Mandela: A hard act to follow for South Africans

A souvenir vendor set up his street shop with scarves showing portraits of former South African President Nelson Mandela near the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto, Saturday June 29, 2013. The White House issued a statement Saturday that President Barack Obama plans to visit privately with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but doesn't intend to see the critically ill anti-apartheid activist he has called a "personal hero." (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

A souvenir vendor set up his street shop with scarves showing portraits of former South African President Nelson Mandela near the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto, Saturday June 29, 2013. The White House issued a statement Saturday that President Barack Obama plans to visit privately with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but doesn't intend to see the critically ill anti-apartheid activist he has called a "personal hero." (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

A South African girl holds a poster showing former South African President Nelson Mandela, while her family and other well wishers gather at the entrance to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Friday, June 28, 2013. Members of Nelson Mandela's family as well as South African Cabinet ministers have visited the hospital on Friday where the 94-year-old former president is critically ill. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Vendors selling shawls bearing the image of former South African President Nelson Mandela, stands at the entrance to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Friday, June 28, 2013. Members of Nelson Mandela's family as well as South African Cabinet ministers have visited the hospital on Friday where the 94-year-old former president is critically ill. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

A man looks back as he walk past a mural of former South African president Nelson Mandela in the town of Umtata, South Africa, Friday, June 28, 2013. Members of Nelson Mandela's family as well as South African Cabinet ministers have visited the hospital where the 94-year-old former president is critically ill. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

A man passes a advertising board for the Nelson Mandela museum, showing the face of former South African president Nelson Mandela, right rear, in the town of Umtata, South Africa, Friday, June 28, 2013. Members of Nelson Mandela's family as well as South African Cabinet ministers have visited the hospital where the 94-year-old former president is critically ill. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? In November, just before Nelson Mandela's health began a long downward spiral, the leader of a project to build a children's hospital named after the former president briefed him on efforts to raise construction funds. Mandela, 94 years old and infirm, was exasperated by the delays. Then the reflexes of the world statesman took over.

"Well, get me a few business people. Sit them around my table here and I'll tell them why this is important," Mandela said, according to Sibongile Mkhabela, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust. The fundraiser didn't happen, but the remark was a poignant hint of the Mandela of old, the charismatic leader who, as Mkhabela put it, "knew how to make people believe in things that were not there yet."

Today Mandela is critically ill in a Pretoria hospital, seemingly close to the end of his life. As the day approaches, whenever it comes, many South Africans are caught in an emotional reckoning. They celebrate this father figure, whose jail-time sacrifice and peacemaking role in the transition from apartheid to democracy resonated worldwide, but they face the hard road of trying to emulate his example and implement his legacy after he is gone.

"There's a part of Mandela in each of us," said Anthony Prangley, a lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, a University of Pretoria business school whose campus is in Johannesburg.

"It's important to keep that in mind because we can start to see him as someone who is not accessible, or infallible," Prangley said. "In doing so, we miss the potential to learn from his leadership."

Mandela's achievements were historic even though he admitted imperfection and sought to share credit with others. That humility left a deep impression on many who met him.

The anti-apartheid leader spent 27 years in jail, but was seemingly free of rancor on his release in 1990, steering South Africa through a delicate transition to all-race elections that propelled him to the presidency four years later. The outpouring of support for the ailing Mandela, who was taken to the hospital on June 8 for what the government said was a lung infection, attests to his ability to connect and inspire in his country, even if it is struggling to live up to his soaring vision, and around the world.

"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," President Obama said in Senegal before arriving in South Africa on Friday as part of an Africa tour. Obama is to meet with Mandela's relatives Saturday, though he has said he will not visit the hospital where Mandela is receiving treatment.

The United Nations has recognized July 18, Mandela's birthday, as an international day to honor themes of activism, democracy and responsibility embodied by the former leader. Organizers of events in his honor suggest participants spend 67 minutes engaged in acts of goodness on that day ? 67 corresponds to the number of years Mandela is said to have spent in public service.

"It's possible for our societies to have 'Mandelas' so long as we don't take away from ourselves the responsibilities to learn, to be better, to aspire to something bigger," said Mkhabela, the CEO. She said she worried when people put Mandela on "such a high pedestal," setting aside the need to follow his humanitarian values.

"This just sounds like another way of saying: 'We don't want to be responsible, we feel and fear in us there is a 'Mandela' that could be unleashed. It's too big a responsibility, too big a challenge,'" she said.

The business world has taken note of Mandela as a role model. He ranked fourth on a list of admired leaders, according to a global survey late last year of 1,330 chief executive officers in 68 countries. Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs and Mahatma Gandhi led the field in the survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The survey said many CEOs "chose leaders who were persistent in the face of adversity ? as well as transformational leaders and leaders who did the 'right thing.'"

Prangley, the business school lecturer, said a great leader doesn't just inspire and have many followers, but also reaches out to other constituencies. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., he said, became more effective by winning over white Americans, and Mahatma Gandhi sought to unite Muslims and Hindus, even though India was partitioned. President Obama energized crowds early on but now struggles to rally people when things sour, according to Prangley, who praised Mandela's political skill.

"He understands when to push and when to bring other people to the table," he said of Mandela's skill in balancing firmness and compromise.

Prangley said he met Mandela as a student volunteer in Mozambique in the late 1990s, recalling how the former president told him and his young colleagues that it was a "wizened" group of older leaders who had led the negotiations that ended apartheid.

"In South African society, it was the older generation who began to compromise and brought change," Prangley said. "It was a message to us, as young people at that time, to kind of learn from that experience."

Mandela, though, was hardly a stuffy patriarch. He had cross-generational appeal. He wore colorful, patterned shirts when president and was known for warmth and attention to personal detail despite a somewhat regal, even stiff bearing.

Those who have worked with Mandela, a philanthropist who joined the fight against the AIDS epidemic in South Africa and other humanitarian causes, often share what they learned with colorful anecdotes about the former president, also known by his clan name, Madiba. Achmat Dangor, the former head of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, a Johannesburg-based foundation, picked up tips about the stubborn art of fundraising.

"I've been on occasions with heads of state and certain great persons somewhere who made a pledge, and Madiba called me and said, 'You sit here until they give you something in writing, you don't leave,'" Dangor told a foundation audience in May. "'Thank you, Prime Minister. Your Excellency, thank you.' And yes, I didn't leave without a note. A million pounds came a couple of years later, but it came."

Mandela also stressed the importance of getting opposing sides to speak to each other, said Dangor, who described how he and a colleague once approached Mandela to discuss dialogue initiatives.

Dangor recalled: "He listened very carefully and then he said, 'Listen I want to tell you something. You know, when you get people together who agree with each other, and they're friends, that's not dialogue. That's a chat. Bring together those who disagree with each other.'"

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-29-AF-South-Africa-Mandela-Leadership/id-45af8482dd3148298932c274f9814ec6

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Is it alive or dead? How to measure the thermal signatures of single cells and assess their biological activity

June 28, 2013 ? To the ancients, probing the philosophical question of how to distinguish the living from the dead centered on the "mystery of the vital heat." To modern microbiology, this question was always less mysterious than it was annoying -- researchers have known that biological processes should produce thermal signatures, even within single cells, but nobody ever knew how to measure them.

Now, a group of mechanical engineers from Pohang University of Science and Technology in Korea have discovered a way to measure the "thermal conductivity" of three types of cells taken from human and rat tissues and placed in individual micro-wells. They showed that they could detect uniform heat signatures from the various cells and measured significant difference between dead and living ones, suggesting a new way to probe cells for biological activity.

A lone cell is fantastically small, often only about 10 microns across (10 millionths of a meter), and this size has thwarted thermodynamic measurements of single cells. Writing in the journal Applied Physics Letters, a team led by Dongsik Kim and Jaesung Park describes how their novel nanoscale biosensing technique can measure the thermal conductivity of a single cell.

"In the short-term, this biosensing technique can be used to measure cell viability," said Kim. "In the long-term, we hope to refine it to develop a non-invasive, rapid means for early diagnosis of diseases such as cancer based on differences in the thermal properties of cells."

While the fundamental heat signatures the researchers detected are not exactly what the ancient philosophers imagined, measuring them may answer more mysteries than they could have dreamed.

The article, "Thermal conductivity of single biological cells and relation with cell viability" by Byoung Kyoo Park, Namwoo Yi, Jaesung Park, and Dongsik Kim appears in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Institute of Physics (AIP), via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

1. Byoung Kyoo Park, Namwoo Yi, Jaesung Park, Dongsik Kim. Thermal conductivity of single biological cells and relation with cell viability. Applied Physics Letters, 2013; 102 (20): 203702 DOI: 10.1063/1.4807471

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/U6EaAk8Ehik/130628102927.htm

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Mozilla Opens Its Firefox Social API To Developers

With the release of the first public beta of Firefox 23, Mozilla didn't just introduce a new logo and kill the <blink> element, it also opened up its Social API for developers. This feature allows them to create new ways for users to interact with their favorite web apps through a persistent sidebar, notifications or toolbar buttons in the browser. With this release, Mozilla also adds a share panel to the mix.

Mozilla first launched this feature in cooperation with Facebook in Firefox 17 last year. Since then, it added a number of new partners, including Cliqz, Mixi (for users in Japan) and msnNOW.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/RWF0e0eG5JI/

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Large-scale quantum chip validated

Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robert Perkins
perkinsr@usc.edu
213-740-9226
University of Southern California

New research finds that prototype quantum optimization chip operates as hoped

A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.

The team demonstrated that the D-Wave processor housed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center behaves in a manner that indicates that quantum mechanics plays a functional role in the way it works. The demonstration involved a small subset of the chip's 128 qubits.

This means that the device appears to be operating as a quantum processor something that scientists had hoped for but have needed extensive testing to verify.

The quantum processor was purchased from Canadian manufacturer D-Wave nearly two years ago by Lockheed Martin and housed at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI). As the first of its kind, the task for scientists putting it through its paces was to determine whether the quantum computer was operating as hoped.

"Using a specific test problem involving eight qubits we have verified that the D-Wave processor performs optimization calculations (that is, finds lowest energy solutions) using a procedure that is consistent with quantum annealing and is inconsistent with the predictions of classical annealing," said Daniel Lidar, scientific director of the Quantum Computing Center and one of the researchers on the team, who holds joint appointments with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Quantum annealing is a method of solving optimization problems using quantum mechanics at a large enough scale, potentially much faster than a traditional processor can.

Research institutions throughout the world build and use quantum processors, but most only have a few quantum bits, or "qubits."

Qubits have the capability of encoding the two digits of one and zero at the same time as opposed to traditional bits, which can encode distinctly either a one or a zero. This property, called "superposition," along with the ability of quantum states to "tunnel" through energy barriers, are hoped to play a role in helping future generations of the D-Wave processor to ultimately perform optimization calculations much faster than traditional processors.

With 108 functional qubits, the D-Wave processor at USC inspired hopes for a significant advance in the field of quantum computing when it was installed in October 2011 provided it worked as a quantum information processor. Quantum processors can fall victim to a phenomenon called "decoherence," which stifles their ability to behave in a quantum fashion.

The USC team's research shows that the chip, in fact, performed largely as hoped, demonstrating the potential for quantum optimization on a larger-than-ever scale.

"Our work seems to show that, from a purely physical point of view, quantum effects play a functional role in information processing in the D-Wave processor," said Sergio Boixo, first author of the research paper, who conducted the research while he was a computer scientist at ISI and research assistant professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Boixo and Lidar collaborated with Tameem Albash, postdoctoral research associate in physics at USC Dornsife; Federico M. Spedalieri, computer scientist at ISI; and Nicholas Chancellor, a recent physics graduate at USC Dornsife. Their findings will be published in Nature Communications on June 28.

The news comes just two months after the Quantum Computing Center's original D-Wave processorknown commercially as the "Rainier" chipwas upgraded to a new 512-qubit "Vesuvius" chip. The Quantum Computing Center, which includes a magnetically shielded box that is kept frigid (near absolute zero) to protect the computer against decoherence, was designed to be upgradable to keep up with the latest developments in the field.

The new Vesuvius chip at USC is currently the only one in operation outside of D-Wave. A second such chip, owned by Google and housed at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, is expected to become operational later this year.

Next, the USC team will take the Vesuvius chip for a test drive, putting it through the same paces as the Rainier chip.

###

This research was supported by the Lockheed Martin Corporation; U.S. Army Research Office grant number W911NF-12-1-0523; National Science Foundation grant number CHM-1037992, ARO Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant W911NF-11-1-026.

---

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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.

Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robert Perkins
perkinsr@usc.edu
213-740-9226
University of Southern California

New research finds that prototype quantum optimization chip operates as hoped

A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.

The team demonstrated that the D-Wave processor housed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center behaves in a manner that indicates that quantum mechanics plays a functional role in the way it works. The demonstration involved a small subset of the chip's 128 qubits.

This means that the device appears to be operating as a quantum processor something that scientists had hoped for but have needed extensive testing to verify.

The quantum processor was purchased from Canadian manufacturer D-Wave nearly two years ago by Lockheed Martin and housed at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI). As the first of its kind, the task for scientists putting it through its paces was to determine whether the quantum computer was operating as hoped.

"Using a specific test problem involving eight qubits we have verified that the D-Wave processor performs optimization calculations (that is, finds lowest energy solutions) using a procedure that is consistent with quantum annealing and is inconsistent with the predictions of classical annealing," said Daniel Lidar, scientific director of the Quantum Computing Center and one of the researchers on the team, who holds joint appointments with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Quantum annealing is a method of solving optimization problems using quantum mechanics at a large enough scale, potentially much faster than a traditional processor can.

Research institutions throughout the world build and use quantum processors, but most only have a few quantum bits, or "qubits."

Qubits have the capability of encoding the two digits of one and zero at the same time as opposed to traditional bits, which can encode distinctly either a one or a zero. This property, called "superposition," along with the ability of quantum states to "tunnel" through energy barriers, are hoped to play a role in helping future generations of the D-Wave processor to ultimately perform optimization calculations much faster than traditional processors.

With 108 functional qubits, the D-Wave processor at USC inspired hopes for a significant advance in the field of quantum computing when it was installed in October 2011 provided it worked as a quantum information processor. Quantum processors can fall victim to a phenomenon called "decoherence," which stifles their ability to behave in a quantum fashion.

The USC team's research shows that the chip, in fact, performed largely as hoped, demonstrating the potential for quantum optimization on a larger-than-ever scale.

"Our work seems to show that, from a purely physical point of view, quantum effects play a functional role in information processing in the D-Wave processor," said Sergio Boixo, first author of the research paper, who conducted the research while he was a computer scientist at ISI and research assistant professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Boixo and Lidar collaborated with Tameem Albash, postdoctoral research associate in physics at USC Dornsife; Federico M. Spedalieri, computer scientist at ISI; and Nicholas Chancellor, a recent physics graduate at USC Dornsife. Their findings will be published in Nature Communications on June 28.

The news comes just two months after the Quantum Computing Center's original D-Wave processorknown commercially as the "Rainier" chipwas upgraded to a new 512-qubit "Vesuvius" chip. The Quantum Computing Center, which includes a magnetically shielded box that is kept frigid (near absolute zero) to protect the computer against decoherence, was designed to be upgradable to keep up with the latest developments in the field.

The new Vesuvius chip at USC is currently the only one in operation outside of D-Wave. A second such chip, owned by Google and housed at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, is expected to become operational later this year.

Next, the USC team will take the Vesuvius chip for a test drive, putting it through the same paces as the Rainier chip.

###

This research was supported by the Lockheed Martin Corporation; U.S. Army Research Office grant number W911NF-12-1-0523; National Science Foundation grant number CHM-1037992, ARO Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant W911NF-11-1-026.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

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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/uosc-lqc062813.php

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Jurors may hear dying woman's words at Fort Hood trial

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Jurors in the trial of accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will be allowed to hear the dying words of Private First Class Francheska Velez, who was six weeks pregnant when she was shot dead in the rampage, a military judge ruled on Thursday.

Velez, who was 21 and expecting her first child, screamed, "My baby, My baby" when she was shot during the November 2009 attack that killed 13 and wounded 32. Her words may be read to jurors, Colonel Tara Osborn ruled.

Hasan, who faces a possible death sentence if convicted of the killings at Fort Hood, did not object to the introduction of her statement. He was due to enter a plea at his next court appearance on July 2, according to a Fort Hood statement.

Hasan was likely to enter a plea of not guilty. He had expressed a desire at one point to plead guilty if the death penalty were taken off the table. That request was refused and defendants are not allowed to plead guilty to capital offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, has decided to represent himself in the court martial. Osborn has assigned military lawyers to assist him on legal research and to be prepared to step in as Hasan's defense counsel if needed.

The trial has been delayed several times to address numerous issues, including whether Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim, may wear a beard in court, against Army regulations. He has said he is wearing it for religious reasons.

More recently, the trial was delayed while Osborn determined whether Hasan, who was shot by civilian police during the rampage and is paralyzed from the chest down, was competent and physically capable of representing himself at trial.

Hasan also unsuccessfully sought the right to argue at trial he was protecting the Taliban in Afghanistan from U.S. aggression when he opened fire at Fort Hood.

Fort Hood was a major deployment point for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hasan himself had been preparing to leave for Afghanistan with a unit assigned to help soldiers deal with mental issues.

The selection of a panel of Army officers who will serve as the jury in the court martial is set to begin July 9. Opening statements are scheduled to begin no earlier than August 6.

(Editing by David Bailey and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jurors-may-hear-dying-womans-words-fort-hood-231044309.html

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Criticize Dentist On Yelp, Get Threatened With Felony &#39;Internet ...

A Texas mother took her child to a dentist who only works on children based on the referral of the family?s regular dentist. She didn?t really like the specialist, and wrote a relatively short, clear Yelp review explaining why. That got her a letter from the dentist?s attorney ordering her to take down her review, OR ELSE.

Or else what? Criminal charges of ?internet business defamation and libel.? This scared the reviewer, understandably, so she sought help, ultimately leading her to Ken White?s excellent law blog Pope Hat. A reader of that site who is a licensed attorney in Texas volunteered to smack down the dentist?s attorney, and the resulting letter is an eight-page thing of beauty that breaks down the attorney?s thuggish claims and points out precisely why it?s wrong to threaten to sue or prosecute someone for offering their opinion on the Internet.

Most people might post a review online, get a mean letter from a lawyer, and drop the whole thing out of fear that they would be sued or prosecuted for libel. It?s easier to take down a Yelp review than it is to hire a lawyer, right? The thing is, the attorney who helped out this family happened to know that Texas did away with its criminal libel law statutes in the middle of the 20th century. What the state does have are anti-SLAPP statutes, which prevent people and companies from filing lawsuits just to silence critics, especially critics making factually true claims.

What else would you call threatening to file a defamation suit against someone for posting her impressions of a visit to the dentist? What is it with pediatric dentists and suing people over not-all-that-scathing Yelp reviews, anyway?

Go read the actual letter: it links to everything from relevant statutes to a video clip from ?The Simpsons.?

Criticize Your Dentist? That?s a Jailin? [Pope Hat]

RELEVANT:
Patient Sues Dentist Who Threatened Legal Action Over Yelp?Reviews

RELATED:
eBay Seller Freaks Out And Sues Customer Over Bad Feedback That?s Actually?True
Virginia Supreme Court: Businesses Can?t Censor Yelp Reviews Until They Prove Statements Are Libelous
Moving Company Picks The Wrong Person To Threaten To Sue Over Bad Yelp Review
How To Not Get Sued For What You Said On?Yelp

Source: http://consumerist.com/2013/06/27/criticize-dentist-on-yelp-get-threatened-with-felony-internet-business-defamation/

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Scherzer remains unbeaten, improving to 12-0

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) ? Major league wins leader Max Scherzer became the first starting pitcher to win 12 consecutive decisions to begin a season in 27 years, and the Detroit Tigers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-3 behind a pair of home runs from Miguel Cabrera on Friday night.

Scherzer (12-0) allowed three runs, four hits, walked one and struck out nine in seven innings to become the first pitcher in Tigers history to win his first 12 decisions as a starter.

The right-hander also became the first in the majors to begin a season with at least 12 straight victories since Roger Clemens did it on the way to starting 14-0 with the Boston Red Sox in 1986.

Cabrera went 4 for 4 and drove in three runs, boosting his major league-leading batting average to .377 with 24 homers and 81 RBIs, also tops in the big leagues. He hit a two-run homer in the first inning off Alex Colome (1-1) to extend his hitting streak to a season-best 13 games, then added a solo shot off the rookie for a 3-0 lead in the fourth.

Cabrera also singled in the sixth, giving him three of Detroit's four hits off Colome. Prince Fielder doubled in the fourth, tagged up and hustled to third base on Victor Martinez's fly ball to right and eventually scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-0 before the Rays gradually climbed back into the game.

Ben Zobrist and Wil Myers hit solo homers for Tampa Bay. Luke Scott's RBI double trimmed Scherzer's lead to 4-3 in the seventh.

Cabrera doubled off Kyle Farnsworth in the eighth for his fourth hit. Fielder gave the Detroit bullpen some breathing room when he followed with his first homer since June 4, a towering two-run shot off Cesar Ramos that struck one of the catwalks that support the roof at Tropicana Field.

Al Alburquerque and Drew Smyly worked a scoreless eighth for the Tigers. Joaquin Benoit finished a combined five-hitter, earning his fifth save.

Scherzer, who's fanned at least six in each of his 16 starts this season, retired 11 in a row before Zobrist's first-pitch drive to right with two outs in the fourth. The closest the Rays had come to getting a hit up until then was Evan Longoria's second-inning grounder over the mound that Omar Infante ran down behind second base before making an off-balance throw to first for the out.

Longoria was removed from the game following that inning. The Rays later announced he irritated plantar fasciitis in his right foot, which has bothered him for the past month.

Longoria, who has 17 homers and 47 RBIs in 80 games, will be re-evaluated Saturday.

Myers hit his third career homer with one out in the fifth. The rookie, playing in his 11th game, singled with two outs in the seventh and scored from first base when Scott doubled into the right field corner.

Cabrera leads the majors in hits and RBIs and is second behind Baltimore's Chris Davis in home runs. He has 28 career multihomer games, three this year. During his 13-game hitting streak, the 2012 AL MVP has gone 25 for 51.

Notes: Reigning AL Cy Young winner David Price will rejoin Tampa Bay's rotation Tuesday night at Houston. The left-hander went on the disabled list for the first time in his career May 16 with a strained left triceps. He made two minor league rehab starts with Class A Charlotte and said he felt good after a bullpen session Friday. The Rays have gone 21-20 while he's been on the DL. ... The Tigers recalled reliever Bruce Rondon from Triple-A Toledo. To make room on the roster, reliever Evan Reed was optioned to Toledo. Detroit manager Jim Leyland said Rondon was not "brought back as a closer." Instead, Benoit will get most save opportunities. ... Rays RHP Alex Cobb, who was struck in the right ear by a ball hit by Kansas City's Eric Hosmer on June 15, played catch during batting practice. ... Tigers RHP Anibal Sanchez (right shoulder strain) will make a 60-pitch rehab start Monday, probably for Class A Lakeland . . . Leyland plans to rest RF Torii Hunter on Saturday night ... Leyland, who will manage the AL All-Star team, said he will not use any pitcher who starts a game on the preceding Sunday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/scherzer-remains-unbeaten-improving-12-0-022350901.html

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Gut Microbes Spur Liver Cancer in Obese Mice

The link between cancer and obesity may be related to changes in gut fauna, at least in obese mice with liver cancer. Pictured: Clostridium difficile Image: Flickr/AJ Cann

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The gut bacteria of obese mice unleash high levels of an acid that promotes liver cancer, reveals one of the first studies to uncover a mechanism for the link between obesity and cancer. The research is published today in Nature.

?Obesity in general has many different types of cancer associated with it,? says Eiji Hara, a cancer biologist at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in Tokyo and one of the study authors. But in the case of liver cancer, he says, ?I never expected the microbiome was linked.?

Hara and his colleagues initially set out to study how dying cells influence obesity-linked cancers. Cells that are irreparably damaged or pre-cancerous can become senescent ? meaning that they stop dividing for overall health of the organism. But before senescent cells die, they can spew out chemicals that may cause inflammation and promote cancer development.

To examine whether senescent cells are involved in obesity-induced cancers, Hara and his colleagues worked with genetically engineered mice whose cells emit light upon becoming senescent. They then primed the mice by exposing them to a carcinogenic chemical, a process that Hara says may be similar to humans? exposure to environmental toxins, such as air pollution. Researchers then fed the mice either a normal diet or a high-fat diet.

After 30 weeks, only 5% of the lean mice developed cancer ? in their lungs ? whereas all the obese mice developed liver cancer.

Although the results showed that cell senescence was involved in obesity-linked cancer in the mice, Hara and his colleagues did not initially understand why the liver became a hotbed for tumors. But when they compared the blood serum of the two groups of mice, they found that the obese mice had much higher amounts of deoxycholic acid (DCA), a chemical that causes DNA damage and can induce cell senescence.

Deliver to the liver
DCA is a by-product of metabolism in intestinal bacteria. In the gut, certain types of microbes convert bile acids ? which aid in fat digestion ? to the more harmful DCA, which is then absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered to the liver.

The researchers found that obese mice had a greater number of DCA-producing Clostridium bacteria, and that obese mice given antibiotics to clear intestinal bacteria developed fewer liver tumors.

Peter Turnbaugh, a systems biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says that the data provide a clear example of how the metabolism of gut microbes links obesity and cancer. ?They?ve uncovered a nice story,? he says.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on June 26, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/sciam/biology/~3/sKyfrH6BAQQ/article.cfm

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Ingested nanoparticle toxicity

June 26, 2013 ? Ingestion of commonly encountered nanoparticles at typical environmental levels is unlikely to cause overt toxicity, according to US researchers. Nevertheless there is insufficient evidence to determine whether chronic exposures could lead to subtle alterations in intestinal immune function, protein profiles, or microbial balance.

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, researchers have compared existing laboratory and experimental animal studies pertaining to the toxicity of nanoparticles most likely to be intentionally or accidentally ingested. Based on their review, the researchers determined ingestion of nanoparticles at likely exposure levels is unlikely to cause health problems, at least with respect to acute toxicity. Furthermore, in vitro laboratory testing, which often shows toxicity at a cellular level, does not correspond well with in vivo testing, which tends to show less adverse effects.

Ingrid Bergin in the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Frank Witzmann in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, at Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis, explain that the use of particles that are in the nano size range (from 1 billionth to 100 billionths of a meter in diameter, 1-100 nm, other thereabouts) are finding applications in consumer products and medicine. These include particles such as nano-silver, which is increasingly used in consumer products and dietary supplements for its purported antimicrobial properties. Nanoparticles can have some intriguing and useful properties because they do not necessarily behave in the same chemical and physical ways as non-nanoparticle versions of the same material.

Nanoparticles are now used as natural flavor enhancers in the form of liposomes and related materials, food pigments and in some so-called "health supplements." They are also used in antibacterial toothbrushes coated with silver nanoparticles, for instance in food and drink containers and in hygienic infant feeding equipment. They are also used to carry pharmaceuticals to specific disease sites in the body to reduce side effects. Nanoparticles actually encompass a very wide range of materials from pure metals and alloys, to metal oxide nanoparticles, and carbon-based and plastic nanoparticles. Because of their increasing utilization in consumer products, there has been concern over whether these small scale materials could have unique toxicity effects when compared to more traditional versions of the same materials.

Difficulties in assessing the health risks of nanoparticles include the fact that particles of differing materials and shapes can have different properties. Furthermore, the route of exposure (e.g. ingestion vs. inhalation) affects the likelihood of toxicity. The U.S. researchers evaluated the current literature specifically with respect to toxicity of ingested nanoparticles. They point out that, in addition to intentional ingestion as with dietary supplements, unintentional ingestion can occur due to nanoparticle presence in water or as a breakdown product from coated consumer goods. Inhaled nanoparticles also represent an ingestion hazard since they are coughed up, swallowed, and eliminated through the intestinal tract.

Based on their review, the team concludes that, "Ingested nanoparticles appear unlikely to have acute or severe toxic effects at typical levels of exposure." Nevertheless, they add that the current literature is inadequate to assess whether nanoparticles can accumulate in tissues and have long-term effects or whether they might cause subtle alterations in gut microbial populations. The researchers stress that better methods are needed for correlating particle concentrations used for cell-based assessment of toxicity with the actual likely exposure levels to body cells. Such methods may lead to better predictive value for laboratory in vitro testing, which currently over-predicts toxicity of ingested nanoparticles as compared to in vivo testing.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/nzJGeyWJ0NU/130626143120.htm

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Research raises concerns over smoke detectors' effectiveness in waking children

June 27, 2013 ? Standard domestic smoke detectors may not always wake children in the event of a fire, according to research by the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Forensic Science and Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service.

The study of 34 children -20 girls and 14 boys- aged between two and 13, found that 80% slept through smoke detector alarms. Each child was tested six times and only seven of the children woke during any of the tests.

Only two children woke on every occasion and none of the 14 boys in the research woke at all.

While the findings do not call into question the value of smoke alarms in alerting people to fires, nor their capacity to help save lives, the fact that the children failed so often to wake up on the activation of the alarms does raise concerns.

Professor Niamh Nic Daeid, of Strathclyde's Centre for Forensic Science, who led the research said 'While the results of this study remain preliminary given the number of children involved, they do highlight concerns that cannot be ignored about the effectiveness of smoke detectors in waking children."

"Further research is required to build on the findings to date and investigate robust solutions to the issues highlighted."

Dave Coss, East Midlands Regional Fire Investigation Dog Handler and Watch Manager with Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service, conducted the study as part of his Masters degree taken at the University of Strathclyde.

Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service reinforces the importance of having a working smoke alarm on every level of the home and that the research finding emphasise the importance of having a pre-planned and practised escape route or plan that everyone in the home, whether a family member or overnight guest, is aware of. This plan must account for waking, alerting and evacuating all children in the home.

The Service also continues to campaign and work towards domestic sprinklers being fitted into all new domestic dwellings and retrofitted into the homes of those most vulnerable to fire, as and where appropriate.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/mstauAWBoR4/130627131827.htm

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NATO head urges Georgia to hold democratic presidential race

By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia must ensure presidential elections in October satisfy democratic standards, NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday told Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili who is locked in a bitter political dispute with the outgoing president.

Since Ivanishvili took office last year, dozens of former officials linked to President Mikheil Saakashvili have been arrested, triggering warnings from the West that Tbilisi should avoid selective justice or persecution of political opponents.

The presidential vote in Georgia, a pivot of geopolitical rivalry between the West and Russia, will end a year of turbulent cohabitation between the two since Saakashvili must step down after serving two terms.

"To demonstrate that democracy is deep-rooted means also making political cohabitation work, showing a clear commitment to the rule of law and ensuring that the presidential election this year meets the very highest level," Rasmussen told a news conference with the billionaire Ivanishvili.

Rasmussen also said Georgia, a small Caucasus republic contributing 1,500 soldiers to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, should carry on introducing reforms to eventually meet requirements to join the military alliance.

NATO promised eventual membership to Georgia, a priority for Saakashvili, at a summit in 2008. But the mood cooled after a five-day war Georgia fought with Russia later that year.

"The upcoming presidential election will be much better than any previous election in Georgia," Ivanishvili told the news conference. "It will ... simplify our way towards NATO."

Ivanishvili made most of his fortune worth $5.3 billion - or more than a third of Georgia's gross domestic product - in Russia. He also wants Georgia to join NATO and the European Union, but has said he would also seek better ties with Russia.

Ivanishvili has dismissed accusations of using courts to settle scores with his political rivals. But he also says any wrongdoing must be treated according to the law.

Georgia's former prime minister has been the among former officials arrested since Ivanishvili rose to power. The officials have been accused of abuse of power, corruption, illegal confinement or illegally obtaining personal information.

Some Ivanishvili supporters protested against alleged vote rigging by the Saakashvili side after last October's parliamentary race but the president's quick acceptance that his party was going into opposition marked the first smooth transition of power in Georgia.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Gabriela Baczynska and Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nato-head-urges-georgia-hold-democratic-presidential-race-181835711.html

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Research shows Vitamin D levels drop after pediatric heart surgery, increasing sickness

Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Adrienne Vienneau
avienneau@cheo.on.ca
613-737-7600 x4144
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute

OTTAWA, CanadaJune 26, 2013Until now, there has been no research dedicated to the importance of Vitamin D supplementation in children with congenital heart disease (CHD). However, over the past few years, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute and Cardiovascular Surgery Program teamed with the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group to understand the impact of cardiac surgery on the Vitamin D status of infants and children, to be printed next month in Anesthesiology.

"The importance of Vitamin D levels and supplementation in healthy infants and children is well established," said Dr. Dayre McNally, a clinical researcher and intensivist at CHEO and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. "Now we have more compelling evidence that children with congenital heart disease require even higher levels of Vitamin D intake in the months preceding surgery."

This evidence comes from a study that looked at 58 children who had cardiac surgery at CHEO. Blood was collected at the time of admission to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit immediately following surgery, and revealed that almost all of the children had low Vitamin D levels. With additional tests, the researchers were able to determine why. "Our results show that almost all children are Vitamin D deficient post-operatively as a result of borderline acceptable levels prior to surgery, combined with a 40% decline during the operation."

The role of Vitamin D in the growth and maintenance of bone health is well known to the public. However, recent studies have also suggested Vitamin D to be important for the proper functioning of other organs including the heart, lungs and immune systems. This study by Dr. McNally confirms this, as patients with lower post-operative Vitamin D levels were more prone to requiring more life-sustaining therapies (medications to support heart function, longer duration of assisted breathing) and stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for longer periods of time.

Although Dr. McNally and his co-investigators are concerned with the high rates of post-operative vitamin D deficiency they also view the finding as positive. "The children and families who generously participated in this research have provided us with important information that may help the next generation of children maintain better health and recover quicker following cardiac surgery," explained Dr. McNally. The CHEO Research Institute and Canadian Critical Care Trials Group have wasted little time and have already designed a novel study with the goal of identifying a new approach to Vitamin D supplementation in children with CHD.

###

This study was conducted by Dr. Dayre McNally, Dr. Kusum Menon, Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, Lawrence Fisher, Kathryn Williams, Dr. Osama Al-Dirbashi, Tara Girolamo, Dr. Gyaandeo Maharajh, and Dr. Dermot Doherty. It was supported with grants from the CHEO Research Institute and Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Ottawa. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada recently awarded Dr. McNally and the research team a grant to assist with their program of research on Vitamin D supplementation in children with CHD.

About the CHEO Research Institute:

Established in 1984, the CHEO Research Institute coordinates the research activities of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and is one of the institutes associated with the University of Ottawa Teaching Hospitals. The Research Institute brings together health professionals from within CHEO to share their efforts in solving pediatric health problems. It also promotes collaborative research outside the hospital with partners from the immediate community, industry and the international scientific world. For more information, please visit http://www.cheori.org.

About the University of Ottawa:

The University of Ottawa is committed to research excellence and encourages an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge creation, which attracts the best academic talent from across Canada and around the world. The University is an important stakeholder in the National Capital Region's economic development.

---

[ | E-mail | 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.

Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Adrienne Vienneau
avienneau@cheo.on.ca
613-737-7600 x4144
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute

OTTAWA, CanadaJune 26, 2013Until now, there has been no research dedicated to the importance of Vitamin D supplementation in children with congenital heart disease (CHD). However, over the past few years, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute and Cardiovascular Surgery Program teamed with the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group to understand the impact of cardiac surgery on the Vitamin D status of infants and children, to be printed next month in Anesthesiology.

"The importance of Vitamin D levels and supplementation in healthy infants and children is well established," said Dr. Dayre McNally, a clinical researcher and intensivist at CHEO and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. "Now we have more compelling evidence that children with congenital heart disease require even higher levels of Vitamin D intake in the months preceding surgery."

This evidence comes from a study that looked at 58 children who had cardiac surgery at CHEO. Blood was collected at the time of admission to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit immediately following surgery, and revealed that almost all of the children had low Vitamin D levels. With additional tests, the researchers were able to determine why. "Our results show that almost all children are Vitamin D deficient post-operatively as a result of borderline acceptable levels prior to surgery, combined with a 40% decline during the operation."

The role of Vitamin D in the growth and maintenance of bone health is well known to the public. However, recent studies have also suggested Vitamin D to be important for the proper functioning of other organs including the heart, lungs and immune systems. This study by Dr. McNally confirms this, as patients with lower post-operative Vitamin D levels were more prone to requiring more life-sustaining therapies (medications to support heart function, longer duration of assisted breathing) and stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for longer periods of time.

Although Dr. McNally and his co-investigators are concerned with the high rates of post-operative vitamin D deficiency they also view the finding as positive. "The children and families who generously participated in this research have provided us with important information that may help the next generation of children maintain better health and recover quicker following cardiac surgery," explained Dr. McNally. The CHEO Research Institute and Canadian Critical Care Trials Group have wasted little time and have already designed a novel study with the goal of identifying a new approach to Vitamin D supplementation in children with CHD.

###

This study was conducted by Dr. Dayre McNally, Dr. Kusum Menon, Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, Lawrence Fisher, Kathryn Williams, Dr. Osama Al-Dirbashi, Tara Girolamo, Dr. Gyaandeo Maharajh, and Dr. Dermot Doherty. It was supported with grants from the CHEO Research Institute and Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Ottawa. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada recently awarded Dr. McNally and the research team a grant to assist with their program of research on Vitamin D supplementation in children with CHD.

About the CHEO Research Institute:

Established in 1984, the CHEO Research Institute coordinates the research activities of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and is one of the institutes associated with the University of Ottawa Teaching Hospitals. The Research Institute brings together health professionals from within CHEO to share their efforts in solving pediatric health problems. It also promotes collaborative research outside the hospital with partners from the immediate community, industry and the international scientific world. For more information, please visit http://www.cheori.org.

About the University of Ottawa:

The University of Ottawa is committed to research excellence and encourages an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge creation, which attracts the best academic talent from across Canada and around the world. The University is an important stakeholder in the National Capital Region's economic development.

---

[ | E-mail | 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/choe-rsv062513.php

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Wall Street advances on central bank comments, data

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Tuesday, putting the S&P 500 on track to stem recent losses after comments from central bankers in the U.S. and China eased recent concerns about a credit crunch and an end to stimulus measures.

The People's Bank of China said it would not press banks too greatly in its efforts to curb easy credit as it sought to ease worries of a possible banking crisis.

The S&P 500 <.spx> on Monday closed at its lowest level since April 22 after China's central bank said the country's banks need to do a better job of managing their cash and due to continued worries about a reduction in stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve.

But equities pared losses late in the session after two Fed officials downplayed the notion of an imminent end to monetary stimulus. The benchmark S&P index has fallen 4.8 percent since the Fed signaled last week that it may begin to lessen stimulus should its economic forecasts hold true, including a 1.4 percent drop the day of the announcement.

"Today everything seems to be calmed down - you've got every Fed President going out at every opportunity trying to assure everyone that they have overreacted," said Ken Polcari, Director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities in New York.

Housing-related stocks advanced, buoyed by a flurry of data that showed continued momentum in the industry's recovery. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> climbed 2.1 percent.

Adding support was data showing durable goods orders increased 3.6 percent in May, above the 3 percent forecast, the latest signs of a pick-up in economic activity.

Data from the Conference Board showed consumer confidence jumped in June to 81.4, its highest level in over five years, and above expectations for a 75.4 reading.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 67.85 points, or 0.46 percent, to 14,727.41. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 7.47 points, or 0.47 percent, to 1,580.56. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 10.12 points, or 0.30 percent, to 3,330.88.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of house prices in 20 metropolitan areas gained 1.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, topping forecasts for 1.2 percent, indicating the housing recovery continues to gain momentum.

New home sales data increased 2.1 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000 units, the highest since July 2008.

Lennar Corp climbed 3.3 percent to $36.13 after the No. 3 U.S. homebuilder reported a 53 percent jump in quarterly revenue as it sold more homes at higher prices, and said orders rose 27 percent.

Walgreen Co slumped 6 percent to $45.17 as the worst performer on the S&P 500 after reporting weaker-than-expected results, citing slow front-end sales and a challenging economy.

Barnes & Noble Inc tumbled 13.3 percent to $16.32 after the largest U.S. bookstore chain reported its quarterly net loss more than doubled.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-point-bounce-selloff-data-tap-112655949.html

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Obama to unveil climate change plan with sweeping emissions cuts

Obama is expected to announce Tuesday a comprehensive new plan to combat climate change that includes cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants ? a move that could lead to a wave of plant closings.

By Mark Clayton,?Staff writer / June 25, 2013

Smoke rises from the stacks of the La Cygne Generating Station coal-fired power plant in La Cygne, Kan. President Obama says he'll unveil a national plan to combat climate change in a speech Tuesday.

Charlie Riedel/AP/File

Enlarge

Recognizing that Congress is unlikely to pass significant climate change legislation during his second term, President Obama will take some of the most sweeping measures available to him to unilaterally combat global warming.

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The new plan, which Mr. Obama will unveil Tuesday at Georgetown University, is expected to include a ramping up of energy efficiency and renewable energy in addition to national preparations to deal with the meteorological and financial impacts of climate change. But by far the strongest element of the plan is a set of new regulations intended to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants ? not just power plants built in the future.

Obama intends to issue a presidential memorandum directing the Environmental Protection Agency to implement new regulations of greenhouse-gas emissions under the authority of the Clean Air Act. The president's plan is an attempt to deliver on his promise to cut carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, White House officials told reporters in a conference call Monday.

The move has the potential to cut annually hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) ? a potent greenhouse gas ? and far overshadow any carbon-emissions cuts the Obama administration has achieved so far through improved fuel-efficiency standards. But it could also accelerate the closure of many existing older coal-fired power plants across the country, which are already struggling to meet current standards.

"Nothing on this scale in the Clean Air Act has ever been attempted before," says Kevin Book, an energy analyst with ClearView Partners, an energy economics consulting firm in Washington. "This step will be the catalyst for the next wave of coal-fired power plant retirements. It's almost certainly going to get hung up in the courts for years."

Obama seeks to combat global warming in a variety of ways in the new plan. Among the highlights:

• Create new energy-efficiency standards for federal buildings and appliances.
• Ramp up enough clean-energy production on public lands to power 6 million homes by 2020. ?
• Extend $8 billion in loan-guarantee authority to accelerate investment in advanced fossil-energy and efficiency projects.
• End public financing of coal-fired plants overseas and push for free trade in clean-energy technologies.

But a concrete plan to reach a 17 percent cut in carbon emissions is seen as the cornerstone of Obama's move. That figure is widely considered a requirement for the US to be taken seriously in ongoing international climate talks. Obama wants to reinvigorate US efforts to lead in those talks, White House officials said.

They said the plan to address existing-power-plant emissions has a firm timeline ? adding credibility to the effort. The goal is to finalize power plant emissions regulations by June 2015, long enough before Mr. Obama leaves office to be solidly in force before the next administration takes over.

"We know that we have to get to work quickly in order to not only propose, but finalize the rule," said a senior White House official. "The president will be directing the EPA to start that work."

Neither the briefing for reporters nor the fact sheet and background materials provided by the White House presented an estimate for the tonnage of carbon emissions expected to be cut overall. Electricity-generating power plants emit about 2.4 billion tons of CO2 each year, roughly 40 percent of the nation?s total emissions. But the plan was still received enthusiastically by environmentalists.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/IMiDoEq5xAY/Obama-to-unveil-climate-change-plan-with-sweeping-emissions-cuts

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US tones down demands that Russia expel NSA leaker

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Rebuffed by Russia's president, the Obama administration toned down demands Tuesday that fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden be expelled from a Moscow airport in a sign that the U.S. believes he is not worth scuttling diplomatic relations between the former Cold War enemies.

The White House issued a measured, if pointed, statement asking again that Russia help U.S. authorities capture Snowden ? but stopped far short of threatening a cooling detente if he escapes.

It was a turnabout from tough talk against China a day earlier for letting Snowden flee Hong Kong instead of sending him back to the U.S. to face espionage charges for revealing classified national security surveillance programs that critics worldwide say violate privacy rights.

The outright refusals by Russia and China to cooperate on Snowden served as a fresh wake-up call to the U.S. that it cannot expect burgeoning superpowers to comply with its requests despite recent attempts to overcome longtime suspicions, and improve global partnerships.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to reporters in Saudi Arabia, called for "calm and reasonableness" as Moscow and Washington danced around Snowden's fate.

"We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is a fugitive from justice," Kerry said. "We're not looking for a confrontation. We are not ordering anybody."

Russian President Vladimir Putin also said he wished to avoid a diplomatic showdown over Snowden. But he refused to back off his refusal to turn over Snowden to the U.S.

"Mr. Snowden is a free man, and the sooner he chooses his final destination the better it is for us and for him," Putin said. "I hope it will not affect the business-like character of our relations with the U.S. and I hope that our partners will understand that."

Snowden remained for a third day in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport, and Putin said he was out of Moscow's reach since he had not passed through immigration and was, technically, not on Russian territory. Snowden was believed to be waiting to fly to an undisclosed location ? most likely in South America or Iceland ? that would give him political asylum despite frustrated U.S. demands that he be extradited.

Experts predicted that Putin, ultimately, will not stop Snowden from leaving or take any steps to help the U.S. catch him. But Washington may have to place Snowden's escape against the risk of damaging relations as the U.S. and Russia negotiate a number of high-priority issues, including nuclear arms reductions and a peace settlement in Syria.

Gary Hart, the former Democratic senator and presidential candidate, doubted that Washington would let Snowden make already poor U.S.-Russian relations any worse. Hart is an expert on Russia and board chairman of the American Security Project think-tank that was created by Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

"An incident like this should not interfere with the ongoing relationship between both countries," Hart said in an interview Tuesday. "There is too much else at stake to seriously impair a bilateral relationship with both Russia and China. In the grand scheme of things I don't think it's going to make much difference."

But Russia hasn't made it easy for the U.S.

Earlier this month, Putin held off President Barack Obama's call for negotiations to reduce nuclear weapons by noting that any talks would have to involve other nations. And Putin has refused to back down from Russia's support for the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and, in turn, has forced leaders of the Group of Eight industrial economies to call for a negotiated Syrian peace settlement instead of Assad's outright ouster.

"For quite some time now, the Russians have shown themselves when the opportunity presents itself to poke a finger in the U.S. eye," said Andrew Weiss, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace expert who oversaw Russian issues on the White House National Security Council in the late 1980s and 1990s.

"At this point, both sides see an interest in not having a huge rupture over Snowden, mostly, I think, over the expectation that Snowden doesn't want to stay in Russia," Weiss said. "I think on the U.S. side there's a desire, with President Obama scheduled to be in Moscow in early September, not to blow up the relationship over this issue."

Kerry also was expected to meet next week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Brunei.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not discuss how the Obama administration might respond if Snowden was allowed to leave the Moscow airport unscathed. "We're not there yet," Ventrell said.

Obama administration lawyers believe Russia has legal authority to deport Snowden, even though Moscow says it does not. Ventrell also noted that the U.S. has returned "many hundreds of criminals over the recent years" to Russia as Moscow has requested, and cited stepped-up law enforcement cooperation between the two countries since the April 15 twin bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people. The attack allegedly was carried out by two brothers who are ethnic Chechens originally from the Russian province of Dagestan.

Several Republican lawmakers urged Obama to step up pressure on Putin.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, speaking on CNN, called Putin "an old KGB colonel apparatchik." And Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., a former ambassador, said the Russian leader's refusal to expel Snowden "reinforces a concern all of us have that these relations are deteriorating."

"There is essentially no respect between these two presidents of these two very important countries," Coats said.

___

Associated Press writers Sagar Meghani, Pete Yost, Nedra Pickler, Alicia A. Caldwell and Donna Cassata in Washington, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Matti Huuhtanen in Naantali, Finland, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-tones-down-demands-russia-expel-nsa-leaker-222456623.html

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CIO&#39;s Perspective: A strategic approach to radio technology ? Part 2 ...

In this two-part series,?John Emerson, Chief Information Officer at Tait Communications,?looks at what a CIO needs to know when considering a radio communication system.

Last week, in Part 1, we covered some of the important pieces of the radio communications puzzle that CIOs need to address, including, open standards, coverage and reliability. This week we look at the other aspects of radio systems that need to be considered. ?

Security
With increasingly sophisticated and aggressive cyber-attacks, security has become a must-have. Not only is access security important, but high-level encryption has also become essential. Radio networks have very high security requirements, due to high government use, and are usually private, ensuring others cannot access transmissions as easily as they can on the public cellular network.

The level of encryption within P25 networks is specifically designed for the higher requirements of law enforcement. As an example, the S?o Paulo Police Force?s effectiveness had been previously limited by drug cartels intercepting their communications and disappearing before police arrived. The Tait P25 network commissioned in 2006 has yet to be cracked by the crime syndicates and S?o Paulo Police recognized the contribution of the secure communications to a reduction in crime of 60 percent between 2006 and 2011.

Scalability
While Public Safety entities may not be physically expanding, regional mutual support agreements are becoming increasingly common. New networks tend to expand and replace the older networks, so that all parties can communicate by consolidating on one standard. Utility CIOs understand that their companies may expand by procuring other utility companies. Either way, a smart CIO is going to make sure that the communications network can be scaled up, to cover any eventuality.

Converging on the TCP/IP communications protocol, an organization?s networks can be managed from one console, irrespective of the content of the TCP/IP packet (voice, data, etc). Such convergence has already occurred in locations from a 60,000-resident city, to the Los Angeles basin with 14 million residents. The communications can involve any device (including desktop PCs, servers, smart phones, radios, traffic signals, etc). Many regions have mutual support agreements among police and fire, partly as a result of budget cutbacks, but also to be able to project a larger response in the event of a local disaster. Integrated communications platforms are essential to support coordinated, multi-organizational responses.

Management
To perform consistently, any network requires ongoing support. User administration, security, device monitoring and network monitoring are all key to maintaining network integrity and performance. CIOs will want an extensive network management tool to be able to perform management functions effectively over the long term.

The same network management tools used for managing IT networks can be used to manage the TCP/IP based radio networks. A network-addressable radio can be remotely checked for operational status, its location ascertained, software downloaded to it and operational issues identified before the radio is rendered inoperable if required. These are the same remote management tasks that can be performed with a smart phone, providing the ability to manage all the organization?s TCP/IP mobile devices in real time. Other functions that can be performed include device security and network performance management.

Redundancy in an emergency
While redundancy is built into most modern networks, the critical nature of Public Safety and utility work functions benefit from having multiple networks that provide additional redundancy. As most organizations already use the local public cellular network for a number of functions, in the event of a disaster, key staff can be issued with a radio. The radio network is a very cost-effective way to ensure the needs of an organization coping with an emergency are met, without the cellular network.

Interfaces
CIOs know that demands for integration will increase and that stand-alone systems are becoming rare. As radios become more intelligent and IP-based, interfaces with other networks (e.g. Wi-Fi) become common. Data interfaces with IT systems also become possible through these other networks. Any radio vendor not providing open-standard interfaces to other networks and IT systems risks losing sales, as potential customers walk away from probable vendor lock-in.

These days, that is probably a career-limiting decision.

The TCP/IP based radio networks can also be used as a ?bridge? to the organization?s other TCP/IP based systems from the open standards-based legacy radio networks. This may extend the life of the legacy networks and enable the expansion of the newer TCP/IP radio networks at an easier pace, avoiding the risky ?big bang? approach.

Convergence
Over the past 30 years, IT systems and networks have both become more complex to the point where they can be very difficult to manage. Organizations wonder why their IT departments can?t get anything done, when in fact IT staff work long hours to keep many different technologies going. CIOs are actively looking for ways to simplify their networks, systems and processes.

As can be seen in the comparison table, the commonality between networks is increasing to the point where network management tools can handle both internal IP networks and radio networks on the same console.

Characteristic	Mobile Phone	IP Radio
Devices	iPhone, Android	Handheld radios
Robustness of devices	Low-medium	High
Hostile environments	Limited	Designed to function
Network	Commercial cell carriers	Radio frequency spectrum plus data network
Network customization	None; vendor only	Specific to customer, scalable
Coverage	90%	99+%
Data bandwidth	Medium	Medium
Standards	IP	IP
Security	Encryption, Authentication	Encryption, key management, radio authentication
Remote monitoring	Separate purchase	Available as an option
Network management	None; vendor only	Standard
Analog network option	None	Yes
GPS	Yes	Yes
VoIP interface	Yes	Yes
SNMP support	Yes	Yes
Wi-Fi support	Yes	Yes
Bluetooth support	Yes	Yes
Lifecycle	2- 4 years	10 ? 12 years

Cost effectiveness/lifecycle
Continual downward pressure on IT budgets and increasing demands for service can mean being the CIO is a thankless task these days. Predictable cost is essential, as well as reasonable component cost, so that there are no surprises. As radio technology is built to last more than three times as long as cellular, cost can be spread over a much longer lifecycle of 10 to 12 years.

Radio is relevant
Converging technologies between IT and the critical communications that radio networks support mean that it?s actually more closely aligned with the CIO?s domain than ever before.

Contrary to widely held beliefs, radio is by no means past its prime.

Radio has evolved significantly, and will continue to play an essential role in Public Safety and utility organizations that require mission-critical communications across challenging coverage areas. When issues such as coverage, reliability, security, robustness and cost are fully considered, a radio network offers genuine business value to many organizations.

Natural disasters
When a natural disaster strikes, commercial telecommunications company networks are immediately impacted. Cellular providers told the Federal Communications Commission that the day after Hurricane Sandy landed on October 29, 2012, more than 25 percent of cellphone service went out in the 158 counties across the 10 states most affected by the storm. Services worsened in many areas as generators serving cell towers ran out of fuel. Entire households were without communication as their bundled services (mobile phone, Internet and landline) failed completely.

In February 2011, When a Richter 6.3 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, with the third largest shock force ever recorded, the telecommunications networks were severely damaged and there was low availability within the city. The radio networks used by Public Safety agencies were quickly restored and continued to perform throughout the following aftershocks.

These examples highlight the importance of having secure, highly reliable radio networks dedicated to public safety use, capable of integrating with and operating across different technologies within a regional area.

This extract is taken from?Connection Magazine, Edition 3. Connection is a collection of educational and thought-leading articles focusing on critical communications, wireless and radio technology.

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Source: http://blog.taitradio.com/2013/06/25/cios-perspective-a-strategic-approach-to-radio-technology-part-2/

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