The X Factor Announces Top 6
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The X Factor
11/29/2012 at 09:40 PM EST
From left; Demi Lovato, Britney Spears and Simon Cowell
FOX
Mario Lopez called the first elimination on Thursday's The X Factor a "bit of a shocker."
And so was the second.
The top eight contestants sang No. 1 hits Wednesday in an emotional night. Keep reading to find out which two performers were sent packing – and who's in season 2's top six ...
Paige Thomas was the first to go – which is shocking because she toned down her over-the-top performing style to sing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" like a like a "legitimate pop star," according to Simon Cowell.
That left Demi Lovato with just one singer on her team: CeCe Frey, who was told (by Cowell) to "pack her bags" Wednesday after her performance of "Lady Marmalade."
But L.A. Reid's contestant Vino Alan and Team Britney's Diamond White were in the bottom two and had to sing for survival. He performed "Trouble" and she sang Beyoncé's "I Was Here."
L.A. voted to send home Diamond; Britney returned the favor and voted to send home Vino. Demi voted Vino out as well. That left Simon ... and he fell in line with the female panelists, voting to get rid of Vino. Either one would have been a shock but Vino had been ranked third last week.
Here's how the top six rank this week:
1. Carly Rose Sonenclar
2. Tate Stevens
3. Emblem3
4. Fifth Harmony
5. CeCe Frey
6. Diamond White
Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals
Label: HealthCHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.
A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.
Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.
Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.
The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.
Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.
"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."
Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.
Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.
The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.
To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.
The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Online:
Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org
American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
Wall Street jumps in another "fiscal cliff" swing
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rallied on Wednesday after comments from House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, on a possible compromise to avoid the "fiscal cliff" turned the market around.
The S&P 500 rebounded from a 1 percent decline, gaining more than 20 points from its low after Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes can be worked out. President Barack Obama added to the good feelings, saying he hoped to get a deal done in the next four weeks.
Whether or not those remarks reflect the reality of negotiations is another story.
"The fiscal cliff is dominating the discussion, and short term, we're a little bit too optimistic on it being fixed right away," said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in New York.
In expectation of higher dividend tax rates in 2013, companies have been shifting dividends or announcing special payouts to shareholders.
Costco Wholesale Corp
The market's move marked the second straight day where a leading legislator dictated trading action. On Tuesday, stocks fell on pessimistic remarks from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.
The market has been swinging for weeks now on headlines from Washington, with Wednesday's gyrations once again highlighting the importance that Wall Street is giving to finding a solution to avoid the series of tax increases and spending cuts that could push the U.S. economy into recession.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 106.98 points, or 0.83 percent, to 12,985.11 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 10.99 points, or 0.79 percent, to 1,409.93. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 23.99 points, or 0.81 percent, to close at 2,991.78.
The S&P 500 bounced off a strong support area near 1,385 that includes both its 200- and 14-day moving averages. It closed above 1,400 for the third session in four - an optimistic sign for stock bulls.
Knight Capital Group Inc
Apparel retailer Express Inc
The S&P retail index <.spxrt> gained 1.4 percent.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
Nearly 6.1 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.
On the NYSE, roughly seven stocks rose for every three that fell, and on Nasdaq, five issues rose for every three that fell.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Egypt assembly seeks to wrap up constitution
Label: WorldCAIRO (Reuters) - The assembly writing Egypt's constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.
But as Mursi's opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly's bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.
Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi's decree.
The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi's controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.
It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.
But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.
The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt's future.
The assembly's legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.
"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be "a great day".
"If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately," he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.
ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM
Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.
"The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street," said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.
But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would "entrench authoritarianism".
The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months - extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.
The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.
The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.
"It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary," he said.
Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.
Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.
COURTS DECLARE STRIKE
Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.
The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.
"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.
Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.
In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.
"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.
Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.
Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.
The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.
Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.
A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)
Samsung takes aim at Japanese rivals with Android camera
Label: TechnologySEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co is taking aim at its Japanese rivals with an Android-powered digital camera that allows users to swiftly and wirelessly upload pictures to social networking sites.
The Galaxy camera lets users connect to a mobile network or Wi-Fi to share photographs and video without having to hook up the camera to a computer.
While it’s not the first to the market, Samsung‘s financial and marketing clout suggest it could be the biggest threat to Japanese domination of a digital camera industry which research firm Lucintel sees growing to $ 46 billion by 2017 and where big brands include Canon Inc, Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp, Nikon Corp and Olympus Corp.
“Samsung has a tough row to hoe against the likes of Canon and Nikon in the camera brand equity landscape,” said Liz Cutting, senior imaging analyst at research firm NPD Group. “Yet as a brand known more in the connected electronic device arena, Samsung has a unique opportunity to transfer strength from adjacent categories into the dedicated camera world.”
The Korean group, battling for mobile gadget supremacy against Apple Inc, is already a global market leader in televisions, smartphones and memory chips.
Samsung last year brought its camera and digital imaging business – one of its smallest – under the supervision of JK Shin, who heads a mobile business that generated 70 percent of Samsung’s $ 7.4 billion third-quarter profit.
“Our camera business is quickly evolving … and I think it will be able to set a new landmark for Samsung,” Shin said on Thursday at a launch event in Seoul. “The product will open a new chapter in communications – visual communications,” he said, noting good reviews for the Samsung Galaxy camera which went on sale in Europe and the United States earlier this month.
AIMING AT ‘PRO-SUMERS’
The Galaxy camera, which sells in the United States for $ 499.99 through AT&T with various monthly data plans, features a 4.8-inch LCD touchscreen and a 21x optical zoom lens. Users can send photos instantly to other mobile devices via a 4G network, access the Internet, email and social network sites, edit photos and play games.
The easy-to-use camera, and the quality of the pictures, is aimed at mid-market ‘pro-sumers’ – not quite professional photographers but those who don’t mind paying a premium for user options not yet available on a smartphone – such as an optical, rather than digital, zoom, better flash, and image stabilization.
The appeal of high picture quality cameras with wireless connection has grown as social media services such as Facebook Inc drive a boom in rapid shoot-and-share photos.
“At a price point higher than some entry-level interchangeable-lens cameras, the Galaxy camera should appeal to a consumer willing to pay an initial and ongoing premium for 24/7 creative interactivity,” said Cutting.
Traditional digital camera makers are responding.
Canon, considered a leader in profitability in corporate Japan with its aggressive cost cutting, saw its compact camera sales eroded in the most recent quarter by smartphones, and has just introduced its first mirrorless camera to tap into a growing market for small, interchangeable-lens cameras that rival Nikon entered last year.
Nikon has also recently introduced an Android-embedded Wi-Fi only camera.
($ 1 = 1086.4000 Korean won)
(This story fixes typing error in paragraph 9)
(Additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in NEW YORK; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Angus T. Jones Is Not Leaving Two and a Half Men: Source
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
By Elizabeth Leonard
11/28/2012 at 07:50 PM EST
The Half is back!
Ever since Angus T. Jones bashed Two and a Half Men in a now-viral video, it begged the question: Will the 19-year-old actor return to the hit show?
If he has it his way, he will.
"Angus expects to report to work after the holiday break in January," says a source close to the star. "He intends to honor his contract through the end of the season."
Jones, who called the show "filth" and urged viewers in a video interview on a religious website to stop watching, issued an apology Tuesday night, saying he has the "highest regard" for the "wonderful people" on the show.
Although Jones is not featured in an episode that tapes next week, he intends to show up on schedule after the break, the source says.
In the meantime, the source adds, "Angus is feeling positive and he is concentrating on spending some downtime with family and friends."
CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.
The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.
Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.
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Online:
CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns
Wall Street falls, hit by Reid's "fiscal cliff" comments
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Tuesday in a choppy session, losing ground in the last hour before the close after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed disappointment that there has been "little progress" in dealing with the "fiscal cliff."
The market was flat for most of the session but fell sharply after Reid's comments, a signal that investors remain skittish about the wrangling in Washington. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, rose on Reid's words.
"It may be that the market feels the goodwill before (last week's) Thanksgiving is evolving into more political intransigence," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark.
"The clock is ticking on Wall Street, regarding a framework for (political) consensus," she said.
Markets are focused on whether Congress and the White House can agree on ways to avoid some $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are due to kick in early next year.
As budget talks linger, Las Vegas Sands
Higher dividend and capital gains taxes are part of the negotiations in Washington and may rise even if a deal is crafted.
Las Vegas Sands jumped 5.3 percent to $46.36. Supertex rose 6.9 percent to $18.
The S&P 500's modest losses on Tuesday marked its worst day in eight sessions - indicating traders are unwilling to sell aggressively as a deal probably would trigger a rally. The benchmark S&P 500 once again closed below 1,400, a key psychological level that it had reclaimed last week as it rose nearly 4 percent.
The VIX <.vix> shot up 2.7 percent to 15.92 at the close. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in New York, the VIX was up 3.9 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 89.24 points, or 0.69 percent, to 12,878.13 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 7.35 points, or 0.52 percent, to finish at 1,398.94. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 8.99 points, or 0.30 percent, to end at 2,967.79.
Dealings in Washington obscured strong economic figures, including an increase in planned business spending and consumer confidence hitting its highest level in more than four years.
Strengthening the case for a sustained rebound in housing, single-family home prices rose for an eighth straight month in September. Shares of M/I Homes
"As long as you have interest rates as low as they are right now, housing is definitely back," said Brian Amidei, managing director at HighTower Advisors in Palm Desert, California.
In another good sign for consumer demand, Corning Inc
Food maker Ralcorp Holdings
McMoRan Exploration Co
About 5.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.5 billion shares.
On the NYSE, roughly five issues fell for every four that rose. On Nasdaq, six stocks fell for every five that rose.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Egyptians challenge Mursi in nationwide protests
Label: WorldCAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied on Tuesday against President Mohamed Mursi in one of the biggest outpourings of protest since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, accusing the Islamist leader of seeking to impose a new era of autocracy.
Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets near the main protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, heart of the uprising that toppled Mubarak last year. Clashes between Mursi's opponents and supporters erupted in a city north of Cairo.
But violence could not overshadow the show of strength by the normally divided opponents of Islamists in power, posing Mursi with the biggest challenge in his five months in office.
"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters in Tahrir chanted, echoing slogans used in the 2011 revolt.
Protesters also turned out in Alexandria, Suez, Minya and other Nile Delta cities.
Tuesday's unrest by leftists, liberals and other groups deepened the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June, and exposed the deep divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.
A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling tear gas in Cairo, the second death since Mursi last week issued a decree that expanded his powers and barred court challenges to his decisions.
Mursi's administration has defended the decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation in the Arab world's most populous country.
"Calls for civil disobedience and strikes will be dealt with strictly by law and there is no retreat from the decree," Refa'a Al-Tahtawy, Mursi's presidential chief of staff, told the Al-Hayat private satellite channel.
But opponents say Mursi is behaving like a modern-day pharaoh, a jibe once leveled at Mubarak. The United States, a benefactor to Egypt's military, has expressed concern about more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel.
"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini said in Cairo.
The fractious ranks of Egypt's non-Islamist opposition have been united on the street by crisis, although they have yet to build an electoral machine to challenge the well-organized Islamists, who have beaten their more secular-minded rivals at the ballot box in two elections held since Mubarak was ousted.
MISCALCULATION
"There are signs that over the last couple of days that Mursi and the Brotherhood realized their mistake," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations. He said the protests were "a very clear illustration of how much of a political miscalculation this was".
Mursi's move provoked a rebellion by judges and has battered confidence in an economy struggling after two years of turmoil. The president still must implement unpopular measures to rein in Egypt's crushing budget deficit - action needed to finalize a deal for a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan.
Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in Tahrir and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds have been injured.
Supporters and opponents of Mursi threw stones at each other and some hurled petrol bombs in the Delta city of el-Mahalla el-Kubra. Medical sources said almost 200 people were injured.
"The main demand is to withdraw the constitutional declaration (decree). This is the point," said Amr Moussa, a former Arab League chief and presidential candidate who has joined the new opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front. The group includes several top liberal politicians.
Some scholars from the prestigious al-Azhar mosque and university joined Tuesday's protest, showing that Mursi and his Brotherhood have alienated some more moderate Muslims. Members of Egypt's large Christian minority also joined in.
Mursi formally quit the Brotherhood on taking office, saying he would be a president for all Egyptians, but he is still a member of its Freedom and Justice Party.
The decree issued on Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament, expected in the first half of 2013.
In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney urged demonstrators to behave peacefully.
"The current constitutional impasse is an internal Egyptian situation that can only be resolved by the Egyptian people, through peaceful democratic dialogue," he told reporters.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the decree gives Mursi more power than the interim military junta from which he took over.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an Austrian paper he would encourage Mursi to resolve the issue by dialogue.
DECREE'S SCOPE DEBATABLE
Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance. That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was room for interpretation.
In another step to avoid more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled plans for a rival mass rally in Cairo on Tuesday to support the decree. Violence has flared in Cairo in the past when both sides have taken to the streets.
But there has been no retreat on other elements of the decree, including a stipulation that the Islamist-dominated body writing a new constitution be protected from legal challenge.
"The decree must be cancelled and the constituent assembly should be reformed. All intellectuals have left it and now it is controlled by Islamists," said 50-year-old Noha Abol Fotouh.
With its popular legitimacy undermined by the withdrawal of most of its non-Islamist members, the assembly faces a series of court cases from plaintiffs who say it was formed illegally.
Mursi issued the decree on November 22, a day after he won U.S. and international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas around the Gaza Strip.
Mursi's decree was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era, when the Brotherhood was outlawed.
Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.
Rulings from an array of courts this year have dealt a series of blows to the Brotherhood, leading to the dissolution of the first constitutional assembly and the lower house of parliament elected a year ago. The Brotherhood dominated both.
The judiciary blocked an attempt by Mursi to reconvene the Brotherhood-led parliament after his election victory. It also stood in the way of his attempt to sack the prosecutor general, another Mubarak holdover, in October.
In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack that prosecutor and appoint a new one. In open defiance of Mursi, some judges are refusing to acknowledge that step.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Seham Eloraby, Marwa Awad and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood/Mark Heinrich)
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