Sunday, June 23, 2013

Video: Prices Rising For Cape Cod Mansions

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52277259/

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Big hail, wild winds sweeping through Plains, Upper Midwest

By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News

Large hail and damaging winds were expected to pummel the northern Plains and Upper Midwest on Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service forecast, with storms already reported to have hit parts of South Dakota and Nebraska.

Brief but brutal storms battered eastern South Dakota on Friday afternoon, ripping through homes and trees, according to NBC station KDLT in Sioux Falls.

At least four tornadoes were seen sweeping through rural areas of Nebraska?s southern Panhandle, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Storm watchers reportedly spotted a twister and golf-ball-sized hail in the city of Sidney on Friday afternoon, the newspaper reported. There were similar sightings in the cities of Colton, Brownson and Potter.

Harsh hail and wild winds could roll into Wisconsin and Michigan overnight, according to Dr. Greg Forbes, a severe weather expert with The Weather Channel. The Upper Midwest may also be due for a weekend of heavy rainfall, Forbes added.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2da0b348/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C210C190A80A4190Ebig0Ehail0Ewild0Ewinds0Esweeping0Ethrough0Eplains0Eupper0Emidwest0Dlite/story01.htm

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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Iraq attacks kill more than 30

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Shi'ite mosque in northern Baghdad killing at least 12 people during evening prayers, police and medics said, in the deadliest of a series of attacks that claimed more than 30 lives across Iraq on Saturday.

Sectarian tensions in Iraq and the wider region have been inflamed by the civil war in Syria, where mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.

Insurgents including al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate have been regaining ground and recruits from the country's Sunni minority, which feels sidelined since the U.S.-led invasion toppled former dictator Saddam Hussein and empowered majority Shi'ites.

"A suicide bomber blew himself up among the worshippers in the middle of evening prayer. There were bodies drenched in blood and others shouting for help while smoke filled the mosque," said a policeman at the scene.

A further 25 people were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Sab al-Bor district near Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

Scattered attacks across the country throughout the day killed at least 22 others, around half of them in or near the northern city of Mosul, where a suicide bomber killed four people at a police checkpoint.

In the western province of Anbar, which shares a border with Syria, militants detonated two car bombs near a checkpoint and attacked it with rocket-propelled grenades, killing five policemen.

Two people were killed when gunmen hurled a hand grenade at a gathering of laborers in Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, and a roadside bomb near some restaurants in the center of the capital killed two more.

More than 1,000 people were killed in Iraq in May alone, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006-07.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem, Kamal Naama and Ziad al-Sanjary; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-kills-12-shiite-mosque-baghdad-police-181517624.html

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Fighter jets to provide training in Jordan (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314398961?client_source=feed&format=rss

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From mites to NHL, nicknames a hockey tradition

CHICAGO (AP) ? The best names in the NHL are the ones that never make the roster.

Or get used by Mom.

Tazer. Little Ball of Hate. The Great One. Sid the Kid. Looch (who also goes by Gino). The Bulin Wall. Kells.

"There's always someone, or a few guys, that want to call you different things," said Chicago Blackhawks left wing Brandon Saad, dubbed "The ManChild" by his teammates. "I guess it's just part of the camaraderie of the sport and the guys being close. I'm not really sure of the exact science."

Anyone who has ever played a sport knows that nicknames are part of the game, a byproduct of both competition and camaraderie. But hockey players have taken it to an art form.

From the littlest mite to the NHL's biggest stars, everyone's got a moniker ? and usually more than one. Most are simplistic, involving the addition or subtraction of a letter or two. Shorten a last name, tack on an 's' or a 'y' ('ie' also works) and, voila! Instant nickname. Patrice Bergeron becomes "Bergy." Brent Seabrook is "Seabs" or "Seabsy."

If a player's last name only has one syllable, just add an 'r' or a 'y' (the 'ie' rule applies here, as well). Patrick Kane is now forever known as "Kaner," while Patrick Sharp, his occasional partner on Chicago's second line, is "Sharpie."

And anyone whose last name is Campbell is automatically "Soup" or "Soupy."

"Pretty boring," said Boston Bruins center Chris Kelly, who is known as, you guessed it, "Kells." ''I wish we came up with cooler nicknames."

But the beauty of the simplicity is in its versatility. It can be applied to almost any name, regardless of nationality.

Jaromir Jagr? Jags. Alex Ovechkin? Ovie. Marty Turco? Turks.

It even works with Bruins left wing Kaspars Daugavins.

"We call him Doggie," Kelly said.

But just as there are exceptions to every grammatical rule, there are some names that defy the conventions of hockey nicknamification. Or lend themselves to some added creativity.

Blackhawks right wing Jamal Mayers is "Jammer" ? not to be confused with Chicago defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson, who is "Hammer." Edmonton goalie Nikolai Khabibulin is "The Bulin Wall." Henrik Lundqvist, he of the 2012 Vezina Trophy, seven straight 30-win seasons and Olympic gold medal in 2006, is, simply, King Henrik.

Other monikers come about because of something a player does on the ice.

Hall of Famer Max Bentley was known as the "Dipsy Doodle Dandy from Delisle" because of his silky-smooth style of evading opponents. Steve Yzerman thought Johan Franzen looked like "a mule" whizzing around the ice as a rookie back in 2005. The nickname stuck. Phoenix enforcer Paul Bissonnette is "BizNasty."

And some nicknames just happen.

Boston forward Brad Marchand is now called the "Little Ball of Hate," thanks to President Barack Obama. But the nickname originally belonged to Pat Verbeek of the New York Rangers. He got it because teammate Glenn Healy had already dubbed Ray Ferraro the "Big Ball of Hate."

"It's just a bunch of guys probably acting a little bit younger than they should and goofing around," said Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, known as "Tazer" or "Captain Serious."

But it's also a nod to hockey's roots, a reminder that no matter how big the NHL becomes, it's not that far removed from its quaint history of small towns and backyard ponds.

"It goes back to the fact that hockey, more than baseball, for example, was a Canadian frontier game ... and the large majority of players came from small areas," said Stan Fischler, the MSG hockey analyst and leading NHL historian.

"(The NHL) is a multibillion-dollar industry. But at the same time, it does have a folksy, family feel about it," Fischler said.

Indeed, not only does everyone have a nickname, but everyone uses them, too.

Imagine LeBron James' teammates calling him "Jamesy" or "Headband." Or Gregg Popovich referring to Tim Duncan as "Duncs."

It would never happen.

Yet Chicago coach Joel Quenneville routinely refers to his players by their nicknames, and sometimes is the one who comes up with them. The next Blackhawk to call Kane Patrick will be the first.

"That's part of the beauty part of hockey," Fischler said. "Apart from the intensity on the ice, it's a very friendly sport."

___

AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mites-nhl-nicknames-hockey-tradition-212142463.html

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US to Hong Kong: Don't delay Snowden extradition

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration on Saturday sharply warned Hong Kong against slow-walking the extradition of Edward Snowden, reflecting concerns over a prolonged legal battle before the government contractor ever appears in a U.S. courtroom to answer espionage charges for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs.

A formal extradition request to bring Snowden to the United States from Hong Kong could drag through appeal courts for years and would pit Beijing against Washington at a time China tries to deflect U.S. accusations that it carries out extensive surveillance on American government and commercial operations.

The U.S. has contacted authorities in Hong Kong to seek Snowden's extradition, the National Security Council said Saturday in a statement. The NSC advises the president on national security.

"Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case," White House national security adviser Tom Donilon said in an interview with CBS News. He said the U.S. presented Hong Kong with a "good case for extradition."

However, a senior administration official issued a pointed warning that if Hong Kong doesn't act soon, "it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law." The official was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and insisted on anonymity.

Hong Kong's government had no immediate reaction to the charges against Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who admitted providing information to the news media about the programs. Police Commissioner Andy Tsang told reporters only that the case would be dealt with according to the law. A police statement said it was "inappropriate" for the police to comment on the case.

A one-page criminal complaint against Snowden was unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., part of the Eastern District of Virginia where his former employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered, in McLean. He is charged with unauthorized communication of national defense information, willful communication of classified communications intelligence information and theft of government property. The first two are under the Espionage Act and each of the three crimes carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on conviction.

The complaint is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in two highly classified surveillance programs, gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.

Snowden told the South China Morning Post in an interview published Saturday on its website that he hoped to stay in the autonomous region of China because he has faith in "the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate."

A prominent former politician in Hong Kong, Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said he doubted whether Beijing would intervene yet.

"Beijing would only intervene according to my understanding at the last stage. If the magistrate said there is enough to extradite, then Mr. Snowden can then appeal," he said.

Lee said Beijing could then decide at the end of the appeal process if it wanted Snowden extradited or not.

Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution.

Hong Kong lawyer Mark Sutherland said that the filing of a refugee, torture or inhuman punishment claim acts as an automatic bar on any extradition proceedings until those claims can be assessed.

"Some asylum seekers came to Hong Kong 10 years ago and still haven't had their protection claims assessed," Sutherland said.

Hong Kong lawmakers said that the Chinese government should make the final decision on whether Snowden should be extradited to the United States.

Outspoken legislator Leung Kwok-hung said Beijing should instruct Hong Kong to protect Snowden from extradition before his case gets dragged through the court system.

Leung urged the people of Hong Kong to "take to the streets to protect Snowden."

The Obama administration has now used the Espionage Act in seven criminal cases in an unprecedented effort to stem leaks. In one of them, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged he sent more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and other materials to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. His military trial is underway.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges against Snowden.

"I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S."

But the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower advocacy group, said Snowden should be shielded from prosecution by whistle-blower protection laws.

"He disclosed information about a secret program that he reasonably believed to be illegal, and his actions alone brought about the long-overdue national debate about the proper balance between privacy and civil liberties, on the one hand, and national security on the other," the group said in a statement.

Michael di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990 to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel are historically quite good."

"In my time, I felt the degree of cooperation was outstanding to the extent that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," di Pretoro said.

The U.S. and Hong Kong have a standing agreement on the surrender of fugitives. However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition proceeding.

The success or failure of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honor the extradition request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.

Disclosure of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board and as his intelligence chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.

The five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room, questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked controversy.

One program collects billions of U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably some Americans in the process, who use major Internet service providers, such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-hong-kong-dont-delay-snowden-extradition-214453115.html

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Lindau 2013: Chemistry and diversity

This blog post originates from the Lindau Nobel Online Community,the interactive forum of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, dedicated to chemistry, will be held in Lindau, Germany, from 30 June to 5 July 2013. 35 Nobel Laureates will congregate to meet more than 600 young researchers from approximately 80 countries.

Ashutosh (Ash) Jogalekar is part of the official blog team. Please find all of his postings in the Community blog.

This year I again have the great pleasure of blogging from the 2013 Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates held in the scenic city of Lindau in Germany, this time focused on chemistry. I blogged for the meeting in 2009 and had a wholly unique time interacting with Nobel Laureates and about 600 hand-picked students from all around the world. The official purpose of the meeting ? which has been held since 1951 ? is the transfer of knowledge between generations and the event always amply serves the purpose.

As a prelude to the actual meeting which starts on June 30th, I have started writing a few posts on their website which is hosted by Nature. Over the next two weeks I will be cross-posting my pieces on this blog. I look forward to a week full of exciting scientific interactions between young and old blood.

My first post talks the central role of diversity in the science of chemistry.

Chemistry and diversity: Inseparable partners

Scientists come in two flavors, unifiers and diversifiers. Unifiers try to find the common threads underlying disparate phenomena. Diversifiers try to find more disparate phenomena for the unifiers to unify. Occasionally a diversifier may wear a unifier?s hat and consolidate what he knows and sometimes a unifier may take a break from his grand goal and revel in the details, but by and large the demarcation stands.

As the history of science demonstrates, both diversifiers and unifiers are necessary for the creation of new ideas and growth of the scientific enterprise. But there are also certain periods and fields where one or the other type of scientist has been dominant. Physics provides a particularly interesting case where the goal of unification has driven the field for several hundred years. From Aristotle?s dream of seeing the world through the common lens of four ?elements? to modern string theorists? dream of reducing the laws governing the universe to an abstract mathematical object, physics has always been particularly fruitful for unifiers. Yet there have been periods such as the fact-gathering era of the early nineteenth century when diversifiers have reigned.

If physics has been principally driven by unification, chemistry has mainly been a diversifier?s game. For a long time, what was known as ?chemistry? consisted of the accumulation of facts about the nature of substances, including ordinary properties like color, smell and physical state combined with increasing knowledge of the transformation that these substances undergo. For all the scorn that they invoke, the alchemists were great diversifiers, carefully listing the fruits of their feverish labors to turn base metals into gold and creating much of the basic equipment that is a mainstay of today?s chemical laboratories.

The first modern attempt at unification came at the end of the eighteenth century when Antoine Lavoisier classified substances into elements, compounds and mixtures. Lavoisier inaugurated a great age of unification in chemistry. His discoveries were followed about thirty years later by Friedrich W?hler?s watershed synthesis of urea from common inorganic substances, an act that unified inorganic and biological chemistry. The synthesis of urea signaled the beginning of the science of organic chemistry and the beginning of the end for the regressive doctrine of vitalism.?W?hler?s discoveries were followed by the development of the structural theory of chemistry by scientists like Friedrich Kekule, Justig von Liebig, Archibald Couper and Alexander Butlerov which gave concrete shape to what until then had been mere placeholder names. Chemical substances could now be represented on paper as discrete collections of atoms making up molecules. The culmination of chemical unification in the nineteenth century came with Dimitri Mendeleev who put the classification of disparate elements on a firm footing based on atomic weights. Mendeleev also demonstrated how unification could be a potent tool for the prediction of unknown properties.

The twentieth century has been a particularly striking example of how both unification and diversification play key roles in chemistry. The greatest act of chemical unification during this time was the success of Linus Pauling and other scientists in creating a theory of the chemical bond, a development that was directly based on the quantum mechanical revolution in physics. The work of quantum chemists made it possible to come up with common explanations for thousands of disparate chemical facts. Why are certain substances solids while others are liquids? Why do certain compounds dissolve in water while others don?t? What kind of bonds distinguish inorganic compounds from organic ones? What holds the structure of biological molecules together? Hundreds of such questions could be answered using the basic theory of chemical bonding combined with a potent tool ? x-ray crystallography. The theory of bonding provided tantalizing explanations, but it was crystallography that allowed us to confirm the common provenance of molecules and the true nature of the chemical bond. A parallel thread of unification in organic chemistry was led by the American chemist Robert Burns Woodward who, through his spectacular syntheses of complex natural products, demonstrated the unifying role that a few good chemical principles can serve.

Yet we saw that quantum chemistry did not do away with other fields of chemistry any more than quantum physics did away with other fields of physics. Diversifiers were still needed to do experiments. Chemistry is first and foremost an experimental science, and no amount of theorizing can diminish the value of the simple experiment revealing novel phenomena. The equations of quantum chemistry may be explanatory in principle, but in practice they are too complicated to explain or predict the most interesting chemical facts. We still have to experimentally determine the nature of the colors of a flower petal, the operating principle of the scent of ambergris, the drug staving off the cruel march of Alzheimer?s disease, the semiconducting material that would lead to the next breakthrough in electronics and the dye that could revolutionize the practice of solar energy. Theorists will aid all these discoveries but they will principally come from diverse experimenters.

Another important aspect of chemistry is the ability to create diversity through unity. For instance, Woodward may have brought powerful unifying principles to bear on his syntheses, but the sheer diversity of the substances which he synthesized ? ranging from cholesterol to vitamin B12 ? is clear. Even Woodward?s predecessor?W?hler paradoxically initiated a push toward diversity; by demonstrating that biological substances could in fact be potentially made from simple inorganic ones, he opened a window into appreciating the astonishing variety of molecules that evolution has fashioned from a limited sampling of building blocks. This is in fact a recurring theme and here are two more examples: The common molecular features that enable us to probe molecular structure using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy allow us to explore the subtle differences between molecules. In another case, you can use a single kind of reaction such as palladium catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling to create libraries of diverse molecules. Chemistry is a particularly striking example of a science where diversity and unity piggyback on each other?s successes.

The range of diverse activities in chemistry is also apparent in the number of chemical specialties that have sprouted up in the last few decades. Their practitioners have given them fancy names like chemical biology, neurochemistry, nanochemistry and astrochemistry. There are unifying themes between all of these ? as well as, one suspects, some branding of old wine in new bottles ? but the practitioners of these disciplines consider themselves to be distinct enough to engage separate field of research. Diversity in chemistry is alive and kicking, certainly at the level of departments, conferences and funding.

There is another, deeper sense in which chemistry more than physics is a world of diversity. The equations of quantum mechanics do not help us understand the workings of brain chemistry not only because they are too complicated to solve in real time but because they deal with a different level of abstraction. One of the great philosophical paradigms of the twentieth century has been the discovery of emergent phenomena as a distinctive aspect of physical and biological systems. This paradigm demonstrated how, as we build up from atoms to molecules to cells to people, every level contains its own fundamental laws that cannot be directly mapped on to their underlying platforms. Quantum chemistry is quantum physics, but it?s more than that. And biochemistry is certainly chemistry, but in heralding the transition from nonliving matter to life, it shows itself capable of achieving something more than what simple chemistry can.

Diversity has a dominant role in allowing chemistry to account for emergent phenomena. Diversifiers can provide both the theoretical and experimental wherewithal to navigate the contours of these multiple levels of understanding, but when it comes to actually uncovering the raw facts of emergence, at this point in history experiments are far ahead of theory. At some point we will have a concrete theoretical framework that accounts for the chemical transition between living and nonliving matter for instance, but until then experiments must lead the way.

Chemistry has integrated itself in the working of the world at multiple levels, but at each level it demands separate explanatory frameworks that have lives of their own. One of the enduring challenges for chemists is how to use their knowledge of fundamental chemical principles to capture diversity at various levels of problem solving. Using their tools, diversifiers will illuminate corners of the tantalizing darkness. Unifiers can then find connections between these lonely spots which will reveal the grand edifice

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=lindau-2013-chemistry-and-diversity

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Friday, June 21, 2013

DoD-funded research: Can climate change heat up conflict?

DoD-funded research: Can climate change heat up conflict? [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Neil Tickner
ntickner@umd.edu
301-405-4622
University of Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland A University of Maryland-led team of policy experts and scientists is seeking to understand how the impacts of climate change could affect civil conflicts. The team will develop new models of the relationship between conflict, socio-economic conditions and climate. They will use these to project future conflict and develop interventions.

The U.S. Department of Defense is funding the research through a new three-year, $1.9 million grant part of its highly selective Minerva program of social science research.

"It's likely that physical and economic disruptions resulting from climate change could heighten tensions in sensitive areas of the world," says lead researcher Elisabeth Gilmore, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's (UMD) School of Public Policy. "We hope to develop an integrated model to help researchers and policy makers better anticipate civil conflict under a range of climate change scenarios."

For example, Gilmore says that in a region with ongoing conflicts such as sub-Saharan Africa, additional changes in food and water availability, public health crises, and disruptive migration could further destabilize civil order.

The team will use statistical models and case studies to identify the best predictors of climate-related conflict. It will then use this data and a novel simulation method to generate forecasts of conflict over a range of socio-economic and climate change scenarios. Finally, the project will identify a range of military and policy interventions that could reduce the occurrence of civil conflict under climate change.

In addition to Gilmore, the research team includes John Steinbruner, director of UMD's Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM); Halvard Buhaug, research director at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO); Havard Hegre, research professor at PRIO; Katherine Calvin, research scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a UMD collaboration with the Department of Energy; and Stephanie Waldhoff, scientist at JGCRI.

The research grant was awarded by the Defense Department's Minerva Initiative, which aims to improve the department's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the United States. The UMD project is one of only 14 funded by Minerva from a total pool of 280.

UMD also won a Minerva grant in the previous round in 2012, supporting research into radicalization and de-radicalization.

###

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Jonas Siegel
UMD School of Public Policy/CISSM
301-405-4020
jsiegel@umd.edu

Neil Tickner
UMD Communications
301-405-4622
ntickner@umd.edu


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


DoD-funded research: Can climate change heat up conflict? [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Neil Tickner
ntickner@umd.edu
301-405-4622
University of Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland A University of Maryland-led team of policy experts and scientists is seeking to understand how the impacts of climate change could affect civil conflicts. The team will develop new models of the relationship between conflict, socio-economic conditions and climate. They will use these to project future conflict and develop interventions.

The U.S. Department of Defense is funding the research through a new three-year, $1.9 million grant part of its highly selective Minerva program of social science research.

"It's likely that physical and economic disruptions resulting from climate change could heighten tensions in sensitive areas of the world," says lead researcher Elisabeth Gilmore, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's (UMD) School of Public Policy. "We hope to develop an integrated model to help researchers and policy makers better anticipate civil conflict under a range of climate change scenarios."

For example, Gilmore says that in a region with ongoing conflicts such as sub-Saharan Africa, additional changes in food and water availability, public health crises, and disruptive migration could further destabilize civil order.

The team will use statistical models and case studies to identify the best predictors of climate-related conflict. It will then use this data and a novel simulation method to generate forecasts of conflict over a range of socio-economic and climate change scenarios. Finally, the project will identify a range of military and policy interventions that could reduce the occurrence of civil conflict under climate change.

In addition to Gilmore, the research team includes John Steinbruner, director of UMD's Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM); Halvard Buhaug, research director at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO); Havard Hegre, research professor at PRIO; Katherine Calvin, research scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a UMD collaboration with the Department of Energy; and Stephanie Waldhoff, scientist at JGCRI.

The research grant was awarded by the Defense Department's Minerva Initiative, which aims to improve the department's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the United States. The UMD project is one of only 14 funded by Minerva from a total pool of 280.

UMD also won a Minerva grant in the previous round in 2012, supporting research into radicalization and de-radicalization.

###

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Jonas Siegel
UMD School of Public Policy/CISSM
301-405-4020
jsiegel@umd.edu

Neil Tickner
UMD Communications
301-405-4622
ntickner@umd.edu


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uom-drc062113.php

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Kobe Bryant Statue Emerges in China

The English-speaking press is befuddled as to why there is now a bronze statue of LA Lakers legend Kobe Bryant in a sculpture park in Guangzhou, but all you really need to know is that it?s there. On Twitter cross-border sports fan Eddie Robles has shared a photo with anyone who?s interested in checking the statue for accuracy. The only question that remains is: ?Why??

Image via Eddie Robles, via @eds824.

Image via Eddie Robles, via @eds824.

Part of the reasoning, Dan Devine opines on Yahoo News, is pretty transparent. American basketball players are already quite revered in the Middle Kingdom: Stephon Marbury has more than a few?honors?to his name, as does fellow Laker alum Shaquille O?Neal.?Bryant has also traveled to China regularly, either to appear at sports camps, play in exhibition games, or host the odd charity benefit. There?s a chance that the statue?s appearance may even be the product of some savvy PR, though it?s obvious that high-grade sports fandom in China played a role as well.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/flavorwire-rss/~3/-tsfBa0tmvA/kobe-bryant-statue-emerges-in-china

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Does Adding Exercise To a Diet Help Obese Kids? - Health Care ...


"Exercise is important too, but I think we sometimes overemphasize how important exercise is," Bennett, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

Researchers analyzed results from 14 earlier trials that assigned overweight and obese youth to a diet and exercise program or a diet-only intervention. Those programs lasted anywhere from six weeks to six months.



Most studies found kids tended to have a lower body mass index (BMI) - a ratio of weight in relation to height - and a smaller percentage of body fat after completing either type of intervention.

Adding aerobic exercise such as jogging or dance to a restricted-calorie diet had little effect on weight loss.

However, kids who did resistance training lost more body fat than those who didn't exercise, according to the analysis. Strength training for an hour or less each week was tied to an extra half a percent drop in body fat and a greater increase in muscle.

"Exercise does not just burn off calories, more importantly it helps to build muscle mass which is beneficial for long-term weight loss and/or weight maintenance," lead author Mandy Ho, from the University of Sydney, Australia, told Reuters Health in an email.

"This is particularly important for the growing kids because over restricting dietary intake may cause adverse effects on normal growth and development."

Ho and her colleagues found some measures of cholesterol and blood sugar, including insulin and HDL ("good") cholesterol, improved with the addition of regular exercise.

But changes in other levels, such as LDL ("bad") cholesterol, were greater with a diet plan alone.
In many of the studies, kids gained back the weight - and any cholesterol or blood sugar benefits went away - once the programs were over, the study team wrote in JAMA Pediatrics.

Helping young people lose weight, and especially keep it off, has proven a difficult challenge. One recent study, for example, found little evidence that at-home weight loss programs can affect kids' BMI (see Reuters Health story of June 12, 2013 here: reut.rs/1a59b7d).

Bennett said programs that can change both diet and exercise habits probably are most effective. But for parents who are struggling with a heavy child, "diet is absolutely critical," he said.
"That's really where I would tell parents to focus their time."

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Source: http://planehealth.blogspot.com/2013/06/does-adding-exercise-to-diet-help-obese.html

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Colbert delivers moving tribute to his mother

TV

10 hours ago

Image: Stephen Colbert holds up a photo of his mother, Lorna Colbert.

Comedy Central

Stephen Colbert returned to "The Colbert Report" Wednesday night after a one-week absence, and if viewers were unsure why he left in the first place, they soon understood.

At the top of the show, Colbert explained that his 92-year-old mother, Lorna Colbert, passed away last week.

"Now if you watch this show, and you like this show, that's because of everybody who works here, and I'm lucky to be one of them," he said. "But when you watch the show, if you also like me, that's because of my mom."

That statement kicked off a tribute to her, complete with a brief summary of a life well lived -- from her meeting and falling for Colbert's father, James, when she was just 12 years old, to later marrying him and having 11 children.

"She made a very loving home for us," the host recalled. "No fight between siblings could end without hugs and kisses -- though hugs never needed a reason in her house. Singing and dancing were encouraged, except at the dinner table."

Colbert went on to share just how much his mother is already missed.

"I know it may sound greedy to want more days with a person who lived so long," he said. "But the fact that my mother was 92 does not diminish it ... only magnifies the enormity of the room whose door has now quietly shut."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/stephen-colbert-delivers-moving-tribute-after-mothers-death-6C10393155

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US calls out China, Russia over human trafficking

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. accused China and Russia of failing to meet minimum standards in fighting human trafficking, ranking them on a par with North Korea and Syria.

The State Department downgraded China and Russia in rankings on how 188 governments around the world have performed in fighting the flesh trade and other forms of exploitative labor.

Rights activists are welcoming the move, but it could further strain Washington's touchy relations with the two world powers.

The U.S. also downgraded Uzbekistan over its state-sanctioned use of forced labor in the annual cotton harvest.

The rankings are in the department's annual report released Wednesday.

President Barack Obama now has 90 days to determine whether to apply sanctions against China, Russia, Uzbekistan and 18 other governments given a "tier three" ranking ? the lowest the department gives.

The president can block various types of aid, such as arms financing, grants for cultural and educational exchange programs and could withdraw U.S. support for loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

That appears unlikely in the cases of China, Russia and Uzbekistan, which have strategic importance for Washington.

Obama is looking to cooperate more closely with emerging Asian superpower China after meeting its leader Xi Jinping last week; he already faces growing friction with Russia over its support for the Assad regime in war-wracked Syria; and the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan is important as a transit point as the U.S. pulls out its military from Afghanistan.

Because of a legislative requirement that came into force this year, the Obama administration had to make a judgment whether to downgrade or upgrade the three nations from a "watch list" they were on for several years.

Three others in the same position ? Azerbaijan, Congo and Iraq ? were promoted to "tier two" for progress made in the past year.

"Modern-day slavery affects every country in the world, including the United States and every government is responsible for dealing with it and no government is yet doing enough," Secretary of State John Kerry said at the launch of the report, which he conceded "pulls no punches."

"This report is tough because this is a tough issue and it demands serious attention and that's precisely what we intend to provide."

Activists commended Kerry for being willing to downgrade powerful nations.

"Frankly, we expected a number of these countries to be upgraded for geopolitical reasons," said David Abramowitz, director of the U.S.-based Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking. "The Trafficking in Persons report is only effective when it's honest."

John Sifton of Human Rights Watch said it remains to be seen whether the White House will execute sanctions. He urged the administration to do so unless the governments in question commit to fight trafficking.

China responded that it has made "unremitting efforts" that have seen a decrease in human trafficking in the country, and in April its governing State Council issued an plan in accordance with international conventions and Chinese laws, aiming for a long-term solution to the problem.

Geng Shuang, the Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington, said the U.S. report "disregards our efforts in combating human trafficking and makes irresponsible judgment on other countries' internal policy and practice." He called for the U.S. to foster "a more favorable environment" for international anti-trafficking efforts.

The Russian Embassy did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The State Department also put Malaysia and Thailand, a U.S. treaty ally, on notice that they would be downgraded next year to tier three unless they improve anti-trafficking efforts. Abramowitz said it showed that those Southeast Asian nations can't count on their political relationship with the U.S. to avoid censure.

Luis CdeBaca, U.S. ambassador-at-large for human trafficking issues, voiced concern over Thai authorities' treatment of Myanmar migrants, including minority Muslims fleeing a wave of sectarian violence at home. He also referred to "very grave" problems with Malaysia's treatment of trafficking victims, who are held in prison-camp type conditions before deportation.

The Trafficking in Persons report is one of several annual assessments issued by the State Department on human rights-related topics, but it's unusual in that it ranks nations, which can ruffle diplomatic feathers. It is based on the actions governments take, rather than the scale of the problem in their country.

The United States is also scrutinized in the report. It is among 30 countries on "tier one" ? judged to meet minimum standards of combating human trafficking.

According to CdeBaca, the report is intended to prod governments to act and strengthen the hand of civil society organizations in fighting trafficking and forced labor. He said the U.S. seeks to help nations improve their ranking through technical assistance and law enforcement cooperation.

The report criticized China's government for perpetuating trafficking through its use of forced labor in more than 300 state-run prison camps, and its forcible deportation of North Korean trafficking victims, who may face the death penalty on their return home. Girls from Tibet are reportedly trafficked to other parts of China for domestic servitude and forced marriage, it said.

Republican Rep. Chris Smith, an arch critic of Beijing and an author of anti-trafficking legislation, welcomed China's downgrade as recognition that it "has become the sex and labor trafficking capital of the world."

CdeBaca was more conciliatory. He acknowledged China's recent national action plan to combat trafficking, and noted reports China plans to end the practice of re-education through labor. He indicated that if those plans lead to results, it would count in China's favor in next year's report.

On Russia, he said the main concern was authorities' failure to provide care for victims of human trafficking.

An estimated one million people in the country are exposed to "exploitative" labor conditions, including migrants from Europe, Central Asia, and Asia, according to the report. Among them are between 10,000 and 15,000 North Korean workers employed at logging camps in Russia's far east, under an arrangement between the two governments. The workers reportedly have only two days of rest per year and face punishments if they fail to meet production targets.

There are now 25 nations sitting on the department's watch list that could be downgraded to tier three next year. That relegation can be waived for two years, if governments demonstrate they have a plan to address human trafficking and commit resources to implement it.

Of the 25, six countries ? Thailand, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Barbados, Chad and the Maldives ? are entering their second year of being waived. Each faces an automatic downgrade in 2014 unless they demonstrate progress.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-calls-china-russia-over-human-trafficking-201931607.html

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Study on fragile newborns challenges current practices

June 20, 2013 ? One of the largest clinical trials done in infants with congenital (present at birth) heart diseases, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that the increasingly common practice of using the drug clopidogrel (Plavix?) to reduce shunt-related blood flow issues is not effective in the dose studied.

"Once again, pediatric-specific research shows that newborns and infants are not little adults," said David Wessel, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Children's National Medical Center, and lead author on the international study published in the June 20, 2013 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "The take away message for pediatric cardiac care providers is to reconsider use of Plavix? in certain cases. In pediatric medicine, the assumption is that smaller doses of a drug that works in adults will work in infants, but our study shows that this is not true for these young patients. For the parents of these fragile newborns, it is important to understand that research informs best practices, and they need to be informed advocates for their children."

The objective of this international trial, which included more than 900 patients seen across 134 centers in 33 countries, was to evaluate the efficacy of Plavix? compared with placebo for the reduction of all-cause mortality and shunt-related morbidity in neonates and infants with cyanotic congenital heart disease palliated with systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunts. Many forms of congenital heart disease can be repaired in early infancy, and pulmonary blood flow with shunts is an important consideration during initial treatment that may include reconstructive heart surgery for defects in heart ventricles.

As the authors note, effective prevention for thrombosis (blood clots) in neonates and infants with these heart conditions had not been previously tested, although aspirin treatment was associated with significantly lower risk of mortality and shunt thrombosis in a separate registry developed before this trial. Preventive treatment in adult patients who develop clots in coronary arteries often combines aspirin and Plavix?. As happens with many drugs approved for use in adults, Plavix? use is spreading into pediatric practice without sound evidence, according to study authors. In fact, they continue, use of this drug has increased 15-fold from 2001 to 2009 in children's hospitals in the US.

This study showed no benefit from adding Plavix? to current treatment, which often includes aspirin. As noted in the study, the use of Plavix? to address thrombosis in newborns and infants being palliated with systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunts does not reduce all-cause mortality or shunt-related morbidity.

Further analysis (not part of the original trial design) supports the notion that aspirin alone may be effective at reducing the risk of clot formation in these infants. The study authors point out that the trial suggests that switching from aspirin alone to Plavix? alone at the dose studied is not a good idea.

"This is a good illustration of the successful collaboration between industry and academia to conduct clinical research in children under the written request process of FDA's Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA), noted Edward Connor, MD, MBE, Director of Innovation Development at Children's National and internationally recognized expert on drug development. "Studies of drugs in children are essential to inform child health care providers regarding safety and efficacy in this population. The need for data in newborns is especially important, given known developmental differences in this population compared to adults."

With the enactment of the Pediatric Provisions of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) in 2012, BPCA and the Pediatric Research Equity Act have become permanent, providing both requirements and incentives for the conduct of clinical trials in children. FDASIA recognizes the value of conducting studies in the neonates and enables FDA to add personnel with expertise in newborns. Incentives to manufacturers include patent extensions if a trial is properly designed, executed, and approved by the FDA.

Worldwide, heart defects are the most common congenital birth defect; tens of thousands of children are born with heart defects each year, and many of these defects can be treated with medications or with procedures, including reconstructive surgery or interventional catheterization.

The Clopidogrel to Lower Arterial Thrombotic Risk in Neonates and Infants Trial (CLARINET) was a double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel group, event driven trial. The study was sponsored by a collaboration between Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/mSCSydLf-go/130620142940.htm

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Interpreter rapidly signs to Wu-Tang rappers

5 hours ago

If you've ever had trouble keeping up with rapid fire hip-hop lyrics, especially those of the multi-member group Wu-Tang Clan, well, try singing along with your hands.

A new viral video featured on the website Now This News shows Wu-Tang performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee last Friday. Just below the stage is an American Sign Language interpreter identified as Holly, rapidly rapping along in the 25-second clip.

Holly does an excellent job of keeping up with at least eight guys on stage with mics, and puts more effort into feeling the beat than any of them.

Now This News also points to this awesome Vine of Holly doing her thing for R. Kelly, also at Bonnaroo.

The viral goodness of it all is reminiscent of the popularity of Lydia Callis, the interpreter for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Callis rose to fame because of her work during news conferences in the midst of Hurricane Sandy last fall.

And a college student named Anna scored almost 4 million YouTube views with her interpretation of Cee Lo Green's popular (and profane) hit "F--- You" from a couple years ago during a final for a sign language class she was taking.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/sign-language-interpreter-rapidly-raps-her-hands-wu-tang-clan-6C10382052

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How to Offer Smarter Online Customer Support on ... - The Next Web

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This post is brought to you by Sprint.


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This is part one of a two-part series looking at working smarter, remotely. Look out for part two tomorrow.

The dawn of social media changed the way that businesses do support for their customers for good. Businesses that have already transformed themselves in order to offer their wares 24/7 with the advent of e-commerce, but now they need to provide support and interaction with their customers all the time too.

Social media provides a fantastic opportunity for small and medium businesses to engage with their customers and build relationships like never before. For the first time ever, it allows a brand to have a friendly face that?s always there and they?re able to seek help from. Not only this, but it allows customers to become brand ambassadors that share promotional content for you.

It gets even better on the go, with smartphones offering the opportunity to interact with potential and existing customers wherever you are, no matter the time of day. This might be viewed as a negative thing for your personal life, but the benefits are much greater than you could imagine. Companies from a big bank like?Kiwibank?to?Chow,?a restaurant in Wellington, New Zealand, are using social media to interact with their customers and offer them help, information and sometimes to run promotions.

There are a bunch of great tools that allow you to manage your support channels on the go, so we?ve got a quick round-up of a few for you here:

Facebook Pages Manager

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If your business has a Facebook presence, this is the app for you. Facebook Pages Manager allows you to manage your company profile on the go such as being able to respond to comments on your wall or to make a status update about an issue you?re having.

Not only that, but you can also quickly view statistics about your page interactions and how many likes you have, making it the ultimate tool to look after the Facebook side of things.

Facebook Pages Manager is available for Android and iPhone.

Hootsuite

mzl.zeijbzbd.320x480 75 How to offer smarter online customer support on the go

Hopefully you?re already managing your business? Twitter accounts with a tool like Hootsuite. If you?re not, Hootsuite is an application for Twitter that allows you to manage a company account better. It offers team support, so you can have multiple members of your staff to tweet from the same account (with an identifier like ^OW) as well as managing tweets for follow-up.

The mobile application for Hootsuite does much the same but gives you and your staff the power to tweet from anywhere ? meaning they?re likely to help out with a quick tweet here and there when they?re not in the office.

Hootsuite is available for lots of mobile platforms, you can see if they support yours here.

Zendesk / Freshdesk

mzl.gfttazby.320x480 75 How to offer smarter online customer support on the go

Lots of businesses ? particularly online ones ? provide some type of support desk service to their customers for in case they have an issue or question. This is usually where customers are referred after the social media team exhausts their ability to help.

Zendesk is one of these tools and they offer a fantastic mobile app that allows businesses to keep on top of their support ticket queues while on the go.

Another of these tools is Freshdesk, who also have a mobile application to help with support queues on the go. We?re not going to go into differences in this post, but if you?re not already using a support desk type service we would absolutely recommend checking out both Zendesk and Freshdesk.

Trello

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In the late 40?s, engineers at Toyota pioneered a deceptively simple scheduling system called kanban which was based on index cards passed from one part of the plant to another. Trello brings this concept to the future, offering lists of tasks on a virtual signboard of what needs to be done and when, then allows you to assign them to people inside your organization.

You can make comments, flag jobs and color important items easily, making collaborative tasks easy to use and actually somewhat fun. It?s a great tool and works wonders for your personal life as well as your business one.

Trello?has fantastic mobile applications available for iPhone and Android so you can keep being productive on the go.

Buffer

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We realize you can?t always be on Twitter, so we?ve got a solution for that too. Buffer allows you to schedule tweets for times in the future so you don?t have to be in front of your keyboard every time you want to update the social media account.

If you do it right, you can even configure your business account to tweet during different time zones to get very effective reach across your customer base. Buffer is free for a limited amount of tweets, but the pro edition offers team accounts and unlimited access. Yes, Hootsuite lets you schedule tweets, but Buffer handles the hassle of making sure that they?re spread out throughout the day at times when you?re not tweeting manually.

Buffer has great mobile apps available for iOS?and Android.

Tips to avoid drowning after hours

All these freedoms are great, but it?s important to make sure that you?re not stuck on your phone every time you?re out of the office, at the dinner table or trying to sleep. We recommend setting expectations with your customers, by doing things such as:

  • Making a note in your Twitter bio that support requests will only be handled within certain hours of the day
  • Telling your employees to only spend a certain amount of time dealing with queries during the day
  • Signing out of the mobile applications after hours or even just disable audible alerts on applications such as Hootsuite
  • Buffer tweets for the evening ahead of leaving the office so that it looks like the account is active when you?re off doing other things
  • Refer customers to your support desk tool when out of hours so that nothing is missed
  • If you?re a global business, having a roster to man the social media accounts and be ?on duty? allows the rest of the team to rest easier
  • Configure auto-responders on tools like Zendesk and Freshdesk to inform customers who are logging tickets out of hours that they will be seen to in the morning

Moving your business into the always-on social world doesn?t have to be hard and mobile apps make it just a few steps easier. We definitely recommend jumping in head first, you won?t regret it!

Image credit: Thinkstock

Source: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/19/business-on-the-go/

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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Sony chief says time needed to study Daniel Loeb proposal

A Sony advert in Tokyo.

A Sony advert in Tokyo, Japan. The electronics company has run into hard times in recent years. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

Sony needs more time to consider a proposal to spin off a part of its entertainment unit as a way to propel its fledgling revival, the chief executive has told shareholders.

Kazuo Hirai spoke to thousands of investors at an annual general meeting at Tokyo hall, where the proposal from the Third Point hedge fund, led by activist investor and billionaire Daniel Loeb, was the first question from the floor.

The Sony chief reiterated his position ? that the company took the proposal seriously and it would be discussed by the board ? but ruled out a quick decision. "This is an important proposal that will influence the future of Sony," he said. "This will take time, and we are not going to come to a conclusion for the sake of coming to a conclusion."

Loeb has proposed selling up to a 20% stake in Sony's relatively healthy movie, TV and music business.

Third Point, one of Sony's top shareholders, said this week it had raised its stake to 6.9% from the 6.5% Loeb had said the fund owned, when it made the proposal last month.

Loeb, who is best known for instigating a mass shake-up at Yahoo, proposes that the money raised from selling part of Sony's entertainment division be used to strengthen its electronics operations.

His proposal was not up for a vote at the near two-hour meeting, which approved new board members and an option on stock options. Sony said more than 10,000 people attended the meeting.

Some analysts have called for changes at Sony, similar to those Loeb has suggested. Takao Miyake, a retired shareholder who had attended the meeting, agreed. "I think Sony is caught up in their own ways," he said. "Working with the hedge fund is the only way to survive."

Others were unsure. Takeshi Kawamata, 56, a businessman who owns 100 Sony shares, had not heard about the hedge fund proposal before. He said: "How should we know if we can trust the hedge fund or not?"

Sony has run into hard times in recent years despite a glorious near seven-decade history as a pioneer of products including the Walkman.

The Tokyo-based company, which makes the PlayStation 3 and Bravia flat-panel TVs, has fallen behind rivals such as Apple and South Korea's Samsung. It was also battered by natural disasters in Japan in 2011, as well as an unfavourable currency rate, although that disadvantage has lessened with the yen cheapening in recent months. It barely turned a profit for the fiscal year ended 31 March, its first in five years.

Hirai, who took office last year, promised a revival at Sony, focusing on smartphones, digital imaging and games, as well as turning around its loss-making TV operations. Sony is also trying to move into new fields such as medical equipment, having set up a joint venture with Olympus.

The chief executive said Sony has undergone drastic restructuring over the past year, an effort he described as unprecedented. Hirai said liaised frequently with Sony engineers to prevent any brain drain and boost morale. He said he was determined to make sure all products were "fitting of putting S-O-N-Y on them. We want people to say that a world without Sony would be no fun at all."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/20/sony-chief-time-daniel-loeb-entertainment

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Gov. Dayton?s Minnesota Poll approval rating climbs to 57% (Star Tribune)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/313704283?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Engadget HD Podcast 354 - 06.18.13

Engadget HD Podcast 347 - 04.30.13

The E3 and WWDC news surges have finally calmed, so now we're back into the normal weekly groove. This week, Ben details his time using an Oculus Rift to watch recorded video and Richard attempts to ride out E3 as long as possible with our roundup. All that and more is ready to stream straight to your ears below.

Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh (@bjdraw), Richard Lawler (@rjcc)

Producer: Joe Pollicino (@akaTRENT)

Hear the podcast

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/OP6jP79DJSY/

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Friday, June 14, 2013

Google releases Cloud Print app for Android

Cloud Print app

I don't often have to print documents, but when I do ...

Google Cloud Print is pretty handy, letting you print anything from anywhere using Chrome with your own computer and printer. With today's release of the official Android app, you can now print to your Cloud Print enabled printers straight from your Android devices.

Doing so is simple, just open the app and use Android's sharing menu to import whatever it is you want to print. In fact, the hardest part of it all is setting up your computer and printer to work with Google Cloud Print, and that's pretty easy

While most of us send files and documents through the Internet in this day and age, having an easy fall back to get paper copy is nice. Grab it from the Google Play link above.

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/juBkJ67VpDE/story01.htm

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'Titanfall' makes a big impact at E3

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Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2d386696/l/0Lvideo0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C52188624/story01.htm

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Clinton to focus on children's, economic issues (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/312543483?client_source=feed&format=rss

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