Thursday, February 28, 2013

Video: LinkedIn Consistently Growing

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50992827/

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Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union jailed

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexico's most powerful woman was formally charged with a massive embezzlement scheme on Wednesday, standing grim-faced behind bars live on national television in what many called a clear message that the new government is asserting its authority.

The country watched rapt as national teacher's union head Elba Esther Gordillo heard the charges against her read by a judge in a grim prison in eastern Mexico City. It was a dizzying fall from power for a woman who traveled on private jets and maintained properties worth millions of dollars in Southern California.

Gordillo was charged with embezzling 2 billion pesos (about $160 million) from union funds, as well as organized crime. The judge in the case said a decision about whether the evidence is sufficient to merit a trial would be taken in three to six days.

If found guilty, Gordillo could face 30 years in prison.

She was arrested Tuesday afternoon as she returned from San Diego for a meeting of leaders of the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers she has led for nearly a quarter-century. She was heading the union's fight with President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration over the country's most sweeping educational reform in more than 70 years.

Her arrest came a day after the president signed the reform into law.

"This is a case that has absolutely no political motivation," Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told the Televisa television network.

But most Mexicans scoffed at the idea that prosecutors had just found out that Gordillo ? known for her designer clothes, luxury cars and plastic surgery ? might be corrupt. Many saw it as a shot across the bow of potential foes by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ran the country for seven decades, was thrown out of power in 2006 and won back the presidency last year.

The message: Don't commit Gordillo's mistake of publicly opposing the president's reform efforts.

"The message is that, if this can happen to Elba Esther, it can happen to anyone," former Mexico City Mayor Manuel Camacho Solis told MVS Radio. Prosecutors said they had detected nearly $3 million in purchases at Neiman Marcus stores using union funds, as well as $17,000 in U.S. plastic surgery bills and the purchase of a million-dollar home in San Diego.

The arrest immediately sparked calls for prosecutors to bring similar cases against other union leaders known for lavish spending. The main opposition parties specifically named the leader of the country's oil workers' union, accused by local news media of giving his son a $2 million Ferrari, a report that has never been confirmed or denied.

The arrest of Gordillo sidelines a powerful opponent of the PRI even as the administration takes on a figure many blame for the dire state of the Mexican education system. Gordillo was a PRI leader for decades before splitting from the party, which was accused of corruption and authoritarian practices during its decades in power.

"This can be something very good for the country, but also for the government and for the PRI," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City. "It cleans up the image of the PRI, as if to say, "Yes, we will be a different PRI, we're moving forward, not backward."

Pena Nieto is also proposing reforms that would open the state-owned oil company to more private investment, a move that could awaken similar opposition from that union.

But teacher's union members had been the only ones marching in the streets against reform in recent weeks, and the fiery Gordillo, who rose from teenage school teacher to a maker of presidents, vowed to keep fighting.

"I want to die with the epitaph: Here lies a warrior. She died like a warrior," Gordillo said in a speech on her 68th birthday this month.

Her union's secretary-general said Gordillo still had the group's loyalty, solidarity and affection, but there was no immediate sign of plans for protests.

Asked if he would go after other corrupt union bosses, as opposition parties have demanded, Murillo Karam said "I don't have evidence as clear as in this case."

In a news conference minutes after Gordillo's detention, he said the investigation started in December, just after Pena Nieto took office, when Banco Santander alerted authorities to transfers of billions of pesos, according to the attorney general.

Some funds eventually ended up in bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, according to Assistant Attorney General Alfredo Castillo, who said that in one case, $1 million went to a Swiss account for a company owned by Gordillo's mother. Those funds were then used to buy a million-dollar house on the Coronado peninsula near San Diego.

For years, Gordillo has beaten back attacks from union dissidents, political foes and journalists who have seen her as a symbol of Mexico's corrupt, old-style politics. Rivals have accused her of corruption, misuse of union funds and even a murder, but prosecutors who investigated never brought a charge against her.

She was expelled from Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2006 for supporting other parties' candidates and the formation of her own New Alliance party. Her support was considered key in giving a razor-thin victory that year to former President Felipe Calderon.

After Pena Nieto's victory, his first legislative achievement was a reform that creates a system of uniform standards for teacher hiring and promotion based on merit instead of union connections. It also allows for the first census of Mexico's education system, which Gordillo's union has largely controlled for decades, allegedly padding the payroll with thousands of phantom teachers.

So great is the union's control that no one knows exactly how many schools, teachers or students exist in Mexico.

The Mexican education system has been persistently one of the worst performers among the world's developed economies, with few signs of improvement.

Mexico spent a higher percentage of its budget on public education than any other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development except New Zealand but had the lowest expenditure per child in 2009.

Nearly every Mexican 4-year-old is in pre-school, but only 47 percent are expected to graduate high school. In the U.S., the number is closer to 80 percent.

In a television interview last week about education reform, the interviewer told Gordillo that she was the most hated woman in Mexico.

"There is no one more loved by their people than I," Gordillo answered. "I care about the teachers. This is a deep and serious dispute about public education."

Columnist and political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio said Gordillo is an experienced political fighter who may have lost the keen sense of political calculation that kept her in power for so many years.

"She lost clarity," Riva Palacio said. "Having so much to lose on the issue on which they finally got her, the money, she calculated badly."

Gordillo's arrest recalled the 1989 arrest of another once-feared union boss, Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, known as "La Quina." The longtime head of Mexico's powerful oil workers union, Hernandez Galicia was arrested during the first months of the new administration of then-President Carlos Salinas.

In 1988, he criticized Salinas' presidential candidacy and threatened an oil workers' strike if Salinas privatized any part of the government oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. On Jan. 10, 1989, ? about a month after Salinas took office ? soldiers used a bazooka to blow down the door of Hernandez' home in the Gulf Coast city of Ciudad Madero.

He was freed from prison after Salinas left office.

_____

Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson, Adriana Gomez Licon and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/head-mexicos-powerful-teachers-union-jailed-064823862.html

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What the World Looks Like From a Football's Point of View

February 27, 2013 5:43 PM Text Size: A . A . A With the dozens of camera angles used to show a football game on TV, why hasn't anyone ever thought of giving us a ball's-eye view? Because with the spheroid spiraling at speeds up to 600 rpm, a football-cam would produce unwatchable, nauseating footage.

But what if it didn't? Imagine the footage a football would capture if it flew down the gridiron without spinning. That's what researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo have developed, using an algorithm that analyzes frames shot by a football's built-in camera as it spirals across the field. By looking for shots of the sky, the algorithm selects and deletes all frames captured while the camera faces skyward. It then stiches together the downward shots into a panorama. The resulting video (below) is still a little twitchy, but researchers think they'll soon be able to produce instant videos with smooth, wide shots of the football field streaking by below.

Project leader Kris Kitani told PM that the algorithm was the easy part. "There's already been a lot of work on image stitching and making panoramas from multiple small images," he says, "so I just used all of that well known technology." He spent much more time prototyping the camera, which began as a spongy volleyball with a USB camera in it that Kitani rolled down a track. Eventually it became a Nerf ball with a GoPro inside. Next, Kitani hopes to see what he can do with multiple cameras inside a single ball.

Kitani was surprised to find inspiration in a 1938 Popular Mechanics article featuring a 16-millimeter film camera mounted within a balsa wood football. "When we initially started the work I did what every researcher does," Kitani says. "I went and Googled ?ball and camera' and saw what came out. When I saw the Popular Mechanics article, I was like, woah, someone already did this!" (You're welcome, Kris, though I doubt the video quality of our 1938 effort matches yours.)

Kitani says project is just one of a growing number of endeavors in the field of digital sports. "Digital sports is an area of research concerned with how technology can be combined with sports to do different things? like augment spectator experience, analyze the activities of athletes, and even create entirely new games and sports that weren't possible before." Expanding your field of vision isn't the only way to change sport spectatorship. Kitani also wants to develop a sensor to detect a football's moment of impact, which could send a signal to your cell phone to make it vibrate. "Kind of like the vibrating chairs at Universal Studios."

You can see the BallCam in action below, but heads up: The video shows both the finished product and the spinning raw footage, so it might cause dizziness.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/football/what-the-world-looks-like-from-a-footballs-point-of-view-15152650?src=rss

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Fermi's motion produces a study in spirograph

Feb. 27, 2013 ? NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits our planet every 95 minutes, building up increasingly deeper views of the universe with every circuit. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope (LAT) sweeps across the entire sky every three hours, capturing the highest-energy form of light -- gamma rays -- from sources across the universe. These range from supermassive black holes billions of light-years away to intriguing objects in our own galaxy, such as X-ray binaries, supernova remnants and pulsars.

Now a Fermi scientist has transformed LAT data of a famous pulsar into a mesmerizing movie that visually encapsulates the spacecraft's complex motion.

Pulsars are neutron stars, the crushed cores of massive suns that destroyed themselves when they ran out of fuel, collapsed and exploded. The blast simultaneously shattered the star and compressed its core into a body as small as a city yet more massive than the sun. The result is an object of incredible density, where a spoonful of matter weighs as much as a mountain on Earth. Equally incredible is a pulsar's rapid spin, with typical rotation periods ranging from once every few seconds up to hundreds of times a second. Fermi sees gamma rays from more than a hundred pulsars scattered across the sky.

One pulsar shines especially bright for Fermi. Called Vela, it spins 11 times a second and is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays the LAT sees. Although gamma-ray bursts and flares from distant black holes occasionally outshine the pulsar, they don't have Vela's staying power. Because pulsars emit beams of energy, scientists often compare them to lighthouses, a connection that in a broader sense works especially well for Vela, which is both a brilliant beacon and a familiar landmark in the gamma-ray sky.

Most telescopes focus on a very small region of the sky, but the LAT is a wide-field instrument that can detect gamma rays across a large portion of the sky at once. The LAT is, however, much more sensitive to gamma rays near the center of its field of view than at the edges. Scientists can use observations of a bright source like Vela to track how this sensitivity varies across the instrument's field of view.

With this in mind, LAT team member Eric Charles, a physicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California, used the famous pulsar to produce a novel movie. He tracked both Vela's position relative to the center of the LAT's field of view and the instrument's exposure of the pulsar during the first 51 months of Fermi's mission, from Aug. 4, 2008, to Nov. 15, 2012.

The movie renders Vela's position in a fisheye perspective, where the middle of the pattern corresponds to the central and most sensitive portion of the LAT's field of view. The edge of the pattern is 90 degrees away from the center and well beyond what scientists regard as the effective limit of the LAT's vision.

The pulsar traces out a loopy, hypnotic pattern reminiscent of art produced by the colored pens and spinning gears of a Spirograph, a children's toy that produces geometric patterns.

The pattern created in the Vela movie reflects numerous motions of the spacecraft. The first is Fermi's 95-minute orbit around Earth, but there's another, subtler motion related to it. The orbit itself also rotates, a phenomenon called precession. Similar to the wobble of an unsteady top, Fermi's orbital plane makes a slow circuit around Earth every 54 days.

In order to capture the entire sky every two orbits, scientists deliberately nod the LAT in a repeating pattern from one orbit to the next. It first looks north on one orbit, south on the next, and then north again. Every few weeks, the LAT deviates from this pattern to concentrate on particularly interesting targets, such as eruptions on the sun, brief but brilliant gamma-ray bursts associated with the birth of stellar-mass black holes, and outbursts from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies.

The Vela movie captures one other Fermi motion. The spacecraft rolls to keep the sun from shining on and warming up the LAT's radiators, which regulate its temperature by bleeding excess heat into space.

The braided loops and convoluted curves drawn by Vela hint at the complexity of removing these effects from the torrent of data Fermi returns, but that's a challenge LAT scientists long ago proved they could meet. Still going strong after more than four years on the job, Fermi continues its mission to map the high-energy sky, which is now something everyone can envision as a celestial Spriograph traced by a pulsar pen.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

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/space_time/astronomy/~3/Kd6-_fYbEqw/130227183532.htm

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European Commission invests ?50 million into 5G research with a 2020 target

EU invests 50 million euros into 5G cellular research with a 2020 target

You're still waiting to get 4G? That's old hat: the European Commission is already thinking about 5G. It's investing €50 million ($65.3 million) into research with the hope that the next-next-generation cellular technology will be a practical reality by 2020. About €16 million ($20.9 million) of that is headed toward METIS, an Ericsson-led alliance hoping to develop wireless with 10 to 100 times the capacity, a similar increase in speed and just a fifth of the lag. Like a UK parallel, though, there's only so much technology talk the Commission can offer at this stage. The funding is as much for regional pride as progress -- officials want 5G to be a Europe-led affair after Asia and North America took center stage on 4G.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: European Commission

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/26/european-commission-invests-50-million-into-5g-cellular-research/

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Top NFL draft prospect from Utah has heart ailment

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2012 file photo, Utah's Lotulelei (92) looks on in the second half during an NCAA college football game against California in Salt Lake City. Lotulelei will be heading home from the NFL's combine Monday night, Feb. 25, 2013 after doctors discovered he had a heart condition. His agent, Bruce Tollner, confirmed the diagnosis in an email to The Associated Press on Monday. ESPN first reported the story Sunday night. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2012 file photo, Utah's Lotulelei (92) looks on in the second half during an NCAA college football game against California in Salt Lake City. Lotulelei will be heading home from the NFL's combine Monday night, Feb. 25, 2013 after doctors discovered he had a heart condition. His agent, Bruce Tollner, confirmed the diagnosis in an email to The Associated Press on Monday. ESPN first reported the story Sunday night. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

(AP) ? Top draft prospect Star Lotulelei will undergo more extensive heart tests when he returns to Utah.

Doctors at the NFL's annual scouting combine in Indianapolis found the star defensive tackle and likely high pick has a heart condition, Lotulelei's agent, Bruce Tollner, confirmed in a series of emails with The Associated Press on Monday.

Tollner said Lotulelei would not take questions regarding the diagnosis yet. But the 6-foot-2, 311-pound defensive tackle still plans to do a full workout in front of scouts at his regularly scheduled Pro Day on March 20. The Tonga native was scheduled to fly to Utah on Monday night, Tollner said.

ESPN first reported Lotulelei has a left ventricle that is not operating at maximum capacity.

Lotulelei's professional future could depend heavily on what doctors find.

The Utah standout is considered one of the best prospects in this year's draft. He is trying to join Alex Smith as the only players from the University of Utah to go No. 1 overall; San Francisco took Smith with the top pick in 2005.

"You're going to have to get all kinds of second and third opinions," Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said.

When asked whether the Cardinals would remove Lotulelei from their draft board if those doctors confirmed the diagnosis, Arians said: "That's exactly what would happen."

Uncovering information like this is the reason the combine actually began in the late 1980s. Coaches and general managers have said for years that medical checks are a crucial component of the combine, perhaps the most important data they get all week so they can make informed decisions on draft weekend.

"The No. 1 reason that this started was for medical reasons, and you bring everybody here and have a chance to look at 300-plus guys, X-rays, MRIs, and get your hands on those guys," Lions coach Jim Schwartz said Thursday. "Each step along the way it added a little bit more, whether it was physical testing, or mental testing, or interview process. Nothing stands alone. You're not going to draft a guy based on a 15-minute interview at the combine, or based on one attempt at a broad jump at the combine. It's all just part of the big picture."

This is not the first time a big-name player has been diagnosed with an illness or injury at the combine.

In 2009, doctors found a small stress fracture in the left foot of receiver Michael Crabtree. Crabtree was still chosen No. 10 overall by San Francisco and had a breakout season in 2012.

It's also not unusual for doctors to send players with medical questions from Lucas Oil Stadium, where the combine is held, to a nearby hospital for more extensive examination. The shuttles certainly have been full this week.

Among those hoping to prove they will be healthy enough to play this season are running back Marcus Lattimore, trying to return from last fall's gruesome knee injury, and top-rated cornerback Dee Milliner, who said he will undergo surgery next month for a torn labrum in his right shoulder.

The NFL future of three players ? defensive lineman Walter Stewart, linebacker Jarvis Jones and defensive back D.J. Hayden ? will depend heavily on what doctors tell teams. Stewart and Jones were both diagnosed with congenital spinal conditions and were told to give up football. Both were later cleared to return to the sport. Hayden said he tore the main artery to his heart in a practice collision in November.

But teams already knew about those conditions before coming to the combine. Lotulelei's situation came as a major surprise.

Arians said he was "shocked" that the problem had not been detected before now.

Finding a potential ailment in a player with aspirations of going No. 1 is certainly not the norm, though it is not unprecedented. In 2011, defensive end Da'Quan Bowers came to the combine projected to go No. 1, but during a medical recheck, doctors found signs of potential long-term arthritis and some weakness in his surgically repaired right knee. Bowers wound up sliding out of the first round and wasn't selected until No. 51 overall by Tampa Bay.

This time, though, it's different.

"We're talking about a heart," Arians said. "That's huge. We're not talking about a knee or a shoulder."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-25-FBN-NFL-Combine-Lotulelei/id-7308b0fb16874156863c3e5f3cb483cd

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Feds to probe Ford cars and SUVs for stalling

(AP) ? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will investigate problems with stalling or surging engines in nearly 725,000 Ford cars and SUVs.

The probe affects Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs and Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans from the 2009 through 2011 model years.

The vehicles can unexpectedly go into "limp home mode" at reduced power, the agency said in documents posted Monday on its website. NHTSA and Ford have received almost 1,500 complaints about the problem. There were three crashes and one injury.

NHTSA began looking into the cars and SUVs after getting a request from the North Carolina Consumers Council last year. Nonprofit safety groups and consumers can petition the agency to investigate vehicle problems.

The cars and SUVs haven't been recalled, but the investigation could lead to a recall.

The Fusion and Milan are nearly identical cars with the same engines, as are the Escape and Mariner. Ford scrapped the Mercury brand in 2010.

The North Carolina organization said it received two complaints about 2009 Escapes that had been diagnosed with throttles either stuck open or closed. The group said that owners reported repeated stalling and surging.

Ford told NHTSA that vehicles made from June 22, 2009, to Oct. 15, 2009, may have faulty printed circuit boards that control the throttles. Ford and its throttle body supplier, Delphi Corp., changed the circuit board manufacturing process after Oct. 15, 2009. That resolved the problem, NHTSA said in documents posted Monday on its website.

NHTSA said it analyzed 123 complaints about the cars or SUVs going into what's known as limp mode, in which vehicle speed was limited to 20 mph or 900 engine revolutions per minute. Drivers may interpret the limp mode as stalling, even though the engines still move the vehicles, the agency said. Vehicles usually go into limp mode when computers detect an engine problem. This allows drivers to get to a safe place while protecting the engine from damage.

Power surges appear to happen when the engine revolutions fluctuate to prevent stalling during limp mode, the agency said.

But even though Ford said the throttle problem with the Escape was resolved with the manufacturing change, NHTSA still decided to investigate vehicles from the 2010 and 2011 model years. The agency says it received 59 complaints of engine stalling in 2010 and 2011 Fusions. Eighty percent of the complaints were received starting in March of 2012, showing an increasing trend, the agency said.

In addition, Ford has received 27,505 warranty claims in which the throttle bodies were repaired or replaced, NHTSA said.

Ford said Monday that it's cooperating with NHTSA on the investigation.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker has been hit by a series of safety recalls on new versions of the Fusion and Escape, two of its most important products. Ford says it has fixed those problems, and it expects U.S. market share to go up this year as new products go on sale.

Ford shares fell 23 cents to $12.25 in Monday afternoon trading. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $8.82 to $14.39.

.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-25-US-Ford-Investigation/id-5817f59acd5b4dc4811e725c13848852

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Coffee societies face auction over ...

Updated Monday, February 25 2013 at 00:00 GMT+3

By Erastus Mulwa

KENYA:? Coffee farmers in Kangundo and Matungulu districts, Machakos County have called on the Government to step in and save their factories from imminent auction by creditors and former employees.

The farmers drawn from at least three coffee societies, including Sengani and Kyaume -both in Matungulu District, as well as Mbilini in Kangundo District have expressed fears that they would incur huge loses should their creditors make good their threat to wind up their coffee societies owing to unsettled debts running to millions of shillings.

In a letter dated January 22 this year, addressed to the chairman of Sengani Farmers Co-operative Society Ltd, several creditors and former employees have through their lawyer Anthony Mulekyo, issued a notice of intention to wind up the society.

According to the notice, the petitioners are demanding a prompt payment of a cumulative amount of Sh2,400,239 together with an interest at court rates, failure to which winding up against the society shall commence.

Interest

The letter further alleges the debt had been accruing for a long period, and that the society had breached all consents entered into between all parties in court.

?By copy of this letter, we have taken liberty to inform the PS, Ministry of Co-operatives of our intentions to file a winding up and a petition cause under section 64 of the Co-operative Societies Act, unless the outstanding total of Sh2,400,239 is paid as demanded together with accrued interest,? reads the notice in part.

Credible sources have confined to The Standard that similar notices have been issued to Kyaume and Mbilini farmers? co-operative societies.

The debts, The Standard established, relate to unpaid salaries and benefits, legal and accounting fees as well as NHIF/NSSF deductions by the petitioners which the management committees have been accused of failing to deposit with the said statutory institutions.

On Sunday, area DCO Maisha Muthoka confirmed he disbanded the Sengani management committee after it emerged officials had been engaging in corrupt practices. ?I convened a special general meeting of the farmers on February 21 where members appointed an interim committee to investigate the activities of the former office bearers and table a report within 90 days,? said Muthoka.


?

Source: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000078073&story_title=Kenya:%20Coffee%20societies%20face%20auction%20over%20debts

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SHOW BITS: Jennifer Lawrence bleeped again

Actress Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actress Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actors Channing Tatum, left, and Jenna Dewan-Tatum arrive at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actress Melissa McCarthy arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

(AP) ? It's always fun to hear what Jennifer Lawrence has to say ? even if you have to lip read because she's being bleeped.

The bleeping started early for the charmingly blunt Lawrence, a best actress nominee for "Silver Linings Playbook," as ABC silenced her cheeky red carpet response to actress Kristin Chenoweth.

The two were bonding over "Dance Moms," the Lifetime reality series, when Lawrence asked Chenoweth if she liked it too.

Chenoweth: "Is the pope Catholic?"

Lawrence: "... ?" (We can't print her reply here, but the reference was to something a bear does in the woods.)

And the night, as they say, was still very young. Stay tuned!

? Jocelyn Noveck ? Twitter http://twitter.com/JocelynNoveckAP

___

Joaquin Phoenix didn't waste any time getting into the Dolby Theatre, and the Oscar-nominated actor's dash across the red carpet didn't go unnoticed.

Red carpet host Chris Connelly heckled Phoenix, who has criticized the awards show, as he rushed by, saying he was setting new speed records.

Connelly then added, "You should be at the (NFL) combine," a reference to the athletic tests NFL recruits go through.

? Anthony McCartney ? Twitter http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

___

Oscar bleacher fans got a wave from some stars such as Jane Fonda, and a peace sign from others, including Channing Tatum.

Then there were those who pulled out all the stops.

Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter paused on the red carpet to pose for pictures for star-struck fans.

Melissa McCarthy stopped to beam and wave at every section of the bleachers, all but ignoring the professional photographers surrounding her.

Jessica Chastain blew the crowd a kiss.

And Joseph Gordon-Levitt topped it all off with an appreciative bow to his audience.

? Anthony McCartney ? Twitter http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

___

Even the food gets the red-carpet treatment at the Academy Awards.

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck rolled a tray out onto the carpet to show off just a few of the goodies that will be served at the annual Governor's Ball following the show.

Making the scene were baked potatoes with caviar, smoked salmon, chicken pot pie with truffle, Kobe steak, sushi, sashimi and of course Puck's famous gold-dusted chocolate Oscar statuettes.

"It's going to be the greatest party ever," he said.

? Beth Harris Twitter http://twitter.com/bethharrisap

___

With more than a half-hour to show time and the red carpet still buzzing outside, some early bird Oscar attendees were already taking their seats inside the Dolby Theatre.

And why not? It's a great place to see and hear ABC's red carpet coverage, featuring Kristin Chenoweth, as it blasted away on giant TV screens hanging above the stage.

? Derrik J. Lang ? Twitter http://twitter.com/derrikjlang

___

A few months ago, Army Sgt. 1st Class Walter Talens was shooting footage in Afghanistan. On Sunday, he had a prime seat to watch the stars at the Academy Awards.

Talens was one of dozens of service members sprinkled around the fan bleachers, where he hoped to get a glimpse of actress Jennifer Lawrence from his second-row seat.

It was a new vantage point for him after working two Oscar shows filming shout-outs to troops overseas.

His boss, Maj. John Reynolds, relocated from a posting in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., a few months before last year's show and was hoping for a glimpse of Denzel Washington, Ben Affleck and Lawrence.

"I never thought I would be this close to the red carpet," said Reynolds, who had a front row seat where the stars entered the Dolby Theatre.

Talens, who noted the Oscars' longtime support of the troops, said, "I'm very happy the academy supports the military and allows us to see the glitz and glamour."

? Anthony McCartney ? Twitter http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

___

Sometimes in Hollywood it takes more than one try to get the perfect shot.

On Sunday afternoon, that was the case for the accountants bringing in the Oscar ballot results.

The men walked calmly down the red carpet clutching briefcases as a film crew recorded their every move. But before they could enter the Dolby Theatre, they had to repeat the last leg of their walk.

This time fans in the bleachers cheered. The cameras rolled and everyone was satisfied.

Cut. The men walked into the theater.

It's Hollywood.

? Anthony McCartney ? Twitter http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Show Bits brings you the 85th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles through the eyes of Associated Press journalists. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-24-Oscars-Show%20Bits-Package/id-de5762dacd2b428783ba48fbf30d43e4

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Chinese Vitamin Makers Head to Trial for Alleged Price-Fixing

Can Chinese companies that allegedly fixed prices for U.S. customers deflect liability by saying they acted at their government's behest? Jurors may get a chance to answer that question this coming week, as an antitrust trial against a group of Chinese vitamin manufacturers opens in federal court in New York. The long-running class action was brought on behalf of direct purchasers of Chinese vitamin C products.



Source: http://www.cltmag.com/chinese-vitamin-makers-head-to-trial-for-alleged-price-fixing.html

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Heat blow huge lead then beat Cavs for 11th in row

MIAMI (AP) ? Dwyane Wade got hot down the stretch, and LeBron James missed a layup in the final minute.

Both were huge breaks for the Miami Heat.

James scored 28 points, Wade scored 11 of his 24 in the final five minutes ? when Miami needed him most ? and the Heat extended the NBA's longest current winning streak to 11 games, beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 109-105 in a back-and-forth matchup Sunday night.

The Heat blew a 22-point second-half lead then rallied from eight down with 5:16 left.

"We're a veteran ballclub and we've been in every situation that an NBA game can offer us," James said. "We don't get too high, we don't get too low, we just play the 48 minutes out and see where it takes us."

Dion Waiters scored 26 points, C.J. Miles added 19 and Kyrie Irving scored 17 for Cleveland, which outscored Miami by a stunning 30 points over a 17-minute stretch of the second half, yet still came up empty.

The Cavaliers are now 1-8 against the Heat since James signed with Miami in July 2010.

"We had a very good chance against a very good basketball team, the world champions, and we lost the game because of mental mistakes," Cavaliers coach Byron Scott said. "That's just something that we can't have happen again."

In fairness, it wasn't just mental mistakes that doomed Cleveland late. There was a bit of luck involved for the Heat.

Miami was up by two and held possession with 1:03 remaining. The shot clock was running down and Chris Bosh was open to try a 16-footer from the right wing. As Bosh was about to release, James got inexplicably free under the basket, thrusting both his arms skyward. Bosh threw him the pass ? and James, enjoying the best shooting season of his career, did the unthinkable: He missed the easy one.

This is where the luck comes into play.

The rebound found its way back to Bosh, the Heat ran down another shot clock, and Wade got loose for a two-handed dunk that pushed Miami's lead to 105-101 with 24.4 seconds left.

It was a double-whammy for Cleveland. Miami scored and took nearly 40 seconds off a dwindling clock in the process.

"Hey, I'm a smart player. That's what basketball IQ is all about," James said afterward, unable to hold back a sly grin. "I have no idea how I blew that layup. But it did work out for us. Got an extra possession, D-Wade was able to turn the corner and get a slam."

Said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra: "I liked that play."

Wade started what turned into a 16-4 run with a fadeaway with just under 5 minutes to go, then added a three-point play on the next Miami possession to cut the Cavs' lead to 97-94.

And after Irving missed a layup with 1:35 left, Wade got the rebound and set up Battier for a 3-pointer that put Miami on top again ? and for good.

"I thought that we had the game," Cavaliers forward Alonzo Gee said.

Sure looked like that was the case, after a ridiculously good third quarter.

Down 68-46 early in the third, the Cavaliers looked finished ? last-place team, on the road, against the reigning NBA champions who just happened to have the league's longest current winning streak.

Midway through the third, Miami's lead was still 17.

With two minutes left in the period, the cushion was 10.

By the start of the fourth, it was nonexistent.

The C.J. Miles Show lasted for all of 63 seconds. And they were a scintillating 63 seconds.

It starts with 1:35 left, a 3-pointer from Miles getting the Miami lead down to seven. Then he got a rebound, came downcourt and connected on another 3-pointer. Lead down to four. Another stop by the Cavs on one end, then another 3-pointer for Miles on the other ? that one coming both with him drawing a foul from Chalmers, and with Spoelstra getting hit with a technical from referee Ed Malloy for arguing.

Miles made the technical free throw to tie the game, the free throw for the Chalmers hit to put the Cavs ahead, and they carried that 82-81 lead into the fourth, having closed the quarter on a 36-13 run.

"Guys just finally decided to start playing," Miles said.

Miami used a 23-4 run in the first half to take what looked like a commanding 42-22 lead ? with more than 9 minutes left until the break. And after Cleveland got within seven, Miami answered with another burst.

James didn't miss in the final 4:29 of the half, scoring 10 points on a 4-for-4 run from the floor and fueling what became 16-5 spurt that gave Miami a 64-46 lead going into the locker room. And for good measure, Miami got the first two baskets of the second half, pushing the lead to 22, the biggest of the night.

Over, right?

Not even remotely close. Not until the final frantic seconds, as the Heat not only extended their win streak but won for the fourth time in five nights.

"We found a way," Wade said. "I felt like in the first three quarters, I couldn't move. But in the fourth, you just find it. ... We just turned that other switch on."

NOTES: Miami's two wins over Cleveland this season, both at home, have come by a combined six points. ... The Cavs were without Daniel Gibson (personal) and Omri Casspi, who remained hospitalized in Orlando after surgery to remove his appendix. ... Heat F Mike Miller (ear infection) was back with the team Sunday, though did not play. "He can't hear anything we're saying," Spoelstra quipped before the game. ... The Heat held a moment of silence pregame for Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, the moment ending with warm applause from the crowd.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heat-blow-huge-lead-then-beat-cavs-11th-014637532--spt.html

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Mayor Bloomberg Our Techno-Richard Nixon 911 Mega Theft

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Source: http://occupyunionsquare.net/2013/02/23/mayor-bloomberg-our-techno-richard-nixon-911-mega-theft/

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

HP Slate 7 Android tablet rocks Beats, $169 price tag; due out in April

Image

Mobile World Congress isn't just about the phones. Sometimes a company's got a little tablet love to give as well. HP's out in Barcelona talking up the new Slate 7, a Jelly Bean-sporting tablet with a 1.6GHz dual-core ARM processor inside. The tablet's got a (you guessed it) seven-inch display, plus front and rear facing cameras and, as the red backing not-so-subtly suggests, built-in Beats Audio. The device's biggest selling point, however, has to be that $169 starting price. The Slate 7's due out in April. In the meantime, have a read of the press release after the break.

Comments

Source: HP

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/24/hp-slate-7-android-tablet-rocks-beats-169-price-tag-due-out-i/

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Election Washes Rome in Wave of Posters

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Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323549204578318263568380862.html?mod=europe_home

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Baseball Team's Vigorous Drive Results in a Mixed Weekend


Sunday - Loggers Erase Early Deficit But Fall To Whitworth

PASCO, Wash. ? The Puget Sound baseball team fought back to erase a deficit, but fell 5-3 to Whitworth on Sunday. The Loggers (4-3)? erased an early three-run deficit, but couldn't complete the comeback in the final game of the Swing Into Spring Classic.

Nate Aguiar and Carson Blumenthal locked into an early pitcher's duel to start off the game. Blumenthal and the Pirates took the early advantage with two runs in the second and one more in the fifth.

Aguiar lasted six innings for the Loggers, while Blumenthal went 7.1 innings for the Pirates, but both starters came away with no-decision.

In the top of the sixth, Bobby Hosmer knocked in Christian Carter to get the Loggers on the board. The Loggers really got the bats going in the eighth with four hits and a pair of run to tie up the game.

Addison Melzer singled to drive in the first run of the inning, and Connor Savage drew a bases loaded walk to force a run home and tie up the game at 3-3.

However, Jeremy Druffel had the answer for the Pirates in the bottom half of the inning. He singled with two runners on to score both and give the Pirates the lead and eventually the win.

Hosmer and Lucas Stone each had a pair of hits to lead the Loggers at the plate.

The Loggers head south next week for three games in Portland, starting with a 5 p.m. game against Concordia.


Saturday - Robinson, Beiser Duo Tosses Another Shutout As Logger Split Doubleheader

PASCO, Wash. ? The Puget Sound baseball team breezed past Lewis & Clark behind another shutout from the duo of Matt Robinson and Jarrod Beiser. The Loggers (4-2) took the game 14-0, highlighted by a six-run eighth inning.

Robinson went seven innings and allowed just four hits in the game, while striking out five. The senior has now tossed 14 straight shutout innings to open the season after tossing seven scoreless frames in the Loggers' season-opener at St. Martin's. Beiser did not allow a hit in the final two innings and struck out a pair.

Freshman Nathan Backes led the Loggers at the plate with a 3-for-4 performance. All three of his singles drove in at least one run as he had a game-leading five RBI. He knocked in both Logger runs in the third with a singles up the middle, drove in two more in the seventh with a single in to left and brought home another in the eighth with another single.

The Loggers gained the lead in the bottom of the first when Kaulana Smith scored on a balk. Backes' single put up two more runs in the third for the Loggers. By the sixth inning, the Loggers were up 5-0.

Backes drove in two more in the seventh after a Christian Carter hit brought in a run. The Logger bats then exploded in the eighth for six runs. Backes, Nick Cochran, and Ben Jones all had RBI hits while two more runs came across on Pioneer errors.

The Pioneers fell to 0-5 with the loss and had four errors in the game, coming from four different players. Ryan Strombom took the loss on the mound.

Game 2 vs. Corban ? L, 0-16

Corban once again jumped on top early and cruised to the 16-0 win in the second game between the two in the last two days.

The Warriors were up 8-0 after three innings and never allowed the Loggers to get going offensively. The Loggers had six hits in the game, including extra bases from Kaulana Smith and Lucas Stone, but couldn't push a runner past second base.

Corban had a pair of four-run innings in the game in the first and seventh to fuel the win.

The Loggers sent seven pitchers to the mound in the contest.

They will wrap up the Swing Into Spring Classic tomorrow against the hosts Whitworth at 1 p.m.

?

Source: http://www.pugetsound.edu/news-and-events/campus-news/details/1137/

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Nine Movies. 24 Hours. 11,000 Calories of Popcorn.

(L-R, Start on top) Lincoln, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Amour, Beasts of a Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables.

(Left to right, from top left) Lincoln, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Mis?rables.

Forrest Wickman: Laura, starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, we will spend 24 hours trapped in a small Times Square theater with ferocious Aurochs, a tiger named Richard Parker, and Anne Hathaway. Remind me again, reassure me: Why are we doing this? And will you be bringing crabby snacks and homemades?

L.V. Anderson:?I will not be bringing crabby snacks and homemades?they don?t travel well, and taste best hot?but we should talk about which snacks to bring to the AMC Best Picture Showcase. By my calculation, the time that will elapse between the beginning of?Amour?on Saturday morning and the end of?Beasts of the Southern Wild?on Sunday morning is 23? hours. What's the best way to keep our energy up over that period of time? I'm thinking nuts and maybe some dried fruit (if only so I can dust off my ?Mango Unchained? pun).

Wickman:?Having seen that first film?who at AMC made that programming decision? I can only assume it was the sadistic Michael Haneke?I can tell you that the answer is booze, of the strongest proof available.

Laura, if my intel is up-to-date, you?ve only seen one of this year?s nominees, Silver Linings Playbook. Are you actually excited to see these movies?

Anderson:?That's a complicated question. This year, like every other year, I vowed to see all the Best Picture Oscar nominees so I could better partake in the cultural conversation surrounding them. I also failed, like every other year. I?m not sure what it is about Oscar nominees that makes me so ambivalent about actually watching?them?probably the fact that they tend to be self-serious, whereas I prefer my cinematic entertainment to take the form of lighthearted comedies. So when I found out about the existence of the AMC Best Picture Showcase, it seemed like it was tailor-made for me?get all that pesky movie-watching out of the way at once, as efficiently as possible! So in that sense, yes, I am excited about seeing these movies. However, I recognize that movies are not designed to be viewed in this fashion. I anticipate some kind of emotional overload?at some point, maybe six to eight hours in, you can expect to find me bawling hysterically. Or maybe laughing hysterically! Who knows?

Wickman:?Considering I have already seen all this year's nominees, I should explain myself. As far as I can tell, I had two reasons for signing up for this, neither of which is stopping me from regretting it:

The first is fairly obvious: I really like most of these movies and am excited to spend more time with them.

The second is perhaps only slightly less obvious: I want to journey deep into the Oscar heart of darkness, to stare directly into the sun around which all this razzmatazz orbits, and have it stare back into me. I want Stockholm syndrome to make me like Argo again. And then I want Abraham Lincoln, or Ben Affleck?whatever?to set me free.

Anderson: I feel like we?d be remiss in our live-blogging duties if we failed to mention the reigning masterpiece of the genre: Xan Brooks? chronicle of the 11-hour Isner-Mahut Wimbledon match for the Guardian in 2010. Of course, what made that live-blog and its talk of ?Everlasting Zombie Tennis Players? so thrilling was that it was unexpected. Our live-blog, on the other hand, will be entirely predictable: We will resemble zombies by the end, no question about it.

By the way, here is our morning, afternoon, night, and morning's schedule, for those following along at home:

10:00 a.m. Saturday: Amour
12:20 p.m.: Lincoln
3:20 p.m.: Argo
5:35 p.m.: Django Unchained
9:30 p.m.: Les Miserables
12:30 a.m. Sunday: Zero Dark Thirty (Nice one, AMC!)
3:20 a.m.: Life of Pi
5:40 a.m.: Silver Linings Playbook
7:55 a.m.: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Laura and Forrest will post their first update Saturday morning before Amour. Come back all weekend to watch them experience moviegoing nirvana and/or lose their minds.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4bf4aa5d1fb4c62606673164d11a05dd

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

The flu hit American workers hard in January

In a new study out Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control, the vaccine proved effective just over half of the time. And among seniors who are 65 years old and older, one of the most vulnerable populations, the vaccine only offered nine percent protection. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.

By Allison Linn, TODAY

That nasty flu season appears to have taken a toll on our productivity as well as our health.

More American workers called in sick in January than during any month in nearly five years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said this week.

Nearly 2.9 million full-time workers only worked part-time during the week in which they were surveyed because of illness, injury or medical appointment, the BLS said. Also,?more than 1.2 million people were off work for the whole week they were surveyed because they were sick, the BLS said.

That?s the highest level of people calling in sick since February?2008, when 1.3 million people missed a full week of work and 3.3 million full-time workers only worked part-time because of illness.

The BLS noted that more people typically call in sick during the winter months, when seasonal illnesses such as cold and the flu are common. But this year appears to have been especially hard on Americans, and on workers.

The flu season got off to an early and aggressive start, but the good news is that it appears to have peaked in late January, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Still, experts warn that the flu could continue to circulate for months.

In addition, other bugs, such as common colds and the stomach flu, can keep workers from heading into the office.

For many workers, getting sick can literally be costly. There is no federal requirement that companies provide paid sick leave, although companies who are subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act requires unpaid sick leave.

About 66 percent of workers have access to paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Full-time workers are much more likely than part-time workers to have paid sick leave, according to the BLS.

Have you had to call in sick yet this season?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/02/22/17047057-the-flu-hit-american-workers-hard-in-january?lite

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Friday, February 22, 2013

Gold's Price Correction: Separating the Men from the Boys

Thursday, February 21st, 2013
By Michael Lombardi, MBA for Profit Confidential

Separating the Men from the BoysIs gold bullion becoming the commodity the mainstream media and analysts love to hate?

After all, views of the metal are becoming increasingly bearish. But I believe the most important factor as to why gold bullion is actually attractive at this point is being ignored; gold bullion becomes more valuable as the paper money created by central banks increases in circulation.

How negative have investors become on gold bullion? Since October 2012, hedge funds have cut their holdings of gold bullion by 56%. (Source: Bloomberg, February 15, 2013.) Hence, you can see why some are calling the recent price decline in gold bullion prices the end of the bull market in the metal.

Here?s a long-term chart of gold bullion prices. I see a sideways pattern developing, but I don?t see a bust of the bull market that started 12 years ago in gold bullion.

$GOLD Gold-Spot Price stock market chart

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

As my loyal readers know, I?m still bullish on gold bullion. My main reason for staying bullish is very simple; so long as the central banks continue to devalue their currencies, I believe the precious metal will shine.

And right now, wherever I look, I see central banks looking to ?fight? their strengthening currencies by outright devaluing them. Their attitude of ?do whatever it takes to get our exports going? is going to create trouble in the future.

The Federal Reserve alone has printed trillions of dollars to improve the economy. And unfortunately, other central banks are taking the exact same actions?not just major central banks, but the smaller ones too, like the Philippine, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, and Brazil central banks.

Dear reader, what holds true is that the list of central banks committing to print more money is increasing, and those that were already printing are promising to print more. For example, the central bank of Switzerland, is working hard to keep the value of the Swiss franc lower so its currency doesn?t rise in value against the euro. (The eurozone is its major trading partner.)

As more central banks join in on printing more money, I become more bullish on gold bullion. Looking at the long-term picture, gold bullion is standing at a bright spot. Remember: No investment goes straight up or straight down. And in true bull markets, pullbacks are needed to weed out the speculators.

Michael?s Personal Notes:

A slight rise in U.S. home prices has the financial news reporters believing there is real growth in the U.S. housing market. Unfortunately, the fact is: the housing market in the U.S. economy hasn?t improved, and the most important aspect of real growth?first-time homebuyers?is still missing.

Consider this, if the price of a stock goes down by 30%, and then the next day it rises by 10%, would you say the stock has recovered? The answer is, ?no.?

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price index, the most quoted index to observe the pulse of U.S. housing market, is still close to the same point it was at in August of 2010, and it?s down almost 30% since the end of 2006. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, January 29, 2013.)

If you judge the housing market by looking at home prices, then clearly, it is deep underwater. Average home prices in the U.S. housing markets will have to increase more than 40% to get to the same level as 2006.

Now, if you look at the first-time homebuyers?the pulse of the housing market?they are not getting involved.

How bleak is the demand for first-time homebuyers in the U.S. housing market? At the very best, it is dismal.

Look at the sales of new one-family homes. They have been continuously declining. In 2011, on average, 168,000 units of new one-family homes were sold in the U.S. housing market. In 2012, the average was 146,000?a decline of more than 13% over a one-year period. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, January 25, 2013.)

And according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Index (HMI), the confidence of new single-family home builders is falling. It fell to 46 in February from 47 in January. (Source: National Association of Home Builders, February 19, 2013.) Any number below 50 means that the builders perceive housing market conditions to be poor, not good.

Keep in mind that new home builders closely follow the demand of the housing market. If their confidence turns negative, it is definitely not a good sign.

Dear reader, consumers in the U.S. economy are still working hard to make ends meet. After the financial crisis, those who were lucky enough to find a job are earning less than they did before, while others are still unemployed.

It is truly not a surprise for me to see the absence of first-time homebuyers from the housing market. They simply don?t have money right now to afford houses. I will consider the U.S. housing market to be in a rebound when I see first-time homebuyers pouring in?right now, that?s not the case.

NEWSFLASH: Highflier Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE/TOL), the largest U.S. luxury home builder, saw its stock fall by just under 10% on Wednesday after the company reported earnings that significantly trailed analysts? estimates. My opinion: investors have pushed the stocks of new home builders up too far. The rebound in the housing market will be much slower than analysts and investors currently predict.

Where the Market Stands; Where it?s Headed:

My indicators point to the stock market being severely overbought. I don?t think stocks have much more room to move higher, and I continue to believe we are getting close to a top for the market.

What He Said:

?I see a deal when it?s a deal. And right now there?s a good ?for sale? sign flashing on gold bullion and gold producer shares. In fact, after peaking at the $690 an ounce level earlier this year, gold could be a bargain at its current price of around $650 per ounce. As a reader, you are undoubtedly aware of my negative stance on the general stock market and the U.S. economy. As the economic problems that continue to brew in the U.S., as these problems develop into others, and as they are finally exposed, what other investment but gold will worldwide investors turn to?? Michael Lombardi in PROFIT CONFIDENTIAL, March 14, 2007. Gold bullion was trading under $300.00 an ounce when Michael first started recommending gold-related investments.

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Gold?s Price Correction: Separating the Men from the Boys, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating

Source: http://www.profitconfidential.com/gold-investments/golds-price-correction-separating-the-men-from-the-boys/

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Source: http://aviku.com/the-differences-between-business-to-business-sales-and-individual-sales/

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Inmet profit drops 17 pct on forex losses

Feb 22 (Reuters) - Like a sporting Cinderella, Sauber Formula One driver Nico Hulkenberg has been given the shoe that fits. Whether his season turns out to be a fairytale with a happy ending remains to be seen but the tall German was content on Friday to have swept away at least one of his problems. Hulkenberg, who has moved to the Swiss team from Force India, had trouble getting comfortable in his new cockpit at the first pre-season test in Jerez this month with talk of it being too tight for him. "The media has blown up all these stories. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inmet-profit-drops-17-pct-forex-losses-224247251--finance.html

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Informatics tools underutilized in prevention of hospital-acquired infection

Feb. 20, 2013 ? Advances in electronic medical record systems and health information exchange are shifting efforts in public health toward greater use of information systems to automate disease surveillance, but a study from the Regenstrief Institute has found that these technologies' capabilities are underutilized by those on the front lines of preventing and reporting infections.

The new study measured the awareness, adoption and use of electronic medical record systems and health information exchange by hospital-based infection preventionists (formerly known as infection control professionals) to report and share information critical to public health. Infection preventionists are often responsible for reporting information on patients diagnosed with health-care-acquired infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, as well as sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia.

Prior research at Regenstrief and other academic institutions has shown that health information exchange can increase the completeness and timeliness of infection reporting to local and state health agencies. In this study, the researchers found that half of the infection preventionists surveyed were unaware of whether their hospital or health system participated in a health information exchange. Only 10 percent of infection preventionists indicated that their organizations were formally engaged in health information exchange activities.

While 70 percent of infection preventionists surveyed reported access to an electronic medical record system, less than 20 percent were involved in the design, selection or implementation of the system. Without such involvement, those surveyed indicated the information systems often did not include modules or components that supported infection control activities.

"There is a push from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to reduce hospital-acquired infections and increase the use of electronic health record systems," said lead author Brian Dixon, MPA, Ph.D., Regenstrief Institute investigator and assistant professor in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are encouraging local and state health departments to use health information technologies to improve infectious disease reporting and prevention activities. We found that while hospital-based infection preventionists -- the people on the front line -- may have access to health information technology, they lack specially designed computer tools needed to sift through the massive amounts of data in electronic medical records.

"We learned that hospital infection preventionists are frustrated with inefficient lists of patients whose electronic medical charts they must examine individually," said Dr. Dixon, who is also a health research scientist with the Richard Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "They say they want electronic alerts and reminders when the system detects something of potential importance. There needs to be concerted R&D to meet this gap in decision support."

In addition to Dr. Dixon, co-authors of the study are Josette Jones, Ph.D., of the School of Informatics and Computing; and Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S., of the Regenstrief Institute and the IU School of Medicine. The Regenstrief Institute is the home of internationally recognized centers of excellence in biomedical and public health informatics, aging, and health services and health systems research.

"Infection Preventionists' Awareness of and Engagement in Health Information Exchange to Improve Public Health Surveillance" was published online on Feb. 18 in the American Journal of Infection Control. The study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Well-designed and supported electronic medical records systems and health information exchange can provide tools that can help prevent and halt the spread of infection among hospitalized patients," Dr. Dixon said. "But to do so effectively, infection preventionists must be made part of the selection and implementation of health information technologies."

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

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Journal Reference:

  1. Brian E. Dixon, Josette F. Jones, Shaun J. Grannis. Infection preventionists' awareness of and engagement in health information exchange to improve public health surveillance. American Journal of Infection Control, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2012.10.022

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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/computers_math/information_technology/~3/EYZ5e1epUV0/130220153659.htm

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Japan's Abe seeks to show off alliance, get Obama nod on Abenomics

TOKYO | Thu Feb 21, 2013 3:18am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be seeking to put a strong U.S.-Japan alliance on full display in the face of potential threats from a nuclear North Korea and an assertive China when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday.

Abe, who has kept his ratings high since taking office in December, also needs Obama's signoff on his economic revival recipe of big spending and hyper-easy monetary policy.

Expectations for "Abenomics" - especially drastic monetary easing - have sliced about 10 percent off the yen's value against the dollar since Abe took office, raising concern abroad that Japan is weakening its currency to export its way out of recession.

"The situation in East Asia is becoming more and more precarious," said Mikitaka Masuyama, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. "One of the things he wants to achieve will be reinforcement of the Japan-U.S. alliance."

"It would be a successful trip for Abe if his economic policy wins a nod from the U.S. side or at least if it is not rejected outright," he added.

Abe, who leaves for Washington on Thursday, also hopes to secure at least a wink and a nod from Obama that would allow him to argue that Japan can negotiate special treatment for politically sensitive sectors such as rice if it joins talks on a U.S.-led free trade pact.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that Tokyo must be willing to negotiate all trade sectors, but did not rule out the possibility of special treatment in the final deal.

Japan's big businesses wants it to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal to avoid being left behind in global competition, but powerful farm lobby groups are opposed, dividing Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

Aides say Abe's top priority for the visit, during which he will hold a summit on Friday with Obama and deliver a policy speech entitled "Japan is Back", is to repair an alliance they argue was dented by the 2009-2012 rule of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

"During the three years and three months of the Democratic Party government, there was a great gap in the U.S.-Japan alliance," said a close aide to Abe. "So the biggest objective is to rebuild the alliance."

Outside experts agree the alliance suffered under the first DPJ prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, who tried unsuccessfully to revise a deal to move a U.S. Marine air base to a sparsely populated part of Japan's Okinawa island.

But Abe's immediate predecessor, Yoshihiko Noda, did much to repair the damage, they say.

The two leaders will certainly spend time on the need for stronger sanctions on North Korea and are likely to discuss beefed up missile defense after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test last week.

The hawkish Abe will also be hoping that putting a robust alliance on display sends a signal to China not to escalate the row over tiny islands in the East China Sea claimed by both Japan and China.

"It is important for us to have them recognize that it is impossible to try to get their way by coercion or intimidation. In that regard, the Japan-U.S. alliance, as well as the U.S. presence, would be critical," Abe told the Washington Post in an interview.

Tension has raised fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Washington says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but it is keen to avoid a clash.

Abe is expected to come bearing one welcome gift - a promise that Japan will finally join an international treaty on settling cross-border child custody disputes, known as The Hague Convention. Japan has been the only member of the Group of Eight advanced nations not to join the pact, despite pressure from the United States and other countries.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~3/W-cof4HX7OI/us-japan-usa-abe-idUSBRE91K05420130221

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