should share with some other person."
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Analysis of Genetic and Environmental Parameters Influencing Growth Rate of Precocious Puberty Children (CPP-EDG 01)
The recruitment status of this study is unknown. The completion date has passed and the status has not been verified in more than two years.
Verified February 2007 by University of Pisa.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
University of Pisa
Information provided by:
University of Pisa
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: February 21, 2007
Last updated: NA
Last verified: February 2007
History: No changes posted
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The goal of CPP-EDG 01 study is to assess possible genetic and/or environmental parameters which may influence the growth rate of children affected by precocious puberty. In this view, we are collecting clinical data and biological samples of children attended as outpatients at the Pediatric Endocrine Center of Pisa from 1998 to present (the study is still open). From biological (blood) samples, gene polymorphisms such as endocrine disruptor levels are determined and compared to different growth pattern of pediatric patients treated with different GnRH agonists.
|Central Precocious Puberty
|Drug: Triptorelin (GnRH agonists) Drug: Leuprolide (GnRH agonists)
|Phase 4
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary Purpose: Prevention
|Official Title:
|Analysis of Genetic and Environmental Parameters Influencing Growth Rate of Precocious Puberty Children
Resource links provided by NLM:
Genetics Home Reference related topics: central precocious puberty familial male-limited precocious puberty
MedlinePlus related topics: Puberty
Drug Information available for: DeslorelinU.S. FDA Resources
Further study details as provided by University of Pisa:
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|1 Year to 18 Years (Child, Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Clinica diagnosis of central precocious puberty
- Diagnosis is based on growth spurt, bone age advancement, positive GnRH agonist stimulating test, pubertal sex steroid levels before 8 years of age for female and 9 years for male, respectively
Exclusion Criteria:
- Thyroid disorders
- Peripheric diagnosis of precocious puberty
- Genetic disorders
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00438217
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00438217
|Contact: Francesco Massart, MD, PhD
|0039 050 99 3600 ext 2950
|Center of Pediatric endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pisa
|Pisa, Italy, 56125
|Contact: Francesco Massart, MD, PhD +39-050-99-3600 ext 2950 firstname.lastname@example.com
Sponsors and Collaborators
University of Pisa
|Study Director:
|Giuseppe Saggese, MD
|Department of Pediatrics, University of Pisa
More Information
Keywords provided by University of Pisa:
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00438217 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|February 21, 2007
|Last Updated:
|February 21, 2007
Keywords provided by University of Pisa:
precocious puberty, genetics, environmental factors
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Puberty, Precocious
Gonadal Disorders
Endocrine System Diseases
Triptorelin Pamoate
Fertility Agents, Female
Fertility Agents
Reproductive Control Agents
Physiological Effects of Drugs
Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal
Antineoplastic Agents
Enzyme Inhibitors
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Luteolytic Agents
Contraceptive Agents, Female
Contraceptive Agents
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Whose Market Is It Anyway?
After bouncing back to positive territory, the indices are under pressure again following very bearish comments by Byron Wien, former chief investment strategist at Morgan Stanley, who echoed many of the bearish arguments we have heard from Doug Kass recently, which have been ignored so far but are quite logical and compelling.
I don't dispute what the bears have to say, but my approach is not to worry too much about it until price action indicates that the market is embracing the negatives. The tautology that something doesn't matter until it does holds great wisdom for those of us trying to find a way to navigate the market....146 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.
There's no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.
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ST. LOUIS -- Colin Kaepernick's ghastly error on a risky play call cost the 49ers their lead with three minutes left in regulation Sunday.
Eventually, it cost him his first loss in three starts: a 16-13 overtime decision against a St. Louis Rams team that tied the first-place 49ers only three weeks earlier at Candlestick Park.
"I gave up those points that were on the scoreboard for the Rams," Kaepernick said in obvious sorrow. "They were my fault."
Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein accounted for the final points, however, when he made a 54-yard field goal in the final minute of overtime. After diving to try blocking that kick, cornerback Tarell Brown briefly stayed face first on the turf for what he cited as "heartbreak."
Forced into overtime for a second straight meeting, the 49ers (8-3-1) looked well on their way to avenging their Nov. 11 tie against the Rams (5-6-1).
But everything turned when Kaepernick botched a third-down play late in the fourth quarter. On third-and-3 from the 49ers' 17-yard line, Kaepernick pitched the ball over Ted Ginn Jr.'s head at the 10-yard line, and Janoris Jenkins recovered it for a Rams' touchdown.
The Rams, looking to remain remarkably unbeaten in NFC West action, tied it at 10 with a two-point conversion pass from Sam Bradford to tight end Lance Kendricks, who slipped past linebacker Patrick Willis.
"That was on us, that was the wrong play to call at that time," 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh said of Kaepernick's failed pitch. "I would love to have that one back. Don't blame the players on that one."
Harbaugh wrapped up his surprisingly congenial news conference by defending Kaepernick, stating he again will start ahead of Alex Smith next Sunday when they host the Miami Dolphins.
"I'm proud of Kap," Harbaugh said. "He did a lot of good things under heat and duress, and he handled himself well. He gave us a chance to win."
He did, indeed.
Two plays into the 49ers' ensuing series, Kaepernick tried making amends and scrambled 50 yards down the right sideline to the Rams' 14-yard line. But Delanie Walker dropped a potential touchdown pass on the next play, and the 49ers settled for David Akers' 33-yard field goal.
A touchdown would have thwarted the Rams' eventual rally. Thrust into 49ers territory thanks to Dashon Goldson's unnecessary-roughness penalty on a sliding Bradford, the Rams forced overtime when Zuerlein made a 53-yard field goal as regulation expired.
The 49ers took the first crack at a winning field goal in overtime, only to see Akers hook a 51-yard attempt with 4:11 remaining.
"It's a game of inches, and I missed by three or four inches," Akers said. "I feel horrible for letting down my teammates, organization and fans."
That was a common feeling throughout the 49ers locker room, including defenders who played stellar but still allowed the Rams to get in range for those clutch field goals. The 49ers failed to force a turnover, as Brown noted in dismay.
Despite the past month's injection of Kaepernick's play-making panache, the offense couldn't consistently move the chains, aside from a second-series drive that lasted 11 plays and produced Frank Gore's 1-yard touchdown run.
"We've got to get this fixed, quick," left tackle Joe Staley said. "We as an offense, we should be executing a lot higher."
Another offensive breakdown led to the Rams' first points: a third-quarter safety in which Kaepernick was penalized for intentional grounding in the end zone. Officials ruled that Kaepernick's desperation throw out of bounds failed to reach the line of scrimmage, and although replays indicated otherwise, the play was not reviewable, according to referee Carl Cheffers.
Several teammates came to Kaepernick's defense after the game
"He did a great job," Walker said. "We've got to help him out as teammates and make plays. He was making the right calls, and we didn't make enough plays."
Added Vernon Davis: "He's a true pro. He wants to win and contribute. Tonight he did a wonderful job."
Tonight? It was a noon start, but the extended action certainly cast a night-like gloom for the 49ers inside the Edward Jones Dome.
"This will test us. It tests our character as a team," Harbaugh said. "The way our team competes and fights and plays with the effort they do, I feel good about our guys and our character."
Sunday's outcome, however, did not offer a feel-good story for a 49ers team jockeying for its playoff position, not to mention an NFC West title that hasn't yet to be won.
For more on the 49ers, see Cam Inman's Hot Read blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/49ers. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/CamInman.


text:
Throw Pillow
Ali - greenby Kerens
25% Off Everything Today!
Throw Pillow made from 100% spun polyester poplin fabric, a stylish statement that will liven up any room. Individually cut and sewn by hand, each pillow features a double-sided print and is finished with a concealed zipper for ease of care. Sold with or without faux down pillow insert.
Have you ever focused on a particular object and felt like you see something else in it ? A series of photos called "Point of View" engages with negligible objects that we pass by every day, without immersing ourselves with deep thoughts of their beauty and essence . I chose to focus on those objects and inspire in them a new life . The images arousing different associations in each person and can take each individual to different places depending on his/her imagination. You are welcome to take a peek in my world of images and select that one particular piece that reminds you of magical moments . A unique piece that can be the perfect gift for your dearest or to yourself, a gift that revives every corner of every home or office.


text:
Accidental recipes make for such pleasant surprises. They pop up on the back sides of the newspaper clippings you send or on the same copied page as a recipe a reader requested. It's sometimes easy to overlook an accidental recipe; after all, we're looking for a baked oatmeal recipe or a good minestrone, not a Swiss chard frittata.
But after I have scoured your contributions, I come back to these accidental recipes. They make for lovely little bonuses. Of course, sometimes a page simply contains several variations on one recipe. Or the extra recipes don't sound particularly exciting or tasty.
It's always fun reading, though, perhaps because if you spend any time in the kitchen at all, you're almost compelled to read any recipe you find. We find keeper recipes in real estate newsletters, on yellowed newspaper clippings slipped between the pages of old books and even imprinted on vintage dishes.
The Swiss chard recipe sent by Madeleine Heal appeared on the same Gourmet magazine page as one for baked oatmeal. It's a page devoted to recipes adapted from restaurants, including a banana bread that doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary. But the Swiss chard frittata was definitely worth a second look.
The frittata, which calls for frozen Swiss chard or spinach, makes enough for company and works as breakfast, lunch or dinner. It sounds like the dish holds up well; the reader who asked Gourmet to find the recipe mentioned taking wedges of the frittata in a cooler back to her Southern California home.
The frittata relies on a whopping four cups of onion and a pound of frozen Swiss chard or spinach for flavor. A thinly sliced zucchini tops the dish. While frozen Swiss chard might not be readily available in your grocery store, spinach usually is. I'm also thinking you could saute fresh Swiss chard, drain it well and add it to the dish instead.
Please note: The recipe instructs you to bake the frittata until golden on top, but it doesn't say how long that will take. I'm guessing 30 to 35 minutes based on other recipes I find, but you will want to watch it. The frittata also bakes on the other side for 10 minutes, then you flip it to display the zucchini slices.
If you've stumbled across a recipe you've come to love or found a keeper in an unusual location, please share it with other Plates readers as well.
Second helpings
Mary Ann Stoermer was delighted with the carmelita bar recipe sent in response to her request. "We have tried the recipe and will definitely make them again; they are very rich and delicious," she says.
Request line
How do you manage in a pinch? We've all been there, right? You're missing that one ingredient or scrambling to find a side dish or wondering what you can possibly make for dinner without driving to the store. Plates regular Florence Hiett figured out a way to make a faux twice-baked potato casserole recently.
"When I went to prepare a couple of baked potatoes, I found my cupboard bare," she says. "Not wanting to make a quick run to the grocery, I found a packet of instant Idahoan mashed potatoes, plain."
She followed the directions on the package, then added sour cream, grated sharp cheddar cheese and diced green onions, using the green tops as well. "Pop the dish back into the micro for a few seconds, until the cheese becomes a bit soft." She served the potatoes alongside a nice grilled steak, and "no one guessed I had instant anything!"
Hiett wonders if Plates readers will share their improvised solutions, tips and recipes as well.
Contact Kim Boatman at firstname.lastname@example.com. Find recent Home Plates recipes online at www.mercurynews.com/home-plates.


text:
Cobb accepts challenge of moving up to face Yanks
ST. PETERSBURG -- Alex Cobb will start Sunday's game against the Yankees after being moved up to make the start rather than pitching Monday.
David Price would have pitched Sunday had he not gone on the disabled list. Thursday's off-day made it possible to slip Cobb into Sunday's slot and move Price's replacement, Jake Odorizzi, to Monday, when he will start against the Marlins.
Cobb, who is in his second full season in the Major Leagues, was asked about being moved up, when it wasn't so long ago that he might have been the guy getting moved back.
"It's kind of weird, but I don't think too much has changed, other than my experience," Cobb said. "I think [manager] Joe [Maddon] likes to go with someone who has kind of been in that situation and done it. ... [Odorizzi] has the stuff to pitch and compete against the Yankees tomorrow.
"But when it's kind of a hyped-up game a little bit and there's going to be a little extra added adrenaline and emotion into it, I think [Maddon would] kind of like to go with someone who has been there and done that -- which is weird because I haven't been here that long. But as a pitcher and a competitor, it's a game that you definitely want to get. All the games matter, but when you're facing another AL East team, it's a game you definitely want to have."
Cobb noted that the move wasn't so much a demonstration of the Rays' confidence in him as it was the club going with "the hot hand."
"And I've been pitching pretty well these last couple of outings," Cobb said. "It's nice to be given the opportunity for sure. And they're so big on matchups, that I'm sure their computer spit out something that they like to see. So I'll take it."
Bill Chastain is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
From: "Saved by Windows Internet Explorer 8" Subject: Social Security Update - May 2011 Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2011 11:06:34 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; type="text/html"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01CC3B03.9A51BB10" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.1.7600.16807 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0000_01CC3B03.9A51BB10 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/newsletter/
June=20 2011
In This=20 Issue:
Keeping Payments=20 Proper
Each month Social = Security=20 pays nearly $60 billion in benefits to almost 60 million = beneficiaries. We=20 are committed to making those payments timely and accurately, and = we=20 strive to protect taxpayer dollars by minimizing improper = payments, which=20 is why we made preserving the public's trust in our programs a = strategic=20 goal. We're happy to report that more than 99 percent of all = Social=20 Security payments are accurate; Supplemental Security Income = payments are=20 91.6 percent accurate.
Efforts to prevent, = detect,=20 and collect improper payments are complex, and require = knowledgeable=20 employees to analyze the cases and make decisions. Our employees = are our=20 best defense against improper payments. That's why it is important = that=20 Congress support the critical funding President Obama requested = for Social=20 Security.
Learn more about = this subject=20 by reading Deputy Commissioner Carolyn Colvin's testimony before = Congress.=20 = www.socialsecurity.gov/legislation/testimony_031711.html=20
Learn more about = our efforts=20 to reduce improper payments at our website. http://www.socia= lsecurity.gov/improperpayments/
Three Years of the Retirement=20 Estimator=20
It's been=20 three years since Social Security's Retirement Estimator = went=20 online. Within months of its launch, the online application was = praised as=20 one of the highest-rated online services around, and it has = consistently=20 remained so every year.
Results from=20 the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) show Social = Security's=20 online Retirement Estimator in one of the top two spots, = with a=20 score of 90. (Social Security's online benefit application took = the top=20 spot.) The ACSI is the only uniform, national, cross-industry = measure of=20 satisfaction with the quality of goods and services available in = the=20 United States. The Retirement Estimator ranks higher than = the=20 websites of any other public and private sector agencies and = companies,=20 including the likes of Netflix and Amazon.
Millions of=20 people have used the Retirement Estimator. Please = encourage your=20 clients to try it out for a quick, personalized estimate of future = retirement benefits by sending them to http://www.socialsecuri= ty.gov/estimator/.=20 It's also available in Spanish, at http://www.soc= ialsecurity.gov/espanol/calculador/.=20
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There are=20 websites that charge people for free Social Security services. = Some of=20 these sites, at first glance, appear to be affiliated with Social=20 Security. But they're actually for-profit sites charging a fee for = what=20 should be free. For instance, a quick Google search on "replacing = a Social=20 Security card" brings up paid advertisements for sites that charge = just to=20 get an application for a new card=97something anyone can do for = free at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/=20
So tell your=20 clients to boldly go to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/,=20 and make sure they look for the ".gov" sign along the way. =
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With the 2011 hurricane season under way, people still = receiving paper=20 checks from Social Security should sign up for Direct Deposit. =
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As of May 1,=20 2011, anyone who applies for Social Security or Supplemental = Security=20 Income benefits must receive payments electronically, and all = current=20 beneficiaries must switch to electronic payments by March 1, 2013. = Why=20 wait? Encourage your clients to sign up today at http://www.godirect.org/=
Subscribe to = Social=20 Security Update today and you'll always = be in the=20 know when it comes to Social Security news. All we need is your = e-mail=20 address.
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Gold standard: Slugger's homer lifts D-backs
Goldschmidt crushes two-run shot in ninth against last-place Dodgers
LOS ANGELES -- Paul Goldschmidt was not sure the ball was going to leave the park, so as he left the batter's box, he gave it some encouragement.
"I knew I hit it well, but it's not one of those where you're 100 percent sure, so I was kind of watching it and talking to myself and saying, 'C'mon, c'mon' or something like that," Goldschmidt said.
The ball did indeed clear the wall for a two-run homer in the top of the ninth inning as the D-backs beat the Dodgers, 5-3, on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
The win was the second in a row for the D-backs, who will go for the sweep of the series Wednesday night. Arizona has now won 14 of its last 17 games against Los Angeles.
It was the second straight night Goldschmidt went deep and continued his dominance of Dodgers pitchers. In 20 at-bats against them this year, Goldschmidt has nine hits with a double, two homers and seven RBIs.
In 50 career at-bats at Dodger Stadium, Goldschmidt is hitting .380 with four homers and 12 RBIs.
Why does he always seem to hit well at the ballpark?
"I wouldn't say always. I've had plenty of struggles here," he said, "but obviously a game like today and yesterday, it was nice to have some success and get some wins."
With the game tied at 3, one out and a runner on first in the ninth, Goldschmidt fell behind 1-2 to Dodgers closer Brandon League.
Goldschmidt worked the count full and fouled off five pitches before hitting the 11th pitch of the at-bat into the seats in left-center to give the D-backs a 5-3 lead.
"Once we got to 3-2, it was five fastballs, I think, and I'm just trying to fight," Goldschmidt said. "He's got that really good slider and split finger, so trying to make sure in case he threw that to stay back a little bit. I was able to get that last one and get it up in the air enough."
League fell to 0-2 on the year.
"Tonight, leadoff walk, I got that one out and my whole plan was just to get Goldschmidt to ground into the double play," League said. "But it's a prime example of what happens when you throw a good hitter a [bad] pitch."
There was still plenty of intrigue after the Goldschmidt home run.
Closer J.J. Putz came on to try and finish things up, but after throwing four straight balls to walk Nick Punto to start the inning, he was forced to leave the game with elbow stiffness.
The D-backs turned to setup man Heath Bell, who had been warming up the inning before and Bell managed to retire the next three hitters in order to pick up his second save of the year.
"I've done that in the past, so it's not like it's totally out of the box," said Bell, who now has 155 saves.
Prior to the homer, the game was a back-and-forth exchange, with the teams exchanging runs in each of the first two innings.
Gerardo Parra led off the game for the D-backs with a double and came around to score on Goldschmidt's grounder to second.
The Dodgers tied it in the bottom half when after retiring the first two hitters, Arizona starter Brandon McCarthy gave up three consecutive singles, with the final one being an RBI grounder back up the middle by Andre Ethier.
Eric Chavez led off the second with a double to left-center and came around to score later on Jason Kubel's single to left as Arizona took a 2-1 lead
Punto tied things up in the bottom of the second with a solo homer to right.
The D-backs grabbed a 3-2 lead in the fifth when Chavez singled home Didi Gregorius.
The Dodgers tied things up in the seventh when Punto's double drove in Skip Schumaker.
Steve Gilbert is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Inside the D-backs, and follow him on Twitter @SteveGilbertMLB. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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MIL gets:
Troy Murphy 2 yr, $23.0M
Travis Deiner 1 yr, $1.70M
IND gets:
Dan Gadzuric 2 yr, $14.0M
Kurt Thomas 1 yr, $3.80M
Joe Alexander 1 yr, $2.58M
They easily get the best player, possibly two best players in this deal. We get an athletic young player, who is only the second top ten pick to ever not have his third year option picked up. Curious. We would release Kurt Thomas to let him go find a playoff team to catch on with. Gadzuric would be a backup in our front court and solid for practice. We get rid of about $4.8M in salary for next year. They get a big that can spread the floor and work off of Bogut. He would be a good weak-side rebounder for them. He would really help them make a playoff push.


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With Dodgers on second and third with one out in the eighth Monday night, John Baker went to the mound to discuss tactics with reliever Luke Gregerson.
Baker had an idea what Dodgers pinch-hitter Skip Schumaker might do.
According to Gregerson, Baker's exact words were: "Throw a slider low and away. He'll bounce it back to you. Look back the runner at third before you throw to first. If (A.J.) Ellis tries to score we'll get him at the plate and we're out of the inning."
Right. Just your typical 1-3-2 double play.
And that's exactly what happened.
Schumaker bounced back to Gregerson. The reliever checked Ellis, who had started down the line. Gregerson threw to Yonder Alonso to get the second out. For some reason, Ellis broke for the plate and Alonso threw to Baker to complete the rare double play.
"I walked up to Baker in the dugout and said 'You have to be kidding me,'" said Gregerson.
"I was just trying to reinforce a positive," said Baker. "Luke was having a tough inning. A scratch hit and a walk on a couple of close pitches sort of put him in a hole. I figured I knew how Skip might handle one of Luke's good sliders, so I called out a possible scenario.
"Much the same thing happened last season in St. Louis with Edinson Volquez. He wanted to throw a changeup. I went to the mound and said, 'Look, you throw a fastball here and he grounds to short and we're out of it.'
"I get back behind the plate and call for the change, which is what Volkie wanted to throw. He shakes me off, we go to the fastball and the pitch is grounded to short. All in a day's work."
Baker could not help, however, when asked about the direction of the volatile precious metals market.
Baker, incidentally, was the first person every Dodger greeted Monday night as they stepped to plate in the first Dodgers-Padres game since last Thursday's brawl at Petco Park.
"Everyone said 'hi' and 'good luck,'" said Baker. "It was back to normal. None of the guys in the game really had anything to do with what happened last Thursday."
Headley update
Chase Headley might have played his last rehab game with Single-A Lake Elsinore Tuesday night.
"He's real close," said Padres manager Bud Black. "We'll see how it goes Tuesday."
Figure Headley will be at Dodger Stadium Wednesday night. The Padres fly to San Francisco after the finale of the Dodger series. Headley will be on the plane. His 2013 debut will either be at Dodger Stadium Wednesday or in San Francisco Friday after Thursday's off day.
Ratings up
Even though 22 percent of the county still can't get Padres telecasts because of the impasse with Time Warner cable, the three highest rated games on Fox Sports San Diego have been this season.
All were against the Dodgers and two have Carlos Quentin-Zack Greinke ties.
Monday night's game at Dodger Stadium – the first between the teams since last Thursday's Quentin-Greinke incident – drew an average 3.93 rating, meaning 42,000 homes in San Diego were tuned in. The actual brawl game last Thursday averaged a 3.87 with the numbers climbing during the bench-clearing indicents.
The third-highest televised game by FSSD since it took over in 2012 was the home opener against the Dodgers. Overall, viewership – bolstered by the fact that Dish TV and AT&T Uverse subscribers can now access the Padres – is up 40 percent over a year ago.
--Eric Stults became the 27th pitcher in Padres history to hit a home run Monday night. The three-run homer was also only the sixth ever by a visiting pitcher at Dodger Stadium with at least two runners on base. The others to do it were Juan Marichal in 1971, Steve Carlton in 1984 (grand slam), Calvin Schiraldi in 1989, Dennis Cook (1990), Ross Ohlendorf (2011).
--Infielder Cody Ransom, who was designated for assignment by the Padres last Friday, has been claimed off waivers by the Chicago Cubs.


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This past summer/fall we had some nasty storms blow through town that downed several large trees on our course...this left us with a giant 6' tall tree-trunk in the middle of the fairway for Hole 8 at Springlake Park. The trunk is mostly hollow - the side facing the basket is lower than the side facing the tee, and there is also a small hole near the ground facing the basket.
Yesterday I manged to land my Firebird inside the trunk. It deflected off another tree right next to it, and then landed inside the trunk and fell all the way to the bottom, still inside. When I got to the disc, it was sitting inside near the small hole on the side of the trunk facing the basket. I could fit my mini inside the trunk to mark my lie, but couldn't fit my foot inside to take my stance...and if I placed my foot directly behind the tree in-line with the mini, it was still more than 30cm away from the marker.
Would this be considered an unplayable lie, or is there another rule that would apply here?


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The traditional architecture, combined with the amenities provided in the houses and their privileged position, create a welcoming environment in which nature blends with the blue of the Ionian Sea.
Built on the slopes overlooking the deep blue waters of the Ionian sea and the incomparable beauty of the olive groves, Apolis Villas offers you a relaxing, peaceful and memorable stay.
Apolis Villas is a complex of 6 private villas in Parga that offers accommodation with panoramic views of the town of Parga, the area of Valtos and the village of Anthousa.
The complex comprises 4 Executive Villas, 1 Luxury Villa and 1 Superior Villa.


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October 3, 2012 BY Brendan Dunne
How good is your Nike SB knowledge? Sure you know about the most prized of Dunks, but what do you know about the Nike SB URL or the Nike SB Air Zoom FC? Helping you to round out your knowledge of all sorts with respect to the revered skateboarding subdivision, Nike has recently re-launched their online Nike SB catalog now known as the Nike SB Shoe Museum. So if you've spent years scratching your head over that one stray pair that you can't quite remember the name or colorway of, this is the place to fill that gap. Click through for a quick selection from the group and be sure to check it out if you consider yourself any sort of buff in the world of skate sneaker history.
Filed under: Dunk Nike SB P-Rod Skate Trainer
Tags: Nike SB Air Zoom FC Nike SB Dunk High Nike SB Dunk Low Nike SB Dunk Mid Nike SB URL


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Starting salary by employer type.
According to researchers at PayScale.com, employer type is one consideration that can greatly affect the starting salary and overall earnings potential of a biochemist. For example, the median average salary for biochemistry professionals working for private foundations is $25,000 annually, while state and local government employees earn $43,000. Hospital biochemists come in at around $62,000 per year. Self employed biochemists and those who work as consultants enjoy the highest earnings, bringing home around $70,000. While these represent the median average income levels for bachelor's degree level biochemists, the conclusion can be drawn that starting salaries would trend slightly lower.


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I hope the Colts escape MetLife unharmed ...........
Source: Cushing torn ACL is confirmed
Posted by Mike Florio on October 9, 2012, 4:20 PM EDT
After Monday nights game against the Jets, the Texans feared that linebacker Brian Cushing suffered a torn ACL.
An MRI has confirmed those fears.
A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that Cushings ACL is indeed torn. It means that hell need season-ending surgery to repair it, and that hell miss the rest of the season.
As James Palmer of CSNHouston.com explained during an appearance on todays PFT Live, Cushing is the most important member of the Texans defense. Palmer said that defensive coordinator Wade Phillips recently raved about Cushing, explaining that Cushing means even more to the unit than defensive end J.J. Watt.


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While writing a Design Doc for an MORPG game with FPS type combat I started thinking about the collision detection on the server side. Specifically tracking bullets.
I remember when I first started playing FPS' 32 players on a server was more or less the max, iirc largely due to the servers at that time not being able to handle the stress of more players without significant lag, due to the servers inability to keep up with every bullet flying around. I know Planetside had a 10k player max and the same goes for Battleground Europe. The bullet's also only flew so far before they just disappeared.
So I started wondering, since AMD & Nvidia are now really starting to push the GPU into a GpGPU would it be useful to try and harness the power of a GPU to do just collision detection. I know there is costs associated with the transfer of data across the PCIe bus and back, and in most cases that cost negates any benefit and can even make it worse. However I honestly don't have any serious expertise when it comes to coding anything for the GPU themselves.
Ultimately what I'd like is the ability to have the CPU send the vector/velocity info of all the moving objects such as bullets, players, vehicles etc to the GPU and have it run all the collision detection work, then if there is actually a collision the GPU would report that back to the CPU, which could then do any required calculations.
One of the main things that got me thinking about collision detection in the first place is that I think it would be awesome to have a mass battle with 1000 or so players where not only can you get hit by stray bullets(since most FPS' do that already) but also where the projectiles interact with each other. For example player 1 throws a knife at player 2, however while in flight a stray bullet from player 3's gun hits the knife and knocks it off course. Or the ability to shoot RPG's out of the air etc.
Dirus, Latency and bandwidth have traditionally been the barrier to server side physics, but there are some potentially great benefits to it. One of which is that rather than having however many client computers redundantly computing physics and having to deal with synchronization, all the physics would be done once in one place. This in turn would mean that each client computer could use its resources to draw prettier graphics or calculate better sound.
Perhaps if using a powerful server side GPU to calculate physics could reduce physics computation time enough to offset the internet latency, then server side physics could be feasible. That would be cool.
As for shooting knives out of the air with bullets...Lol...Unless you are Neo in The Matrix, that's not very likely, and because of the small time steps that would be necessary to do such physics, it would be extremely computationally expensive.
I realize that shooting a knife out of the air would be extremely computationally expensive. Hence why I was pondering the idea of using the GPU do to such calculations. Would enough GPU horsepower make such a thing possible?
Apart from being expensive; is it even possible to do in real life?
Shooting knife doesn't really need extremely small time steps. You can do some form of 4D collision detection with usual time interval.
I realize the knife/bullet example is a little insane in terms of chances of it happening.
However shooting down something like a missile or rocket, is not nearly insane and in fact the US Army has the C-RAM project. So I guess for the purposes of the topic lets focus on that?
I am more or less interested in whether or not it would make sense to try and harness a GPU(s) for collision calculations server side, or if the latency costs associated with something like that would negate any benefit.
I'm looking at trying to offload bottlenecks server side when there is 1000's of object flying around at once.
Well, GPU are great for parallelizable tasks. Grossly-speaking, only some parts of the typical collision detection scheme is that. But, that doesn't mean the GPU can't be used. There are lots of "hybrid" approaches out there. ex: http://sglab.kaist.ac.kr/HPCCD/
http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/graphics/theses/projects/gpucd/report.pdf etc...
I am more or less interested in whether or not it would make sense to try and harness a GPU(s) for collision calculations server side, or if the latency costs associated with something like that would negate any benefit. I'm looking at trying to offload bottlenecks server side when there is 1000's of object flying around at once.
You won't get much if any benefit from using a GPU. They are horrendously slow at processing a single thread (about a factor 100). They compensate for that by processing thousands of threads. This works great for graphics since there are thousands if not millions of pixels, and the communication goes one way (it's ok for the first pixel to appear on screen tens of milliseconds later).
But when you have a feedback loop, like with physics, that's a really high latency and it's not easy to find thousands of independent work items. In fact even with thousands of objects flying around it's a lot smarter to sort them spacially before doing any expensive collision detection, instead of just brute force processing everything. So what you need is fast single-threaded processing, as done by the CPU.
That doesn't mean you can't do compute intensive work. The latest Intel CPUs have 256-bit vector operations, four cores, and Hyper-Threading. For the majority of workloads, a modern CPU offers a well balanced mix between ILP, TLP, and DLP.
And it's only going to get better. Fused multiply-add instructions are already in the AVX specification, and gather/scatter instructions would dramatically speed up parallel indirect addressing. In the meantime GPUs are struggling to fight Amdahl's Law and are forced to spend more die space on latency optimizations, limiting their compute density. So they're both converging towards a device which is both latency optimized and throughput optimized. The GPU is worthless on its own, so in the long run the CPU will prevail.
I disagree. In a straight port, collision detection doesn't map well to the GPU architecture, but changing from incremental prune and sweep method to parallelizing each axis and sorting and sweeping has been proven to be very fast/scalable. I remember reading a paper on it recently (must have been written no earlier than 08) but I can't find it. I think this is the method being implemented in bullet. (About halfway through the presentation.)
im not an expert in this field but what does the gpu have to do with collision math, when all collision is calculated before anything is drawn ultimately you dont even need a video card to do collision
enjoycrf, please don't ever change... I enjoycrf your posts.
thank you very much
You can handle collision detection server side, for sure, just can the server take the whole game at once, like you said.
I disagree. In a straight port, collision detection doesn't map well to the GPU architecture, but changing from incremental prune and sweep method to parallelizing each axis and sorting and sweeping has been proven to be very fast/scalable.
Making an algorithm suited for more parallelization, doesn't necessarily mean truly making it fast. Most 'brute force' approaches are quite wasteful. I don't have much experience wih collision detection, but I found this to be true for the majority of GPGPU applications.
Note that for instance a 106 Watt GeForce GTS 450 peaks at 601 SP GFLOPS, while a 95 Watt i7-2600 can deliver over 218 SP GFLOPS and this will increase to 435 SP GFLOPS with the addition of FMA instruction support. So there really isn't much room to make your algorithm more suited for the GPU. The CPU can handle a much larger range of workloads efficiently.
I don't think GPGPU has much of a future.
would it be possible to write a game that could be served from multiple servers? im getting this idea from a load balancer one would use for the web that way you would have a server to act as a manager and additional ones to split the calculations also i agree that before crunching any numbers its best to organize them by visible areas just like any bullet for instance has a range and yes obviously one can shoot a knife out of the air its just that with everything dropping the frame rate people are more concerned with thinking of ways to do less


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Between all of us here, there's very little that stirs in the gaming universe that doesn't pop up on somebody's radar. Whether it's the simple genius of Peggle or some random freeware project somebody stumbles across, we go to great lengths to entertain and amuse ourselves. Simple, hopefully free (or at least very close to it), and entirely worth looking into. Freeware, shareware, cool demo,thing you have to try out. Bright, Shiny Things.
I thought perhaps we could start sharing some of these nuggets that folks may or may not be aware of. These are not going to be earth-shattering new things, but I often find that what one person has been playing for two years, someone else just found out about yesterday.
With that in mind I give you the first entry in Bright, Shiny Things: Desktop Tower Defense. I found this randomly one day while looking for info on something else and found it to be a great and entertaining diversion. Now up to version 1.5, DTD is a puzzle strategy game where where you have to keep invaders from successfully making it across the square in one piece.
You place different types of turrets on the board in an effort to blow up all the different types that get thrown at you in waves. The idea being to come up with just the right kind of maze to handle the increasingly more difficult-to-kill little buggers in all their different varieties…fast, flying, group, etc. The more invaders you blow up, the more money you can spend on more turrets, new types of turrets, upgrading turrets, etc.
Simple, wholly entertaining, and good for a distraction whenever you crave one.


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The Day Ahead: Game On
"What everyone knows is not called wisdom." -- Wang Xi
Talk to me. What do you know at this point in time? Do you know a couple buzzwords on the fiscal cliff? Do you know the most recent comment from House Speaker John Boehner that moved the hands and books of the few remaining floor traders? Do you know all the cool stuff on what's apparently the single most important enterprise on Mother Earth -- a company more vital than every market ever created -- that company called Apple (AAPL)? What do you know for real? Is it this entire bunch of surface analysis that gets disregarded as soon as the next day's trading commences?...608 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.
There's no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.
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Morris earns spot in Opening Day 'pen for first time
PHILADELPHIA -- After finishing off a sound spring with a 1-2-3 sixth inning on Friday night, it was not exactly breaking news that Bryan Morris, coming off a solid season in the Pirates' bullpen, was going to make the Opening Day roster.
Manager Clint Hurdle broke down and broke the news anyway.
"He has had some added life to his fastball, the two-seamer is playing better," Hurdle said of Morris, who allowed three runs in 9 1/3 spring innings after tossing 65 innings for Pittsburgh in 2013, when he posted a 3.46 ERA on 57 hits and 28 walks. "The command has tightened up a little bit.
"He has gotten better every time he has showed up here [at Pirates camp]. He has thrown pitches that are hard to hit and sometimes hard to catch. His confidence is in a good place.
"Spring Training has been good for him. We have the season to play now."
So Morris will be there at PNC Park for the opener on Monday. And what about Stolmy Pimentel, Vin Mazzaro and Jeanmar Gomez, the three pitchers -- like Morris all out of options -- for the two remaining bullpen spots?
"I'm not going anywhere else with that one," Hurdle said and smiled. "He set up a question so I threw him a bone. No more bones tonight."
Even hungrier than the rabid Bucco media for news has been Morris, who took a dogged approach through the winter.
"Good news to hear," he said after Hurdle's words were relayed. "I was expecting to be here, worked my butt off this offseason to come in to take one of those spots.
"I had a good spring, I guess, after my second outing when I gave up the home run to [Mike] Carp, I just simplified what I was doing and let everything just take off. That's where we are at right now. I am just going to try and keep it simple, because right now it's working."
This is the first time in five camps that Morris -- the last Pirates acquisition remaining from the four obtained in the Jason Bay trade in 2008 -- has stuck in Pittsburgh to start the season.
"I had plenty of Minor League opening days, I don't think is going to be quite the same," Morris said smiling.
"I would imagine it will be something similar to the [National League] Wild Card Game. I probably will get chill bumps. This is what I put work into my whole life -- to be a big leaguer. Knowing I am going to be here Opening Day, I am definitely grateful for this opportunity."
Jay Greenberg is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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ORLANDO, Fla. ― The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem.
Indeed, after more than 40 years of declining fluid milk sales, dairy promotion officials are talking candidly about the problem and what needs to be done.
"As you are painfully aware, fluid milk is in crisis," Barbara O'Brien, president of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, told those attending the joint annual meeting of the National Milk Producers Federation and Dairy Management Inc. this week in Orlando, Fla.
"Can fluid milk be saved?" she asked somewhat rhetorically. "We know the answer is 'yes.'"
There is no "silver bullet." Instead, there are various pathways to explore.
One pathway is to engage leaders from across the industry in constructive dialogue. Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), which manages the national dairy checkoff program, calls this the "trustee" approach. A trustee is someone who has an interest ― indeed an obligation ― to promote the best interests of the industry, which means listening to ideas and trying new things.
Another pathway is better packaging. Not that there's anything wrong with the gallon jugs; they have been fixtures in American homes for years. But lifestyles have changed. Many Americans now consume a majority of their food and beverages away from home. Under those circumstances, single-serve milk containers make more sense.
Finding single-serve containers can be difficult at times. I know this week, as I was heading to the airport in Orlando, I stopped at a convenience store to buy some chocolate milk and there was only one kind ― the extra rich, whole milk variety that I ended up buying, but wanted a better choice.
Something has to be done.
A couple of weeks ago, I learned of a research study ― the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ― which showed that 43 percent of teenagers (aged 13 through 17) do not drink milk. Not only are these kids being deprived of an important nutritional source, they are taking on consumption patterns that will follow them into adulthood. That does not bode well for the future of milk consumption unless something changes.
A good starting point would be to provide the kids with choices ― cold milk in accessible places in convenient packaging in a variety of flavors.
"We have to make sure milk is convenient to use whenever (people) want it," Jim Wegner, president and CEO of Darigold Cooperative, said at this week's meeting in Orlando.
I couldn't agree more.


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A group of open-space advocates mounted more pressure Thursday for the Fort Ord Reuse Authority to turn over records documenting how it spent nearly $100 million in federal funds.
Keep Fort Ord Wild filed a new motion in its pending public records lawsuit asking the court to order FORA to provide documents explaining a $3.5 million payment to the contractor hired to complete munitions cleanup on 3,340 acres.
The group discovered the entry in records previously released in response to the lawsuit. On one document the payment is listed as "capital improvements," on another as "remediation services."
Asked in early June to clarify the discrepancy, FORA's controller, Ivana Bednarik, indicated the money was a partial payment on the cleanup contract with LFR/Arcadis, signed only two weeks before the 2007 payment. However, according to the motion, FORA has not produced related invoices fully explaining the services rendered.
Attorney Jon Giffen said FORA is striving to meet the group's demands but must first obtain the records from its contractors, an issue that has stymied the effort since Keep Fort Ord Wild began requesting documents in 2011.
The group's attorney, Molly Erickson, contends the records should have been revealed and turned over in response to the group's lawsuit, filed in March. Twice in May, FORA's attorneys promised the court it would promptly deliver all requested documents.
Three months later, Keep Fort Ord Wild's motion points out, many of those documents have not been shared.
At issue is a $97.7 million grant from the Army to privatize and speed the munitions cleanup on land that will eventually be turned over to local jurisdictions. Termed an Environmental Services Cooperative Agreement, the project is commonly referred to as ESCA.
The contract was awarded to LFR/Arcadis, which hired subcontractors, including Weston Solutions Inc. and Westcliffe Engineers, and used nearly $82 million of the grant to purchase an environmental insurance policy that guarantees the project will be completed at cost and on time by 2014.
Keep Fort Ord Wild began asking for documents in 2011 and filed suit in March after concluding FORA was dodging the requests. Since then, the agency has released thousands of pages it previously claimed were privileged or did not exist.
While digesting those records in April, Keep Fort Ord Wild discovered a 2006-07 fiscal year report in which FORA listed the $3.5 million payment as a capital improvement. Knowing there were no capital improvements in the project area, it began to ask questions.
Bednarik said the funds were a partial payment on the contract, but had no invoices documenting the work. On July 30, after repeated requests, Giffen turned over records of a $2.75 million transfer from LFR to Weston Solutions and a $75,000 check to Westcliffe Engineers, backed up with an invoice for travel reimbursement and "execution of Fort Ord Project Specific Master Services Agreement."
The documents leave more than $665,000 unaccounted for, contain no invoices from LFR or Weston and no receipts explaining Westcliffe's $75,000 in expenses.
The group is asking Judge Lydia Villarreal to order FORA to release the records immediately. Giffen said FORA plans to, as soon as contractors turn them over and sign any confidentiality waivers. A hearing is set for Aug. 24.
The motion comes a week after the FORA board agreed to allocate $15,000 to meet an "unanticipated volume" of public records requests.
Virginia Hennessey can be reached at 753-6751 or email@example.com.


text:
Find out how you can integrate project management with IT Service Management (ITSM) to empower your IT team to do even more. In this eBook by BMC Technology Alliance Partner, Cloud Coach, you'll learn the critical steps to successful project planning, management, and execution.
Topics covered include:
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text:
Dwight Howard understands why the fans in Los Angeles have not fully embraced him. He knows that because he has not committed to the Lakers beyond this season, fans are hesitant to return the love.
He asks them to be patient, saying that the focus right now needs to be on this year and this year's goal of making the playoffs, not next season.
"Right now, I am committed to this team," he said. "The only thing that matters is right now. Nothing else matters beyond what we do in the next game, do for the rest of the season. There's no need for us to go back and forth and cause a circus."
Howard will be a free agent after this season and could get between $25 million and $30 million if he re-signs with the Lakers, more than any other team can pay. Speculation is high that he will choose to stay in L.A.
"Right now I'm here, this moment and it's the only moment that matters right now," Howard said. "You can't look to the future, that's something to worry about at the end of the season. Right now, the focus has to be on us winning games and making it to the playoffs and possibly winning a championship.
"It can't be on whether or not I'm going to sign or whatever. Our focus, my focus has to be clear so I can play free and be who I am and focus on the moment."


text:
Immunogenicity and Safety of Pandemic Influenza Vaccine in Healthy Adults
The recruitment status of this study is unknown. The completion date has passed and the status has not been verified in more than two years.
Verified July 2012 by Adimmune Corporation.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
Adimmune Corporation
Information provided by (Responsible Party):
Adimmune Corporation
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: July 12, 2012
Last updated: NA
Last verified: July 2012
History: No changes posted
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The objectives of this single arm study are to evaluate the immune response and safety profiles of two injections of an inactivated whole-virion vaccine containing aluminum hydroxide adjuvant, AdimFlu-W (H5N1), against influenza A (H5N1) in healthy adults.
|Pandemic Influenza
|Biological: Pandemic Influenza Vaccine (H5N1)
|Phase 1 Phase 2
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary Purpose: Prevention
|Official Title:
|A Clinical Study to Evaluate the Immunogenicity and Safety of Pandemic Influenza Vaccine, AdimFlu-W (H5N1), in Healthy Adults
Resource links provided by NLM:
MedlinePlus related topics: Bird Flu Flu Flu Shot
Drug Information available for: Influenza VaccinesU.S. FDA Resources
Further study details as provided by Adimmune Corporation:
Primary Outcome Measures:
- Immunogenicity Endpoint: hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) titer and microneutralization (MN) titer [ Time Frame: At Day 43 (21 days after the second dose). ]
The primary immune response endpoint is to evaluate the seroconversion rate (SCR) in terms of HAI assays at Day 43 (21 days after the second dose).The secondary HAI endpoints are defined as following:
- SCR for the first vaccination, at Day 22.
- Seroprotection rates (SPR) for each vaccination, at Day 22 and 43.
- The geometric mean fold rise (GMFR) for each vaccination, at Day 22 and 43.
The supportive immunogenicity endpoints of MN antibodies are SCRs, SPRs and GMFRs at Day 22 and 43.
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- The secondary objective is to evaluate the safety and tolerability profiles including the presence or absence of the pre-specified reactogenicity events and other serious/non-serious adverse events after vaccination. [ Time Frame: At 4 weeks after two doses of study vaccine, 4 weeks apart. Reactogenicity will be recorded for 7 days after each vaccination. ]Safety data will consist of reactogenicity, serious and non-serious adverse events. Reactogenicity events are pre-specified adverse events systematically recorded for 7 days after each vaccination.The events included fever (≥38.0°C), runny nose or nasal congestion, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headache, vomiting, nausea and malaise. Furthermore, the local (injection site) reactions were also evaluated, including soreness/pain, swelling, redness, ecchymosis and limitation of arm motion.
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|July 2012
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:
|April 2013 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
Intervention Details:
Biological: Pandemic Influenza Vaccine (H5N1)
- Administration route: Intramuscular Injection
- Dosing schedule: 2 injections - at Day 1 and Day 22 separately
- Dose(s): Each dose (0.5 mL) contains the 15 mcg hemagglutinin (HA) of influenza A (A/Vietnam/1194/2004)
Inactivated whole-virion vaccine
Other Name: AdimFlu-W (H5N1) Pandemic Influenza Vaccine
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|20 Years to 60 Years (Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- A male or non-pregnant female (as indicated by a negative urine pregnancy test immediately on the day prior to first vaccine administration) between 20 to 60 years of age at the time of the first vaccination. Women of childbearing potential agree to practice highly effective birth control throughout the study (from Screening to Month 3).
- Subjects are free of obvious health problems as judged by investigator (established by medical history and physical examination) before entering the study.
- Subject is physically and mentally capable of participating in the study and willing to adhere to study procedures to complete all elements of the study diary.
- Subjects provide signed informed consent after receiving a detailed explanation of the study protocol prior to any study procedures.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Medical history of physician-confirmed infection with an H5N1 virus or a history of vaccination with an H5N1 influenza vaccine.
- Subject is at high risk of contracting H5N1 influenza infection (e.g. poultry workers).
- Has received any other licensed vaccines within 2 weeks for inactivated vaccines or 4 weeks for live vaccines prior to enrollment in this study.
- Use of any investigational or non-registered product other than the study vaccine within 30 days preceding the first dose of study vaccine, or planned use during the study period.
- Subject has used oral or parenteral steroids, high-dose inhaled steroids (>800 mcg/day of beclomethasone dipropionate or equivalent) or other immunosuppressive or cytotoxic drugs within 30 days preceding the first dose of study vaccine.
- Subject has received a blood transfusion or immunoglobulins within 90 days prior to first dose of study vaccine, or planned administration of any blood products during the study period.
- Subject has a known allergy to eggs or other components of the study vaccine.
- Subject has a history of severe allergic reactions or anaphylaxis.
- Subject has a history of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
- Subject has an acute illness or temperature greater than 38.0 degrees Celsius by any method within 3 days prior to each vaccination.
- Subject has confirmed or suspected immunosuppressive or immunodeficient condition including history of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.
- Subject has a rash, dermatologic condition or tattoos which may interfere with injection site reaction rating.
- Evidence of substance (alcohol or drug) abuse or of neurological or psychiatric diagnoses which, even if clinically stable, are deemed by the investigator to render the potential subject unable/unlikely to provide accurate safety reports.
- Subjects with abnormal laboratory results at screening:(1) ALT or AST > or = 1 x upper limit of normal (ULN). (2) Creatinine > or = 1 x ULN. (3) Any significant laboratory abnormality as judged by the investigator
- Females are known pregnancy or a positive urine beta-human chorionic gonadotropin test result prior to the first study vaccine dose, or are lactating or nursing.
- Subject has any other condition that disqualifies his/her participation in the study in the opinion of the investigator.
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01640691
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01640691
|Contact: Wendy Tsen
|National Cheng Kung University Hospital
|Tainan, Taiwan
Sponsors and Collaborators
Adimmune Corporation
|Principal Investigator:
|Chih-Jen Chang, MD
|National Cheng-Kung University Hospital
More Information
Keywords provided by Adimmune Corporation:
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017
|Responsible Party:
|Adimmune Corporation
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01640691 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|July 12, 2012
|Last Updated:
|July 12, 2012
Keywords provided by Adimmune Corporation:
pandemic influenza
pandemic influenza vaccine
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Influenza, Human
Orthomyxoviridae Infections
RNA Virus Infections
Virus Diseases
Respiratory Tract Infections
Respiratory Tract Diseases
Immunologic Factors
Physiological Effects of Drugs
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017


text:
D-C-Fix Holographic Multicolour Self Adhesive Film (L)1.5M (W)450mm
D-C-Fix Holographic Multicolour Self Adhesive Film (L)1.5M (W)450mm
Home Delivery
Out of stock for Home Delivery. Please check back soon.
- Click & Collect Order by 7pm (4pm Saturday & Sunday) for next day Click & Collect - Select store
- 45 day returns policy. Read our returns policy
Product notices
[This is a block of tabs..]
Product Details
Product Information
- Transforms kitchen cupboards, renovates old furniture, protects books, lines drawers, covers shelves & personalises stationary
- For use on dry flat surface
- Easy to apply with peel & stick application
- Fully removable
Features and Benefits
There are literally hundreds of uses for this sticky back plastic, from protecting surfaces to kitchen makeovers, craft projects to furniture upcycling. You'll be amazed how quick and easy it is to achieve an instant transformation with d-c-fix sticky back plastic. Hardwearing and versatile, it's great for many craft projects and is a fun way to breathe new life into tired old furniture, kitchen cupboards and table tops, without breaking the bank.
- Repositionable during application
- Heat resistant to 75 degrees C
- For the perfect finish apply with the d-c-fix applicator kit
Technical Specifications
|Colour description
|Peel & stick
|Length (mm)
|Width (mm)
|0.67 m²
Help & Advice
Wallpaper Calculator
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- 00 square metres
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How to guides
How to hang wallpaper in difficult places
You'll probably have started hanging your wallpaper on a straight wall without any obstacles. Sadly though, there's no way you can paper all the way around a room without meeting corners, door frames and fittings like light switches and sockets. But if you know the right techniques, you can still get a neat result and we will show you how.
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Buyer's guide to wallpapering tools
Wallpapering can sometimes be a more complex task than you might imagine, but having all the right tools will make it far simpler and the result much neater.
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Paste brush
You can use any 100mm or 125mm paintbrush to apply paste, but a paste brush has a thicker wedge of soft bristles, which makes it easier to use.
Paper-hanging scissors
These scissors have extra-long blades that make it easier to cut your wallpaper in straight lines.
Wallpaper table (pasting table)
Higher than a kitchen table and just wider than a roll of wallpaper, this lightweight folding platform is perfect for measuring, cutting and pasting paper. W-leg tables are more stable than cheaper versions, but plastic ones are the sturdiest of all - as well as being the simplest to clean and store.
Plumb line/chalk line
Want to make sure you hang your wallpaper straight? Use a plumb line (a weight on the end of a string) to get a perfectly straight vertical line. And if you need to draw a straight edge on most surfaces, snap a chalk line.
Wallpaper scorer
When you soak wallpaper to prepare it for stripping, score the surface first with a rotary scorer as it helps the water to penetrate. Then just use a scraper to lift the paper off the wall.
Paper-hanging brush
The soft bristles on this brush are designed to smooth wallpaper by squeezing out any air bubbles and excess paste. Wash the bristles in warm water when you've finished to keep it fresh and usable.
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Steaming is the fastest way to strip wallpaper. It makes good sense to buy a steamer when you have a lot of paper to strip, or need to do the job quickly.
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Smooth the seams between lengths of wallpaper with this tiny roller - but make sure not to use it on embossed or fragile papers.
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text:
Genealogy Day at the Fountaindale Public Library
300 W. Briarcliff Rd, Bolingbrook, IL
Web: www.fountaindale.org
Saturday, April 20, 2013
9:30 am to 4 pm
Join us for fantastic free program and learn the skills you need to make a difference in your family history research! Door Prizes! Society Booths! Author Book Signings!
- Tina BeairdHomesteading Records
- Steve Szabados
Naturalization – Beginning of your U.S. Family Heritage
- Craig Pfannkuche
Using Railroad Records in Family History Research
300 W. Briarcliff Rd, Bolingbrook, IL
Phone: 1-630-759-2102
Space is limited, please register online at www.fountaindale.org or by calling the library at (630) 685-4176. Participants are asked to bring a brown-bag lunch or preorder a lunch from Brooks Café. (Form on back of this flyer) Beverages will be provided. Due to limited parking, please carpool or make arrangements to be dropped off for this event! Call the library for more information.


text:
Compare great Hyundai Mobile Accident Repair prices in Cramlington with Who Can Fix My Car.
Enter your registration, compare quotes, and find a great garage near you. Get your competitive local prices now!
Compare great Hyundai Mobile Accident Repair prices in Cramlington with Who Can Fix My Car.
They actually charged me less then the quote as the brake fluid did not need changed. The guys at the garage were great, definitely will use them again
They quoted a price and apart from a faulty head light which had to be added,;that's the price I paid. Collected and dropped off my car - great price, great job, great garage.
Excellent all round service for the price. Would certainly recommend and use in the future.
Excellent service will be using again
Really impressed with the service at Tripal Garage! Having been given the wrong advice from another garage, Parm was very honest about what did need sorting on the car and did it at a very reasonable price. Will be using this garage from now on! Thank you.
Guy I spoke to was very professional and helpful. Told me exactly what was wrong with the car and also pointed these out. Had agreed to go and get the job done tomorrow morning however my dad suprised me telling me he's booked me in somewhere else and had already paid! Good value for money and feel bad my dad took business away from you! Would deffinately recommend people to try this garage.
Top garage would use again , thanks
I would highly recommend Tripal Garage, they fitted my clutch kit in a day and the car drives lovely now - professional service, Many thanks again.
Friendly helpful service, would use again. Part not readily available but they still sourced it for fitting next day.
Price was same as estimated which was good. Service book stamped and talked through minor issues.
Quick and efficient. Reasonable price! Helpful and pleasant services.
Excellent customer service and great price. Really friendly staff too ! I had a first full service and would recommend this garage. The £89 cost included oil & filter, all checks and vat.
Great service friendly staff kept upto date with what they needed too great 5star service thanks northeast garages
Excellent service thank you.
I had a great experience with this garage and the staff were super friendly and even managed to book me in on Christmas Eve!They made my car feel alive again and for this i will go going back there again very soon!
The supplier Premier Care centre were fantastic, very efficient on the initial enquiry, booked me in as early as possible with a realistic date, collected my car and carried out the service as requested along with full diagnostic check. The did a very thorough job and inspection on the car, they rectified my cold start problem with a small part from main dealers and also fitted a replacement fuel filter in addition as requested.the car was returned to me exactly as stated and has been absolutely perfect since.
Brilliant price and job done as per expectation!
excellent garage will definitely use again
"Cavendish Motor Company Limited is an independent authorised Bosch Car Servicing and Repair centre, we specialise in car servicing, air conditioning, diagnostics and MOT's in the Ashington, Cramlington, Blyth and Morpeth areas.Offering high quality servicing at a fraction of the cost of main dealer pricing. We cover most manufacturers including Audi, BMW, Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Mercedez, Mini, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Seat, Skoda, Vauxhall, VW, Volkswagen and more. From oil changes to Timing Belts save up to 1/3 of dealer pricing."


text:
BMS-247550 in Treating Patients With Liver or Gallbladder Cancer
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Adult Primary Cholangiocellular Carcinoma Adult Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma Advanced Adult Primary Liver Cancer Cholangiocarcinoma of the Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cholangiocarcinoma of the Gallbladder Localized Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Localized Gallbladder Cancer Localized Resectable Adult Primary Liver Cancer Localized Unresectable Adult Primary Liver Cancer Recurrent Adult Primary Liver Cancer Recurrent Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Recurrent Gallbladder Cancer Unresectable Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Unresectable Gallbladder Cancer
|Drug: ixabepilone Other: laboratory biomarker analysis
|Phase 2
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary Purpose: Treatment
|Official Title:
|A Phase II Trial Of The Epothilone B Analog BMS-247550 (NSC 710428D) In Patients With Hepatobiliary Cancer
- Objective response rate (partial or complete response) evaluated by RECIST [ Time Frame: Up to 8 years ]A 10% response rate precludes further study whereas a 25% response rate would indicate that further study is warranted.
- Frequency and extent of cytotoxic activity graded according to the NCI CTC Version 2.0 [ Time Frame: Up to 8 years ]
- Time to disease progression [ Time Frame: From the first day of treatment until the date PD or death is first reported, assessed up to 8 years ]Will also be evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier estimator.
- Overall survival [ Time Frame: From the time measurement criteria are met for CR/PR (whichever is first recorded) until the first date that PD is objectively documented, assessed up to 10 years ]Will also be evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier estimator.
|Study Start Date:
|August 2001
|Study Completion Date:
|November 2009
|Primary Completion Date:
|July 2005 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
Experimental: Treatment (ixabepilone)
Patients receive BMS-247550 IV over 3 hours on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for at least 2 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
Drug: ixabepilone
Given IV
Other Names:Other: laboratory biomarker analysis
Correlative studies
Detailed Description:
I. Determine the objective response rate of patients with hepatobiliary cancer treated with BMS-247550.
II. Determine the toxicity of this drug in these patients. III. Determine the duration of response, median and overall survival, and time to progression in patients treated with this drug.
OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.
Patients receive BMS-247550 IV over 3 hours on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for at least 2 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
Patients are followed every 6 weeks until disease progression
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Senior)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
Histologically or cytologically confirmed locally advanced, metastatic, or recurrent hepatobiliary cancer
- Liver (hepatocellular)
- Bile duct (cholangiocarcinoma)
- Gallbladder
At least 1 unidimensionally measurable lesion
- At least 20 mm by conventional techniques OR at least 10 mm by spiral CT scan
The following are not considered measurable lesions:
- Lesions seen on colonoscopic examination or barium studies
- Bone metastases
- CNS lesions
- Ascites
- No brain metastases
- Performance status - ECOG 0-2
- At least 3 months
- WBC at least 3,000/mm^3
- Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,500/mm^3
- Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3
- Bilirubin no greater than 1.5 mg/dL
- AST/ALT no greater than 2.5 times upper limit of normal
- Creatinine no greater than 1.5 mg/dL
- Creatinine clearance at least 60 mL/min
- No symptomatic congestive heart failure
- No unstable angina pectoris
- No cardiac arrhythmia
- No grade 2 or greater peripheral neuropathy
- No other uncontrolled concurrent illness
- No ongoing or active infection
- No psychiatric illness or social situation that would preclude study compliance
- No prior allergic hypersensitivity reaction attributed to compounds containing Cremophor EL (e.g., paclitaxel or compounds of similar chemical or biological composition to BMS-247550)
- No other currently active malignancy except nonmelanoma skin cancer, carcinoma in situ of the cervix, or cancer for which patient has completed therapy and is at less than 30% risk of relapse
- Not pregnant or nursing
- Negative pregnancy test
- Fertile patients must use effective contraception
- No concurrent immunotherapy
- No prior chemotherapy
- No other concurrent chemotherapy
- No concurrent hormonal therapy
- No concurrent therapeutic radiotherapy
- At least 30 days since prior investigational agents
- At least 7 days since prior cimetidine
- No concurrent cimetidine
- No other concurrent commercial or investigational anticancer agents or therapies
- No concurrent unconventional therapies, food, or vitamin supplements (e.g., St. John's Wort)
- No concurrent combination antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive patients
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00023946
|United States, Illinois
|University of Chicago
|Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60637
|Principal Investigator:
|Hedy Kindler
|University of Chicago
|Responsible Party:
|National Cancer Institute (NCI)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00023946 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
NCI-2012-02407 ( Registry Identifier: CTRP (Clinical Trial Reporting Program) )
UC#11045A ( Other Identifier: University of Chicago )
3656 ( Other Identifier: CTEP )
P30CA014599 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
N01CM62201 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
|Study First Received:
|September 13, 2001
|Last Updated:
|May 13, 2014
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Liver Neoplasms
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular
Gallbladder Neoplasms
Bile Duct Neoplasms
Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial
Neoplasms by Histologic Type
Digestive System Neoplasms
Neoplasms by Site
Digestive System Diseases
Liver Diseases
Biliary Tract Neoplasms
Biliary Tract Diseases
Gallbladder Diseases
Bile Duct Diseases
Epothilone B
Tubulin Modulators
Antimitotic Agents
Mitosis Modulators
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Antineoplastic Agents
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 19, 2017


text:
Man stabbed wife in back for 'hogging the bedsheets'
A retired engineer tried to murder his wife with a kitchen knife after he woke to find her hogging the bedsheets, leaving him with cold feet, a court heard.
Derek Miller, 76, stabbed his wife Galina, 57, in the back with a blade and told her: "You will die now."
After she fled the house in her dressing gown, he dialled the police and said: "I have just attempted to kill my wife. She's run away – I have failed." He later told police: "I'm sorry, it had to be done. She has goaded me for years."
Portsmouth Crown Court heard that the couple's 11-year marriage had been "on the rocks", but they had tried to patch things up the previous night. Mr Miller had bought his wife chocolates and the ''biggest bunch of flowers he could find'' and cooked dinner.
But he is alleged to have flown into a rage the next morning when he woke with no covers on his feet.
Rob Welling, prosecuting, told the jury: "That instantly made him angry and aggressive towards Galina. All the good work that had been done the night before collapsed around them and there was more arguing."
Mr Miller, a well-known member of the Portsmouth sailing community, is alleged to have attacked his Russian-born second wife as she emptied the bins at their home in the city on November 26 last year.
Mr Welling said: "She became aware of something odd about her shoulder. She turned round and found the defendant there in the kitchen, holding a huge kitchen knife."
Mrs Miller pushed her husband to the floor and ran out of the front door to find help. She was taken to hospital bleeding from the shoulder but her injuries were not life threatening.
The court heard that the couple met in 2002 after exchanging emails and booking two rooms at a hotel in Moscow's Red Square. Mr Miller was a professional footballer in his youth before training in aeronautical engineering and becoming an IT salesman, the jury was told.
His career gave him considerable wealth and he was able to retire at the age of 50 before moving to Portsmouth in 1999 to pursue his love of sailing, the court heard.
However, his wife recently discovered that he was more than £70,000 ($128,000) in debt and believed he had been looking on the internet for prostitutes, the jury was told.
He had also become resentful as she gained more independence after finding a job teaching English to foreign students, it was alleged.
Mr Miller denies attempted murder. He told the jury: "She turned her back and I picked up the knife. I was in a completely different world. I don't know why I did it.
"I did not intend to do it. I did not even know the knife was there. It just happened to be on the bench by the sink."
The trial continues.
Telegraph, UK
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