Galaxy S6 Edge unveiled

Samsung unpacked Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, flagship models of smartphone, in Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, and the preceding conference.

BBC: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Hands-on with the new handseta

Galaxy series is a famous brand of Samsung. I have used Galaxy S3 for 3 years. It still works well, although sometimes delaying in process perhaps due to the update of Android OS. Galaxy S6 and Edge is the successors of Galaxy S5 relased in 2014.

My past entry: Galaxy S5 launch

Galaxy S6 equips some new electric parts such as octa-core CPU, 16 mega pixel camera, and 2560*1440 pixel display. The appearance was also evolved more luxurious.

Furthermore, Galaxy S6 Edge has a curved display, like Galaxy Note Edge. It enables us to see the notification of receiving call and email when the machine is placed the screen in the bottom.

TechRadar: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge release date, news and features

It will released on April 10. The price is estimated to approximately $1,000, depending on the volume of storage. Unfortunately, Galaxy S6 cannot equip an external storage such as micro SD card. I recommend the 128GB model, if choose, though expensive.

TechAdvisor: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge / Galaxy Edge UK release date, price & specs: When is the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge coming out? Galaxy S6 Edge details

Samsung has been struggling in the battle of global market. Previously, it aimed at Japan for infiltrating flagship models, but its attempt seemed to fail. Galaxy S6 will be sold also in Japan, but Samsung is considering to retreat from Japan.

My past entry: New gadgets from Apple, Samsung, and Amazon

My past entry: Alteration of Generations in Smartphone industry

On the other hand, some companies are rising in this industry. For example, Xiaomi adopted the follower strategy definitely just like Samsung had followed Apple in the past. Now, Samsung has to create some new values instead of mimicking conventional products.

I think that the curved screen is a symbol of the change in Samsung. It looks new, but not so innovative at a glance. Curved screen is attractive. But, suggesting clearly what this technology let us is the next challenge. I expect Samsung to show the answer.

Cybercrime overwhelms drugs

Cybercrime has potentially bigger profit than illegal drugs, the London Police says.

The Telegraph: Cybercrime could become more lucrative than drugs, police chief warns

According to the media, one-fourth of the organized criminals in Britain is estimated to engaged in financial crime. Their profit reaches 10 billion GBP in a year. But it is uncertain how much amount of the benefit is generated from cybercrime.

Financial crimes are not so harmful to the public, compared to the illegal drugs, although both are unacceptable.

Fraud on the internet is easy to commit. It takes very little cost. And it is difficult to disclose the evidence of the crime, especially in the case the criminals are using servers in a foreign country.

Even I have been attacked by some kinds of fraud, as I wrote in the past. Also recently, I received emails from someones disguising Samsung and a famous investment bank in terms of the network account. There are innumerable numbers of junk mails other than them.

My past entry: A spam e-mail mimicking Google

My past entry: I will be a trillionaire

It is quite easy for me to distinguish these tricks. However, it is important that a few people may be deceived in the world. For the criminal side, sending an email to millions of people takes almost zero and time and money. If one of the millions gives the money, this business will be successful.

Many major companies are subjected to this fraud. Most of them release a warning to the users. But these caution is unlikely to reach customers who are indifferent to the risk of fraud. Such users tend to be victimized.

Furthermore, criminals usually disguise their intention of exploitation not being noticed by the victim forever. I heard that in many cases the victims did not know they are tricked even after they lost a large amount of money. Of course, they do not report the case to the police. Thus, fraud is not a crime until it is proven to be so. And the internet has made it much easier than the past to conduct it.

It is extremely difficult to deal with this kind of crimes. Some cyber security software can detect potentially harmful emails and websites, but not perfectly. The police in each country are keen to investigate this matter. Technical development is important to chase the criminal on the internet. In addition, international contracts are essential to control the cybercrime. The internet has been broadened beyond the nations. Why not will the police so?

Mortality in ADHD: a huge cohort study

You may be surprised if you know patients with Attention Deficit and hyperactivity Disorder tend to die young. Or do you think it is quite predictable?

Søren Dalsgaard et al. conducted a prospective cohort study with Danish children for some decades. They started this study in investigated almost 2 million people to diagnose them and followed them up to 2013. As a result, the mortality rate in ADHD patients was proven to be twice as high as healthy people.

The LANCET: Mortality in children, adolescents, and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a nationwide cohort study

ADHD is a relatively common disorder in boys. Those with ADHD have a difficulty to concentrate, often cannot stay at a place for long time, and are reckless.The severity of the symptoms is so various that some patients are overlooked in childhood.

ADHD is sometimes accompanied by other mental disorders, such as conduct disorder, substance misuse, and learning disability. The authors of this article examined the impact of ADHD on the mortality excluding the influences of other factors. After all, people with ADHD are likely to encounter an accident more frequently than those without ADHD. However, it looks like a tautology, because careless people are possible to be diagnosed with ADHD. Current standard of diagnosis of ADHD includes no objective data such as blood count or genetic examinations.

This is a shocking report. However, parents of the patients with ADHD need not to be pessimistic so much. The mortality rate is only 5.85 per 10,000 person-year. Rather, as the authors mentioned, they should be aware of the fact that ADHD is a treatable disease.

The New York Times: A.D.H.D Diagnosis Linked to Increased Risk of Dying Young

This great survey was published in Lancet, a world-famous medical journal. I am at home now, so I cannot read the original article. Notwithstanding this, I can feel the strength of this study. It is extremely difficult to continue a project for decades. A sophisticated methodology, strong motivation shared by the team, members, and a large amount of budget are required. I respect the researchers very much.

I believe that the researchers are not satisfied with publishing only this paper. A longitudinal observational study tells us many things. They must be prepared to detect other interesting findings. One of them seems to be the risk factors for schizophrenia in child and adolescent, published in Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Schizophrenia Bulletin: Risk of Schizophrenia Increases After All Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders: A Nationwide Study

Clinical data is a treasure of humankind. I expect the researchers to reap more fruits from this data.

By the way, it is strange that only five persons are listed up in this paper. Hundreds of researchers must be involved in this big project. Some more names should be included in the list of contributors, I think.

Sequels in February 2015

February 15, 2015
Apartheid suggestion by Ayako Sono cannot be accepted

There is no occurrence after this incident. I have heard. Sono has not retracted the article. She said having no intention to discriminate black people, so I want to believe her. Nonetheless, I think her statement is irrational for the reasons I wrote.


February 13, 2015
Multidimensional battle against ISIS

Battle against ISIS is getting fiercer. Several movement relating Muslim are emerging. In Austria, a new legislation to regulate foreign funding for the Islamic organization.

Reuters: Austria passes 'Law on Islam' banning foreign money for Muslim groups

ISIS released a plan to invade Rome. After seeing the warning by ISIS, some Italians ridiculed it with Twitter, such as "Take care of the traffic jam in Rome!" Is the Italian sense of humor like Japanese?

The New York Times: ISIS heads to Rome


February 11, 2015
Greek financial crisis

An extension of bailout for Greece was determined. It relieved Greece from the crisis of financial catastrophe, but the situation remains urgent.

The Guardian: Eurozone approves Greek deal, but creditors voice doubts - as it happened


February 1, 2015
AKB48 mimicking child porn?

Yasushi Akimoto, the producer of AKB48 sharply denied the rumor that AKB48 would make  a performance at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Tokyo Olympic. His real intention is uncertain, considering his talent and ambition.

Gun debate continue in college

There is a movement to permit equipping college campuses in the US with guns. A committee hearing on the bill for firearms is planned for March 2015.

Now, "Campus Carry Law" is being considered in 10 states. Lawmakers who are promoting it are expecting that this legislation will protect female students from the risk of being raped.

The Times of India: Guns for girls: US plan to fight campus rapes

To be honest, I am quite doubtful that they seriously believe guns can protect the women from sexual assaults. Even, generally speaking, it is quite questionable if possessing a gun will make you safe. Limited to a campus, I am convinced that this relaxation is an absurd idea.

Firstly, as written in this article, most of the perpetrators of rape in schools are a colleague of the victim. Many accidents occur in dormitories, not on a road. In such cases, it is unlikely that the woman has an opportunity to take a shot at the attacker.

Secondly, shooting a man can be an extremely serious burden for the shooter. Even if the girl could save her virginity with shooting, she will have to live with the fact that she took someone's life. Different from a case of an attempted murder, it is possible that the shooter would be also blamed. A gun is much too powerful to deal with this situation. A paralyzing stick would be enough, at least excepting for extraordinarily dangerous criminals. And, of course, such predators may snatch the gun.

Thirdly, firearms can increase the risk of fatal incidents. We are all so weak that we can lose temper easily. Especially, youths are sometimes reckless. It is possible that a silly quarrel suddenly becomes a murder case because of there is a gun in front of them.

Finally, exhibiting a firearm is prohibited even in a permitted area. But it is useless to hide the gun in your clothes. A gun is effective to prevent victimization only when it threatens the attacker. A man who can imagine the possibility that the victim conceals a gun under her clothes would never attempt to rape her. If possessing a gun is permitted to prevent crimes, the owner should be also allowed to show it to the public.

For these reasons, I never understand the idea to introduce firearms into the campus. There are few reasons to deem the campus a sanctuary. However, since it is now regulated, remaining the regulation forever is the best way not to increase the risk of shooting, as I wrote before. Fortunately, the majority of the professors and students seem rational, according to the media.

My past entry: Gun control and Nash equilibrium

State Representative Dennis K. Baxley said, "If you've got a person that's raped because you wouldn't let them carry a firearm to defend themselves, I think you're responsible." I dislike this type of sophism. If his thought would apply to himself, he were responsible to all of the crimes occurred even before since he became a lawmaker. Furthermore, it is possible a policy to save one person will cause more tragedies, ironically. There are some politicians who say things similar to him in Japan. I think that biased views are common to them.

Anger shortens your life: A research

Your parents may have told you that such a rage does damage on you. It is true, according to a study team in University of Sydney.

In this study, patients hospitalized for the treatment of myocardial infarction were asked if they had experienced some outrageous emotion before the occurrence of the cardiac event. As a result, persons who experienced a strong anger with body tense were proven to be likely to encounter a heart attack within 48 hours by 8.5 times than at a calm state.

Sydney Morning Herald: Extreme anger could trigger a heart attack, researchers find

We often see a scene in a novel or a movie that a man falls due to an acute heart failure immediately after getting angered. This result suggests that such a description is scientifically correct.

However, this result is not the first report showing the adverse effect of anger on the heart. Similar studies were published before, as the authors mentioned in this article. In addition, it is said historically that individuals with "type-A" personality (energetic and aggressive) have been at risk of vascular disease.

Wikipedia: Type A and Type B personality theory

It is unique in this study to have performed a cardiac angiography in all the patients in which some coronary occlusion occurred after the rage. It is not surprising because an intravascular examination and intervention are necessary for such patients to save their lives.

European Heart Journal, Acute Cardiovascular Care: Triggering of acute coronary occlusion by episodes of anger

Furthermore, this study referred the relationship between anxiety and cardiac event. Actually, anxiety was more strongly associated with following cardiac events. The authors remained deliberative to say something about the causal relationship, because it is known that some patients feel anxious before the coronary failure. If the anxiety causes cardiac failure, it might make us more anxious.

You can eat high cholesterol food

The US government is going to amend its guidelines for a healthy diet.

Los Angeles Times: Cholesterol is back on the menu in new federal dietary guidelines

The US is suffering from obesity. As one-third of American people are obese, perhaps leading to the mortality of the citizens and a huge increase of the medical cost, the government is demanded to develop an urgent solution.

My past entry: World obesity map

The new guideline is reversing some standards which have been well spread. First of all, you need not be concerned to reduce the intake of cholesterol. According to the newest reports, oral intake of cholesterol has minimal influence on your blood cholesterol level which has a critical impact on your physical health. Strict diet is no more useful to control blood cholesterol level. Instead, in addition to adequate exercise as you know, the guideline recommend you to rely on medication.

Caffeine is a preferable ingredient for you. Surprisingly. You can take 3-5 cups of coffee in a day in order to reduce the risk of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and even cardiovascular diseases. We have told the patients to avoid taking excessive caffeine not to burden their heart, haven't we?

It occasionally happens that conventional standards are completely overturned by newly results of research, especially in nutritional science. For example, pork had been deemed as relatively poor meat until late 20th century. Nowadays, pork is proven to include rich nutrients such as vitamin B1.

To be honest, I encounter some studies which seems not trustworthy in this region. The effect of diet is difficult to be examined precisely in human, because several factors can be confounding. In addition, there are innumerable persons who insist that they have developed an effective method of a healthy diet, especially aiming at slimming. Some of their theories are far from rational. Nutritional science is still challenging despite its long history.

My past entry: Pizza is blamed as expected