Thursday, February 28, 2013

PIXINT ? Blog Archive ? Joomla ? the best in industry for CMS

Joomla is a well-known CMS or Content Management system which allows you to develop or create powerful online applications and websites. The popularity of Joomla website software depends on its aspects, like extensibility and ease-of-use. Joomla is community developed software which is used to publish content on web, intranets, model view controller etc. It is an open source system and easily accessible to all. Joomla tools enable you to develop powerful applications. It is one of the most popular tools that are easy to use and is the foremost choice of many web designers.

There are basically two different parts of a Joomla website ?

  • One that controls the look of the site and HTML
  • Other that manages the content

HTML is basically a language that your browser reads and the content is delivered vigorously from a database that is detached from the HTML part of the website. Joomla is basically CMS software that can help your business to do well on World Wide Web. It is a fast growing platform that is quite flexible and user friendly. It helps you to build many simple to complex websites and that is why every renowned web development company India uses it.

It is used for custom website development and is quite popular. It can easily sustain the business effectively in the online world and you do not even require any knowledge or skills of programming. It is written in PHP and uses a MYSQL data base that stores content. It can also creates an authoritative application which is easy to share and due to the feature of SEO plug-in, Joomla is considered more powerful to make the websites search engine friendly.? Also, Joomla is released under General Public License; hence anyone can use it for free.

What is CMS or Content Management System?

CMS or Content Management System keeps a track of your website content in different forms like photos, music, simple text, documents and videos. It is a multi-functional application that is capable of creating a powerful website in just minutes.

The best aspect of CMS is that it does not require any technical knowledge to manage. It also helps you in -

  • Keeping your websites comprehensive and well-organized.
  • Reducing the maintenance cost of the website
  • Expand the security of your data

On the whole, CMS is an exceptional solution for any type of online business and website.? It is a web application that is designed especially for non-technical users to add, edit, delete or manage their websites themselves.

Today there are many types of websites that are supported by Joomla that include ?

  • Online newspapers, magazines and publications
  • Corporate extranets and intranets
  • Corporate portals and websites
  • Government applications
  • Online and E-commerce reservation
  • Websites of small businesses
  • NGO websites
  • Portals based on Community
  • Websites of church and schools
  • Family and personal websites etc.

Benefits of Joomla CMS website development

Joomla CMS website development comes with benefits like the proprietor of the website can easily post the information and latest news about the activities direct on the website, he/she can send mails and offers to the subscribed users and can upload images of latest events or their businesses too.

If you are planning to get a website developed, then you can take the help of a web Design Company that can help you to create a professional and effective website. The company will provide all Joomla web applications that are easy to use even for an average user. The Joomla website designers and developers have good web design and development skills and can create exceptional designs that are easy to access and user-friendly.

Joomla can be used on any sort of website and can function in many ways. You can create diverse types of websites with customer service systems, directories, portals, or online web stores. A good graphic design company India can professionally design a unique and interactive web design to attract the targeted audience.

Undoubtedly, because of the amazing capabilities of Joomla, like accepting extensions and updating the data base, it can never become outdated. It is certainly one of the foremost and best CMS platforms for website development.

For more information on Software Development Company India, Web development company India please do visit Web design Company India

Source: http://www.pixint.com/blog/joomla-the-best-in-industry-for-cms/

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Challenges in Simulating a Human Brain

Fig.1: Can the complexity of a human brain  be captured by computers? (Source: A Health Blog via Flickr)

Fig.1: Can the complexity of a human brain be captured by computers? (Source: Saad Faruque on Flickr)

The human brain is beautifully complex. And frustrating. Our understanding of it is fragmented, and hindered because, except rarely, we can?t get inside and look around while it is still functioning. Computers offer promise; if we could build an artificial brain that behaves likes a real one, maybe we could pick it apart to see how it works. This is the concept behind the Human Brain Project, recently awarded 1 billion euros by the European Commission as one of two Future and Emerging Technologies Flagships Initiatives. HBP?s co-director, Dr. Henry Markram, says they can realistically simulate a human brain within 10 years. But many neuroscientists argue we don?t know enough about the brain to model it. Where are the gaps in our knowledge and why might they present problems?

Constructing the building blocks

An artificial brain must start with good building blocks. Real neurons are diverse. They extend short and long processes, which branch out in different patterns. These shapes are not just for show; neurons process signals differently depending on their structure. One of HBP?s goals is to model neurons as 3-dimensionally detailed cells.

Neurons can be visualized under microscopes and reconstructed using computer programs. But the structure we can recreate in models is an approximation of the real one. It is difficult to mathematically represent all branches, or their turns and tapers. A greater challenge is ascribing functional properties. In many neurons, it is not clear exactly where in the structure signals from other cells are received, or how signals arriving in different branches are combined.

Neurons are also not static. Their extensions reach out or retract due to development, learning, and injury. Knowledge of how this happens is incomplete. How will modelers decide what rules to implement?

Equipping the building blocks

Fig.2: Neurons have diverse structures. (Source: Ramon y Cajal, ca. 1905)

Fig.2: Neurons have diverse structures. (Source: Ramon y Cajal, ca. 1905)

The building blocks of an artificial brain must also respond and send signals. Real neurons are populated with many different proteins. For example, channel proteins allow charged molecules, ions, to cross the membrane and generate electrical activity. While many types of ion channel have been characterized, many remain to be studied. In most neurons, the complete population of proteins present, or how they all contribute to signaling, is not known. The number and type of proteins in a neuron also changes under a variety of conditions and the mechanisms are poorly understood. Which proteins should be put into different model neurons? And when should protein expression be turned on, off, up, or down?

Finally, where should proteins be placed? Some channels are present only in cell bodies, while others are found in the extensions. The distribution of channels affects the way neurons receive and sends signals, but often isn?t known. How will morphology be coupled with function?

Building small networks

If challenges in modeling single neurons are overcome, the next step is to connect them. Communication between neurons occurs at specialized contacts. We know a lot about the composition of these contacts and the general rules of signal transmission. But important details are missing. Who is connected to whom? Where in single neurons are contacts located? What are the strengths of the connections, and how do strengths change under different conditions? For most neurons, we have limited information, such as potential partners and estimates of connection strengths. Testing all possible pairs of neurons, even within a small region of brain, is not feasible. How will we connect a network of neurons and be sure that the partners, locations, and strengths are correct? Even if the model is built such that connections and strengths can evolve, what will be the rules of evolution? These details will have profound effects on the model?s output.

Connecting across multiple levels

Fig.3: How should a model brain be connected? (Source: Li et al. 2009, PLoS Comp. Biol. 5(5):e1000395)

Fig.3: How should a model brain be connected? (Source: Li et al. 2009, PLoS Comp. Biol. 5(5):e1000395)

Many networks must be connected to form a complete brain. Although we know in general terms which brain regions talk to others, we are ignorant as to many of the details of this communication. Which neurons in which regions are connected? What are the feedback loops by which signals travels from one region to another and back again? It is also not clear how information across multiple levels of organization (molecular, cellular) and processed over multiple time scales (seconds, minutes) is integrated. How should the model be bound together?

What will a model brain do?

If all these challenges are surmounted and a human brain simulated, what might the model do? Will it reproduce behaviors that so impress us about real brains? It?s possible. Beyond a certain level of complexity, a model can do many impressive things. But the focus should be on whether we will understand how and why behaviors emerge. We want mechanisms.

The advantage of a model is that the pieces comprising it are known, and if it is sufficiently simple, pieces can be removed to examine their role. But with the level of complexity required for the proposed model, removing one component at a time would not only be extremely cumbersome, it is questionable whether it would increase our understanding. Complex behaviors, if they arise, will likely result from the interaction of many model components. Could we test all the potential contributing interactions?

Building understanding

HBP researchers are right: we cannot continue to study tiny pieces of the brain in isolation and hope to understand how it works. Their goal to integrate information from experiments and computer modeling is a good one. But we must build upon a solid foundation of knowledge. Markram and associated researchers have spent
the last two decades characterizing cells and mapping connections within cortex. The foundation is growing. Yet, large gaps remain. Will they be fatal to the project? Or, will HBP, as proposed, help us fill them? Neuroscientists will have to wait and see.

Recommended reading

1. ?Will we ever?simulate a human brain?? by Ed Yong. BBC Future, 8 February 2013.

2. ?Computer modelling: Brain in a box? by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Nature, 22 February 2012.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Marco Herrera Valdez for feedback on earlier drafts, and Ed Yong, John Hewitt, Zen Faulkes, Philippe
Desjardins-Proulx, and Nathan Insel for valuable discussions.

Images: Fig. 1: From Saad Faruque on Flickr (license CC-BY-SA); Fig. 2: From Cajal on Tumblr (or via various sources; image in public domain); Image credit: Santiago Ram?n y Cajal, ca. 1905; Fig. 3: Modified from doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000395 (original Fig. 3, license CC-BY); Image credit: Li et al. (2009), PLoS Comp. Biol., 5(5): e1000395.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=69ed48b51e0de7dcf38732af7e1f200a

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Officials: France in Mali until July or later

FILE - This Feb. 10, 2013, file photo shows French soldiers securing the evacuation of foreigners during exchanges of fire with jihadists in Gao, northern Mali. Promises of a pullout of France's 4,000 troops in Mali starting next month are looking harder and harder to fulfill. The fighting in rugged mountain terrain is growing tougher and threats of suicide bombings and hostage-takings are getting worse. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - This Feb. 10, 2013, file photo shows French soldiers securing the evacuation of foreigners during exchanges of fire with jihadists in Gao, northern Mali. Promises of a pullout of France's 4,000 troops in Mali starting next month are looking harder and harder to fulfill. The fighting in rugged mountain terrain is growing tougher and threats of suicide bombings and hostage-takings are getting worse. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - This Feb. 6, 2013, file photo shows French armoured vehicles heading towards the Niger border before making a left turn north in Gao, northern Mali. Promises of a pullout of France's 4,000 troops in Mali starting next month are looking harder and harder to fulfill. The fighting in rugged mountain terrain is growing tougher and threats of suicide bombings and hostage-takings are getting worse. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - This Feb. 10, 2013, file photo shows a French soldier taking position during an evacuation of foreigners during exchanges of fire with jihadists in Gao, northern Mali. Promises of a pullout of France's 4,000 troops in Mali starting next month are looking harder and harder to fulfill. The fighting in rugged mountain terrain is growing tougher and threats of suicide bombings and hostage-takings are getting worse. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

(AP) ? French troops will stay in the West African country of Mali at least until July, amid tougher-than-expected resistance from Islamic fighters, officials have told The Associated Press, despite earlier government promises to begin a quick pullout within weeks.

France's leadership has painted the intervention against al-Qaida-backed radicals in Mali, which began in January, as a swift and limited one, and said that France could start withdrawing its 4,000 troops in Mali in March and hand over security duties to an African force.

But the combat in rugged Sahara Desert mountains is growing harder, and there's a rising threat that the militants will turn to suicide bombings, hostage-taking and other guerrilla tactics.

One French diplomat acknowledged this week that a French military presence is expected to remain for at least six months. Two other French officials told The Associated Press that the French will remain at least until July, when France is hoping that Mali can hold elections.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the military campaign.

Any French pullout in March is likely to be small and symbolic, leaving behind a robust force to try to keep the peace in a poor and troubled country, the officials say. Mali was largely peaceful until a coup last year led to a political vacuum that allowed militants inspired by an extreme form of Islam to grab control of the country's north.

France, which is winding down its 11-year presence in Afghanistan, has now spent more than ?100 million ($131million) on fighting in Mali over the past six weeks, and is facing the prospect of another protracted and costly intervention against far-away jihadists.

France's defense minister seems to be seeking wiggle room on the timetable for a pullout. And one French diplomat acknowledged: "Nobody believes the French presence will be over in six months." Some analysts say even that's optimistic.

In the latest fighting, military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said Thursday that about 1,200 French, 800 Chadian and an unspecified number of Malian troops are closing in on an unspecified number of extremist fighters in a roughly 25-square kilometer (15-mile) zone in the Adrar des Ifoghas range near the Algerian border in northeastern Mali.

The oval-shaped area south of the town of Tessalit is the "center of gravity" of a new French operation involving helicopter gunships, fighter jets, mobile artillery pieces and armored vehicles, Burkhard said. He declined to provide details because the operation was ongoing, but indicated that French fighters had killed about 40 insurgents over the last week or so.

Burkhard said he believes al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was active in the area. AQIM is one of three militant groups that controlled northern Mali for 10 months before France's Jan. 11 invasion sent them scurrying into rural areas. And he left little doubt that the armed extremists are digging in for a long fight.

"They are sustained in a region they know very well. ... They have established defensive, underground positions, positions that their different members can change between, and logistically ? with pre-positioned weapons and food depots," he said. "They want to hold this area in a durable way."

French politicians, wary that public support for the war could quickly sink, are increasingly seeking to play down expectations and gird for a long-term commitment.

"The hardest part is yet to come. ... It's more complicated because we have to be on the ground, with a fine-toothed comb, slowly, meter after meter practically, on a territory that's still rather vast but where the terrorists have been reduced," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio on Tuesday. "We'll take this to the end."

France's government has said it plans a gradual drawdown starting in March. As the diplomat put it: "That doesn't mean we're going to pull out 1,000 all at once, but even if we pull out 100, that will be considered by the French public as the start of a withdrawal."

After France's longtime participation in NATO's Afghan mission, and its major role in helping topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, French officials are wary about getting bogged down in yet another war ? and setting timetables about withdrawal is both uncomfortable and uncertain.

Pressed on the time frame in an interview with France-2 TV last week, Le Drian said: "We are not there for a long time. We have no intention to stay."

From the get-go of their military campaign on Jan. 11, the French have summed up their military strategy as stopping the advance of jihadists from unruly northern Mali toward Bamako, the capital, and freeing the northern cities the radicals had controlled for 10 months, imposing harsh Islamic rule. Those two goals have largely been achieved through French air power and long-distance artillery strikes.

The third pillar of the French campaign is proving the hardest: rooting out rebel holdouts in the Ifoghas range near Algeria's border, and rallying African troops to take over stabilization and peacekeeping efforts once the French leave.

That plan was dealt a blow last week when about two dozen reputedly crack troops from Chad, another former French colony with familiarity operating in desert terrain like northern Mali's, were killed in a gunfight in the Ifoghas.

Lining up African military support, which has already been sputtering, could run into greater hurdles if their troops are getting killed. Since the operation began, French officials estimate that hundreds of insurgents have been killed; two French soldiers have died.

One reason the French are likely to stay for a while is that they are the only Western power with the wherewithal to act militarily in West Africa.

"Generally when an army says it's going to pull out its troops, it never does withdraw them all. In other words, you can imagine special forces, logistics teams are going to stay there, and maybe in support of the African armies that are supposed to take over," said Laurence Aida Ammour, a security and defense expert focusing on West and northern Africa at the Institute of Political Science in Bordeaux.

Much of the international community has given moral and political support to France, but limited its payouts. European trainers for Malian soldiers are expected to help, and several Western allies have helped with logistics support including transport planes.

The United States is helping with intelligence-gathering, notably with unarmed drones flying out of neighboring Niger. Under U.S. law, the American government ? which had been training Malian forces before the military coup last year ? cannot provide aid to countries run by or with a major component of control of unelected juntas.

National elections in July are supposed to give Mali's wobbly government more legitimacy, notably so that countries like the United States could offer their blessing and support.

___

Sylvie Corbet and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-28-France-Mali/id-ff0ae6e3cad14ebbbb2040518cb795d7

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Researchers identify genetic variation behind acute myeloid leukemia treatment success

Researchers identify genetic variation behind acute myeloid leukemia treatment success

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Researchers from the College of Pharmacy and Medical School working within the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, have partnered to identify genetic variations that may help signal which acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients will benefit or not benefit from one of the newest antileukemic agents.

Their study is published today in Clinical Cancer Research.

In the latest study, U of M researchers evaluated how inherited genetic polymorphisms in CD33, a protein that naturally occurs in most leukemia cells, could affect clinical outcomes of patients treated with an existing chemotherapy drug, gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO), an immuno-conjugate between anti-CD33 antibody and a cytotoxin known as calicheamicin, which binds to CD33 on leukemic cells. As GO is internalized by leukemia cells, the cytotoxin is released, causing DNA damage and generating leukemic cell death.

In recent clinical trials GO has been shown to induce remission and improve survival in subset of patients with AML, however there is wide inter-patient variation in response.

Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., and colleagues identified and evaluated three genetic variations of CD33 in two groups of patients with pediatric AML ? one group that received the drug GO, and one group that did not. They found that specific genetic variation in CD33 that significantly affected the clinical outcome of AML patients who received GO based chemotherapy.

"Understanding how genetics play a role in how drugs work is extremely useful, particularly for a drug like GO which has shown a very heterogeneous response in AML patients," said Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., the study's lead author and a researcher who holds appointments in both the College of Pharmacy and the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota. "Our latest findings lead us to believe that genetic variation in CD33 influences how AML patients' leukemic cell responds to GO."

AML is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, and is the second most common form of leukemia in children. Though the most common type of treatment for AML is chemotherapy, Lamba says the disease remains hard to treat and newer, more effective therapies are needed.

"The overall goal of our study was to use genetic data to predict beneficial or adverse response to a specific drug, thus opening up opportunities to use this information for drug optimization to achieve maximum therapeutic efficacy and minimum toxicity. Our hope is that our research could serve as a marker of prognostic significance for clinicians to select the therapy that has the greatest odds of being effective for individual patients based on their CD33 genotype."

###

University of Minnesota Academic Health Center: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/

Thanks to University of Minnesota Academic Health Center for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127037/Researchers_identify_genetic_variation_behind_acute_myeloid_leukemia_treatment_success

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Rosa Parks statue set to be unveiled at Capitol

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Rosa Parks is famous for her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a city bus in Alabama to a white man, but there's plenty about the rest of her experiences that she deliberately withheld from her family.

While Parks and her husband, Raymond, were childless, her brother, the late Sylvester McCauley, had 13 children. They decided Parks' nieces and nephews didn't need to know the horrible details surrounding her civil rights activism, said Rhea McCauley, Parks' niece.

"They didn't talk about the lynchings and the Jim Crow laws," said McCauley, 61, of Orlando, Fla. "They didn't talk about that stuff to us kids. Everyone wanted to forget about it and sweep it under the rug."

Parks' descendants now have a chance to be first-hand witnesses as their late matriarch makes more history, this time becoming the first black woman to be honored with a full-length statue in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The statue of Parks joins a bust of another black woman, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, which sits in the Capitol Visitors Center.

President Barack Obama, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner are among the dignitaries taking part in the unveiling Wednesday. McCauley said more than 50 of Parks' relatives traveled to Washington for the ceremony.

In a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in segregated Montgomery, Ala. She was arrested, touching off a bus boycott that stretched over a year.

Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new biography "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks," said Parks was very much a full-fledged civil rights activist, yet her contributions have not been treated like those of other movement leaders, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Rosa Parks is typically honored as a woman of courage, but that honor focuses on the one act she made on the bus on Dec. 5, 1955," said Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College-City University of New York.

"That courage, that night was the product of decades of political work before that and continued ... decades after" in Detroit, she said.

Parks died Oct. 24, 2005, at age 92. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor on Feb. 4, which would have been her 100th birthday.

Parks was raised by her mother and grandparents who taught her that part of being respected was to demand respect, said Theoharis, who spent six years researching and writing the Parks biography.

She was an educated woman who recalled seeing her grandfather sitting on the porch steps with a gun during the height of white violence against blacks in post-World War I Alabama.

After she married Raymond Parks, she joined him in his work in trying to help nine young black men, ages 12 to 19, who were accused of raping two white women in 1931. The nine were later convicted by an all-white jury in Scottsboro, Ala., part of a long legal odyssey for the so-called Scottsboro Boys.

In the 1940s, Parks joined the NAACP and was elected secretary of its Montgomery, Ala., branch, working with civil rights activist Edgar Nixon to fight barriers to voting for blacks and investigate sexual violence against women, Theoharis said.

Just five months before refusing to give up her seat, Parks attended Highlander Folk School, which trained community organizers on issues of poverty but had begun turning its attention to civil rights.

After the bus boycott, Parks and her husband lost their jobs and were threatened. They left for Detroit, where Parks was an activist against the war in Vietnam and worked on poverty, housing and racial justice issues, Theoharis said.

Theoharis said that while she considers the 9-foot-statue of Parks in the Capitol an "incredible honor" for Parks, "I worry about putting this history in the past when the actual Rosa Parks was working on and calling on us to continue to work on racial injustice."

Parks has been honored previously in Washington with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, both during the Clinton administration.

But McCauley said the Statuary Hall honor is different.

"The medal you could take it, put it on a mantel," McCauley said. "But her being in the hall itself is permanent and children will be able to tour the (Capitol) and look up and see my aunt's face."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rosa-parks-statue-set-unveiled-capitol-085442523--politics.html

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Canonical posting daily builds for plenty more Ubuntu Touch devices

Image

After letting us lay our hands on Ubuntu Touch for the Nexus 10, Canonical is now providing daily builds for its mobile OS on a variety of flagship devices. At this point in its gestation, the software is strictly developer-only, but people are beavering away on getting it running on smartphones like the Galaxy S III, One X and Galaxy Nexus, as well as tablets like the Transformer Pad Infinity, Galaxy Tab 2 and Kindle Fire HD. If that doesn't make you wish that you'd paid more attention to that early programming class, then perhaps you haven't seen this clip from Bill'n'Mark.

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Via: Pocket-lint, PhoneArena

Source: Ubuntu, GitHub

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/WXLFizrmb2I/

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Onswipe Data Suggests Kindle Fire Maintained Its Holiday Traffic Bump, While Nexus 7 Shed Share

kindle-fire-vs-nexusLast year, Onswipe noticed that despite considerable growth for the Kindle Fire during its first holiday sales season, interest seemed to drop off pretty quick a month or so after all the gifts were unwrapped. This year, it wanted to see if the same held true for two leading Android-based tablet platforms, to see if it couldn't back up the Apple claim that most tablets using Google's mobile OS quickly fall into disuse.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JGFA3iB_lPI/

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Monday, February 25, 2013

News in Brief: Nutrients matter in tropical forests

Soil phosphorus levels drive tree species? different growth patterns

By Meghan Rosen

Web edition: February 25, 2013

Enlarge

LEAFY CHANGE

In a Panamanian forest, a patch of phosphorus-rich soil (right) supports trees that lose their leaves, unlike the phosphorus-poor soil (left).

Credit: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Don?t blame a lack of rain: A tropical forest of dry, bare-branched trees might be that way because of soil chock full of phosphorus.

In Panama?s dry season, leafy woodlands stand starkly next to forests of naked trees. Scientists had thought that rainfall caused the contrasting growth patterns because different soils there have different abilities to hold water. Narrow bands of rocky outcrops shoot through Panama?s soil, and rocky soils often hold little water.

But when ecologist Richard Condit of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City and his colleagues analyzed samples from 72 forest sites across Panama, they found that soil moisture levels between neighboring leafy and leafless trees didn?t differ as much as they had expected.

Instead, phosphorus levels seemed to drive the growth patterns of leafy versus leafless trees, the researchers report online February 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The leafy trees, Condit says, evolved to live in low-phosphorus soils. Even in dry seasons, these trees hold onto their leaves ? losing water ? because nutrients are scarce, and making new leaves is expensive. Where phosphorus is abundant, however, trees can afford to dump their leaves, and grow new ones when the soil is wet.

The results surprised Condit. ?I didn?t expect nutrients to be so important.?

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348596/title/News_in_Brief_Nutrients_matter_in_tropical_forests

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Extremely high estrogen levels may underlie complications of single-birth IVF pregnancies

Feb. 25, 2013 ? Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have identified what may be a major factor behind the increased risk of two adverse outcomes in pregnancies conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Two papers published in the journal Fertility and Sterility support the hypothesis that extremely high estrogen levels at the time of embryo transfer increase the risk that infants will be born small for their gestational age and the risk of preeclampsia, a dangerous condition that can threaten the lives of both mother and child. They also outline a protocol that reduced those risks in a small group of patients.

Both papers addressed IVF pregnancies resulting in a single live birth, not multiple-birth pregnancies which continue to be the most significant risk factor of any assisted reproduction technology. But even single-birth IVF pregnancies are more likely than unassisted single-birth pregnancies to result in premature delivery, low birth weight and other serious complications. In the January 2013 issue of the journal, the investigators at the MGH's Vincent Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology report that freezing embryos of women who had excessively elevated estrogen at the time of egg retrieval, followed by embryo transfer in a later reproductive cycle when hormonal levels were closer to those of a natural cycle, significantly reduced the percentage of small newborns and eliminated the incidence of preeclampsia in a small group of patients.

"We've known for a long time that singleton pregnancies conceived by IVF were at higher risk of these adverse outcomes, but the reasons were unknown," says Anthony Imudia, MD, of the MGH Fertility Center, lead author of both articles. "Now we know which facet of IVF might be responsible, which will allow us to identify at-risk patients and implement ways of averting those risks."

At most fertility centers, IVF involves a sequence of coordinated events that stimulate the ovaries in a way that leads to the growth and maturation of several eggs at the same time. Prior to ovulation the eggs are retrieved for fertilization outside the mother's body. If fertilization is successful, embryos that appear to be developing normally are transferred into the woman's uterus within 5 days of egg retrieval in a process called fresh embryo transfer.

Egg cells grow and mature in ovarian sacs called follicles, which release estrogen, so the development of multiple maturing follicles can lead to significantly elevated estrogen levels. Animal studies have suggested that excessively elevated estrogen early in pregnancy can interfere with the development of the placenta, and other research has associated placental abnormalities with increased risk for both preeclampsia and delivery of small newborns.

In the June 2012 issue of Fertility and Sterility, the MGH team reported that -- among almost 300 IVF pregnancies that resulted in the birth of a single infant from 2005 through 2010 -- the women whose estrogen levels right before egg retrieval were highest had significantly greater incidence of preeclampsia and of delivering infants small for their gestational age. Women whose peak estrogen levels were at or above the 90th percentile had a nine-fold greater risk of a small infant and a five-fold greater risk of preeclampsia than women with lower peak estrogen levels.

To follow up that observation, the MGH team examined how a protocol instituted for mothers at risk of a complication of fertility treatment called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) might affect the apparent risks associated with extremely high estrogen levels. At the MGH Fertility Center, if the estrogen levels for IVF patients exceed 4,500 pg/mL on the day they are scheduled to receive a hormonal trigger of final egg cell maturation -- indicating increased risk for OHSS -- standard practice is to counsel patients on alternatives. These included postponing the procedure until a future IVF cycle or proceeding with egg retrieval and fertilization but freezing the embryos for implantation in a later cycle to allow time for the ovary to recover.

The team's January Fertility and Sterility report compared the outcomes of 20 patients who choose to have their embryos frozen and implanted later because of their risk of OHSS with those of 32 patients with pre-retrieval estrogen levels over 3,450 pg/mL who proceeded with fresh embryo transfer. Only 10 percent of the infants of mothers who choose embryo freezing and transfer in a subsequent cycle were small for their gestational age, compared with 35 percent of the infants of mothers who had fresh embryo transfer. While the incidence of preeclampsia after fresh embryo transfer was almost 22 percent, none of the patients who chose embryo freezing with later implantation developed preeclampsia.

"Our center takes a very individualized and conservative approach to ovarian stimulation, so fewer than 10 percent of our patients had extremely high estrogen levels of greater than 3,450 pg/mL," says Imudia, who is an instructor in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School. "If other centers validate our findings by following the same approach and achieving similar outcomes, we would recommend that each patient's hormonal dosage be adjusted to try and keep her estrogen levels below 3,000 pg/mL. If the estrogen level exceeds this threshold, the patient could be counseled regarding freezing all embryos for transfer in subsequent cycles, when her hormone levels are closer to that of a natural cycle."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts General Hospital, 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. Anthony N. Imudia, Awoniyi O. Awonuga, Anjali J. Kaimal, Diane L. Wright, Aaron K. Styer, Thomas L. Toth. Elective cryopreservation of all embryos with subsequent cryothaw embryo transfer in patients at risk for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome reduces the risk of adverse obstetric outcomes: a preliminary study. Fertility and Sterility, 2013; 99 (1): 168 DOI: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2012.08.060

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/~3/ExYwEf6xmzQ/130225131624.htm

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Fan's NASCAR accident video back on YouTube

When a YouTube video is taken down for copyright infringement, most people get it: Don't post videos that are someone else's legal property. But when YouTube quickly re-posts a video it had pulled, that's an unusual step for the largest video-sharing site in the world.

At NASCAR's request, the Google-owned YouTube removed the 1 minute-and-16-second video taken by a high school student, Tyler Andersen, who was at the the NASCAR Nationwide Series auto race at Daytona Beach Saturday. His video captured part of the horrific accident that injured at least 28 fans, with chunks of debris flying into the stands.

When Andersen posted the video on YouTube, he was clear about his reason for doing so:

No disrespect intended to any of those injured or their families. I was just sharing my experience with a worldwide audience. I will continue to keep all affected by this incident in my prayers and I thank God for protecting me. Thank you.

NASCAR asked Google to take down the video, and it did. The Atlantic Wire points out that "NASCAR's legal fine print on any ticket says they own the rights to any video, sounds or data related to a race. The question became, eventually, whether or not that legal fine print extended to a fan video. Observers criticized NASCAR for taking the video down in the middle of a news story that was still unfolding."

But NASCAR says this wasn't about copyright infringement.

"The fan video of the wreck on the final lap of today's NASCAR Nationwide Series race was blocked on YouTube out of respect for those injured in today's accident," Steve Phelps, NASCAR's senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said on Saturday in a statement shared with NBC News.

"Information on the status of those fans was unclear and the decision was made to err on the side of caution with this very serious incident."

And so YouTube reversed course, allowing the video back up late Saturday, saying in a statement to The Washington Post:

Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.

By late Monday, the video had done well over 600,000 views. NBC News has asked YouTube for comment, and will update this post when we hear back.

Phelps reiterated NASCAR's stance in a statement to NBC News: "This was never a copyright issue. This was never a censorship issue," he said. "The video ... was blocked out of respect for those injured in the accident. Google decided to lift that block."

What does it mean for most of us, who walk around with HD camcorders in our smartphones? Does the fact that Andersen's video continues to survive ? and even thrive ? mean that we can post our own footage of ticketed sporting events? Though tickets tend to warn against such behavior, are we really forbidden from taking a video and posting it on YouTube?

In many cases, yes. If the ticket is a contract, you may be in breach.

YouTube's "decision to allow the video to remain available, while a positive sign in terms of YouTube's willingness to scrutinize claims of copyright infringement, does not in any way prevent NASCAR from pursuing other remedies against the poster of the video ? including, potentially, enforcement of the contract embodied on the ticket or a direct claim of copyright infringement against the poster," Jeffrey P. Hermes, director of the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, told NBC News Monday.

(In this instance, NASCAR has not indicated it would pursue such action.)

However, "NASCAR also cannot claim that the fan has granted NASCAR ownership of that recording based merely on the fine print on the back of a ticket," Hermes said.

Besides, he thinks there's "a serious question as to whether NASCAR has a valid copyright claim in an unscripted sporting event," such as Saturday's race. It's the kind of event, he said, that is "different from a scripted 'performance'" such as a rock concert "in which copyright might arise under U.S. law."

(Translation: Don't even think about posting that Beyonc? concert footage.)

Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told NBC News Monday that YouTube's decision to re-post the NASCAR video is "the right decision, because NASCAR does not hold the copyright in a fan video."

The EFF has seen this sort of thing before. When Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, an animal-rights activist group, filmed rodeos in order to demonstrate alleged abuse, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association fired back, requesting takedown of 13 videos. At the time, YouTube responded by eliminating the activists' account.

When the EFF took the case to court, it was settled in 2009. The agreement protects the group's "right to publicize their critiques."

"The (rodeo association) has no copyright claim in live rodeo events, just as NASCAR has no copyright claim in fan videos," says McSherry.

While the case didn't set a precedent, she said, "the law on this is not ambiguous: absent some other arrangement or exception (such as a work for hire), copyright goes to the person who created the video, not the person who created the event."

Check out Technology, GadgetBox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/fans-nascar-accident-video-returns-youtube-after-takedown-1C8537538

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Pentagon F-35 chief says grounding will not delay delivery

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The grounding of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter fleet last week due to a crack found in the engine of one test aircraft would not delay major milestones or delivery of the aircraft, the Pentagon's F-35 program chief said on Monday.

All flights by the 51 F-35 fighter planes were suspended on Friday after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade in the jet engine of a test aircraft in California.

U.S. Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan told reporters in Melbourne that the kind of problem identified on Friday was unfortunate but normal and expected during development and testing of a new aircraft, and further problems were likely as testing progressed.

Bogdan and other high ranking F-35 executives are in Australia to promote progress on the $396 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the Pentagon's biggest weapons program.

Bogdan said there was no sign that any of the countries signed up to purchase the next generation fighter were reconsidering their involvement beyond previously announced delays and reductions in orders.

(Reporting by Jane Wardell; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-f-35-chief-says-grounding-not-delay-010214825.html

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Ask Engadget: best / most 'open' e-book store?

Ask Engadget best  most open ebook store

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Arthur, who's considering giving this new-fangled electronic book thing a go. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"During a recent move, I dumped a dozen boxes of books at goodwill, and have decided to give e-books a try. But what's the most "open" way to buy them? Me and my wife want to share titles (reasonable enough, given that we wouldn't buy two copies from a bookstore). As such, we'd like to open an account somewhere that will let us read on our various computers, PlayBook, iPad and Nook. Is there a store that you can suggest?"

Given your humble narrator's long-held resistance to e-books (and devotion to building a library of their own), this is one we're going to pass straight over to the Engadget community. So, dear friends, what's your opinion?

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/XvfhwGZh6oU/

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Mozilla details apps for Firefox OS: Facebook, Cut the Rope, Nokia Here and Twitter confirmed

Mozilla details apps Firefox OS Cut the Rope, Nokia Here, Facebook and Twitter confirmed

We've only just stepped into Mozilla's press arena but the Firefox creators handed a rich press kit as we did, detailing a fair chunk of what we're expecting to see over the next hour. One of the more noticeable announcements focused on Firefox Marketplace, detailing HTML5 apps you might have heard of before. Along the predictable likes of Facebook and Twitter, games like Cut The Rope will also make an appearance on the new mobile OS, as well as Where's My Water, Disney Mobile and EA game titles. There will be support for cloud file storage through Box too, as well as a mapping app from Nokia Here. Yes, the Finnish phone maker will be bringing its location clout to Firefox OS. SoundCloud, Pulse News, Time Out and Airbnb have also signed up for the new operating system.

Developing...

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

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Whistleblower files federal lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, FINRA

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Morgan Stanley broker who tried to blow the whistle on what he called unethical sales practices, and was later ordered to pay $1.2 million following his departure, is seeking his day in federal court.

Mark Mensack filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley and Wall Street's top watchdog in a New Jersey federal district court on Friday, accusing the firm of perjury, among other claims. Mensack also found fault with the industry's arbitration hearing process that resulted in the award against him.

"That needs to be brought to light," Mensack said in an interview on Friday, referring to his claim that Morgan Stanley committed perjury. Mensack said his attorney proved that key evidence was fabricated against him during the hearing.

When Mensack sought to review the testimony of the arbitration hearing in hopes of vacating the award, he found that roughly eight hours of the testimony were "destroyed, never recorded or were otherwise missing and unavailable."

"It's an indication of injustice in the system," said Mensack, who is now seeking a trial by jury.

The lawsuit follows a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel decision from August 2011 in which the arbitrators ruled in favor of Morgan Stanley and said that Mensack failed to repay money owed on a sign-on bonus after he left the firm.

A FINRA spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mensack, who worked for Morgan Stanley from August 2008 to November 2009, said he was forced to leave the firm after he discovered an illegal "pay-to-play" scheme involving 401(k) assets that the company administered. He filed a whistleblower suit against the firm in March 2010 in New Jersey Superior Court.

Morgan Stanley one month later filed a "breach of contract" arbitration claim against Mensack, which resulted in the $1.2 million award.

In the 31-page complaint, which included 16 counts and a jury demand, Mensack stated a lengthy list of accusations against Morgan Stanley and FINRA, from ethical violations to impartiality.

Mensack, who was forced to file for bankruptcy, said he suffered "severe emotional and physical distress," as well as financial damage, including the $1.2 million award against him and "extensive" attorneys fees and costs during the proceedings.

Morgan Stanley called Mensack's claims "baseless" and said in a statement that he "had a full opportunity to present (the claims), represented by counsel, in an extensive hearing."

"The arbitration panel gave them fair consideration and rejected them in their entirety," the company said in an emailed statement on Friday. "They correctly concluded that his claims did not excuse his loan obligation, and ordered Mr. Mensack to re-pay it, along with Morgan Stanley's attorneys' fees."

(Editing by Lauren Young and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/whistleblower-files-federal-lawsuit-against-morgan-stanley-finra-201239387--sector.html

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Painting asteroids could nudge them away from Earth

To protect Earth from space rock threat, a scientist recommended spray painting an asteroid to alter the amount of sunlight reflected by it, thereby changing its trajectory.

By Mike Wall,?space.com / February 22, 2013

An artist's illustration of an asteroid flying near Earth.

Texas A&M University

Enlarge

The dramatic space rock events of last week highlighted the need in many people's minds for a viable asteroid-deflection strategy, and one scientist thinks he has a good candidate ? paint.

Skip to next paragraph

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'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // --> There is research that is off the wall, some off the charts and some off the planet, such as what a Texas A&M University aerospace and physics professor is exploring. It's a plan to deflect a killer asteroid by using paint, and the science behind it is absolutely rock solid, so to speak, so much so that NASA is getting involved and wants to know much more.

On Friday (Feb. 15), the 130-foot (40 meters)?asteroid 2012 DA14?gave Earth a historically close shave, missing the planet by just 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers). Hours earlier, a 55-foot (17 m) object exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, damaging thousands of buildings and injuring 1,200 people.

The?asteroid?encounters served as a reminder that Earth sits in the middle of a cosmic shooting gallery, scientists say, and that destructive impacts are inevitable in the future unless humanity takes action.

One form of action could involve dusting a threatening asteroid with a thin coat of paint. The paint would change the amount of sunlight reflected by the space rock, potentially nudging it away from Earth through the accumulated push provided by many thermal photons as they radiate from the asteroid's surface. (This force is called the Yarkovsky effect, after the Russian engineer who first described it around the turn of the 20th century.) [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space]

The scheme would use powdered paint, which the sun's rays would then cure into a smooth coating. The paint would probably have to be applied long before any potential impact ? years or decades, perhaps ? to give the Yarkovsky effect enough time to make a difference.

"I have to admit the concept does sound strange, but the odds are very high that such a plan would be successful and would be relatively inexpensive," Dave Hyland, of Texas A&M?University, said in a statement. "The science behind the theory is sound. We need to test it in space."

NASA is interested in Hyland's idea and has approached the researcher to discuss developing such a space test, Texas A&M officials said.

Hyland is not the only scientist who thinks paint could save Earth from a cataclysmic impact. Last year, an MIT graduate?student?proposed launching a spacecraft that would?bombard a threatening asteroid with paint-filled pellets. The idea won the 2012 Move an Asteroid Technical Paper Competition, which was sponsored by the United Nations' Space Generation Advisory Council.

Whatever?deflection strategies?researchers devise, the first step toward safeguarding the Earth is to detect and map the orbits of potentially hazardous objects, Hyland said. One million or more asteroids are thought to lurk in near-Earth space, but just 9,600 of them have been discovered to date.

"The smaller ones like DA14 are not discovered as soon as others, and they could still cause a lot of damage should they hit Earth," Hyland said. "It is really important for our long-term survival that we concentrate much more effort discovering and tracking them, and developing as many useful?technologies?as possible for deflecting them."

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter?@michaeldwall?or SPACE.com?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?and?Google+.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/WivFPKMOAmI/Painting-asteroids-could-nudge-them-away-from-Earth

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Delta launches eBoarding Pass service for passengers traveling from Mexico

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breakingtravelnews/mobile/~3/byygqpnSnq0/delta-launches-eboarding-pass-service-for-passengers-traveling-from-mexico

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This Morning: Day of the Google Price Targets, The Einhorn-AAPL Show, Is Galaxy S IV Delayed?

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

It is the morning of the Google (GOOG) price targets. Bernstein Research?s Carlos Karjner raised his price target on the stock to $1,000 from $820, citing an attractive risk-reward trade off. Credit Agricole?s James Lee also raised his target to $1000, from $900, citing the prospect of improving ?cost per click,? the rate it gets paid for online ads. And Deutsche Bank?s Lloyd Walmsley raised his price target to $935 from $850, citing better mobile business trends.

Writes CLSA?s Lee, the company?s ?enhanced campaigns? program promises to simplify ad buying on mobile devices. ?We raise our target price to $1,000 from $900, as we extend our unchanged PE target multiple of 13x into 2015,? he writes.

Shares of Google are up $11.10, or 1.4%, at $803.56.

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are down $1.90, or 0.4%, at $446.95, as activist hedgie Greenlight Capital?s David Einhorn will host a conference call at 2 pm today to appeal directly to shareholders regarding his proposal Apple issue preferred shares with a 4% dividend. That battle, which emerged earlier this month, is set for a vote at Apple?s February 27th shareholder meeting. But Einhorn is also suing Apple in court over the terms of Apple?s proxy statement pertaining to preferred shares. You can listen in to Einhorn?s presentation at 2 pm, Eastern time, at this address.

Note that Reuters?s this morning ran a non-bylined piece describing how Simon Greer, head of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, an investor in Greenlight, said it opposes Einhorn?s stance, citing a letter from the Foundation. The item was picked up by Bloomberg this morning as well.

Shares of VeriFone Systems (PAY) continue to be under pressure this morning after yesterday warning results this quarter will substantially miss estimates, and next quarter as well, the stock currently down $12.18, or 38%, at $19.71. There are multiple downgrades this morning, with Citigroup, Piper Jaffray, J.P. Morgan, Suntrust, and Raymond James all cut the stock to Neutral, or the equivalent. One boutique firm, Compass Point, actually raised its rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral.

Citi?s Philip Stiller writes ?Given the beaten down confidence prior to the preannouncement, PAY has a long uphill battle to rebuild trust and belief in the company on top of ongoing execution issues in a rapidly changing payments landscape.?

Piper Jaffray?s Gus Richard reiterates an Overweight rating and an $83 price target on Qualcomm (QCOM), saying he thinks Samsung Electronics (005930KS) is having problems getting its flagship ?Galaxy S IV? phone out the door because of power issues with its home grown processor. He thinks that could benefit Qualcomm:

?We believe Samsung?s Galaxy S4 has slipped and the Galaxy S3 has been in production a quarter longer than expected,? writes Richard. ?We believe the S4 is being delayed primarily due to power issues with the company?s eight-core Exynos Octa [?] we believe the company is likely to shift more to external sources. We believe QCOM will pick up more of Samsung?s S4 business.?

Qualcomm shares this morning are down 60 cents, or almost 1%, at $64.67.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/barrons/techtraderdaily/feed/~3/vzN5sFxhYPc/

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Friday, February 22, 2013

Sheriff's Office launches Facebook, Twitter pages

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Source: http://theleafchronicle.com/article/20130221/NEWS01/302210010/-1/rss06

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Canada must open up to clinch bilateral trade deal: EU

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Canada must offer the European Union broader access to its markets if both sides are to agree a free-trade accord they have been negotiating since 2009, the EU's trade chief said on Thursday.

A free-trade agreement with Canada would be the European Union's first such deal with a major world economy. The United States is watching closely because Washington will launch separate trade negotiations with Brussels later this year.

Following the collapse of the Doha world trade talks in 2008, major economies are pushing ahead with bilateral deals to try to drive economic growth through trade when consumers at home are suffering from the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the euro zone debt crisis.

EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht had hoped to wrap up talks for a free-trade agreement with Canada in Ottawa in early February, when he met his Canadian counterpart Ed Fast.

But negotiations are held up over contentious issues including agricultural exports, intellectual property and the ability being to bid for government contracts on both sides of the Atlantic.

"What was on the table was simply not feasible," De Gucht told the European Parliament's trade committee, when asked by one lawmaker to explain why a deal had not been reached.

"On a number of issues they will have to make additional exceptions," he said, referring to the Canadians.

Rudy Husny, Canadian Minister for International Trade Fast's spokesman, played down any suggestion of an impasse.

Brussels and Ottawa want to reach an agreement as soon as possible "in a way that reflects an appropriate balance of our respective interests", he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced last week his intention to push for a free-trade pact with the European Union, which is also shared by the EU's 27 leaders who want to tap a market 10 times the size of Canada's.

Canada, which says free trade with the EU would boost bilateral trade by 20 percent, wants to diversify its trade away from the United States, which takes 75 percent of all Canadian exports. The EU takes just over 10 percent.

But EU import tariffs effectively have shut Canada out of a European market that consumes 8 million tonnes of beef products a year. The Europeans want Canada to extend patent protection for major pharmaceutical companies, accept more EU dairy products and open up internal procurement markets.

The Commission and the Canadian government want to wrap up a deal soon because the European Parliament, which must sign off on any agreement, is due to hold elections 2014 and the change in lawmakers could delay ratification.

(Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canada-must-open-clinch-bilateral-trade-deal-eu-180120405--sector.html

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