Prostate Cancer News 08-01-2015

Prostate Cancer News 08-01-2015

General Case Management

A Decade of Dramatic Change in the Treatment of Prostate Cancer - Cancer Therapy Advisor
In 2005, the relative 10-year survival rate for prostate cancer was 92% and the relative 15-year survival rate was 61%, according to the American Cancer Society.¹
Today, the numbers are significantly higher: the relative 5-year survival rate for all stages of prostate cancer is almost 100%, the relative 10-year survival rate is 99%, and the 15-year relative survival rate is 94%.²
“The greatest advances in the management of prostate cancer in the last decade have come directly from our understanding of the biology of what causes prostate cancer cells to become resistant to treatments we had a decade ago,” said Anthony D'Amico, MD, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, MA.


Urological cancer: Management of patients with prostate cancer: evolution towards a risk-stratified approach : Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology : Nature Publishing Group
Growing evidence exists that patients with localized prostate cancer have substantial differences in their management needs, depending on their individual risks of adverse outcomes. Now, results of an extensive analysis have confirmed that this evidence is beginning to be adopted into clinical practice: an analysis of the Cancer of the…

Prostate Cancer: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, Stats, And Everything You Need To Know : LIFE : Tech Times

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Alarm over prostate cancer hitting Kenyan men

India relies on PSA and ADT for initial detection and treatment of Prostate Cancer in elderly

Doc suggests prostate cancer test for elderly - The Times of India
This disease takes place in old age, with 75% patients being above 60 years, he said. Early detection can increase longevity of the patient. Because of early detection, survival for five years after detection, which was 76% earlier, has now gone up to 98%. Kolkata-based Dr G S Bhattacharya said if detected early, there is no need for aggressive treatment for prostate cancer. "The first line of treatment in this disease is hormonal manipulation, because it is a hormone-dependent disease, and chemotherapy is reserved for those cases which has become resistant to hormone therapy," Dr Bhattacharya said and added many drugs are available these days which are very effective in prostate cancer. There are many drugs in pipeline and in clinical trial stage, which will revolutionize the management of prostate cancer, provided there is early detection.

What you can do

You can make choices in your life to impact whether you get it, or how well you respond to treatment.

Should You Take a Multivitamin? | Alan Christianson
A large study of 14,641 male physicians were tracked for 14 years to see how the use of multivitamins influenced their risk of prostate cancer. This study included a placebo group who took pills that looked like multivitamins but contained no active nutrients. The men taking real multivitamins were 8 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than those taking a placebo.

Foods to prevent prostate cancer | Health - Home

"Eat plants, that's the healthiest thing to do. You don't have to go paleo, but eat plants," Dr. Klein said. Green veggies are great at slowing down the spread of cancer-causing substances. So, men who eat three or more half-cup servings of green veggies a week drop their odds of getting prostate cancer by 41-percent.
The lycopenes found in red fruits such as tomatoes can, according to one study, lower the risk of prostate cancer by 35-percent and advanced prostate cancer by half.
And feast on fish. Omega-3's found in tuna, trout and salmon also slow the growth of prostate cancer cells.
But avoid fat.

Foods That Affect Prostate Cancer Risk | Naija247news
Getting enough vitamins and minerals with a healthy, balanced diet may be one of the keys to warding off prostate cancer.
And using nutrition to your advantage may prove very useful when fighting prostate cancer too. Diet can be a powerful tool, according to Roberta Anding, a registered dietitian, instructor at the Baylor College of Medicine, and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Screening - Diagnosis

Early detection and diagnosis of Prostate Cancer is key to survival. The PSA test has been criticized for too many false alarms, which new tests could reduce.

Initial

PCA3 Test Now Offered at Dr. Samadi's Prostate Cancer Center -- NEW YORK, July 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Dr. David Samadi's Prostate Cancer Center is now offering the PCA3 test for prostate cancer screening.

The PCA3 test is a simple urine sample collected following a digital rectal exam for the determination of the PCA3 score. Specific for prostate cancer, and, unlike the PSA, this test is not affected by prostate enlargement or other non-cancerous prostate conditions. In combination with PSA and DRE results, the PCA3 score provides useful information to help decide if a biopsy is needed, or can be delayed. It's much more specific in giving additional information about the aggressiveness of the cancer if the patient has a positive biopsy.

4K Score Test Now Offered at Dr. Samadi's Prostate Cancer Center — BioPortfolio.com
NEW YORK, July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. David Samadi's Prostate Cancer Center is now offering the 4K Score test for prostate cancer screening.
The 4K Score is a blood test measuring 4 different prostate-related proteins that provides a percent risk score of having an aggressive prostate cancer. This new tumor marker is an optimized screening and diagnostic test for prostate cancer that assesses the risk of prostate cancer to further indicate the need for a biopsy.
"The purpose of this new tumor marker test is to reduce unnecessary biopsies. Not every elevated PSA translates to the need for a biopsy. The 4K Score test was specifically developed to address the criticisms of the detection of too many low-grade, indolent prostate cancers. If we can identify the high-risk cancers early on, we can focus on treatment right away," said Dr. David Samadi, Chairman of Urology and Chief of Robotic Surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
The 4K Score aids in a smarter diagnosis for prostate cancer, which then leads to the right treatment for each patient. The 4K Score tumor marker test also has created a major shift in the field because it improves and helps distinguish between high and low risk cancer through a simpler method versus a biopsy.

Prostate cancer: Men should not take GP's 'no' for an answer - Telegraph
Trained dogs can sniff out prostate cancer - Harvard Prostate Knowledge
One method which proves totally reliable - and is used in many hospitals around the world - but is still not accepted in the UK, is that of 'sniffed' detection by the Medical Detection Dogs.
Research on early detection of prostate cancer is on-going at the charity's unit in Milton Keynes, with the help of volunteers from the Warwick centre of Graham Fulford's Trust. Men attending on the third Thursday of each month are being asked to donate a urine sample to help train the dogs and become part of MDD's second, vitally important Prostate Cancer Study.

Pathology

Instead of a Gleason Score based on cell shape and structure, genomic classification may be more effective.

Prostate cancer: Five types 'found' - BBC News

Five subtypes of prostate cancer identified, paving way for more personalized treatments - The Washington Post
 
Prostate cancer is five different diseases, experts say -- ScienceDaily
Scientists have, for the first time, identified that there are five distinct types of prostate cancer and have found a way to distinguish between them, according to a landmark study.
 
How many “different” types of prostate cancer are there? | THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

a new article by Ross-Adams et al. in the online journal EBioMedicine may be helpful in this regard (see also this report on the ScienceDaily web site). If you click here, the entire article by Ross-Adams et al. is also freely available. Basically, Ross-Adams et al. argue that prostate cancers can be
classified into five genetically different categories and that this classification system may be helpful to doctors (and presumably their patients too) in deciding on the best course of treatment for each
individual patient, based on the characteristics of each patient’s individual tumor. More specifically, here is what they did and found.

• They used tissue specimens from 259 men diagnosed with primary prostate cancer in the UK.
• From those tissue specimens, they isolated 482 different samples of cancerous tissue, benign tissue, and so-called “germline” tissue.
• By analyzing copy number alterations (CNAs) and methods, they identified genomic loci affecting expression levels of messenger RNA (mRNA) in a quantitative manner and then they were able to stratify the patients into subgroups associated with future clinical effects and
  behaviors of the cancers.
• They were able to describe five separate patient subgroups with distinct genomic alterations and expression profiles.
• Using these five subgroups, they were able, consistently, to predict future biochemical relapse after first-line treatment with a high degree of accuracy.
• They were able to validate their predictions using a different cohort of patients.
• They confirmed alterations in six genes previously associated with prostate cancer (MAP3K7, MELK, RCBTB2, ELAC2, TPD52, ZBTB4), and identified 94 genes other not previously linked to prostate cancer progression that would not have been detected using either transcript or
  copy number data alone.
• They confirmed several known molecular changes associated with high-risk prostate cancer (including MYC amplification, and NKX3-1, RB1, and PTEN deletions, as well as over-expression of PCA3 and AMACR, and loss of MSMB in tumor tissue).
• They showed that use of the subset of 100 genes described above significantly outperforms established clinical predictors of poor prognosis (PSA, Gleason score) and previously published gene signatures (p = 0.0001).

High-Grade Prostate Cancer Linked to Low Testosterone - Renal and Urology News
Low testosterone levels predict an increased likelihood of high-grade prostate cancer (PCa) being found as a result of a prostate biopsy, new findings suggest.

Biopsy

Addressing the need for repeat prostate biopsy: new technology and approaches : Nature Reviews Urology : Nature Publishing Group
No guidelines currently exist that address the need for rebiopsy in patients with a negative diagnosis of prostate cancer on initial biopsy sample analysis. Accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer in these patients is often complicated by continued elevation of serum PSA levels that are suggestive of prostate cancer, resulting in a distinct management challenge. Following negative initial findings of biopsy sample analysis, total serum PSA levels and serum PSA kinetics are ineffective indicators of a need for a repeat biopsy; therefore, patients suspected of having prostate cancer might undergo several unnecessary biopsy procedures. Several alternative strategies exist for identifying men who might be at risk of prostate cancer despite negative findings of biopsy sample analysis. Use of other serum PSA-related measurements enables more sensitive and specific diagnosis and can be combined with knowledge of clinicopathological features to improve outcomes. Other options include the FDA-approved Progensa^® test and prostate imaging using MRI. Newer tissue-based assays that measure methylation changes in normal prostate tissue are currently being developed. A cost-effective strategy is proposed in order to address this challenging clinical scenario, and potential directions of future studies in this area are also described.

Genomics

Young-Age Prostate Cancer
Although prostate cancer is a disease of the elderly, its diagnosis is not uncommonly made in men younger than 55 years. Both ethnic, familial and genetic factors play a role in the early onset of prostate cancer, but the biology, particularly of low-grade prostate cancers detected at young age is not well understood. Autopsy studies have shown a high prevalence of Gleason score 6 prostate cancers in men under 55 years, but mortality of prostate cancer at this young age is almost negligible. Recently, a number of susceptibility genes such as BRCA2 and HOXB13 were reported, each with their own specific biological and histopathology features. In this review, we provide an update on the most recent findings in young-age prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer: Intrapatient heterogeneity in prostate cancer : Nature Reviews Urology : Nature Publishing Group
A newly published study used whole-genome sequencing of multiple prostate tumour foci from several patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer to track evolutionary patterns and delineate the marked intrapatient molecular heterogeneity of this disease. Their findings have potential implications for the development of clinical prognostic and predictive biomarkers.

Genetic risk, aggressive prostate cancer, and ethnic/racial differences | THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK
According to a newly published article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, there are new and strong indications that a specific “genomic fingerprint” is associated with elevated risk for diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer in African Americans compared to Caucasians.

The article just published by Yamoah et al., along with a media release issued by Thomas Jefferson University define a subtype of prostate cancer that the research team has defined as “triple negative prostate cancer.” They define such triple negative disease as prostate cancer exhibiting the absence or the expression of only low levels of three genes called ERG, ETS, and SPINK1.
"Cancer driver gene" reduces metastasis in prostate cancer
A gene that is responsible for cancer growth plays a totally unexpected role in prostate cancer. The gene Stat3 is controlled by the immune modulator interleukin 6 and normally supports the growth of cancer cells. The international research team led by Prof. Lukas Kenner from the Medical University of Vienna, the Veterinary University of Vienna, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institiute for Cancer Research (LBI-CR) discovered a missing link for an essential role of Stat3 and IL-6 signalling in prostate cancer progression. 

Imaging

18F-Fluciclovine PET/CT for the Detection of Prostate Cancer Relapse: A Comparison to 11C-Choline PET/CT
F-fluciclovine provided a statistically significant better performance in terms of lesion detection rate as compared with C-choline.

Treatment

Prostate cancer: treatment options | CPD article | Pharmaceutical Journal
Treatment of early stage prostate cancer and locally advanced disease can involve surveillance, radical treatment or androgen deprivation therapy; however, as the disease progresses, these options change. Although patients may require definitive therapy as their disease progresses, active surveillance is an important treatment option.
Radical prostatectomy or radical radiotherapy are recommended for men with intermediate- and high-risk localised prostate cancer, where there is a prospect of long-term disease control. However, both options are associated with complications, including impaired sexual function.
Androgen deprivation therapy has been the mainstay for advanced prostate cancer management; however, recently there has been a move towards initiating hormonal treatment in younger men with early disease or recurrent disease after definitive treatment. Advanced disease, or metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer, usually occurs 12–18 months after diagnosis and androgen ablation, with a median survival of two to three years. Treatment usually involves chemotherapy with docetaxel, but a number of newer drugs, including cabazitaxel, abiraterone and enzalutamide, are available.

Active Surveillance

Active surveillance in prostate cancer: a critical review.
Tools for better selection of candidates and monitoring of the disease process have evolved since the conception of AS, including new biomarkers like phi, mpMRI and alternate biopsy strategies. AS is a sound strategy for reducing overtreatment of men with low-risk, and potentially selected men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer and shorter life expectancy, without compromising overall and cancer specific survival.

Hormone (ADT)

Dose-dependent effect of androgen deprivation therapy for localized prostate cancer on adverse cardiac events.
Exposure to ADT with GnRH agonists is associated with an increased risk of cardiac events in elderly men with localized PCa and a decent life expectancy. Clinicians should carefully weigh the risks and benefits of ADT in patients with a prolonged life expectancy. Routine screening and lifestyle interventions are warranted in at-risk subpopulations treated with ADT.

Surgery

Prostate cancer: Opting for robotic surgery, Health News & Top Stories - The Straits Times
In recent years, many centers have reported positive outcomes after using robotic surgery to treat aggressive prostate cancer, with cancer recurrence rates that are similar to or lower than those who had open surgery.
In such high-risk patients, removing the pelvic lymph nodes helps to reduce the likelihood of the recurrence of cancer.
For those who find that the cancer has spread outside the prostate capsule or involves the attached seminal vesicles, a short course of radiation may be necessary to completely eradicate the cancer cells in the pelvis.

First Report: Robot-Assisted Total Pelvic Exenteration for Locally Advanced Prostate Cancer.
Pelvic exenteration is used in the treatment of several pelvic cancers, including those of the rectum, uterus, and bladder.
We report the first case of robotic pelvic exenteration for the treatment of symptomatic prostate cancer involving the rectum and bladder.
A six-port transperitoneal robotic approach was used. Bilateral extended lymphadenectomy up to the inferior mesenteric artery was performed.
The rectum and bladder were removed en bloc, and a double-barrel anastomosis was then performed with both ureters being connected to the lower opening of the colostomy. Operative time was 249 minutes, and estimated blood loss was 600 mL.
No intraoperative or postoperative complications were recorded. Biopsy of the rectum and bladder showed prostatic adenocarcinoma with a Gleason score of 9 (5+4), and 1 of 17 nodes was positive for cancer. Postoperative prostate-specific antigen level was 1.24 ng/mL.
The patient is already 19 months after surgery with optimal quality of life.
Thus pelvic exenteration is a feasible alternative for highly symptomatic prostate cancer involving adjacent pelvic organs.

Radiation Therapy

Common side effect of radiation treatment for prostate cancer - Medical News Today
In the study, a collaboration among five institutions, researchers analyzed 1,001 men who received various types of radiation therapy for prostate cancer. While doctors are aware that medium and high doses of radiation to the rectum increase the risk of late rectal bleeding, this the new study found that, the dose being equal, men with shorter rectums were more likely to suffer from rectal bleeding. The probability of bleeding can be predicted using a mathematical formula during treatment planning to minimize the risk.
"By reducing the dose to the edge of the area being irradiated in men with shorter rectums, possibly using better treatment image guidance, we can significantly reduce the risk of late-stage rectal bleeding," said Joseph Deasy, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. "This formula potentially could be put into treatment planning systems that are routinely used."

Scientists discover why some prostate tumours are resistant to radiotherapy
In the latest studies, published in European Urology and the British Journal of Cancer, scientists in The YCR Cancer Research Unit in the Department of Biology at York have shown a direct link between these tiny molecules – known as micro-RNAs - and resistance to radiotherapy.

Clinical Oncology News - Mixed Results for RT Dose Escalation in Prostate Cancer
“Dose escalation to 79.2 Gy for intermediate-risk prostate cancer did not improve the overall or disease-specific survival. However, dose escalation did improve local control, distant metastases–free and biochemical disease–free survival [DFS] rates,” and was associated with less use of salvage therapy, said Jeff M. Michalski, MD, MBA, a radiation oncologist at Washington University’s Siteman Cancer Center, in St. Louis.
Dose-escalated radiation therapy in prostate cancer patients is included in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s guidelines and commonly is used in the United States. Five clinical trials, with study populations ranging from 300 to 850 patients, have shown that dose escalation improves biochemical DFS rates, but these studies have failed to identify a benefit in OS. The researchers wondered whether a larger trial would identify a survival benefit, and thus launched the randomized RTOG 0126 trial. The trial analyzed data from roughly 1,500 patients who received three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (CRT) or intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). An equal number of patients received a minimum target volume prescription of either 70.2 Gy in 39 fractions or 79.2 Gy in 44 fractions.

Advanced; Recurrent

When initial treatment fails, and the cancer comes back and spreads, there are still treatments.

Molecular biology of castration-resistant prostate cancer.
Castration-resistant prostate cancer was subjected to a paradigm switch from hormone resistance to androgen deprivation therapy resistance during the last decade.
Indeed, new therapeutics targeting the androgen receptor showed clinical efficacy in patients with progressive disease under castration.
Thus, it is a proof that the AR remains a dominant driver of oncogenesis in earlier-called hormone resistant prostate cancer.
This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms involved in castration-resistant prostate cancer.

New Therapies

Access : Metformin and prostate cancer stem cells: a novel therapeutic target : Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases

Molecule identified that facilitates spread of prostate cancer - Medical News Today
The study is published in the journal Cancer Cell and was completed by researchers from the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA.
The results offer a target for the development of a drug that could prevent metastasis in prostate cancer - and possibly other cancers, too.
Karen Knudsen, PhD, director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University, says:
"Finding a way to halt or prevent cancer metastasis has proven elusive. We discovered that a molecule called DNA-PKcs could give us a means of knocking out major pathways that control metastasis before it begins."

Ice cold gas that kills prostate cancer and cuts side-effects | Daily Mail Online

We think cryotherapy and another recent development, HIFU, have a real role to play.

Unlike radiotherapy, they can be used again if the treatment isn't successful the first time because they don't cause irreversible changes in the surrounding healthy cells. Cryotherapy is especially useful for patients who, like Mr Tallant, aren't suitable for HIFU.

After taking a biopsy and MRI scan to work out where to target the treatment, the patient comes in for day surgery.

With the patient under general anaesthetic, we insert fine needles into the prostate, using the MRI images as guidance. We insert a catheter into the urethra and pass through a warm saline solution to protect the area and stop the cells there freezing.

We then pass compressed argon gases through the needles into the prostate. These cool rapidly to minus 40c and develop into balls of ice on the ends of the needles.

After ten minutes of freezing, we run helium through the needle to warm up and thaw the ice ball. Typically, we run through two freezing and thawing cycles.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3176496/ME-OPERATION-Ice-cold-gas-kills-prostate-cancer-cuts-effects.html#ixzz3hKSyoICO
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Chemo Therapy

Prostate cancer patients being denied low-cost, breakthrough treatment - News - pharmaphorum
Men with advanced prostate cancer are being denied access to a breakthrough treatment for the disease – despite it being low cost, and based on UK research.

The chemotherapy drug docetaxel has been around for decades, but new research shows if used earlier, it can help men with metastatic prostate cancer live much longer – adding 22 months of life on average.

This is a massive increase in overall survival, a huge benefit rarely seen in any clinical trials. But NHS England and other regional bodies across the country are currently ignoring the new evidence – this means thousands of men could be missing out on the breakthrough and many extra months of life.

Prostate cancer breakthrough must wait for publication, says NHS England - News - pharmaphorum
Groundbreaking, low-cost treatment which dramatically extends the lives of prostate cancer patients won't be recommended until after trial results are published in a peer reviewed journal, NHS England has said.

Prostate cancer: Abiraterone in elderly patients with CRPC : Nature Reviews Urology : Nature Publishing Group
Abiraterone acetate seems to be effective and well tolerated in elderly patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to interim findings from the randomized, controlled COU-AA-302 trial.

SPAWAR awards Leidos $4.3B IDIQ for Defense Healthcare Modernization

Pentagon Awards $9 Billion Deal for Electronic Health Records | DoD Buzz
The contract will modernize how the Pentagon provides care to some 9.5 million military members, families and retirees in part by installing new IT equipment and software to better share patient information with the Veterans Affairs Department and private providers, officials said.
While the military has used electronic health records for years, many troops who deployed to warzones such as Afghanistan and Iraq had trouble accessing their medical history from base to base and resorted to storing the information on portable computer disks such as thumb drives. In other cases, they carried around paper records in manila folders.
“That will be a thing of the past,” Jonathan Woodson, a doctor and assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, pledged during the conference call.
Yet getting the new system up and running across the Pentagon’s 55 military hospitals and 600 clinics will take years. The plan is to begin installing the technology at eight locations in the Pacific Northwest, then expand to the rest of the sites over six or seven years, Kendall said. The names of the initial locations weren’t immediately available.

Defense.gov Contracts for Wednesday, July 29, 2015

No: CR-143-15
July 29, 2015

CONTRACTS

NAVY

Leidos, Inc., Reston, Virginia was awarded a ceiling $4,336,822,777  indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, with firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-plus-incentive fee, and fixed-price incentive pricing arrangements, for the Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization program. As a service provider integrator, the contractor will provide an electronic health record off-the-shelf solution, integration activities and deployment across the Military Health System.
This contract has a two-year initial ordering period, with two 3-year option periods, and a potential two-year award term, which, if awarded, would bring the total ordering period to 10 years. Work will be performed at locations throughout the United States and overseas. If all options are exercised, work is expected to be completed by September 2025. Fiscal 2015 Defense Health Program Research, Development, Test and Evaluation funds in the amount of $35,000,000 will be obligated at the time of award. Additional funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. This was a competitive acquisition, with six offers received. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N00039-15-D-0044).


Leidos wins DoD healthcare systems modernization contract 
A team led by Leidos Inc. has won the long-awaited $4.3 billion contract award on July 29 for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) system. The team also includes electronic health record vendor Cerner Corporation and Accenture Federal.
The Defense Department issued a request for proposals for a new electronic health records system almost a year ago.
Other competitors that lost out to the Leidos team included parrtnerships led by IBM and Computer Sciences Corp.

The contract award had originally been promised months ago. Federal documents showed a $149 million budget for DHMSM for fiscal 2015, and a contract award was expected in early in the 2015 fiscal year. The program's price tag could reach $11 billion over the course of its life cycle through 2030, Chris Miller, program executive officer for the DHMSM and integrated electronic health records, said last year.

DoD awards Cerner, Leidos, Accenture EHR contract | Healthcare IT News
New estimated cost: $9B. 'Competition has worked for us.'

The US Department of Defense handed down the largest and most-anticipated electronic health record system contract in history late Wednesday.

And the winner is (drumroll, please) … Cerner, Leidos and Accenture. The contract's initial piece, valued at $4.3 billion, calls for the team to provide "an electronic health record off-the-shelf solution, integration activities and deployment across the Military Health System," a DoD spokesperson told Healthcare IT News.

DoD's choice, in the end, came down to three teams: 

1. Epic Systems and IBM; 
2. Cerner, Leidos and Accenture; and 
3. Allscripts aligned with Computer Sciences Corp. and Hewlett-Packard.

Cerner wins DoD electronic health records contract - MedCity NewsMedCity News
A coalition including Cerner has won the coveted Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization contract to replace the electronic health records system for the Military Health System. Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner joined with with federal contractors Leidos and Accenture Federal on the bid.
Cerner beat out competing bids from the teams of Epic Systems and IBM; and Allscripts, Computer Sciences Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. The award is valued at $4.3 billion, though Defense Department officials said that it could be worth more than $9 billion over the next 10 years — below earlier estimates of $11 billion.

SPAWAR picks 5 small firms for $232M IDIQ FMS C4I Support

Defense.gov Contracts for Wednesday, July 29, 2015

No: CR-143-15
July 29, 2015

CONTRACTS

NAVY

• C4 Planning Solutions, LLC*, Blythe, Georgia (N00039-15-D-0036);
• Cambridge International Systems, Inc.*, Arlington, Virginia (N00039-15-D-0037); 
• Envistacom, LLC*, Atlanta, Georgia (N00039-15-D-0038); 
• Forward Slope, Inc.* San Diego (N00039-15-D-0039); and 
• SOLUTE Consulting*, San Diego (N00039-15-D-0040)

are being awarded a $232,068,059 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, hybrid, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, cost-reimbursable-type, multiple-award contract for command, control,  communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) systems integration and engineering services in
support of authorized and approved U.S. security assistance and security cooperation programs.


Foreign Military Sale funds in the amount of  $5,000 per contract awardee (for a total of $25,000) will be placed on contract and obligated at the time of award via a delivery order to each awardee. This contract involves utilizing Foreign Military Sales to various security cooperation partners to be identified as individual delivery orders are issued.


Work will be performed in various overseas locations based on the requirement for each individual delivery order placed. The ordering period is three years for the base period up to the contract award amount. The base ordering period expires July 2018. The multiple-award contract was competitively procured with small business proposals solicited and 22 offers received via the Commerce Business
Daily's Federal Business Opportunities and the SPAWAR e-Commerce Central websites. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California is the contracting activity.

Related/Background:

• SPAWAR Security Cooperation Overview 20 March ... - DMAG

Smart Meters and Variable Prices Could Cause Chaos and Blackouts

A seemingly obvious way to make the electricity market better may actually make it worse
Smart Meters Can Destabilize Grid, Study Says | EE Times

The simulation shows that in such a competing situation the market behaviour will tend to be wild, erratic and chaotic. An example: If the energy supply is low and therefore the price is high, most users simply will tend to postpone their energy consumption. But they wont be able to do this at infinitum, explains Bornholdt. The more machines are waiting to get started, the higher the potential demand: A bubble forms. This bubble will burst at latest in the moment the price level falls slightly. Because many consumers have postponed their washing schedule, countless washers will start to wash suddenly at the same time. This triggers a collective avalanche mechanism that charges the grids extremely, Bornholdt says. This situation makes black-outs much more probable.


According to the conclusion of the research team, the massive deployment of smart meters is a quick shot that has not been thought through. In our computing model we reproduced with various variables
what real humans would logically do in such situations. In such situations, the individual does not know which consequences arise from his actions if it is multiplied. And unfortunately those who supply the energy do not know either.

Smart Meter Time Varying Pricing Can Lead to “Catastrophic Consequences” for the Grid | Smart Grid Awareness
A new study has been released based upon research at Bremen University that reveals that the use of time varying rates implemented through the mass deployment of smart meters can lead to consumer demand avalanches resulting in smart grid blackouts.

Density of prices for the time series as described in the caption of Fig. 2 (blue solid line). The average price is indicated with a vertical line together with multiples of one standard deviation (dotted lines). The density of highest acceptable prices pi(t) [Eq. (4), black circles] shows a concentration at prices far below the average price. The density of load bought at certain prices [Eq. (5), red squares] shows a maximum at rare price events more than two standard deviations below the average price. Simulation results are shown for N=106 and f=10−3 (as in Fig. 2) and T=107 time steps.

The study of the Bremen scientists has been published in the Physical Review of the American Physical Society.
For more details, see http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.012815

Abstract

The average economic agent is often used to model the dynamics of simple markets, based on the assumption that the dynamics of a system of many agents can be averaged over in time and space. A popular idea that is based on this seemingly intuitive notion is to dampen electric power fluctuations from fluctuating sources (as, e.g., wind or solar) via a market mechanism, namely by variable power prices that adapt demand to supply. The standard model of an average economic agent predicts that fluctuations are reduced by such an adaptive pricing mechanism. However, the underlying assumption that the actions of all agents average out on the time axis is not always true in a market of many agents. We numerically study an econophysics agent model of an adaptive power market that does not assume averaging a priori. We find that when agents are exposed to source noise via correlated price fluctuations (as adaptive pricing schemes suggest), the market may amplify those fluctuations. In particular, small price changes may translate to large load fluctuations through catastrophic consumer synchronization. As a result, an adaptive power market may cause the opposite effect than intended: Power demand fluctuations are not dampened but amplified instead.

Related/Background:

• Active Adaptive Control Laboratory
• » Smart Meters Navigant Research 
• Modeling and simulation of consumer response to dynamic pricing
• Dynamic Electricity Pricing for Smart Homes - University of ...
• smart meters, real time pricing, and demand response ...
  
  
   

SOC picks 4 firms for $900M IDIQ Support Contract

Defense.gov Contracts for Tuesday, July 28, 2015

SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

 

• 
  Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (H92222-15-D-0022) and 
• CACI-WGI Inc.
  (H92222-15-D-0025), Tampa, Florida; 
• Raytheon Blackbird Technologies Inc.(H92222-15-D-0023), Herndon, Virginia; and 
• MacAulay-Brown Inc.
  (H92222-15-D-0024), Dayton, Ohio, 

were awarded an
indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple-award contract with a
combined ceiling value of $900,000,000 for Special Operations Command
Wide Mission Support services. The place of performance is multiple
locations both in the U.S. and overseas. The anticipated period of
performance is not to exceed five years. Each company will be awarded a
$2,500 minimum guarantee, and additional funding will be obligated on
individual task orders. Fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance funds
shall be used to satisfy the minimum of the contract The contracts were
competitively awarded using Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 15
procedures. Seventeen proposals were received. U.S. Special Operations
Command is the contracting activity.

Army Research Laboratory seeks Next Generation Radar (NGR) building blocks

Materials Pave Way To Military Advances
| Analog semiconductors content from Microwaves & RF

C-RAM Home

Advanced RF Technologies | U.S. Army Research Laboratory

U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Advanced RF Technologies - W911NF12R001103 - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities

Title:          U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Advanced RF Technologies  
Sol. #:         W911NF12R001103
Agency:         Department of the Army
Office:         Army Contracting Command
Location:       ACC-APG - RTP
Posted On:      Jul 27, 2015 1:54 pm
Base Type:      Special Notice
Link:           https://www.fbo.gov/notices/a9244f295a3e871b2af8a7d41c6e7445

U.S. ARMY RESEARCH LABORATORY (ARL), Sensors and Electronic Devices Directorate (SEDD) Advanced RF Technologies

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Electronics and RF Division (E&RF) is announcing a basic research (6.1) opportunity open to all academic, industrial and other government researchers to develop, fabricate and demonstrate a Next Generation Radar's (NGR) modular building blocks. The Division will, via the U.S. Army Contracting Command discussed below, let Cooperative Research Agreements (CRA) that focus on four (4) underpinning research areas, also detailed below, to develop, fabricate and demonstrate these modules. The CRAs let under this action will investigate new approaches to meet these modular expectations for Army's NGR. The research being executed under this action will tap into external high risk, high payoff approaches that will enhance our in-house multimode scalable investigation for Air Defense and Counter Rocket And Mortar (C-RAM) applications. The NGR is a joint Communications Electronics Research Development Engineering Center (CERDEC) , Aviation Missile Research Development Engineering Center (AMRDECO and ARL program with Fires Center of Excellence and Program Management Office (PMO) interest.

Army (and other DoD) Force Protection Radars include handheld, vehicle mounted and airborne configurations to support the following missions: Forward Operation Base (FOB) Protection that includes Dismount Detection, Air Defense, C-RAM. Size, Weight, Power and Cost (SWaP-C) continue to drive technology challenges for significant twenty first century advancements over our adversaries. The main thrust of this action is to address RF devices, components and architectures that are frequency agile across a spectrum along with supporting signal processing techniques that are adaptive to both the congested and contested environment while addressing the variety of potential threats.

Specific BAA Research focus areas:

• 1.2.6.b) Signal processing approaches for handling the adaptive and frequency-agility requirements, while enhancing target detection and tracking capabilities. Power efficient processing along with an open architecture implementation plan.
• 1.2.6.d) Advanced linearization studies - the multiple band and large instantaneous bandwidth requirements will also necessitate higher linearity front end components both integrated and extrinsic.
• 1.2.7) Complex vector modulation for developing spectrally pure intermediate frequency stages. Enhanced wideband receiver sensitivity for dynamic transmitter allocation enabling simultaneous transmit and receive requirements.
• 1.2.9) Highly integrated front end technology that exploits a wide range of power levels at high power added efficiencies. Reconfigurable requirements are needed between a power amplifier mode and a high dynamic range low noise amplifier. Strategies for heat removal will also be considered for amplifier performance enhancements. 

Electro-Magnetic Device Ends Migraine Pain

FDA approves magnetic device to relieve migraine pain - WorldNews

The End of Pain ‹ TERP
TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION DEVICE WITH BODY PROXIMITY SENSORS FOR THE TREATMENT OF MIGRAINE HEADACHES - ENEURA, INC.
He helps (and makes) millions | The Beacon Newspapers, Inc. 
The headache device, which received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration last year, is the brainchild of one of the great biomedical inventors of the past century, Robert E. Fischell M.S. ’54, Sc.D. (honorary) ’96.
FLEETING BURSTS OF ELECTROMAGNETISM known as pulses create electrical current in body tissues, blocking pain. That’s the concept behind the headache device, which he patented in 2002 along with his oldest son, David, and Canadian neurologist Dr. Adrian Upton.
UMD researchers helped develop prototypes of the device being brought to market by the Baltimore-based company eNeura. It is now delivering the device, called SpringTMS, to headache clinics around the nation in preparation for broader distribution in the next year.
How do electromagnetic pulses kill pain? Strangely enough, science can’t precisely answer that question because of our limited knowledge of the brain and nervous system. But Fischell’s theory is that the magnetic field scrambles communication between nerve cells. The result, he says, is that the signals received by the brain no longer register as pain.
Magnetic pulses have been used to treat depression, and implantable electrodes that direct electrical currents through the back for spinal pain work on a similar principle—although that requires expensive surgery and carries all of its associated risks, Fischell points out.
David Rosen, CEO of eNeura, predicts SpringTMS will revolutionize migraine treatment, but clinicians may at first be wary.



Fischell is planning a network of U.S. clinics where people suffering from bad backs, nerve pain from chemotherapy, achy arthritic joints and a host of other maladies can seek affordable, drug-free palliative care. Along with business partners—including UMD and the School of Medicine, each with a 3 percent cut—he’s set up a company called Zygood LLC to lay the groundwork for the clinics, which he hopes will operate nationwide and bring comfort to millions.

Previously/Related:

• First Rigorous Test Of Magnetic Stimulation Device Shows Promise For Short-Circuiting Migraines | Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Migraine With Aura: Magnetic Stimulation Is A Promising Non-Drug Treatment Option - Medical News Today 
• Fischell, R.E., "The invention of the programmable implantable medication system," Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, IEEE , vol.8, no.4, pp.65,66, Dec. 1989
  doi: 10.1109/51.45958
  Abstract: The author describes the genesis of his idea for a programmable implantable medication system and the problems encountered in going from idea to the first prototype. He discusses the funding, development, and marketing of his device. He provides some observations on the process of getting medical inventions into public use.<>
  keywords: {biomedical electronics;medical computing;patient treatment;device development;funding;marketing;medical inventions;programmable implantable medication system;public use;Batteries;Insulin;Laboratories;Manufacturing;Pacemakers;Physics;Prototypes;Pumps;Read only memory;Space technology},
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=45958&isnumber=1736
• Fischell, R.E., "The retrospectroscope-the invention of the rechargeable cardiac pacemaker: vignette #9," Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, IEEE , vol.9, no.2, pp.77,78, Jun 1990
  doi: 10.1109/51.57877
  Abstract: The idea for a rechargeable cardiac pacemaker came to the author in the late 1960s after reading an advertisement stating that a company's batteries were so good they would last two years in a heart pacemaker. This meant that pacemaker patients would have to undergo surgery for their replacement frequently. Having worked on the development of hermetically sealed, nickel-cadmium batteries that could function for a decade or longer in an orbiting spacecraft, the author constructed the first prototype of a rechargeable cardiac pacemaker around 1968 to show cardiologists at Johns Hopkins Hospital that a pacemaker of indefinitely long life and much smaller size and weight could be built readily. The subsequent development and marketing of the device, which came on the market in 1973, is recounted
  keywords: {history;pacemakers;prosthetic power supplies;Johns Hopkins Hospital;batteries;heart pacemaker;rechargeable cardiac pacemaker;Batteries;Cities and towns;Hermetic seals;Hospitals;Laboratories;Pacemakers;Physics;Prototypes;Space technology;Space vehicles},
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=57877&isnumber=2100
• Saraiva Santos, N.; Sousa, S.C.P.; Crespo, P.; Cavaleiro Miranda, P.; Salvador, R.; Silvestre, J., "Shielding the magnetic field from a transcranial stimulator using aluminium and iron: Simulation and experimental results," Bioengineering (ENBENG), 2015 IEEE 4th Portuguese Meeting on , vol., no., pp.1,2, 26-28 Feb. 2015
  doi: 10.1109/ENBENG.2015.7088824
  Abstract: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an up-and-coming, noninvasive technique that holds therapeutic promise in a range of neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases. In rTMS, a time-varying magnetic field induces an electric current in the brain. Since its introduction close to 30 years ago, numerous studies have widely recognised it in the research or treatment of several diseases (e.g. epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, stroke or neuropathic pain). rTMS treatments already occurring in the USA include psychiatric conditions like major depression (approved in 2008), and migraine (approved in 2013). Nevertheless, throughout several years it has been found that the stimulation of subcortical brain structures is inaccessible with standard rTMS equipment. Accessing such deep-brain regions may potentially result in the improvement of a variety of neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. The design of TMS coils to stimulate deep brain targets is limited by the rapid attenuation of the electric field in depth. This is mainly due to the physical limiting effect arising from the presence of surface discontinuities. To the best of our knowledge the Hesed coil represents the state of the art of clinical deep-brain TMS. Nonetheless, there is no configuration able of producing an effective field at the very center of the brain. We have proposed a TMS system termed orthogonal configuration that is capable of reaching the very center of a spherical brain phantom (at 10-cm depth) with 58% strength in respect to the surface maximum. The high, external magnetic field of this configuration was designed so that it is incapable of inducing heart fibrillation in the patient by four orders of magnitude in respect to its threshold. Nevertheless, Comsol^® AC/DC simulations show that a system operator positioned sideways, 10 cm apart from the orthogonal configuration will experience an induced current density in his heart of 0.7 A/m² (heart fi- rillation threshold is 1 A/m²). Only 3.4 m away from the orthogonal configuration will a heart current density of 0.001 A/m² be achieved. In this work we focus on the shielding aspects necessary to install an orthogonal TMS system providing full safety to patient and any of its operators. For that, we have measured the TMS signal attenuation induced by an iron or aluminium slab of material positioned between a TMS coil and a current density sensor located inside a cylinder container filled with a saline solution (7 S/m, i.e. 5% ^w/v of NaCl in water). Simulations combined with experimental results show that a simple 25-mm-thick slab of aluminium surrounding five walls of the orthogonal TMS system (positioned 40 cm apart from its edges) is enough to achieve a current density in the heart of any operator inferior to 0.001 A/m², i.e. at least three orders of magnitude below fibrillation threshold. This allows us to conclude on the viability of implementing an R&D orthogonal TMS system in the near future.
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7088824&isnumber=7088795
• Kortekaas, R.; van Belkum, S.M.; van Nierop, L.E.; Schoevers, R.A., "Weak field transcerebral pulsed electromagnetic fields in health care," Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), 2014 8th European Conference on , vol., no., pp.1673,1676, 6-11 April 2014
  doi: 10.1109/EuCAP.2014.6902110
  Abstract: Neuropathic pain and major depressive disorder are two disorders that affect a large proportion of the population and that lead to vast losses of well being, productivity and money. Transcranial magnetic stimulation has been applied in both conditions, with encouraging results. Here we describe experimental treatment of these conditions with weak field transcerebral pulsed electromagnetic fields. Experimentel heat pain could be reduced with our stimulation, but this effect did not generalize to the capsaicin pain model in healthy volunteers. Studies in neuropathic pain patients have just finished data acquisition and studies in depressed patients are ongoing. We conclude that this type of weak field transcerebral pulsed electromagnetic stimulation deserves serious consideration in health care.
  keywords: {electromagnetic fields;health care;transcranial magnetic stimulation;capsaicin pain model;data acquisition;depressive disorder;health care;neuropathic pain;neuropathic pain patients;transcranial magnetic stimulation;weak field transcerebral pulsed electromagnetic fields;weak field transcerebral pulsed electromagnetic stimulation;Antennas;Conferences;Europe;extremely low frequency;measurement;propagation},
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6902110&isnumber=6901672
• Sekino, M.; Suyama, M.; Dongmin Kim; Saitoh, Y., "A magnetic stimulator coil with high robustness to positioning error," General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS), 2014 XXXIth URSI , vol., no., pp.1,3, 16-23 Aug. 2014
  doi: 10.1109/URSIGASS.2014.6930094
  Abstract: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is effective for treatment of neurological diseases such as neuropathic pain. We are newly developing magnetic stimulators for use at patient's home for realizing daily treatment. One of the technical challenges is a system for positioning the stimulator coil. In this study, we proposed a coil design which gives a high robustness to positioning error. We numerically evaluated the characteristics of the coil when changing the width, depth, height, and the number of turns of the coil. The results showed that the mostly influencing parameter on the broadening of the eddy current was the width of the coil, and the vertical length was influential on the current density. We found the proposed coil induces eddy currents in a wider range than conventional figure-eight coils.
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6930094&isnumber=6928981 
• Saitoh, Y.; Maruo, T.; Yokoe, M.; Matsuzaki, T.; Sekino, M., "Electrical or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of primary motor cortex for intractable neuropathic pain," Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE , vol., no., pp.6163,6166, 3-7 July 2013
  doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2013.6610960
  Abstract: Objective: To assess the pain-relieving effects of motor cortex electrical stimulation (MCS) and the predictive factors retrospectively. Methods: Thirty-four patients with intractable neuropathic pain underwent MCS; 19 patients had cerebral lesions, and 15 had non-cerebral lesions. In selected 12 patients, test electrodes were implanted within the central sulcus and on the precentral gyrus. Twelve patients received both MCS and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the primary motor cortex. Results: Pain reduction of >50% was observed in 12 of 32 (36%) patients with >12 months follow-ups (2 patients were excluded because of short follow-up). In 10 of the 12 patients who received test electrodes within the central sulcus and on the precentral gyrus, the optimal stimulation was MCS within the central sulcus. In 4 of these (40%) patients, positive effects were maintained at follow-ups. The pain reduction of rTMS significantly correlated with that of MCS during test stimulation. Conclusions: The test stimulation within the central sulcus was more effective than that of the precentral gyrus. In the selected patients, chronic stimulation within the central sulcus did not significantly improve long-term results. Repeated rTMS seems to be same effective as MCS.
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6610960&isnumber=6609410 
• Yasumuro, Y.; Ebisuwaki, R.; Fuyuki, M.; Matsuzaki, T.; Saitoh, Y., "Coil positioning system for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment by ToF camera ego-motion," Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE , vol., no., pp.3586,3589, 3-7 July 2013
  doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2013.6610318
  Abstract: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive method for treating various neurological and psychiatric disorders. With the growing demands of neuropathic pain patients and their increasing numbers, rTMS treatment tools are becoming more necessary. rTMS uses electromagnetic induction to induce weak electric currents by rapidly changing the magnetic field. Targeting the electric current to a specific part of the brain is one treatment for pain relief. This paper focuses on treatment for neuropathic pain caused by a lesion or disease of the central or peripheral nervous system, including stroke, trauma, or surgery. However, the current style of rTMS treatment is still developing and is so technically specialized that only a limited number of hospitals and only a handful of specialists can provide this therapy. The existing rTMS systems use an optical markerbased 3D sensing technique that positions the stimulation coil to target the small region of interest in the brain through coregistration with pre-scanned MRI data. This system requires the patient to be immobilized on a bed. The optical markers for 3D sensing are placed on the patient's head to maintain accurate positioning. We propose a constraints-free, markerless rTMS system, which employs ego-motion, a computation technique to estimate relative 3D motion of a camera to what the camera sees. We use a ToF sensor as a camera, which is capble of capturing shape information from a single viewpoint instantly. The markerless target spot is based on the shape features of the patient's face. This paper shows the process of a prototype system and its potential for achieving an easy-to-handle system framework.
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6610318&isnumber=6609410
• Yasumuro, Y.; Hosomi, K.; Saitoh, Y.; Matsuzaki, T., "Uncertainty assessment of target localization for rTMS treatment," Complex Medical Engineering (CME), 2012 ICME International Conference on , vol., no., pp.784,787, 1-4 July 2012
  doi: 10.1109/ICCME.2012.6275590
  Abstract: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive method for treating various neurological and psychiatric disorders. This paper focuses on a technical aspect of this treatment method for neuropathic pain that can be caused by a lesion or disease of the central or peripheral nervous system, including stroke, trauma or surgical operation. rTMS uses electromagnetic induction to induce weak electric currents by rapidly changing the magnetic field. Targeting a specific part of the brain to locate the magnetic field works as a treatment for pain relief. This is the reason why the current style of rTMS treatment is still developing and is so technically specialized that only a limited number of hospitals and only a handful of specialists can provide this therapy. The existing systems of rTMS are based on an optical maker-based 3-dimensional (3D) sensing technique for positioning the stimulation coil to target the small spot in the region of interest in the brain, and for referring pre-scanned MRI data to check the target position. Furthermore, the existing systems require the patient to be fixed on a bed in which optical markers for 3D sensing are placed during the treatment to maintain positioning precision. With the growing demands of neuropathic pain patients and their increasing numbers, new approaches and systems to achieve more supportive and easy-to-handle navigation have been proposed lately for rTMS treatment. This paper proposes a quantitative index for localization precision, considering an uncertainty measure. Uncertainty is technically defined as a parameter, associated with the result of a measurement that characterizes the dispersion of the values that could reasonably be attributed to the measurement. This paper shows a detailed example of the uncertainty derivation for rTMS treatment, based on trial tasks for searching the spots on the brain that cause muscle twitch.
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6275590&isnumber=6275588
  
   

USAF Academy use Viking 300 UAV for training

L-3_Viking_300.pdf

VIRIN: 090720-F-0000P-101

U.S. Air Force Academy Cadets 2nd Class Jeffrey Nakayama and Rupert Domingo inspect a Viking 300 unmanned aircraft vehicle before launch from Camp Red Devil on July 20 at Fort Carson, Colorado. The Academy's new UAS training is designed to encourage cadets to serve as UAS leaders after graduation. The Viking 300 weighs between 200 and 300 pounds and has a top speed of 100 knots, with a cruising speed of 55 knots. (U.S. Air Force photo by Ann Patton)/Released

A larger, high-res version can be viewed or downloaded here:
http://media.dma.mil/2009/Aug/11/2000505216/-1/-1/0/090720-F-0000P-101.JPG

Related/Background:

• L3 ISR UAS Flight Operations and Training
• L3 BAI Aerosystems confirms new Viking UAV family in series production for unnamed US military customer - 9/11/2006 - Flight Global 

Very-High-Resolution SAR Image Ontologies

IEEE Xplore Abstract - Very-High-Resolution SAR Images and Linked Open Data Analytics Based on Ontologies

Espinoza-Molina, D.; Nikolaou, C.; Dumitru, C.O.; Bereta, K.; Koubarakis, M.; Schwarz, G.; Datcu, M., "Very-High-Resolution SAR Images and Linked Open Data Analytics Based on Ontologies," Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of , vol.8, no.4, pp.1696,1708, April 2015
doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2014.2371138

Abstract: In this paper, we deal with the integration of multiple sources of information such as Earth observation (EO) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and their metadata, semantic descriptors of the image content, as well as other publicly available geospatial data sources expressed as linked open data for posing complex queries in order to support geospatial data analytics. Our approach lays the foundations for the development of richer tools and applications that focus on EO image analytics using ontologies and linked open data. We introduce a system architecture where a common satellite image product is transformed from its initial format into to actionable intelligence information, which
includes image descriptors, metadata, image tiles, and semantic labels resulting in an EO-data model. We also create a SAR image ontology based on our EO-data model and a two-level taxonomy  classification scheme of the image content. We demonstrate our approach by linking high-resolution TerraSAR-X images with information from CORINE Land Cover (CLC), Urban Atlas (UA),  GeoNames, and OpenStreetMap (OSM), which are represented in the standard triple model of the resource description frameworks (RDFs).
keywords: {Data models;Feature
extraction;Geospatial analysis;Ontologies;Semantics;Synthetic aperture radar; Vectors; Analytics; Strabon; TerraSAR-X images; linked open data;ontologies;queries;resource description framework (RDFs)},
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6981927&isnumber=7112230

Dumitru, C.O.; Cui, S.; Schwarz, G.; Datcu, M., "Information Content of Very-High-Resolution SAR Images: Semantics, Geospatial Context, and Ontologies," Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of , vol.8, no.4, pp.1635,1650, April 2015
doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2014.2363595

Abstract: Currently, the amount of collected Earth Observation (EO) data is increasing considerably with a rate of several Terabytes of data per day. As a consequence of this increasing data volume, new concepts for exploration and information retrieval are urgently needed. To this end, we propose to explore satellite image data via an image information mining (IIM) approach in which the main steps are feature extraction, classification, semantic annotation, and interactive query processing. This leads to a new process chain and a robust taxonomy for the retrieved categories capitalizing on human interaction and judgment. We concentrated on land cover categories that can be retrieved from high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of the spaceborne TerraSAR-X instrument, where we annotated different urban areas all over the world and defined a taxonomy element for each prevailing surface cover category. The annotation resulted from a test dataset comprising more than 100 scenes covering diverse areas of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. The scenes were grouped into several collections with similar source areas and each collection was processed separately in order to discern regional characteristics. In the first processing step, each scene was tiled into patches. Then the features were extracted from each patch by a Gabor filter bank and a support vector machine with relevance feedback classifying the feature sets into user-oriented land cover categories. Finally, the categories were semantically annotated using Google Earth for ground truthing. The annotation followed a multilevel approach that allowed the fusion of information being visible on different resolution levels. The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that a semantic annotation was performed with a large number of high-resolution radar images that allowed the definition of more than 850 surface cover categories. This opens the way toward an automated identification - nd classification of urban areas, infrastructure (e.g., airports), geographic objects (e.g., mountains), industrial installations, military compounds, vegetation, and agriculture. Applications that may result from this work can be a semantic catalog of urban images to be used in crisis situations or after a disaster. In addition, the proposed taxonomies can become a basis for building a semantic catalog of satellite images. Finally, we defined four powerful types of high-level queries. Querying on such high levels provides new opportunities for users to search an image database for specific parameters or semantic relationships.
keywords: {Earth;Feature extraction;Remote sensing;Satellites;Semantics;Synthetic aperture radar;Taxonomy;Annotation;TerraSAR-X;classification;feature extraction;high-resolution images;indexing;ontologies;querying;semantic catalogs;synthetic aperture radar (SAR);taxonomies},
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6960829&isnumber=7112230 

Big 3 Battle for E-8 Joint-STARS Replacement

USAF Eyes Business Jets As Possible E-8 JSTARS Replacement
| Defense Tech

Boeing Again Pushes P-8 as a JSTARS Replacement
| Defense News: Aviation International News

ANALYSIS: Northrop battling to retain JSTARS as Lockheed, Boeing bid on recap - 7/24/2015 - Flight Global

An effort to recapitalise the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) with a modern business jet is shaping up to be this summer’s blockbuster defence programme, with three solid industry teams now vying for the $6.5 billion prize and Raytheon working on a curious new airborne radar called “Skynet”.

Northrop (the incumbent prime contractor), Lockheed Martin and Boeing have competing JSTARS proposals and are in a “blackout period” with no communication with the US Air Force as it decides whether to put two or all three teams on contract for an 11-month “pre-development” risk-reduction programme. The decision is expected in late August or early September, the air force says, and the main downselect to a single design will occur in late 2017.

JSTARS Recap, as the programme is known, officially started this year and aims replace the air force’s 16 large and expensive 707-300-based E-8C ground-looking battle management, surveillance and moving target indicator aircraft with 17 militarised business-class aircraft by 2026.

JSTARS Replacement: Competition Opened Wide
June 17/15: Following Northrop Grumman, L-3, General Dynamics and Gulfstream’s lead, a competing team of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Bombardier are now positioning to compete for the Air Force’s JSTARS recap program. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin had previously announced their intention to partner for the competition, with Bombardier set to bring their long-range business jet to the team, to complement Raytheon’s sensor portfolio and Lockheed Martin’s system integration expertise. The Air Force has also opened up the competition to European firms.

J-STARS

The entire J-STARS fleet are being progessively upgraded to the Block 20 configuration of the last seven production aircraft in a $40million programme, which has seen new Compaq workstations installed, together with a new General Dynamics radar signall processor and a fibre-optic network. A new open architecture configuration, using two commercial Compaq GS-320 'AlphaServer' processors will allow the aircraft to be upgraded more effectively in the future when new systems are developed. Another development planned for the future is the aircraft’s APY-3 radar benefiting from the $1.3 billion Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Programme (MP-RTIP). Around 2012, the new APY-X two-dimensional electronically scanned active array radar could well replace the current APY-3 radar. In addition, it is also planned to improve the current SAR image resolution with the Enhanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ESAR) and Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) upgrades. Another upgrade programme for the J-STARS is the concept of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) which will provide templating techniques to identify ground-based targets, using the processed ESAR and ISAR data. The MP-RTIP was originally intended to be installed in the E-10 Multi-Mission Command and Control Aircraft and the RQ-4 Global Hawk rather than the E-8, however, considerable doubts are being raised about the programme cost and appropriate E-10 acquision timescale and this could result in the radar being installed on the E-8. If the upgrade is approved, the first five RTIP equipped would be operational until around 2012.
Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint STARS | Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing - eBooks | Read eBooks online

Joint-STARS Radar and systems

The AN/APY-7 radar can operate in the following modes:

• wide area surveillance,
• ground moving target indicator (GMTI),
• fixed target indicator (FTI) target classification, and
• synthetic aperture radar (SAR) modes.

To pick up moving targets, the radar looks at the Doppler frequency shift of the returned signal. It can look from a long range, which the military refers to as a high standoff capability. The antenna can be tilted to either side of the aircraft for a 120-degree field of view covering nearly 50,000 km² (19,305 mile²) and can simultaneously track 600 targets at more than 250 km (152 miles). The GMTI modes cannot pick up objects that are too small, insufficiently dense, or stationary. Data processing allows the APY-7 to differentiate between armored vehicles (tracked tanks) and trucks, allowing targeting personnel to better select the appropriate ordnance for various targets.

The system's SAR modes can produce images of stationary objects. Objects with many angles (for example, the interior of a pick-up bed) will give a much better radar signature, or specular return. In addition to being able to detect, locate and track large numbers of ground vehicles, the radar has a limited capability to detect helicopters, rotating antennas and low, slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft.

Battle management

The radar and computer subsystems on the E-8C can gather and display broad and detailed battlefield information. Data is collected as events occur. This includes position and tracking information on enemy and friendly ground forces. The information is relayed in near-real time to the US Army's common ground stations via the secure jam-resistant surveillance and control data link (SCDL) and to other ground C4I nodes beyond line-of-sight via ultra high frequency satellite communications.
Other major E-8C prime mission equipment are the communications/datalink (COMM/DLX) and operations and control (O&C)subsystems. Eighteen operator workstations display computer-processed data in graphic and tabular format on video screens. Operators and technicians perform battle management, surveillance, weapons, intelligence, communications and maintenance functions.
Northrop Grumman has tested the installation of a MS-177 camera on an E-8C to provide real time visual target confirmation.^[6]

In missions from peacekeeping operations to major theater war, the E-8C can provide targeting data and intelligence for attack aviation, naval surface fire, field artillery and friendly maneuver forces. The information helps air and land commanders to control the battlespace.^[7]
The E-8's ground-moving radar can tell approximate number of vehicles, location, speed, and direction of travel. It cannot identify exactly what type of vehicle a target is, tell what equipment it has, or discern whether it is friendly, hostile, or a bystander, so commanders often crosscheck the JSTARS data against other sources. In the Army, JSTARS data is analyzed in and disseminated from a Ground Station Module (GSM).

Previously:

• spendergast: Joint STARS Re-capitalization effort begins
• Business Jets as Alternative for the E-8C JSTARS | Defense Update:  
• Lockheed teams with Raytheon for JSTARS replacement - 2/19/2015 - Flight Global 
• IEEE Xplore Abstract - Very-High-Resolution SAR Images and Linked Open Data Analytics Based on Ontologies 
• U.S. Navy Hawkeye Crew Evaluated USAF's E-8C JSTARS for Future Maritime Missions 
• Air Force Looking for JSTARS Recapitalization | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com 
• NATO's New Eyes in the Sky / ISN
  Global Hawk will be a less expensive version of JSTARS, but downlink of data may be a bottleneck.
   

Hertog Summer - Potomac Simulation Hegemon

The Navy's Grade 36 Bureaucrat: Hertog Summer Study: Turn 1

Hegemon is designed as a game to get policy makers to understand the military consequences of a war. Military actions are written at the strategic level, so there is a lot of detail of military action that is auto-generated. The negotiations are done person to person, with different people playing different parts. On Tuesday we got our team assignments, and I was picked to play Indonesia. How about that!
Unfortunately, because there are two different games ongoing, I have to play an Indonesian A and B team. That requires a bit more brainpower to keep everything straight, but I'm up for the challenge

When we finally got our KMZ file
(the game is played on Google Earth),
the world looked like this

So first, my country is pink. Luckily, I'm manly enough to take that. However, I really don't have any units. Because the game designers made the game at the strategic level, I don't have a lot of units.

» Simulations The Potomac Foundation

The Potomac Foundation’s proprietary Hegemon© platform and methodology offer an interactive simulation and modeling experience to teams of analysts and strategists. Based on open-source and de-classified data points for tactical, operational, theater and strategic levels of analysis, Hegemon allows the participants to work through diverse sets of scenarios, test old assumptions and develop new concepts of operations. Our past and current wargaming clients include the U.S. and allied government agencies, military colleges, national security contractors and the private industry.

» The Hertog Summer Study The Potomac Foundation

The Potomac Foundation Hegemon: Rise of China simulation has been featured at the Hertog  Summer Study Program, a program run by Johns Hopkins SAIS to educate field-rank officers being prepared for flag-rank promotion, for the past three years.

The simulation allows officers and academics to take up the challenges currently facing the United States, People’s Republic of China, and various other players in the Asia-Pacific theater (including
but not limited to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, and Russia) and compete to achieve their long-term objectives in the theater.

China's own course:

The China Factor--- Managing China’s Global Challenge - CLASS DETAIL - PKU Summer School International 
The rise of China over the last two decades is one of the most significant events that shape global market competition, trade and economic development, and geopolitics. Its implications on worldly issues from global and regional peace and security to the sustainability of the environment are profound. The China factor is an amalgamation of dynamic, complex and interactive forces that appear as problems, puzzles or challenges to different people at different times. This course aims to provide an orientation for students to understand those forces, especially those related to the major stakeholders and their evolving relationships, policies and game rules, and collective behaviors. The orientation is grounded in both Chinese historical and cultural legacies and the contexts of China’s state building, modernization and globalization. The course covers a wide array of topics in primarily three areas: international relations, investment and trade, and market competition.

Another view:

Why the Rise of China Will Not Lead to Global Hegemony
Domestic inadequacies and a loss of international prestige has left a growing number of scholars, analysts, and other experts worried about the imminent decline of the United States of America (U.S.).  This coincides with the assumptions of Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST), which presupposes the cyclical transition of world leadership.  Said differently, the reigning world leader could soon be replaced by a new power.  Over the last few decades military thinkers, journalists, policymakers, and scholars alike, have been watching with a wary eye, the rapid rise of China.  Understandably, some are uneasy about the emergence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a new superpower.  Given the apparent decline of the U.S., many experts even wonder if the PRC is positioning itself to succeed the U.S. as global hegemon.[1] Its impressive economic growth and formidable military buildup could indicate that China is preparing for just such an occasion.