Single men may forgo retreatment of prostate cancer

NEW YORK - Single men with prostate cancer that has spread to the
bone are less likely to receive repeat radiation therapy to alleviate
the pain than their married counterparts, a team at Fox Chase Cancer
Center in Philadelphia reports.

Dr. Andre Konski presented the results of the Radiation Therapy
Oncology Group at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and
Oncology annual meeting, being held this week in Denver.

Investigators analyzed data from men with metastatic prostate cancer
who were treated with various radiation doses. The main objective was
to evaluate outcomes based upon marital status.

Konski found that single men were less likely to seek retreatment than
married men.

The difference in retreatment rates may be due to less social support
and encouragement among single men, Konski said. "We need to come up
with strategies to support them, such as nurse follow-up and patient
navigators who can help them through the healthcare system."

"We are just starting to scratch the surface of this population as far
as what they need or their attitudes," he told Reuters Health. He
added that these findings "might suggest a more aggressive first
treatment, knowing that the patient is unlikely to come back."

www.leadingthecharge.com

Sharp Showcases Latest LCD Technology at ADEAC

WHO: Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas, Camas, Wash., a Sharp
Corporation company. Sharp is a worldwide leader in Liquid Crystal
Display ( LCD ) technology.

WHAT: At the Americas Display Engineering and Applications Conference
(ADEAC), Sharp will highlight its broad line of Liquid Crystal Display
panels incorporating the latest advances in LCD technology. The
company will also announce its newest TFT- LCD displays for mobile A/V
products and industrial applications.

To demonstrate its strong commitment to providing industry-leading LCD
solutions for a range of applications, Sharp will exhibit an array of
small, medium and large display modules for mobile/handheld,
automotive and industrial/medical markets in its booth, No. 21.

As the market for handheld media-rich devices grows, design engineers
must meet needs for video and photographic-quality still images and
text by incorporating displays that feature a wide range of colors,
high brightness and low power consumption. Ranging from 2.0 to 8.4
inches, and in landscape and portrait orientations, Sharp's LCD
modules are ideally suited for next-generation mobile devices such as
handheld gaming, portable media players and portable DVD players.
These modules also offer outstanding on-screen performance for PDAs,
GPS devices, instrumentation and portable medical equipment.

Sharp's handheld panels on exhibit at ADEAC will include the 2.2 inch,
3.5 inch, 3.7 inch and 4.3 inch modules as well as a 2 inch cell phone
display.

LCDs for Industrial Applications

Sharp's displays for the industrial market range in size from 2.0 to
28.0 inches and offer design engineers at-a-glance viewability,
meaning better contrast and a wider viewing cone. With optimal
contrast ratio in strong-light conditions, product longevity, broad
operating temperatures, durability, and high resistance to shock and
vibration, as well as a low total cost of ownership, the modules
provide reliable solutions to industrial design challenges.

Among the applications for these modules are process control and
programmable logic control systems for factory automation, human
machine interfaces such as ATMs, outdoor kiosks used for mass-transit
and public information, security/surveillance, and factory automation.
They are also ideal for medical systems applications such as patient
monitoring.

Sharp's 6.4 inch, 7.0 inch, 12.1 inch, and 15.0 inch LCD displays for
industrial applications will be demonstrated at its ADEAC booth.
Breakthrough LCD Technology on Display.

Also on display in Sharp's booth will be proprietary LCD technologies
including:

-- Advanced-TFT (AD-TFT) Technology, which combines reflective HR-TFT
LCD technology with backlit Transmissive LCD technology to offer
bright, high-contrast images in almost all ambient lighting
conditions.

-- Super Mobile LCDs combine Sharp's proprietary Advanced Super
View and Advanced-TFT LCD technologies to enable devices with
excellent visibility in any lighting situation, while offering
a wide viewing angle, high contrast ratio, and superior color
reproduction.

-- CG-Silicon is a next-generation LCD technology developed
jointly by Sharp and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.
(head office: Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan; president
Shunpei Yamazaki). CG-Silicon mounts a screen and its
peripheral circuits on the same substrate, which will result
in high-density, multifunctional, and energy efficient mobile
devices.

Sharp experts will make the following presentations at ADEAC:
-- "TFT LCD Technology for Industrial Applications," by Noel C.
Giamello, Sharp Field Application Engineering Director , Sharp
Microelectronics of the Americas, Tuesday, October 25, 3:40 - 5:20 pm,
Holladay Room.

-- "Making Dreams a Reality for the Large Area LCD Market," by
Thomas A. Spears, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Sharp
Microelectronics of the Americas, Thursday, October 27, 10:30 am -
12:10 pm, Multnomah Room.

In addition, Sharp, along with a consortium of Oregon LCD technology
specialists, is sponsoring the ADEAC conference special event on
Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 7:00-10:00 pm at the Oregon Museum of
Science and Industry (OMSI), one of the nation's top 10 science
museums. OMSI is located at 1945 SE Water Avenue, Portland, Ore.

www.mediaworkstation.com

Public Company Management Corporation Lists ANTs Software on New PCMC Bulletin Board 30 Index

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Public Company Management Corporation (OTCBB:PUBC)
announced that it has included high performance database developer
ANTs software, inc. (OTCBB:ANTS) on the newly created PCMC Bulletin
Board 30 IndexTM.

"ANTs Software is an excellent example of an exciting, high-quality
OTCBB company that is often overlooked by analysts and investors,"
said Stephen Brock, president of Public Company Management Corporation
and founder of the PCMC Bulletin Board 30 IndexTM. "We look forward to
tracking its progress on the Index and to bringing greater awareness
to the OTCBB, which is the premier staging ground for growing
businesses to raise capital and establish a shareholder base."

About the PCMC Bulletin Board 30 Index

The Bulletin Board 30 Index is the only resource of its kind available
for those interested in the performance of stocks traded on the Over
the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB). Companies in the Index currently
have an average stock price of $5.85, average market capitalization of
$170 million, and an average 3-month volume of 131,370. As the Index
evolves, the long-term objective is to establish either an ETF or a
closed-end fund that fosters greater OTCBB awareness and investment
opportunities. A complete listing of the 30 companies comprising the
index, along with the selection criteria can be found as
http://pcmc.stockgroup.com/pcmc30.asp

About The Over The Counter Bulletin Board

The OTCBB is a regulated quotation service that displays real-time
quotes, last-sale prices, and volume information. OTCBB securities
include national, regional, and foreign equity issues, warrants,
units, American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), and Direct Participation
Programs (DPPs). To be eligible for quotation on the OTCBB, issuers
must remain current in their filings with the SEC or applicable
regulatory authority. OTCBB issuers are subject to many of the
provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, some of which are now in
effect.

Over the past five years volume on the OTCBB has grown approximately
ten-fold. There was nearly a 300 percent increase from 1998 to 1999.
Through the end of April 2005, there were 77 billion shares traded on
the OTCBB, according to the OTC Journal.

About ANTs Software, Inc.

ANTs software inc., based in Silicon Valley, California, develops,
affordable high-performance data management software that is
compatible with all popular databases. The company's mission is to
help customers reduce hardware, software, and development costs by
providing exceptional database price performance. For more information
on ANTs software, visit www.ants.com.

About Public Company Management Corporation

PUBC provides a number of consulting and advising services to
companies seeking to access public capital markets. PUBC focuses on
the small business market segment, traditionally underserved by large
management consulting firms like Accenture Ltd. and Corporate
Executive Board Co. PUBC's primary service is to help promising
private companies become publicly traded companies and with consulting
and advising services relating to compliance with SEC reporting
requirements. For more information on PUBC's services, visit:
www.publiccompanymanagement.com/services.

PUBC supports the full lifecycle of entering the public market through
its various subsidiaries:

Education - Pubco White Papers (http://www.PubcoWhitePapers.com) hosts
a comprehensive body of knowledge on private and public equity
markets.

Registration and listing -- Go Public Today
(http://www.GoPublicToday.com) provides a complete solution to help
small companies register securities for public offerings and obtain a
listing on the OTCBB.

Regulatory compliance -- Public Company Management Services
(http://www.PCMS-Team.com) assists new and existing public companies
in negotiating the new complexities of maintaining a public company
and creating sustainable and affordable compliance processes.

PUBC leads by example, demonstrating to current and future clients'
best practices in taking a company public, investor relations, public
relations, regulatory compliance, and raising capital.

Safe Harbor

This press release contains or may contain forward-looking statements
such as statements regarding PUBC's growth and profitability, growth
strategy, liquidity and access to public markets, operating expense
reduction, and trends in the industry in which PUBC operates. The
forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also
subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully
described in PUBC's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. PUBC assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements to reflect actual results, changes in risks, uncertainties
or assumptions underlying or affecting such statements, or for
prospective events that may have a retroactive effect

www.ccnmatthews.com

Health IT could track pandemic

Part 16 of a continuing series. If a bird-flu epidemic occurred in the
United States, some health departments would continue to monitor it
using postcards -- a longstanding practice -- because most doctors and
hospitals have not yet employed health information technology.

"Currently, much disease reporting is through the telephone, fax and
postcards. It's gotten a little bit better, and we're on the cusp of
actually being able to see the blips (using computers) of pharmacy
sales, rashes, respiratory illness -- a whole set of factors," said
Janet Marchibroda, head of eHealth Initiative, a non-profit
organization in Washington, D.C., that seeks to improve the quality,
safety and efficiency of healthcare through information.

"It was by following (the anthrax attacks in 2001) that it was made a
priority to be able to detect bioterrorism," Marchibroda told United
Press International. "This was the beginning of our organization --
the same infrastructure and information needed for health IT are the
same in dealing with an epidemic."

E-mail is a little better than fax, she said, but it is not used
regularly for the transmission of data, and data are the problem --
how many people with fever, how many coughs, and so on.

"It's hard to pull out the symptoms that could be bird flu using paper
files," Marchibroda said. "You really can't do that without health IT
systems -- especially in hospitals. However, if the whole country was
set up with health-exchange information, the way Indianapolis is -- 70
percent of physicians' offices are wired and they can exchange
laboratory and pharmacy data -- you can look for weird blips (and) see
clusters, which is important in epidemics and in a bioterrorist
attack."

Detecting and tracking the spread of a virus is critical in addressing
a global health threat, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO officials are seeing small and highly localized clusters of
human-to-human transmission of bird flu, suggesting the virus is not
yet well adapted to humans, but if a larger cluster of human-to-human
bird flu appears, it will suggest the virus is becoming increasingly
better adapted to humans. This development may not signify a
substantial pandemic risk, but it will need to be tracked carefully
for its rate of transmission, geographical location and severity of
the illness.

The Spanish Flu in 1918 killed up to 50 million people worldwide. In
the United States, where almost 700,000 died, health departments
tracked the spread of the killer flu using postcards. Doctors and
hospitals were required to send a postcard each day with the number of
people who were treated for the influenza and who died. Health
officials could track the disease -- influenza usually occurs in a
bell-shaped curve -- and separate people who were sick from others to
cut down the spread of the flu.

Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta
tracks the yearly regular flu with approximately 1,000 healthcare
providers around the country that report the total number of patients
seen and the number of those patients with influenza-like illness each
week with fever plus a cough and/or a sore throat -- by age group. The
percentage of patient visits to sentinel providers for influenza-like
illness reported each week is weighted on the basis of state
population and is compared each week with the national baseline of 2.2
percent.

Some public-health experts, however, think tracking bird flu needs to
be done hospital by hospital and in real time.

"Public-health officials at all levels -- from local to worldwide --
would need to stay on top of tracking (bird flu)," said James D.
McGlothlin of the School of Health Sciences at Purdue University in
West Lafayette, Ind. "Any person with a flu that failed to improve
within a week should be brought to the attention of a physician, who
could evaluate the illness and have the patient tested for the H5N1
virus and take the necessary steps, such as isolating the person to
prevent the virus's spread to a larger population."

Quarantines, managed by the military, which have been suggested by
President George W. Bush, would be the last option, McGlothlin said,
but quarantines are not necessarily a good option.

"We need to be able to respond immediately with the right people, at
the right time, with the right plan," he said.

www.about.upi.com

AT&T Earns $520 Million in Third QuarterAT&T Earns $520 Million in 3rd Quarter Ahead of Acquisition by Ex-Subsidiary SBC Communications

AT&T Corp. painted a positive picture Friday with what may be its
final earnings report before becoming part of SBC Communications Inc.,
topping Wall Street forecasts with third-quarter income of $520
million and boosting its revenue forecast for the second time this
year.

The iconic telephone company, which in January agreed to be acquired
by SBC for $16 billion, also expressed optimism the deal would close
before year's end, winning regulatory approval without concessions
such as asset sales or price freezes.

Despite the upbeat report, AT&T's results reflected the persistent
competitive turmoil of the telecommunications industry, which has
reduced the once mighty company's customer base by two thirds over the
past decade from roughly 60 million at the peak to less than 20
million at the end of the latest quarter.

"AT&T's employees across all areas of the company have done a
fantastic job of transforming our business in the face of adverse and
chaotic conditions in our sector," Chief Financial Officer Thomas
Horton said during a conference call with industry analysts.

The profit reported Friday amounted to 64 cents per share for the
three months ended Sept. 30. The results included a $92 million
expense relating to investments in aircraft leases with airlines that
have filed for bankruptcy, as well as $20 million in expenses for the
SBC deal and a $41 million pretax benefit.

In the third quarter of 2004, AT&T lost $7.15 billion, or $8.99 per
share, as the company wrote down the book value of its national
telecommunications network by $11.4 billion following a decision to
retreat from the consumer telephone business. Excluding that expense,
other restructuring charges and one-time tax benefits, it would have
earned $262 million, or 33 cents a share, a year ago.

The latest results appeared to top Wall Street forecasts by a sizable
margin, though Thomson Financial said the assortment of one-time
charges and credits made it unclear whether the 51 cent profit
forecast from its analyst survey was directly comparable to the
figures emphasized in AT&T's report.

www.abcnews.go.com

Microsoft recants exclusive music deals

Microsoft Corp., already under government scrutiny over its behavior
toward competitors, told manufacturers of iPod-like portable audio
devices that under a new marketing program they would not be allowed
to distribute rivals' music player software but pulled back after one
company protested.

The Justice Department said that the incident was "unfortunate," but
that government lawyers decided to drop the issue because Microsoft
agreed 10 days later to change the proposal. The government disclosed
details of the dispute in a federal court document made available
Thursday.

The disputed proposal described in the court document as a "draft
specification" would have affected portable music players that compete
with Apple Computer Inc.'s wildly popular iPod. The plan would have
precluded manufacturers of those devices from distributing software to
consumers other than Microsoft's Windows Media Player in exchange for
Microsoft-supplied CDs.

Legal and industry experts said Microsoft's demands probably would
have violated the landmark 2002 antitrust settlement between the
company and the Bush administration. They expressed astonishment that
Microsoft was not more careful, given its mandatory legal training for
employees about antitrust rules and continued monitoring by the
Justice Department and a federal judge over its business deals through
late 2007.

"One has to be skeptical that either the internal training is not
working, in which case heads ought to be rolling, or that the lessons
of the case are being ignored," said Albert A. Foer, head of the
Washington-based American Antitrust Institute, which supports more
aggressive U.S. antitrust policies.

Howard University law professor Andrew Gavil said he wonders whether
Microsoft's proposal was a genuine mistake or signal the company
intends to revert to its hardball tactics.

"It's somewhat amazing it even happened," said Gavil, who has closely
followed the Microsoft case. "It's troubling that anyone inside
Microsoft was still thinking this was a legitimate business strategy."

Microsoft said it recanted its proposal after lawyers reviewed it and
after an unspecified industry rival complained. "We have a legal
process in place that prevents these incidents from occurring,"
spokeswoman Stacy Drake said.

Drake described the proposal as "only a draft description of the
program we sent to manufacturers for the purpose of getting their
feedback." She said the proposal was not a contract, which is vetted
by company lawyers.

The proposal, part of a campaign Microsoft called "easy start,"
affected one of the rare technology sectors where Microsoft is not
already dominant: handheld music players and online music services.
The software giant and others have struggled to match the runaway
success of Apple iPod player and iTunes music service.

Microsoft wants consumers to use its media software to transfer songs
onto their portable music players from Internet subscription services,
such as those from Napster Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.
Each company currently offers its own media software.

Before the disclosure of the dispute involving portable music players,
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had set a hearing for this
coming Wednesday to review the adequacy of the antitrust settlement.
It was unclear whether she will challenge lawyers from Microsoft or
the government over the music proposal.

www.charlotte.com