Thursday, February 28, 2013

Invention opens the way to packaging that monitors food freshness

Feb. 27, 2013 ? Millions of tons of food are thrown away each year because the 'best before' date has passed. But this date is always a cautious estimate, which means a lot of still-edible food is thrown away. Wouldn't it be handy if the packaging could 'test' whether the contents are still safe to eat? Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology, Universit? di Catania, CEA-Liten and STMicroelectronics have invented a circuit that makes this possible: a plastic analog-digital converter. This development brings plastic sensor circuits costing less than one euro cent within reach. Beyond food, these ultra-low-cost plastic circuits have numerous potential uses, including, pharmaceuticals.

The invention was presented last week at the ISSCC in San Francisco, an important conference on solid-state circuits.

Consumers and businesses in developed countries throw away around 100 kilograms of food per person (*), mainly because the 'best before' date on the packaging has passed. That waste is bad for consumers' budgets and for the environment. Much of this wastage results from the difficulty in estimating how long food will stay usable. To minimize the risk of selling spoiled food to consumers, producers show a relatively short shelf life on their packaging.

Less than one cent

To fight food waste, producers could include an electronic sensor circuit in their packaging to monitor the acidity level of the food, for example. The sensor circuit could be read with a scanner or with your mobile phone to show the freshness of your steak, or whether your frozen food was defrosted. Researcher Eugenio Cantatore of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e): "In principle that's all already possible, using standard silicon ICs. The only problem is they're too expensive. They easily cost ten cents. And that cost is too much for a one euro bag of crisps. We're now developing electronic devices that are made from plastic rather than silicon. The advantage is you can easily include these plastic sensors in plastic packaging." The plastic semiconductor can even be printed on all kinds of flexible surfaces, which makes it cheaper to use. And it makes sensor circuits costing less than one eurocent achievable.

The very first printed ADC

The researchers have succeeded in making two different plastic ADCs (analog-to-digital converters). Each converts analog signals, such as the output value measured by a sensor, into digital form. One of these new devices is the very first printed ADC ever made. "This paves the way toward large area sensors on plastic films in a cost-effective way through printing manufacturing approaches," says Isabelle Chartier, Printed Electronics Business developer at CEA-Liten. The ISSCC rated the papers on these inventions as highlights of the conference.

Missing link

The new plastic ADCs bring applications in the food and pharmaceuticals industries within reach. A sensor circuit consists of four components: the sensor, an amplifier, an ADC to digitize the signal and a radio transmitter that sends the signal to a base station. The plastic ADC has been the missing link; the other three components already exist. "Now that we have all of the pieces, we need the integration," says Cantatore. He expects that it will still take at least five years before we can expect to see the new devices on supermarket shelves. Other potential applications are in pharmaceuticals, man-machine interfaces and in ambient intelligence systems in buildings or in transport.

Complex mathematics

Making this development was no easy task. The electrical characteristics of 'ordinary transistors' are highly predictable, while those of plastic transistors vary greatly. "All plastic transistors behave differently in the low-cost production processes at low temperatures," explains Cantatore. "That makes it much more difficult to use them in devices. You need complex mathematical models to be able to predict their behavior accurately."

The printed ADC circuit offers a resolution of four bits, and has a speed of two hertz. The circuits printed by CEA-Liten include more than 100 n- and p-type transistors and a resistance level on transparent plastic substrates. The carrier mobility of the printed transistors are above the amorphous silicon widely used in the display industry.

(*) 'Global Food Losses and Food Waste', a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2011

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Eindhoven University of Technology, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/jqdsdEvt1WQ/130227085905.htm

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Can gaming make us more cooperative, empathic? - Daniel ...

Daphne Bavelier and Richard Davidson have a Comment in Nature today on the potential for video games to "do you good."

The authors note that video gaming has been linked to obesity, aggressiveness, and antisocial behavior, but there is a burgeoning literature showing some cognitive benefits accrue from gaming. Even though the data on these benefits is not 100% consistent (as I noted here) I'm with Bavelier & Davidson in their general orientation: so many people spend so much time gaming, we would be fools not to consider ways that games might be turned to purposes of personal and societal benefit.

Could games help to make people smarter, or more empathic, or more cooperative?

The authors suggest three developments are necessary.

  1. Game designers and neuroscientists must collaborate to determine which game components "foster brain plasticity." (I believe they really mean "changes behavior.")
  2. Neuroscientists ought to collaborate more closely with game designers. Presumably, the first step will not get off the ground if this doesn't happen.
  3. There needs to translational game research, and a path to market. We expect that some research advances (and clinical trials) of the positive effects of gaming will be made in academic circles. This work must get to market if it is to have an impact, and there is not a blazed trial by which this travel can take place.

This is all fine, as far as it goes, but it ignores two glaring problems, both subsets of their first point.

We have to bear in mind that Bavelier & Davidson's enthusiasm for the impact of gaming is coming from experiments with people who already liked gaming; you compare gamers with non-gamers and find some cognitive edge for the former. Getting people to play games is no easy matter, because designing good games is hard.

This idea of harnessing interest in gaming for personal benefit is old stuff in education. Researchers have been at it for twenty years, and one of the key lessons they've learned is that it's hard build a game that students really like and from which they also learn (as I've noted in reviews here and here.)

Second, Bavelier & Davidson are also a bit too quick to assume that measured improvements to basic cognitive processes will transfer to more complex processes. They cite a study in which playing a game improved mental rotation performance. Then they point out that mental rotation is important in fields like navigation and research chemistry.

But one of the great puzzles (and frustrations) of attempts to improve working memory has been the lack of transfer; even when? working memory is improved by training, you don't see a corresponding improvement in tasks that are highly correlated with working memory (e.g., reasoning).

In sum, I'm with Bavelier & Davidson in that I think this line of research is well worth pursuing. But I'm less sanguine than they are, because I think their point #1--getting the games to work--is going to be a lot tougher than they seem to anticipate.

Bavelier, D, & Davidson,? R. J. (2013). Brain training: Games to do you good. Nature, 494,? 425-426.

Source: http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2013/02/can-gaming-make-us-more-cooperative-empathic.html

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Invention opens the way to packaging that monitors food freshness

Feb. 27, 2013 ? Millions of tons of food are thrown away each year because the 'best before' date has passed. But this date is always a cautious estimate, which means a lot of still-edible food is thrown away. Wouldn't it be handy if the packaging could 'test' whether the contents are still safe to eat? Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology, Universit? di Catania, CEA-Liten and STMicroelectronics have invented a circuit that makes this possible: a plastic analog-digital converter. This development brings plastic sensor circuits costing less than one euro cent within reach. Beyond food, these ultra-low-cost plastic circuits have numerous potential uses, including, pharmaceuticals.

The invention was presented last week at the ISSCC in San Francisco, an important conference on solid-state circuits.

Consumers and businesses in developed countries throw away around 100 kilograms of food per person (*), mainly because the 'best before' date on the packaging has passed. That waste is bad for consumers' budgets and for the environment. Much of this wastage results from the difficulty in estimating how long food will stay usable. To minimize the risk of selling spoiled food to consumers, producers show a relatively short shelf life on their packaging.

Less than one cent

To fight food waste, producers could include an electronic sensor circuit in their packaging to monitor the acidity level of the food, for example. The sensor circuit could be read with a scanner or with your mobile phone to show the freshness of your steak, or whether your frozen food was defrosted. Researcher Eugenio Cantatore of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e): "In principle that's all already possible, using standard silicon ICs. The only problem is they're too expensive. They easily cost ten cents. And that cost is too much for a one euro bag of crisps. We're now developing electronic devices that are made from plastic rather than silicon. The advantage is you can easily include these plastic sensors in plastic packaging." The plastic semiconductor can even be printed on all kinds of flexible surfaces, which makes it cheaper to use. And it makes sensor circuits costing less than one eurocent achievable.

The very first printed ADC

The researchers have succeeded in making two different plastic ADCs (analog-to-digital converters). Each converts analog signals, such as the output value measured by a sensor, into digital form. One of these new devices is the very first printed ADC ever made. "This paves the way toward large area sensors on plastic films in a cost-effective way through printing manufacturing approaches," says Isabelle Chartier, Printed Electronics Business developer at CEA-Liten. The ISSCC rated the papers on these inventions as highlights of the conference.

Missing link

The new plastic ADCs bring applications in the food and pharmaceuticals industries within reach. A sensor circuit consists of four components: the sensor, an amplifier, an ADC to digitize the signal and a radio transmitter that sends the signal to a base station. The plastic ADC has been the missing link; the other three components already exist. "Now that we have all of the pieces, we need the integration," says Cantatore. He expects that it will still take at least five years before we can expect to see the new devices on supermarket shelves. Other potential applications are in pharmaceuticals, man-machine interfaces and in ambient intelligence systems in buildings or in transport.

Complex mathematics

Making this development was no easy task. The electrical characteristics of 'ordinary transistors' are highly predictable, while those of plastic transistors vary greatly. "All plastic transistors behave differently in the low-cost production processes at low temperatures," explains Cantatore. "That makes it much more difficult to use them in devices. You need complex mathematical models to be able to predict their behavior accurately."

The printed ADC circuit offers a resolution of four bits, and has a speed of two hertz. The circuits printed by CEA-Liten include more than 100 n- and p-type transistors and a resistance level on transparent plastic substrates. The carrier mobility of the printed transistors are above the amorphous silicon widely used in the display industry.

(*) 'Global Food Losses and Food Waste', a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2011

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Eindhoven University of Technology, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/jqdsdEvt1WQ/130227085905.htm

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Big pictures: World's tallest hotel opens in Dubai

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki suffered one of her worst career defeats when she bowed out of the Malaysia Open to 186th-ranked Chinese qualifier Qiang Wang on Wednesday. The Dane, top seed at the event in Kuala Lumpur, cruised through the opening set of her first round clash and had a match point in the second before going down 2-6 7-6 6-1. Qualifier Wang, 21, allowed Wozniacki only one point in the second set tiebreak as she levelled the match and rolled through the decider to claim her biggest careeer win. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/world-s-tallest-hotel-opens-in-dubai-slideshow/

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Hawks Pistons: Horford's Big Game Leads Atlanta Over Detroit

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Al Horford had 23 points and 22 rebounds, and the Atlanta Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons 114-103 on Monday night for their fifth win in six games.

Josh Smith added 23 points for the Hawks, who were ahead 61-51 at halftime and led by as many as 26 in the third quarter.

The Pistons have lost three straight, all without guard Brandon Knight, who has a hyperextended right knee. Will Bynum was also out Monday because of a suspension.

Jeff Teague had 20 points for Atlanta, which shot 14 of 33 from 3-point range. Kyle Korver scored 15 points, all from beyond the arc.

Rodney Stuckey led Detroit with 22 points, and Jonas Jerebko added 21.

Horford equaled his career high in rebounds.

Atlanta's only loss in its last six games was to Miami, and the Heat lead the Hawks by 8 1/2 games in the Southeast Division. But the Hawks are very much on the bubble for home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs. They moved percentage points ahead of Brooklyn for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.

The Pistons were already without rookie big man Andre Drummond, who has a stress fracture in his back, and Knight's recent injury made matters worse. With Bynum suspended for striking Indiana forward Tyler Hansbrough during a game against the Pacers on Saturday, Kim English ? a second-round pick in last year's draft ? became the top guard off the bench.

The Hawks were without Zaza Pachulia because of an Achilles strain, but they shot 55 percent in the first half, including 7 of 16 from 3-point range. Horford already had 13 points and 13 rebounds by halftime.

Horford's shot from the baseline in the third made it 76-58, and Pistons coach Lawrence Frank took his second timeout of the quarter. It was no use. A 3-pointer by Smith pushed the lead to 24, and Teague's two free throws made it 86-60.

The Pistons cut the deficit to 14 and had the ball midway through the fourth quarter, but Teague's steal and layup made it 97-81.

Near the end, Horford capped his terrific game with a 3-pointer from around the top of the key ? his first of the season and fourth of his career.

NOTES: Korver has made a 3-pointer in 49 consecutive games. ... Horford also had 22 rebounds against Miami on Feb. 27, 2009.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/hawks-pistons-atlanta-detroit-horford_n_2764820.html

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Green Blog: Import Ban Sought on Asian Crabs

In another twist in the long-running debate over how to manage the population of horseshoe crabs along the East Coast, fisheries officials are calling for a ban on imports of three Asian species of the ancient anthropods.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate body that oversees marine resources along the coast, urged 14 member states to outlaw imports of the crabs because they carry parasites and pathogens that could harm local fisheries and endanger human health.

?The importation of Asian native horseshoe crabs poses a significant threat to the welfare and survival of the wildlife resources of the United States? ? even if they are already dead when used as bait in United States waters, it said.

The Asian species have been imported since 2011 to meet the demand from commercial fishermen. Restrictions on the harvest of domestic horseshoe crabs along the East Coast have driven up the price of horseshoe crabs, which are used as bait for eels and whelks.

Thirteen states have already taken steps at the commission?s urging to limit the crab harvest in an attempt to protect the red knot, an imperiled shorebird that relies on the eggs of horseshoe crabs in places like Cape May and Delaware Bay to refuel during its migration from southern Argentina to breeding grounds in Arctic Canada each spring.

The red knot population has plummeted because of overfishing of the horseshoe crabs, and the bird is a candidate for designation as an endangered species by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Biologists say the red knot is at risk of extinction.

Only New Jersey has placed a complete moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs, although a bill has been introduced in the state assembly that would lift it in a bid to protect the livelihoods of local fishermen.

The commission said it was seeking the introduction of state bans because the Fish and Wildlife Service can take up to a year to add species to a list of ?injurious wildlife? that are subject to federal regulation.

If the domestic population of horseshoe crabs is damaged, the food supply of shorebirds could be further reduced at a time when the red knot is struggling to recover from years of overfishing of the crabs, the commission warned.

In 2012, seafood dealers in New York State imported 16,280 pounds of Asian horseshoe crabs in response to the domestic bait shortage, the commission said, noting that the imported species themselves are in decline in Asia.

Horseshoe crab bait sells for as much as five times what it cost a decade ago, said Stewart Michels, the fisheries program manager at the Division of Fish and Wildlife in Delaware, which is represented on the commission. He said a female crab can now fetch as much as $5.

Delaware backs the proposed import ban and plans to implement one, Mr. Michels said. Currently Delaware fishermen are allowed to harvest about 162,000 horseshoe crabs a year, but only males and only after June 7, when red knots and other shorebirds have resumed their northward migration.

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/import-ban-sought-on-asian-crabs/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Three years on, BP's day in court

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Nearly three years after a deadly rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the nation's worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge in New Orleans is set to preside over a high-stakes trial for the raft of litigation spawned by the disaster.

Barring an 11th-hour settlement, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will hear several hours of opening statements Monday by lawyers for the companies involved in the 2010 spill and the plaintiffs who sued them. And the judge, not a jury, ultimately could decide how much more money BP PLC and its partners on the ill-fated drilling project owe for their roles in the environmental catastrophe.

BP has said it already has racked up more than $24 billion in spill-related expenses and has estimated it will pay a total of $42 billion to fully resolve its liability for the disaster that killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil.

But the trial attorneys for the federal government and Gulf states and private plaintiffs hope to convince the judge that the company is liable for much more.

With billions of dollars on the line, the companies and their courtroom adversaries have spared no expense in preparing for a trial that could last several months. Hundreds of attorneys have worked on the case, generating roughly 90 million pages of documents, logging nearly 9,000 docket entries and taking more than 300 depositions of witnesses who could testify at trial.

"In terms of sheer dollar amounts and public attention, this is one of the most complex and massive disputes ever faced by the courts," said Fordham University law professor Howard Erichson, an expert in complex litigation.

Barbier has promised he won't let the case drag on for years as has the litigation over the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which still hasn't been completely resolved. He encouraged settlement talks that already have resolved billions of dollars in spill-related claims.

"Judge Barbier has managed the case actively and moved it along toward trial pretty quickly," Erichson said.

In December, Barbier gave final approval to a settlement between BP and Plaintiffs' Steering Committee lawyers representing Gulf Coast businesses and residents who claim the spill cost them money. BP estimates it will pay roughly $8.5 billion to resolve tens of thousands of these claims, but the deal doesn't have a cap.

BP resolved a Justice Department criminal probe by agreeing to plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges and pay $4 billion in criminal penalties. Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean Ltd. reached a separate settlement with the federal government, pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge and agreeing to pay $1.4 billion in criminal and civil penalties.

But there's plenty left for the lawyers to argue about at trial, given that the federal government and Gulf states haven't resolved civil claims against the company that could be worth more than $20 billion.

The Justice Department and private plaintiffs' attorneys have said they would prove BP acted with gross negligence before the blowout of its Macondo well on April 20, 2010.

BP's civil penalties would soar if Barbier agrees with that claim.

BP, meanwhile, argues the federal government's estimate of how much oil spewed from the well ? more than 200 million gallons ? is inflated by at least 20 percent. Clean Water Act penalties are based on how many barrels of oil spilled.

Barbier plans to hold the trial in at least two phases and may issue partial rulings at the end of each. The first phase, which could last three months, is designed to determine what caused the blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. The second phase will address efforts to stop the flow of oil from the well and aims to determine how much crude spilled into the Gulf.

The trial originally was scheduled to start a year ago, but Barbier postponed it to allow BP to wrap up its settlement with the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee.

Barbier, 68, was nominated by President Bill Clinton and has served on the court since 1998. He had a private law practice, primarily representing small businesses and other plaintiffs in civil cases, and served as president of the New Orleans Bar Association before he joined the bench.

Dane Ciolino, a Loyola University law professor who has represented criminal defendants in Barbier's court, described him as a "no-nonsense" but even-tempered judge.

"He's very good at getting down to the pertinent issues," Ciolino said. "Some judges could be described as impatient, short or gruff. He is none of that."

Despite the bitter disputes at the root of the case, Barbier has maintained a collegial atmosphere at his monthly status conferences with the lawyers, cracking an occasional joke or good-naturedly ribbing attorneys over their college football allegiances.

Cordial with each other in the courtroom, the competing attorneys have saved their harshest rhetoric for court filings or news releases. Despite its settlement with BP last year, the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee attorneys won't be allies at trial with the London-based oil giant. And they still haven't resolved civil claims against Transocean or cement contractor Halliburton.

"These three companies' reckless, greed-driven conduct killed 11 good men, polluted the Gulf for years and left the region's economy in shambles. Any statement to the contrary is self-serving nonsense," Steve Herman, a lead plaintiffs' attorney, said in a recent statement.

A series of government investigations has exhaustively documented the mistakes that led to the blowout, spreading the blame among the companies. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said witnesses scheduled to testify at trial will reveal new information about the cause of the disaster.

"I think you're going to learn a lot, particularly about the culture that existed at BP and their priorities," Strange said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/trial-set-open-gulf-oil-spill-litigation-092735476.html

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Barnes & Noble chairman may bid for company's bookstores - WSJ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc Chairman Leonard Riggio is considering a bid for the company's bookstore business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation.

Riggio is the company's largest shareholder with a nearly 30 percent stake. He pioneered the book superstore format in the 1980s and 1990s.

According to the Journal, Riggio would take the company's 689 retail stores private, splitting that business from its Nook e-reader and tablet business and its college store chain.

Riggio's interest so far has been tentative, the report said. One person told the Journal that Riggio would make his interest formal this week and publicly disclose it.

A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman declined to comment on the report. She said Riggio also had no comment.

Barnes & Noble's retail business has struggled in recent years as more book buyers have switched to digital formats.

The company saw a short-lived rise in sales after the September 2011 liquidation of rival Borders Group.

But Barnes & Noble reported poor holiday sales at all its divisions in 2012. The company posted a 10.9 percent decrease in sales at its bookstores and on its website over the year-end holiday period.

The bookseller said in January last year that it might spin off its digital and e-reader business. It created a separate unit for its Nook and college bookstore chains called Nook Media. That unit has drawn investments from Microsoft Corp and British education and media publisher Pearson Plc .

The Nook, launched in 2009 to compete with Amazon.com Inc's market-leading Kindle, has been the cornerstone of Barnes & Noble's strategy to counter the shift by many readers to digital books.

The company has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the unit, but questions about its value have swirled after the disappointing holiday season.

Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble said its 2013 loss for Nook would be deeper than expected and sales at the unit would fall short of the $3 billion the company had forecast.

(Reporting by Michael Erman and Phil Wahba; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barnes-noble-chairman-may-bid-companys-bookstores-wsj-000011970--finance.html

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BlackBerry launches first BB10 device in India at $800

MUMBAI (Reuters) - BlackBerry launched its first smartphone from its BlackBerry 10 line in India on Monday, pricing the phone at 43,490 rupees ($800).

The touch-screen BlackBerry Z10 phone, which goes on sale in India from Tuesday, will compete with Apple Inc's iPhones and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's high-end Galaxy series phones.

The Z10 has already gone on sale in the United Kingdom and Canada, and is expected to hit the United States in mid-March.

(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Devidutta Tripathy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-launches-first-bb10-device-india-800-075200336--finance.html

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Apple signals emerging-market rethink with India push

NEW DELHI/BANGALORE (Reuters) - As BlackBerry launches the first smartphone from its make-or-break BB10 line in India, one of its most loyal markets, the company faces new competition from a formidable rival that has long had a minimal presence in the country.

More than four years after it started selling iPhones in India, Apple Inc is now aggressively pushing the iconic device through installment payment plans that make it more affordable, a new distribution model and heavy marketing blitz.

"Now your dream phone" at 5,056 rupees ($93), read a recent full front-page ad for an iPhone 5 in the Times of India, referring to the initial payment on a phone priced at $840, or almost two months' wages for an entry-level software engineer.

The new-found interest in India suggests a subtle strategy shift for Apple, which has moved tentatively in emerging markets and has allowed rivals such as Samsung and BlackBerry to dominate with more affordable smartphones. With the exception of China, all of its Apple stores are in advanced economies.

Apple expanded its India sales effort in the latter half of 2012 by adding two distributors. Previously it sold iPhones only through a few carriers and stores it calls premium resellers.

The result: iPhone shipments to India between October and December nearly tripled to 250,000 units from 90,000 in the previous quarter, according to an estimate by Jessica Kwee, a Singapore-based analyst at consultancy Canalys.

At The MobileStore, an Indian chain owned by the Essar conglomerate, which says it sells 15 percent of the iPhones in the country, iPhone sales tripled between December and January, thanks to a monthly payment scheme launched last month.

"Most people in India can't afford a dollar-priced phone when the salaries in India are rupee salaries. But the desire is the same," said Himanshu Chakrawarti, its chief executive.

Apple, the distributors, retailers and banks share the advertising and interest cost of the marketing push, according to Chakrawarti. Carriers like Bharti Airtel Ltd, which also sell the iPhone 5, run separate ads.

India is the world's No. 2 cellphone market by users, but most Indians cannot afford fancy handsets. Smartphones account for just a tenth of total phone sales. In India, 95 percent of cellphone users have prepaid accounts without a fixed contract. Unlike in the United States, carriers do not subsidise handsets.

Within the smartphone segment, Apple's Indian market share last quarter was just 5 percent, according to Canalys, meaning its overall penetration is tiny.

Still, industry research firm IDC expects the Indian smartphone market to grow more than five times from about 19 million units last year to 108 million in 2016, which presents a big opportunity.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd dominates Indian smartphone sales with a 40 percent share, thanks to its wide portfolio of Android devices priced as low as $110. The market has also been flooded by cheaper Android phones from local brands such as Micromax and Lava.

Most smartphones sold in India are much cheaper than the iPhone, said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

"Where the masses are - there, Apple still has a gap."

'I LOVE INDIA, BUT...'

Apple helped create the smartphone industry with the iPhone in 2007. But last year Apple lost its lead globally to Samsung whose smartphones, which run on Google Inc's free Android software, are especially attractive in Asia.

Many in Silicon Valley and Wall Street believe the surest way to penetrate lower-income Asian markets would be with a cheaper iPhone, as has been widely reported but never confirmed. The risk is that a cheap iPhone would cannibalize demand for the premium version and eat into Apple's peerless margins.

The new monthly payment plan in India goes a long way to expanding the potential market, said Chakrawarti.

"The Apple campaign is not meant for really the regular top-end customer, it is meant to upgrade the 10,000-12,000 handset guy to 45,000 rupees," he said.

Apple's main focus for expansion in Asia has been Greater China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, where revenue grew 60 percent last quarter to $7.3 billion.

Asked last year why Apple had not been as successful in India, Chief Executive Tim Cook said its business in India was growing but the group remained more focused on other markets.

"I love India, but I believe that Apple has some higher potential in the intermediate term in some other countries," Cook said. "The multi-layer distribution there really adds to the cost of getting products to market," he said at the time.

Apple, which has partly addressed that by adding distributors, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Ingram Micro Inc, one of its new distributors, also declined comment. Executives at Redington (India) Ltd, the other distributor, could not immediately be reached.

BlackBerry, which has seen its global market share shrivel to 3.4 percent from 20 percent over the past three years, is making what is seen as a last-ditch effort to save itself with the BB10 series.

The high-end BlackBerry Z10 was launched in India on Monday at 43,490 rupees ($800), close to the 45,500 rupees price tag for an iPhone 5 with 16 gigabytes of memory. Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2, Nokia's Lumia 920 and two HTC Corp models are the main iPhone rivals.

BlackBerry will target corporate users and consumers in India for the Z10, said Sunil Dutt, India managing director, adding that it will tie-up with banks for installment plans.

Until last year, BlackBerry was the No. 3 smartphone brand in India with market share of more than 10 percent, thanks to a push into the consumer segment with lower-priced phones. Last quarter its share fell to about 5 percent, putting it in fifth place, according to Canalys. Apple was sixth.

(Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in MUMBAI and Poornima Gupta in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Tony Munroe, Mark Bendeich and Chris Gallagher)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-signals-emerging-market-rethink-india-push-011705541--sector.html

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Meet the cross-subsidy, an increasingly painful way to pay for ...

This is the third in a series of articles addressing a largely hidden crisis: A decade of social-service cuts and rising poverty have left Minnesota schools ?which turn no child away ?struggling to serve a growing number of students whose severe mental-health issues and cognitive disabilities aren't being addressed anywhere else.

The scrimping, finessing and begging that Keith Lester has done during the eight years he has been superintendent of Brooklyn Center Schools would be comical if it didn?t involve the fates of children and the livelihood of teachers.

His three schools are attractive, so much so that 40 percent of the district?s 2,600 students are open-enrolled from other communities. Lured by a holistic approach to supporting kids and International Baccalaureate programming, they bring precious state tuition dollars.

Test scores are on the rise, in no small part because of his efforts to get outsiders to provide a full array of in-school supports including medical, dental and mental-health care and all-day preschool.

Still, his budget does nothing but shrink. In a good year he has to find about $1 million to cut. In the bad years ? most of them since state financing began shrinking a decade ago ? it?s more like $2 million.

Lester spends a lot of time thinking out of the box. The first five years he was there, there were no librarians in his three schools. In 2010 he got a grant to hire one ?for a single academic year.

In 2008, he lost a teacher budget line but got a grant to hire a teacher. The grant was for arts instruction, though, so even though he hired a dance teacher he had to lay off an English teacher.

Painful cuts, impoverished students

In 2011, he had to cut all 11 of the teachers who coached the district?s struggling elementary pupils in math and reading. Their intensive work had been paying off with rising test scores.

The district has been in statutory operating debt ? a bureaucratic way of saying financial life support ? since 2000. He gets $2,000 a head less state aid for his 1,700 pupils than Minneapolis and St. Paul, even though his student body is just as impoverished.

And Brooklyn Center?s property tax base is modest, to put it kindly. Lester had to go to voters nine times to get his last levy ? the lowest in the metro area ? renewed.

When he started in 2005, about 12 percent of Lester?s students needed special education services. Meeting their needs typically costs about twice as much as general ed students, but it can be much, much more.

Even if it were a place where Lester thought to cut, he couldn?t. Disabled children can be convenient political targets, so the law is set up to protect their rights. All are entitled to a free and appropriate education, no matter its cost.

Many chose his school for its supports

Many of the families that have chosen Lester?s schools in part because they need the health-care and other supports they can find literally just down the hall from their child?s classroom are particularly needy. Special-ed students now make up more than 20 percent of the district?s population.

Never mind that the special-education services are mandated by law, neither the state nor the federal government has ever reimbursed schools anything approaching the true expense.

And so to meet the needs of his most vulnerable kids, Lester has always had to shift money from the state aid he gets for all students. Because of the rest of the budgetary landscape, over the last 10 years the amount he?s had to divert has risen 163 percent to about $1,000 per pupil.

In fact, the amount Lester has to shift from general ed to special ed is typically more than his overall budget deficit. In 2011, he needed to make up a $2 million shortfall. The gap in special-ed reimbursement that year was $2.233 million.

If the state filled the gap ...

Expressed another way, if the state of Minnesota began paying full freight the district could get back in the black for the first time in 15 years. Lester could hire a librarian, recall the laid-off English teacher and bring back the literacy coaches.

Lester is retiring at the end of the year. The payback of this most hidden of school funding shifts would mean he could hand his successor a school system poised to become the envy of its wealthier neighbors.

* * *

Barring some budget-healing magic, Minnesota schools this year are poised to skitter off a fiscal cliff few people know exists. Between rising need and lagging state aid, the amount of funding they will be forced to divert to pay for special education will reach an average of $834 per student.

Even schools that are far wealthier than Brooklyn Center?s will have no choice but to use, on average, 16 percent of the $5,224 per pupil the state gives them to make up for a shortfall that is projected to keep growing. That?s money that cannot be used to prevent teacher layoffs, reduce class sizes or restore disappearing ?extras? like art and music.

Brooklyn Center is not the only community where the subsidy has topped $1,000 per pupil for several years. A $147-a-head increase is expected this year alone. By 2015, the shortfall is anticipated to have mushroomed to $2 billion per budget cycle.

A primary reason for continuing funding challenges

Known in education circles as the cross-subsidy, the special-education funding deficit is the primary reason Minnesota school districts face funding challenges year after year, public-school advocates say. Eliminating the cross-subsidy would do more to put schools back in the black than repaying 2011?s budget-balancing shift, putting more money into the general fund or passing operating levies.

How has a problem ? and potential solution ? of this magnitude largely stayed hidden from public view for years? The short answer is because it is a terrifically complicated, politically expedient place to hide the true extent to which funding for Minnesota schools has been cut over the last decade.

Gov. Mark Dayton?s proposed budget would put $125 million toward closing the funding gap as well as a number of structural changes that will help direct the 13 percent boost to the districts with the most need.

It?s a welcome start, said Scott Croonquist, the executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts and the person who is best able to describe the cross-subsidy?s many wrinkles. Policymakers should adopt the budget, but they should also begin to address problems that have plagued special ed since its inception.

A look back

Until 1975, most of the country?s then 4 million children with disabilities were either warehoused in ?classrooms? where little education took place, or in institutions where it wasn?t even paid lip service.

Most of these kids had profound and obvious disabilities like Down syndrome. Most children who would now be diagnosed with autism or a mental illness were simply written off as difficult or badly behaved.

In the wake of the civil rights movement, federal courts decreed that all students ? including those in a coma and those considered uneducable ? were entitled to an education, and in the least restrictive environment. The laws that were subsequently written took pains to protect disabled children.

Administrators could not decide that meeting a particular student?s needs was too costly and, to eliminate any incentive to rid their budgets of red ink by chopping spending on the vulnerable, they must maintain their overall special-ed budget.

A sweeping mandate, but few federal dollars

In short, the federal government created a sweeping mandate ? one that most people approved of ? but it has never paid more than a fraction of the cost. Initially the U.S. Congress set a goal of paying for 40 percent of the cost of the new programming, but only once in the ensuing four decades have reimbursement levels topped 20 percent.

Flush with new education funding from the 1971 Minnesota Miracle, Minnesota already served disabled kids. The state?s commitment makes it responsible for 68 percent of special-ed teacher salaries and 50 percent of the main services as well as hefty chunks of costs like transportation.

It should have been enough. But like Congress, the Legislature has never appropriated enough money to reimburse schools. Instead, it budgets a fixed amount that?s pro-rated by districts? enrollment, rather than the number of special-ed students served or the complexity of their disabilities.

This has always created two funding shortfalls: A gap between the state?s legal commitment and the amount of aid the Legislature appropriates for distribution; and a larger gap between what districts are obligated to spend and the global funding available.

An uneven burden, with disincentives

Adding to the pain, the burden is uneven and disincentives abound. Some districts have disproportionate concentrations of needy kids. They may serve an impoverished, fragile population, they may serve as a sort of regional hub for kids with complex issues or a reputation for getting good outcomes may have made them a magnet for families in search of help. But the separate pot of ?excess cost? aid that was supposed to smooth the iniquities also has been underfunded.

Until 2003, the gap between the true cost and federal and state aid hovered around $350 million. High though the budget hit was, it at least held fairly steady. That year, however, a combination of structural changes to Minnesota?s tax system crafted by former Gov. Jesse Ventura and subsequent cost-cutting by then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty started the cross-subsidy?s upward spiral.

An attorney with expertise in education finance, Jerry von Korff serves on the St. Cloud Area School Board. Because the district was one of the aforementioned regional magnets for kids needing specialized services, its cross-subsidy was the largest of any of the state?s districts of substantial size.

In 2004, St. Cloud was forced to divert $569 per student to make up a total special-ed deficit of more than $5 million. The district immediately started looking for ways to freeze expenditures, and von Korff began talking to lawmakers and other education policy types.

An expedient place to obscure the extent of defunding

Legislators listened, said retired Sen. Mindy Greiling, the Roseville DFLer with perhaps the best institutional memory of recent school funding issues ?and mostly shrugged. The cross-subsidy, she said, became the most expedient place to obscure the extent of the defunding.

Mindy Greiling

Mindy Greiling

Even as class sizes were mushrooming and teachers disappearing, legislators frequently voted in small increases in general education funding. Back in their home districts after each session, they would tout any small upticks ? the last two were $50 a head?as proof that education remained a priority, without mentioning that the hundreds of dollars their community was spending on its cross-subsidy.

?Lawmakers quickly learn there?s no political profit in addressing the cross-subsidy,? she said. ?It leaves you less to put on the formula.? The formula being the bottom-line, annual minimum dollar amount the state reimburses districts for every student.

Nor were school administrators ready to acknowledge to a frustrated public that the bare-bones cutting was because up to 20 percent of each child?s funding was being spent on a small number of intensely needy kids.

'School districts can't talk about this'

?School districts can?t talk about this,? said Greiling. ?If you say there?s plenty of money for the schools but for the cross-subsidy, then you set up a dynamic of ?why should they get a class size of 12 while my kid is in this overstuffed classroom???

Over the last decade, the before-inflation special-ed shortfall has eaten all but half a percent of increases in overall state school funding, according to von Korff?s research. During that time, the cross-subsidy has almost doubled, rising to $600 million in 2011. (For purposes of simplicity, these numbers correspond to calendar years. State reports often use fiscal years, and educators often account for costs according to academic years.)

And arguably that figure is artificially low. In 2007, the Legislature provided some temporary relief. And in 2011, an influx of federal stimulus aid ? again, one-time money ? offset the shortfall by almost $150 per pupil.

Even with the federal aid on board, in 2011 St. Paul Public Schools had the largest cross-subsidy at $36 million, or $838 per student, compared to $505 in 2004. The Anoka-Hennepin?s $31 million gap required a shift of $697 a head, vs. $446 in 2004.

Minneapolis Public Schools? $34 million diverted $904 per student, up from $533. Rosemount-Apple Valley Eagan?s $23 million shortfall created a cross-subsidy of $720, compared to $440 in 2004.

Columbia Heights had highest shift in metro

As a per-pupil deficit, Columbia Heights had the highest shift in the metro area at nearly $1,100 per student, more than three times the $334 it diverted in 2004.

Among the several Greater Minnesota districts with eye-popping shortfalls, Red Lake stands out. In 2004, its cross-subsidy was $352. By 2011, the amount had risen to $1,144.

All told, 11 Minnesota districts shifted more than $900 per student into the cross-subsidy and 22 more than $800. With the stimulus dollars gone and Dayton?s proposed relief theoretically arriving in the second year of the next budget, those shortfalls are guaranteed to skyrocket.

* * *

At the moment, the accepted answer to spiraling costs and funding shortfalls is to do more with less. And the hardest part of the cross-subsidy conversation education advocates are attempting to start at the Capitol this year is explaining that in recent years educators have found lots of efficiencies ? and costs have still mushroomed.

When the laws mandating special-education services were written, the majority of the institutionalized students who were to be welcomed into schools had developmental disabilities. Little was known about brain disorders like autism, and legions of kids with challenging behavior were perceived as disciplinary cases, not students struggling with mental illness.

Hand-in-glove with the cross-subsidy, caseloads have shot up in recent years. Between 2001 and 2011 the number of Minnesota children with autism spectrum disorders, which can present some of the thorniest neurobiological challenges, rose from 3,800 to almost 15,000.

Nearly 125,000 children now qualify

Overall, the special-ed student population has risen from 13 percent to 15 percent of the state?s student body over the last decade. Nearly 125,000 children now qualify for services.

The percentage of students who qualify for special education services is on the rise.

During the same period, cuts to social services and health care mean schools are also scrambling to meet the needs of a mushrooming number of kids with severe mental illnesses. Many of them have special-education diagnoses.

?We can?t do more with less because we?re getting better at identifying kids [with unmet needs] and at serving them,? said Greiling. Nor is eliminating the ?maintenance of effort? laws (which is fraught with small caveats) that require districts to maintain spending levels the answer.

Which is not to say that costs cannot be addressed. St. Cloud?s systematic efforts to hold costs steady, for example, has gone from having one of the worst cross-subsidy problems in the state to a fairly commonplace one. Still, its relatively modest 41 percent increase means it must shift $801 per pupil.

* * *

The first Friday after New Year?s, Jason Backes got a new student. An autism specialist in a program where he works for kids with severe disabilities and mental-health needs, Backes had been prepping for Thomas? arrival for some time.

When the bus arrived, the boy was so agitated he tried to hit, kick and bite anyone who got near him. Backes climbed on board, armed with an iPad.

The staff ?innovation coach? at a program for students with multiple, intense challenges, Backes had spent some time getting to know Thomas (who has been given a pseudonym) on paper. He had a plan for delivering the teacher a relatively settled, teachable kid.

According to the information supplied by Thomas? home school district, which couldn?t meet his needs, he needed visual and not verbal cues, and was calmed only by physical activity. So Backes made him a movie.

Costs are astonishingly high

The exact details of Thomas? situation would identify him, but for the sake of illustration assume that like many of his classmates he has a long ride on a bus where he is the only student and that he has both a driver and an aide to keep him safe, a teacher who works exclusively with him?and perhaps another aide ? and a dedicated, specially equipped classroom.

The free and appropriate education Thomas is rightfully entitled to under U.S. law is astonishingly expensive. All that one-on-one staffing can cost upwards of $100,000 a year. Other kids who can be transported together and can work in small-group classrooms may require an outlay of $40,000-$50,000.

In generations past, kids with such intense needs didn?t go to school. They were institutionalized ? warehoused is a more honest way of putting it ? at a cost to taxpayers that was every bit as steep. Meanwhile, the human cost was incalculable.

In the past, educators have protectively shied away from talking publicly about kids like Thomas. They are vulnerable, and rhetorical support for their right to be included as full members of society has always outpaced the willingness to confront the scope of the need.

Frightful though the cost of these specialized interventions is, there are ways, such as clustering kids with ?low-incidence? diagnoses in specialized programs, to simultaneously hold down costs and provide services that are effective.

Intermediate District 287
MinnPost photo by Bill KelleyNorth Education Center in New Hope, where a consortium of west metro school districts operates the Students with Unique Needs program.

Backes? movie showed what it?s like to go to school at the North Education Center in New Hope, where a consortium of west metro school districts operates the Students with Unique Needs program. Its pupils typically have more than one neurobiological issue or mental illness, including profound autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and bipolar disorders and schizophrenia.

Other programs operated by Intermediate District 287 serve children who have a complex mix of cognitive disabilities and mental illnesses. The brand-new North Education Center is the crown jewel of its facilities.

It has innovative features like walls that can be reconfigured at a moment's notice to accommodate a constantly changing population. There are spaces that can be made soothing to kids who have sensory challenges. There is state-of-the-art security, shatter-proof glass and doors that can?t be slammed.

Concentrated expertise

Most important, there?s concentrated expertise. The sooner a student?s needs are identified and addressed, they greater the chance they can be returned to ?regular? school and the higher the likelihood they will earn a high school diploma and enter the work force.

While a very few kids always will need intensive support, in his seven years with District 287, Backes has graduated numerous Thomases back into less restrictive, less costly programs.

Backes filmed the doors Thomas would walk through and the hallway on the other side, where colored strips of carpeting delineate paths for students who need hyper-structured routines. His trip would end in a room where a swing hangs from the ceiling. Unlike a conventional desk, the setup would allow him the constant movement that keeps him calm enough to work.

Backes had sent the video to Thomas? family, so the boy already had seen it when he arrived at school. As Backes screened it again ? and again, and again ? on the iPad on the bus in front of the doors in question, Thomas slowly stopped lashing out.

?Once he got involved in some physical activity, once he got into the classroom and into the swing, he was able to calm himself,? said Backes. ?After half an hour, he was comfortable and ready to try school.?

What Thomas and his teachers need most is a paradigm shift among policymakers. Unless they are willing to confront the true cost of educating Minnesota?s most fragile students, they say, the unmet need will swamp public education.

Source: http://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2013/02/meet-cross-subsidy-increasingly-painful-way-pay-special-ed

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Prince to appear on Jimmy Fallon's show Friday

NEW YORK (AP) ? Prince is continuing to ramp up his public profile. This week, he'll make an appearance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."

A rep for the late-night talk show confirmed the pop legend will appear on the show Friday and will perform two songs. It's not clear whether he'll perform new material or some of his classics.

The reclusive star has been back in the spotlight recently. He presented record of the year trophy at the Grammys, released the song "Screwdriver" on his new website and is due to perform several dates in Europe this summer.

___

Online:

Prince: http://www.prince2013.com

"Late Night with Jimmy Fallon": http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prince-appear-jimmy-fallons-show-friday-185309952.html

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Monkeying around with puzzles makes chimps happy

: Zoological Society of London

Phil the chimpanzee plays with a puzzle at the Whipsnade Zoo.

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience

Chimpanzees don't need to be rewarded for playing with brainteasers. Like humans with a crossword puzzle, they're motivated by the challenge alone, new research finds.

For the study, published today (Feb. 23) in the American Journal of Primatology, researchers followed six chimpanzees at the Zoological Society of London's Whipsnade Zoo. Three of the chimps are half-brothers (Phil, Grant and Elvis), and their family group includes another male and two females.

Zookeepers gave the chimps a homemade puzzle made of plumbing pipes. Inside the network of pipes were two red dice. The chimps had to figure out where to poke sticks into holes in the pipes to get the dice to change directions and fall into an exit chamber. The game is based on the real-world task of using sticks to pull termites out of their nests as a snack.

The chimps also got nearly identical puzzles, which held Brazil nuts instead of dice. In these versions, the prize for figuring out the puzzle was getting to eat the Brazil nuts. [ Video: Chimps Outsmart Humans in Memory Game ]

"We noticed that the chimps were keen to complete the puzzle regardless of whether or not they received a food reward," study researcher Fay Clark of the Zoological Society of London said in a statement. "This strongly suggests they get similar feelings of satisfaction to humans who often complete brain games for a feel-good reward."

The brainteaser was part of the zoo's voluntary enrichment activities for the chimps, which also include treats hidden in boxes and do-it-yourself materials so the chimpanzees can build their own beds every night.

Chimps have proven adept at play and games in general. In 2011, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that chimps could figure out which characters they control in a video game, exhibiting a grasp of the concept of their own agency. In the wild, chimpanzees play, too. One 2010 study found that young female chimps in Uganda carried sticks around and took them to bed, possibly playing with them as if they were dolls.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas ?or LiveScience@livescience. We're also on Facebook ?&Google+.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/24/17076349-monkeying-around-with-puzzles-makes-chimps-happy?lite

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UPDATE 3-Golf-Poulter, Mahan to meet in tasty semi-final

Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:44am GMT

* Poulter ends Stricker's birthday run

* Mahan edges past Simpson 1up

* Kuchar beats Garrigus 3&2 (Adds quotes, detail)

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

MARANA, Arizona, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Defending champion Hunter Mahan and 2010 winner Ian Poulter set up a mouth-watering showdown in the last four of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship by winning their quarter-finals on Saturday.

American Mahan triumphed 1-up after a tight match with U.S. Open winner Webb Simpson while Briton Poulter advanced with a commanding 3&2 victory over American veteran Steve Stricker on a sun-splashed afternoon at Dove Mountain.

Sunday morning's other semi-final will be contested between American Matt Kuchar and Australian Jason Day, at 25 the youngest player left in the draw.

Kuchar became the first player to reach the last four, beating compatriot Robert Garrigus 3&2, before Day battled past Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell 1-up in a closely contested encounter.

Most eyes, however, will be firmly focused on the battle between Mahan and Poulter who are both bidding to reach the Match Play final for a second time.

Poulter will be a little fresher, having gone 4-up on 2001 Match Play champion Stricker after 12 holes before wrapping up his win by sinking a 10-foot par putt at the short 16th.

The flamboyant Englishman, who is renowned for his matchplay grit and superb putting, went ahead for the first time at the par-three third where he sank a double-breaking 40-footer for birdie while Stricker missed his attempt from seven feet.

"It looks like Steve is going to be going up right there, and I hole, he misses," a smiling Poulter told reporters after recording six birdies and an eagle in 16 holes.

"And from then on I sort of took over and got myself in front. I knew I had to bring my game this afternoon to be able to match up against Steve."

SIZZLING DISPLAY

Stricker, who celebrated his 46th birthday on Saturday, had reached the quarter-finals with a sizzling eight-birdie display earlier in the day when he beat fellow American Scott Piercy 1-up.

In the last quarter-final match out, Mahan and Simpson were all square after four holes before Mahan sank an 18-foot birdie putt at the par-four fifth to go 1-up.

Simpson got back to level with a birdie at the eighth, where he struck a wedge to three feet, but Mahan again edged in front when he rolled in a 26-footer to birdie the 10th.

Though Simpson pegged it back by sinking an eight-foot birdie putt at the par-five 13th, the match effectively turned at the short 16th where both players ended up in the left greenside bunker off the tee.

Simpson failed to get up and down, missing a 10-footer for par, while Mahan knocked in a seven-footer to go 1-up, a lead he maintained over the next two holes.

"Difficult match against Webb," said Mahan, who won last year's title with a 2&1 victory over Rory McIlroy in the final. "Great competitor, great player. I knew it was going to be a tough one, and it was.

"It was really a seesaw battle. I don't think either one of us really gained too much momentum, it was so back and forth."

Asked to assess the challenge of facing matchplay specialist Poulter in the last four, Mahan replied: "He has a great short game and he's a great putter.

"But to me his determination and his will is his greatest strength. He's never going to think he's out of a hole.

"The greatest challenge with him is just staying in my own game and just playing, not getting to kind of playing at his speed or anything. I just need to hit quality shots and put pressure on him that way."

Earlier in the day, the third round was played to get the tournament back on track after only three-and-a-half hours of golf was possible on Wednesday because of driving sleet and then snow at Dove Mountain. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes; Editing by Gene Cherry/Greg Stutchbury)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/UKGolfNews/~3/Gd9rBHaYGaM/golf-pga-matchplay-idUKL4N0BN0FE20130224

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Caves point to thawing of Siberia

Friday, February 22, 2013

Evidence from Siberian caves suggests that a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius could see permanently frozen ground thaw over a large area of Siberia, threatening release of carbon from soils, and damage to natural and human environments.

A thaw in Siberia's permafrost (ground frozen throughout the year) could release over 1000 giga-tonnes of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, potentially enhancing global warming.

The data comes from an international team led by Oxford University scientists studying stalactites and stalagmites from caves located along the 'permafrost frontier', where ground begins to be permanently frozen in a layer tens to hundreds of metres thick. Because stalactites and stalagmites only grow when liquid rainwater and snow melt drips into the caves, these formations record 500,000 years of changing permafrost conditions, including warmer periods similar to the climate of today.

Records from a particularly warm period (Marine Isotopic Stage 11) that occurred around 400,000 years ago suggest that global warming of 1.5?C compared to the present is enough to cause substantial thawing of permafrost far north from its present-day southern limit.

A report of the research is published in this week's Science Express. The team included scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia and Switzerland.

'The stalactites and stalagmites from these caves are a way of looking back in time to see how warm periods similar to our modern climate affect how far permafrost extends across Siberia,' said Dr Anton Vaks of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, who led the work. 'As permafrost covers 24% of the land surface of the Northern hemisphere significant thawing could affect vast areas and release giga-tonnes of carbon.

'This has huge implications for ecosystems in the region, and for aspects of the human environment. For instance, natural gas facilities in the region, as well as power lines, roads, railways and buildings are all built on permafrost and are vulnerable to thawing. Such a thaw could damage this infrastructure with obvious economic implications.'

The team used radiometric dating techniques to date the growth of cave formations (stalactites and stalagmites). Data from the Ledyanaya Lenskaya Cave ? near the town of Lensk latitude 60?N ? in the coldest region showed that the only period when stalactite growth took place occurred about 400,000 years ago, during a period with a global temperature 1.5?C higher than today. Periods when the world was 0.5-1?C warmer than today did not see any stalactite growth in this northernmost cave, suggesting that around 1.5?C is the 'tipping point' at which the coldest permafrost regions begin to thaw.

Dr Vaks said: 'Although it wasn't the main focus of our research our work also suggests that in a world 1.5?C warmer than today, warm enough to melt the coldest permafrost, adjoining regions would see significant changes with Mongolia's Gobi Desert becoming much wetter than it is today and, potentially, this extremely arid area coming to resemble the present-day Asian steppes.'

###

University of Oxford: http://www.ox.ac.uk/

Thanks to University of Oxford for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 49 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126980/Caves_point_to_thawing_of_Siberia

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Obama: 100 U.S. troops deployed to Niger

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2013/02/ap-obama-says-100-us-military-personnel-deployed-niger-022213/

The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Feb 22, 2013 8:40:15 EST

WASHINGTON ? President Obama says about 100 U.S. military personnel have been deployed to the African nation of Niger.

In a letter to Congress, Obama says the forces will focus on ?intelligence sharing? with French troops fighting Islamist militants in neighboring Mali. He says the American forces have been deployed with weapons ?for the purpose of providing their own force protection and security.?

The U.S. and Niger signed an agreement last month spelling out legal protections and obligations of Americans who might operate from the African nation. But U.S. officials declined at the time to discuss specific plans for a military presence in Niger.

The Pentagon is also considering plans to base unarmed spy drones in Niger to boost its ability to see what is happening in the region.

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Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2013/02/ap-obama-says-100-us-military-personnel-deployed-niger-022213/

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Caves point to thawing of Siberia

Friday, February 22, 2013

Evidence from Siberian caves suggests that a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius could see permanently frozen ground thaw over a large area of Siberia, threatening release of carbon from soils, and damage to natural and human environments.

A thaw in Siberia's permafrost (ground frozen throughout the year) could release over 1000 giga-tonnes of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, potentially enhancing global warming.

The data comes from an international team led by Oxford University scientists studying stalactites and stalagmites from caves located along the 'permafrost frontier', where ground begins to be permanently frozen in a layer tens to hundreds of metres thick. Because stalactites and stalagmites only grow when liquid rainwater and snow melt drips into the caves, these formations record 500,000 years of changing permafrost conditions, including warmer periods similar to the climate of today.

Records from a particularly warm period (Marine Isotopic Stage 11) that occurred around 400,000 years ago suggest that global warming of 1.5?C compared to the present is enough to cause substantial thawing of permafrost far north from its present-day southern limit.

A report of the research is published in this week's Science Express. The team included scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia and Switzerland.

'The stalactites and stalagmites from these caves are a way of looking back in time to see how warm periods similar to our modern climate affect how far permafrost extends across Siberia,' said Dr Anton Vaks of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, who led the work. 'As permafrost covers 24% of the land surface of the Northern hemisphere significant thawing could affect vast areas and release giga-tonnes of carbon.

'This has huge implications for ecosystems in the region, and for aspects of the human environment. For instance, natural gas facilities in the region, as well as power lines, roads, railways and buildings are all built on permafrost and are vulnerable to thawing. Such a thaw could damage this infrastructure with obvious economic implications.'

The team used radiometric dating techniques to date the growth of cave formations (stalactites and stalagmites). Data from the Ledyanaya Lenskaya Cave ? near the town of Lensk latitude 60?N ? in the coldest region showed that the only period when stalactite growth took place occurred about 400,000 years ago, during a period with a global temperature 1.5?C higher than today. Periods when the world was 0.5-1?C warmer than today did not see any stalactite growth in this northernmost cave, suggesting that around 1.5?C is the 'tipping point' at which the coldest permafrost regions begin to thaw.

Dr Vaks said: 'Although it wasn't the main focus of our research our work also suggests that in a world 1.5?C warmer than today, warm enough to melt the coldest permafrost, adjoining regions would see significant changes with Mongolia's Gobi Desert becoming much wetter than it is today and, potentially, this extremely arid area coming to resemble the present-day Asian steppes.'

###

University of Oxford: http://www.ox.ac.uk/

Thanks to University of Oxford for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126980/Caves_point_to_thawing_of_Siberia

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Case dismissed against former soccer coach accused of sexual assault

Anne Cook

Anne is the Internet Managing Editor for UpNorthLive.

Read?more: Local, Crime, Legal, Todd Johnson, Todd Johnson Charges Dropped, Mason County, Mason County Soccer Coach, Mason County Central, Mason County Soccer Coach Sexual Assault, Sex Crimes Charges Dropped

A Mason County Judge has dropped the case against Todd Johnson, the former Mason County Soccer coach accused of molesting a student. &nbsp/&nbspupnorthlive.com photo

MASON CO. -- The judge has dropped the case against the former Mason County Central soccer coach.

According to the Mason County Prosecutor, the woman who Todd Johnson was accused of sexually assaulting testified that her comment to police was a lie.

The investigation initially indicated the Johnson had a sexual relationship with the girl starting when she was 13 years old. While testifying in court, the girl said she felt pressured into saying that.

The judge dismissed the case based on a lack of indication that he had committed a sexual crime based on the testimony.

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Source: http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?id=863765

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South Africa's Pistorius goes free on $113000 bail - Reuters UK

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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNG_y_LcehR-VNy0S5vRwSGKJ7AX1Q&url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/22/uk-safrica-pistorius-idUKBRE91K06L20130222

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Friday, February 22, 2013

'Suits' Season 2 finale recap: The legal battles end, but the 'War' is ...

After a year of catastrophe and intrigue, where is a show like "Suits" to go? The Season 2 finale, "War," has the answer.

And it is a war. Unfortunately, these lawyers may have entered into a war for which there can be no true victor. Everyone fights, and everyone loses something. Friendships, trust, dreams and wagers are all lost over the course of a single episode. The few small victories of "War" may not be worth the price.

However, all of this loss means one thing for us viewers -- this is one incredible season finale for "Suits"!

Ain't no party like a lawyer party!

When most people go to parties, they drink, socialize and have fun. Lawyers do drink at their parties. But the rest of it? Not so much -- they're too busy betting their careers and suing each other for various things.

What does happen at the party?

  • Harvey (Gabriel Macht) wagers against Edward, the Brit who wants to merge firms with Pearson Hardman, on the future of that deal.
  • Jessica (Gina Torres) calls out Harvey on the bet. She really isn't terribly happy with Harvey these days. In fact, one might say that Jessica wants to put Harvey in his subordinate place. If Harvey loses the bet, he's stuck at the firm with no name partnership in his immediate future.
  • Mike (Patrick J. Adams) and Rachel (Meghan Markle) flirt briefly before Harvey interrupts.
  • Louis (Rick Hoffman) gets into a battle of words and mud with a British lawyer named Nigel. Nigel is basically Louis with a snotty accent.

The day after

The fallout from this party is worse than any hangover.

Scottie (Abigail Spencer) ambushes Harvey on the road. They're both wounded -- and therefore vicious -- because of this merger. It's kind of like watching a pair of foxes injured during a hunt, a fitting comparison since that's how Edward thinks of Harvey. The Brit pities Harvey so much that he warns of freezing clients' assets in the wagered lawsuit.

Of course, this isn't as much pity as it is a nasty legal tactic that allows Edward to do pretty much whatever he wants. Harvey isn't doing so well here. He should have seen this coming of course -- Edward explains his dastardly move while serving tea. Backstabbing at this law firm is always accompanied by a tea service, isn't it?

Elsewhere in the firm, things aren't much better. Nigel the Brit-Louis dares to sully Donna (Sarah Rafferty) with his "lovely" lips, thereby inciting the ire of actual Louis. A confrontation in the bathroom doesn't help. No matter how much Louis knows about efficiency, Nigel knows more (how exactly do pets and maternal relationships apply anyway?).

And then there are Rachel and Mike. Rachel finally admits to Mike that she didn't get into Harvard -- and she blames Louis. This is totally going to be a mess later. Also, there's a small issue of Rachel wanting to know Mike's "getting into Harvard" story. Since he doesn't have one, this is just awkward.

Later, she wants Mike to sign a letter officially complaining to Harvard about Sheila keeping her out because of the Louis relationship. You know, because Mike is a Harvard grad... He immediately takes the letter to Louis, who fesses up. Not that any of this helps.

What do you give up to get what you want?

War really is the tragedy of this episode. After all, the battles only end when the losses are too great to continue. This war is no exception. Everyone loses something in the quest to end up the victor.

There are, however, a few moments of touching poignancy, even in the midst of battle. The moment between Harvey and Louis, for example, when both men essentially admit their fears and insecurity, is a fascinating look at enemies who will back each other against a common foe -- to the bitter end if necessary.

It's too bad that Louis' help means the subtle dismantling of Harvey's moral code. The two men plan to use privileged information to sabotage the merger. And Harvey knows exactly what he's doing. It's just that he does care more about winning than morals. His enemies (remember Travis Tanner?) may have been right about that.

Too bad it doesn't help, and too bad Jessica is too smart to fall for such ploys. But even Jessica is starting to lose a little bit of herself in all of this. The managing partner doesn't just want to survive -- she wants to win. Jessica wants to raise herself up above anyone, anyone at all, who might hurt her.

If all of this destroys Harvey, then so be it. Jessica needs to beat him down anyway.

All you need is love. And Donna.

Throughout all of this, we have the tragic figure of Scottie roaming the legal halls. She started this merger ball rolling, but everyone else seems to be fighting over it far more than the once-fierce lawyer.

It takes Donna to figure out what's going on, but then it becomes crystal clear. Scottie is in love with Harvey (bad idea!!!) and was as motivated by a desperate need for attention as anything.

Now here's the odd part: Donna may take advantage of this desperation. She tells Scottie to throw away her ambition in order to win Harvey's love. Is this good advice? Or is it sabotage on the part of Donna?

"Suits" doesn't give us that answer, but Scottie does follow Donna's suggestions and turns over files that could kill the merger. And Harvey soon finds out why. Normally, this affection would be enough to scare off Harvey, but there is nothing "normal" about the man at this point. He orders Mike to move forward with the legal filing that will end it all.

Louis out-Louises Nigel

We now briefly return to the other issue involved with the law firms' merger. Louis and Nigel make each other redundant, placing the men at odds. But love of the theater and stories of childhood bullying can bridge any gap.

That gap is, in fact, filled by an explanation for Louis Litt. He was a bullied child. But then, one day, he learned how to be mean. The bullying ended, but friendship was never an option. Louis does seem to take a chance on friendship now though. He and Nigel agree to cover for each other with their efficiency lists. Both men can be safe.

Except Louis is still that bullied boy with limited defenses. He singles out Nigel as redundant while his own position remains secure. At least Louis feels bad enough about this to go tell Rachel the truth about Harvard.

The battles end, but the war simmers on

Harvey and Mike never get to pull off their merger-ending coup. And the reason is Jessica. She wants this merger. She wants it badly enough that she will risk her own career to turn in Mike if he follows through with one key filing.

Mike caves.

We return to that ultimate battlefield -- the firm's bathroom -- when Harvey finds out. Mike knew nothing of Harvey's stakes in this merger and has worried mainly about the way his mentor has given up on all ethics in order to win.

That's when Jessica walks in. Because this isn't about Mike. This is about Harvey and Jessica. We once thought they were friends, maybe even occasional lovers. We thought that they supported each other no matter what.

We were wrong.

With a few cutting words and an expression of frightening power, Jessica makes one thing clear: She is in charge, and Harvey will learn that.

Does he learn? Harvey definitely learns something about Jessica's nature and their relationship, but it's not likely he will ever learn deference (even to Jessica). The man wanders out into the bustling law office looking lost and close to tears. He even goes to Scottie when he sees her leaving.

Not that it matters -- Scottie has been fired for leaking information to Harvey.

The endings that will begin again

It's the end.

Harvey has lost. He has to concede to Edward, but at least Harvey Specter pulls off one last coup in his defeat -- he gets Edward to reinstate Scottie as a partner.

But will she work in London or New York?

Meanwhile, Mike has banished himself to the file room, hoping to hide from the loss of everyone and everything. It doesn't work. Rachel finds him and demands an explanation for his behavior about her Harvard letter.

At first there are lies. But then Mike concedes the battle he never wanted to fight in the first place: He tells Rachel he never went to Harvard.

She slaps him. Twice. But she can't leave, not when both Mike and Rachel are beyond desperation. Instead, there is a kiss. The kiss is followed by violent passion as desire and anger turn into sex that nearly destroys the file room -- just another casualty of this war.

As the smoke clears from this TV battlefield, most of the soldiers remain standing. All have lost something. We won't know for awhile if any of them have gained anything. For now, we have only a list of casualties and a long wait until the battles resume in "Suits" Season 3.

Source: http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2013/02/suits-season-2-finale-recap-the-legal-battles-end-but-the-war-is-just-beginning.html

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