For a few homeowners, a house is actually acanvas - Jackson The sun.

SEATTLE — It's challenging to miss the massive 20-foot-wide American flag privately of Richard Ormbrek's dwelling. Composed of around 180 tiles painted with moments of Americana against a background of red and white stripes, the flag pops through the orange cedar shingles with traffic-stopping audacity.

This is in fact the second major talent project that Ormbrek has dress yourself in the house he gives with brother-in-law Bruce Edenso. The first — a normal Haida Indian totem house design that covered the entire side of the house — was painted in 1975 and made the home something of a nearby landmark.

But few have a inclination — or the guts — to show their own home straight into "that house, " to view their property as a giant canvas waiting to end up explored.

"We needed to paint our home anyway, " says Ormbrek. "And while we were mulling with the color, we decided for making our home look being a longhouse. "

Ormbrek's tardy wife Judy, a Tlingit-Haida, identified the totem design, which the Ormbreks projected from atop a car next door while their friend Steve Priestly painted inside lines.

Neighbors gaped for the reason that house was transformed, but only one seemed to mind, fearing it could bring down property prices. So far, it looks, the Totem House provides neither driven down property values per of Seattle's hottest local communities, nor affected the resale value on the town itself.

"I get offers invest in to buy my home, " says Ormbrek. "Of course I'm not intending on selling the house — it's an unusually special place. "

Keith Wong, a real estate agent in San Gabriel, Calif., for the national real-estate brokerage Redfin, says a home's price and location become more important than aesthetics around tight markets.

"We educate our clients to get a past cosmetics, " tells Wong. "If a home has good bones, there are lots of potential. "

For the people considering a creative makeover to the home, remember it's a superb line between special along with tacky, Wong advises. And consider how long you'll be staying there.

"If you're planning on selling your home when soon, it's best to choose cosmetics and keep together with the characteristics of the location architecturally, " he claims.

Jay Pennington of New Orleans put a twist within this suggestion when he provided his yard to sponsor a year-long musical art installation. The double lot he purchased in 2007 came with a dilapidated, roughly 250-year-old Creole cottage relating to the property, which Pennington wanted to use in a innovative way befitting the mindset of New Orleans.

Some sort of DJ, performer and artist manager who also passes the name Rusty Lazer, Pennington is steeped inside the art world through his are co-director of New Orleans Airlift, a not-for-profit organization that can offer opportunities for artists. Pennington, in addition to Brooklyn-based street artist Gush and New Orleans Airlift Co-Director Delaney Martin, invented the idea of a musical village constructed from the salvaged remains within the cottage.

After obtaining city permits, Martin and artist Taylor Lee Shepherd paired artists with builders to make a lot-size shantytown with 90 years shacks that wheezed, thrummed and plinked as fully running instruments.

The neighbors were pretty much universally supportive and took part inside project — from making an effort to dismantle the cottage to defending Pennington in the one neighbor who looked at the project as "trashy" together with tried to shut it down.

"It's New Orleans — families love music here, " says Pennington. He said neighbors appreciated that this cottage wasn't torn down and replaced with a new, out-of-character home.

He did draw the line at friends camping in his yard for Mardi Gras, insisting they will build a privacy fence showing respect for the neighborhood friends. The fence was built in one day, wheat-pasted with a model by Swoon, and now a joint of it is part of the archival collection at the fresh Orleans Museum of Art.

Performances of "The Beats Box, " as the project was called, came 15, 000 visitors and then a host of performers which played the instrumental buildings. It ended in May well 2011 after four times of staggered performances. Nearly all of it was dismantled and also the pieces stored to be used in a permanent musical building known as Dithyrambalina.

Pennington still shares his property with the project's art director, Eliza Zeitlin, who lives with the permanent structure she built for the project — along using her menagerie of 35 animals.

Military leaders: Sexual assault "like a good cancer" - CBS Thing.

Ankle Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, testifies on Capitol Hill in New york on June 4, 2013, leading to a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on pending legal guidelines regarding sexual assaults in the military. / AP Photo/Susan Walsh

WASHINGTON Military leaders claimed Tuesday that sexual assault inside the ranks is "like a cancer" which will destroy the force, they expressed serious concerns around far-reaching congressional efforts to be able to strip commanders of a lot of authority in meting released justice.

In an abnormal joint appearance, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman within the Joint Chiefs of Staff members, and the head of each and every branch of the military testified on the is widely viewed for being an epidemic of sexual attack plaguing the services.

"The risks inherent to military company must never include love-making assault, " said Affiliate marketing online Gen. Martin Dempsey. "We can and should do more to protect affected individuals. "

Outraged by high-profile scenarios and overwhelming statistics, lawmakers have moved aggressively on legislation to pay the scourge of intimate assault.

"This is a difficulty for the military, they're like two decades behind.... You cannot train your way because of this problem. These are predators who will strike often. This has to certainly be a focus of successful prosecution, not 'let's see if this can go away cause it would make my unit appear bad', " Sen. Claire McCaskill claimed on CBS' "This Morning" The following thursday.

"We've got to take away their [commanding officers] chance to overturn jury verdicts, that could be absolutely inappropriate, " increased McCaskill.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman for the Armed Services Committee, said the problem of sexual assault "is of this scope and magnitude that it has developed into stain on our service. "

Congress has acted in prior years to guarantee the aggressive investigation and justice of sexual assaults, Levin stated, but more needs being done. The committee is considering seven bills to get over sexual assault.

As important as additional protections could be, Levin said, the problem will not be addressed successfully without a cultural change throughout the military. And that starts others in terms of the chain of command.

"Our goal should be to carry commanders more accountable, inch said Dempsey, "Commanders are responsible for all that goes on in the unit. "

"The military services services are hierarchal agencies: The tone is set through the top of that stringed, the message comes within the top, and accountability rests at the pinnacle, " said Levin, who has not endorsed several bills.

"Sexual assault and harassment are to be a cancer within the induce? a cancer that positioned untreated will destroy the fabric in our force, " said Affiliate internet marketing Gen. Ray Odierno. "It's imperative that we take a comprehensive procedure for prevent attacks, to protect our people, and at which appropriate, to prosecute wrongdoing along with hold people accountable. inches

While acknowledging the problem and accepting that laws is inevitable, military leaders insisted this commanders keep their authority to undertake sexual assault cases.

"Reducing command responsibility could adversely affect the power of the commander to help you enforce professional standards in addition to ultimately, to accomplish this mission, " Dempsey assured the committee.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N. Ymca., a member of this committee, is a proponent of ambitious legislation designed to remove commanders from the method of deciding whether substantial crimes, including sexual misconduct circumstances, go to trial. That judgment would remainder with seasoned trial counsels who have prosecutorial experience and support the rank of colonel and also above.

The Pentagon estimated within a recent report that as much as 26, 000 military members appeared to be sexually assaulted last year, up from an predicted 19, 000 assaults around 2012, based on a anonymous survey of service personnel. While the wide variety of sexual assaults that members within the military actually reported increased 6 percent to 3, 374 inside 2012, thousands of victims were still unwilling into the future forward despite new oversight and assistance programs aimed toward curbing the crimes, this report said.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a co-sponsor for the Gillibrand bill and chairwoman within the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the legislation "bold" and "out in the box. " She dismissed concerns that this goes too far in overhauling the military the law system, saying it's time to try a new procedure for solving a problem with which has persisted for years.

"I think 26, 000 sexual assaults is going too far, " Mikulski stated. "And now there is a criminal investigation of the football team in the Naval Academy, where we've been training the next preferred. "

A steady drumbeat of high-profile cases and also the most recent statistics through the Pentagon have spurred Congress to transport aggressively on legislation to handle sexual assault in this military.

Last week, that Pentagon said the U. S. Naval Academy is looking at allegations that three football business friends sexually assaulted a women midshipman at an off-campus house eco-friendly tea's health benefits year ago. A lawyer to your woman says she is "ostracized" on campus right after she reported it.

In recent weeks, a soldier in the U. S. Military Academy is charged with secretly taking pictures of women, including in your bath room. The Air Force police who led the service's Love-making Assault Prevention and Effect unit was arrested on charges of groping a girl. And the manager with the Army's sexual assault effect program at Fort Campbell, Ky., was relieved of this post after his arrest in a very domestic dispute with this ex-wife.

Oklahoma Sen. Brandon Inhofe, top Republican on the committee, said he was watchful about proposals to restrict this authority of commanders so that you can discipline their troops.

"To take the commander straight from the process will invite failing, " Inhofe said in a speech on the Economic council chair floor Monday. "These commanders be required to make decisions to send out our brave troops straight into battle. How ludicrous do you find it that we would say to our commanders, 'You've got to make a decision to send considered one of our kids into battle where they will end up losing their particular life, but you can't engage in the justice system of the troops. ' It doesn't make any sense in any way. "

In the House, Reps. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, and additionally Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., have crafted legislation that is going to establish dismissal or dishonorable discharge as the mandatory minimum sentence using military law for system members found guilty from rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy or a shot to commit those criminal acts. Commanders also would get barred from reducing and commuting the minimum sentence except in situations wherein the accused substantially aided the government in the investigation or simply prosecution of another opponent.

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Drug shortages endanger cancer patients, study finds - USA TODAY

Shortages of critical cancer drugs are threatening the care of patients who are already fighting for their lives, a new study shows.

About 83% of cancer specialists reported a drug shortage in the past six months, and 92% said patients' care has been affected, according to a survey of 245 doctors to be presented Monday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

According to the new survey, 38% of doctors switched from a generic to a more expensive, name-brand drug, a practice that can vastly increase the cost of treatment, according to the study, co-authored by Keerthi Gogineni at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The oral drug capecitabine, for example, costs 140 times as much as a generic intravenous drug, 5-FU, which is the backbone of chemotherapy regimens for many gastrointestinal tumors.

In February, the University of Utah Drug Information Service, which closely tracks shortages, reported national and regional shortages of 320 drugs, the highest since 2010.

The survey of cancer specialists who couldn't provide the most appropriate drug — at any price — said they were forced to make painful choices:

Some hospitals hold the equivalent of lotteries to decide which patients get a drug, says cancer researcher William Li, executive director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, which sponsors research of blood vessel growth.

Chemotherapy regimens have been carefully studied in clinical trials to give patients the highest chance of survival and lowest risk of serious side effects, Gogineni says.

In many cases, doctor's don't know how disrupting these meticulously planned regimens will affect a patient's health. "There is a lot of improvisation when trying to make educated guesses about what is the safest alternative," Gogineni says. At her hospital, "we were upfront with everybody about the fact that we might need to make a modification."

A December study from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital linked drug shortages to higher relapse rates among young people with Hodgkin lymphoma enrolled in a national clinical trial. The number of patients who were cancer free after two years fell from 88% before the shortage to 75% after the shortage when doctors had to substitute an alternate drug.

While none of the children and young adults in the trial died, those who relapsed will need additional intensive therapies — including high-dose chemo and a bone-marrow transplant — that increase their risk of infertility and other health problems in the future.

In a March survey from St. Jude, 16% of hospital pharmacists and others said drug shortages have caused patients' cancers to get worse, treatment-related complications or other problems. One hospital blamed a patient death on a drug shortage.

All fields of medicine have been hit by drug shortages, which have limited supplies of everything from ADHD medications to painkillers.

Cancer patients have been hit especially hard, however, because many of the shortages involve sterile injectable drugs, which are commonly used in oncology, Gogineni says.

And although shortages aren't a new problem, 70% of doctors said their hospitals or practices had no formal guidelines about how to allocate scarce drugs, the survey found.

About two-thirds of drug shortages in recent years were related to quality problems that led manufacturers to stop production, said Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, in an April interview with USA TODAY's editorial board.

Some of the "very real" quality concerns have included rubber fragments, glass shards or microbial contamination in liquid medications, Hamburg said.

Because older generic drugs are less profitable than newer, branded ones, there may be only one or two companies still making them, Gogineni says. If one manufacturer shuts down, that leaves a huge void.

She says she's concerned about manufacturers prioritizing the most profitable drugs, rather than the most life-saving.

"Some manufacturers have diverted existing production capacity from less profitable agents to more expensive agents," Gogineni says.

Since 2012, manufacturers have been required to alert the FDA of impending shortages. That can give the FDA time to approve drugs from a different manufacturer or allow importation from overseas.

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Help accessible for schizophrenics.

Researchers from the Bergen fMRI Group for the University of Bergen (UiB) work on how to help schizophrenics, who hear voices. The way they accomplish this is by studying people who also hear voices, but who never suffer from a internal illness. For a five-year period, the group is studying the brain processes causing people to learn voices. A recent report printed in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience shows many of the group's startling results.

– You'll find found that the key auditory cortex of healthy individuals who hear voices, responds less to out in the open stimulus than the corresponding area of the brain in people whom don't hear voices, tells Post Doctor Kristiina Kompus.

Kompus, who works at UiB's Division of Biological and Medical related Psychology, is lead author within the just published study.

Versions in cognitive control The main auditory cortex is the spot of the brain which processes sound. Kompus' study implies that healthy people who discover voices share some capabilities with schizophrenics, as this cortical region in together groups reacts less to outside stimulus.

However, you can find an important difference between people who hear voices. Whilst include those with schizophrenia have a reduced ability to regulate the primary auditory cortex using cognitive control, those who hear voices but are healthy can do so.

– Because of this cognitive control, healthy people who hear voices are going to direct their attention outwards. This sets them apart from schizophrenics, who have a predisposition to direct their attention inwards there isn't any decreased ability to manage their primary auditory cortex, pronounces Kompus before adding.

– These discoveries need brought us one step all over understanding the hallucinations with schizophrenics and why the voices become a problem for many but not for others. Many healthy people hear voices

– We will work further research on the mind structure of people using auditory hallucinations. In certain, we wish to consider the brain's networks that course of action outside voices. This is always to establish whether these voice hallucinations along with the outside voices occur in the same parts of dapoxetine. We also wish to establish if hearing voices can be described as genetical trait, she claims.

According to the study workers, approximately five per cent of us hear voices in your head, even if otherwise nutritious. This number is according to research from several nations and surveys. For their own individual research, Kompus and her power team used local media inside Bergen to call those of you that hear voices. The outcomes were overwhelming, with around 30 people calling the researchers to register for the study.

Now you're inside public comment zone. What will happen is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it emanates from other people and we don't attest to it. A reminder: By using this Web site you comply with accept our Terms associated with Service. Click here to learn the Rules of Diamond.

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Taking charge, preventing cancer by means of surgery - WBNG-TV.

Binghamton, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Let's suppose you were almost specified what could take your way of life? Wendy Cubic knew.

"I felt to be a guillotine had been raised, " Cubic said. "I really don't even look at it anymore. Before, I thought about it on a regular basis. "

When Cubic's sister was informed they have breast cancer, doctors realized her entire family had a strong history of the disease.

Doctors say testing designed for mutated BRAC1 and BRAC2 body's genes -- which increase your risk for breast along with ovarian cancer -- is more popular.

Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Physician r. James Dana Kondrup from Lourdes Hospital says just about every woman -- and dude -- owe to themselves.

"Don't be afraid to build tested, " Kondrup proclaimed. "Get the knowledge that you require and get tested and then determine whether you are beneficial or negative. "

Cubic and her cousin had the strength to build tested, and both examined positive for BRAC1. Meant for Cubic's sister, it was too late for preventive surgery. But Cubic experienced options.

After watching the girl sister battle cancer, she decided to take steps to drastically lower her likelihood of getting cancer, from around 90 percent to less than 10 percent.

"My sibling kept saying, 'oh that you're so brave, because you made the decision. I don't know easily could have done this. ' I said absolutely not, I look at it the full opposite. I had my own warrior go before myself. "

After struggling with along side it effects of her implants for 2 years, she headed back to the hospital to get one of these different reconstructive surgery.

"I was very fortunate and lucky to find a world renowned surgeon in Ny city, Dr. Robert J. Allan. He was the person who invented a procedure where he uses your own personal tissue. He does not cut any muscle so it is much less invasive and far less recovery because there isn't a muscle damage. He used my limbs to re-create my breasts to do. "

It was a method undergoing her prophylactic mastectomy together with oophorectomy allowed her to analyze and explore, because she had enough time.

"It helps if a movie star (Angelina Jolie) arrives and makes everybody cognizant of something, " Dr. Kondrup said. "Once people get tested and then determine where the gene is tracking with the family, it save lifetime. And Angelina Jolie has saved lives, by making people aware to look get tested. "

Binghamton Jewish Community Center shall be hosting the program "Hereditary Chest and Ovarian Cancer: Considering at Risk? " at June 4 at 500 Club Road in Vestal.

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Cieply dedicating his career to cancer research - Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, May 25, 2013, 12:01 a.m. Updated 2 hours ago

But the Belle Vernon Area High School graduate will gladly settle for steady progress as he performs daily cancer research at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

"That's everybody's dream, of course I would hope that, but it's almost like hitting the lottery," Cieply said of the odds he could single-handedly eradicate the disease. "I'm just trying to perform research that could add valuable knowledge to what we already know."

Cieply received his doctorate in cancer cell biology from West Virginia University School of Medicine in November and is now performing post-doctorate work at the Ivy League institution. He compared his time to a residency for medical doctors.

"It's a period where you're transitioning into a faculty position," he said. "We do basic biology working on different levels of genetics and gene expression relevant to cancer and its development."

Cieply grew up in a small hilltop neighborhood off Tyrol Boulevard in Rostraver Township and graduated from Belle Vernon Area in 1999. He played sports and was a "decent" student, ranking 23rd in his class, but always excelled in science courses.

"I was always into biology and chemistry, even before that, science was always my favorite subject by far," he said. "I really didn't like anything else."

Cieply is now married to the former Shawna McElvenny (BVA Class of 2000) and the two went to the 1999 prom together. The couple currently resides in Horsham, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. Both have families still residing in the Mid-Mon Valley, including Cieply's parents, Walter and Beverly.

"I enjoy where I am now, but I'm always looking forward to come home," he said. "The neighborhood we live in is pretty comparable to Rostraver. I go downtown every day and it's not much different than Pittsburgh. I have to say the public transportation is pretty nice out here."

After graduating from Geneva College in 2003, Cieply worked several years at Pitt as a research lab technician. But he decided that wasn't enough and enrolled at WVU for his doctorate.

"Certainly as a technician you can do great research, so I wouldn't ever knock them, but without a Ph.D., your career advancement is very limited," Cieply explained. "You'd always be depending on the professors. … I'm pretty free to do what I want now, but I'm still a 'post-doc' in a professor's lab, so I still have to answer to him."

For the next three years or so, Cieply plans to research, study, publish his findings and eventually seek a faculty position of his own.

"You want to get your research published in a reputable journal - that's the main thing - so I'm not ready yet," he said. "Once you do get your name out there and make contacts, that's when things start to happen."

For now, Cieply is focused on studying Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process by which cells lose their adhesion, migrate and eventually initiate cancer progression. His work often includes lab-grown cell cultures as well as genetically-engineered mice.

"It's a kind of cellular transition relevant to cancer in general, not a specific type," he said. "Cancer cells escape the primary tumor and spread to the body and form a metastasis. ... So, EMT has the potential to broadly impact cancer."

Cieply is also working under a newer scientific notion that treats multiple proteins found in our genes. This could also enhance the way cancer is targeted.

"There are examples that already show the same gene can make two different proteins," he explained. "In cancer therapy, you have drugs that target specific proteins, inhibit it and shut off the protein to kill the cancer cell.

Cieply said he works long hours in the lab, usually 12 per day, but the hours are early enough that he still finds quality time.

"I get to hang out with my wife and dog and eat dinner and you get your weekends off, so it's really not that bad," Cieply said. "I've found good fishing spots out here too."

"The most effective drugs now were discovered based on the work of hundreds of thousands of different people making significant discoveries and publishing them," he said. "Your real goal is to make significant contributions to that literature."