SDU

CITATION] GE Ecomagination site
GE Ecomagination
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[CITATION] Driving GE Ecomagination with the Low-Emission GEnx Jet Engine
GE Aviation - 2005 - July
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[CITATION] GE to supply ecomagination products for Dynoil’s alternative energy initiative
P Release - New Delhi, India, February, 2007
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[CITATION] GE Launches Ecomagination to Develop Environmental Technologies
GEP Release - 2005 - May
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[CITATION] It Was Just My Ecomagination
AG Little - Grist Magazine, 2005
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[PDF] ►Saving the environment, one quarterly earnings report at a time
CH Deutsch - The New York Times, 2005 - massgreenenergy.com
... GE, too, acknowledges that many products included in its much-promoted
"ecomagination" program were developed to enhance energy efficiency. ...
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GE Ecomagination R&D investment to reach US$ 1 bn by year end
FI Analyst - Filtration Industry Analyst, 2007 - Elsevier
... News. GE Ecomagination R&D investment to reach US$1bn by year end. Available
online 25 January 2008. GE is spending more than US$1 ...
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GE ecomagination revenues exceed US$ 10 BN
FI Analyst - Filtration Industry Analyst, 2006 - Elsevier
... News. GE ecomagination revenues exceed US$10 BN. ... GE plans to reach US$20
billion in annual sales of ecomagination products by 2010. ...
Web Search

GE launches ‘ecomagination’initiative
FI Analyst - Filtration Industry Analyst, 2005 - Elsevier
... News. GE launches ‘ecomagination’ initiative. ... “Ecomagination is about the future,”
said Jeff Immelt, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. ...
Web Search - All 2 versions

Ecomagination Award for rainwater treatment system
O Sands - 2008 - iwapublishing.com
Grove Farm Company has received a GE Ecomagination Leadership Award in Honolulu,
Hawaii for an innovative, environmentally responsible solution that provides a ...
Cached - Web Search - All 3 versions





Article Request: Green is green at General Electric: Is Jeff Immelt the man to pull “Ecomagination” …
S Direction - Strategic Direction, 2006 - emeraldinsight.com
... Home > Browse > Article Request. E-mail this page. Article Request: Green is green
at General Electric: Is Jeff Immelt the man to pull “Ecomagination” off? ...
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Ecomagination SM: Natural Values at Work
I Moschini - Textus, 2007 - tilgher.it
Page 1. 223 Ecomagination SM Textus XX (2007), pp. 223-242. Ilaria Moschini
Ecomagination SM : Natural Values at Work 1. Introduction ...
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[CITATION] GE Gets Green for Ecomagination Campaign
M Khan - DMI News, 2005
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[CITATION] C-Level Jeffery R. Immelt on Ecomagination
JS McClenahen - INDUSTRY WEEK-CLEVELAND OHIO-, 2005
Web Search - BL Direct

Imaginative energy? GE's drive to accelerate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency …
R Kappler - Refocus, 2005 - Elsevier
... employees worldwide, General Electric, is convinced that's the case and is aiming
to carry corporate America to new horizons with what it calls ‘ecomagination ...
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Clean, Green and Rich?
B Stigson, W President - oecd.org
... Page 12. GE Ecomagination (i) “Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to ... GE Ecomagination
(ii) Turnover in Ecomagination products R&D in Ecomagination products ...
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[PDF] ►Technological Innovations for Global Energy Challenges
S Ramanan, M Director - adb.org
... Reducewater use • Informpublic ecomagination Page 14. 14 ... 17 GEEnergy ecomagination
portfolio Page 18. 18 ecomagination product portfolio Products certified ...
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Green Things To Life[General Electric's" ecoimagination" campaign]
R Bradley - Plenty, 2005 - csa.com
... He then announced a company-wide initiative called" ecomagination." With the
ecomagination campaign-whose name is a play on one of GE's corporate slogans ...
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Green is green at General Electric
S Direction - Strategic Direction - emeraldinsight.com
Green is green at General Electric. Is Jeff Immelt the man to pull
“Ecomagination” off? Abstract. Purpose – Reviews the latest ...
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In brief
CFO GL&V's - Membrane Technology, 2006 - Elsevier
... GE honors Unilever Canada with ‘Ecomagination’ award. Unilever Canada
has received a 2006 global ‘Ecomagination Leadership ...
Web Search

Key authors: F Analyst - C Deutsch - M Wald - S Direction - R MacLean


Pag 1 and Page 2 from Google scholar

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ecomagination&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N

Web bookmarks

Electricity Around the World

Um prêmio à inovação
RODRIGO DA ROCHA LOURES


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nós, empresários, devemos desenvolver a habilidade de gerar inovações para criar valor de forma sustentável
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A CNI (Confederação Nacional da Indústria) estabeleceu como principal objetivo do seu mapa estratégico o desenvolvimento industrial sustentável. Adotar esse conceito é um imperativo para as empresas que quiserem sobreviver no concorrido mercado global.
Por certo que empresa sustentável é aquela que dá lucro, mas devemos ter em conta que o mundo pede uma vinculação radical entre a sustentação financeira e os preceitos da sustentabilidade socioambiental. É possível lucrar fazendo bem ao planeta.
Peter Drucker já dizia que todos os problemas do planeta devem ser vistos como oportunidades de negócio.
Agora, mais do que nunca, essa é uma verdade incontestável. Por isso, nós, empresários, devemos desenvolver a habilidade de gerar inovações para criar valor de forma sustentável.
Inovação é a manifestação prática da sustentabilidade. Sustentabilidade é a outra face do desenvolvimento.
A história da humanidade demonstra que a inovação tem sido o grande recurso para as situações e as circunstâncias adversas de escassez, desconforto e sobrevivência em risco.
Nessa fase da competição pela inovação, as oportunidades são promissoras para quem, como nós, brasileiros, conta com um potencial imenso em decorrência da criatividade da cultura relacional, dos recursos naturais e da infra-estrutura tecnológico-industrial já instalada.
Um mundo sustentável depende, incondicionalmente, da capacidade humana de inovar na sociedade, nos governos, na academia e na indústria.
Todavia, as inovações de que necessitamos não são de qualquer natureza. Elas têm que ser concebidas dentro de princípios de sustentabilidade.
Precisamos de um novo paradigma, uma nova linguagem e um novo entendimento das coisas. Os processos produtivos têm que ser repensados e redesenhados.
Entre as competências que temos a desenvolver para perseguir os princípios da sustentabilidade estão a cognição e habilidades que capacitem os profissionais a inovar, valendo-se do ativo de conhecimentos para uma prática sustentável disponibilizados até aqui. Ao mesmo tempo, é preciso incorporar novos conhecimentos e aprendizagens aos empreendimentos humanos.
Economias não se desenvolvem sem a ação de indivíduos empreendedores que transformam idéias, invenções, necessidades e recursos em oportunidades. Diferentemente da noção comumente encontrada, uma investigação mais atenta do processo empreendedor revela que este se constitui -muito mais que em uma imersão individual- num trabalho em rede, que aproxima, informa, influencia e articula recursos, informações, idéias e invenções.
A conjunção da inovação com o empenho do empreendedor é essencial para o desenvolvimento. Mas são os ambientes criativos e autônomos que liberam e mobilizam os indivíduos empreendedores a fazer o melhor que sabem, que é romper e inovar valendo-se dos recursos materiais, humanos e tecnológicos disponíveis. Esse é o caminho que todas as empresas deveriam seguir.
As que já estão nele nos servem de exemplo e são merecedoras de todas as nossas homenagens. É por isso que a Confederação Nacional da Indústria instituiu o Prêmio CNI. Trata-se de um reconhecimento àqueles que desenvolveram a habilidade de combinar inovação, ousadia e criatividade para viabilizar uma produção eficiente e sustentável, que resulte no aumento da nossa competitividade.
O Brasil tem centenas de empresas que têm algo novo e importante para mostrar ao país. É desejável, portanto, que elas exponham suas experiências para inspirar outras a inovar.
O Prêmio CNI é uma oportunidade para isso.



cni.org.br

Cancer's Crystal Ball


For anyone who has battled breast cancer, the threat of recurring tumors is one that no treatment can completely eliminate—yet. But with Mamma-Print, a genetic test of a tumor's DNA, patients and doctors can get a better handle on how likely it is that the cancer will spread. The 70-gene screen, developed by Amsterdam-based Agendia, is the first test approved by the FDA that measures the activity of genes at work.

TIME´s

MammaPrint in MINDACT

Agendia is the exclusive gene expression profiling partner in the MIcroarray for Node negative Disease may Avoid Chemotherapy Trial (MINDACT), the largest, worldwide microarray-based clinical study so far.

This multicentre, prospective, randomized phase III trial, involving up to 6,000 European breast cancer patients, started recruitment at the beginning of 2007. The primary objective of MINDACT is to expand the MammaPrint indication through identification and validation of novel gene expression signatures that can predict clinical response to therapies used such as chemotherapy and endocrine (hormonal) therapy.

http://usa.agendia.com/en/mammaprint.html

Small Wind Turbine Equipment Providers

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has compiled the following list of U.S. manufacturers and suppliers of wind turbines for use in residential, farm, and commercial/industrial applications. Many have Web sites or are accessible through E-mail links. Links are also provided to the company listings on the AWEA Industry Member Directory.

Commercially proven U.S. equipment providers*include:
Manufacturer Models (Rated Capacity)
Abundant Renewable Energy
www.abundantre.com ARE110 (2.5KW), ARE442 (10KW)
AeroVironment
http://www.avinc.com AVX-1000 (1kW system)
Bergey Windpower Co.
www.bergey.com BWC XL.1 (1 kW),
BWC EXCEL (10 kW)
Distributed Energy Systems
(previously known as Northern Power Systems)
www.distributed-energy.com NPS 100 (100 kW)
Energy Maintenance Service
www.energyms.com E15 (35 kW or 65 kW)
Entegrity Wind Systems
www.entegritywind.com EW15 (50 kW)
Gaia-Wind Ltd
www.gaia-wind.com 11kW
Proven Energy, Ltd.
www.provenenergy.co.uk Proven 2.5 (2.5kW), Proven 6 (6kW), Proven 15 (15kW)
Southwest Windpower Co.
www.windenergy.com AIRX (400 W), Whisper 100
(900 W), Whisper 200 (1 kW), Whisper 500 (3 kW),
Skystream 3.7(1.8 KW)

Wind Energy Solutions Canada
www.windenergysolutions.ca


WES 5 Tulipo - (5 Metre Rotor Dia. - 2.5 kW), WES 18 - (18 Metre Rotor Dia. - 80 kW), WES 30 - (30 Metre Rotor Dia. - 250 kW)
Wind Turbine Industries Corp.
www.windturbine.net 23-10 Jacobs (10 kW),
31-20 Jacobs (20 kW)

*Certified or qualified by recognized agencies as meeting established standards and recommended business practices
(see http://www.powernaturally.com/Programs/Wind/qualified_wind.asp?i=8 and http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/cgi-bin/eligible_smallwind.cgi), and/or determined by AWEA's Small Wind Turbine Committee as commercially available with multiple publicly accessible operational installations in the U.S.
Abundant Renewable Energy

22700 NE Mountain Top Rd.
Newberg, OR 97132
Phone: (503) 538-8298
Fax: (503) 538-8782
E-mail: info@abundantre.com
Web: www.abundantre.com
Contact: Robert Preus

ARE wind generators are as strong as they come. Designed for harsh climates, they are built simply and ruggedly to quietly last. ARE machines have a large swept area to capture more wind and produce more energy, especially in low wind speeds. These machines produce energy in the winds you get, day in and day out……Power when you need it, not just in storms. ARE manufactures the ARE110 (2.5KW), the ARE442 (10KW), as well as a variety of tower types and sizes.

TOP
Bergey Windpower Company


2001 Priestley Avenue
Norman, OK 73069
Phone: (405) 364-4212
Fax: (405) 364-2078
E-mail: sales@bergey.com
Web:www.bergey.com
Contact: Steve Wilke

Established in 1977, Bergey Windpower manufactures highly reliable wind energy systems with ratings up to 10 kW. BWC wind turbines have earned a worldwide reputation for ruggedness and reliability and they incorporate the most advanced technology in the industry. They are used for on-grid and off-grid applications such as distributed generation (home, farm, etc.), telecommunications, village electrification, and wind-electric water pumping. Bergey generators are successfully operating in all types of environments from Alaska to Saudi Arabia, in all 50 U.S. states and more than 90 other countries around the world. They may also be used in hybrid systems with photovoltaic cells and diesel generator sets. Complete systems, systems components, engineering services, installations and training can be provided. BWC has a manufacturing and sales subsidiary in China and a technology licensee in Australia.

Distributed Energy Systems


182 Mad River Park
Waitsfield, VT 05673
Phone: (802) 496-2955
Email: pmattila@northernpower.com
Web: www.distributed-energy.com
Contact:Peter Mattila

Distributed-Enery Systems(previously known as Northern Power Systems) designs, builds, and installs flexible and reliable on-site and integrated power systems that provide commercial, industrial, and government customers with an invaluable asset: power independence. An open technology provider of power solutions, Northern draws upon its 30 years of experience to blend appropriate energy sources - wind, sunlight, hydrogen, biogas, natural gas and oil with state-of-the-art controls and power electronics in systems tailored to each customer's unique needs.

Entegrity Wind Systems


PO Box 832
Charlottetown, PE C1A 7L9 Canada
Phone: (902)-368-7171
Email: info@entegritywind.com
Web: www.entegritywind.com
Contact: Carmen MacIntyre

Entegrity Wind Systems, Inc. (EWSI) is the manufacturer and distributor of the EW15 wind system, a very reliable 50kW wind turbine, which is particularly suited to wind-hybrid applications in which the power is used directly by the end-user customer. The EW15 is ideal for use by farms, schools, industrial businesses, and municipal waste water treatment facilities in grid tied applications. For remote communities the EW15 can be incorporated into a utility system to provide power to the small villages and towns. The EW15 is a significantly advanced version of the former AOC 15/50. The EW15 can be expected to deliver between 150,000-200,000 kWh per year, depending on the wind regime at the site. The expected useful life of the EW15 is 30 years. EWSI, located in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, has operated successfully since the current management assumed control of the former Atlantic Orient Corporation in 2002.

Energy Maintenance Service, LLC


129 Main Avenue, PO Box 158
Gary, SD 57237
Phone: (605) 272-5398
Fax: (605) 272-5402
Email: steve@energyms.com
Web: www.energyms.com
Contact: Steve Scott

We at EMS leverage our intimate understanding of most all commercial wind turbine systems deployed in North America, new and old, as we develop products designed to enhance or replace these aging technologies and improve asset performance. Our South Dakota based remanufacturing facility and UL Certified panel shop give us complete control over all turbine remanufacturing processes leading to a higher quality finished product.


TOP
Gaia-Wind Ltd


Hillington Park
1 Ainslie Road
Glasgow G52 4RU
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 845-871-4242
Fax: +44 141-585-6301
Web: www.gaia-wind.com

Gaia-Wind manufactures small and efficient wind turbines for private homes, farms, rural areas and light commercial/industrial facilities. Its flagship 11kW model incorporates more than 20 years of Danish wind industry experience and includes features typically only found in utility-scale equipment: direct grid connection, triple safety system, constant rotor speed, passive stall, gearbox, tip brakes, amongst others. There are over 180 worldwide installations with more than 1,000 years of combined operational history. Gaia-Wind is also the only small wind turbine to have received the coveted Danish HB certification. The firm is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland but retains its manufacturing facilities in Arhus, Denmark.

Proven Energy Ltd


Wardhead Park
Stewarton
Ayrshire
KA3 5LH
Scotland, UK.
Phone: +44 (0) 1560-486-545
Email: elena.sutherland@provenenergy.com
Web: www.provenenergy.co.uk
Contact: Elena Sutherland

Proven Energy is the world’s leading supplier of small scale wind turbines; globally renowned for turbine performance. Our unrivalled experience spans almost thirty years of product inspiration, innovation and development.

Southwest Windpower


1801 W. Route 66
Flagstaff , AZ 86001
Phone: (928) 779-9463
Fax: (928) 779-1485
E-mail: andy@windenergy.com
Web: www.windenergy.com , www.skystreamenergy.com
Contact: Andrew Kruse

Southwest Windpower is a 20-year old company has been a pioneer in the development of wind technology and has produced over 90,000 generators that provide power to residential homes, remote cabins, telecom transmitters, offshore platforms, water pumping and sailboats.

Southwest Windpower produces SkystreamTM, Air and Whisper turbines to meet a variety of residential and industrial needs.

Small Wind has never been so easy. Announcing the Skystream 3.7 residential power appliance. It’s the first compact, utility-connected, all-inclusive wind generator designed to provide inexpensive, quiet, clean electricity to reduce or eliminate your home’s monthly energy bill.

Wind Energy Solutions (WES) Canada

2952 Thompson Road,
Ontario, Canada
Phone: 905-957-8791
Fax: 905-957-8789
E-mail: k.baigent@windenergysolutions.ca
Web: www.windenergysolutions.ca
Contact: Ken Baigent

Wind Turbine Industries Corporation

16801 Industrial Circle, SE
Prior Lake, MN 55372
Phone: (952) 447-6064
Fax: (952) 447-6050
E-mail: wtic@windturbine.net
Web: www.windturbine.net
President: Archie J. Pavek
Manager: Steve T. Turek

The exclusive manufacturer of the Jacobs® wind energy systems since 1986, the wind plants range in size from 10kW to 20kW, with rotor sizes ranging from 23 ft. (7 m) to 29 ft. (8.8 m). These systems can provide power for a broad range of applications, which include Grid Intertie (utility bill reduction) or Hybrid battery charging (remote battery charging). The Jacobs® wind energy systems have over 70 years of history providing clean, quality, reliable and efficient power in the USA and around the world.

The equatorial coordinate system is probably the most widely used celestial coordinate system, whose equatorial coordinates are:

declination (δ)
right ascension (α) -also RA-, or hour angle (H) -also HA-
It is the most closely related to the geographic coordinate system, because they use the same fundamental plane, and the same poles. The projection of the Earth's equator onto the celestial sphere is called the celestial equator. Similarly, projecting the geographic poles onto the celestial sphere defines the north and south celestial poles.

There are two systems to specify the longitudinal (longitude-like) coordinate:

the hour angle system is fixed to the Earth like the geographic coordinate system
the right ascension system is fixed to the stars, thus, during a night or a few nights, it appears to move across the sky as the Earth spins and orbits under the fixed stars. Over long periods of time, precession and nutation effects alter the earth's orbit and thus the apparent location of the stars. When considering observations separated by long intervals, it is necessary to specify an epoch (frequently J2000.0, for older data B1950.0) when specifying coordinates of planets, stars, galaxies, etc.
The latitudinal (latitude-like) angle of the equatorial system is called declination (Dec for short). It measures the angle of an object above or below the celestial equator. The longitudinal angle is called the right ascension (RA for short). It measures the angle of an object east of the vernal equinox point. Unlike longitude, right ascension is usually measured in hours instead of degrees, because the apparent rotation of the equatorial coordinate system is closely related to sidereal time and hour angle. Since a full rotation of the sky takes 24 hours of sidereal time to complete, there are (360 degrees / 24 hours) = 15 degrees in one hour of right ascension.

The equatorial coordinate system is commonly used by telescopes equipped with equatorial mounts by employing Setting circles. Setting circles in conjunction with a star chart or ephemeris allow a telescope to be easily pointed at known objects on the celestial sphere.

• algorithms
• artificial intelligence
• compiler optimization
• computer architecture
• computer graphics
• data compression
• data mining
• file system design
• genetic algorithms
• information retrieval
• machine learning
• natural language processing
• operating systems
• profiling
• robotics
• text processing
• user interface design
• web information retrieval
• and more!

Top 100 KGS Players

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New Toyota training centre in Nottingham

The new purpose-built Centre will deliver a range of training programmes, based on Toyota’s world class best practice, for Castle College students, 14-16 year olds in partnership with local schools, post -16 trainees as part of the Toyota Technical Education Programme (T-TEP)1. Up to 600 students and apprentices will use the Centre each year.

Toyota’s Academy will deliver training programmes for 350 apprentices for its Toyota and Lexus national Retail networks, as well as 60 manufacturing engineering apprentices for its manufacturing plants in Burnaston, Derbyshire and Deeside, North Wales. The company will support the centre by supplying training materials, equipment, vehicles and will also share developments in new technology and teaching practices.
The Centre has been funded by a regional project partnership including East Midlands Development Agency (emda), Learning and Skills Council Nottinghamshire (LSC) and Nottingham City Council with support from Castle College.

3G iPhone costs $173 to make

How can Apple and AT&T put a relatively low pricetag of just $199 on the new 3G iPhone? According to research firm iSuppli, the answer is in the low cost of the components. iSuppli estimates the new 3G iPhone will cost just $173 to manufacture, which is significantly lower than rivals such as HTC's Touch Diamond (priced at $785) and Nokia's N96 (priced at $855).

iSuppli says that the most expensive component on the 3G iPhone is the 8 gigabytes of NAND flash memory storage, which the firm estimates costs $22.80. The second pricey element is the touchscreen, which costs about $20. In all, the chips and handset components add up to $164. iSuppli tacks on another $9 for assembly for a total of $173.

Beatifull China

BMJ 2004;329:712 (25 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.712

Paper

Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: proof of principle study

Carolyn M Willis, senior research scientist1, Susannah M Church, honorary research fellow1, Claire M Guest, operations director2, W Andrew Cook, deputy chief executive2, Noel McCarthy, medical statistician3, Anthea J Bransbury, associate specialist1, Martin R T Church, honorary research fellow1, John C T Church, honorary consultant1

1 Department of Dermatology, Amersham Hospital, Amersham HP7 0JD, 2 Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, Saunderton, Princes Risborough HP27 9NS, 3 Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF

Correspondence to: C M Willis carolyn.willis@sbucks.nhs.uk

Abstract
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Objective To determine whether dogs can be trained to identify people with bladder cancer on the basis of urine odour more successfully than would be expected by chance alone.

Design Experimental, "proof of principle" study in which six dogs were trained to discriminate between urine from patients with bladder cancer and urine from diseased and healthy controls and then evaluated in tests requiring the selection of one bladder cancer urine sample from six controls.

Participants 36 male and female patients (age range 48-90 years) presenting with new or recurrent transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder (27 samples used for training; 9 used for formal testing); 108 male and female controls (diseased and healthy, age range 18-85 years—54 samples used in training; 54 used for testing).

Main outcome measure Mean proportion of successes per dog achieved during evaluation, compared with an expected value of 1 in 7 (14%).

Results Taken as a group, the dogs correctly selected urine from patients with bladder cancer on 22 out of 54 occasions. This gave a mean success rate of 41% (95% confidence intervals 23% to 58% under assumptions of normality, 26% to 52% using bootstrap methods), compared with 14% expected by chance alone. Multivariate analysis suggested that the dogs' capacity to recognise a characteristic bladder cancer odour was independent of other chemical aspects of the urine detectable by urinalysis.

Conclusions Dogs can be trained to distinguish patients with bladder cancer on the basis of urine odour more successfully than would be expected by chance alone. This suggests that tumour related volatile compounds are present in urine, imparting a characteristic odour signature distinct from those associated with secondary effects of the tumour, such as bleeding, inflammation, and infection.

Introduction
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
The hypothesis that dogs may be able to detect malignant tumours on the basis of odour was first put forward by Williams and Pembroke in a letter to the Lancet in 1989.1 Their thinking arose from a consultation with a woman who claimed to have sought medical help as a direct result of her dog's inordinate interest in a skin lesion, which subsequently proved to be a malignant melanoma. Since then similar anecdotal claims of detection of skin cancer, and of malignancies of internal organs such as breast and lung, have appeared in the press and in a further letter to the Lancet.2-4

Tumours produce volatile organic compounds, which are released into the atmosphere through, for example, breath and sweat.5-9 Some of these volatile organic compounds are likely to have distinctive odours; even when present in minute quantities, they could be detectable by dogs, with their exceptional olfactory acuity.10-13

Our aim was to train dogs to recognise an odour, or combination of odours (an "odour signature"), characteristic of bladder cancer but distinct from those associated with the secondary effects of the tumour, such as bleeding, inflammation, infection, and necrosis. These factors are present in a multitude of non-malignant conditions of the urinary tract and elsewhere in the body and must be ignored by the dogs if discrimination is to be attained. We assessed the dogs' abilities to detect bladder cancer, once trained, by comparison of their success rate with that expected by chance alone, in choosing one cancer urine placed randomly among six controls in blinded experiments.

Methods
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Training of the dogs
Six dogs of varying breeds and ages completed a seven month period of training. The training objective was to enable the dogs to discriminate between urine from patients with bladder cancer and urine from diseased and healthy people, using samples entirely new to them, so as to preclude simple memory recognition of participants' unique odour signatures. Dogs were trained to detect one urine sample from a patient with bladder cancer placed among six control specimens.14 Early recognition of the tumour scent was achieved by using search and find games, which were gradually replaced by discrimination phases of increasing complexity. Urine from patients with bladder cancer was presented sequentially against water, diluted urine from healthy people, undiluted urine from healthy controls, urine (containing blood) from menstruating women, and urine from patients with non-malignant active or recent urological disease or other disease. Samples were not pooled at any stage. Two of the dogs were trained and tested with dried urine samples; the remaining four dogs were provided with liquid specimens throughout.

Participant selection
We recruited patients from hospitals within the Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust and additional healthy controls from among staff and their families. Thirty six patients (23 men, age range 48-90, mean age 69; 13 women, age range 49-90, mean age 74) presenting with new or recurrent transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder gave urine before surgical intervention. We used 27 of these samples in training and the remaining nine for evaluation (see bmj.com).

A total of 108 diseased and healthy control participants supplied urine (54 men, age range 18-85, mean age 45; 54 women, age range 18-85, mean age 40); we used 54 samples in training and 54 during evaluation. We excluded patients with premalignant urological disease or a history of urological carcinoma. A history of other malignancy was acceptable providing the patient was now considered disease-free. All other past or current medical conditions were permissible. We made no exclusions on the basis of drugs, menstrual cycle, ethnicity, diet, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, exposure to chemicals, or findings on urinalysis (see bmj.com).

Evaluation of trained dogs
We assessed the dogs for their ability to select correctly one urine sample from a bladder cancer patient placed among six control samples (the same task as used in their training); all samples were new to the dogs. For statistical reasons, we used nine test panels, each with one positive sample and six controls, to test each dog (see bmj.com).

Statistical analysis
The primary outcome measure was the mean proportion of successes for each dog, compared with an expected value of 1 in 7 (approximately 0.143). Given the small dataset and the uncertainty of the form of the data, we estimated 95% confidence intervals by using both normal assumptions and bootstrap techniques. We applied a conditional logistic regression model to assess whether factors measured on urinalysis (such as presence of blood, leucocytes, or protein) might confound the association between participants' cancer status and selection of their urine by the dogs. We used a t test and rank sum test to assess the effect of the physical state of the urine.

Results
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Taken as a single group, the dogs correctly selected the positive bladder cancer urine on 22 of 54 occasions (table). This gave a mean success rate of 41% (95% confidence intervals 23% to 58% under assumptions of normality and 26% to 52% using bootstrap methods), compared with 14% expected by chance.


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Urine samples selected by the six dogs during evaluation



The association between presence of cancer and selection by the dogs was slightly stronger in a multivariate conditional logistic regression model, which also included presence of blood and ketones, than in the univariate model. This indicated that the association was not due to confounding with factors measured on urinalysis. The four dogs trained on wet urine specimens (50% correct) seemed to perform better than the two dogs trained on dried samples (22% correct; P=0.03 by t test, P=0.06 by rank sum test).

Discussion
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Summary of findings
Given the extraordinary claims made about dogs detecting cancer on the basis of odour,1-4 our aim was to design and conduct a simple, yet stringent, experiment to establish whether dogs have this capability. We achieved the successful detection of urine samples from patients with bladder cancer 41% of the time (rather than the 14% expected by chance alone), providing convincing evidence that dogs do, indeed, have this ability. Multivariate analysis suggests that the dogs' capacity to recognise an odour signature characteristic of bladder cancer is independent of other chemical aspects of the urine detectable by urinalysis, such as the presence of blood.

Exactly what the chemical composition of the cancer odour signature is we can only speculate at present. Evidence from gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy studies indicates that elevated levels of formaldehyde, alkanes, and benzene derivatives occur with some cancers,5-8 but other volatile organic molecules are probably produced as well.

Rationale for training approach
When we embarked on this project we had no relevant peer reviewed publications to refer to. The trainers on the team were experienced at teaching dogs to scent-match, but this was not the task being demanded of the dogs here. We needed them to learn to recognise an odour signature for cancer from among the hundreds present in urine, without recourse to the "pure" source of the odour. This makes it very different from training dogs to detect, for example, drugs or explosives. At the beginning of the study we considered using surplus tumour material obtained during surgery. We dismissed this, however, largely because the tissue could not be chemically fixed without irrevocably altering the smell, and the use of unfixed tissue had serious health and safety implications for the dog trainers.

Having decided that we would concentrate on urine as the source of tumour derived volatile organic compounds, we then had to consider whether to use each participant's urine sample separately or whether to pool those of the cancer patients and, separately, those of the controls. Although pooling might have led to a greater concentration of the desired odour signature, we foresaw some important disadvantages and pitfalls. Firstly, we had no idea whether certain foods, drinks, or drugs, for example, may obscure, interfere with, or even mimic, the odour of tumour related compounds. Only by taking detailed histories from each participant, and introducing each sample separately, could we gradually eliminate these possibilities. Secondly, pooling specimens would lead to many fewer samples being available for the dogs to smell. The very real possibility then existed that dogs would merely scent-match with known samples, rather than learn to pick out the distinctive odour signature common to the cancer urines. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we were concerned that "rogue" control specimens from people with undiagnosed cancer elsewhere in the body may be inadvertently added to pooled samples. We did, in fact, have an occasion during training in which all dogs unequivocally indicated as positive a sample from a participant recruited as a control on the basis of negative cystoscopy and ultrasonography. The consultant responsible for the patient was sufficiently concerned to bring forward further tests, and a transitional cell carcinoma of the right kidney was discovered.


What is already known on this topic

Canine olfactory detection of cancer has been anecdotally reported but has not, until now, been the subject of scientific scrutiny

What this study adds

Dogs can be trained to distinguish patients with bladder cancer on the basis of urine odour more successfully than would be expected by chance alone

This study provides a benchmark against which future studies can be compared


We next had to consider the physical state of the urine when presented to the dog. We felt that air dried samples would have greater applicability in a clinical setting, by virtue of easy handling, transport, and storage. However, the overnight drying process may result in the loss of volatile organic compounds important to the overall odour signature. We therefore opted to train one cohort of dogs on wet samples and another on dried samples. When tested, the dogs trained on liquid urine performed significantly better, suggesting that the more volatile molecules are of importance in the cancer odour signature. However, the small sample sizes, together with other potentially confounding variables between the two groups of dogs limit confidence in this observation. Further work to determine the optimum physical state for the urine will therefore be needed.

Lastly, we gave careful consideration to the selection of patients and controls. During training, we exposed the dogs to urine from patients presenting with a broad range of transitional cell carcinomas, in terms of grade and stage, as we felt this would increase their likelihood of recognising the common factor or factors. We took particular care to train the dogs with control samples containing elements likely to be present in urine from patients with bladder cancer but also commonly occurring in other non-malignant pathologies. In this way, we could teach the dogs to ignore non-cancer specific odours.

Conclusion
Our approach to training was vindicated by the results achieved when the dogs were formally evaluated. Despite the fact that we had not used dogs with proved scenting abilities, and despite the inclusion of age matched diseased controls, we achieved a statistically significant success rate. Our study provides the first piece of experimental evidence to show that dogs can detect cancer by olfactory means more successfully than would be expected by chance alone. The results we achieved should provide a benchmark against which future studies can be compared, and we hope that our approach to training may assist others engaged in similar work.

{elps.f1}The full version of this paper appears on bmj.com

We thank all the participants who helped us with the study, Sandra Stevenson and Jan Smith for their expert training of four of the dogs, and Lezlie Britton for expert laboratory assistance. We also thank the following people for their advice and support: the consultants who contributed patients to the study, particularly Amar Bdesha; senior nurses Glenys Newton and Hilary Baker; consultant pathologist David Bailey; and Mike Scott, Pete Smith, and Alistair Stevenson. We also acknowledge the enthusiastic support of the Trustees of the Erasmus Wilson Dermatological Research Fund.

Contributors: See bmj.com.

Funding: The Department of Dermatology, Amersham Hospital, received financial support from the Erasmus Wilson Dermatological Research Fund (registered charity No 313305), which had no active role in the design or conduct of the study. The dog trainers, all employees of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People (registered charity No 293358), trained the dogs in their own time; their expenses were met through a private donation given by Derek Wilton, who did not participate in the study in any way. SMC, MRTC, and JCTC were funded by their small family company COBiRD Ltd (company No 03426189), which also contributed to the project expenses.

Competing interests: None declared.

Ethical approval: South Buckinghamshire local research ethics committee approved the study.

References
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References

1. Williams H, Pembroke A. Sniffer dogs in the melanoma clinic? Lancet 1989;1: 734.
2. Fraser L. Scientists put sniffer dogs on the scent of men with cancer. Sunday Telegraph 2002 June 2.
3. Dobson R. Dogs can sniff out first signs of men's cancer. Sunday Times 2003 Apr 27: 5.
4. Church J, Williams H. Another sniffer dog for the clinic? Lancet 2001;358: 930.
5. Phillips M, Gleeson K, Hughes JM, Greenberg J, Cataneo RN, Baker L, et al. Volatile organic compounds in breath as markers of lung cancer: a cross-sectional study. Lancet 1999;353: 2897-8.
6. Di Natale C, Macagnano A, Martinelli E, Paolesse R, D'Arcangelo G, Roscioni C, et al. Lung cancer identification by the analysis of breath by means of an array of non-selective gas sensors. Biosens Bioelectron 2003;18: 1209-18.[CrossRef][Medline]
7. Phillips M, Cataneo RN, Ditkoff BA, Fisher P, Greenberg J, Gunawardena R, et al. Volatile markers of breast cancer in the breath. Breast J 2003;9: 184-91.[CrossRef][Medline]
8. Spanel P, Smith D, Holland TA, Al Singary W, Elder JB. Analysis of formaldehyde in the headspace of urine from bladder and prostate cancer patients using selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 1999;13: 1354-9.[Medline]
9. Yamada K, Walsh N, Hara H, Jimbow K, Chen H, Ito S. Measurement of eumelanin precursors metabolites in the urine as a new marker for melanoma metastases. Arch Dermatol 1992;128: 491-4.[Abstract]
10. Schoon GAA, De Bruin JC. The ability of dogs to recognise and cross-match human odours. Forensic Sci Int 1994;69: 111-8.[Medline]
11. Schoon GAA. A first assessment of the reliability of an improved scent identification line-up. J Forensic Sci 1998;43: 70-5.[Medline]
12. Komar D. The use of cadaver dogs in locating scattered, scavenged human remains: preliminary field test results. J Forensic Sci 1999;44: 405-8.[Medline]
13. Lorenzo N, Wan T-L, Harper RJ, Hsu Y-L, Chow M, Rose S, et al. Laboratory and field experiments used to identify Canis lupus var. familiaris active odor signature chemicals from drugs, explosives, and humans. Anal Bioanal Chem 2003;376: 1212-24.[Medline]
14. Mills DS. Learning, training and behavioural modification techniques. In: Horwitz DF, Mills DS, Heath S, eds. BSAVA manual of canine and feline behavioural medicine. Gloucester: British Small Animal Veterinary Association, 2002.

(Accepted 19 July 2004)

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