Sunday, March 31, 2013

On Broad Beach, slim progress on restoring sand

Time was that Malibu's celebrity-studded Broad Beach lived up to its name. Not anymore.

In recent years, punishing winter storms and high tides have swept away much of the 1.1-mile oceanfront lined with the multimillion-dollar getaways of such notables as Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan and businessman-philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong.

To protect their seaside showplaces, residents have piled sandbags and built a massive emergency rock wall. Now, under orders from state coastal officials, they are fighting against time to seek a more permanent solution ? permanent being relative in an era of rising seas and extreme weather.

They have spent millions of dollars on attorneys, engineers and environmental consultants who have scoured the coast from Mexico to Canada for a mountain of sand that could be dredged and moved to restore the beach to its original 100-foot to 150-foot width.

"The [wall] is perilously close to certain homes," said Kenneth A. Ehrlich, an attorney for the homeowners. "The homes are certainly in danger. [And] there's a bigger issue that no one seems to focus on: There's no beach right now that anyone can enjoy."

Residents contend that their motives are pure: They want to protect their homes, but they also plan to restore dunes and create an expansive public beach, all at their own expense.

The project, which appears to be the first privately funded effort of its kind, has proved far more complex than residents or regulators had imagined. As a result, residents say, they have gotten hung up on bureaucratic shoals. Manhattan Beach blocked their proposal to buy South Bay sand. Now, they have homed in on Los Angeles-owned sand from the bottom of the sea off Dockweiler Beach.

The city has yet to decide on the matter, but the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors has objected, saying that the Broad Beach project would deplete reserves that might be needed later to replenish other public beaches eroded by rising sea levels.

A decade ago, the sandy sanctuary just northwest of Zuma County Beach was the setting for regular wrangles over access. Broad Beach homeowners erected "No Trespassing" signs and hired security guards on four-wheel ATVs. Nonresident sunbathers and picnickers complained to the California Coastal Commission that the sentries harassed them and shooed them away from public areas.

Homeowners, for their part, argued that patrols were necessary to keep people from defecating and urinating, riding horses and walking dogs on their properties.

In 2005, the surf battle took a stunning turn when Broad Beach's 108 property owners hired heavy-equipment operators to scoop up tons of wet sand from the public beach and make a berm on their properties. California Coastal Commission officials ordered a halt to the work, saying the unpermitted grading had harmed marine life and reduced the public beach.

California's access law lends itself to confusion and conflict. In Oregon and Hawaii, beaches are public to the first line of vegetation. California, by contrast, guarantees public access only seaward of the mean high tide line ? in other words, on damp sand. The Broad Beach situation is complicated by a patchwork of lateral public easements that property owners have granted in exchange for construction permits.

Further confounding matters is the array of agencies with jurisdiction over Malibu coastal waters, including the California Coastal Commission, the California State Lands Commission and the city of Malibu.

As Broad Beach has dwindled, the issue has become less about keeping the public off private property and more about saving the private property from ruin. Residents have rejected one possible solution ? moving dozens of septic systems farther inland ? as being too costly and, in some cases, unfeasible.

Conditions grew dire in the 2008-09 storm season as water churned ever closer to homes. The city of Malibu granted homeowners emergency permits to pile up sandbags for protection. Some homeowners spent as much as $60,000 on sandbags, only to see them disintegrate in the pounding waves.

Three years ago, after storm-driven tides damaged foundations and threatened to unearth seaside septic systems, the coastal commission allowed residents to build a $4-million emergency rock wall. Workers fashioned the 4,100-foot-long structure from 36,000 tons of boulders, many of them lifted by cranes over houses.

Spray occasionally splashes over the wall, and rebar is exposed in spots, posing a hazard to bathers. At high tide, waves wash over the lowest steps of the two stairways that lead over the rock wall to the beach, and strands of kelp drape over the railings.

Steve Levitan, co-creator of the TV series "Modern Family," recalls years past, when his family could leisurely stroll along the beach. Now, he said, "surfers can't get out to the good surf spots, and the homeowners can't get there, either." He must time his walks to avoid high tide. "A number of times we've had to cut up and take the street home," he said.

As a condition of granting the emergency rock wall permit, the coastal commission required Broad Beach residents to come up with a stabilization plan to be implemented by 2015. The residents' preference would be to leave the rock wall in place and use imported sand to re-create the dune system atop it and to expand the beach.

To date, homeowners say, they have spent more than $5 million of their $20-million fund preparing scientific studies and getting approvals from half a dozen different agencies, each with its own rules and regulations. They have yet to complete a formal proposal for the coastal and state lands commissions. If they keep spending at the current rate, they say, they will exhaust their funds before they can start the project.

"We have faced a bureaucratic nightmare in attempting to accomplish this project," said Marshall Grossman, a lawyer with a retreat on Broad Beach. "One would think we were attempting to build high-rise condos on a public beach."

Even if Broad Beach property owners secure the necessary sand, big questions remain for coastal officials, who say sea walls affect habitats and limit the amount of beach available for public recreation. "As sea level rises," said Charles Lester, the coastal commission's executive director, "it's only going to get more challenging to figure how to deal with that."

martha.groves@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/AIKp7mYzs9c/la-me-broad-beach-sand-20130331,0,5295798.story

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Kenyan election results upheld by highest court, rival concedes

Ben Curtis / AP

A supporter of losing presidential candidate Raila Odinga gestures as he protests with others in the rain in front of riot police guarding the Supreme Court in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday, March 30, 2013.

By Edmund Blair and Humphrey Malalo, Reuters

Kenya's Supreme Court upheld Uhuru Kenyatta's presidential election victory on Saturday and his defeated rival quickly accepted the ruling, dousing fears of a repeat of the tribal bloodletting that blighted the country's last vote.

The decision cleared the way for Kenya's richest man to take the top job in east Africa's biggest economy, but left foreign powers with the headache of dealing with a leader charged with crimes against humanity at The Hague.

After the judgment, police fired shots in the air and teargas at hundreds of stone-throwing youths in the western city of Kisumu, a stronghold of defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga, who had challenged Kenyatta's win. Protesters looted shops and burned tires in the street.

But shortly after, Odinga made a nationally-televised statement, accepting the court's unanimous decision.

"The court has now spoken," Odinga told a news conference. "I wish the president-elect, honorable Uhuru Kenyatta, and his team well."

Kenya's outgoing president had called for calm ahead of the judgment which came five years after another ballot dispute triggered violence that left more than 1,200 dead.

"It is the decision of the court that the third and fourth respondents were validly elected," Chief Justice Willy Mutunga said in court, referring to Kenyatta and his running mate for deputy president, William Ruto.

He said the court had done its duty at a historic moment. "It is now for the Kenyan people, their leaders, civil society, the private sector and the media to discharge [their duty], to ensure that the unity, peace, sovereignty and prosperity of the nation is preserved," he added.

After a week of hearings, the six judges of the court had unanimously decided the March 4 vote was conducted in a free, fair and credible manner in line with the constitution, he said.

Peaceful voting in this year's vote, and the fact the dispute was played out by lawyers not machete-wielding gangs, has already helped repair Kenya's image as a safe haven for investors and tourists.

Paramilitary police, some on horseback, formed a security cordon around the court before the ruling. Police chief David Kimaiyo has repeatedly said he would not allow public rallies.

Kenyatta comfortably beat Odinga in votes won, but only narrowly avoided a run-off by edging above the 50 percent threshold.

Western donors are watching the fate of a regional trade partner and a country they see as vital to stability in a volatile area. They had also said before the victory was confirmed that a Kenyatta win would complicate relations.

He is facing charges at the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity, accused of helping incite the violence after the 2007 vote. Kenyatta denies the charges and has promised to cooperate with the court to clear his name.

Western nations have a policy of having only "essential contacts" with indictees of the court. They say that will not affect dealings with the Kenyan government as a whole, but will worry the issue could drive a long-time ally of the West closer to emerging powers such as China.

David Cameron, prime minister of former colonial power Britain, wrote to Kenyatta to congratulate him and encouraged Kenyans to accept the decision of the court.

Neighboring African states have also been keeping a careful eye on proceedings after they were hit by the knock-on effects when vital trade routes through Kenya were shut down five years ago.

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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Yeloworld the Whatsapp of Mobile Calling Launches Crowdfunding ...

Yeloworld announces Yeloworld 2.2 for iOS. Yeloworld is a startup launched in January 2013 with the objective to end the rip-off that mobile users endure from mobile network operators whenever they make international calls or are traveling abroad and roaming - and as a result do to calling what WhatsApp did to SMS.

The idea came from the belief that money should be spent in far more meaningful ways than paying a phone bill. The founders are three serial Tech entrepreneurs, who have been involved with mobile and Internet technologies for most of their careers and have extended experience in running startup companies, managing projects and leading large groups of people, so they decided to tackle the issue and came up with an efficient, low-cost and interesting way to make cheap calls worldwide.

In technical terms, Yeloworld is an OTT calling service using VoIP (Voice over Internet) to initiate the calls and terminating the calls directly on the carrier networks in over 200 countries.

In simpler terms, Yeloworld is an app for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) and Android phones/tablets that allows users to make very cheap phone calls to any mobile or landline numbers, anywhere in the world, and save a lot of money on international calls.

Yeloworld allows users to call regular phone numbers. This means that the receiving party doesn't need to own a smartphone, install any app whatsoever or even be online to receive the call, just a regular telephone. Yeloworld allows everyone to call anyone, anywhere, on their "normal" phone (cellphone or fixed landline), regardless of where they are and what type of phone they have.

The apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android are the first set of apps, but to take Yeloworld to the next level, the company now needs funding to rollout more apps to more platforms (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and even Web Apps), add more features (SMS and more) and ultimately create new jobs.

Yeloworld has started a crowdfunding campaign to help them reach their potential to help millions of smartphone users around the world save billions of dollars on their phone bills and make a significant impact in the way people communicate in a modern, digitally borderless world.

Yeloworld 2.2 is free and available worldwide through the App Store in the Social Networking category.

Watch the Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrN8jpJYAJw

Source: http://www.appcraver.com/app-news/yeloworld-the-whatsapp-of-mobile-calling-launches-crowdfunding-campaign/

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7 industries that prey on our weaknesses?

You're delusional.

No, it's OK, we all are.

Think about your gym, which you visit so infrequently you?re practically making a charity donation to Bally Total Fitness. Or the diet cleanse you spent $100 on ... when you could have paid $30 in healthy groceries that would have also done the trick.

Don?t kick yourself?you?re not alone in falling prey to these marketing ploys. There?s a reason that, for instance, the burgeoning ?enhanced waters? beverage category (think Vitamin Water) has become a $1.5 billion industry.

By playing on our delusions and our fears, companies tempt us to shell out for needless items, and that can wreak havoc on our finances.

Watch out for these seven industries that profit from our insecurities?and find out how to resist their ploys.

Pet products
Americans spent an estimated $53 billion on their pets in 2012, a number that's grown nearly 30 percent in the past five years, even as the economy tanked. Last Halloween, pet owners were projected to spend $370 million on their pets' Halloween costumes?a 40 percent increase from 2010.

Several factors account for the rise in pet spending: Americans have a third fewer friends than they did 20 years ago and the number of Americans living alone?one in seven?is at an all-time high. These trends partly explain why about four in five animal owners think of their pets as children, and 58 percent even call themselves the "mommy" or "daddy" of their pets.

This higher status of pets in the eyes of their owners has even resulted in one million dogs being named beneficiaries in their owners' wills.

Tip: Be realistic about how much your pet costs, and be sure to budget for any extra splurges or treats. As for whether to name your beloved pet in your will?that depends on what you think of its money-managing skills.

Gyms
No industry plays on the chasm between what we do and what we wish we did better than the $21 billion fitness club industry. At the beginning of a fitness push, we are all too happy to hand over a hefty membership fee and sign a yearlong contract, hoping the sunk cost will encourage us to create whole new selves.

But the reality is that 67 percent of people with gym memberships never use them. Even those who go to the gym regularly are paying a lot more than they imagined: A University of California, Berkeley study showed that people who signed up for a monthly gym membership ended up paying 70 percent more than they could have paid on a pay-per-visit plan available at the same club.

The reason? ?Overconfidence about future self-control,? say the researchers. In other words: Delusion.

Tip: If this is you, find out the best workouts for you and your budget. Even if you do use the gym, make sure you're getting the best deal possible: comparison shop, use a competitor's price to get a deal at your preferred gym, or sign up for a yearlong membership to get the best possible rate.

Health and diet food
In 2011, the market for vitamins and supplements was $28 billion?despite a lack of solid research proving their effectiveness. In fact, most of our food is fortified with nutrients, so once-common deficiency diseases are now rare. Most researchers say that unless you're pregnant or elderly or have an identified deficiency, you don't need supplements and that a balanced diet is the best source of nutrients.

As for the weight-loss market, which in 2010 was worth $60 billion, several studies show that dieting actually consistently correlates with future weight gain.

Tip: If you're a sucker for vitamins and supplements, don't pay a premium for packaged foods making health claims; eat these superfoods instead. And if you think your ticket to weight loss is a diet program, consider preparing meals from fresh, whole ingredients and setting up a regular exercise routine to do it on your own instead.

Electronics rebates and warranties
Electronics stores often advertise a new gadget?s price as though you already received all the mail-in rebates. But a Consumer Reports survey found that fewer than half of people always or often cash in on rebate offers, and a full quarter never do. Even among those who sent in for their rebates, 21 percent said they never received them.

Additionally, extended warranties and insurance plans for smartphones sound so sensible. But they're almost never a good deal, consumer advocates warn. The extended warranty business itself generates $15 billion a year of almost pure profit, playing on our innate urge to avoid losses even if we could financially afford to replace the object.

And consider this: By the time the manufacturer's warranty ends on your phone, laptop or other high-tech gizmo, you'll probably want to upgrade to a newer model or the replacement price will have dropped, making the extended warranty moot.

Tip: Before you rush to take advantage of a deal you can only get with rebates, ask yourself: Are you going to fill in and mail every form?

And next time the cashier asks you if you want to pay 10 to 50 percent extra for an extended warranty, just say no.

Clothes
According to a recent survey, a woman owns 22 garments she never wears.

And that adds up: Americans spend $331 billion a year on clothing (which works out to $1,100 per person a year). While every once in a while we all really do need a new item of clothing, you could probably easily identify a number of pieces in your closet that you never wear?and they probably add up to a lot of wasted dollars.

How does this happen? We tend to invest in the same items over and over (whether ten black sweaters or a dozen flirty sundresses). Another problem: We buy for the life we want to have?cocktail dresses for parties we never go to or fancy new workout clothes for the gym we never visit.

Tip: Host a clothing swap to get rid of the chaff in your closet and bring fresh inspiration in, and go on a clothing fast for six months to force yourself to get creative with what you have. Need some ideas? See how one editor dressed herself for one month with just six items of clothing.

Cleaning products
Do you buy different cleaners for your floors, your furniture, your bathroom and your windows? Then you can understand how the cleaning product industry rakes in $52 billion a year.

Commercials for household disinfectants and other cleaning products would have you believe that illness-causing germs linger on every surface. But experts warn that routine use of disinfectants is not only unnecessary but harmful, especially when harsh chemicals are used.

Tip: You can get your home sparkly-clean?and with less harm to the environment?using inexpensive combinations of baking soda and vinegar. In fact, we can show you how to tackle 40 household tasks with just these five everyday products.

Baby products
Certain baby products really do ensure infant safety, like car seats. But companies also milk extra money out of parents' desires to give their kids the most organic, least toxic, most brain-enhancing food, toys, clothing, bedding and more.

Previous generations somehow survived infancy without shopping cart liners, video baby monitors, tiny shade tents for sunny days at the park and many of other items that make up the $7 billion Americans spend on today's babies.

Tip: Stick to essentials and learn how to save on baby stuff with these 12 tips. Want to really overhaul the way you handle the baby portion of your budget? Check out our Baby on Board Bootcamp, which explains what you should buy new, what you can get used and which safety considerations really matter.

Related content on LearnVest:

7 Ways Money Memories Can Affect Your Finances

7 Financial Hacks Everyone Should Know About

8 Money Habits That Are Holding You Back

LearnVest ? 2013

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Cyprus bank's big savers to lose up to 60 percent

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Big depositors at Cyprus' largest bank may be forced to accept losses of up to 60 percent, far more than initially estimated under the European rescue package to save the country from bankruptcy, officials said Saturday.

Deposits of more than 100,000 euros ($128,000) at the Bank of Cyprus will lose 37.5 percent in money that will be converted into bank shares, according to a central bank statement. In a second raid on these accounts, depositors also could lose up to 22.5 percent more, depending on what experts determine is needed to prop up the bank's reserves. The experts will have 90 days to figure that out.

The remaining 40 percent of big deposits at the Bank of Cyprus will be "temporarily frozen" until further notice, but continue to accrue existing levels of interest plus another 10 percent.

The savings converted to bank shares would theoretically allow depositors to eventually recover their losses. But the shares now hold little value and it's uncertain when ? if ever ? the shares will regain a value equal to the depositors' losses.

Emergency laws passed last week empower Cypriot authorities to take these actions.

Europe has demanded that big depositors in the country's two largest banks ? Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank ? accept across-the-board losses in order to pay for Cyprus' 16 billion euro ($20.5 billion) bailout. All deposits of up to 100,000 are safe, meaning that a saver with 500,000 euros in the bank will only suffer losses on the remaining 400,000 euros.

Cypriot officials had previously said that large savers at Laiki ? which would be absorbed in to the Bank of Cyprus ? could lose as much as 80 percent. But they had said large accounts at the Bank of Cyprus would lose only 30 to 40 percent.

Analysts said Saturday that imposing bigger losses on Bank of Cyprus customers could further squeeze already crippled businesses as Cyprus tries to rebuild its banking sector in exchange for the international rescue package.

"Most of the damage will be done to businesses which had their money in the bank" to pay suppliers and employees, said University of Cyprus economics Professor Sofronis Clerides. "There's quite a difference between a 30 percent loss and a 60 percent loss."

With businesses shrinking, the country could be dragged down into an even deeper recession, he said.

There's also concern that large depositors ? including many wealthy Russians ? will take their money and run once capital restrictions that Cypriot authorities have imposed on bank transactions to prevent such a possibility are lifted in about a month.

Cyprus agreed on Monday to make bank depositors with accounts over 100,000 euros contribute to the financial rescue in order to secure 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in loans from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. Cyprus needed to scrounge up 5.8 billion euros ($7.4 billion) on its own in order to clinch the larger package, and banks had remained shut for nearly two weeks until politicians hammered out a deal, opening again on Thursday.

But fearing that savers would rush to pull their money out in mass once banks reopened, Cypriot authorities imposed a raft of restrictions, including daily withdrawal limits of 300 euros ($384) for individuals and 5,000 euros for businesses ? the first so-called capital controls that any country has applied in the eurozone's 14-year history.

Under the terms of the bailout deal, the country' second largest bank, Laiki ? which sustained the most damaged from bad Greek debt and loans ? is to be split up, with its nonperforming loans and toxic assets going into a "bad bank." The healthy side will be absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus.

On Saturday, economist Stelios Platis dismissed the rescue plan as "completely mistaken" and criticized Cyprus' euro area partners for insisting on foisting Laiki's troubles on the Bank of Cyprus.

Clerides said it appears that some euro area countries such as Germany and Finland wanted to see the end of Cyprus as an international financial services center, while others, such as eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, wanted to use the country as an "guinea pig" to send the message that European taxpayers would no longer shoulder the burden of bailing out problem banks.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble challenged that notion, insisting in an interview with the Bild daily published Saturday that "Cyprus is and remains a special, isolated case" and doesn't point the way for future European rescue programs.

____

AP business correspondent Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-cyprus-big-savers-lose-60-percent-135608668--finance.html

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Large robotic jellyfish could one day patrol oceans

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Virginia Tech College of Engineering researchers have unveiled a life-like, autonomous robotic jellyfish the size and weight of a grown man, 5 foot 7 inches in length and weighing 170 pounds.

The prototype robot, nicknamed Cyro, is a larger model of a robotic jellyfish the same team -- headed by Shashank Priya of Blacksburg, Va., and professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech -- unveiled in 2012. The earlier robot, dubbed RoboJelly, is roughly the size of a man's hand, and typical of jellyfish found along beaches.

"A larger vehicle will allow for more payload, longer duration and longer range of operation," said Alex Villanueva of St-Jacques, New-Brunswick, Canada, and a doctoral student in mechanical engineering working under Priya. "Biological and engineering results show that larger vehicles have a lower cost of transport, which is a metric used to determine how much energy is spent for traveling."

Both robots are part of a multi-university, nationwide $5 million project funded by U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and the Office of Naval Research. The goal is to place self-powering, autonomous machines in waters for the purposes of surveillance and monitoring the environment, in addition to other uses such as studying aquatic life, mapping ocean floors, and monitoring ocean currents.

Jellyfish are attractive candidates to mimic because of their ability to consume little energy owing to a lower metabolic rate than other marine species. Additionally, they appear in wide variety of sizes, shapes and colors, allowing for several designs. They also inhabit every major oceanic area of the world and are capable of withstanding a wide range of temperatures in both fresh and salt waters. Most species are found in shallow coastal waters, but some have been found in depths 7,000 meters below sea level.

Partner universities in the project are Providence College in Rhode Island, the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Texas at Dallas, and Stanford University. Priya's team is building the jellyfish body models, integrating fluid mechanics and developing control systems.

Cyro is modeled and named after the jellyfish cyanea capillata, Latin for Llion's Manemain jellyfishJellyfish, with "Cyro" derived from "cyanea" and "robot." As with its predecessor, this robot is in the prototype stage, years away from use in waters. A new prototype model already is under construction at Virginia Tech's Durham Hall, where Priya's Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems is based.

"We hope to improve on this robot and reduce power consumption and improve swimming performance as well as better mimic the morphology of the natural jellyfish," Villanueva said, adding that the project also allows researchers such as himself to better understand aquatic creatures live. "Our hopes for Cyro's future is that it will help understand how the propulsion mechanism of such animal scales with size."

A stark difference exists between the larger and smaller robots. Cyro is powered by a rechargeable nickel metal hydride battery, whereas the smaller models were tethered, Priya said. Experiments have also been conducted on powering jellyfish with hydrogen but there is still much research to be done in that area.

In both cases, the jellyfish must operate on their own for months or longer at a time as engineers likely won't be able to capture and repair the robots, or replace power sources. "Cyro showed its ability to swim autonomously while maintaining a similar physical appearance and kinematics as the natural species," Priya said, adding that the robot is simultaneously able to collect, store, analyze, and communicate sensory data. This autonomous operation in shallow water conditions is already a big step towards demonstrating the use of these creatures."

How does the robot swim? Its body consists of a rigid support structure with direct current electric motors which control the mechanical arms that are used in conjunction with an artificial mesoglea, or jelly-based pulp of the fish's body, creating hydrodynamic movement.

With no central nervous system, jellyfish instead use a diffused nerve net to control movement and can complete complex functions. A parallel study on a bio-inspired control system is in progress which will eventually replace the current simplified controller. As with the smaller models, Cyro's skin is composed of a thick layer of silicone, squishy in one's hand. It mimics the sleek jellyfish skin and is placed over a bowl-shaped device containing the electronic guts of the robot. When moving, the skin floats and moves with the robot, looking weirdly alive.

"It has been a great experience to finally realize the biomimetic and bio-inspired robotic vehicles," Priya said. "Nature has too many secrets and we were able to find some of them but many still remain. We hope to find a mechanism to continue on this journey and resolve the remaining puzzles."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), via Newswise.

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


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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/kLqBg1DBw1g/130328124807.htm

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Tasker's New User-Friendly UI Makes Automating Your Android a Breeze

Tasker's New User-Friendly UI Makes Automating Your Android a Breeze Android (4.0+): Android tweaking and customization tool Tasker picked up a major update today, and now sports a Holo-themed new look that will make building your own custom apps and automating the ins and outs of your device much, much easier.

We briefly discussed the new interface when it was in beta back in January, but the new UI has made its way to the official app now, and it all new icons with it. There's even a guide to help you get started creating apps and tasks, and different toggles and tweaks are easier to find. Also, the whole thing got a Holo-esque makeover that looks great in Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. There are new pre-built actions and states designed for newer devices, and pre-made events and actions that make customization a little easier. All the power is still there under the hood, too.

There is a catch though: if you have Android 4.0 or higher (ICS or JB), you'll get the new design with today's update. If you're running GIngerbread or lower, sorry, the new UI isn't for you. If you already have Tasker, today's update is free. If you've been thinking about getting it but worried it might be overwhelming, now's a good time to try it out. Grab it at Google Play below.

Tasker ($7) | Google Play via Android Police

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Afa2ATzlK6I/taskers-clean-user+friendly-ui-emerges-from-beta-gets-rolled-into-the-main-app

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Pfizer gets new rebuff from NICE for cancer drug

By Martyn Herman LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Whether by design, necessity, self-interest or because of all three, nurturing youngsters has become fashionable for England's elite with no expense spared in the hunt for the new Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard. The length and breadth of the country, scouts from top clubs are hoovering up promising footballers barely old enough to tie their bootlaces in a bid to unearth the 30 million pounds ($45.40 million) treasures of the future. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-gets-rebuff-nice-cancer-drug-000243000--finance.html

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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Facebook planning Android-related event on April 4th

Facebook planning Android related event on April 4th

It looks like Facebook's got an Android-related event up its sleeve next Thursday April 4th right here in the Bay Area. So, what's this about? A major revamp of Facebook's Android app? An Android-based Facebook phone like HTC's rumored Myst? Whatever it is, we'll obviously be there to liveblog the announcement in great detail, so be sure to tune in at 1PM ET (10AM PT). While focusing its recent efforts on features like Graph Search and News Feed, Facebook's been clear that mobile is a top priority for 2013. Let's just hope this event brings something more exciting to fruition than HTC's half-baked Status.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/28/facebook-planning-android-event-on-april-4/

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Yes We Cannabis: The Legalization Movement Plots Its Next 4 Years (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Sony speakers combine NFC and WiFi / Bluetooth for minimal streaming effort

Sony speakers combine NFC and WiFi  Bluetooth

The whole syncing thing proving too much effort for your music listening habits? Fear not -- two new streaming speakers from Sony are embracing the world of near field communication to take some of the trouble out of playback. The speakers come in two flavors -- the CMT-BT60B does Bluetooth streaming and the similarly alphanumeric CMT-BT80WB will stream via Bluetooth, WiFi or AirPlay. Both speakers feature aux inputs and USB for charging (and playback, in the case of the BT80WB). As for, you know, making sound, both feature Magnetic Fluid Speakers and S-Master amplifiers. They'll be hitting parts of Europe in May and the UK in June.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/28/sony-speakers/

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Asian stocks follow US higher on upbeat econ data

HONG KONG (AP) ? Asian markets followed Wall Street higher on Wednesday after upbeat economic data from the world's largest economy.

Reports overnight from the U.S. showed home prices rose in January at the fastest rate since the country's housing boom peaked in 2006 while February factory orders for long-lasting goods were at their highest in five months.

Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng index rose 0.6 percent to 22,441.75 while South Korea's Kospi gained 0.5 percent to 1,993.08. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.3 percent to 2,304.87 while the smaller Shenzhen Composite rose 0.3 percent to 956.04.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.7 percent to 4,985.20 while benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand also rose.

"So we had a good session in the US last night, certainly. I think the durable goods order figures were really supporting to the market," said Guy Stear, head of Asia research at Societe Generale. "We continue to see strong figures really, out of the production side in the US economy."

In Japan, gains were more muted, with the Nikkei 225 edging up 0.1 percent to 12,488.65 as investors stay on the sidelines, hoping for more than just talk from policymakers trying to stimulate the economy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to pull Japan out of deflation through monetary easing and higher government spending.

"If the Abe government is going to keep the yen down, it is going to have to pull the trigger sooner rather than later, as investors are going to start calling its bluff," IG Markets strategist Evan Lucas said in a commentary.

In currencies, the dollar strengthened to 94.84 yen from 94.50 yen in late trading Tuesday. The euro slipped to $1.2841 from $1.2858.

China Southern Airlines fell 1.4 percent after it reported that 2012 profit plunged by half on higher jet fuel costs.

In the U.S., The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.8 percent to 14,559.65. The broader S&P 500 index rose 0.8 percent to 1,563.77 while the Nasdaq rose 0.5 percent to 3,252.48,

Oil prices slipped. Benchmark crude for May delivery fell 22 cents to $96.21 a barrel. The contract rose $1.53 to settle at $96.34 on the Nymex on Tuesday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-stocks-us-higher-upbeat-econ-data-032538065--finance.html

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Gay Marriage in Supreme Court: Will Justices Throw Out Prop 8, DOMA?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/will-supreme-court-throw-out-prop-8-defense-of-marriage-act/

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Women make better decisions than men, study suggests

Mar. 25, 2013 ? Women's abilities to make fair decisions when competing interests are at stake make them better corporate leaders, researchers have found.

A survey of more than 600 board directors showed that women are more likely to consider the rights of others and to take a cooperative approach to decision-making. This approach translates into better performance for their companies.

The study, which was published this week in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, was conducted by Chris Bart, professor of strategic management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, and Gregory McQueen, a McMaster graduate and senior executive associate dean at A.T. Still University's School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona.

"We've known for some time that companies that have more women on their boards have better results," explains Bart. "Our findings show that having women on the board is no longer just the right thing but also the smart thing to do. Companies with few female directors may actually be shortchanging their investors."

Bart and McQueen found that male directors, who made up 75% of the survey sample, prefer to make decisions using rules, regulations and traditional ways of doing business or getting along.

Female directors, in contrast, are less constrained by these parameters and are more prepared to rock the boat than their male counterparts.

In addition, women corporate directors are significantly more inclined to make decisions by taking the interests of multiple stakeholders into account in order to arrive at a fair and moral decision. They will also tend to use cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building more often -- and more effectively -- in order to make sound decisions.

Women seem to be predisposed to be more inquisitive and to see more possible solutions. At the board level where directors are compelled to act in the best interest of the corporation while taking the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders into account, this quality makes them more effective corporate directors, explains McQueen.

Globally, women make up approximately 9% of corporate board memberships. Arguments for gender equality, quotas and legislation have done little to increase female representation in the boardroom, despite evidence showing that their presence has been linked to better organizational performance, higher rates of return, more effective risk management and even lower rates of bankruptcy. Bart's and McQueen's finding that women's higher quality decision-making ability makes them more effective than their male counterparts gives boards a method to deal with the multifaceted social issues and concerns currently confronting corporations.

The International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics is available online.

How do people make decisions?

  • Personal interest reasoning: The decision maker is motivated by ego, selfishness and the desire to avoid trouble. This method is most often exhibited by young children who largely tend to be motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
  • Normative reasoning: The decision maker tries to avoid "rocking the boat" by adhering to rules, laws or norms. Stereotypical examples of groups that use this form of reasoning include organizations with strong established cultures like Mary Kay or the US Marines.
  • Complex moral reasoning: The decision maker acknowledges and considers the rights of others in the pursuit of fairness by using a social cooperation and consensus building approach that is consistently applied in a non-arbitrary fashion.

Why should boards have more female directors?

  • Boards with high female representation experience a 53% higher return on equity, a 66% higher return on invested capital and a 42% higher return on sales (Joy et al., 2007).
  • Having just one female director on the board cuts the risk of bankruptcy by 20% (Wilson, 2009).
  • When women directors are appointed, boards adopt new governance practices earlier, such as director training, board evaluations, director succession planning structures (Singh and Vinnicombe, 2002)
  • Women make other board members more civilized and sensitive to other perspectives (Fondas and Sassalos, 2000) and reduce 'game playing' (Singh, 2008)
  • Female directors are more likely to ask questions rather than nodding through decisions (Konrad et al., 2008).

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McMaster University.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Chris Bart, Gregory McQueen. Why women make better directors. International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2013; 8 (1): 93 DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2013.052743

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/top_news/top_health/~3/q2BHzfKSel8/130326101616.htm

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Bachmann?s presidential campaign probed

By Jeff Zeleny Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is set to announce Tuesday that he will not seek re-election, according to two sources, becoming the seventh incumbent to retire after next year. Johnson, who battled back after suffering a life-threatening brain hemorrhage in 2006, is chairman...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/report-ethics-panel-investigates-michelle-bachmann-presidential-campaign-175159553--election.html

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Beyonce Won?t Let Her Father Mathew Knowles Meet Blue Ivy

Beyonce Won’t Let Her Father Mathew Knowles Meet Blue Ivy

Beyonce cut all ties with dad Matthew KnowlesSinger Beyonce is enjoying her successful career and role as a new mother to 14-month-old Blue Ivy. Her father, Mathew Knowles, claims his daughter won’t allow him to meet his own granddaughter, after cutting ties with him both professionally and personally. Beyonce has been open about her troubled relationship with her dad Mathew Knowles, whom ...

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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/03/beyonce-wont-let-her-father-mathew-knowles-meet-blue-ivy/

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Measuring the magnetism of antimatter: Antiprotons measured more accurately than ever before

Mar. 25, 2013 ? In a breakthrough that could one day yield important clues about the nature of matter itself, a team of Harvard scientists have succeeding in measuring the magnetic charge of single particles of matter and antimatter more accurately than ever before.

As described in a March 25 paper in Physical Review Letters, the ATRAP team, led by Gerald Gabrielse, the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics, and including post-doctoral fellows Stephan Ettenauer and Eric Tardiff and graduate students Jack DiSciacca, Mason Marshall, Kathryn Marable and Rita Kalra was able to capture individual protons and antiprotons in a "trap" created by electric and magnetic fields. By precisely measuring the oscillations of each particle, the team was able to measure the magnetism of a proton more than 1,000 times more accurately than an antiproton had been measured before. Similar tests with antiprotons produced a 680-fold increase in accuracy in the size of the magnet in an antiproton.

"That is a spectacular jump in precision for any fundamental quality," Gabrielse said, of the antiproton measurements. "That's a leap that we don't often see in physics, at least not in a single step."

Such measurements, Gabrielse said, could one day help scientists answer a question that seems more suited for the philosophy classroom than the physics lab -- why are we here?

"One of the great mysteries in physics is why our universe is made of matter," he said. "According to our theories, the same amount of matter and antimatter was produced during the Big Bang. When matter and antimatter meet, they are annihilated. As the universe cools down, the big mystery is: Why didn't all the matter find the antimatter and annihilate all of both? There's a lot of matter and no antimatter left, and we don't know why."

Making precise measurements of protons and antiprotons, Gabrielse explained, could begin to answer those questions by potentially shedding new light on whether the CPT (Charge conjugation, Parity transformation, Time reversal) theorem is correct. An outgrowth of the standard model of particle physics, CPT states that the protons and antiprotons should be virtually identical -- with the same magnitude of charge and mass -- yet should have opposite charges.

Though earlier experiments, which measured the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and antiprotons, verified the predictions of CPT, Gabrielse said further investigation is needed because the standard model does not account for all forces, such as gravity, in the universe.

"What we wanted to do with these experiments was to say, 'Let's take a simple system -- a single proton and a single antiproton -- and let's compare their predicted relationships, and see if our predictions are correct," Gabrielse said. "Ultimately, whatever we learn might give us some insight into how to explain this mystery."

While researchers were able to capture and measure protons with relative ease, antiprotons are only produced by high-energy collisions that take place at the extensive tunnels of the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Gabrielse said, leaving researchers facing a difficult choice.

"Last year, we published a report showing that we could measure a proton much more accurately than ever before," Gabrielese said. "Once we had done that, however, we had to make a decision -- did we want to take the risk of moving our people and our entire apparatus -- crates and crates of electronics and a very delicate trap apparatus -- to CERN and try to do the same thing with antiprotons? Antiprotons would only be available till mid-December and then not again for a year and a half.

"We decided to give it a shot, and by George, we pulled it off," he continued. "Ultimately, we argued that we should attempt it, because even if we failed, that failure would teach us something." In what Gabrielse described as a "gutsy" choice, graduate student Jack DiSciacca agreed to use this attempt to conclude his thesis research, and new graduate students Marshall and Marable signed on to help.

Though their results still fit within the predictions made by the standard model, Gabrielse said being able to more accurately measure the characteristics of both matter and antimatter may yet help shed new light on how the universe works.

"What's also very exciting about this breakthrough is that it now prepares us to continue down this road," he said. "I'm confident that, given this start, we're going to be able to increase the accuracy of these measurements by another factor of 1,000, or even 10,000."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. J. DiSciacca, M. Marshall, K. Marable, G. Gabrielse, S. Ettenauer, E. Tardiff, R. Kalra, D. W. Fitzakerley, M. C. George, E. A. Hessels, C. H. Storry, M. Weel, D. Grzonka, W. Oelert, T. Sefzick. One-Particle Measurement of the Antiproton Magnetic Moment. Physical Review Letters, 2013; 110 (13) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.130801

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electricity/~3/7793vig8o2c/130325094030.htm

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Monday, March 25, 2013

Gun in Colo. prisons chief's killing used in Texas shootout

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - The gun used by a white supremacist ex-convict who was killed in a shootout with police near Decatur, Texas, last week was the same weapon used to kill Colorado's prison chief two days earlier, law enforcement officials said on Monday.

Evan Spencer Ebel, a 28-year-old parolee from Denver, was killed in a gun battle with Texas police last Thursday after a high-speed chase through Decatur.

Ballistics tests established that his gun was used to kill Tom Clements, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, the El Paso County, Colorado, Sheriff's Office said on Monday. Clements, 58, was shot dead on Tuesday when he answered the door at his home south of Denver.

Ebel, who according to law enforcement sources was a member of a white supremacist prison gang known as the 211 Crew, has been named as a suspect in the killing.

"The analysis done by ballistics experts has concluded the gun used by Evan Ebel in Texas was the same weapon used in the shooting death of Tom Clements," the sheriff's department said in a written statement.

"The confirmation goes well beyond acknowledging the same caliber and brand of ammunition being used, but rather is based on unique, and often microscopic markings left on the casings at both scenes," the sheriff's department said.

The department said investigators were seeking to determine whether Ebel acted alone in the shooting of Clements or if others were involved.

Ebel has also been identified by police as a suspect in the killing of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon in Denver last Sunday, two days before Clements was slain.

A Domino's pizza deliverer's shirt or jacket and pizza carrier were found in the trunk of Ebel's Cadillac following the gun battle with police, according to a search warrant filed in the case and posted online by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.

A Denver police spokesman said detectives were meeting on the case on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, authorities have been looking for ties between the death of Clements and the January killing of Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office. Kaufman County is east of Dallas.

Ebel was paroled in the Denver area in January.

Emergency personnel carry the driver of a black Cadillac with Colorado plates who was involved in a high speed chase and shootout with police in Decatur, Texas, Thursday, March 21, 2013. The driver ... more? Emergency personnel carry the driver of a black Cadillac with Colorado plates who was involved in a high speed chase and shootout with police in Decatur, Texas, Thursday, March 21, 2013. The driver led police on a gunfire-filled chase through rural Montague County, crashed his car into a truck in Decatur, opened fire on authorities and was shot, officials said. Texas authorities are checking whether the Cadillac is the same car spotted near the home of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements, who was shot and killed when he answered the door Tuesday night. (AP Photo/Wise County Messenger, Jimmy Alford) MANDATORY CREDIT, MAGS OUT less? (This story corrects headline to show gun killed Colo. prison chief, not gunman)

(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gun-texas-shootout-matches-weapon-killing-colorado-prisons-195523092.html

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Musharraf heads to Pakistan amid death threats

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ? Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ended more than four years in self-exile Sunday with a flight to his homeland, seeking a possible political comeback in defiance of judicial probes and death threats from Taliban militants.

The journey from exile in Dubai to the Pakistani port city of Karachi is intended as the first step in his goal of rebuilding his image after years on the political margins. Since the former general was forced from power, Pakistan's civilian leadership has struggled with a sinking economy, resilient Islamic extremist factions and tensions with Washington over drone strikes and the secret raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Musharraf represents a polarizing force that could further complicate Pakistan's attempt to hold parliamentary elections in May and stage its first transition from one civilian government to another.

He is viewed as an enemy by many Islamic militants and others for his decision to side with America in the response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On Saturday, the Pakistan Taliban vowed to mobilize death squads to send Musharraf "to hell" if he returns.

His supporters, including elements of the military and members of Pakistan's influential expatriate communities, consider him a strong leader whose voice ? even just in parliament ? could help stabilize the country.

Musharraf also faces legal charges, including some originating from the probe of the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who also spent time in self-imposed exile in Dubai before returning.

The flight from Dubai came after several failed promises to return in recent years. Musharraf announced in early March that he would lead his party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, in May elections.

Musharraf met briefly with reporters in Dubai before heading to the airport wearing a white shalwar kameez ? the traditional loose-fitting outfit in Pakistan ? and sandals from the country's Peshawar region near the Afghan border.

Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup and was forced to step down in 2008 amid growing discontent over his rule. He has since lived in Dubai and London.

His decision to return was given a boost last week when a Pakistan court granted him pre-emptive bail ? essentially preventing his immediate arrest ? in three cases in which he's implicated, including Bhutto's death. He now has 10 days to appear in court. He has dismissed the various charges as baseless.

His return comes as Pakistan seeks for the first time to hand power from one elected government to another. The country, meanwhile, is struggling with rolling blackouts, rising inflation and widespread security problems.

On Saturday, the Pakistan Taliban released a video threatening to unleash suicide bombers and snipers against Musharraf if he comes back. One of the two people speaking in the video was Adnan Rashid, a former Pakistani air force officer convicted in an attack against Musharraf. The Taliban broke Rashid out of prison last year, along with nearly 400 other detainees.

"The mujahedeen of Islam have prepared a death squad to send Pervez Musharraf to hell," said Rashid, who spoke in the video in front of a group of about 20 militants holding rifles. "We warn you to surrender yourself to us. Otherwise we will hit you from where you will never reckon."

Musharraf had been expected to address supporters at a gathering Sunday in Karachi near the mausoleum of Pakistan's founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah. But police decided to cancel his permit because of a "very serious threat," said Tahir Naveed, the deputy inspector general of Karachi police. He said Musharraf would be provided with an armored vehicle to protect him due to the threats. Banners and billboards welcoming Musharraf back to Pakistan lined the street from the airport where he is expected to land.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Musharraf came under intense pressure from the U.S. to back the Americans in the coming war in Afghanistan and cut off ties with the Taliban, which he did. For that, militants as well as many other Pakistanis saw him as carrying out the American agenda in Pakistan.

He's also vilified by militants for ordering the 2007 raid against a mosque in downtown Islamabad that had become a sanctuary for militants opposed to Pakistan's support of the war in Afghanistan. At least 102 people were killed in the weeklong operation, most of them supporters of the mosque.

Militants tried to kill Musharraf twice in December 2003 in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military is headquartered. First they placed a bomb intended to go off when his convoy passed by. When that didn't work, suicide attackers tried to ram his motorcade with explosives-laden vehicles. The president was unhurt but 16 others died.

In addition to the Bhutto case, Musharraf also faces charges resulting from investigations into the killing of Akbar Bugti, a Baluch nationalist leader who died in August 2006 after a standoff with the Pakistani military. In another case, he's accused of illegally removing a number of judges including the chief justice of the supreme court.

___

Santana reported from Karachi, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/musharraf-heads-pakistan-amid-death-threats-060535578.html

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Paint-on plastic electronics: Aligning polymers for high performance

Mar. 24, 2013 ? Semiconducting polymers are an unruly bunch, but University of Michigan engineers have developed a new method for getting them in line that could pave the way for cheaper, greener, "paint-on" plastic electronics.

"This is for the first time a thin-layer, conducting, highly aligned film for high-performance, paintable, directly writeable plastic electronics," said Jinsang Kim, U-M professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research published in Nature Materials.

Semiconductors are the key ingredient for computer processors, solar cells and LED displays, but they are expensive. Inorganic semiconductors like silicon require high temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and costly vacuum systems for processing into electronics, but organic and plastic semiconductors can be prepared on a basic lab bench.

The trouble is that charge carriers, like electrons, can't move through plastics nearly as easily as they can move through inorganic semiconductors, Kim said. Part of the reason for this is because each semiconducting polymer molecule is like a short wire, and these wires are randomly arranged.

"Charge mobility along the polymer chains is much faster than between the polymers," Kim said.

To take advantage of the good conduction along the polymers, research groups have been trying to align them into a charge-carrying freeway, but it's a bit like trying to arrange nanoscopic linguine.

Kim's group approached the problem by making smarter semiconducting polymers. They wanted a liquid polymer solution they could brush over a surface, and the molecules would automatically align with one another in the direction of the stroke, assembling into high-performance semiconducting thin-layer films.

First, they designed the polymers to be slippery -- ordinary polymers glom together like flat noodles left in the fridge, Kim said. By choosing polymers with a natural twist, the team kept them from sticking to one another in the solution. But in order to align during the brushstroke, the polymers needed to subtly attract one another. Flat surfaces would do that, so the team designed their polymer to untwist as the solvent dried up.

They stopped the unaligned polymers from forming large chunks by adding flexible arms that extended off to the sides of the flat, wire-like polymer. These arms prevented too much close contact among the polymers while the bulkiness of the arms kept them from snagging on one another. Polymers with these properties will line up in the direction of an applied force, such as the tug of a paintbrush.

"It's a big breakthrough," Kim said. "We established a complete molecular design principle of semiconducting polymers with directed alignment capability."

And it works. The team made molecules that matched their design and built a device for spreading the polymer solution over surfaces such as glass or a flexible plastic film. The force from the silicon blade, moving at a constant speed across the liquid polymer, was enough to align the molecules.

The team then built the semiconducting film into a simple transistor, a version of the electronic components that make up computer processors. The device demonstrated the importance of the polymer alignment by showing that charge carriers moved 1,000 times faster in the direction parallel to the silicon blade's brushstroke than they did when crossing the direction of the stroke.

"By combining the established molecular design principle with a polymer that has a very good intrinsic charge carrier mobility, we believe it will make a huge difference in organic electronics," he said. "We are currently developing a versatile fabrication method in order to realize high-performance and paintable plastic electronics in various length scales from nanometers to meters."

Kim believes that the technique will work equally well with atomic-scale pen nibs or large trowel-like applicators for making electronics of all sizes such as LED displays or light-absorbing coatings for solar cells.

The paper is titled "A molecular design principle of lyotropic liquid-crystalline conjugated polymers with directed alignment capability for plastic electronics."

The work is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Two authors of the paper were partly supported by National Science Foundation and WCU program of National Research Foundation of Korea. The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property and is seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan, via Newswise.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Bong-Gi Kim, Eun Jeong Jeong, Jong Won Chung, Sungbaek Seo, Bonwon Koo, Jinsang Kim. A molecular design principle of lyotropic liquid-crystalline conjugated polymers with directed alignment capability for plastic electronics. Nature Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3595

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/X00oDu4TX2Q/130324151830.htm

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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Analysis: "Lex Cyprus" will set precedents for closer EU union

By Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Lawyers have a saying that hard cases make bad law.

Whatever happens this weekend on a bailout for Cyprus will set precedents for the euro zone's future banking union, investor confidence in the single currency area and political relations among European states.

Europe's political leaders, and their finance ministers, are having to decide in practice at breakneck speed on issues on which they have not yet agreed in theory.

Among those issues is whether euro membership is really irreversible for all member states, or only for countries deemed systemic, and what the true meaning is of the European Union's agreed guarantee of 100,000 euros in bank deposits.

"Lex Cyprus" will likely be a template for future bailouts, bank resolution and the protection - or not - of creditors and depositors, even if euro zone leaders swear on the bones of saints, as they did for Greece, that this is a unique case.

Some precedents have already been set in a chaotic week of stumbling crisis management.

For the first time, European leaders made clear they were willing to cut loose a member of the 17-nation currency area, leaving it to default and abandon the euro if it did not meet the conditions set for a financial rescue.

The European Central Bank said it would pull the plug on Cypriot banks kept afloat by emergency lending assistance unless Cyprus had a bailout in place by next Monday night.

Even though the ECB does not yet have supervisory authority over European banks, or powers to resolve failed institutions, it effectively acted as a resolution authority since withholding liquidity would have the same effect as withdrawing a banking license.

A senior European Union official warned that in that case, the biggest banks would have to be wound down, and Nicosia would have to fend for itself and revert to issuing national money.

"If the financial sector collapses, then they simply have to face a very significant devaluation, and faced with that situation, they would have no other way but to start having their own currency," the official told Reuters on Thursday.

COMBINED ULTIMATUMS

The combined ultimatums from Frankfurt and Brussels may have been intended primarily to jolt Cypriots into accepting a levy on large bank deposits that lawmakers had rejected, but it sent a message that recalcitrant small countries can be expelled.

That is the opposite of what EU leaders sought to signal when they went the extra mile last year to grant Greece more time and money to keep it in the euro zone.

"Why did we say this for Cyprus when we didn't say it for Greece?" a euro zone central banker said. "Cyprus is 0.2 percent of the euro zone economy and Greece is 2 percent. Size matters."

Like other European policymakers quoted in this report, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the acute sensitivity of the negotiations.

EU paymaster Germany, with a general election in September, was keen to show it could say "no" and stick with it after domestic critics complained that Berlin had been stampeded into previous bailouts by anxious euro zone partners.

Last week's EU-mandated attempt to impose a one-off levy on all bank deposits in Cyprus, rejected by the Cypriot parliament and subsequently disowned by euro zone finance ministers, set another precedent that caused an outcry among investors and many ordinary Europeans.

Stunned by the backlash, the ministers changed their minds within three days, blaming the Cypriot government for the plan to hit smaller savers, and said deposits below the 100,000 euro threshold should not after all be raided.

"I understand that electorates in Germany and northern Europe demand some sacrifice. However, when you accept a solution that basically expropriates 10 percent of deposits, you set a dangerous precedent," Vladimir Dlouhy, a former Czech economy minister and now international advisor at Goldman Sachs, told Reuters. "If we get into deeper trouble, God help us, they may try to take 50 percent."

The latest word from Cyprus suggests the levy on holdings of over 100,000 euros at Bank of Cyprus could go as high as 25 percent. Many of the accounts are held by Russians and other foreigners.

DAMAGE

The psychological damage may have been done.

There has been no bank run in Spain, Italy or Ireland, but depositors now know, if they did not suspect it before, that in extreme circumstances their savings in euro zone banks may not be as safe as they had imagined.

Tellingly, the International Monetary Fund urged the EU a week ago to press ahead with a common deposit guarantee, a red line for Germany which fears it will end up footing the bill.

The European Commission sought to distinguish between protecting deposits if a bank collapsed, in which case accounts of up to 100,000 euros were guaranteed by EU law, and "fiscal measures", from which there was no such protection.

Cypriots were not alone in seeing the levy as an attempted "bank robbery" rather than a tax, since it touched capital rather than income.

In reality, even the EU guarantee in case of a bank failure is less certain than it sounds, since there is no procedure so far for other euro zone countries to help a country that does not have the money to compensate depositors.

In the case of Cyprus, not only would accounts with more than 100,000 euros be potentially wiped out in a bank failure, but European officials say there is little chance the Cypriot state would be able to reimburse all "guaranteed" deposits.

Berlin, in particular, opposes the idea of metalizing national deposit insurance schemes and the European Commission has yet to put forward a proposal for a financial backstop for the planned European banking union.

One idea that may get around the German objection would be to require national resolution funds to take out reinsurance contracts with the euro zone's rescue fund, perhaps paying differentiated risk premiums.

If, as now seems likely, only accounts larger than 100,000 euros are hit in Cyprus, euro zone policymakers may be obliged by the public outcry to give stronger force to the deposit guarantee than they had originally intended.

In that case, the Cyprus outcome also risks upending the traditional hierarchy of claims in case of a bank failure, since big depositors will suffer a "haircut" but senior bondholders, of whom there are few in Cypriot banks, will not.

The Cyprus case does confirm another EU precedent in the treatment of small member states, which could have serious consequences for public support for European integration.

As with Ireland's repeat referendums on the EU's Nice and Lisbon treaties and Greece's two general elections last year, the bloc has a habit of pushing small states to vote again until they produce the desired answer.

When France voted against a European constitutional treaty in 2005, no one suggested the French be made to return to the polls.

(Writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Mike Peacock)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-lex-cyprus-set-precedents-closer-eu-union-173722131--sector.html

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