Archive | June 7, 2005

Advanced Outpatient Imaging Center Takes Advantage of High-Quality Images and Patient Comfort Features

Delivering patient-focused imaging technology without sacrificing clinical performance, Toshiba America Medical Systems’ Vantage, the company’s ultra short-bore 1.5-tesla (1.5T) high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, provides optimal imaging performance and patient comfort features at Health Scan Imaging in Murrieta, Calif.

“The Vantage continues to prove its clinical value with superior imaging performance and patient-focused features for more comfortable MRI exams,” said Bob Giegerich, director, MR Business Unit, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.  “The Vantage offers the clinical capabilities of a high-field MRI in an ultra short-bore, open design, while Toshiba’s patented PianissimoTM noise reduction technology effectively reduces scan noise by 90 percent to provide patients with a less stressful exam.”

In addition to its patient comfort features, the Vantage MRI system performs a wide variety of MRI exams including the latest state-of-the-art imaging techniques.  For example, the system enables physicians to perform wide-ranging studies including brain and cardiac imaging, magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), as well as advanced chest and abdominal applications.

“With the Vantage MRI, Toshiba has identified a ‘tipping-point’ without the technical disadvantages of an excessively short-bore magnet for fast, efficient imaging.  The Vantage offers a patient-friendly bore size for an ultra-short bore, high-field magnet for optimal performance and noise suppression, which is key from the patient’s perspective and a noticeable differentiator compared to other vendors,” said Bill Kelly, M.D., founder and medical director, Health Scan Imaging. 

“From a physician’s perspective, the larger number of sequences and extraordinary high-quality images captured per unit time with the Vantage allows for high-end applications, such as high-resolution imaging, MRA and off-center field-of-view skeletal imaging.  Image quality for neurological applications also has been consistently excellent,” Kelly said. “These advantages helped launch our start-up with after-burners.  We have quickly and consistently filled our schedule 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with great throughput while building tremendous referral loyalty at a new practice location where we previously had no referral relationships.”

“Achieving reliable, consistent fat saturation is almost effortless with the Vantage. The specification that ensures this directly is the Vantage’s improved homogeneity using a unique primary shim system that delivers less than 2 ppm homogeneity,” adds Dr. Kelly.

Unmatched MRI Performance and Patient-Focused Features

The Vantage features an ultra-short magnet at 140 cm with linear 30 mT/m (milliTesla per meter) gradient strength with a slew rate of 50 T/m/s (Tesla per meter per second), or 130 T/m/s.  Despite the short length of the magnet, the system delivers the highest homogeneity of any magnet in the industry over the full 50 cm diameter spherical volume (DSV).

The Toshiba Vantage also offers some of the most advanced MRI applications available on the market today, including optional packages for cardiac imaging, advanced Echo Planar Imaging (EPI), Perfusion and Diffusion Imaging, Peripheral MRA, and SuperFASE (Fast Advanced Spin Echo) imaging.  In addition, Toshiba has pioneered research into contrast-free MRA with its Fresh Blood Imaging (FBI) protocol and Body Diffusion.    

With Toshiba’s patented Pianissimo technology, which reduces acoustic noise by as much as 90 percent, the Vantage dramatically reduces the most significant cause of patient discomfort and enables clinicians to better utilize all of the system’s high-field MRI capabilities including SPEEDER parallel imaging for increased acquisition speed which reduces examination times.

For more information about the Vantage, TAMS and its wide range of medical imaging products, please visit www.medical.toshiba.com.

About Toshiba

With headquarters in Tustin, Calif., Toshiba America Medical Systems markets, sells, distributes and services diagnostic imaging systems, and coordinates clinical diagnostic imaging research for all modalities in the United States.  Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, an independent group company of Toshiba Corporation, is a global leading provider of diagnostic medical imaging systems and comprehensive medical solutions, such as CT, X-ray, Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine, MRI and information systems.  Toshiba Corporation is a leader in information and communications systems, electronic components, consumer products, and power systems.  Toshiba has approximately 162,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $55 billion.

The Excelart VantageTM is a trademark of Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation.

Application conversions using Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .NET, the NeoKicks CICS COBOL migration tool and Visual Studio .NET 2003 take less than 3 percent of time required for rewriting in JAVA

A study just conducted by DePaul University researchers Dr. Howard A. Kanter and Dr. Thomas J. Muscarello of The Laboratory for Software Metrics concluded that when Fujitsu Software solutions combined with Visual Studio .NET 2003 are used, the time required to Web-enable mission-critical COBOL/CICS legacy applications is on average less than 3 percent of the time needed to rewrite the applications in JAVA. A common understanding has been that rewriting was one of the few choices available if applications were to take advantage of newer technologies like the Microsoft .NET Framework™. This study indicates there are other more viable routes. These applications still provide tremendous value but are on costly platforms with limited tools to extend them for today’s business needs. Companies have made a huge investment in mainframe applications and this migration allows them to maximize that investment by extending it to newer platforms.

“This study validates what our customers already know: Fujitsu Software delivers the most time and cost effective solutions available for Web-enabling legacy COBOL/CICS applications, to say nothing of the agility customers gain from having those applications run on the Microsoft .NET Framework,” said Ron Langer, VP of Global COBOL Sales, Fujitsu Software Corporation. “The advantages of moving off the mainframe are only going to increase with the release of Visual Studio 2005 and its team supporting functions.”

“With Fujitsu’s recent announcement of the PRIMEQUEST™ line of mission-critical Intel® Itanium® based servers, this study’s confirmation of the efficacy of Fujitsu’s CICS migration solution, and the added productivity of Visual Studio 2005, even the largest mainframe CICS applications are candidates for migration to the Microsoft .NET Framework,” said Richard Burte, product manager in the .NET Developer Product Management Group at Microsoft Corp.

The study also showed that with Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .NET and NeoKicks, the skill level of the programmer had little overall effect on conversion time when compared to the time needed to rewrite code in JAVA. At all skill levels, conversion times with Fujitsu application tools were less than 5 percent of JAVA rewrite times.

The purpose of this study, which was undertaken because of the pressing need for organizations around the world to modernize their legacy applications, was to gather and present empirical and anecdotal evidence related to the efficiency and effectiveness of two commonly considered legacy modernization approaches: revision (using NetCOBOL for .NET and the NeoKicks CICS migration solution) and total system rewrite (using the Java language.)

The study approach was based on the situation classically found in standard IT environments when new software tools are obtained and measuring their effect is required by management: programmers work with whatever tools management provides; management obtains new tools that it believes will increase productivity; programmers are trained in the new tools; the new tools are used; management wants to measure the increase in productivity that should justify the cost of obtaining and utilizing the product; productivity is comprised of both speed and accuracy; the tools must support the creation of useful, usable, satisfying interfaces; the legacy system to be converted is not to be changed, i.e. the processes, screen display information, data captured and files maintained are to be retained.

Experienced IT professionals, working as paired programmer teams, executed each phase of the study tasks. Expertise ranged from less than 5 years of experience to programmers with more than 12 years of experience. Each subject received a condensed version of the ordinary training course in each of the COBOL software tools used and had access to full documentation and escalated support. The tools involved in the study were: NetCOBOL for .NET; Fujitsu’s NeoKicks CICS migration solution; and a JAVA environment with all necessary features and tools. Where skills needed for task completion were multidisciplinary (e.g. COBOL/business logic expertise and Java programming skills) the teams were comprised of experts in each skill area.

To read the complete study, please visit www.netcobol.com.

About Fujitsu Software Corporation

Fujitsu Software Corporation, based in Sunnyvale, California, is part of the Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) family. The wholly owned subsidiary delivers one of the world’s broadest lines of application infrastructure software products, including the Interstage® Suite and NetCOBOL®. Fujitsu Software Corporation leverages Fujitsu’s international scope and expertise in developing and providing information technology solutions, including more than 4,000 software developers worldwide. To learn more about Fujitsu Software Corporation, visit www.fsw.fujitsu.com.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace. Pace-setting device technologies, highly reliable computing and communications platforms, and a worldwide corps of systems and services experts uniquely position Fujitsu to deliver comprehensive solutions that open up infinite possibilities for its customers’ success. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.7 trillion yen (US$44.5 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com

New STP Service for the Automation of Transaction and Market-Related Claims intended to become Industry’s Standard Procedure for Settlement of Back-Office Disputes

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), Metatomix Inc. and Claimonitor Ltd. today announced the development of Claimonitor, a new Web-based STP (Straight-through Processing) utility for automating transactions and market-related claims in the global custodian, investment banking, asset management and broker communities.

The new standards-based automation utility, scheduled to go live in July 2005, provides a solution for the STP trade cycle area of post-trade settlement events. These events include interest claims arising out of failed cash payment, FX, and securities transactions and interest due on over-draft balances of cash or nostro accounts. In addition, system functionality will allow for handling securities market buy-ins, market fines, and also securities dividend and stock entitlements arising from corporate action events on failing and open stock loan and borrow transactions.

According to the International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communications (ISITC) Europe, it is intended that the utility will become the industry standard procedure for settlement of claims disputes. Claimonitor Ltd. was created to own and run the new service, including handling the automated capture, distribution, tracking, matching, exception management, real-time reporting and helps facilitate the actual claims settlement. By automating processes and facilitating more STP functions in the post-trade, pre-settlement portion of the trade cycle, Claimonitor can increase efficiency and reduce costs and operational risk.

The service has already won the backing of such banks as HSBC and State Street Bank and Trust.

Stuart Mckinlay, Vice President at State Street Bank and Chairman of ISITC Europe, said, “We are excited with the industry adoption of the ISITC Interest Claims working party findings. This is a significant area of investigation for our technology sub-committee and we see a major role for ISITC Europe, in the first phase, to propagate innovation in the interests of market efficiency. In this respect, we are highly supportive of these initiatives. The parties involved clearly listened to our stated needs and addressed the issues we raised.”

“This area of our trade processing activity was previously manually intensive, prone to errors and wrought with time delays,” stated Richard Cato, senior manager for operations at HSBC. “With Claimonitor, we see a valuable new service to increase efficiency, reduce costs and remove an area of systemic risk in the way the operations currently work. We are pleased that Sun Microsystems, Metatomix and Claimonitor have collaborated to in hopes of making this new capability the new industry standard.”

Currently, settlement errors cost the market millions of dollars from interest and process expenses. In addition, claims are often handled manually and, without any audit trails or receipts, leave room for dispute. As a result, the cost of recovery can be higher than the claims themselves, so organizations don’t always pursue them. The new utility can eliminate the costly investigation, processing and storing of documents related to claims disputes.

About the Technology

Claimonitor is being developed on Sun’s x64 Sun Fire servers powered with the AMD Opteron (TM) processor, running on the Solaris 10 Operating Systems (OS) with the Sun Java Enterprise System and Sun Java System Identity Manager. The new service is fully hosted and run by Sun’s Managed Services Division, adding the strength of support vital for a utility of this significance.

The utility is built on Metatomix’s advanced ERI MTX platform, which includes sophisticated data management tools, rules engines and visualization to enable both the flexible deployment of new functions and the ability to view underlying data to support changing business requirements. In addition, Oracle Database 10g database is being used for historical transactions, which can be accessed through the Claimonitor information reporting tools.

“We are pleased to fully support the development and rollout of Claimonitor. The automation of the trade cycle is a key focus for Sun, and we will continue to play a proactive role in projects of this type, matching our innovation with the demands of the securities market,” said Donna Rubin, director of financial services, Sun Microsystems.

Nigel Matthews, capital markets manager for Oracle Corporation in the UK stated: “Claimonitor fills a missing element for automation in the STP Data Management space.”

About Claimonitor

For more information on Claimonitor, please visit http://www.claimonitor.com. In addition, Metatomix and Claimonitor will be joining Sun on the SUN Stand at the SIA Technology Management Conference, June 21-23, in New York City.

About ISITC Europe

ISITC Europe is a working committee of securities operations professionals representing custodian banks, investment managers, brokers, and vendors. The group’s mission is to foster alliances and advocate standards that promote straight through processing (STP) of securities transactions. The members of ISITC Europe actively participate in and influence industry-wide initiatives that promote direct electronic processing and information flow among all industry participants, throughout the entire trade life cycle.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Acquisition Will Enhance Company’s Position in China and Strengthen Global Product Development and Regional Customer Support Capabilities

Continuous Computing® Corporation, global provider of high availability platform solutions that enable telecom equipment manufacturers to rapidly deploy converged communications, today announced the signing of an agreement to acquire key people, products and technology from the product division of China-based UPTech (United Platform Technologies). When closed, this acquisition will enhance Continuous Computing’s market position in China and add global product development and regional customer support resources. The addition will increase Continuous Computing’s total staffing by approximately 80 people, primarily in Shenzhen, China.

According to PJ Go, president, CEO and co-founder of Continuous Computing, “The acquisition will help Continuous Computing achieve its 2005 corporate goals for extending global reach and augmenting sales, development and manufacturing capabilities. We also expect the acquisition to significantly accelerate our ability to deliver Network Service-Ready Platforms™ to telecom equipment manufacturers. Continuous Computing is excited about its new position in the worldwide marketplace and optimistic about additional growth prospects in the future.”

UPTech is a leading software and product provider in the rapidly-growing Chinese VoIP market. The entrepreneurial spirit of the acquired team is expected to streamline the division’s integration with Continuous Computing and to help accelerate the company’s development of additional VoIP products.

“This is a win/win situation for both UPTech and Continuous Computing,” said Chareleson Zheng, CEO of UPTech. “Continuous Computing will benefit from the success of the products and the market in China while UPTech will be able to focus its energy on the rapid growth of software and services.”

King Chen, CTO of UPTech and general manager of the product division, will lead the new business unit at Continuous Computing, to be called IP.Enterprise. Chen, who was formerly vice president of fixed networks for Huawei Technologies before joining UPTech, brings well-established relationships with Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers to his new role. “The combination of key UPTech assets with Continuous Computing yields a comprehensive offering not currently available today,” said Chen. “We are delighted to be part of Continuous Computing and look forward to expanding our strong team in China.”

The acquisition is expected to close in approximately 30 days. More information is available on Continuous Computing’s web sites at www.ccpu.com and www.ccpu.com/cn and at the company’s SUPERCOMM trade show booth (#32076) at Chicago’s McCormick Place from June 7 to 9.

About Continuous Computing

Continuous Computing® Corporation provides high availability platform solutions that enable telecom equipment manufacturers to rapidly deploy converged communications. The company supplies integrated solutions in the wireless and Voice over IP markets to over 125 customers worldwide who rely on Continuous Computing to accelerate time to market, reduce total life cycle costs and increase return on investment. The company offers a comprehensive set of Trillium® protocol software; AdvancedTCA and CompactPCI systems; upSuite® platform management; Trillium+plus Network Service-Ready Platforms™; and customization and product life cycle management services. Founded in 1998, Continuous Computing is based in San Diego with offices globally. The company is ISO-9001 certified and a member of the Intel® Communications Alliance. Additional information is available at www.ccpu.com

Continuous Computing, the Continuous Computing logo, Create | Deploy | Converge, Flex21, FlexChassis, FlexCompute, FlexCore, FlexDSP, FlexPacket, FlexStore, FlexSwitch, Network Service-Ready Platform, Quick!Start, TAPA, Trillium, Trillium+plus, the Trillium logo, upBeat, upDisk and upSuite are trademarks or registered trademarks of Continuous Computing Corporation. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Continuous Computing is an Associate member of the Intel Communications Alliance.

The Intel Communications Alliance is a member-based program comprised of communications and embedded developers and solution providers. Members are committed to providing a strategic supply of standards-based solutions to the communications and embedded market segments. For more information, please visit: www.intel.com/go/ica