Features

CHICAGO – Several new targeted therapies have shown promise against advanced cancers of the blood, lungs, ovaries and thyroid, according to research released Saturday at a major US cancer conference.

Among them is an oral drug called ibrutinib, made by Pharmacyclics. It was found to be “highly active” against chronic lymphocytic leukemia and extended survival in some patients whose cancers did not respond to the standard treatment, chemotherapy.

The drug works by blocking the spread of cancer cells and encouraging them to self-destruct. 

It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for CLL, the most common kind of leukemia, in February.

A randomised study of nearly 400 people, median age 67, with relapsed CLL showed for the first time a clear advantage of an oral drug over chemotherapy, according to the research presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting.

“With ibrutinib, about 80 per cent of patients were still in remission at one year, twice as many as we would expect with standard therapy,” said lead author John Byrd, professor of medicine at the Ohio State University.

“Although the follow up was short in this study, the data definitely support the use of ibrutinib before anything else in this setting.”

Another treatment that attacks numerous targets in a tumour has shown promise in shrinking thyroid tumours when compared to a placebo.

Lenvatinib, made by Eisa Pharmaceuticals, shrunk tumours in two-thirds of patients. When compared to a placebo, patients given the drug experienced a median 18 months of no advancement of the cancer, compared to 3.6 months in the placebo arm.

The phase III trial involved nearly 400 patients and was led by Martin Schlumberger, professor of oncology at University Paris Sud in France.

Gregory Masters, an ASCO expert, said the drug “offers an effective option with reasonable side effects”, which included high blood pressure, diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss and nausea.

Relapse, resistance are daunting

A third clinical trial involved ramucirumab, made by Eli Lilly, which blocks the growth of new blood vessels in the non-small cell lung tumours.

A study of 1,253 patients with stage four non-small cell lung cancer found that the drug enabled patients to live a median 10.5 months after diagnosis, slightly longer than the 9.1 months in the placebo arm.

“This is the first treatment in approximately a decade to improve the outcome of patients in the second line setting,” said lead author Maurice Perol, head of thoracic oncology at the Cancer Research Centre of Lyon, France.

Finally, a trial using two experimental drugs that have not yet been approved by regulators showed a near doubling of healthy time in patients with recurring ovarian cancer.

The agents olaparib and cediranib, made by the British laboratory AstraZeneca, showed a median 17.7 months of progression-free survival, compared to nine months in those who tool olaparib alone.

The trial marked the first study in ovarian cancer of a drug that inhibits an enzyme involved in DNA repair, known as PARP, which may cause cancer cells to die. More research is needed to determine whether the combination would be better than standard chemotherapy. More than 80 per cent of women with high-grade serious ovarian cancer experience a recurrence after initially responding to chemotherapy.

“Cancer relapse and treatment resistance have always been the most daunting challenges in cancer care,” said Gregory Masters, a medical oncologist at the Helen Graham Cancer Centre.

“The good news is that genomics medicine is helping to overcome these challenges by revealing new ways to target a cancer cell’s inner workings,” added Masters, who moderated the press briefing.

“The research highlighted today could lead to new treatment options.”

Enemy on the Euphrates: The British Occupation of Iraq and the Great Arab Revolt, 1914-1921

Ian Rutledge

London: Saqi Books, 2014, 471 pp

Much of “Enemy on the Euphrates” reads like a great adventure story, proving how fascinating real history can be. Some battle scenes are narrated in the present tense, heightening the excitement. Many famous and infamous players make an appearance from T. E. Lawrence to Gertrude Bell, Mark Sykes, Winston Churchill, Lord Kitchener and a host of British army commanders. But the unique contribution of the author, historian and economist Ian Rutledge, is bringing to light the character and activities of a group of Arab heroes virtually unknown in the West. These are men such as Ja’far Abu Al-Timman, Sayyid Muhsin Abu Tabikh, Yusuf Al-Suwaydi and Mirza Muhammad Taqi Al-Shirazi, leaders of the 1920 uprising in Mesopotamia, which was most intense in the mid-Euphrates area. “For the Arabs of Iraq, the Great War never really ended. Only ten months after the armistice, the British were already bombing Arab tribesmen and by June 1920 a full-scale revolutionary war against the British occupation had begun.” (p. 397)

While the Great Arab Revolt usually brings to mind the Hashemites’ struggle against Ottoman rule, which laid the foundation for the modern state of Jordan, the 1920 Iraqi uprising involved many more Arab combatants, making it “the most serious armed uprising against British rule in the twentieth century”. More than a rebellion, “it was a war: one in which a huge peasant army led by Shiite clerics, Baghdad notables, disaffected sheikhs and former Ottoman army officers and NCO’s surrounded and besieged British garrisons… and bombarded them with captured artillery… a war which, at one stage, Britain came very close to losing.” (p. xxiv)

Reading the book, one is struck by many parallels to the 2003 war on Iraq, not least the oil factor. With World War I having just shown oil-powered vehicles as imperative for victory, Britain’s original rationale for keeping troops in Mesopotamia was protecting oil interests. Soon, however, war aims expanded to cover the entire country, including Baghdad, with Iraq seen as key to controlling the Persian Gulf and linking the colonies of India and Egypt. With so much at stake, Britain had to wrestle with the problem of government officials becoming “tainted by commercial motivations” while “business interests could just as easily come to determine public policy.” (p. 113) Like in 2003, winning the peace proved harder than winning the war, as the British occupation policy of onerous taxation, forced labour and destroying villages that refused to comply, naturally elicited opposition. Various policies for “managing the tribes” amounted to little more than bribery and ultimately failed. 

Rutledge’s narrative is highly visual, transporting the reader from the battlefield to Baghdad, villages along the Euphrates, and conference rooms in London and Cairo where diplomats, politicians, military commanders and intelligence officers debate various models for controlling the region — all short of full independence. The book gives a detailed picture of the evolution of the Sykes-Picot accord and mandate system, as well as revealing connections to British policy at home and throughout the empire. Anecdotes, diary entries and letters paint a vivid picture of the persons and issues involved. In some cases, the author seems to have selected them with a sharp sense of irony as when he quotes a letter written by Churchill. Faced with budgetary constraints, industrial unrest in Britain and problems in other parts of the empire, the war minister decries having to “go on pouring armies and treasure into these thankless deserts” in order to defeat the popular uprising. (p. 353) 

Rutledge’s text shows the linkages of empire — the most salient being that the great majority of troops sent to suppress the uprising were actually Indians. The overt racism inherent in the imperialist mindset is everywhere in evidence, even among those who professed friendship with the Arabs, whether expressed in a crude visceral way, or reflected in the belief that Arabs could not govern themselves, or that their opposition was fuelled by religious fanaticism. In contrast, Rutledge shows that the religiosity of the uprising’s leadership in Najaf and Karbela served as a practical and moral compass for organising their struggle. Rather than being sectarian, it was a unifying factor, cutting across the Sunni-Shiite divide. What they opposed was not “the other” as such, but foreign rule. Using a wide range of primary sources, including Arabic ones, Rutledge highlights the political awareness of the uprising’s leadership and their ability to set up governing structures in the areas they liberated. “Enemy on the Euphrates” is a rare combination of in-depth information, fairness of analysis and readability, reinforced by excellent maps.

Sally Bland

TAIPEI – Asia’s largest tech trade show will be a battleground for smart innovations when it kicks off in Taiwan Tuesday — from car systems which warn when you are driving badly to a toothbrush-style camera that films the user’s teeth.

More than 1,500 exhibitors, including some of the world’s leading technology brands, will set out their stalls at Computex, in the capital Taipei, with 130,000 visitors expected for the five-day event.

This year sees the launch of a new SmarTech area featuring smart wearables, 3D printing, intelligent vehicle systems and security — a move which organisers say reflects the increasing role of smart technology at all levels of everyday life.

“We’re looking to interest everybody, from ordinary people to government level,” said Li Chang, deputy secretary general of the Taipei Computer Association, co-organisers of the show.

Watches, rings and wristbands that connect to Internet cloud services which collect and analyse data is a dominant trend for the new generation of wearables being showcased, says Chang.

“Smart wearable is not a new technology, but combining it with cloud computing means the wearer’s data is collected all day every day, is analysed and can predict your body’s condition, giving warnings of potential health problems,” he said.

Taiwan’s leading personal computer maker Acer announced Friday the launch of its first wearable device, the Liquid Leap smartband, which will make its debut at Computex.

The one-inch touchscreen smartband has fitness tracking, phone and SMS notification and music control, and will be sold together with the Liquid Jade smartphone. The devices will also link to Acer’s new cloud services as the struggling company tries to transition away from PCs to revive its fortunes.

Adapting 

to changing times 

“I think the introduction of the SmarTech area shows how dynamic Taiwanese companies are,” Singapore-based tech blogger Alfred Siew told AFP.

“Computex has traditionally been a very PC-focused show because there are a lot of PC and component manufacturers there.

“But since last year there has been a prominent shift towards mobile devices — tablets and phones. Taiwan is a very dynamic economy when it comes to adapting to change,” he said.

The show will also have a zone dedicated to convertible tablets as they try to elbow laptops out of the market, a “touch display” area and a section for mobile cloud computing.

Microsoft, Intel and Taiwan’s Asus are among the major players attending Computex, but it is also a platform for lesser-known brands and start-ups.

Taiwanese company Abeltech won a pre-show Best Choice award for its Cloud Intraoral camera, which is shaped like a toothbrush and videos the inside of the user’s mouth, linking the high-definition footage to smartphones and tablets.

And the intelligent vehicle offerings will include a car system which gives a warning to drivers if they swerve out of lane, organisers said.

“There are a lot of small innovative start-ups in Asia which will want to use Computex as a place to show their technology,” said Nicole Peng, Shanghai-based analyst for market research firm Canalys.

NEW YORK - People with asthma may face increased risk from second-hand smoke exposure while riding in the close quarters of a vehicle, according to US researchers. 

In a survey covering four southern states, people exposed to second-hand smoke in vehicles were twice as likely to have asthma compared to those who were not exposed.

The study team cannot prove the smoke exposure caused asthma in the people interviewed, but they warn that smoke can seriously aggravate asthma symptoms and suggest drivers and passengers voluntarily ban smoking in their cars. 

“It’s problematic from a public health perspective,” said Brian King, an epidemiologist with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a co-author of the study. “Second-hand smoke is a lethal cocktail of carcinogens and toxins. You have a dangerous exposure in a very confined environment.”

Asthma is a chronic disorder of the lungs and airways that causes them to swell, an inflammatory response that can be fatal. In 2007, asthma was linked to more than 3,400 US deaths, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. About 25 million Americans have been diagnosed with the condition.

King and his coauthor analysed the responses from a phone survey of 18,000 non-smoking adults living in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana or Mississippi. They found that 7.4 per cent reported having asthma, and 12.4 per cent said they had been exposed to tobacco smoke in a vehicle in the past week.

The people exposed to smoke had twice the odds of also having asthma, the researchers report in the journal Tobacco Control. 

The study establishes a link between asthma and second-hand smoke in cars, King said, but that does not mean one causes the other. “We don’t know what came first,” he said. “All we know is that people with asthma are exposed. It’s not necessarily that the exposure is causing the asthma.”

The survey also found that among the participants with asthma, less than 10 per cent of those who established smoke-free rules in their vehicles reported having been exposed to smoke. That compared to 57 per cent of people with asthma who did not have smoke-free rules.

Hal Strelnick, a professor of family and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, encourages people with asthma to voice their concerns when in the car with a smoker — even though it may be challenging to speak up.

“(When) someone’s giving you a ride, and they light up a cigarette, the social dynamics are difficult,” Strelnick said. “Even people who have asthma have difficulty telling a smoker to stop smoking in the car.”

Cigarette or cigar smoke in such a confined space can be hazardous to your health and the health of those around you, Strelnick added. If you are a smoker driving non-smokers, ask your passengers for permission before lighting up, or voluntarily give up smoking in your vehicle, he advised. 

Smoke is known to raise the risk for other health problems, King said. “Exposure to second-hand smoke increases the risk for developing health issues like cardiovascular disease and lung cancer.”

WASHINGTON – Global sales of tablet computers are likely to slow this year, hurt in part by saturation and adoption of large-screen smartphones or “phablets”, a market tracker said Thursday.

The research firm IDC said its updated forecast sees tablet sales up 12.1 per cent this year, after a 51.8 per cent expansion in 2013.

IDC said sales are likely to total around 245.4 million units this year.

“Two major issues are causing the tablet market to slow down. First, consumers are keeping their tablets, especially higher-cost models from major vendors, far longer than originally anticipated,” said IDC analyst Tom Mainelli.

“And when they do buy a new one, they are often passing their existing tablet off to another member of the family.”

The second factor is the rise of phablets –– smartphones with 5.5-inch and larger screens, the analyst said.

The emergence of phablets is “causing many people to second-guess tablet purchases as the larger screens on these phones are often adequate for tasks once reserved for tablets”.

In the past year, IDC said, the phablet share of smartphone shipments has more than doubled, from 4.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 to 10.5 per cent in early 2014.

IDC said consumers are now looking at tablets and related devices with larger screens like Microsoft’s 12-inch Surface Pro 3.

“The shift back toward larger screens will mark a welcome change for most vendors as the average selling price for these devices will remain roughly 50 per cent higher than the average sub-eight-inch device,” said IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani.

“Microsoft is also expected to benefit from this shift, as the share for Windows-based devices is expected to double between now and 2018.”

A previous IDC report said sales of tablets including newly introduced convertible PCs totalled 50.4 million units in the first quarter of 2014.

That was just 3.9 per cent higher than the same period a year earlier, and down 35.7 per cent from the busy holiday season that included the fourth quarter of 2013.

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft plans to weigh into the wearable computing market with a smartwatch, Forbes reported Thursday.

The US technology tighten tapped into talent behind its gesture-sensing Kinect accessory for Xbox video game consoles to help make a sensor-loaded smartwatch, according to Forbes.

Smartwatch capabilities were said to include fitness features such as measuring and tracking heart rates.

Like the growing array of “wearable computing” devices, Microsoft’s creation will be designed to synch wirelessly to applications in smartphones, Forbes said.

Last month, market tracker IDC predicted sales of wearable tech items would triple this year to 19 million units worldwide, growing to 111.9 million by 2018.

IDC said the wearable sector is still led by fitness trackers such as Jawbone UP and Fitbit devices.

“The increased buzz has prompted more vendors to announce their intentions to enter this market,” IDC research manager Ramon Llamas said in a statement released with the forecast.

“Most importantly, end users have warmed to their simplicity in terms of design and functionality, making their value easy to understand and use.”

Apple is also rumoured to be working on an “iWatch”, although the iPod, iPad, iPhone and Macintosh computer maker has not commented on that.

Google, meanwhile, recently opened its Glass “explorer” programme to anyone in the United States with $1,500 to spend on the Internet-connected eyewear.

Can you tell the difference between fog and cloud? If you’re thinking in weather terms you’re missing the point, for we’re talking IT here.

The cloud — we all know it by now. It’s where we store our data externally, not on our local hard disk or memory card, but on some server’s storage area on the Internet. It’s also where we are invited, and rather aggressively, to work and run applications instead of installing them on our computing device.

The vast majority of us, especially smart phone owners, do use cloud storage and applications, though there are still significant parts of the population who do not trust external storage and processing and prefer to keep their information and programmes locally on their computer, tablet or smart phone.

However, regardless of who trusts the cloud and who doesn’t, or what is the proportion of cloud users versus purely die-hard local users, some of the technical shortcomings of the cloud concept have led IT specialists to think of intermediary solutions. One of them is the fog. Why the fog and what does it do?

The main weakness of the cloud is Internet bandwidth, or speed in simpler terms. If you’re working on a regular MS-Word document, processing typical e-mail messages or even photos at small or medium resolution, then there is no issue at all, for storing and retrieving such files over the cloud is fast enough. Whether working at your desk with a powerful Internet connection or from your smart phone at a gym via slower 3G connection, you will not experience any significant slowness with such file sizes.

For larger files, be it high definition audiovisual material, substantial e-mail attachments, or entire data backup sets, the cloud becomes a handicap, and only because of somewhat limited Internet speed, not because of the very concept of the IT cloud.

To overcome this shortcoming IT gurus are now thinking of a system that lets you send-receive digital files intended for the cloud on a set of nearby digital devices, before they are sent to the cloud afterwards. Since we’re literally surrounded with various digital computer-like devices of all kinds today and with various connectivity channels (WiFi, fast cable networks, fibre optics, Bluetooth, etc.) the nearby devices will provide a faster means to send-receive data, therefore eliminating the “bottleneck” of limited Internet bandwidth.

It is not just the nearness of the devices that will play an important role in accelerating the data transfer process but also the fact that data will be distributed over these devices before being gathered again.

Now, how the process that consists of sending-receiving files to a set nearby devices works, how data is spread or split over several of these nearby devices, and how it is then send consolidated for good in the cloud — this is what the fog idea is about. Again, it is an intermediate state between your local digital device and the cloud, hence the name. The image is clear, between the ground and the clouds there’s fog.

It is all very new and we haven’t seen it working yet, but everything indicates that it will soon play a tangible role in our living with the various digital devices, with smart phones and tablets mainly, for this is the kind of equipment that will benefit most from such an intermediary solution that will certainly come to boost their overall performance when communicating with external storage areas.

The fog is a term recently proposed by Cisco, the leading maker of routers, firewalls and other digital technology and security communication devices.

LONDON — Almost a third of the world is now fat, and no country has been able to curb obesity rates in the last three decades, according to a new global analysis.

Researchers found more than 2 billion people worldwide are now overweight or obese. The highest rates were in the Middle East and North Africa, where nearly 60 per cent of men and 65 per cent of women are heavy. The US has about 13 per cent of the world's fat population, a greater per centage than any other country. China and India combined have about 15 per cent.

"It's pretty grim," said Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, who led the study. He and colleagues reviewed more than 1,700 studies covering 188 countries from 1980 to 2013. "When we realised that not a single country has had a significant decline in obesity, that tells you how hard a challenge this is."

Murray said there was a strong link between income and obesity; as people get richer, their waistlines also tend to start bulging. He said scientists have noticed accompanying spikes in diabetes and that rates of cancers linked to weight, like pancreatic cancer, are also rising.

The new report was paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet.

Last week, the World Health Organisation established a high-level commission tasked with ending childhood obesity.

"Our children are getting fatter," Dr Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said bluntly during a speech at the agency's annual meeting in Geneva. "Parts of the world are quite literally eating themselves to death." Earlier this year, WHO said that no more than 5 per cent of your daily calories should come from sugar.

"Modernisation has not been good for health," said Syed Shah, an obesity expert at United Arab Emirates University, who found obesity rates have jumped five times in the last 20 years even in a handful of remote Himalayan villages in Pakistan. His research was presented this week at a conference in Bulgaria. "Years ago, people had to walk for hours if they wanted to make a phone call," he said. "Now everyone has a cellphone."

Shah also said the villagers no longer have to rely on their own farms for food.

"There are roads for (companies) to bring in their processed foods and the people don't have to slaughter their own animals for meat and oil," he said. "No one knew about Coke and Pepsi 20 years ago. Now it's everywhere."

In Britain, the independent health watchdog issued new advice on Wednesday recommending heavy people be sent to free weight-loss classes to drop about 3 per cent of their weight, reasoning that losing just a few pounds improves health and is more realistic. About two in three adults in the UK are overweight, making it the fattest country in Western Europe.

"This is not something where you can just wake up one morning and say, 'I am going to lose 10 pounds,'" said Mike Kelly, the agency's public health director, in a statement. "It takes resolve and it takes encouragement."

SAN FRANCISCO – Samsung on Wednesday unveiled a new digital health technology platform that uses sensors to track a range of body functions such as heart rate and blood pressure.

Unveiled at an event in San Francisco, the new platform dubbed “Simband” does not include any commercial products, but Samsung demonstrated how it might work with a wristband.

The South Korean electronics giant showed how a device can track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure and collect data from a variety of sources to help consumers better understand what is happening with their health.

Simband will work in tandem with a cloud-based open software platform called SAMI which securely stores data and can provide better insights into health issues.

“The combination of Simband-designed sensor technologies and algorithms and SAMI-based software will take individual understanding of the body to a new level,” the company said in a statement.

The new tech platform, in cooperation with university researchers, is part of an effort by Samsung to use digital products to help improve healthcare.

“Our bodies have always had something to say but now, with advanced sensors, algorithms and software, we will finally be able to tune into what the body is telling us,” said Michael Blum of the University of California at San Francisco, in the Samsung statement.

“Validation of these technologies will improve the quality of data collected and help advance the ability to bring new products to market quickly.”

The Samsung Digital Health Initiative is based on open hardware and software platforms and allows the use of sensors, algorithms, and data collection and analysis that can help consumers and healthcare providers.

The initiative “provides an exciting opportunity for the brightest minds in the technology world to come together to develop the products that will, for the first time, put individuals in the driver’s seat in understanding their own health and wellness”, said Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer, device solutions at Samsung Electronics.

“At a time when healthcare spending is at record levels and when the number of people over the age of 60 worldwide is expected to exceed more than 1.2 billion by 2025, digital health is an incredibly important area for innovation. We believe this initiative will be an essential first step and we invite developers and partners across the globe to join us in creating the technologies of the future that will help make people’s lives healthier.”

The move follows an announcement by Google last year that it was launching a new company that could draw on the work from technology and other sectors to combat health problems.

WASHINGTON – Google’s workforce is mostly made up of white men, a situation the tech giant says it is trying to change.

On Wednesday, Google Inc. for the first time released statistics documenting the diversity of its workforce, responding to escalating pressure on the technology industry to hire more minorities and women.

The numbers show 70 per cent of the people working at the search giant are men, and 61 per cent of the workers are white.

In a blog, Google’s senior vice president Laszlo Bock said: “Simply put, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity.”

The numbers are compiled as part of a report that major US employers must file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employers, though, are not required to make the information publicly available.

The ethnicity data shows another 30 per cent of Google’s workforce is Asian, 3 per cent Hispanic and 2 per cent black. The remaining 5 per cent is listed as two or more races or other.

Google broke new ground with the disclosure. Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg recently said the social networking company is on the same path, but that it’s important to share the data internally first.

Apple, Twitter, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft did not respond immediately to queries about their plans to disclose data.

Bock said Google has been working to diversify, not just its offices but in the broader tech sector. Since 2010 the firm has given more than $40 million to organisations working to bring computer science education to women and girls, he said.

And he said the company is working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science.

“But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be, and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution,” he said.

Gender and ethnic disparities are reflected throughout the tech industry; about 7 per cent of tech workers are black or Latino, both in Silicon Valley and nationally. Blacks and Hispanics make up 13.1 and 16.9 per cent of the US population, respectively, according to the most recent Census data.

Earlier this year, Rev. Jesse Jackson launched a campaign to diversify Silicon Valley, writing to several iconic Silicon Valley technology companies asking to meet with their leaders to talk about bringing black and Hispanics into their workforce and leadership.

Since then he’s been leading delegations to annual shareholder’s meetings at firms including Google, Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard.

On Wednesday Jackson said Google “is to be commended”.

“It’s a bold step in the right direction. We urge other companies to follow Google’s lead,” he said. “Silicon Valley and the tech industry have demonstrated an ability to solve the most challenging and complex problems in the world. Inclusion is a complex problem — if we put our collective minds together, we can solve that too.”