Xeround, a provider of software solutions for subscriber management and high performance database systems, announced the general availability of Xeround Sound™ Version 2. The new version of Xeround’s flagship product features breakthrough scalability and price performance.

Xeround Sound addresses the need for fast, reliable access to subscriber data and common data stores while delivering unparalleled total cost of ownership. To validate its industry-leading results for real-time performance and online scale-out abilities, the company also released the findings of a report using the Nokia Network Database Benchmark (NDB).

Xeround Sound is a distributed data management system specifically tuned for subscriber-centric and real-time transactions found in next generation networks (NGN) and business support systems (BSS). It is the only solution of its kind to deliver massive and linear scalability, multi-site support with global data distribution and virtualization, continuous availability, high responsiveness, and guaranteed data integrity with native support for both Structured Query Language (SQL) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) interfaces. Xeround Sound is tuned for today’s leading commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware solutions and requires minimal administration, resulting in dramatic improvements in total cost of ownership.

Horizon Semiconductors, a leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable secure video and audio compression & transmission for the consumer electronics and broadcast markets, announced the immediate availability of a multi-standard native 1080/60p professional encoder IC for the Cable, Satellite, Telco, Terrestrial & Mobile triple/quad-play broadcast markets.

Horizon's Hz2010 supports wide range of features and capabilities uniquely designed to meet the emerging requirements of the broadcast & professional encoding equipment markets. The Hz2010 incorporates a multi-standard high definition video encoder natively supporting resolutions of 1080/60p and below, and implementing leading compression standards including AVC (up to HP@L4.2), VC-1 (AP@L3 and MP@HL), MPEG-2 (MP@HL) & MPEG-4/H.263, an advanced video pre-processor featuring motion compensated spatio-temporal noise reduction filtering, motion-adaptive de-interlacer, frame rate conversion and advanced scaling, a high performance audio encoder engine enabling encoding to various audio formats such as MPEG-1, AC-3, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, AAC and WMA, a programmable high-bandwidth transport processor, as well as a multi-standard conditional access/digital rights management security processor. Horizon's Hz2010 is provided with a comprehensive software stack and a reference hardware platform designed to significantly accelerate OEM/ODM development cycle.

Mitralign has successfully performed its first implantation of the Mitralign Percutaneous Annuloplasty System(TM) for mitral valve repair at French Hospital in Asuncion, Paraguay.
The patient was treated by an experienced medical team led by Adrian Ebner, MD of the French Hospital and Lutz Buellesfeld, MD of Helios Heart Center, Siegburg, Germany.The Mitralign System was able to remodel the valve and reduce the patient's mitral regurgitation from 3+ to 2+, 24 hours after the procedure based on core lab assessment. The patient spent less than 48 hours in the hospital after the procedure and continues to do well at home.

The Mitralign System emulates the open surgical procedure of suture-based mitral annuloplasty. The implant was percutaneously delivered though a single 14F femoral arterial sheath, and provides direct geometric reduction of the posterior annulus. The condition treated, mitral valve regurgitation (MR), is common in patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). Clinical studies have proven that MR significantly increases the risk of mortality in patients afflicted with CHF, a disease affecting 25 million worldwide. Studies hence recommend earlier treatment of MR in these patients.

Combining surgical precision with interventional therapy, Mitralign is developing an innovative, catheter-based method to effectively treat mitral regurgitation in patients suffering from Congestive Heart Failure. Mitralign's goal is to emulate the technique employed in traditional open heart surgery but in a far less invasive manner.

Former Intel Fellow and currently visiting Professor at the Technion Institute, Dr. Uri Weiser joins Lucid’s Advisory Board. Lucid is an innovator in real time distributed processing for visual computing applications.

In addition to serving as a visiting Professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology Uri is also the CTO for Commex Technologies, a leading developer of next generation x86 systems' innovative chip set. He joins graphics software expert, Nick Triantos CEO at TokBox on the company’s Advisory Board. Tokbox is a company pioneering live Internet video chat.


Uri Weiser began his career as a research and systems engineer for the Israeli Department of Defense. Employed by Intel from 1988 through 2006, he initiated the definition of the first Pentium® processor and drove the development of Intel's MMX(TM) technology architecture. He holds the distinguished titles of Intel Fellow, IEEE Fellow and ACM Fellow. Prior to his career at Intel, Uri led the design of the NS32532 micro processor at National Semiconductor Israel.

Nick Triantos has more than 15 years of experience in software engineering and engineering management. Prior to his current position at TokBox, Nick served as Chief Software Architect at NVIDIA, where his teams built cross-platform, advanced 3D graphics software, and real time JIT compilers. An expert in computer graphics and system software architecture, he also has work experience in the set-top box, console games and business productivity software markets, from his previous work at Navio, 3DO, and Claris.

BioLineRx (TASE: BLRX), a clinical stage drug development company, disclosed positive results from a Phase 2a trial of BL-1020, a GABA-enhanced antipsychotic. BL-1020 showed statistically significant efficacy with no significant change in weight and no increase in extrapyramidal symptoms at study completion.

The trial was an open label, 6-week study conducted under Good Clinical Practices guidelines designed to determine the safety and maximum tolerated dose of BL-1020 in schizophrenic patients. The study was conducted on 36 refractory hospitalized patients of whom only 3 withdrew early from the study. Patients were started on 32mg (20mg free base) of BL-1020 and received increasing dosages over the first 7 days in order to reach the maximum dose of 64 mg (40mg free base). Significant improvement was seen already after 7 days of treatment.

The results of the study were as follows:

• Patients being treated with BL-1020 experienced a statistically significant improvement from baseline in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Clinical Global Impression of Severity and Improvement (CGI-S; CGI-I), which are widely recognized measures of severity and improvement in schizophrenia.

• No severe or unexpected adverse effects occurred in the trial. There was no significant increase in extrapyramidal symptoms at the end of the trial, and no significant change in weight. No notable findings on ECG, laboratory values or vital signs. All adverse events were characterized as minimal and not treatment limiting.

• Only 3 patients out of 36 withdrew from the trial, reflecting a low level of patient withdrawal in comparison with other drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia. Such high compliance is indicative of the efficacy and tolerability of BL-1020.