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Jan. 30, 2013 ? Severely malnourished children are far more likely to recover and survive when given antibiotics along with a therapeutic peanut-based food than children who are simply treated with the therapeutic food alone, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.
"The findings are remarkable," says Indi Trehan, MD, lead author of the research, published Jan. 31 in The New England Journal of Medicine. "Based on previous research, we didn't think there would be much benefit from antibiotics. We did not at all expect to see a drop in the death rate -- but there was, and it is significant."
The study involved nearly 2,800 children in Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa, with severe malnutrition. Each child was given an average of 30 days of therapeutic food and a placebo or an oral antibiotic -- either amoxicillin or cefdinir -- for seven days.
Overall, 88.3 percent of the children enrolled in the study recovered from severe malnutrition. Deaths accounted for the largest proportion of children who did not recover, with the mortality rate considerably higher among those who received placebo than among those given antibiotics.
The researchers found a 44 percent drop in mortality with the use of cefdinir and a 36 percent drop with amoxicillin, compared with the use of no antibiotics.
Early last year, Trehan and Mark Manary, MD, senior author of the study, presented their findings to the World Health Organization, which establishes international guidelines for the treatment of malnutrition and other diseases.
"The addition of antibiotics has a profound impact that we hope will change how these children are treated worldwide," says Manary, the university's Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics. "This trial provided very solid, very objective, top-of-the-line scientific evidence to answer the question of whether antibiotics should be added to severely malnourished children's treatment regimen. The answer is yes. This is a game-changer. This will save more lives."
Adds Trehan: "Because of the large number of children who get this disease, the addition of antibiotics could impact potentially hundreds of thousands of children a year."
More than a decade ago, Manary became a key player in introducing a simple but revolutionary peanut butter-based therapeutic food to battle severe malnutrition, an affliction that contributes to the death of 1 million children each year. This ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) proved to be a lifesaver, with recovery rates at 85 to 90 percent. Consequently, RUTF is now used to treat malnourished children throughout the world. In Malawi, the epicenter of Manary's and Trehan's research and intervention, Manary's "Project Peanut Butter" serves hundreds of thousands of malnourished children.
Still, despite markedly better outcomes for children treated with RUTF, 10 percent to 15 percent of children do not recover and many of them die, the new study notes. Those children were the impetus that led to the study involving adding antibiotics to the treatment regimen.
"You might think that something as simple as getting sick from not having enough to eat would be easily fixed by restoring a normal diet, but it's not," Manary says. "Starvation renders the body very vulnerable and susceptible to many infections. Just providing food so that children have enough nutrients to recover only goes so far."
The study took place at 18 clinics in rural Malawi from December 2009 through January 2011. It involved 2,767 children ages six months to five years with uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition, meaning they were diagnosed as severely malnourished but still had good appetites, were not hospitalized and did not show signs of severe infection.
The children were randomly prescribed amoxicillin, cefdinir or a placebo, in addition to the fortified peanut butter food. Neither the researchers nor the caregivers knew whether a child was receiving an antibiotic or a placebo. The death rate was highest -- 7.4 percent -- among children who received a placebo, compared with 4.8 percent for those treated with amoxicillin and 4.1 percent for cefdinir, the researchers found. They noted no serious side effects from the antibiotics.
Trehan and Manary, both Washington University physicians at St. Louis Children's Hospital, say the findings already have changed how they treat children at the field clinics they operate in Malawi. They stress that adding antibiotics to the treatment of severely malnourished children would involve using easily accessible, inexpensive, low-risk medications that can be administered by a child's own family.
"It doesn't involve complicated medical procedures to go after the biggest killer of children in the world -- something that kills more kids than malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis -- to reduce that death rate among those kids," Manary says. "That's what is so important about this. The practical implications are huge."
An internationally regarded expert in malnutrition, Manary is also director of the Global Harvest Alliance, a joint venture between Children's Hospital, Washington University and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center that is, among other goals, working to eradicate childhood malnutrition.
Trehan, a clinical fellow in the university's Department of Pediatrics, spent the last three years in Malawi conducting malnutrition research and served for more than a year on the faculty of the University of Malawi and as a consultant physician, teaching medical students and pediatric registrars at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine. The original article was written by Elizabethe Holland Durando.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Indi Trehan, Hayley S. Goldbach, Lacey N. LaGrone, Guthrie J. Meuli, Richard J. Wang, Kenneth M. Maleta, Mark J. Manary. Antibiotics as Part of the Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition. New England Journal of Medicine, 2013; 368 (5): 425 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1202851
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Here is a look at real-estate news in Tuesday?s WSJ:
Leg Up for Downtown Detroit: A?mortgage magnate is going on a property-buying spree in a bid to revive the faded district.
Redrawn Map in New York Doubles Flood Zone:?The number of local homes and businesses within flood zones appears likely to double, with 35,000 new structures in or near New York City added to advisory maps released Monday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In Far Rockaway, Recognition for Bungalows:?A small beach bungalow community in Far Rockaway, Queens, has been given the official nod as a state historic landmark and likely will get a national designation in a few weeks.
Ratner Scales Down Job Duties:?Bruce Ratner, a prolific developer who has spent the past three decades successfully battling for public approvals of large and often controversial projects, is planning to step down as chief executive of his company, according to multiple executives told of the decision.
Europe House of the Day:?This newly built five-bedroom house looks strikingly contemporary in an area of London largely made up of Victorian properties.
Duke University biomedical engineers have developed a new delivery system that overcomes the shortcomings of a promising class of peptide drugs ? very small proteins ? for treating diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
There are more than 40 peptide drugs approved for use in humans and more than 650 are being tested in clinical studies. One example is the hormone insulin, a peptide that regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates in the body and is used as a drug to treat diabetes.
Despite their effectiveness, peptide drugs cannot achieve their full potential for a number of reasons. They are rapidly degraded in the blood stream and they are cleared rapidly from the body, which requires multiple, frequent injections. Because of this, peptide concentrations in the blood can rise precipitously just after injection and fall dramatically soon thereafter, causing unwanted side effects for patients.
One popular method to solve this problem involves loading peptide drugs into polymer microspheres that are injected under the skin and slowly degrade to release the peptide drug. Microsphere-release technology has proven useful, but has many issues related to its manufacture and ease of patient use, the researchers said.
"We wanted to know if we could create a system that does what the polymer microspheres do, but gets rid of the microspheres and is more patient-friendly," said Ashutosh Chilkoti, Theo Pilkington professor of biomedical engineering in Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.
The new approach involves making a "fusion protein" that consists of multiple copies of a peptide drug fused to a polymer which is sensitive to body heat. The fusion molecule is a liquid in a syringe but transforms into a "jelly" when injected under the skin. Enzymes in the skin then attack the injected drug depot and liberate copies of the peptide, providing a constant and controllable release of the drug over time.
Miriam Amiram, former Chilkoti graduate student and first author on the paper, dubbed the new delivery system POD, for protease-operated depot.
In the latest experiments, published on-line in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers fused glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone that regulates the release of insulin, with a genetically engineered heat-sensitive polymer to create the POD.
"Remarkably, a single injection of the GLP-1 POD was able to reduce blood glucose levels in mice for up to five days, which is 120 times longer than an injection of the peptide alone," Chilkoti said. "For a patient with type 2 diabetes, it would be much more desirable to inject such a drug once a week or once a month rather than once or twice a day.
"Additionally, this approach avoids the peaks and valleys of drug concentrations that these patients often experience," Chilkoti said.
Unlike peptide-loaded microspheres, PODs are also easy to manufacture, because the peptide drug and the heat-sensitive polymer are all made of amino acids. They can be built as one long stretch of amino acids by engineered bacteria.
"This new delivery system provides the first entirely genetically encoded alternative to peptide drug encapsulation for sustained delivery of peptide drugs," Chilkoti said.
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Duke University: http://www.duke.edu
Thanks to Duke University for this article.
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Major U.S. stock benchmarks fell on Wednesday, after dour U.S. growth data reinforced a decision by the?Federal Reserve?to maintain its commitment to massive economic stimulus.
In a decision widely expected by analysts, the Fed emphasized that it would stick to its bond-buying program. That outcome was cast into doubt just weeks ago, after minutes from the central bank's last policy meeting showed some Fed members were growing concerned about ultra-low borrowing costs.
The decision converged with data that showed the U.S. economy?shrank by an annualized?0.1 percent in the final three months of 2012, and reinforced expectations that the Fed would likely err on the side of more stimulus.
Despite a run of strong corporate earnings, the GDP data fanned concerns about the economy's ability to absorb higher tax rates ? some of which took effect when the payroll tax holiday expired at the beginning of the year ? and efforts to cut government spending.
"The real risk out there, and the Fed was very vague in how they characterized it?I think we're going to see major government spending cuts that are going to come through sequestration," Diane Swonk, chief economist and senior managing director,?Mesirow Financial, told CNBC's "Street Signs"
"That is something the Fed has to deal with. That not only means weaker growth, which justifies lower rates, but it also means more Fed action."
After floating for most of the session between modest gains and losses in directionless trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 44 points, trading around 13,910.19, drifting further away from the psychologically-important 14,000 barrier being watched by analysts.
The S&P 500 Index slipped by nearly six points to 1,501.93, while the the Nasdaq dipped five points to trade above 3,142.31.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered to be the market's best gauge of fear in the market, rose above just shy of 14.
After floating for most of the session between modest gains and losses in directionless trading, the?Dow Jones Industrial Average?shed about 44 points, trading around 13,910.19, drifting further away from the psychologically-important 14,000 barrier being watched by analysts.
The?S&P 500?Index slipped by nearly six points to 1,501.93, while the the?Nasdaq?dipped five points to trade above 3,142.31.
The?CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered to be the market's best gauge of fear in the market, rose above just shy of 14.
Meanwhile, after weeks of buying on the rumor of?Research In Motion's new BlackBerry 10, investors on Wednesday opted to sell the fact.
The company ? which officially changed its corporate name to BlackBerry ? unveiled the new smartphone that many analysts see as essential to its long-term survival. Still, investors voted with their feet as RIM shares?plunged more than ten percent in volatile trading. It finished the session near near $14.
Volume in the company's stock this month is 85 percent higher than the average daily volume in the previous three months, 34.2 million. RIM?shares?are?up about 29 percent this month, its largest gain?since November, when it rose 46 percent.
The GDP report came just on the heels of a policy decision by the Fed. Some analysts, however, saw the slippage in U.S. growth as a temporary blip.
"[The] bottom line is that while this is the first reading for output for the final quarter, both inventories and trade could be revised firmer," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at?Miller Tabak.
"We expect 2013 to start with a rebound in inventory building, something evidenced by firm durable goods orders that will likely filter through into shipments moving into" the first quarter of this year, he added.
Still, markets were encouraged by a spate of strong quarterly earnings reports.?Boeing?rose one percent after the company reported fourth-quarter profit of?$1.28 per share, above analyst estimates. The company dismissed speculation that its bottom line would take a hit from widely publicized problems with its 787 Dreamliner, and expects to maintain its production and delivery forecast.
Amazon.com?surged by more than four percent, trading near $270 and within striking distance of a new 52-week high despite seeing a?fourth-quarter shortfall?on both the top and bottom lines. Analysts preferred to focus instead on what they expect will be Amazon's impressive profit margins.
Looking ahead, social networking giant Facebook notched gains ahead of its fourth quarter earnings, scheduled to be released after the bell. After broad pessimism pushed its stock below $20 last year, the company's stock has steadily climbed back above $30.
Monday, January 28th, 2013.Author : Max Cohen.25 views.
Sometimes when you first step onto the road of personal development, it can all be a little overwhelming. There are also a lot of different improvement avenues to chose from. Personal development can range from improving your diet to enhancing your social skills. Self improvement can be achieved in many different ways. The main goal of personal development is to improve the way that you feel about yourself, but it is quite probable that others around you will notice the changes too.
Set realistic, attainable goals for yourself to ensure that you are envisioning an achievable, healthy lifestyle. By taking some time our for yourself to focus on both strengths and weaknesses, you will notice overall self-improvement.
Take the time to research the lives of successful people. Studying the processes used by others will help you better develop your own self improvement strategies. Knowing that other people have succeeded at the same goal will make it seem more attainable to you.
Be on the lookout for new ways to challenge yourself. Discovering new challenges is a great way to open yourself up to new possibilities. You can learn more and acquire new skills. You may even start a new model by doing something that has never been done before. Do something new and unique, instead of copying others.
TIP! Seeking advice from a counselor, or paster can be a wonderful source to help guide you. They have a great deal of experience in dealing with personal thoughts and are even licensed to do so.
When you are actively trying to improve yourself, failing to do well at something can hurt your self-esteem more than it otherwise would. Actually, failure is really a learning experience. Failure is a way of learning your weaknesses and your strengths. Looking at it this way, failure is a source of pride, because you?ve unlocked another piece of the puzzle when it comes to your development.
Get organized. You will feel accomplished and your mind will feel clearer. This also helps relieve you from stress caused by disorganization. When everything is in a proper place, life is a bit more calm.
Take the time to change the focus of your conversation from your own accomplishments and awards to the achievements of those around you. You?ll be able to find out about the wonderful things the people you know have accomplished, bringing about a new-found respect and admiration for them.
Find texts that help you. This could be a holy text for some people. For others, it could just a book of inspirational sayings. Sometimes having a physical representation of comfort can help you better manage your day-to-day life.
TIP! Make the most of your work time to accomplish more. One trick to doing this, is to take more breaks.
Improving your life is closely tied to willpower, and a lot can be said for the karma you develop along the way. This means that you are wise to only wish good things upon others. If you endeavor to be positive about all things, then that positivity will come back to you.
Learn to deal with stressful situations without reacting in an emotional way. Learning ways to maintain your composure when stressed will help boost your self-esteem, and help you triumph under any circumstance. Breathing deeply can be a powerful way to reduce stress and stay in the moment.
The worst way to deal with a situation is by overreacting. This will cause you unneeded and unnecessary stress. It?s best to train yourself to cope with your daily stress, and it begins with analyzing every situation where you tend to feel strained. If you screw up, you can probably fix it, or at least find a way to minimize the damage. Rather than dwelling on what you?ve lost, look at the things you still have.
Leadership is about exercising authority, but good leaders are humble, too. When delivering criticisms, remember that you should be firm, yet friendly. You will not go far if you forget your own willingness to serve. A successful leader is one who demonstrates integrity and virtue as an example to others.
TIP! Writing out your goals will help you develop your own plan for personal growth. Record the behaviors and character traits you wish to have; for example, you might list patience or gratitude.
It is impossible for you to properly care for the ones you love, unless you take care of yourself first. It doesn?t matter if you are succeeding or failing in your path. You should always find time to rest your body so that you can renew yourself.
Strive to improve daily so that each one is more perfect than the previous. Set a goal of continuous improvement through steady efforts. Try your hardest to achieve something different today than what you achieved yesterday.
Make a list of your priorities, and plan your life around these elements. When it comes to focusing your feelings and emotions, strive to apply them to the important aspects of your life that build happiness, and do not waste them on the negative aspects that weigh you down and prevent inner peace.
Your core principles are important, and your actions should reflect them. Everyone has basic principles by which they define themselves. Having a good foundation based on your core principles will benefit your sense of self esteem. Better yet, this practice encourages consistency, which is an excellent character trait to maintain.
TIP! Live your life with wisdom and humility. There are certain things in your life that you just can?t change.
Anytime and anywhere, be ready for when your ideas strike. Make sure you have a notepad on you at all times. Scribble detailed notes when something comes to you, and then carry them out whenever your creativity is piqued.
It is essential to have a clearly outlined goal, when working toward improving self improvement. Make sure to come up with a target goal for yourself. If you are clear about your goals, it will be easier to measure how well you have achieved them.
Our goal in this article was to help you to accomplish a start on your self improvement plans. However, there are many other ways in which you may further improve your life. No matter your age, you can always work on becoming a better person for both yourself and others.
Maintaining a positive attitude will get you through a lot of tough times while allowing you to grow and mature. If you do not have a good attitude you will never get as far as you could have. Maintain a positive approach to life in order to reach your goals.
TIP! One new trait that is being researched and is very important to develop is known as sexual capitol. It does not refer to using sexuality in a manipulative way.
This is a Guest Post. Read more about the author here: Click Here
BANGKOK (AP) ? Oil prices were nearly flat Wednesday as a recent rally cooled off ahead of the release of more U.S. economic indicators and the conclusion of a meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers.
Benchmark oil for March delivery was down 1 cent to $97.56 a barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.13, or 1.2 percent, to close at $97.57 on Tuesday after being pushed higher by a report about rising U.S. home prices. Energy prices can rise when investors feel good about the economy, since it's needed to power manufacturing and other economic activity.
But traders became slightly more cautious ahead of the release of other U.S. economic indicators, including economic growth on Wednesday and weekly jobless claims Thursday. In addition, the Federal Reserve will conclude a two-day meeting later Wednesday with the release of a statement that investors will study for clues about the outlook for the economy and interest rates.
Recent rises in oil prices have been the result of an improving global economy, and positive manufacturing reports from the U.S. and China. But significant gains could be capped by demand constraints and ample supply, analysts said.
"The fundamentals are also likely to deteriorate again later in the year," said analysts at Capital Economics in a report. "Over the longer term, booming energy supply from both conventional and new sources will also add to the downward pressure on prices."
Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, rose 1 cents to $114.37 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
In other energy futures trading on Nymex:
? Wholesale gasoline fell 1 cent to $2.966 per gallon.
? Natural gas rose 3.4 cents to $3.292 per 1,000 cubic feet.
FILE - This undated file image provided by the Nueces County Sheriff's Office shows Manssor Arbabsiar. A new report warns that Iran?s elite Quds Force and Hezbollah militants are learning from a series of botched terror attacks over the past two years and post a growing threat to the U.S., Israel and other Western targets. The report by counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt, at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, points to two attacks _ one successful and one foiled by U.S. authorities _ last year as indications that the militants are adapting and are determined to take revenge on the west, including for its efforts to disrupt Tehran?s nuclear program. The two key attacks, the report said, include the plot by a Texas man to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Manssor Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen with an Iranian passport, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and murder-for-hire last October and told the court that Iranian military officials were involved in the planning. Iran has denied that link. While that plot highlighted a growing willingness to wage attacks in the U.S., a second, more successful plot in Bulgaria suggests that militants may be learning from their missteps. Last July, a bomb killed a bus driver and five Israelis, and wounded 30 others, when it struck a tour bus in a caravan. Officials have blamed the attack on Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Nueces County Sheriff's Office, File)
FILE - This undated file image provided by the Nueces County Sheriff's Office shows Manssor Arbabsiar. A new report warns that Iran?s elite Quds Force and Hezbollah militants are learning from a series of botched terror attacks over the past two years and post a growing threat to the U.S., Israel and other Western targets. The report by counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt, at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, points to two attacks _ one successful and one foiled by U.S. authorities _ last year as indications that the militants are adapting and are determined to take revenge on the west, including for its efforts to disrupt Tehran?s nuclear program. The two key attacks, the report said, include the plot by a Texas man to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Manssor Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen with an Iranian passport, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and murder-for-hire last October and told the court that Iranian military officials were involved in the planning. Iran has denied that link. While that plot highlighted a growing willingness to wage attacks in the U.S., a second, more successful plot in Bulgaria suggests that militants may be learning from their missteps. Last July, a bomb killed a bus driver and five Israelis, and wounded 30 others, when it struck a tour bus in a caravan. Officials have blamed the attack on Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Nueces County Sheriff's Office, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Iran's elite Quds Force and Hezbollah militants are learning from a series of botched terror attacks over the past two years and pose a growing threat to the U.S. and other Western targets as well as Israel, a prominent counterterrorism expert says.
Operating both independently and together, the militant groups are escalating their activities around the world, fueling worries in the U.S. that they increasingly have the ability and the willingness to attack the U.S., according to a report by Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. His report points to two attacks last year ? one successful and one foiled by U.S. authorities ? as indications that the militants are adapting and are determined to take revenge on the West for efforts to disrupt Tehran's nuclear program and other perceived offenses.
The report's conclusions expand on comments late last year from U.S. terrorism officials who told Congress that the Quds Force and Hezbollah, which often coordinate efforts, have become "a significant source of concern" for the U.S. The Quds Force is an elite wing of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, the defenders of Iran's ruling clerics and their hold on power.
The report comes amid ongoing tensions between Iran and the West, including a persistent stalemate over scheduling six-party talks on Tehran's nuclear program and anger over reports that the U.S. and Israel were behind the Stuxnet computer attack that forced the temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010.
More than 20 terror attacks by Hezbollah or Quds Force operatives were thwarted around the world between May 2011 and July 2012, with nine coming in the first nine months of 2012, Levitt said in the report.
"What is particularly striking is how amateurish the actions of both organizations have been: Targets were poorly chosen and assaults carried out with gross incompetence," Levitt said in the report. "But as the groups brush off the cobwebs and professionalize their operations, this sloppy tradecraft could quickly be replaced by operational success."
Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. From 2005 to early 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department.
The two key attacks, the report said, include the plot by a Texas man to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Manssor Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen with an Iranian passport, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and murder-for-hire last October and told the court that Iranian military officials were involved in the planning. Iran has denied that link.
His effort was foiled when he tried to hire what he thought was a drug dealer to carry out the attack in a Washington restaurant. The man was actually a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration confidential source.
While that plot highlighted a growing willingness to wage attacks in the U.S., a second, more successful plot in Bulgaria suggests that militants may be learning from their missteps.
Last July, a bomb killed a bus driver and five Israelis, and wounded 30 others, when it struck a tour bus in a caravan. Officials have blamed the attack on Hezbollah.
Other attacks over the past two years have also identified repeated links between Hezbollah and the Quds force ? a long alliance that historically involved the Iranians arming, funding or training the Lebanon-based militants and using them as proxies.
In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last September, Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said "the Quds force, as well as the group that it coordinates with, Lebanese Hezbollah" posed a significant source of concern.
FBI associate deputy director Kevin Perkins added, "We look at it as a serious threat, and ... we are focusing intelligence analysts and other resources on that on a daily basis to monitor that threat."
According to Levitt, the efforts to disrupt Iran's nuclear program have only made Tehran more eager to see a successful attack carried out. He said that both Hezbollah and the Quds Force have been hampered by the increased security triggered by the 9/11 attacks.
BERLIN (AP) ? A closely-watched survey shows German consumers are more optimistic, buoyed by the current calm in financial markets and expectations the economy will gradually revive over the course of the year.
The GfK institute reported Tuesday that its forward-looking indicator rose to 5.8 points for January, up from a revised 5.7 in January.
Analyst Carsten Brzeski says the indicator is "another small piece of evidence that domestic demand should be an important growth driver in 2013."
The report shows overall economic expectations still in negative territory, at minus 11.3 in January ? but that was an improvement from December's minus 17.9.
Income expectations rose to 36 in January from 21.2 in December, while consumers' willingness to buy was up to 35.3 from 20.1.
LAS VEGAS -- Police are reviewing surveillance videotape and trying to determine whether the same culprits are responsible for the overnight theft of puppies from one Las Vegas pet store and exotic birds and lizards from a business seen on the Animal Planet cable TV series "Tanked."
Officer Laura Meltzer said Monday that four dogs were stolen during the first break-in just before midnight at Prince and Princess Puppies & Boutique, several miles southwest of the Las Vegas Strip.
Link: Photos of Stolen Pets
Less than 90 minutes later, thieves broke the front door of Acrylic Tank Manufacturing and stole a tropical cockatoo and three macaws.
Store owner Wayde King says the thieves also made off with four bearded dragon lizards.
"The way it looked on camera, it looked like they definitely knew, they've been here," King said. "So we have footage for 31 days, 28 cameras, we got great footage and a lot of faces, so we saw a lot and the police have it. The main thing is that this is family and it's like someone coming in your house and taking a dog."
Even with the video showing the thieves' faces, King said the birds have to be found soon or they might not survive. One of the birds was being rehabilitated and needs medical attention.
King said the thieves knew exactly what they were looking for with exotic birds, ranging in price from $800 to more than $2,000, were stuffed into a blue bucket and carried away in the middle of the night.
King's worried about his animals and said the birds are his family pets, and weren't for sale.?He?added the exotic birds won't survive in the cold weather either.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.?~ Leo Tolstoy ~
As Financial Coaches, we meet with many people who think that they are on a budget, because they know how much they spend each month. They can tell you how much was spent on groceries or the dentist. They just check the credit card bill or the bank statement. Then there are people?who use tools like mint.com This is a free service to track your spending and look at current balances on all your financial accounts. They will send you bill reminders and suggest where you can save or cut expenses. This is a great tracking tool, bit it is not a budget. Tracking your expenses and savings after the month is over will give you valuable information about where your money went. Keeping receipts for cash expenses and itemizing bills and bank statements will give you a better idea. But is this not budgeting.
What is a budget?
A budget is a tool to?help you determine where your money will be spent, before?you spend it. A large portion of our monthly expenses are either fixed or stay roughly the same each month. There are always miscellaneous spending items that will come up such as soccer pictures, gifts or a flat tire. A budget gives you a way to plan for theses expenses without overspending. A budget is built each month before the month begins. You put your income at the top and categorize your spending until you have spent all of your income for the month either on expenses or savings.
Advantages to cash
Building a budget and assigning cash categories can make a big difference in how you spend. We use cash for groceries, restaurants, household products, miscellaneous expenses and personal spending (AKA blow money). It registers in your brain a lot more when hand the wait-staff at a restaurant $100.00 bill than it does to just put it on a credit or debit card. If makes you think first before ordering appetizers or before even?setting foot into a restaurant at all! Cash is visual. You can see how much you have left in your spending category as the month progresses. It helps keep you from going over your budget. If you run low in a category, you need to revisit your budget and adjust numbers to take money away from on category and add to another. Make sure that you write down your changes so that you can apply them if they apply again the next month.
In the world of personal finance there is room for both tracking and budgeting. In fact, everyone, no matter what your income level, should be?doing both. It can be?as simple as a yellow pad or computer based. In order to be?pointed in the right direction for long term gains, you need to put these systems in place.
We welcome your comments. Here are some things to think about:
What type of tracking system works for you?
Do you make a new budget each month using a computer spread sheet or a yellow pad?
Tim and Kathryn Gerken are Financial Coaches in Newcastle, WA. They do a monthly budget and track spending on an excel spread sheet. If you would like a copy of the form, please contact us and we will email it to you!
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in a Malaysian forest under mysterious circumstances, and wildlife officials said Tuesday that they probably were poisoned.
Carcasses of the baby-faced elephants were found near each other over the past three weeks at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, said Laurentius Ambu, director of the wildlife department in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island.
In one case, officers rescued a 3-month-old calf that was trying to wake its dead mother.
Poisoning appeared to be the likely cause, but officials have not determined whether it was intentional, said Sabah environmental minister Masidi Manjun. Though some elephants have been killed for their tusks on Sabah in past years, there was no sign that these animals had been poached.
"This is a very sad day for conservation and Sabah. The death of these majestic and severely endangered Bornean elephants is a great loss to the state," Masidi said in a statement. "If indeed these poor elephants were maliciously poisoned, I would personally make sure that the culprits would be brought to justice and pay for their crime."
The WWF wildlife group estimates that fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants exist. They live mainly in Sabah and grow to about eight feet tall, a foot or two shorter than mainland Asian elephants. Known for their babyish faces, large ears and long tails, pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies only in 2003, after DNA testing.
Their numbers have stabilized in recent years amid conservation efforts to protect their jungle habitats from being torn down for plantations and development projects.
The elephants found dead this month were believed to be from the same family group and ranged in age from 4 to 20 years, said Sen Nathan, the wildlife department's senior veterinarian. Seven were female and three were male, he said.
Post-mortems showed they suffered severe hemorrhages and ulcers in their gastrointestinal tracts. None had gunshot injuries.
"We highly suspect that it might be some form of acute poisoning from something that they had eaten, but we are still waiting for the laboratory results," Nathan said.
Few things capture the attention of physics students like a gun that fires Ping-Pong balls, according to a mechanical engineer who just built one that accelerates the balls to supersonic speeds.?
?You can shoot Ping-Pong balls through pop cans and it is great, it is so captivating, it is so compelling that you can get kids? attention and once you?ve got their attention, you can teach them something,? Mark French, the Purdue University assistant professor who built the gun, told NBC News.
The guns typically work by sealing a slightly-larger-than?Ping-Pong-ball-diameter tube with packaging tape and sucking all the air out to create a vacuum. Once the seal is broken on one end, air rushes into the tube and pushes the ball down the barrel.
?The ball doesn?t fit tightly in the tube, a little bit of air gets past the ball and when it gets to the seal at the other end, that little puff of air gets compressed and blows the seal out of the way so the ball can come out at 600 or 700 feet a second,? French explained.
After getting tons of mileage in class over the past few years ? as well as a divot or two in his classroom wall ??with a gun he built based on a design in scientific journal, he started thinking that he could make the ball come out even faster. And, well, faster is better.
The trick, he figured, was to get the air that pushes the ball out the tube (gun barrel) to move faster. To do this, French borrowed a nozzle design with a pinch in the middle that aerospace engineers use to get air moving at supersonic speeds in their wind tunnels.
As air enters the so-called convergent-divergent or de Laval nozzle, it accelerates as it is compressed, reaching supersonic speeds as the nozzle expands.?
?I thought, okay, I?m going to treat this thing like a little wind tunnel,? he said.?
To do so, he put a convergent-divergent nozzle at the opposite end of the tube from where the ball exists and behind that, a pressure chamber made out of PVC tubing.?
When the chamber is pumped up to about 45 pounds per square inch, it breaks the?seal.
?That pressurized air goes through the nozzle just like it does in a supersonic wind tunnel and accelerates to supersonic speed out the other end and pushes the ball ahead of it,? he said.?
?At least, that?s what we think is going on,? he added. ?We haven?t done any analyses on this ? we are still doing some more tests ? but whatever is going on, it is definitely coming out at Mach 1.23.?
Yes, that?s fast; faster than F-16 flying at top speed at sea level, noted MIT?s Physics xrXiv Blog.?
French and colleagues Craig Zehrung and Jim Stratton describe the gun in a paper posted Jan. 22?on arXiv.org, a server where pre-prints of scientific papers are posted.?
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
A global market research company operating in Nigeria,TNS-RMS, highlights factors that will drive change in the country?s telecoms industry in 2013, writes DAYO OKETOLA writes
A number of developments will take place in Nigeria?s telecoms industry this year, going by the predictions by a global market research firm, TNS, which operates as TNS-RMS in the country. Firstly, TNS-RMS predicts the entrance of a new network operator into the Nigerian telecoms space.
According to the firm?s report on the expected changes in? Nigeria?s telecoms market in 2013, made available to our correspondent on Monday, the new operator will ride on the sale of the moribund Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, expected to be completed this year.
?There is every possibility that if NITEL?s assets are sold off at the rock-bottom prices proposed by relevant government officials, the transaction will provide any interested and discerning telecoms operator the requisite platform to come into the Nigerian telecommunications market space and compete favourably,? the report says.
But against TNS-RMS predictions, many industry stakeholders had recently stepped up campaign against the sale of the entity, calling for its repositioning with new investments.
?TNS RMS also predicts increase in competition and fall in prices.
Industry analysts say the recent slash in ?off-net? SMS tariffs by the Nigerian Communications Commission is a pointer to what will happen in 2013.
In view of this, the Regional Director, West Africa, TNS Connect & Telco Clients, Mr. Seyi Adeoye, says a high-level? competition will? likely weaken prices in the telecoms industry in 2013.
According to him, the pressure on telcos? revenue will further be sustained with increased use of VOIP platforms and other OTT offers.
He says the price reduction gimmicks being used by telcos may soon be over while fast-forward innovation, intelligent market segmentation, profiling and targeting become veritable tools in the hands of any telco that wants to succeed.
He says, ?When you want to see the future of the mobile market, take a look at Scandinavia. This is the region with the most competition, the lowest prices and the highest phone concentration. In Denmark, one month of mobile voice and data equals the price of a large pizza and a two-litre bottle of cola.
?In Nigeria, over the period to 2014, the increasing number of users will dominate the impact of price increase.? However, beyond 2014, increasing saturation of mobile phones will mean that continued price reductions will not lead to sufficiently large increase in user numbers to offset the impact of the price reductions.?
Adeoye says the Mobile Network Virtual Operator model, which was developed in Denmark, can happen sooner than expected in Nigeria.
MVNO is a network provider that does not own radio spectrum or wireless network infrastructure, rather it goes into agreement with an existing mobile network provider to obtain bulk access to network services and then retail same to end users at cheaper and highly competitive rates.
?MVNO is also a real possibility within the Nigerian market space. Despite current QoS issues, the installed capacity of GSM operators in Nigeria is only about 56 per cent utilised, leaving room for MVNOs to snap up idle capacity. If this happens, it will disrupt the competitive landscape of the Nigerian telecoms market,? Adeoye said.
The NCC had in December, 2012 commenced infrastructure-testing for the proposed Mobile Number Portability initiative with eyes on April 2013 for likely take-off.
TNS-RMS says this will further increase the level of competitiveness among the current operators with direct impact on products and service pricing.
Adeoye also says telecoms operators in the country will either have to accelerate innovation and diversify or lose their market share.
He observes that competition in the Nigerian telecoms market remains aggressive with over 70 per cent penetration level. Though the industry is still growing, Adeoye believes the tempo will be significantly reduced amid declining prices.
The immediate priority for network operators, according to him,? is the need to accelerate diversification of revenue streams; adding that it will help reduce churn rates and increase Average Revenue Per User.
He recommends possible areas of generating revenue to include online commerce, educational services (learn foreign languages, public contents, and university exams), video/audio streaming, mobile TV, cloud services, storage apps, content streaming, mobile money, and mobile advertising, among others.
Also commenting on factors that will drive change in telecoms industry in 2013, the Chief Executive 0fficer, TNS, West, East and Central Africa, Mr. Adeola Tejumola, says provision of data services has been clearly labelled as the next revenue frontier for mobile operators in Nigeria. He, however, observes that not only GSM operators are interested in capitalising on this trend.
He, therefore, submits that the rise of Wi-Fi networks represents one of the key defining changes in the country?s telecoms landscape in 2013.
He says, ?There has been recent emergence of data-only networks with focus on providing mass access to broadband Internet service, using WiFi platform (802.11 x standards) at very affordable prices or packages. An example is Oxygen Broadband Networks now servicing the entire Computer Village, Lagos in partnership with Main-One Nigerian and Loop21 Mobile Net, a WiFi hotspot software development company in Austria.
?This scenario is creating headlong competition between these networks and mobile network providers within the country,? he observes.
Tejumola also identifies Nigeria?s rising middle income consumerism as one of the key drivers of change in telecoms industry in 2013.
He says, ?Although the African continent has always had a modest middle class, made up mostly of government workers or others tied to the ruling elite, the middle ranks have begun to expand in recent years with private sector employees. They include secretaries, computer gurus, merchants and others who by virtue of education, geography or luck have benefited from economic growth of around six per cent annually in such countries as Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, and approximately eight per cent in Rwanda.
?The Nigerian middle class is expanding and fuelling growth in Africa?s most populous nation. They also are spawning the advent of new services such as fertility treatments, online retail stores, auto workshops and funeral homes. To them, it?s all about lifestyle. Middle class Nigerians would ideally make up the mid value telecoms segment and a significant part of the high value telecoms segment.?
According to him, 80 per cent of the Nigerian telecoms market revenue is within these two spend-brackets.
?There would be need to develop a unique engagement model for this class of Nigerians hinged on enhanced personalisation of mobile products and services and context based marketing,? he adds.
The report concludes that quality of service will continue to be significant change driver in the Nigerian telecoms industry.
?Recent heightened market activities characterised by price cuts, new product offers and innovative services have broadened options before the customer; who in return raised the ?Expectation Bar?. Ease of connection and call clarity are now crucial and could easily turn to a pain point (thus encouraging multiple sim use, value-erosion and outright churn).There is need to monitor closely customer satisfaction, understand clearly the levers and maybe evolve these into some sort of Performance Score Card,? the report adds.
28 January 2013Last updated at 07:40By Matt WalkerEditor, BBC Nature
Common dolphins have been seen gathering to aid a dying companion, trying to support it in the water and help it breathe.
This is the first time that a group of dolphins has been recorded trying to help or save another dying dolphin.
Korean-based scientists witnessed the event in the East Sea off the coast of Ulsan, in South Korea.
Five individual dolphins formed a raft with their bodies in an attempt to keep the stricken dolphin afloat.
Details of the behaviour are reported in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
Healthy cetaceans, the group of animals that includes whales and dolphins, have been seen attempting to provide supportive care to individuals before.
For example, in the mid-20th Century, a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) in captivity was seen lifting her stillborn calf to the surface with her back.
Wild bottlenose dolphins have also been seen supporting dead or stillborn calves near the surface, while some have been recorded stimulating their babies by biting them.
But all previous examples involved just one or two adult dolphins trying to rescue a calf.
Now Kyum J Park of the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, Korea, and colleagues report an incident when up to 10 long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis) tried to save the life of another adult.
The researchers routinely monitor cetaceans off the South Korean coast.
During one survey, they encountered a group of long-beaked common dolphins containing more that 400 individuals being followed by approximately 500 streaked shearwaters.
Both dolphins and birds were foraging, and the research vessel approached and observed the pod several times.
A small group of dolphins had separated from the pod and were splashing near to the boat.
Closer observation revealed at least 12 individuals swimming very slowly.
Among them, one dolphin was wriggling about, its body leaning over, with its abdomen showing to the surface.
Though it could move and splash its tail, its flippers appeared to be paralysed and it had red marks on its belly.
A number of dolphins circled this group, while those within appeared to be trying to help the stricken dolphin maintain its balance, by pushing it from the side and below.
Then the 10 remaining dolphins took turns to form a raft using their bodies.
Five dolphins at a time lined up horizontally into a raft-like formation, maintaining it while the stricken dolphin moved on top and rode on their backs.
One of the dolphins in the raft even flipped over its body to better support the ailing dolphin above, while another used its beak to try to keep the dying dolphin's head up.
A few minutes later the stricken dolphin appeared to die, its body hanging vertically in the water, with its head above the surface. It wasn't breathing.
Five of its associates continued to interact with the dead dolphin's body, rubbing and touching it, or swimming underneath, releasing bubbles onto it.
They carried on this way despite the dead dolphin's body showing signs of rigor mortis, say the researchers.
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New study finds that 48 percent of college graduates are in jobs that do not require a college degree, fueling consumer doubts over whether a college education is worth the cost.
By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / January 28, 2013
Martina Ryberg (r.) of Plymouth State University talks with Tara Rossetti of On Call International during a job fair for college students in Manchester, N.H., last year. Many college grads are entering jobs for which they are overqualified.
Jim Cole/AP/File
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Here?s a new data nugget in a high-stakes debate over the state of working America: A new study finds that about half of all workers with a college degree are overqualified for their current jobs.
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Some 48 percent of the degree holders, to be precise, are in positions that the US Labor Department classifies as requiring less than a four-year college education.
This finding, released by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a research group in Washington, underscores growing public concerns about the availability of good jobs and the value of college education.
?In the three occupations ?retail sales person,? ?cashier,? and ?waiters and waitresses? there are more than 1.7 million college graduates employed,? says the study, by researchers Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, and Jonathan Robe.
Today, 15 percent of US taxi drivers have a college degree, up from fewer than 1 percent in 1970.
The study arrives at a time when news articles asking, ?Is college worth it?? have become commonplace.
But, although the new report suggests the answer often is ?no,? this is a complicated issue, with other scholars defending the idea that expanding higher education will benefit individuals and the economy.
For instance, for people focused on their own financial well-being, it?s worth noting that a college degree tends to result in both higher pay and lower unemployment. The jobless rate is currently 3.9 percent for workers with a college degree or higher, versus 8 percent for high-school grads and 11.7 percent for people without a high school diploma.
Plenty of economists defend the goal of bringing higher education to a larger share of the work force, arguing that it?s the best way for the US to maintain prosperity in an era of stronger global competition for good-paying jobs.
Both sides in this debate may be contributing important grains of truth.
Lots of people are overqualified for the jobs they hold, and this is a challenge that emerged before the deep recession?in 2007-09, which created a particularly challenging job market for new college grads.
At the same time, the story of economic progress is one of continuous development of new tools and the skills to use them ? and good jobs will flow to nations that can keep pushing further down this path. And millions of individuals have the means to educate themselves, and hope to be useful in jobs that match their talents and aspirations.
The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP), in its report, emphasizes the risks of pushing too much education on too many people, with too little thought about its usefulness.
(Reuters) - R&B singer Chris Brown will be questioned as part of an investigation into allegations that he punched a man during a fight over a parking space in West Hollywood, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said on Monday.
Deputies responded to a call on Sunday about a fight involving six men on Santa Monica Boulevard, the department said. Witnesses said the Grammy-winning singer had assaulted a man during the brief altercation.
No arrests were made. The alleged victim was not named in a department statement that said Brown and his entourage had left the scene before deputies arrived.
Investigators plan to contact the singer about the incident at a later time, according to the department.
Brown, 23, is serving a five-year probation sentence after pleading guilty to assaulting fellow R&B star and former girlfriend Rihanna on the eve of the 2009 Grammy awards.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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#1 ? Cas?
Group:Normal Members
Posts:858
Joined:28-November 11
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Posted Yesterday, 02:38 AM
A quick question just came to mind, as this seems a bit easier on linux (for a change) than on windows: how can you record a sample from say a movie, playing in e.g. vlc, into renoise? I used to just Convert the whole movie to mp3 and look for the good parts, but that annoying and tedious and takes all the fun out of the sampling. In linux I can just reroute some cables in JACK and I can straight hit record from renoise! Anybody know of a good tool for this? VLC doesn't play through ASIO4All does it?
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#2 ? Jenoki?
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Posted Yesterday, 02:47 AM
Cas, on 27 January 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:
A quick question just came to mind, as this seems a bit easier on linux (for a change) than on windows: how can you record a sample from say a movie, playing in e.g. vlc, into renoise? I used to just Convert the whole movie to mp3 and look for the good parts, but that annoying and tedious and takes all the fun out of the sampling. In linux I can just reroute some cables in JACK and I can straight hit record from renoise! Anybody know of a good tool for this? VLC doesn't play through ASIO4All does it?
Virtual Audio Cable is one way. Another way depends if your soundcard driver has the function built in, something like "What U Hear" or "Loopback" are features available to do just that kind of thing.
Also, depending on the video format, you can actually load the video in to renoise in as a sample.
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#3 ? Veggies?
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Posted Yesterday, 10:10 AM
What I do is use my consumer-level soundcard as my default sound card in windows, and have the output routed physically into my professional audio card. I have it always monitoring, so I can always hear my regular computer sounds, while also being able to use my pro audio card for making music and sampling sounds from my PC.
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#4 ? kazakore?
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Posted Yesterday, 12:31 PM
A lot of consumer level soundcards, such as the onboard chipsets on motherboards, have a Record What You Hear type feature. This is what I've usually used. Not perfect but acceptable and easier, faster and more convenient than converting the whole file (and unless you are ripping the audio stream, rather than converting, possibly higher quality too.)
I would generally try and avoid going out of an onboard chipset and into your main audio interface. This is likely to give the lowest quality results out of all possible methods. Although some onboard chipsets are too bad these days so depending on your setup you might get perfectly usable results (as I assume Veggies must do.)
I don't think VLC has ASIO. There is an ASIO plugin for Winamp though.
http://www.winamp.co...t-plugin/156466
Or for Foobar: http://www.foobar200...ew/foo_out_asio
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#5 ? vV?
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Posted Yesterday, 12:42 PM
Cas, on 27 January 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:
A quick question just came to mind, as this seems a bit easier on linux (for a change) than on windows: how can you record a sample from say a movie, playing in e.g. vlc, into renoise? I used to just Convert the whole movie to mp3 and look for the good parts, but that annoying and tedious and takes all the fun out of the sampling. In linux I can just reroute some cables in JACK and I can straight hit record from renoise! Anybody know of a good tool for this? VLC doesn't play through ASIO4All does it?
Jack also works for Windows, but you need a video player capable of using Jack and you can only use Jack for the 32-bit version of Renoise since the 64-bit version somehow doesn't seem to be able connect. Reaper can play video files so you might as well be able to link audio from Reaper to Renoise using Jack. But Reaper also has ReaRoute so you might as well slave Renoise to Reaper using ReaRoute and then toy with your movies.
Vv....
cpu Intel Core2 Quad CPUQ6600 @2.40GHz chipset nVidia nForce 4 SLI x16 -> Driver rev:5.1.2600.445 (management 4.4.5.0) mem 8 Gb 800Mhz os Win 7 64-bit SP1, DirectX 11 audio ESI ESP1010e - > Driver rev:2.0.1.0 video nVidia Geforce GTX580 - > Driver rev:306.23
Renoise Official Manual
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#6 ? visinin?
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Posted Yesterday, 01:59 PM
isn't there just a "dump audio output to file" dummy audio driver? with mplayer i can just do "mplayer -vo null -ao pcm <videofile>" and i get an audiodump.wav file.
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#7 ? kazakore?
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Posted Yesterday, 02:07 PM
visinin, on 27 January 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:
isn't there just a "dump audio output to file" dummy audio driver? with mplayer i can just do "mplayer -vo null -ao pcm <videofile>" and i get an audiodump.wav file.
He already said currently he rips the entire soundtrack and then cuts out the bit and that's what he wants to avoid in future. Is that not what this method would do? I know Winamp has a similar feature but it can only route to one output from what I remember (but I generally use an antiquated version as 2.x was always better for Shoutcast streaming than 5.x historically.) Plus I know I have run into issues with playback speed using this, think you need to make sure the soundcard samplerate is set the same as the audio you are ripping.
If you note down times of the wanted sample it might still be a slight advance on ripping the entire soundtrack and editing after though...
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#8 ? Cas?
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Posted Yesterday, 03:00 PM
kazakore, on 27 January 2013 - 02:07 PM, said:
If you note down times of the wanted sample it might still be a slight advance on ripping the entire soundtrack and editing after though...
Yeah that'll probably be the windows workflow.. trying the virtual cable program linked by Jenoki but it definitely doesn't seem as straightforward a setup as jackcontrol is.
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Cas, on 27 January 2013 - 02:38 AM, said: