President Waheed to form election coalition with ... - Minivan News

President Dr Mohamed Waheed has announced plans to form a coalition between his Gaumee Ithihaad Party?(GIP) and the religious conservative Adhaalath Party (AP), ahead of presidential elections scheduled for later this year.

Writing on his personal Twitter account Thursday (March 28), President Waheed welcomed the support of the ?AP, while expressing hope other undisclosed parties would be making similar announcements at a later date.

The AP tweeted the same day that its council have approved the coalition with the current president ahead of the September this year.

By yesterday (March 29), the AP tweeted that it aimed to ?form a large, strong coalition? including other parties in the country to try and provide stability and prosperity in the Maldives following the presidential race.

The AP, one of five parties in the country?meeting a recently approved regulation requiring any registered political body to have 10,000 registered members, is part of the coalition government of President Waheed following the controversial transfer of power that brought him into office in February 2012.

Both Adhalaath and GIP do not presently have any elected members in parliament.

The religious conservative party was previously a coalition partner in the government of former President Mohamed Nasheed, later leaving the government citing concerns at what it alleged were the irreligious practices of the administration.

This led the AP in December 2011 to join then fellow opposition parties ? now members of Waheed?s unity government ? and a number of NGOs to gather in Male? with thousands of people to ?defend Islam?.

During the same day, Nasheed?s MDP held their own rally held at the Artificial Beach area in Male? claiming his government would continue to practice a ?tolerant form? of Islam, reminding listeners that Islam in the Maldives has traditionally been tolerant.

?We can?t achieve development by going backwards to the Stone Age or being ignorant,? Nasheed said at the time.

Shortly after coming to power in February 2012, flanked by members of the new government?s coalition, President Waheed gave a speech calling on supporters to ?Be courageous; today you are all mujaheddin?.

GIP Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza, President?s Office Media Secretary Masood Imad and President?of the?Adhaalath Party Sheikh Imran Abdulla were not responding to calls regarding the coalition announcement today.

Diverging opinions

Despite the agreement to cooperate between the two parties, Waheed and the AP differ in their reaction to the recent controversial sentencing of a 15 year old rape victim to 100 lashes for fornication with another man.

President Waheed?s ?stated on his official Twitter account at the time: ?I am saddened by the sentence of flogging handed to a minor. Govt will push for review of this position.?

The Foreign Ministry subsequently expressed ?deep concern by the prosecution and the Juvenile Court?s sentence to flog a 15 year-old girl on the charges of pre-marital sex.?

?Though the flogging will be deferred until the girl turns 18, the government believes she is the victim of sexual abuse and should be treated as such by the state and the society and therefore, her rights should be fully protected. The Government is of the view that the case merits appeal. The girl is under state care and the government will facilitate and supervise her appeal of the case, via the girl?s lawyer, to ensure that justice is done and her rights are protected,? the Ministry stated.

The President?s Office also recently announced it was looking at the possibility of bringing about reform to potentially bring an end to the use of punishments like flogging in the country?s justice system.

However the Adhaalath Party has publicly endorsed the sentence, stating that the girl??deserves the punishment?,?as outlined under Islamic Sharia.

The party, members of which largely dominate the Maldives? Ministry of Islamic Affairs, stated that the sentence of flogging had not been passed against the minor for being sexually abused by her stepfather, but rather for the consensual sex to which she had confessed to having to authorities.

?The purpose of penalties like these in Islamic Sharia is to maintain order in society and to save it from sinful acts. It is not at all an act of violence. We must turn a deaf ear to the international organisations which are calling to abolish these penalties, labeling them degrading and inhumane acts or torture,? read a statement from the party.

?If such sinful activities are to become this common, the society will break down and we may become deserving of divine wrath,? the Adhaalath Party stated.

Coalition potential

Of the parties yet to announce candidates to stand during the upcoming presidential elections, Dr Hassan Saeed, Leader of the government-aligned Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and People?s Alliance MP Ahmed Nazim were not responding to calls regarding President Waheed?s announcement today.

Earlier this month, the government-aligned Dhivehi Rayithunge Party (DRP) ruled out a coalition with the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) ahead of elections,?despite being open to collaboration with other parties.

Both the PPM and DRP serve within President Waheed?s national unity government.

The DRP has also previously ruled out a collaboration with the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

Source: http://minivannews.com/politics/president-waheed-to-form-election-coalition-with-religious-conservative-adhaalath-party-55422

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Exclusive: Indonesia's CT Corp proposes all-cash deal for Bakrie's media unit

By Janeman Latul and Randy Fabi

TANJUNG BENOA, Indonesia (Reuters) - CT Corp, one of Indonesia's emerging conglomerates, has proposed an all-cash deal for a controlling stake in media firm PT Visi Media Asia , valued at up to $1.8 billion, to strengthen its position in the media business in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

The founder and chairman of CT Corp, Chairul Tanjung, told Reuters that his firm wanted to purchase Visi Media, a unit of Indonesia's powerful Bakrie family, without any partners.

"We are one of the preferred bidders. Our proposal is we want to buy it all ... my pocket is still deep," the 51-year-old billionaire said in his hotel room on the resort island of Bali, shortly after meeting with the president and cabinet ministers in his role as head of the president's economic advisory body.

"(It is) only us that can pay cash one hundred percent ... but the deal is not done yet."

CT Corp is already a major player in the Indonesian media business and controls two local TV stations. Tanjung said he would take out a new loan to buy the Visi Media stake. He declined to say how much the company would borrow for the deal.

This is the first time any bidder has publicly announced that it was offering to buy the company.

Indonesia's politically influential Bakrie family has been in talks to sell its majority interest in Visi Media to help finance a plan to buy back coal assets from London-listed Bumi Plc , sources with direct knowledge have said.

The Bakries are offering around a 51 percent stake in Visi Media, which the family controls via its vehicle CMA Indonesia. The process has been going on for the past three months with local bidders, including CT Corp and MNC Group, the sources said.

The Bakries had been looking for a valuation of $1.2 billion to $2 billion for the unit, although Visi Media's current market capitalization is only around $800 million, the sources said.

Visi Media has two national TV stations and a news website.

The sources said the stake would be worth up to $1.8 billion.

Tanjung, who trained as a dentist before becoming a businessman, also plans to build a $3 billion theme park on Indonesia's Java island and make it one of the biggest theme parks in Southeast Asia when it opens in 2016.

"We will build a city, not only a theme park, as I want to make many Indonesians feel happy," Tanjung said, adding that the land for the park would be around 200 hectares and the construction would start by the end of this year.

The group, which was founded by Tanjung, currently operates two theme parks and has plans to add another 20 theme parks across Indonesia over the next few years.

Tanjung is Indonesia's fifth-richest man with a net worth around $3.4 billion as of march, according to Forbes.

(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Chris Gallagher)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-indonesias-ct-corp-proposes-cash-deal-bakries-041447140--finance.html

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Oklahoma: Dental clinic inspections not necessary

Dentist Alice G. Boghosian removes packages of properly sterilized dental instruments from an autoclave that uses heat and steam to sterilize the tools Friday, March 29, 2013, in Chicago. Health officials in Oklahoma are calling an oral surgeon there who used dirty equipment and risked cross-contamination a ?menace to public health? and are urging thousands of his patients to seek medical screenings for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Though officials say such situations involving dental clinics are rare, Dr. Matt Messina, a dentist in Cleveland, and a consumer advisor for the American Dental Association, says patients should ask their dentist and oral surgeon about the steps they and their staffs take to sterilize equipment. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Dentist Alice G. Boghosian removes packages of properly sterilized dental instruments from an autoclave that uses heat and steam to sterilize the tools Friday, March 29, 2013, in Chicago. Health officials in Oklahoma are calling an oral surgeon there who used dirty equipment and risked cross-contamination a ?menace to public health? and are urging thousands of his patients to seek medical screenings for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Though officials say such situations involving dental clinics are rare, Dr. Matt Messina, a dentist in Cleveland, and a consumer advisor for the American Dental Association, says patients should ask their dentist and oral surgeon about the steps they and their staffs take to sterilize equipment. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Dentist Alice G. Boghosian shows a package of properly sterilized dental instruments before they are unwrapped along with a cassette filled with more sterilized instruments, lower left, Friday, March 29, 2013, in Chicago. Health officials in Oklahoma are calling an oral surgeon there who used dirty equipment and risked cross-contamination a ?menace to public health? and are urging thousands of his patients to seek medical screenings for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Though officials say such situations involving dental clinics are rare, Dr. Matt Messina, a dentist in Cleveland, and a consumer advisor for the American Dental Association, says patients should ask their dentist and oral surgeon about the steps they and their staffs take to sterilize equipment. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Map locates city where health officials are urging 7000 patients of Oklahoma dentist Dr. W. Scott Harrington to seek testing for hepatitis or HIV.

This photo taken Thursday, March 28, 2013 shows the office of oral surgeon W. Scott Harrington in Tulsa, Okla. Health officials have urged Harrington?s patients to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying filthy conditions at his office posed a threat to his 7,000 clients and made him a "menace to the public health." (AP Photo/Justin Juozapavicius)

TULSA, Okla. (AP) ? The Oklahoma agency that accused a Tulsa oral surgeon of unsanitary practices, putting thousands of people at risk for hepatitis and HIV, says it's never needed to inspect medical offices regularly.

"This doesn't happen," Susan Rogers, the executive director of the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry, said Friday. "There's not been a need for these inspections because we've never had a complaint like this."

That's not unusual. Some other states don't routinely inspect clinics, either, noting they don't have the money and such incidents are so rare that the need just isn't there.

In Oklahoma, the Board of Dentistry's small staff does inspections only if the agency receives a complaint. That's what happened in the case of Dr. W. Scott Harrington, whose practice was inspected after officials determined a patient may have contracted hepatitis C while having dental surgery.

State epidemiologist Kristy Bradley and Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart sent letters Friday to all 7,000 patients they found in Harrington's 6-year-old records, urging them to be screened for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS because of unsafe practices at his two clinics. More patients may be at risk, but Harrington's files go back only to 2007.

"Although we do not know whether you were personally exposed to blood-borne viruses, there is a possibility that you may have been exposed to infectious material," they wrote, acknowledging their discovery could be "alarming and frightening" for the patients.

Rogers' office filed a 17-count complaint against Harrington, saying officials found rusty instruments, potentially contaminated drug vials and improper use of a machine designed to sterilize tools.

According to guidelines from the American Dental Association, of which Harrington was listed as a member Friday, to keep their licenses dentists must stay up to date on the latest scientific and clinical developments.

Rogers noted that dentists know they could close their licenses if they violate health codes, so they are motivated to "do the right thing" ? clean their instruments, inspect drug cabinets for outdated or expired medicines and require staff to be trained.

Rogers said the Oklahoma board will consider changes in its practices but that it was too early to provide specifics.

In Colorado, where an oral surgeon was accused of reusing needles and syringes, the state doesn't routinely inspect dental offices. No changes were made to that policy after the 2012 incident.

"We respond if there is a complaint," spokesman Mark Salley said in a telephone interview Friday. "I don't know of any agency in this department that has the resources to conduct routine inspections of private practices."

California, too, responds only if a problem is reported.

"We are complaint-driven. Inspections are not routine. We're looking at 30,000-plus dentists in California alone," said Kim Trefry, the enforcement chief at the Dental Board of California.

Dr. Douglas Dieterich, a professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, called the Oklahoma case "an anomaly."

"There's all sorts of codes. The employees are watching. The patients are watching. With all the news reports of mini-epidemics caused by unsafe practices, I think everybody is" more careful, Dieterich said.

Harrington had been a dentist for 36 years before giving up his license March 20. He faces an April 19 hearing at which he could have his certification revoked.

Lydia Miller, director of communications for the Oklahoma Dental Association, said Harrington was a member of the organization until Thursday, when health officials branded him a "menace to the public health." Oklahoma has between 2,000 and 2,200 dentists; 1,600 belong to the ODA.

Until Thursday, the state Dentistry Board had had no problem with Harrington. Rogers said the agency, which is funded from license fees that range from $25 for a dental assistant's annual certificate renewal to $500 for an initial license testing fee, has only a $1 million budget and five employees to monitor dentists serving 3.8 million residents. She said the board concentrates primarily on complaints involving missing drugs and possible sexual misconduct.

Harrington could not be reached for comment Friday. His malpractice lawyer, Jim Secrest II, did not respond to phone messages left Thursday or Friday. A message at Harrington's Tulsa office said it was closed and an answering service referred callers to the Tulsa Health Department.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, there have been only three documents cases of a dental patient contracting either HIV or hepatitis B from a dental procedure: HIV in Florida in 1991 and hepatitis B in New Mexico in 2001 and West Virginia in 2009.

The CDC in 2003 established infection control guidelines for dental offices, including rules about hand hygiene and sterilization of dental instruments, but inspections are left to the states.

According to the Oklahoma Dentistry Board's complaint, Harrington's practice had varying cleaning procedures for its equipment, needles were re-inserted in drug vials after their initial use, drug vials were used on multiple patients and the office had no written infection-protection procedure. Also, dental assistants performed some tasks reserved to a licensed dentist, such as administering IV sedation. A device used to sterilize equipment hadn't undergone required monthly tests in at least six years.

Hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV are typically spread through intravenous drug use or unprotected sex.

___

Associated Press writers Tim Talley in Oklahoma City and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

___

Watch the AP video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzi4401Y-w

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-29-US-Dentist-Investigation-Testing/id-4117f2af52e542a29e1673f47f0551a8

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Picking apart photosynthesis: New insights could lead to better catalysts for water splitting

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Chemists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory believe they can now explain one of the remaining mysteries of photosynthesis, the chemical process by which plants convert sunlight into usable energy and generate the oxygen that we breathe. The finding suggests a new way of approaching the design of catalysts that drive the water-splitting reactions of artificial photosynthesis.

"If we want to make systems that can do artificial photosynthesis, it's important that we understand how the system found in nature functions," says Theodor Agapie, an assistant professor of chemistry at Caltech and principal investigator on a paper in the journal Nature Chemistry that describes the new results.

One of the key pieces of biological machinery that enables photosynthesis is a conglomeration of proteins and pigments known as photosystem II. Within that system lies a small cluster of atoms, called the oxygen-evolving complex, where water molecules are split and molecular oxygen is made. Although this oxygen-producing process has been studied extensively, the role that various parts of the cluster play has remained unclear.

The oxygen-evolving complex performs a reaction that requires the transfer of electrons, making it an example of what is known as a redox, or oxidation-reduction, reaction. The cluster can be described as a "mixed-metal cluster" because in addition to oxygen, it includes two types of metals -- one that is redox active, or capable of participating in the transfer of electrons (in this case, manganese), and one that is redox inactive (calcium).

"Since calcium is redox inactive, people have long wondered what role it might play in this cluster," Agapie says.

It has been difficult to solve that mystery in large part because the oxygen-evolving complex is just a cog in the much larger machine that is photosystem II; it is hard to study the smaller piece because there is so much going on with the whole. To get around this, Agapie's graduate student Emily Tsui prepared a series of compounds that are structurally related to the oxygen-evolving complex. She built upon an organic scaffold in a stepwise fashion, first adding three manganese centers and then attaching a fourth metal. By varying that fourth metal to be calcium and then different redox-inactive metals, such as strontium, sodium, yttrium, and zinc, Tsui was able to compare the effects of the metals on the chemical properties of the compound.

"When making mixed-metal clusters, researchers usually mix simple chemical precursors and hope the metals will self-assemble in desired structures," Tsui says. "That makes it hard to control the product. By preparing these clusters in a much more methodical way, we've been able to get just the right structures."

It turns out that the redox-inactive metals affect the way electrons are transferred in such systems. To make molecular oxygen, the manganese atoms must activate the oxygen atoms connected to the metals in the complex. In order to do that, the manganese atoms must first transfer away several electrons. Redox-inactive metals that tug more strongly on the electrons of the oxygen atoms make it more difficult for manganese to do this. But calcium does not draw electrons strongly toward itself. Therefore, it allows the manganese atoms to transfer away electrons and activate the oxygen atoms that go on to make molecular oxygen.

A number of the catalysts that are currently being developed to drive artificial photosynthesis are mixed-metal oxide catalysts. It has again been unclear what role the redox-inactive metals in these mixed catalysts play. The new findings suggest that the redox-inactive metals affect the way the electrons are transferred. "If you pick the right redox-inactive metal, you can tune the reduction potential to bring the reaction to the range where it is favorable," Agapie says. "That means we now have a more rational way of thinking about how to design these sorts of catalysts because we know how much the redox-inactive metal affects the redox chemistry."

The paper in Nature Chemistry is titled "Redox-inactive metals modulate the reduction potential in heterometallic manganese-oxido clusters." Along with Agapie and Tsui, Rosalie Tran and Junko Yano of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are also coauthors. The work was supported by the Searle Scholars Program, an NSF CAREER award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. X-ray spectroscopy work was supported by the NIH and the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Synchrotron facilities were provided by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, operated by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Kimm Fesenmaier.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Emily Y. Tsui, Rosalie Tran, Junko Yano, Theodor Agapie. Redox-inactive metals modulate the reduction potential in heterometallic manganese?oxido clusters. Nature Chemistry, 2013; 5 (4): 293 DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1578

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How to build your own R2D2

R2D2 greets the crowd at this year's WonderconANAHEIM, CA - The power of the Force may be elusive outside the fictional Star Wars universe but fans of R2D2 can take home their very own astromech droid if they have the time and money to build it.

Hundreds of potential droid crafters waited in line to hear from a panel belonging to the R2D2 Builders Club, a group of hobbyists who have been assembling their own functional Star Wars robots out of aluminum, plastic and even wood since 1999.

But how much time does it take to build a bleeping and whirling R2 lookalike?

"Thats the magic question," said Victor Franco, who has been building his own droids for over a decade. "It's the one you don't want your spouse to know the answer to."

And the answer varies, depending on just how detailed and capable you want your droid to be, with the final price ranging from as little as $500 up to $10,000.

"The average cost is a little over $5,000," Franco said. "A single small aluminum part can cost $100. It's not for the faint of heart."

Not surprisingly, a large variety of parts and electronics go into replicating one of the droids, with potential parts including plywood, aluminum, resin, styrene, transmitters and receivers speed controller servo motor and circuits.

"There's no one way to make an R2 unit," said William Miyamoto. "The plus side of using plastic is you pretty much can just use an cacti knife and glue."

At the other end of the spectrum, a finished R2 unit made from aluminum can weight more than 200 pounds and forces the creators to decide if they want their droid to be remote controlled or less mobile.

"I did run over a kid once," deadpanned Chris Romines.

But the four R2 builders said it is a project worth both their time and money. And when a droid is complete, it is almost immediately put into service, appearing at conventions and events for children. The droids have even starred in television commercials for companies like Verizon and ESPN and cruised across the red carpet at movie premiers.

When a pair of the hand crafted R2 units took to the stage on Friday at Wondercon, They were greeted with the type of "oohs and ahhs" normally reserved for cute animal videos or small children performing adorable tricks.

"I was poor when I was a kid so I took my toys apart and put them back together," fellow builder Mike Senna said of how he first became inspired to join the R2 club.

The R2-D2 Builders Club had humble beginnings when creator Dave Everett first launched the club as a Yahoo group, posting the blueprints showing how other aspiring builders could follow his lead.

Today, the club has thousands of members around the world and brought dozens of their robots to the most recent, annual Star Wars Celebration event.

" At the StarWars Celebration we even have droid races, including a mouse droid race," said Michael McMaster. "But when I started I was electronics illiterate."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/build-own-r2d2-062419995.html

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Great Clips President Charlie Simpson to Receive ... - Franchising.com

MINNEAPOLIS - March 22, 2013 - Great Clips President Charlie Simpson has been selected to receive the ShareOn Corporate Leader Resources Leadership Award on March 28 at the Annual Share On Forum in Minneapolis. Each year, ShareOn Corporate Leader Resources honors a business leader who demonstrates exemplary behavior supporting the development of leaders within their organization, has contributed to a program or product that supports leadership development and shows a willingness to share perspectives and insights about leadership with others in our community.

?Charlie Simpson is one of the best franchise executives I have met,? said Ray Barton, Chairman of Great Clips. ?He has had a huge impact on Great Clips. His calm, professional manner and direct approach to problem solving inspires confidence in all those around him. Charlie has helped Great Clips through a succession planning process, and he is a great mentor and coach.?

Mr. Simpson joined Great Clips in January 1999 as the Vice President of Franchise Development. He served as the Senior Vice President of Franchise Development from July 2001 to May 2004, and Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer from June 2004 to January 2011. He was promoted to President in February 2011.

Prior to joining Great Clips in 1999, Mr. Simpson gained more than 25 years of experience performing various executive roles in franchise operations and franchise sales with The Southland Corporation, franchisor of 7-Eleven convenience stores. His unique perspective on franchising was not only developed on the corporate side, but from the franchisee perspective as well. He and his wife have owned and operated two separate franchise businesses, including two Great Clips salons in Dallas.

About Great Clips, Inc.

Great Clips, Inc. was established in 1982 in Minneapolis. Today, Great Clips has more than 3,300 salons throughout the United States and Canada, making it the world?s largest salon brand. Great Clips salons employ nearly 30,000 stylists who receive ongoing training to learn advanced skills and the latest trends. Make Great Clips your choice for value-priced, high-quality haircare for men, women and children. No appointments needed, and salons are open nights and weekends. And, it?s more convenient than ever with Great Clips? Online Check-In and Clip Notes. To check-in online, visit www.greatclips.com or download the app for Android and iPhone. For more information about Great Clips, Inc. or to find a location near you, visit www.greatclips.com.

SOURCE Great Clips, Inc.

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Boost Your Environment With These Home Improvement Some ...

As a homeowner, you might want to liven up the spot simply to change the typical environment and sometimes even to add a lot of benefit to your house in order to refinance for lower monthly obligations. Regardless of your good reasons for wanting to take on a project, you ought to study these home improvement guidelines and first take time. You need to avoid just choosing the best value from a company, when coming up with renovations on your own house. Often times, it will be too good to be true and you?ll have to spend a large amount of money to correct damages. Besides that, it can be very stressful for you personally. Save yourself the hassle and find the best specialist you can find instead of the cheapest. To offer old a facelift to units, think about a striking, odd result such as crackling if not decoupage. This is a good way to change the look of one?s home with no expense of replacing cabinets, particularly those that are still in good physical condition. Just make sure to coat your handiwork with a topcoat that does not yellow over time. Before you invest in a fresh paint color for the outside of your property, take some time driving around and looking at houses that you such as the color and look scheme of. Paint chips are too much to imagine, so seeing it personally can help you produce a better decision. To obtain do-it-yourself a few ideas you might not have otherwise, visit a hardware store and only window look for one hour. Even in home electronics, you will find continually new products and technologies, and new applications come with them. Just walk the aisles together with your arms in your pocket for an hour and absorb it all in. Mull it over and go home, emotionally placing items in your home, and then go straight back for the challenge. After reading these methods, you are one step nearer to finally making these repairs or upgrades. What is the next step, you ask? Well, correct implementation of the above ideas and tactics is the manner in which you want to proceed. No shortcuts here; apply just what you?ve learned to discover the best results.Roof Link Inc.2730 Isabella Blvd #50? Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250(904) 900-2801
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Source: http://www.fantasyfootballfiles.com/boost-your-environment-with-these-home-improvement-some-ideas/

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Tender turtles: Their mums do care after all

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Rep. Bruce Braley Apologizes for '#TrailOfTears' Tweet

Rep. Don Young might not be the only member of Congress in need of some sensitivity training.

After the Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Arizona Wildcats Thursday night in the college basketball tournament with a tie-breaking 3-pointer from LaQuinton Ross with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, tweeted: "It's official. Ohio State is the luckiest team in the tournament. #TrailOfTears."

That #TrailOfTears hashtag quickly drew a negative response on Twitter, prompting Braley to delete the tweet within an hour. It was archived, nevertheless.

Braley, who is serving his fourth term in the House, then attempted to clarify his intent with a tweet-pology in the wee hours of the morning, explaining that he was identifying with the pain of Iowa State fans who suffered defeat at the hands of Ohio State last week.

"The 'tears' I was referring to were the tears of [Iowa State] Cyclone fans. I have removed the tweet & apologize to anyone who was offended," Braley, 55, tweeted.

The Trail of Tears is the route thousands of Cherokee traveled by foot, horse, wagon or steamboat from 1838 to 1839 after the U.S. government forcefully removed them from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee to live in Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma.

The National Park Service says that hundreds of Cherokee died during the grueling trek, while thousands more perished after being displaced.

The Braley story was first reported by the Des Moines Register. Braley is hoping to replace Iowa's retiring Sen. Tom Harkin in the U.S. Senate.

Braley's comment comes amid the furor created by Alaska congressman Young's referring to Latinos as "wetbacks" in an interview with public radio station KRBD published Thursday.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rep-bruce-braley-apologizes-trailoftears-tweet-192207483--abc-news-politics.html

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Health reform remains a mystery ? Bankrate, Inc.

Here's a fun exercise: Stop any average Jane or Joe on the street and ask them to list three salient features of health care reform. Then stand back and count the duhs.

What's the biggest obstacle now facing President Barack Obama's historic overhaul of American health insurance, what with early enrollment in the law's new state health exchanges just six months away?

Most people still don't get it?-- including those who will be able to afford health insurance for the first time because of it.

Survey finds a lack of understanding

A poll released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than two-thirds (67 percent) of uninsured Americans age 65 and under, and 57 percent of the overall population, say they do not understand how the?Affordable Care Act will affect their lives. Among those from households with annual incomes of less than $40,000?who thus?would be most likely to?use the exchanges, 68 percent felt they had insufficient information to understand the impact health reform will have on their family.

In fact, what little clear sky the public was able to glimpse during the three-year political thunderstorm over health insurance reform seems to have?clouded over?with time. Today, 57 percent incorrectly believe the federal government will negotiate prices with doctors, half believe the law will help illegal immigrants buy health insurance, and 40 percent -- including 35 percent of seniors -- still expect "death panels" to spring forth?to make life-or-death decisions for Medicare beneficiaries.

Most have doubts

No wonder a majority of those polled were less than certain that health care reform would control costs, improve the quality of care and protect consumers. After all, if change is usually scary, change we don't understand is even more so.

Having written about most parts of the health reform law during the past three years, I'll be the first to admit it's a bear: incredibly complex, cleverly interwoven and, in my opinion, frequently brilliant. What's more, because most of its impact so far has been confined to hospitals, doctor's offices and insurance boardrooms, the public at large hasn't really had a chance to kick the tires.

But with tire-kicking time fast approaching as the state exchanges open this fall, it's clear from these poll numbers that federal and state health officials, and those of us who write about them, have plenty of work ahead to introduce Americans to their new, supposedly improved health care system.

Follow me on Twitter: @omnisaurus

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Jay MacDonald is a Bankrate contributing editor and co-author of "Future Millionaires' Guidebook," an e-book by Bankrate editors and reporters.

Source: http://www.bankrate.com/financing/insurance/health-reform-remains-a-mystery/

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Hybris Launches ?Omni-channel? Commerce Platform | ChannelBiz ...

Vendor?s hubris as it claims world first platform for both in-store and online shopping retail processes

Commerce platform provider Hybris has launched the latest release of its Commerce Suite, which it claims is the ?first? commerce platform to give B2B and B2C organisations true ?omni-channel? capabilities on a single technology stack. Though companies like NetSuite may choose to argue against the claim to be first.

Among the new features are consumer and in-store business tools to manage functions like ?buy online, pick up in store?, businesses can now design, develop and deploy commerce services quickly and over more channels.

An Order Management Services for OmniCommerce extends Hybris? ordering capabilities by enabling businesses to support any fulfilment process that goes across both in-store and online channels.

The services provide an overview of a customer?s entire inventory, sourcing and allocation positions to optimise fulfilment processes, and ?pick, pack and ship? capability to support the operational processes in-store. This, it said, ensured more convenience for shoppers while reducing operational costs for businesses.

The Hybris InStore Module enables high street shops to benefit from the product data and business process support offered by the vendor.?This means that shop staff can use a tablet to allow customers to check out reviews and ratings of product while in store. The user interface includes QR-Code reading as well as NFC capabilities, shows stock levels across the entire organisation, and displays product information to help customers choose the right products.

There are also new native Mobile App SDKs for iOS and Android so businesses can build mobile store apps. These include pre-designed mobile storefront templates that include QR code scanning, NFC tag recognition, customer management, mobile search and check-out out of the box.

?Retailers, brands and manufacturers are racing to meet the increasing demands of the modern consumer. Businesses need to have systems that allow them to innovate faster. With the Hybris Commerce Suite, implementing an omni-channel vision is no longer a multi-year process for B2C and B2B businesses,? said Ariel Luedi, CEO of Hybris. ?It is now within the realm of possibility for them to set up a true omni-channel commerce platform in under six months.?

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Source: http://www.channelbiz.co.uk/2013/03/28/hybris-launches-omni-channel-commerce-platform/

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EPA taking aim at auto emissions, sulfur in gas

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Reducing sulfur in gasoline and tightening emissions standards on cars beginning in 2017, as the Obama administration is proposing, would come with costs as well as rewards. The cost at the pump for cleaner air across the country could be less than a penny or as high as 9 cents a gallon, depending on who is providing the estimate.

An oil industry study says the proposed rule being unveiled Friday by the administration could increase gasoline prices by 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates an increase of less than a penny and an additional $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025.

The EPA is quick to add that the change aimed at cleaning up gasoline and automobile emissions would yield billions of dollars in health benefits by 2030 by slashing smog- and soot-forming pollution. Still, the oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats have pressed the EPA to delay the rule, citing higher costs.

Environmentalists hailed the proposal as potentially the most significant in President Barack Obama's second term.

The so-called Tier 3 standards would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, by expanding across the country a standard already in place in California. For states, the regulation would make it easier to comply with health-based standards for the main ingredient in smog and soot. For automakers, the regulation allows them to sell the same autos in all 50 states.

The Obama administration already has moved to clean up motor vehicles by adopting rules that will double fuel efficiency and putting in place the first standards to reduce the pollution from cars and trucks blamed for global warming.

"We know of no other air pollution control strategy that can achieve such substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Becker said the rule would reduce pollution equal to taking 33 million cars off the road.

But the head of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, said in an interview Thursday that the refiners' group was still unclear on the motives behind the agency's regulation, since refining companies already have spent $10 billion to reduce sulfur by 90 percent. The additional cuts, while smaller, will cost just as much, Drevna said, and the energy needed for the additional refining actually could increase carbon pollution by 1 percent to 2 percent.

"I haven't seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn't said it would cost only a penny or two more," Drevna said.

A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that lowering the sulfur in gasoline would add 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon to refiners' manufacturing costs, an increase that likely would be passed on to consumers at the pump. The EPA estimate of less than 1 cent is also an additional manufacturing cost and likely to be passed on.

A senior administration official said Thursday that only 16 of 111 refineries would need to invest in major equipment to meet the new standards, which could be final by the end of this year. Of the remaining refineries, 29 already are meeting the standards because they are selling cleaner fuel in California or other countries, and 66 would have to make modifications.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rule was still undergoing White House budget office review.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-taking-aim-auto-emissions-sulfur-gas-071021486--finance.html

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A Delicious Craft Beer Deserves a Glorious Handmade Growler

If you want to drink fresh, limited-release microbrews, then a growler is indispensable. You see, the truly great stuff doesn't come in bottles: You need to go somewhere that has it on tap get them to sell you a hearty pour. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9S6DCsv7dGs/a-delicious-craft-brew-deserves-a-glorious-handmade-growler

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(Moved): First time home buyer - Zillow Real Estate Advice

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Moved-First-time-home-buyer/485259/

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Even graphene has weak spots

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon, has become famous for its extraordinary strength. But less-than-perfect sheets of the material show unexpected weakness, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The kryptonite to this Superman of materials is in the form of a seven-atom ring that inevitably occurs at the junctions of grain boundaries in graphene, where the regular array of hexagonal units is interrupted. At these points, under tension, polycrystalline graphene has about half the strength of pristine samples of the material.

Calculations by the Rice team of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues in China were reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. They could be important to materials scientists using graphene in applications where its intrinsic strength is a key feature, like composite materials and stretchable or flexible electronics.

Graphene sheets grown in a lab, often via chemical vapor deposition, are almost neverperfect arrays of hexagons, Yakobson said. Domains of graphene that start to grow on a substrate are not necessarily lined up with each other, and when these islands merge, they look like quilts, with patterns going in every direction.

The lines in polycrystalline sheets are called grain boundaries, and the atoms at these boundaries are occasionally forced to change the way they bond by the unbreakable rules of topology. Most common of the "defects" in graphene formation studied by Yakobson's group are adjacent five- and seven-atom rings that are a little weaker than the hexagons around them.

The team calculated that the particular seven-atom rings found at junctions of three islands are the weakest points, where cracks are most likely to form. These are the end points of grain boundaries between the islands and are ongoing trouble spots, the researchers found.

"In the past, people studying what happens at the grain boundary looked at it as an infinite line," Yakobson said. "It's simpler that way, computationally and conceptually, because they could just look at a single segment and have it represent the whole."

But in the real world, he said, "these lines form a network. Graphene is usually a quilt made from many pieces. I thought we should test the junctions."

They determined through molecular dynamics simulation and "good old mathematical analysis" that in a graphene quilt, the grain boundaries act like levers that amplify the tension (through a dislocation pileup) and concentrate it at the defect either where the three domains meet or where a grain boundary between two domains ends. "The details are complicated but, basically, the longer the lever, the greater the amplification on the weakest point," Yakobson said. "The force is concentrated there, and that's where it starts breaking."

"Force on these junctions starts the cracks, and they propagate like cracks in a windshield," said Vasilii Artyukhov, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice and co-author of the paper. "In metals, cracks stop eventually because they become blunt as they propagate. But in brittle materials, that doesn't happen. And graphene is a brittle material, so a crack might go a really long way."

Yakobson said that conceptually, the calculations show what metallurgists recognize as the Hall-Petch Effect, a measure of the strength of crystalline materials with similar grain boundaries. "It's one of the pillars of large-scale material mechanics," he said. "For graphene, we call this a pseudo Hall-Petch, because the effect is very similar even though the mechanism is very different.

"Any defect, of course, does something to the material," Yakobson said. "But this finding is important because you cannot avoid the effect in polycrystalline graphene. It's also ironic, because polycrystals are often considered when larger domains are needed. We show that as it gets larger, it gets weaker.

"If you need a patch of graphene for mechanical performance, you'd better go for perfect monocrystals or graphene with rather small domains that reduce the stress concentration."

Co-authors of the paper are graduate student Zhigong Song and his adviser, Zhiping Xu, an associate professor of engineering mechanics at Tsinghua. Xu is a former researcher in Yakobson's group at Rice. Yakobson is Rice's Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation supported the work at Rice. The National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program and Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology of China supported the work at Tsinghua.

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Story Source:

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

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Zhigong Song, Vasilii I. Artyukhov, Boris I. Yakobson, Zhiping Xu. Pseudo Hall?Petch Strength Reduction in Polycrystalline Graphene. Nano Letters, 2013; : 130325121321001 DOI: 10.1021/nl400542n

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/xg9lzfuF17M/130328142410.htm

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T-Mobile acknowledges layoffs at Bellevue headquarters

It's never easy to share news of job losses, but that's the state of things at T-Mobile's US headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. Today, the carrier confirmed to us that layoffs are currently underway, which comes in advance of the UnCarrier's merger with MetroPCS. While T-Mobile representatives withheld specifics, The Seattle Times reports that somewhere between 200 and 300 employees have been laid off, whose jobs range from administrative assistants to senior vice presidents. This news follows reports of job cuts earlier this month, which are said to have affected more than 100 people in the marketing department and other divisions. For its part, T-Mobile suggests the decision was made in order to better focus its resources, which seems plausible, given its scrappy new approach in the mobile industry. It's certainly a bitter pill to swallow, but you'll find the carrier's statement after the break.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

Comments

Source: The Seattle Times (1), (2)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Rsdpb1G7YeQ/

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S&P 500 closes at a record high, beating '07 mark

NEW YORK (AP) ? For the second time in less than a month, the stock market marched past another milepost on its long, turbulent journey back from the Great Recession, toppling another record left over from the days before government bailouts and failing investment banks.

The Standard & Poor's 500 closed at a new high Thursday, three weeks after another popular market gauge, the Dow Jones industrial average, obliterated its own closing record. The S&P capped its best quarter in a year, rising 10 percent, and the Dow had its best first quarter in 15 years, climbing 11 percent.

The numbers offer more evidence that investors believe the economy is on the mend, said Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ.

"The low-flying recovery is gaining altitude," Stovall said, citing a truism among investors that rising stock prices come first, then the economy catches up.

Thursday's performance was driven by encouraging economic data. Companies are making record profits quarter after quarter. They're hiring in greater numbers, and the housing market is finally recovering. The economy has expanded for 14 quarters in a row.

The Fed has helped, too. By keeping interest rates near record lows, the central bank has encouraged people to move money out of savings accounts that pay next to nothing and into stocks and other investments.

Investors warned clients not to get overly excited.

"Getting back to where we were is an important step," said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. But he cautioned in a note to investors: "Markets are volatile, and if you are a long-term investor you should expect declines."

On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 6.34 points, or 0.41 percent, to 1,569.19, beating by four points its previous record of 1,565.15 set on Oct. 9, 2007. The index is still shy of its all-time trading high of 1,576.09.

The index has now recovered all of its losses from the recession and the financial crisis that followed. Investors who put their dividends back into the market have done even better. A $10,000 investment in the S&P back in October 2007 would be worth $11,270.

On any other day, a market gain of six points would go unheralded but not after the turmoil that began in late 2008 and persisted through a slow, sometimes stalled recovery.

The S&P 500 is a barometer that gauges market performance. And while professional investors might scoff at using it to decide when to buy and sell, the breaking of an old record can be psychologically important.

However, many obstacles still loom.

The U.S. economy is stable, but growth is anemic. Unemployment is 7.7 percent, versus 4.7 percent, the last time the S&P notched a record. The European debt crisis is far from resolved. And some investors are concerned that the market's gains are being fueled by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy and will disappear once the Fed reverses course.

The crisis of the moment is Cyprus, the Mediterranean island country that struggled this week to get an emergency bailout. For many investors, the bailout deal was a reminder of Europe's lingering economic problems. Elsewhere, Italy failed to set up a new government this week, raising fears that the country will be unable to manage its deep debts.

On Thursday, U.S. economic news was mixed.

The U.S. economy grew faster than first estimated in the fourth quarter, the government reported. But the growth, an annual rate of 0.4 percent, was still weak. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped for the second straight week. Longer-term, though, applications for benefits have been declining since November.

In Europe, Cyprus reopened its banks after closing them for nearly two weeks to keep depositors from making panicked withdrawals. Portugal reported that its budget deficit was widening.

"If you're a bull or a bear, you could find enough news out there to convince you of your position," said Jim Lauder, CEO of Global Index Advisors in Marietta, Ga., and co-portfolio manager on Wells Fargo Advantage Dow Jones Target Date Funds.

Brian Singer, partner at William Blair in Chicago, said the market's gains Thursday were more about a lack of any major negative developments than the appearance of any good ones.

"We are looking at a realization that Western civilization is not ending as we know it," Singer said. "Fiscal discussions in the U.S. have settled into an acceptable stalemate. The Italian elections that did not result in a government are on hold. Cyprus hasn't sunk into the Mediterranean."

Thursday marked the end of the first quarter, since markets are closed for Good Friday. Overall, it was a strong quarter.

The Dow climbed for the first 10 trading days of March ? a record not matched in more than 16 years. In the past 10 days, though, it has wavered under the weight of Cyprus.

The Dow rose 11 percent in the first three months of the year, its best quarterly performance since the fourth quarter of 2011. Last year, it lost ground in two quarters and was up by smaller amounts ? 4 percent and 8 percent ? in the other two. On March 5, it beat its own all-time record of 14,164.53, which was also set on Oct. 9, 2007, and has been climbing ever since.

To be sure, the S&P 500's last record was followed by a painful downfall. By March 2009, long after the subprime mortgage market had been revealed as an unsustainable bubble, the S&P had cratered from its lofty heights. On March 9, 2009, it fell to its Great Recession low of 676.53 ? down 57 percent from its October 2007 pinnacle.

With Thursday's gains, it has climbed 132 percent since reaching the bottom. Including dividends, it is up more than 150 percent.

___

Associated Press Business Writer Matt Craft in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/p-500-closes-record-high-beating-07-mark-201022179--finance.html

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Engineers enable 'bulk' silicon to emit visible light for the first time

Mar. 27, 2013 ? Electronic computing speeds are brushing up against limits imposed by the laws of physics. Photonic computing, where photons replace comparatively slow electrons in representing information, could surpass those limitations, but the components of such computers require semiconductors that can emit light.

Now, research from the University of Pennsylvania has enabled "bulk" silicon to emit broad-spectrum, visible light for the first time, opening the possibility of using the element in devices that have both electronic and photonic components.

The research was conducted by associate professor Ritesh Agarwal, postdoctoral fellow Chang-Hee Cho and graduate students Carlos O. Aspetti and Joohee Park, all of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Their work was published in Nature Photonics.

Certain semiconductors, when imparted with energy, in turn emit light; they directly produce photons, instead of producing heat. This phenomenon is commonplace and used in light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, which are ubiquitous in traffic signals, new types of light bulbs, computer displays and other electronic and optoelectronic devices. Getting the desired photonic properties often means finding the right semiconducting material. Agarwal's group produced the first ever all-optical switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires, for example.

Semiconducting materials -- especially silicon -- form the backbone of modern electronics and computing, but, unfortunately, silicon is an especially poor emitter of light. It belongs to a group of semiconducting materials, which turns added energy into heat. This makes integrating electronic and photonic circuits a challenge; materials with desirable photonic properties, such as cadmium sulfide, tend to have poor electrical properties and vice versa and are not compatible with silicon-based electronic devices.

"The problem is that electronic devices are made of silicon and photonic devices are typically not," Agarwal said. "Silicon doesn't emit light and the materials that do aren't necessarily the best materials for making electronic devices."

With silicon entrenched as the material of choice for the electronics industry, augmenting its optical properties so it could be integrated into photonic circuitry would make consumer-level applications of the technology more feasible.

"People have tried to solve this problem by doping silicon with other materials, but the light emission is then in the very long wavelength range, so it's not visible and not very efficient and can degrade its electronic properties," Agarwal said. "Another approach is to make silicon devices that are very small, five nanometers in diameter or less. At that size you have quantum confinement effects, which allows the device to emit light, but making electrical connections at that scale isn't currently feasible, and the electrical conductivity would be very low."

To get elemental, "bulk" silicon to emit light, Agarwal's team drew upon previous research they had conducted on plasmonic cavities. In that earlier work, the researchers wrapped a cadmium sulfide nanowire first in a layer of silicon dioxide, essentially glass, and then in a layer of silver. The silver coating supports what are known as surface plasmons, waves that are a combination of oscillating metal electrons and of light. These surface plasmons are highly confined to the surface where the silicon dioxide and silver layers meet. For certain nanowire sizes, the silver coating creates pockets of resonance and hence highly confined electromagnetic fields -- in other words, light -- within the nanostructure.

Normally, after excitation the semiconductor must first "cool down," releasing energy as heat, before "jumping" back to the ground state and finally releasing the remaining energy as light. The Penn team's semiconductor nanowires coupled with plasmonic nanocavities, however, can jump directly from a high-energy excited state to the ground state, all but eliminating the heat-releasing cool-down period. This ultra-fast emission time opens the possibility of producing light from semiconductors such as silicon that might otherwise only produce heat.

"If we can make the carriers recombine immediately," Agarwal said, "then we can produce light in silicon."

In their latest work, the group wrapped pure silicon nanowires in a similar fashion, first with a coating of glass and then one of silver. In this case, however, the silver did not wrap completely around the wire as the researchers first mounted the glass-coated silicon on a sperate pane of glass. Tucking under the curve of the wire but unable to go between it and the glass substrate, the silver coating took on the shape of the greek letter omega -- ? -- while still acting as a plasmonic cavity.

Critically, the transparent bottom of the omega allowed the researchers to impart energy to the semiconductor with a laser and then examine the light silicon emitted.

Even though the silicon nanowire is excited at a single energy level, which corresponds to the wavelength of the blue laser, it produces white light that spans the visible spectrum. This translates into a broad bandwidth for possible operation in a photonic or optoelectronic device. In the future, it should also be possible to excite these silicon nanowires electrically.

"If you can make the silicon emit light itself, you don't have to have an external light source on the chip," Agarwal said. "We could excite the silicon electrically and get the same effect, and we can make it work with wires from 20 to 100 nanometers in diameter, so it's very compatible in terms of length scale with current electronics."

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Institutes of Health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.

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Journal Reference:

1. Chang-Hee Cho, Carlos O. Aspetti, Joohee Park, Ritesh Agarwal. Silicon coupled with plasmon nanocavities generates bright visible hot luminescence. Nature Photonics, 2013; 7 (4): 285 DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.25

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/U1h28iUkbn4/130327133517.htm

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CyberTech Technology. [Don't post]

Technology in 2066 hasn't changed much, aside from the minor (and major)improvements in efficiency. There are still no flying cars, there are still no soldiers wearing power armor (even though the idea is being heavily researched into and has already progressed into multiple prototype stages). Hell, there still aren't any robots fighting our enemies in our place.

The future lied to all of us.

Oh, wait.

We're part of CyberTech Security (more specifically, the Special Activities Division). Being part of a privately owned Research and Development company, that holds contracts with DARPA and the CDC (or what's left of both organizations), designing military-grade weapons and equipment (such as power armor, perhaps?) While our tech can be considered on par with the United States military, being part of Delta Squad certainly has its perks: We get to wear whatever fuckin' armor we can wear (including our own modifications, provided that Corporate gives us the green light on what we can mod), whatever fuckin' weapons we can hold in our two hands, and certainly operate whatever fuckin' vehicles we can climb into.

Provided we stay and work together.

Here's a list of the list of "shit" CyberTech has to offer to us (special people).

AEGIS Advanced Armor Defense System
The AEGIS AADS is self-contained and capable of withstanding most elements and hazardous conditions, created by Cybertech Corporation as a modular means of defense against the infection, exclusively for the 102nd Special Activities Division. The suit's Tactical helmet sports limited air supply and air filters, and completely encases the operative's head and face. Sensors built into the helmet allow them to also see in infra-red and night-vision, crucial should the lights go out. A comm system is build into the face-mask, including a broadcast speaker.

It enhances the speed and power of the wearer, a sharp contrast to previous versions which required powered motors to allow the users mobility. Because of this advancement, the design more closely resembles an actual suit of armor, as opposed to a powered exoskeleton. On one level, the user moves the suit, and in return, the suit moves the user. This allowed for an incredibly compact design when compared to the previous incarnations.

The pyramid-shaped helmet has led to the nickname of "Diamondback" by both military and security personnel alike.

XLR8 Advanced Reconnaissance Combative Awareness Suit
The ARCAS is a Ghost-exclusive variation of the AEGIS AADS, in which instead of the increased protection that the defense system provides, it is outfitted with a lighter amount of armor to provide better mobility. The system is also equipped with a prototype optical cloaking system that helps remove the visual spectrum from any infected that rely on sight. However, since it's in a prototype stage, there are times where the system will fail to activate, often leaving the operative within sight.

Advanced Lifeform Interface for Combat Environments
ALICE is an operative's semi-intelligence system. Also known as their best friend. Programmed into each operative's suit, ALICE will provide basic information regarding its user, such as both mental and physical conditions, as well as information relating to other members of the operative's team via voice commands. It will also provide both basic and tactical information about the user's environment, such as temperature and infection levels, and is capable of providing the general location of other users (including Ghost operatives).

ALICE is also connected to Dispatch to provide a stronger connection with Corporate.

[Under Construction]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/2NIrRWCkE1A/viewtopic.php

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95% War Witch

All Critics (42) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (2)

Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen spent nearly a decade researching this docudrama about child soldiers in Africa, and the film feels as authoritative as a first-hand account.

A haunting take on unspeakably grim subject matter, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A powerful and upsetting portrait of a young girl compelled into unimaginably horrific circumstances.

Nguyen, astonishingly, manages to wring something vaguely like a happy ending from this tragic story.

War Witch is most effective not when we are looking in on Komona but when we are inside her head.

The powerful things we expect from "War Witch" are as advertised, but what we don't expect is even better.

Nguyen reportedly worked on "War Witch" for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

Made with extremely clear-eyed restraint from harangues, sentiment, message-mongering, or anything else that would cheapen its central character's suffering and fight.

War Witch features a standout performance by Rachel Mwanza, but the supernatural visions don't really suit the film's tone and mood.

Nguyen's compassion and commitment to the issue is admirable, and at its best, War Witch is devastating.

War Witch is remarkable for the fact that it never strays into sentimentality or sensationalism.

...a love story between youngsters who are forced to become adults all too early in their lives.

This is a straight ahead essay on warfare at its worst and the survival of the human spirit at its best.

An astonishing drama set in Africa that vividly depicts the courage and resiliency of a 12-year-old girl whose spiritual gifts enable her to survive.

It is astonishing that film that contains such violence can have such a serene tone. The source of the serenity is the measured, calm narration by Komona (voice of Diane Umawahoro) that is the telling of her story to her unborn child

An exquisitely made film in direct contrast to the ugliness of its subject matter

The portrait of a girl who retains her dignity and strength, her faith in the future, in the face of unimaginable horrors. It's inspirational in a very real way.

[Despite] so many fictional elements. . . the point of view poignantly emphasizes the special travails of girls within violent societies engaged in constant war.

Writer/director Kim Nguyen...takes us to a place most of us are lucky enough to barely imagine and does so with grace and sometimes even beauty.

While War Witch is a gorgeously made film with strong, natural performances from its leads.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war_witch/

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