Young entrepreneurs tackling hard problems and billion dollar markets took top prizes at the First Look West (FLoW) regional finals competition?with technologies that recover waste?energy from energy servers powered by fuel cells, mobile phone apps for tracking home energy use and devices for improving solar panel efficiencies. ?At an awards celebration held at the University of Southern California on May 7, Pyro-E, Chai Energyand Dragonfly shared $160,000 in prize money and start-up packages that include face time with top investors and legal support. ?
In addition Rare Earth Separation took home the inaugural $5,000 Transformational Idea Award with an innovation of industrial and military importance. Sponsored by Draper University, the entrepreneurial educational program founded by venture capitalist Tim Draper , the TIA rewards ground-breaking pre-commercial research.
FLoW represents the Western Region of the DOE's National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC). The awards event was the culmination of a six month competitive process searching for the untapped clean energy innovation that lies in American university labs. The winning teams from six regions across the country will now participate in the National Competition in Washington D.C., June 11 ? June 13, 2013.
This year's winners are:
First Place, $100,000: Pyro-E: Pyro-E, led by Berkeley students, is developing a solid-state heat engine for waste heat harvesting that is 10-times more powerful and lower in cost than existing devices. Pyro-E is looking to tap into the $32 billion US market for such waste heat recovery from fuel cell and diesel stationary generators; industrial furnaces and gas pipelines; and gasoline automobile and hybrids. In the transportation sector alone in 2012 the thermal waste from ~300 million vehicles accounted for 27% of the overall U.S. energy use. Pyro-E has established a joint-development venture with fuel-cell maker Bloom Energy, Inc. (BE) to co-create the latest generation Bloom Box?.
Second Place, $40,000: Chai Energy, under a team from the California Institute of Technology, is developing a mobile phone app for monitoring energy usage in the home, appliance by appliance and in real time. As much as 50% of the energy used in the average American home is wasted, leading to overpaying as much as $700 a year. Chai's technology leverages utility smart meters to deliver a seamless mobile experience. Today there are 20 million?compatible?smart meters in the US, installed in homes that collectively waste $8 billion in electricity every year. ?By 2020 there are expected to be 900 million smart meters internationally. Working with Southern California Edison, as a key partner, Chai is establishing a 100 home pilot with the goal of launching the product later this year.?
Third Place, $20,000: Dragonfly Systems, a five-person Stanford Team, is developing an electronic device that when attached to solar modules will eliminate the 3-5% power loss that happens when lone under-performing panels limit the energy production of nearby units.This "mismatch" keeps solar power too expensive for many markets. Dragonfly will target commercial and utility-scale installations which are expected to more than double to 36GW by 2017. Dragonfly will sell these power devices to module manufacturers and system installers,?a potential market of $1.8 billion.
Transformational Idea Award, $5,000: Rare Earth Separation
Rare Earth elements are used ubiquitously in manufacture, from cell phones and energy efficient lighting to cracking catalysts for oil refining, and ultra-light materials used in aerospace. UC Berkeley's Rare Earth Separation presented an innovative concept for separating rare earth elements that should generate less waste, be more selective across all the rare earth elements, and require much cheaper processing facilities.?
FLoW is the largest clean energy business plan competition for university students in the western United States?? FLoW is a consortium of universities running the western region of the Department of Energy's $2 million National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC) for university students.? NCEBPC was launched under Startup America, the White House campaign to inspire and promote entrepreneurship.
One of the strongest gaming laptops of 2012 had to be the MSI GT70. Like all machines of its type, it was huge, oversized and ridiculously heavy -- but it trumped many of the category's biggest faults by being superbly crafted, surprisingly long-lasting and by boasting the bleeding edge of tech: an Ivy Bridge CPU. It was a darn good machine, so it's no surprise that MSI is hoping for a repeat performance. Meet the GT70 Dragon Edition: a Haswell-toting, 17-inch gaming laptop with all the trappings of its predecessor. It's actually the second GT70 to adopt the Dragon moniker, but the first to pack Intel's fourth-generation Core processors. NVIDIA's latest mobile GPU is here too, not to mention notable OS upgrades, port tweaks and a mystical new motif. Let's dive in and see if MSI's encore deserves a standing ovation.
(Reuters) - Consumer review aggregator Yelp Inc, which analysts say could face intense competition from Facebook Inc's "graph search", is open to partnering with the social networking website's latest offering, Yelp's Chief Financial Officer Rob Krolik told Reuters.
Facebook, in January, unveiled its graph search feature, available in a beta version, letting users trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations, bringing it into direct competition with Yelp.
Analysts have viewed this as a big negative for Yelp as companies such as Facebook have a lot of opportunity to imitate smaller companies, and over a larger audience.
"We are actually happy to partner with Facebook (for graph search) if that's something that they're interested in," Krolik said.
Facebook declined to comment on any possible partnership.
Yelp's mobile app makes it easier for people to discover local businesses. It combines Yelp's reviews and other relevant information with knowledge of the consumer's location. It also allows consumers to "check-in" at local businesses.
Google Inc, through its Google Plus Local product, also recommends businesses to its users based on circles, past reviews, location and allows them to publish reviews and photos of favorite places.
"Facebook and Google and some other players really are attacking the local space via technology," Krolik said.
Krolik said Yelp, which is integrated into Apple Inc's Maps product and their Siri product, would definitely monitor Facebook's graph search and see what it's all about.
"I just don't think people go to Facebook to find a great local business. I think they connect with their friends, see a lot of photos."
Macquarie Research analyst Tom White said it was not particularly likely that the partnership would happen, because Facebook thinks they have enough data to do it themselves.
He, however said, if it was to happen, it would benefit Yelp, and would cut down competition from Facebook.
"It would mean broader distribution for their reviews, and more people reading their reviews," White said.
"It's not directly a revenue generator, but in theory it would increase the value of advertising on Yelp, just because you're getting it out to more people."
The success of graph search, which will rely heavily on local information, depends on Facebook launching a mobile app. In addition, graph search lacks the depth of review content offered by Yelp.
If Yelp were to partner with Facebook for graph search, the consumer review aggregator would be in a better position to compete with Google, Jefferies analyst Brian Fitzgerald told Reuters.
Yelp already has a tie-up with Facebook Connect, which allows users to login with their Facebook credentials without having to create separate accounts for different websites.
A Yelp user can see if a Facebook friend has reviewed a business. (http://r.reuters.com/fyp58t)
Jefferies' Fitzgerald said Yelp could also make a good acquisition target for Apple, Google or Facebook.
"Any one of those guys could acquire Yelp and they would be able to use it pretty productively," he said.
Yelp was founded by former PayPal engineers Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons as a start-up idea in a business incubator in 2004. It has never been profitable since its inception.
Analysts expect the company to post its first profit of 1 cent per share for the first quarter of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company's earnings quality score on Thomson Reuters StarMine rose to 7 out of 100, from 5, after it reported its earnings for the January-March quarter. This compares with a sector median of 63.
The earnings quality model rates companies according to the sustainability of their earnings.
Yelp shares, which have risen about 80 percent in the last year, closed marginally down at $29.81 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. They had fallen 6 percent on January 15, when Facebook unveiled its graph search.
(Additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco)
For years I contemplated selling my car and riding a bicycle to work.
I would ride to the Tustin train station four miles from my Irvine home on a bike path that would put me just half a mile from the station. From there I would take the Metrolink train to work in downtown Los Angeles.
But the few times I tried riding my road bike, I was exhausted by the time I got home. Getting there was easy ? all downhill ? but coming home was sheer agony, grinding up hills after a long workday. The road bike went back up on the rack in the garage.
I considered a scooter, but that ruled out the bike trail and would require a motorcycle license and insurance.
Then I tried something in between ? an electric bicycle from Pedego, a 5-year-old company co-founded by Don DiCostanzo, a former carwash mogul. He believes that electric bikes are the future, especially in sunny Southern California, and preaches this gospel to anyone who will listen.
He's winning over some high-profile converts: The Pedego electric bicycle even gets a thumbs up from Google Inc., which has begun offering it at a subsidized rate to employees at its Mountain View, Calif., campus. Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Motors Inc. are doing the same.
At first glance, it's hard to tell that the Pedego is anything other than a casual bike. The motor is built into the hub of the rear wheel, so the only sign of non-human power is the inconspicuous battery pack strapped to the luggage rack.
But Pedego can get you up a hill, no sweat. Topping out at 20 miles per hour (the self-imposed limit to keep the two-wheeler in the bicycle category), an electric-powered Pedego can easily go spoke-to-spoke with the lightest, fastest road bikes ? yet it retains all the comfort and smooth ride of a cruiser.
But the economics of the Pedego are what sold me.
Like most everyone who has bought a Pedego, I had to get over some sticker shock. The Dutch-style city commuter I rode was nicely built, with top-notch components, but $2,500 for a bicycle? (Other Pedego models range from $2,000 to $3,000.)
But then I started thinking of all the money I could save if I used this thing to commute. I could dump my car ? that's about $3,000 a year in gas, insurance, maintenance and registration, not to mention the lump sum from selling the vehicle. And there's no need for new insurance or a license, as with a scooter.
It's still a bicycle, after all, which meant I could cruise the extensive bike trails and lanes in Irvine. And with the electric motor helping me out, hills or head winds would be a breeze.
It turned out to be a no-brainer. With a combination of pedal-assist and electric throttle, I could go anywhere with ease.
In pedal-assist, the electric motor adds a little juice to your pedaling. That's handy for a middle-aged man like myself, who wants to get a little exercise ? or at least pretend to ? without too much exertion. I initially pedaled with the setting at "5" ? meaning the electric motor at full power ? which required little effort beyond moving my legs up and down. After several days, I gradually reduced the setting to "2" and got a little exercise. Now I sometimes pedal with the motor off completely.
The Pedago costs next to nothing to operate ? about $2.50 a month on my electricity bill. A full recharge takes four to five hours using the regular household AC plug and gives the bike a range of about 25 to 50 miles depending on weight, terrain and how much of the electrical power I use. I usually plug in the charger before I go to sleep so Edison charges me a lower nighttime rate.
Bottom line: The bike would pay for itself in about 10 months, not counting the extra cash from the sale of my car. And I've cut my daily trek down by about 15 minutes, compared with driving traffic-clogged streets to the train station.
Riding the Pedego has proved so addictive, in fact, that I even find myself looking forward to the commute.
Consumers can buy a Pedego bicycle online at http://www.pedegoelectricbikes.com (the company delivers the bike to the home fully assembled) or try one out before buying at Pedego stores in Cardiff by the Sea, Carlsbad, Corona del Mar, Dana Point, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Seal Beach.
A Pedego tent with various models for test rides is scheduled to be at Great Park Farmers Market in Irvine on Sunday.
This image made from video posted by Ugarit News and taken on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows an explosion from shelling in Qusair, Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad said the regime has received its first shipment of a sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missile system, and the main Western-backed opposition group announced Thursday that it will not participate in peace talks ? a double blow to international efforts to end the country's devastating civil war. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)
This image made from video posted by Ugarit News and taken on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows an explosion from shelling in Qusair, Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad said the regime has received its first shipment of a sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missile system, and the main Western-backed opposition group announced Thursday that it will not participate in peace talks ? a double blow to international efforts to end the country's devastating civil war. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)
FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 file photo, a Russian-made MiG-29 jet fighter flown by the aerobatic team Strizhi (Swifts) perform during MAKS (the International Aviation and Space Show) in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia. Russian arms manufacturer MiG told Russian news agencies Friday, May 31, 2013 that it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian troops on Friday attacked a convoy trying to evacuate wounded people from a central town near the border with Lebanon, killing at least seven, as rebel reinforcements infiltrated the besieged area to fight government forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack in the town of Qusair also wounded "tens of people." Qusair-based activist Hadi Abdullah described the attack to The Associated Press via Skype, saying it killed nine people and wounded many others.
The battle for Qusair has exposed Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian conflict that has killed more than 70,000 over the past two years. The Shiite militant group, which has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's troops, initially tried to play down its involvement, but abandoned the attempt after dozens of its fighters were killed in the Qusair area and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.
Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah firmly linked his militant group's fate to the survival of the Assad regime, raising the stakes not just in Syria, but also in Hezbollah's tense relations with rival groups in Lebanon.
Over the past weeks, troops and Hezbollah fighters captured wide areas around Qusair and earlier this month launched an offensive on the town in an attempt to capture it. Dozens of troops, Hezbollah fighters and rebels have been killed since then.
Abdullah said he was with the convoy evacuating scores of wounded people when troops started firing shells and machine guns, wounding about 80 people. "Women and children jumped out of the cars and started running in fear," Abdullah said.
He said that there are around 800 wounded people in rebel-held areas in Qusair. Abdullah said the main makeshift hospital in the town was hit, and a home was turned into a clinic.
The regime and the opposition both value Qusair, which lies along a land corridor linking two Assad's strongholds, Damascus and the heartland of his minority Alawite sect, an area along the Mediterranean coast. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon, just 10 kilometers (six miles) away.
The Observatory and Abdullah said that rebels from the northern province of Aleppo managed to enter rebel-held area of Qusair to help defend it against advancing troops.
"Individuals have come in the past, but this is the first time that groups of rebels have arrived here," Abdullah said. Several days ago rebel commanders issued a call on forces around the country to move on Qusair, underlying its importance.
In Moscow, a Russian arms manufacturer said it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria.
Sergei Korotkov, general director of the MiG company that makes the jets, told Russian news agencies that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying MiG-29 M/M2 fighters to Syria.
Korotkov did not say how many MiGs Syria were buying, but said it would be "more than 10." It was not clear when they would be delivered.
Syria's air force has been active in attacking rebel bases and strongholds around the country. Rebel forces have no answer for the government air power.
___
Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.
Our energy mix and the forces that drive it have long been in a state of flux, Styles writes. An 'all-of-the-above' energy policy should start with what we have now, recognize the inertia of existing fleets and infrastructure, and evolve as costs shift and our emphasis on environmental consequences grows.
By Geoffrey Styles,?Guest blogger / May 30, 2013
Transmission lines cross properties near Offerle, Kan. It?s a great time to be talking about energy, Styles writes, as it has been for the last nine years.
Travis Morisse/The Hutchinson News/AP/File
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An Oft-Used Energy Slogan
Last week, Real Clear Politics and?API?hosted an energy summit in Washington, DC entitled, ?Fueling America?s Future?. It was intended to provide a quick overview of most of the key technologies and issues associated with an all-of-the-above energy strategy for the United States. Going through the highlights of?the webcast?gives me an opportunity to introduce my point of view to a new audience at?Energy Trends Insider. I?d sum that up as ?All of the Above?, with asterisks for the proportions and situations that make sense.
Skip to next paragraph Energy Trends Insider
Our mission is to provide clear, objective information about the important energy issues facing the world, address and correct misconceptions, and to actively engage readers and exchange ideas.?For more great energy coverage, visit?Energy Trends Insider.
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This slogan, at least in the manner in which it has been espoused by politicians in both parties, has attracted fair criticism for being overly bland and safe. I suspect that critique reflects a general sense that our energy mix has?always?been composed of all of the above, or all of the technologies that were sufficiently proven and economic to contribute at scale at any point in time. However, as both our technology options and choice criteria expand, our understanding of the evolving energy mix is hampered by metrics and assumptions that are overdue to be revisited.
The summit?s first panel examined the technologies of the mix, in a ?lightning-round? format of five minutes apiece. The panel covered oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewables, led by wind power.?
HIV treatment adherence and outcomes improving among HIV-positive transgender peoplePublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steve Graff stephen.graff@uphs.upenn.edu 215-349-5653 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Advances in care, increased focus on LGBT health may explain shift from previous findings
PHILADELPHIAHIV-positive transgender people are just as likely to stay in care, take their medication and have similar outcomes as other men and women living with the disease, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online May 30 in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The studywhich looked at almost 37,000 patients at 13 HIV clinics from 2001 to 2011 in the USsuggests an encouraging shift from earlier work documenting poor retention in care and drug adherence in transgender people, a high risk group for HIV.
In the retrospective analysis, led by Baligh R. Yehia, MD, MPP, MSHP, a clinical instructor in the division of Infectious Diseases at Penn Medicine, researchers found that transgender people receiving care had similar rates of retention, antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage and HIV suppression as nontransgender men and women over the 10 year period.
Dr. Yehia says there are several factors that could explain why care and suppression rates have improved and become more equal. "It's a combination of things: there have been great advances in HIV therapy and management over the last decade and increased attention from advocates and groups on identifying people infected with HIV quickly, linking them to care in a timely fashion, and starting treatment earlier," he says. "In addition, there is an increased focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health in general.
"Over the past five years, leading federal institutions and national organizations, including the Institute of Medicine, American Medical Association (AMA), and the American Association of Medical Colleges, have emphasized the importance of improving the health of LGBT populations by understanding and addressing their unique health care needs, identifying research gaps and opportunities, and developing educational activities to address the needs of LGBT trainees, faculty, staff, and patients."
For the study, Dr. Yehia and colleagues, including Kelly A. Gebo, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, retrospectively looked at 36,845 patients from 13 clinics within the HIV Research Network, a consortium that cares for HIV-infected patients across the nation, from 2001 to 2011. Of the group, 285 self-identified as transgender.
Researchers found that transgender persons were retained in care, received ART, and achieved HIV suppression 80 percent, 76 percent, and 68 percent of the time during the 10 years, respectively. Similarly, men were 81 percent, 77 percent and 69 percent, while women were 81 percent, 73 percent, and 63 percent.
Transgender patients were more likely to be young, Hispanic, and have men who have sex with men as their HIV risk behavior compared to men and women living with HIV.
Little is known about the health outcomes of HIV-positive transgender people compared to other groups, but they are among the groups at the highest risk of the disease, with the highest percentages in blacks and Hispanics. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported newly-identified HIV infection rates of 2.9 percent for transgender persons compared to 0.9 percent for nontransgender males and 0.3 percent for females.
Past studies in the transgender population have documented decreased engagement in care, low ART coverage, and poor adherence to medication. Such disparities have been tied to discrimination, social isolation and the community's concerns about ART's effect on hormone replacement therapywhich is used to boost testosterone or estrogen levels as a way to bring one's secondary sexual characteristics more in line with their gender identity.
Patients can, however, safely receive ART and hormone therapy, notes Dr. Yehia, and that seeking care from providers familiar with both will help to ensure they have safe levels of the therapies.
"Many physicians don't feel comfortable taking care of transgender individuals because they are unfamiliar with their specific health needs and concerns," says Dr. Yehia, who also serves on the AMA LGBT advisory committee. "We have a come a long way, but more needs to be done. We need more education and research to help fill this knowledge gap and improve familiarity with transgender health issues."
Next steps are to identify the proportion of individuals not in care, and to work on getting them engaged.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
HIV treatment adherence and outcomes improving among HIV-positive transgender peoplePublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steve Graff stephen.graff@uphs.upenn.edu 215-349-5653 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Advances in care, increased focus on LGBT health may explain shift from previous findings
PHILADELPHIAHIV-positive transgender people are just as likely to stay in care, take their medication and have similar outcomes as other men and women living with the disease, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online May 30 in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The studywhich looked at almost 37,000 patients at 13 HIV clinics from 2001 to 2011 in the USsuggests an encouraging shift from earlier work documenting poor retention in care and drug adherence in transgender people, a high risk group for HIV.
In the retrospective analysis, led by Baligh R. Yehia, MD, MPP, MSHP, a clinical instructor in the division of Infectious Diseases at Penn Medicine, researchers found that transgender people receiving care had similar rates of retention, antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage and HIV suppression as nontransgender men and women over the 10 year period.
Dr. Yehia says there are several factors that could explain why care and suppression rates have improved and become more equal. "It's a combination of things: there have been great advances in HIV therapy and management over the last decade and increased attention from advocates and groups on identifying people infected with HIV quickly, linking them to care in a timely fashion, and starting treatment earlier," he says. "In addition, there is an increased focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health in general.
"Over the past five years, leading federal institutions and national organizations, including the Institute of Medicine, American Medical Association (AMA), and the American Association of Medical Colleges, have emphasized the importance of improving the health of LGBT populations by understanding and addressing their unique health care needs, identifying research gaps and opportunities, and developing educational activities to address the needs of LGBT trainees, faculty, staff, and patients."
For the study, Dr. Yehia and colleagues, including Kelly A. Gebo, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, retrospectively looked at 36,845 patients from 13 clinics within the HIV Research Network, a consortium that cares for HIV-infected patients across the nation, from 2001 to 2011. Of the group, 285 self-identified as transgender.
Researchers found that transgender persons were retained in care, received ART, and achieved HIV suppression 80 percent, 76 percent, and 68 percent of the time during the 10 years, respectively. Similarly, men were 81 percent, 77 percent and 69 percent, while women were 81 percent, 73 percent, and 63 percent.
Transgender patients were more likely to be young, Hispanic, and have men who have sex with men as their HIV risk behavior compared to men and women living with HIV.
Little is known about the health outcomes of HIV-positive transgender people compared to other groups, but they are among the groups at the highest risk of the disease, with the highest percentages in blacks and Hispanics. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported newly-identified HIV infection rates of 2.9 percent for transgender persons compared to 0.9 percent for nontransgender males and 0.3 percent for females.
Past studies in the transgender population have documented decreased engagement in care, low ART coverage, and poor adherence to medication. Such disparities have been tied to discrimination, social isolation and the community's concerns about ART's effect on hormone replacement therapywhich is used to boost testosterone or estrogen levels as a way to bring one's secondary sexual characteristics more in line with their gender identity.
Patients can, however, safely receive ART and hormone therapy, notes Dr. Yehia, and that seeking care from providers familiar with both will help to ensure they have safe levels of the therapies.
"Many physicians don't feel comfortable taking care of transgender individuals because they are unfamiliar with their specific health needs and concerns," says Dr. Yehia, who also serves on the AMA LGBT advisory committee. "We have a come a long way, but more needs to be done. We need more education and research to help fill this knowledge gap and improve familiarity with transgender health issues."
Next steps are to identify the proportion of individuals not in care, and to work on getting them engaged.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.