Sunday, June 30, 2013

Attack On Titan: The Second Rising of Man

Yeah I would love to rejoin ill just use my old character on the other one if that is ok?

Follow me down the path
I will walk beside you
Guiding and showing you the way
I will not leave you
I will be standing on the path watching you
If you ever feel alone
Close your eyes
You will see 6 sets of foot prints
2 belonging to you, 4 to me
Then you will know that I have not left you

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf...
And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/X_Mgb__RubQ/viewtopic.php

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Where to See NASA's Space Shuttles This Summer

With the opening of the space shuttle Atlantis' permanent exhibit in Florida on Saturday (June 29), the last of NASA's retired space planes will be officially on display for the public to enjoy, but you'll have to go state-hopping to see all four of the iconic spacecraft.

From Los Angeles to New York, the space shuttles have made their homes around the country. If you're looking for a good summer vacation destination, try visiting one (or all)of the orbiters that have been put out to pasture.

The space shuttles on public display include NASA's three space-flown orbiters ? Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour ? as well as the Enterprise, a prototype shuttle used for landing glide tests but never flew in space. [8 Surprising Space Shuttle Facts]

Here's where to find NASA's space shuttles this summer and what you need to know when you visit them:

Atlantis: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, NASA, Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Cost of admission: A viewing of the shuttle is included in the price of admission to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex: $50 for adults, $40 for children (ages 3-11).

Why to visit: The space shuttle Atlantis was the last to fly in space before the fleet was retired in 2011 and the final orbiter to be put on public display. Atlantis flew 33 missions, including secret missions for the U.S. military, flights to space stations and missions to launch several spacecraft into orbit.

Atlantis was named after a ship that sailed for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts between 1930 and 1966. That vessel was the first seafaring ship to image the seafloor using electronic sounding technology.

Enterprise: Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York City, NY

Cost of admission: Due to damage sustained during Hurricane Sandy, the Enterprise pavilion at the museum is currently closed, but scheduled to reopen on July 10.

Why to visit: Enterprise was the first space shuttle, but never actually flew in space. Enterprise was built without a heat shield or engines, making it incapable of spaceflight. It was used for drop tests and glide tests, giving astronauts a sense of what to expect during trips to and from space.

To the glee of "Star Trek" fans everywhere, Enterprise was named after the venerable starship commanded by Captain Kirk in the original series. It was originally called Constitution, but after receiving tens of thousands of letters from people around the country, then-president Gerald Ford decided to rename the orbiter.

Discovery: National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Va.

Cost of admission: Free

Why to visit: The space shuttle Discovery launched for the first time in 1984. Although it was only the third shuttle to fly to space, it flew the most missions, 39 in total. Discovery was chosen as the "Return to Flight" orbiter after two space shuttle tragedies; once in 1988 after the Challenger explosion and then again in 2005 after the Columbia disaster.

Discovery is responsible for launching the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and was used to help build the International Space Station.

This space shuttle is part of a long, historical tradition of naming ships "Discovery," NASA officials have said. Henry Hudson's Hudson Bay exploring vessel was named Discovery, as was James Cook's in the 1770s.

Endeavour: California Science Center, Los Angeles, Calif.

Cost of admission: Tickets reserving a timed slot are free, but a $2 service charge is applied to all tickets; $3 for telephone sales.

Why to visit: The only space shuttle displayed on the West Coast, Endeavour was built as a replacement shuttle after Challenger was lost just after liftoff in 1986. The youngest orbiter eventually flew to space 25 times, making multiple trips to the International Space Station and one flight to Mir, the Russian orbiting laboratory.

Endeavour got its name through a competition. A group of 6,000 schools in the United States competed to name the shuttle. NASA asked that the spacecraft be named after an "exploratory research sea vessel," and nearly one-third of the schools suggested Endeavour, the ship James Cook sailed to Tahiti while observing the transit of Venus from 1769 to 1771.

Follow Miriam Kramer onTwitter and Google+. Follow us onTwitter, Facebook andGoogle+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/where-see-nasas-space-shuttles-summer-115816123.html

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Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910-1940 - Exclusive Patrons Events - 1 Jul 2013

1 July 2013

6.30?7.30pm or 7.30?8.30pm

Tina Modotti, 'Workers Reading El Machete' (detail), c.1929.
Tina Modotti, 'Workers Reading El Machete' (detail), c.1929. Platinum print, 7.92 x 10.46 cm. Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc. Photo courtesy by Throckmorton. Fine Art Inc., New York.
The turmoil of the Mexican Revolution between 1910 and 1920 brought about an intense period of artistic creativity. This exhibition examines the nature of the art produced in Mexico by Mexican artists and photographers including Diego Rivera and Manuel Alvarez Bravo and their international counterparts such as Edward Burra and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Ticket information
Free, but please RSVP

Book on 020 7300 5885 or by filling in the form below:

This event is open to Patrons of the Royal Academy. For information on becoming a Patron please click here.

Source: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/patrons-events/mexico-a-revolution-in-art-1910-1940,2428,EV.html

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Pressure on House to act on immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House and its conservative majority are coming under pressure to act after the Senate passed a landmark immigration bill opening the door to U.S. citizenship to millions while pouring billions of dollars into securing the border with Mexico.

President Barack Obama, traveling in Africa, called Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to urge them to have the House act on the issue and emphasize it's a priority for him, the White House said Friday.

But the bill's prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-led House, where conservatives generally oppose citizenship for immigrants living in the country unlawfully. Many also prefer a step-by-step approach rather than a comprehensive bill like the legislation the Senate passed Thursday on a bipartisan vote of 68-32.

"Today, the Senate did its job. It's now up to the House to do the same," Obama said in a statement. "As this process moves forward, I urge everyone who cares about this issue to keep a watchful eye. Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop common-sense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen."

Members of the Senate's so-called Gang of Eight, the senators who drafted the bill and hoped a resounding vote total would pressure the House, echoed the plea.

"To our friends in the House, we ask for your consideration and we stand ready to sit down and negotiate with you," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said. "You may have different views on different aspects of this issue, but all of us share the same goal, and that is to take 11 million people out of the shadows, secure our borders and make sure that this is the nation of opportunity and freedom."

At a news conference, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made clear the House would not simply take up the Senate bill as some Democrats and outside advocates are calling for, but would chart its own legislation with a focus on border security. How exactly Boehner will proceed remained unclear, but the speaker has called a special meeting of his majority Republicans for July 10 to go over options.

"The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes. We're going to do our own bill," Boehner said. "It'll be legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people."

At a panel discussion Friday hosted by Bloomberg Government and the National Restaurant Association, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., rejected the notion that House Republicans would feel any pressure to act just because the Senate had done so.

"If anybody thinks that because there's a Senate bill the House members will feel pressure, that's just not true," said Diaz-Balart, who's involved in a faltering bipartisan effort in the House to craft a comprehensive bill. He said the pressure would come because lawmakers recognize the system is broken and in need of repair.

The bill passed by the Senate devotes $46 billion to border security improvements, including calling for a doubling of the border patrol stationed on the U.S.-Mexico border and the completion of 700 miles of fencing ? changes added at the last minute to attract Republican support. No one would be able to get a permanent resident green card until those border enhancements and others were in place.

The bill also makes it mandatory for employers to check their workers' legal status, sets up new visa programs to allow workers into the country and establishes new tracking systems at seaports and airports to keep better tabs on people entering and leaving the country.

At its contentious core, though, is a 13-year path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants living in this country illegally.

Without such a provision, senators say the legislation could not pass the Senate. With it, its prospects are difficult in the House.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted that the House might end up having to pass the Senate bill after failing to find any other avenue forward and feeling pressure from the public to act.

But that approach is strongly opposed by many conservatives. Boehner also dismissed the idea of relying on Democratic votes instead of a majority of his Republicans to pass an immigration bill.

At the same time Boehner said he hopes the bill will be bipartisan, and he encouraged a House group of four Democrats and three Republicans trying to forge a compromise to continue their efforts.

He offered no details on how a House bill could be both bipartisan and supported by more than half of his own rank and file, given that most of the single-issue immigration bills that have moved through the House Judiciary Committee recently did so on party-line votes over the protests of Democrats. None envisions legal status for immigrants now here illegally.

Speaking alongside Diaz-Balart Friday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, dismissed the bills passed by her committee so far as "a series of small-bore, partisan bills that are in some cases bizarre."

Boehner declined to say whether there were circumstances under which he could support a pathway to citizenship, but he made clear that securing the border was a priority.

"People have to have confidence that the border is secure before anything else is really going to work. Otherwise, we repeat the mistakes of 1986," he said, referring to the last time Congress overhauled the immigration system.

One option could be to bring up one or more of four narrowly focused immigration bills approved by the Judiciary Committee this week and last, hoping to pass it and use it as a vehicle for House members to enter into negotiations with senators on a merged bill in the fall or winter.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pressure-house-act-immigration-145137541.html

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Pre-existing insomnia linked to PTSD and other mental disorders after military deployment

June 28, 2013 ? A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Naval Health Research Center has shown Military service members who have trouble sleeping prior to deployments may be at greater risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety once they return home. The new study, published in the July 2013 issue of the journal SLEEP, found that pre-existing insomnia symptoms conferred almost as a large of a risk for those mental disorders as combat exposure.

"Understanding environmental and behavioral risk factors associated with the onset of common major mental disorders is of great importance in a military occupational setting," said lead study author Philip Gehrman, PhD, assistant professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, member of the Penn Sleep Center, and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. "This study is the first prospective investigation of the relationship between sleep disturbance and development of newly identified positive screens for mental disorders in a large military cohort who have been deployed in support of the recent operations in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Using self-reported data from the Millennium Cohort Study, the research team evaluated the association of pre-deployment sleep duration and insomnia symptoms on the development of new-onset mental disorders among deployers. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of developing PTSD, depression, and anxiety, while adjusting for relevant covariates including combat-related trauma.

They analyzed data from 15,204 service members, including only those servicemen and women on the timing of their first deployment across all branches and components of military service. They identified 522 people with new-onset PTSD, 151 with anxiety, and 303 with depression following deployment. In adjusted models, combat-related trauma and pre-deployment insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with higher odds of developing posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety.

"One of the more interesting findings of this study is not only the degree of risk conferred by pre-deployment insomnia symptoms, but also the relative magnitude of this risk compared with combat-related trauma," says Gehrman. "The risk conferred by insomnia symptoms was almost as strong as our measure of combat exposure in adjusted models."

The researchers also found that short sleep duration (less than six hours of sleep per night), separate from general insomnia, was associated with new-onset PTSD symptoms.

"We found that insomnia is both a symptom and a risk factor for mental illness and may present a modifiable target for intervention among military personnel," says Gehrman. "We hope that by early identification of those most vulnerable, the potential exists for the designing and testing of preventive strategies that may reduce the occurrence of PTSD, anxiety, and depression."

The research team says that additional study is needed to investigate whether routine inquiry about insomnia symptoms and application of appropriate early, effective interventions reduces subsequent morbidity from mental disorders. They note that in a military population, assessment of insomnia symptoms could easily be incorporated into routine pre-deployment screening.

The Millennium Cohort Study is funded through the Military Operational Medicine Research Program of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/depression/~3/ViXmrIgljJc/130628160829.htm

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Rome PD: 3 charged after selling alcohol to minors

Three people face charges after allegedly selling alcohol to minors during an undercover compliance check run by the Rome Police Department.

Police visited more than 15 retail stores Thursday and had underage individuals attempt to purchase alcohol. The clerks at three of those stores later were charged with unlawfully dealing with a child.

The stores found to be noncompliant were:

  • Country Farms Market, 916 Floyd Ave.
  • Xtramart, 268 E. Dominick St.
  • Nice N Easy, 2007 N. James St.

Source: http://www.uticaod.com/police_fire/x853678766/Rome-PD-3-charged-after-selling-alcohol-to-minors?rssfeed=true

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Secure new Android messaging service will rival iMessage

Impertinent. Mumbling. Offended. Teary-eyed. Rachel Jeantel, star witness for the prosecution in George Zimmerman's murder trial, was all of those, and more, as her testimony Wednesday provided new details into Trayvon Martin?s last moments and infused racially loaded commentary into an already-sensitive trial.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/secure-android-messaging-rival-imessage-213044166.html

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I Don?t Feel Your Pain

171479887 George Zimmerman enters court in Sanford, Fla., on June 25, 2013, for his trial in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Was Martin killed because Zimmerman didn't feel empathy for him?

Photo by Gary W. Green-Pool/Getty Images

George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin because he perceived him as dangerous. The defense argues he was, the prosecution argues he wasn?t. No one, of course, argues that Zimmerman approached Martin with kindness, or stopped to consider the boy as anything other than suspicious, an outsider. Ultimately Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. A lack of empathy can produce national tragedies. But it also drives quieter, more routine forms of discrimination.

Let?s do a quick experiment. You watch a needle pierce someone?s skin. Do you feel this person?s pain? Does it matter if the person?s skin is white or black?

For many people, race does matter, even if they don?t know it. They feel more empathy when they see white skin pierced than black. This is known as the racial empathy gap. To study it, researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca showed participants (all of whom were white) video clips of a needle or an eraser touching someone?s skin. They measured participants? reactions through skin conductance tests?basically whether their hands got sweaty?which reflect activity in the pain matrix of the brain. If we see someone in pain, it triggers the same network in our brains that?s activated when we are hurt. But people do not respond to the pain of others equally. In this experiment, when viewers saw white people receiving a painful stimulus, they responded more dramatically than they did for black people.

The racial empathy gap helps explain disparities in everything from pain management to the criminal justice system. But the problem isn?t just that people disregard the pain of black people. It?s somehow even worse. The problem is that the pain isn?t even felt.

A recent study shows that people, including medical personnel, assume black people feel less pain than white people. The researchers asked participants to rate how much pain they would feel in 18 common scenarios. The participants rated experiences such as stubbing a toe or getting shampoo in their eyes on a four-point scale (where 1 is ?not painful? and 4 is ?extremely painful?). Then they rated how another person (a randomly assigned photo of an experimental ?target?) would feel in the same situations. Sometimes the target was white, sometimes black. In each experiment, the researchers found that white participants, black participants, and nurses and nursing students assumed that blacks felt less pain than whites.

But the researchers did not believe racial prejudice was entirely to blame. After all, black participants also displayed an empathy gap toward other blacks. What could possibly be the explanation for why black people?s pain is underestimated?

It turns out assumptions about what it means to be black?in terms of social status and hardship?may be behind the bias. In additional experiments, the researchers studied participants? assumptions about adversity and privilege. The more privilege assumed of the target, the more pain the participants perceived. Conversely, the more hardship assumed, the less pain perceived. The researchers concluded that ?the present work finds that people assume that, relative to whites, blacks feel less pain because they have faced more hardship.?

This gives us some insight into how racial disparities are created?and how they are sustained. First, there is an underlying belief that there is a single black experience of the world. Because this belief assumes blacks are already hardened by racism, people believe black people are less sensitive to pain. Because they are believed to be less sensitive to pain, black people are forced to endure more pain.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/racial_empathy_gap_people_don_t_perceive_pain_in_other_races.html

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Battleground DOMA: What next for opponents of gay marriage?

After twin losses at the Supreme Court, the battleground shifts to the states, where social conservative leaders aim to 'fight like crazy,' with little help from the national GOP establishment.

By Linda Feldmann,?Staff writer / June 27, 2013

Enzo Catalano, 9, holds up a sign amongst thousands of revelers at Castro St. in San Francisco, Calif., after the United States Supreme Court delivered rulings on California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act June 26, 2013. Opponents of the ruling now face a long battle in the states, as support for gay marriage nationally grows.

Noah Berger/REUTERS

Enlarge

Some are angry, others are philosophical, but opponents of same-sex marriage agree on one thing: The battle against gay marriage just got tougher, after twin losses in the Supreme Court that have given pro-gay-marriage forces a burst of momentum.?

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But social conservatives are ready to press on in the states, in defense of a religiously based definition of marriage that has endured for millennia, even if they don?t expect much help from the Republican establishment.?

?The mix of decisions magnifies the fact that people who believe in normal marriage need to fight like crazy at the state level to ensure that they keep the right to define what they want marriage to be in their state,? says Gary Bauer, leader of the group American Values and one-time Republican presidential candidate.

For now, Christian conservative activists have a cushion. Gay marriage is banned in the constitutions of 30 states, and even though nationally, a growing majority of Americans supports a right to same-sex marriage, many individual states still tilt against it. Social conservative leaders also have a ready army of supporters, easily reached through churches and representing a significant portion of the Republican Party?s base.

Keeping the traditional-marriage-only wing of the GOP from becoming demoralized will be part of the battle. But after Wednesday?s rulings ? which struck down a key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to a resumption of gay marriages in California ? conservative leaders expressed hope that their supporters would be all the more motivated to keep fighting.

Some leaders took a glass-half-full approach to the decisions, applauding the justices for, at least, not establishing a national right to same-sex marriage as the high court did for abortion in the 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade. ?That, they say, gives them time to get organized and rally their troops, even if, by outward appearances, time is not on their side.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, asserts that, in fact, time is not on the side of those seeking to create a right to same-sex marriage. ?

?As the American people are given time to experience the actual consequences of redefining marriage, the public debate and opposition to the redefinition of natural marriage will undoubtedly intensify,? Mr. Perkins says.

His ally Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, calls for pressure on Congress to pass legislation that will limit the impact of the DOMA ruling. And he goes back to a core focus of religious conservatives -- the selection of judges.

The Supreme Court?s decisions ?underscore why people of faith must remain engaged and energetic in seeing genuine conservatives nominated and confirmed to the federal courts,? says Mr. Reed. That requires electing conservative senators who will make judicial confirmation battles a priority.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/aMOHFqJ71cw/Battleground-DOMA-What-next-for-opponents-of-gay-marriage

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'Corkscrew' Light Could Turbocharge Internet

Different-shaped beams could be used to increase fiber-optic capacity, thereby easing online congestion


twisting, sprialing light beams

Twisting light could create a new lane of traffic on the information superhighway. Image: Wikimedia Commons/?berraschungsbilder

  • Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

    Read More??

Twisty beams of light could boost the traffic-carrying capacity of the Internet, effectively adding new levels to the information superhighway, suggests research published today in Science.

Internet traffic is growing exponentially and researchers have sought ways to squeeze ever more information into the fiber-optic cables that carry it. One successful method used over the last 20 years essentially added more traffic lanes, using different colors, or wavelengths, for different signals. But to compensate for the added lanes, each one had to be made narrower. So, just as in a real highway, the spacing could get only so tight before the streams of data began to jumble together.

In the last few years, different groups of researchers have tried to encode information in the shape of light beams to ease congestion, using a property of light called orbital angular momentum. Currently, a straight beam of light is used to transmit Internet signals, but certain filters can twist it so that it corkscrews around with varying degrees of curliness as it travels.

Previous experiments using this effect have found that differently shaped light beams tend to jumble together after less than a meter.

Now, a team of researchers from Boston University in Massachusetts and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles has found a way to keep the different light beam shapes separated for a record 1.1 kilometers.

The researchers designed and built a 1.1-kilometer-long glass cable, the cross section of which had a varying index of refraction ? a measure that describes how fast light can travel in a particular medium. They then sent both twisty and straight beams of light down the cable.

The team found that the light output matched the input ? light beams of each shape were not getting muddled together. The varying index of refraction apparently affected each light shape uniquely, so that different shapes moved at different speeds down the cable. "That meant that I could keep them separated," says Siddharth Ramachandran, an electrical engineer and leader of the Boston University team.

Improving infrastructure
The work published today used clockwise and anticlockwise versions of twisted light with a specific curliness, but Ramachandran says that the team has since done other research that suggests that about ten different beam shapes can be used to convey information.

That is exciting because each shape could potentially act as an entirely new level of traffic on the information superhighway. On each level, streams of data could be further divided into narrow lanes of color, maximizing flow. "We showed a new degree of freedom in which we could transmit information," says Ramachandran.

Translating the work from the lab to the real world will take time, however, in part because current Internet cables carry only straight beams of light. A more immediate goal, says Ramachandran, might be to install cables that are capable of carrying twisty light on the short distances between servers on giant 'server farms', used by large Web companies such as Facebook.

Miles Padgett, an optical physicist at the University of Glasgow, UK, is impressed with the work and is optimistic about its potential. "One day, more bandwidth will mean we can all Skype at the same time," he says.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on June 27, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/sciam/basic-science/~3/VqOC7e7qJXk/article.cfm

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Molecule drives aggressive breast cancer

June 27, 2013 ? Recent studies by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University's Kimmel Cancer Center have shown a gene known to coordinate initial development of the eye (EYA1) is a powerful breast tumor promoter in mice. The gene EYA1 was also shown to be overexpressed in a genetic breast cancer subtype called luminal B.

The scientists found that excess activity of this gene -- EYA1 -- also enhances development of breast cancer stem cells that promote resistance to cancer therapy, recurrence, and poor survival.

Because EYA1 is an enzyme, the scientists are now working to identify a natural compound that could shut down EYA1 activity, says Richard Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Kimmel Cancer Center.

"It was known that EYA1 is over-expressed in some breast cancers, but no one knew what that meant," he says. "Our studies have shown the enzyme drives luminal B breast tumor growth in animals and the enzyme activity is required for tumor growth."

In a mouse model of aggressive breast cancer, the research team targeted a single amino acid on the EYA1 phosphatase activity. They found that inactivating the phosphatase activity of EYA1 stopped aggressive human tumors from growing.

"We are excited about the potential of drug treatment, because it is much easier to develop a drug that targets a phosphatase enzyme like EYA1, than it is to target a gene directly," he says.

Tracing how EYA1 leads to poor outcomes

The study, which was published in the May 1 issue of Cancer Research, examined 2,154 breast cancer samples for the presence of EYA1. The researchers then linked those findings to patient outcomes. They found a direct relationship between increased level of EYA1 and cyclin D1 to poor survival.

They then chose one form of breast cancer -- luminal B -- and traced the bimolecular pathway of how EYA1 with cyclin D1 increases cancer aggressiveness. Luminal B breast cancer, one of five different breast cancer subtypes, is a hormone receptor-positive form that accounts for about 20 percent of human breast cancer. It is more aggressive than luminal A tumors, a hormone receptor-positive cancer that is the most common form of breast cancer.

Their work delineated a string of genes and proteins that are affected by EYA1, and they also discovered that EYA1 pushes an increase in formation of mammospheres, which are a measure of breast cancer stem cells.

"Within every breast cancer are breast cancer stem cells, which give rise to anti-cancer therapy resistance, recurrence and metastases," Dr. Pestell says. "We demonstrated in laboratory experiments that EYA1 expression increase the number of mammospheres and other markers of breast cancer stem cells."

"As the EYA1 phosphatase activity drove breast cancer stem cell expansion, this activity may contribute to worse survival," he says.

This study was supported in part by the NIH grants RO1CA132115, R01CA70896, R01CA75503, R01CA86072 and P30CA56036 (RGP), a grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (RGP), a grant for Dr. Ralph and Marian C. Falk Medical Research Trust (RGP), Margaret Q. Landenberger Research Foundation, the Department of Defense Concept Award W81XWH-11-1-0303.

Study co-authors are, from Kimmel Cancer Center: first author Kongming Wu, Zhaoming Li, Shaoxin Cai, Lifeng Tian, Ke Chen, Jing Wang and Adam Ertel; Junbo Hu, from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China; and Ye Sun, and Xue Li from Boston Children's Hospital.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/jBYVoKY_n-o/130627190327.htm

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

How TripAdvisor engineers helped its business people find and ...

Business analysts working at TripAdvisor kept coming up to developers in recent months and saying they?d heard valuable data was sitting in Hadoop clusters, but they had no clue how to query it all.

That?s what made senior software developer Stephen Scaffidi spend some free time coming up with a method for analysts to ask questions of data in Hadoop with Hive without knowing the SQL-like HQL query language that?s ordinarily required.

Scaffidi

Scaffidi

The result of Scaffidi?s efforts were rolled out to employees in November, and people from many departments have used it. And last Friday Scaffidi made his Hive Query Tool available through an open-source Apache license.

After a business user logs in and enters a request for a Hive query through the simple user interface, the tool sends an email when the job has started. The email contains a link to a website showing the status of the job and offers a way to download the data. It?s intended to be simple, to enable employees other than data scientists to use Hive.

Hive Query Tool

?We needed something that (users) would adopt quickly, not something that they would follow the steps on a website or the vendor that we got it with, you know, 23.5 steps for installing, configuring, and then it still doesn?t work,? Scaffidi said at the Hadoop Summit in San Jose on Wednesday. ?They liked how it worked. They requested more features.?

Next steps include improving the back-end code and creating a system for allowing users to request recurring jobs, Scaffidi said

To be sure, IT admins could have brought on proprietary software or gone with open-source options for simplifying Hive queries, but that would have required engineers to learn how everything worked and then teach everyone else. Scaffidi found it far more convenient to just roll his own version. And that means more people inside the company were able to start doing Hive queries faster.

The project certainly made sense to carry out internally. It allows for democratization of data within the company. Now other companies have the option of trying out the tool.

Feature image courtesy of Flickr user Orin Zebest.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/06/26/how-tripadvisor-engineers-helped-its-business-people-find-and-analyze-its-hadoop-data/

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Kids' reading success boosted by long-term individualized instruction

Kids' reading success boosted by long-term individualized instruction [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Jun-2013
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Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

Students who consistently receive individualized reading instruction from first through third grade become better readers than those who don't, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

These findings come after a three-year study that followed several hundred Floridian students, who received varying amounts of individualized instruction, from first to third grade.

"Our results show that children need sustained, effective instruction from first through third grade if they are going to become proficient readers," said psychological scientist Carol McDonald Connor of Arizona State University, who led the research team.

Teachers involved in the longitudinal, randomized study used Assessment-to-instruction (A2i) software to make informed decisions about how to tailor reading instruction to meet their students' needs. Using algorithms, the A2i software recommended specific amounts and types of reading instruction based on the skills of each student.

Data from study showed that students who received individualized student instruction (ISI) in all three grades showed the strongest reading skills by the end of third grade, compared to those who received fewer years of individualized instruction.

"Another way to think about this is that 94 percent of the students in ISI classrooms from first through third grade were reading proficiently, compared to only 78 percent of the children who didn't participate all three years," said Connor.

In fact, students who were in ISI classrooms for all three years often achieved reading skills that were well above grade level expectations by the end of third grade, when measured by nationally-normed reading achievement tests.

The data are particularly promising given that they demonstrate improvement in reading scores for children from an economically and ethnically diverse school district that included urban, suburban, and rural communities.

The findings suggest that, with a little help from software programs such as A2i, teachers may be able to track student reading success and intervene more effectively.

"The individualized instruction was provided by regular classroom teachers," added Connor. "So, I think the findings demonstrate that we can help teachers become more effective through professional development, supported by technology."

###

Co-authors on this research include Frederick Morrison and Barry Fishman of the University of Michigan, Elizabeth Crowe and Christopher Schatschneider of Florida State University, and Stephanie Al Otaiba of the Southern Methodist University

This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

For more information about this study, please contact:

Carol McDonald Connor
carol.connor@asu.edu

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "A Longitudinal Cluster-Randomized Controlled Study on the Accumulating Effects of Individualized Literacy Instruction on Students' Reading From First Through Third Grade" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.


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Kids' reading success boosted by long-term individualized instruction [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

Students who consistently receive individualized reading instruction from first through third grade become better readers than those who don't, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

These findings come after a three-year study that followed several hundred Floridian students, who received varying amounts of individualized instruction, from first to third grade.

"Our results show that children need sustained, effective instruction from first through third grade if they are going to become proficient readers," said psychological scientist Carol McDonald Connor of Arizona State University, who led the research team.

Teachers involved in the longitudinal, randomized study used Assessment-to-instruction (A2i) software to make informed decisions about how to tailor reading instruction to meet their students' needs. Using algorithms, the A2i software recommended specific amounts and types of reading instruction based on the skills of each student.

Data from study showed that students who received individualized student instruction (ISI) in all three grades showed the strongest reading skills by the end of third grade, compared to those who received fewer years of individualized instruction.

"Another way to think about this is that 94 percent of the students in ISI classrooms from first through third grade were reading proficiently, compared to only 78 percent of the children who didn't participate all three years," said Connor.

In fact, students who were in ISI classrooms for all three years often achieved reading skills that were well above grade level expectations by the end of third grade, when measured by nationally-normed reading achievement tests.

The data are particularly promising given that they demonstrate improvement in reading scores for children from an economically and ethnically diverse school district that included urban, suburban, and rural communities.

The findings suggest that, with a little help from software programs such as A2i, teachers may be able to track student reading success and intervene more effectively.

"The individualized instruction was provided by regular classroom teachers," added Connor. "So, I think the findings demonstrate that we can help teachers become more effective through professional development, supported by technology."

###

Co-authors on this research include Frederick Morrison and Barry Fishman of the University of Michigan, Elizabeth Crowe and Christopher Schatschneider of Florida State University, and Stephanie Al Otaiba of the Southern Methodist University

This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

For more information about this study, please contact:

Carol McDonald Connor
carol.connor@asu.edu

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "A Longitudinal Cluster-Randomized Controlled Study on the Accumulating Effects of Individualized Literacy Instruction on Students' Reading From First Through Third Grade" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/afps-krs062513.php

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New emir: Qatar will pursue its 'independent behavior'

By Regan Doherty

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's new emir said on Wednesday the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state would not "take direction" from anyone, in an accession speech suggesting the young leader would pursue the assertive, independent-minded foreign policy pioneered by his father.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani's first address as head of state coincided with a cabinet reshuffle that saw Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, a force behind Qatar's support for Arab Spring revolts, replaced as premier and foreign minister.

Sheikh Hamad is expected to retain his powerful post as vice chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority, (QIA), a globally active sovereign wealth fund that is worth between $100 billion and $200 billion.

Sheikh Tamim, 33, handed power by his father on Tuesday in a rare example of an hereditary Arab ruler stepping down, added in his speech that sectarianism threatened to weaken Arab unity at a time when Syria's war has sharply raised communal tensions.

From the same desk where his father announced his abdication after 18 years in power, Sheikh Tamim struck a businesslike tone in a 15-minute speech that was broad in nature and focused on domestic issues. He vowed to follow his father's "path".

"We don't take direction (from anyone) and this independent behavior is one of the established facts," Sheikh Tamim, said in the speech broadcast on Qatari state television.

"As Arabs we reject splitting countries on a sectarian basis ... and because this split allows for foreign powers to interfere in the internal affairs of Arabs and influence them."

The emir added that his country, long seen as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, should not be identified with any particular political trend and respected all religious sects.

"We are a coherent state, not a political party, and therefore we seek to keep relationships with all governments and states," he said.

"We respect all the influential and active political trends in the region, but we are not affiliated with one trend against the other. We are Muslims and Arabs who respect diversity of sects and respect all religions in our countries and outside of them."

NO BIG CHANGE IN POLICY

Analysts said the speech aimed to show there would be no sudden change in Qatari policy.

"The new Emir needed to strike a balance between his domestic audience and the strong regional and international interest in his accession," said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

"He didn't give too much away but generally sought to reassure people that while there may be a change in leadership style there will be continuity in the underlying substance of Qatari policy-making," he said.

The new emir steered clear of any mention of Syria, a conflict in which Qatar has taken the lead in arming Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, to the consternation of some allies who fear weapons may be falling into the hands of more extremist Islamist fighters.

He instead focused on the safer topic of the Palestinian issue, saying Qatar was committed to their struggle with Israel.

David Roberts, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute based in Doha, said the speech had a "down to business tone, indicating that the country has work to and he is eager to get on with it".

"It strongly suggested that Qatar will continue on its path with regard to foreign policy; there was no attempt to backtrack or rein that in. There was certainly no equivocation," he said.

"HBJ" OUT

Qatar has been ruled by the al-Thani family for more than 130 years, but the handing over of power to Sheikh Tamim, marked a rare move in a region where monarchs usually rule for life.

A cabinet list released on the state news agency confirmed the new prime minister as Abdullah bin Naser al-Thani and the new foreign minister Khalid al-Atiyah, posts previously occupied by veteran politician Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim.

The reshuffle included Ali Sherif al-Emadi as finance minister, who held the post of group chief executive officer of Qatar National Bank.

The energy minister of the OPEC state and world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, remained unchanged.

The replacement of Hamad bin Jassim, or HBJ as he is known, marked the end of a two-decade tenure in government in which he drove the Gulf country's rise to global prominence.

In his time as foreign minister, Qatar began hosting the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East but also cozied up to America's foes Iran, Syria and Hamas in pursuit of leverage. The Afghan Taliban opened an office in Doha last week.

Named prime minister in 2007, Sheikh Hamad played a personal role in facilitating Qatar's numerous efforts to resolve violent tensions, brokering talks in conflicts ranging from Lebanon to Yemen and from Darfur to the Palestinian territories.

(This story is refiled to fix typo in paragraph four)

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Mahmoud Habboush; Writing by Yara Bayoumy, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/qatar-change-premier-foreign-minister-under-emir-125607917.html

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Lisa Rinna Makes Like Marilyn Monroe, Weirds Everyone Out

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/lisa-rinna-makes-like-marilyn-monroe-weirds-everyone-out/

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Raw live results: June 24, 2013

All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2013 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2013 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-06-24/wwe-raw-results

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Jon Gosselin: I live in the woods now

Celebs

53 minutes ago

IMAGE: Jon Gosselin

Michael Buckner / Getty Images file

Jon Gosselin in 2012.

Once Jon Gosselin lived in a large house in Pennsylvania and his life unrolled on television in front of millions. Now, the dad of eight lives "in the woods," and says he doesn't even have an address.

Gosselin didn't clarify exactly where or how he lives, but he confirmed to VH1's "The Gossip Table" that he's taken to a more private life after living in an apartment where paparazzi and others "figured out where I was."

Gosselin, then-wife Kate, and their twins and sextuplets starred on "Jon and Kate Plus 8" for five seasons before divorcing. The show continued as "Kate Plus 8" despite Jon Gosselin suing to prevent filming of his children.

Gosselin was asked if Kim Kardashian and Kanye West should allow their newborn daughter, North, to appear on the reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," and unsurprisingly, he didn't think so.

"I wanted to raise my kids off television, so I changed my mind," he said. "So I would definitely not film with my newborn child."

Gosselin was also asked if he still wore Ed Hardy clothing, the brand he favored at the height of his tabloid fame in 2009. He said no, adding "I gave all my (Hardy clothing) to my mother." Tattoo artist Hardy recently told the New York Post that an association with Gosselin "tanked" his clothing brand.

He also said he'd be interested in appearing on "Dancing With the Stars," as his ex-wife Kate Gosselin famously did in 2010. She was the fourth celebrity eliminated on the show's tenth season, and partner Tony Dovolani later joked he needed "a lot of therapy" after partnering with her.

"I feel like I could probably get further than her," Jon Gosselin said.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/jon-gosselin-i-live-woods-now-6C10433570

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Customized Tablet For Restaurants E La Carte Raises $13.5M From Intel Capital And Others

presto-1E la Carte, a company that develops a tableside tablet for the restaurant and related hospitality industries, has raised $13.5 million in Series B funding led by Intel Capital with participation from Romulus Capital. The startup had previously raised over $5 million from Lightbank, SV Angel, Dave McClure, Joshua Schachter, and others.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OU1NVnwh6vs/

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Computer models shed new light on sickle cell crisis

Computer models shed new light on sickle cell crisis [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kevin Stacey
kevin_stacey@brown.edu
401-863-3766
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Using powerful computer models, researchers from Brown University have shown for the first time how different types of red blood cells interact to cause sickle cell crisis, a dangerous blockage of blood flow in capillaries that causes searing pain and tissue damage in people with sickle cell disease.

The models showed that the rigid, crescent-shaped red blood cells that are the hallmark of sickle cell disease don't cause these blockages on their own. Instead, softer, deformable red blood cells known as SS2 cells start the process by sticking to capillary walls. The rigid sickle-shaped cells then stack up behind the SS2s, like traffic behind a car wreck.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could provide a way to evaluate drug treatments aimed at easing or preventing sickle cell crisis, also known as vaso-occlusion.

"This is the first study to identify a specific biophysical mechanism through which vaso-occlusion takes place," said George Karniadakis, professor of applied mathematics at Brown and the study's senior author. "It was a surprising result because the common wisdom was that it was just the sickle cells that block the capillary."

Sickle cell disease is a genetic condition that affects an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 people in the United States, mostly of African or Hispanic descent. Abnormal hemoglobin, the protein that enables red blood cells to carry oxygen, causes sickle cells to acquire their crescent shape and rigidity. That elongated shape and inability to bend were thought to be the reason sickle cells caused blockages in capillaries.

But while sickle-shaped cells are the hallmark of the disease, they're not the only type of red blood cell present in people with the condition. Research from the 1980s found that there are actually four types of sickle red blood cells, and not all of them are rigid and sickle-shaped. One cell type, the SS2 cell, retains the round shape and the soft malleability of normal red blood cells.

"They look like healthy cells," Karniadakis said, "except they're sticky."

The SS2 cells have receptors on their membranes that cause them to adhere to the walls of blood vessels. Sickle-shaped cells have those same sticky proteins, but Karniadakis's model showed that the SS2 cells are much more likely to get stuck. "Because [SS2 cells] are deformable, they have a larger contact area with the vessel wall, and so they stick better," Karniadakis said.

Once those cells become stuck, they effectively make the vessel diameter smaller, causing the rigid sickle-shaped cells to get stuck behind them.

The models, based on experimentally derived data on real cells, allow the researchers to manipulate the cells' characteristics to see which ones cause blood blockages. For example, if the researchers reduced the stickiness or softness of the SS2 cells, blockages failed to form. Likewise, if they reduced the rigidity of the sickle-shaped cells, blood kept flowing. It's the two conditions working in tandem that causes the blockages, but the SS2 cells are the ones that start the cascade.

"In the end the rigid sickle cells are really playing a secondary role because the causality starts with the deformable cells that stick to the wall," Karniadakis said.

The researchers hope that the models could be used to evaluate drugs aimed at treating sickle cell crisis.

"If a drug is trying to target the cells' adhesive properties, or if it's trying to make cells more flexible, we can test them and see if they prevent occlusion in the model," Karniadakis said.

###

The first author on the paper is Huan Lei, a postdoctoral researcher in applied mathematics at Brown. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01HL094270) and the new Collaboratory on Mathematics for Mesocopic Modeling of Materials (CM4), supported by the Department of Energy. Computations were made possible by a DOE/Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment Award.

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Computer models shed new light on sickle cell crisis [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Kevin Stacey
kevin_stacey@brown.edu
401-863-3766
Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Using powerful computer models, researchers from Brown University have shown for the first time how different types of red blood cells interact to cause sickle cell crisis, a dangerous blockage of blood flow in capillaries that causes searing pain and tissue damage in people with sickle cell disease.

The models showed that the rigid, crescent-shaped red blood cells that are the hallmark of sickle cell disease don't cause these blockages on their own. Instead, softer, deformable red blood cells known as SS2 cells start the process by sticking to capillary walls. The rigid sickle-shaped cells then stack up behind the SS2s, like traffic behind a car wreck.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could provide a way to evaluate drug treatments aimed at easing or preventing sickle cell crisis, also known as vaso-occlusion.

"This is the first study to identify a specific biophysical mechanism through which vaso-occlusion takes place," said George Karniadakis, professor of applied mathematics at Brown and the study's senior author. "It was a surprising result because the common wisdom was that it was just the sickle cells that block the capillary."

Sickle cell disease is a genetic condition that affects an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 people in the United States, mostly of African or Hispanic descent. Abnormal hemoglobin, the protein that enables red blood cells to carry oxygen, causes sickle cells to acquire their crescent shape and rigidity. That elongated shape and inability to bend were thought to be the reason sickle cells caused blockages in capillaries.

But while sickle-shaped cells are the hallmark of the disease, they're not the only type of red blood cell present in people with the condition. Research from the 1980s found that there are actually four types of sickle red blood cells, and not all of them are rigid and sickle-shaped. One cell type, the SS2 cell, retains the round shape and the soft malleability of normal red blood cells.

"They look like healthy cells," Karniadakis said, "except they're sticky."

The SS2 cells have receptors on their membranes that cause them to adhere to the walls of blood vessels. Sickle-shaped cells have those same sticky proteins, but Karniadakis's model showed that the SS2 cells are much more likely to get stuck. "Because [SS2 cells] are deformable, they have a larger contact area with the vessel wall, and so they stick better," Karniadakis said.

Once those cells become stuck, they effectively make the vessel diameter smaller, causing the rigid sickle-shaped cells to get stuck behind them.

The models, based on experimentally derived data on real cells, allow the researchers to manipulate the cells' characteristics to see which ones cause blood blockages. For example, if the researchers reduced the stickiness or softness of the SS2 cells, blockages failed to form. Likewise, if they reduced the rigidity of the sickle-shaped cells, blood kept flowing. It's the two conditions working in tandem that causes the blockages, but the SS2 cells are the ones that start the cascade.

"In the end the rigid sickle cells are really playing a secondary role because the causality starts with the deformable cells that stick to the wall," Karniadakis said.

The researchers hope that the models could be used to evaluate drugs aimed at treating sickle cell crisis.

"If a drug is trying to target the cells' adhesive properties, or if it's trying to make cells more flexible, we can test them and see if they prevent occlusion in the model," Karniadakis said.

###

The first author on the paper is Huan Lei, a postdoctoral researcher in applied mathematics at Brown. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01HL094270) and the new Collaboratory on Mathematics for Mesocopic Modeling of Materials (CM4), supported by the Department of Energy. Computations were made possible by a DOE/Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment Award.

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/bu-cms062113.php

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Zimmerman jurors begin life in sequestration

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? The six jurors and four alternates who will hear opening statements Monday in George Zimmerman's murder trial are beginning their time together in a sequestered bubble: They won't return to their homes for weeks, contact with family and friends will be limited, and Internet and phone usage is restricted.

Court officials are keeping mum about the details of the jury sequestration, which begins this week. But if past cases are any example, the Zimmerman jurors won't be able to tweet or blog. They'll read only newspapers that have been censored of anything dealing with the case. They will do almost everything together as a group. In their hotel rooms, TV news channels will be inaccessible and landline telephones likely will be removed. Deputies will keep the jurors' cellphones and give them back once a day so they can call loved ones and friends.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys say the sequestration is necessary to eliminate jurors' exposure to outside influences as they consider whether the neighborhood watch volunteer committed murder last year when he fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. After spending almost two weeks picking a jury, the attorneys will make opening statements Monday.

"Your contact with the outside world will be severely limited," prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda warned potential jurors last week.

Potential jurors looked surprised and glum as the details sank in. One potential juror, a woman who wasn't picked, asked whether court sessions would be held seven days a week during the trial since jurors weren't going to go home. Circuit Judge Debra Nelson said, "No."

"So everyone else will get to go home on weekends but us?" the potential juror asked.

The judge answered "yes" and tried to reassure potential jurors that they wouldn't be cooped up in hotel rooms when not at the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford. Nelson explained that their meals, transportation and personal needs would be taken care of.

"There will be planned activities for you," the judge said.

The Seminole County's Clerk of Courts has budgeted $150 per person per day to cover room, board and entertainment for the length of the trial, said Maryanne Morse, the clerk. Given that it could last from two weeks to a month, the total cost of sequestration could range from $21,000 to $45,000. That doesn't include the cost of keeping deputies assigned to the group for security.

Court spokeswoman Michelle Kennedy wouldn't comment on the details or logistics of sequestration, or even how jurors will be spend the Fourth of July.

"Their comfort is going to be our top priority," Kennedy said.

A 2007 survey for the National Center for State Courts said that about a quarter of state trials have sequestered juries. But NCSC analyst Gregory Hurley said that number is unreliable since "sequester" wasn't clearly defined, and there was some confusion about its definition. Some respondents defined the term "sequestered" to include deliberations in which the jury was kept together during routine breaks but not overnight.

The six jurors and four alternates in Zimmerman's trial were whittled down from a pool of 40 candidates who had made it into a second round of interviews after questions about their views on firearms, self-defense and crime. The jurors are all women, and the alternates are two men and two women. Their identities are not being released to protect their privacy.

Zimmerman, 29, says he acted in self-defense in shooting Martin in the central Florida community of Sanford, where Zimmerman lived.

Martin's shooting death on Feb. 26, 2012 ? and the initial decision not to charge him ? led to public outrage and demonstrations around the nation, with some accusing Sanford police of failing to thoroughly investigate the shooting.

Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, while a neighborhood watch volunteer for his community, profiled the black teenager as Martin walked back from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiancee. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.

In 2011, just about 20 miles from the court in Seminole County, the Orange County Courthouse in downtown Orlando sequestered jurors in another high-profile case: the Casey Anthony murder trial. Jurors were sequestered for six weeks in 2011 as they listened to testimony about the young mother charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter. Anthony was acquitted of murder.

The Anthony jury was almost twice the size of the Zimmerman jury. The trial went on twice as long as the Zimmerman trial is expected to last. In Florida, 12 jurors are required only for criminal trials involving capital cases, when the death penalty is on the table if there's a conviction.

In picking a hotel for the Anthony jurors, court officials in Orange County wanted laundry facilities, a gym so jurors could exercise, and a private dining area where they could eat most meals out of the public's view, said courts spokeswoman Karen Levey. When jurors went to local restaurants for lunch or dinner, it was only at places with private dining areas. Televisions were turned off, and newspapers were removed.

Jurors were allowed to watch movie DVDs in their hotel rooms, but the movies had to be approved by prosecutors and defense attorneys. The crime thriller "Primal Fear" didn't make the cut. Neither did Ice Cube's "Are We There Yet?" The cable provider to the hotel reconfigured the televisions in the jurors' hotel rooms to eliminate news programs. But as attention to the trial grew, promotions about trial coverage started popping up on channels that previously had been deemed safe and those also were removed from jurors' selection, Levey said.

By the end of the trial, only one channel remained: the Home Shopping Network.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/zimmerman-jurors-begin-life-sequestration-134044980.html

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Jon Stewart appears on Egypt's 'Daily Show'

13 hours ago

CAIRO - Jon Stewart took his politically engaged American satire to Cairo on Friday, appearing on a show hosted by the man known as "Egypt's Jon Stewart," who has faced investigation for insulting the president and Islam.

Among barbs aimed at Egypt's ruling Islamists and others, Stewart praised host Bassem Youssef for taking risks to poke fun. "If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke," he said, "then you don't have a regime."

Youssef is a cardiologist whose online comedy clips inspired by Stewart's "Daily Show" won him wild popularity and a prime-time TV show after the 2011 revolution that ended military rule. He paid tribute to his guest as a personal inspiration as the pair traded gags over Stewart's impressions of a visit to Cairo.

Stewart in turn played down any difficulties his wit created for him in the United States, telling Youssef: "I tell you this, it doesn't get me into the kind of trouble it gets you into. I get in trouble, but nowhere near what happens to you."

With Egypt still in ferment and elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi facing off against liberals who fear he plans to smother personal freedoms, Youssef was released on bail after being questioned in March over alleged insults to Mursi and the channel he appears on was threatened with losing its licence.

Criticising such moves, which have also drawn reproaches for Egypt from the U.S. government, Stewart said: "A joke has never shot tear gas at a group of people in a park. It's just talk.

"What Bassem is doing ... is showing that satire can still be relevant, that it can carve out space in a country for people to express themselves. Because that's all democracy is."

He took aim at Mursi's controversial decision this week to name a member of a hardline Islamist movement blamed for a massacre of tourists at Luxor in the 1990s as governor of that city. Having been brought into the studio hooded and presented as a "spy," he spoke a few words in Arabic before saying Egypt's president had honoured him: "I am now the mayor of Luxor."

Stewart also appeared to take a gentle dig at the opposition, who hope demonstrations planned for June 30 can force Mursi from power after just a year in office. It took Americans 100 years before a president was impeached for the first time, Stewart said: "For you guys to do it in one year, it's very impressive."

Perhaps the biggest laugh in the studio, though, was for a simple crack at Egypt's perennial traffic chaos: "I know this is an ancient civilisation," he said. "Have you thought about traffic lights?"

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/cairo-egypts-jon-stewart-hosts-daily-shows-jon-stewart-6C10418946

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