Albany, GA: The City of Albany Recreation and Parks Department announces its registration information for the Youth Football and Cheerleading program. The fee is $55 per player for football and $35 for cheerleading. Youth ages 6-12 are eligible to participate; the age control date is August 1, 2013. The child must be present at registration, and the child?s birth certificate and proof of residency are required for registration. The registration period begins August 5 and continues through August 28, Monday through Thursday, from 4:00 pm ? 6:00 pm at the following sites: Albany Recreation and Parks Office at 1301 N. Monroe St.; Thornton Community Center at 210 Thornton Drive, and Carver Sports Complex at 1023 S. McKinley St.
All properly registered youth will be guaranteed placement on a team. Any registration after August 28th will be on a first-come basis, and only as team size and registration limits permit. Football fee during late registration will increase to $65. Football participants will need to furnish their own helmets (NOCSAE approved), pants with pads, and shoes. The Recreation and Parks Department will issue game jerseys. Shoulder pads will also be distributed and need to be returned at the end of the season.
Cheerleading participants are required to furnish their own shoes and shorts. The ARPD will issue a team T-shirt and pom-poms. Practice is scheduled to begin September 3, with the season opening the week of September 16. For additional information, contact Alan Jordan at 229-430-5222 or ajordan@albany.ga.us.
This is what you want from a math teacher. The word problem you see here is what happened after a Redditor's "friend" was caught using his phone during math class. The teacher confiscated the phone, and set the passcode to a certain number, found by answering the problem.
Fifty-five years ago Monday, President Eisenhower signed the Space Act, authorizing the creation of NASA. Since then, the space agency has grown from its Sputnik-shaded beginnings to studying the full scope of the heavens. What will the next 55 years bring?
By Liz Fuller-Wright,?Correspondent / July 31, 2013
Information from three telescopes was combined to create this image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located about 160,000 light years from Earth. X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) show hot regions created by these winds and shocks, while infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (red) outline where the dust and cooler gas are found. The optical light from the 2.2-m Max-Planck-ESO telescope (yellow) in Chile shows where ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars is causing gas in the nebula to glow.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/Reuters
Enlarge
Fifty-six years ago, civilian pilots and military rocket scientists had little in common. And then, on October 7, 1957,?came Sputnik.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Within a year, NASA began operations as a hastily-cobbled-together mix of of civilian aeronautics and military intercontinental ballistic missile research. Now, it's a federal agency examining the entire sweep of the sky.
From its hasty beginnings, NASA has flown 157 missions???86 still ongoing ??visiting almost every large heavenly body between the Sun and Pluto, monitoring the Earth from space, peering into the heart of our galaxy's central black hole, and looking out to distant stars and galaxies. NASA has sent 301 astronauts into space, and is currently training another nine?who will soon fly.
We have a permanent human presence in orbit and 12 men have left footprints on the Moon. NASA's satellites have orbited Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars, the asteroid Vesta, Jupiter, and Saturn; flown by Uranus and Neptune; and another is en route to Pluto. NASA's telescopes are listening to every corner of the universe and looking at billions of stars; they have found hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, plus countless pulsars, black holes, supernovae, and more. NASA and its sister organizations around the world are examining the secrets of the universe, from tiny grains of space dust to dark matter to unthinkably enormous galaxies.
"The 20th?century was quite an amazing time for advances in science and technology, particularly in spaceflight," says Bill Barry, NASA's chief historian. Just 55 years before NASA's creation, in 1903, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, N.C. And now, 55 years later, we've visited the moon, "reconnoitered the solar system ? and revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it," he says.
"Apollo, getting to the moon, developing industries and building infrastructure, exploring our solar system, the Earth, and the larger universe ? that's a pretty good list of accomplishments for 55 years," says Dr. Barry. "It's a pretty good investment for the chunk of money we spent in the '60s plus the maintenance-level investment we've made since then."
The price of exploration
Space spending in 1957 had amounted to around $35 million ($282 million in 2013 dollars), but Sputnik fears loosened federal purse strings. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration officially began its mission October 1, 1958, after President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on July 29. ?In its first year, NASA's budget was about 10 times the 1957 space budget, and it grew rapidly.
MIAMI (AP) ? A Michigan man has been sentenced to 165 years in prison for traveling to Haiti to sexually abuse children in a center for the poor he set up in the Caribbean country.
A federal jury in Miami in February convicted Matthew Andrew Carter on five counts of traveling from Florida for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with minors, along with one count of attempting child sex tourism.
Judge Joan Lenard on Wednesday imposed the maximum sentence sought by prosecutors for the 68-year-old. It was 15 years in prison for the first count and 30 years in prison for each of the remaining charges.
During Wednesday's hearing, Carter disputed the credibility of the witnesses who testified against him, and he questioned the lack of physical evidence presented during his trial.
Ariel Castro listens in the courtroom during the sentencing phase Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, in Cleveland. Three months after an Ohio woman kicked out part of a door to end nearly a decade of captivity, Castro, a onetime school bus driver faces sentencing for kidnapping three women and subjecting them to years of sexual and physical abuse. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Ariel Castro listens in the courtroom during the sentencing phase Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, in Cleveland. Three months after an Ohio woman kicked out part of a door to end nearly a decade of captivity, Castro, a onetime school bus driver faces sentencing for kidnapping three women and subjecting them to years of sexual and physical abuse. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Michelle Knight speaks during the sentencing phase for Ariel Castro Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, in Cleveland. Three months after an Ohio woman kicked out part of a door to end nearly a decade of captivity, Castro, a onetime school bus driver faces sentencing for kidnapping three women and subjecting them to years of sexual and physical abuse. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Michelle Knight sits in the courtroom during a break in the sentencing phase for Ariel Castro Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, in Cleveland. Knight one of the victims of Castro testified at the sentencing Thursday. The appearance by Knight is the first time she?s been seen publicly since her rescue from the house where she was held captive for ten years. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Ariel Castro rubs his nose in the courtroom during the sentencing phase Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, in Cleveland. Three months after an Ohio woman kicked out part of a door to end nearly a decade of captivity, Castro, a onetime school bus driver faces sentencing for kidnapping three women and subjecting them to years of sexual and physical abuse. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Images from the video provided by Hennes Paynter Communications shows from left: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. The three women held captive in a Cleveland home for a decade broke their public silence in a 3-minute, 30-second video posted on YouTube at midnight Monday July 8, 2013. They said the support and prayers of family, friends and the public is allowing them to rebuild their lives after what Berry called "this entire ordeal." (AP Photo/Hennes Paynter Communications)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? The man convicted of holding three women captive in a house he turned into a prison and raping them repeatedly for a decade was sentenced Thursday to life without parole plus 1,000 years.
Ariel Castro, 53, apologized to his victims in a rambling, defiant statement before he was sentenced. He blamed a sex addiction, his former wife and even the FBI for not thoroughly investigating the abductions while claiming most of the sex was consensual and that the women were never tortured.
"These people are trying to paint me as a monster," he said. "I'm not a monster. I'm sick."
Just before the sentencing, one of three women he kidnapped stood within feet of Castro and told him his life was over.
"You took 11 years of my life away and I have got it back," said Michelle Knight. "I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning."
Knight, 32, was the first woman Castro abducted in 2002 after he lured her into his house with the promise of a puppy for her son. Relatives of the other two victims spoke on their behalf.
Judge Michael Russo dismissed Castro's claims that the women lived a happy life with him.
"I'm not sure there's anyone in America that would agree with you," he said.
Castro pleaded guilty last week to 937 counts including aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape and assault. A deal struck with prosecutors Friday spared him from a possible death sentence for beating and starving a pregnant victim until she miscarried.
The judge told Castro that there was no place in the world for people who enslave others. "These women never gave up hope," Russo said. "In fact, they prevailed."
As Castro was led away, Knight watched, smiling.
Thursday's hearing gave prosecutors a chance to detail some of Castro's assaults and law enforcement a chance to describe the jury-rigged prison he built in his ramshackle home.
FBI agent Andrew Burke said Castro created a makeshift alarm system and chained the women inside bolted bedrooms.
Bedroom windows were boarded shut from the inside with heavy closet doors and doorknobs had been removed and replaced with multiple locks, he said. The house was divided in ways to make it more secure and to hide the existence of rooms, he said.
Burke also testified that Castro would occasionally pay his victims after raping them. But he then would require them to pay him if they wanted something special from the store.
The letter written by Castro was found in his home and shown in court. It read "Confession and Details" at the top.
Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Detective Dave Jacobs said he talked with Castro a few days after the women escaped and that Castro said, "I knew what I did was wrong."
A police officer who helped rescue the women said one was reluctant to come out of her room even when she saw the officers. They were scared even after they were taken out of the house and quickly began sharing details about the horrors they went through, saying that they had been starved and beaten.
"They were just shouting out a lot of things," said Cleveland police officer Barb Johnson. She described the women as thin, pale and scared.
Responding to questions from prosecutors, Cleveland police detective Andrew Harasimchuk said that the women all described a pattern of being physically, sexually and emotionally assaulted for years. He said all three women were abducted after Castro offered them a ride and that each was chained in his basement and sexually assaulted within a few hours of being kidnapped.
Prosecutors showed a model of the house where Castro imprisoned the women and displayed photos taken from inside the disheveled home.
Some horrific details of the women's ordeal had already emerged, including tales of being chained to poles in the basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. One woman was forced to wear a motorcycle helmet while chained in the basement and, after she tried to escape, had a vacuum cord wrapped around her neck.
Castro repeatedly starved and beat one of the victims each time she was pregnant, forcing her to miscarry five times.
He forced the same woman on threat of death to safely deliver the child he fathered with another victim on Christmas Day 2006. The same day, prosecutors say, Castro raped the woman who helped deliver his daughter.
The women quickly escaped after Amanda Berry kicked out the door panel on May 6 and Castro was arrested within hours. The women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.
Berry, 27, made a surprise onstage appearance at a rap concert last weekend, and a second victim, Gina DeJesus, 23, has made a few televised comments. Knight appeared with Berry and DeJesus in a video in early July thanking the community for its support.
Sony has announced plans to open a Digital Motion Picture Centre later this year at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire
?
Sony plans to open a new Digital Motion Picture Centre (DMPC) at Pinewood Studios in September that will act as a resource for filmmakers to learn about the latest equipment and technology.
The Japanese company will, in turn, be able to use feedback and data from the DMPC to drive its future 4K product development.
Directors, producers, cinematographers, post-production engineers and freelance operators will all be able to use the facility to get hands-on time with some of Sony's newest filmmaking kit.
This includes the CineAlta family of Super 35mm cameras offering full 4K, 2K and HD shooting for feature films.
Sony is already well ahead with 4K and has several products capable of the 3840 x 2160 resolution including the X9 TV, the 4K SXRD home cinema projector and the Sony FMP-X1 4K media player.
The company has also partnered up with Panasonic to develop the sequel format to Blu-ray which will store 4K content on optical discs.
While the technology is progressing quickly, content has yet to catch up - which is where the new DMPC could change things.
?Our mission is to support the spread of this exciting new technology and help the industry as a whole to seize the creative opportunities it presents," said Katsunori Yamanouchi, VP of Sony Professional Solutions for Europe.
?This new facility will be a place where members of the European production community can meet, find out about the latest technologies and share experiences," he said.
After the lack of appetite for 3D both at the cinema and at home, tech companies are seeing 4K as the next big step. And Sony is planning to lead the charge.
"It is critical for Sony?s future success that we listen to key figures in the industry and take their input to further advance the art of digital production,? Yamanouchi said.
The new Digital Motion Picture Centre is scheduled to open at the end of September 2013.
It'll be a while before MediaTek's true octa-core SoC makes its glorious arrival, but for the time being, the company's unveiling something just as interesting -- and perhaps more practical. The new MT8135 announced today is a "quad-core" SoC aimed at "the middle- to high-end tier of the tablet OEM market." We quote "quad-core," because it actually consists of two clusters: dual Cortex-A15 cores and dual Cortex-A7 cores. But the good news is that unlike the original big.LITTLE configuration where only one cluster can operate at any given time (depending on how heavy the workload is), MediaTek's confirmed that it has implemented big.LITTLE MP ("MP" as in multi-processing) in the MT8135, meaning both the A15 and the A7 clusters can operate simultaneously.
Another highlight of this MT8135 is that it'll be one of the first SoCs -- alongside LG's H13 (which we've seen first-hand), Renesas' APE6 and Renesas' R-Car H2 -- to come with Imagination Technologies' almighty PowerVR Series6 GPU. Specifically, this is the PowerVR G6200 which, as part of the MT8135, can apparently deliver "up to four times more ALU (arithmetic logic unit) horsepower" than the Series5XT GPU on the cheaper, quad-A7 MT8125. And unsurprisingly, the MT8135 gets the same Miracast wireless video goodie given to the MT8125; though it's also worth noting that the latter only supports LPDDR2 RAM instead of the more powerful LPDDR3.
Sadly, there's no further information regarding availability, but you can kill some time by checking out more technical details in the video (with benchmarks) and press releases after the break.
I used to have a yoga ball instead of a chair (but the ball got a flat), and boy did I feel it in my core! I spend a few hours in front of the computer every day, and those core muscles got their workout, let me tell you, Now, I'm not capable to just sit still on a ball like that, I was constantly 'rolling around' on a small scale, a few cm this way, a few cm that way and I guess that helped a lot too. Still, I think you could get one of those balls for 5-10 bucks at wahlmart or something, it might be worth the investment. There are a multitude of youtube vids available for free that will teach you various back-strenghtening excercises too.
Other than that, anything that works your core will help.
Also, try to move around a little at your station instead of standing stock-still (shift your weight between your feet, take a babystep toward/away from your station, shimmey your hips, whatever, just keep your circulation going), and take frequent, short breaks (maybe even just 15-30sec or so) to strech out your back every 10-20 min, and start doing that from the moment you start your shift, not when you are starting to feel the strain.
Oh, and make sure that your shoes are not only comfortable, but gives you the best type of support and cushioning thet you need. In my country you can go to certain sports stores and they will liik ar your feet and gait and stuff like that and they can help you. Of course if you already know you don't have 'perfect feet', go see an orthopedic person who can help you.
Zach Galifianakis, seen with "SNL's" Jason Sudeikis, hosted the show Saturday night.
After the total misfire that was Vince Vaughn?s episode, "Saturday Night Live" was back in fantastic form with host Zach Galifianakisthis week.
The actor played a role in nearly every comedic segment, and we think Galifianakis trails only Justin Timberlake as the best host of the season.
Galifianakis wore a number of hilarious costumes throughout the night, starting with a dragon suit to play Game of Game of Thrones, a Jeopardy!-style quiz show testing contestants on all things George R. R. Martin.
PHOTOS: From Live TV to the Big Screen: 12 'SNL' Sketches Made Into Movies
But for some reason, poor Galifianakis kept getting real-world questions he couldn't answer. For example: The Lannisters are the wealthiest family in Westeros, but let?s say they want to put their money in a Roth IRA. What is a Roth IRA?
Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) showed up as himself, giving Galifianakis a thrill.
?I would make a great best friend,? Galifianakis told the handsome actor. ?We could shower together, and I wouldn?t look down, even though I wanted to.?
Later, Galifianakis got last place in a Jennifer Aniston look-alike contest, while his "Hangover" costars Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms tied for first. It doesn't get much better than seeing the Wolf Pack together in Aniston wigs.
THR COVER: The Uncensored Oral History of 'The Hangover'
In his opening monologue, Galifianakis delivered a number of short jokes and told a story he claimed happens to him fairly often. He said last week a woman came up to him at a gift card shop and asked ?Has anyone ever told you that you look like the guy from 'The Hangover'?...No offense.?
In a sketch that worked because of Galifianakis? inherent sweetness, he played a racist greeter at an M&M store who tried to make amends for the previous day's offenses.
?I continuously referred to you as the wrong type of Indian,? he told a young woman (Nasim Pedrad). ?But I want to get it right, so please tell me which kind you are and I swear I?ll never ask again.?
When informed she was Pakistani, he responded: ?Is that your tribe??
He also apologized for calling a man (Fred Armisen) a ?dirty Mexican," trying to find common ground by saying ?I?m a total slob. Maybe I don?t deserve to be in this country either."
Galifianakis, Jon Hamm and SNL pulled off one of this season?s wackiest creative fetes in the final minutes of the program. To say more would spoil it, but the two-part sketch about a man with a public access TV show (Galifianakis) has a payoff that makes it absolutely worth watching.
In one of the rare pieces not featuring Galifianakis, Match.com touted its newest client,Martha Stewart (Kate McKinnon). In real life, Stewart revealed this week she has joined the service, though the details she gave weren?t put quite so pruient as McKinnon?s take, who said she "likes the simple elegance of a good bang.?
"SNL" is new next week with host Kristen Wiig and musical guest Vampire Weekend.
Childhood disability rate jumps 16 percent over past decadePublic release date: 5-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Debbie Jacobson djacobson@aap.org 847-434-7084 American Academy of Pediatrics
Number of kids with neurodevelopmental disabilities increases, but limitations due to physical conditions decrease
WASHINGTON, DC More children today have a disability than a decade ago, and the greatest increase is among kids in higher-income families, according to a study to be presented Sunday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC.
The study also found that disabilities related to physical health conditions have decreased, while disabilities due to neurodevelopmental and mental health problems have increased greatly.
"Nearly 6 million kids had a disability in 2009-2010 almost 1 million more than in 2001-2002," said lead author Amy J. Houtrow, MD, PhD, MPH, chief, Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and pediatrics at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Houtrow said previous studies have indicated that the prevalence of childhood disability is increasing. She and her colleagues wanted to look more closely at the conditions and socio-demographic factors associated with disabilities.
The researchers analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001-2002 and survey data from 2009-2010. A total of 102,468 parents of children ages 0-17 years participated in the surveys.
Parents were asked whether their child had any limitations in play or activity, received special education services, needed help with personal care, had difficulty walking without equipment, had difficulty with memory or had any other limitation.
If they answered yes to any of those questions, they were asked whether their child's limitations were due to a vision or hearing problem; asthma or breathing problem; joint, bone or muscle problem; intellectual deficit or mental retardation; emotional or behavior problems; epilepsy; learning disability; speech problems; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; birth defect; injury or other developmental problem.
Researchers classified conditions into three groups: physical, neurodevelopmental/mental health and other.
Results showed that the prevalence of disability increased 16.3 percent from 2001-2002 to 2009-2010.
While neurodevelopmental and mental health-related disabilities increased, those due to physical conditions decreased. This trend was most notable among children under 6 years of age whose rate of neurodevelopmental disabilities nearly doubled over the study period from 19 cases to 36 cases per 1,000 children.
"The survey did not break out autism, but we suspect that some of the increase in neurodevelopmental disabilities is due to the rising incidence or recognition of autism spectrum disorders," Dr. Houtrow said.
The data also showed that children living in poverty experienced the highest rates of disability at both time periods but not the highest growth. The largest increase was seen among children living in households with incomes at or above 300 percent of the federal poverty level (about $66,000 a year for a family of four).
"We are worried that those living in poverty may be having problems with being diagnosed and getting services," Dr. Houtrow said.
Since the study could not pinpoint why the disability rate is increasing, more research is needed, she concluded.
###
To view the abstract, "Childhood Disability Trends, 2000-2010," go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS13L1_2600.3.
The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) are four individual pediatric organizations that co-sponsor the PAS Annual Meeting the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Academic Pediatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Members of these organizations are pediatricians and other health care providers who are practicing in the research, academic and clinical arenas. The four sponsoring organizations are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy within pediatrics, and all share a common mission of fostering the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow news of the PAS meeting on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PedAcadSoc.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Childhood disability rate jumps 16 percent over past decadePublic release date: 5-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Debbie Jacobson djacobson@aap.org 847-434-7084 American Academy of Pediatrics
Number of kids with neurodevelopmental disabilities increases, but limitations due to physical conditions decrease
WASHINGTON, DC More children today have a disability than a decade ago, and the greatest increase is among kids in higher-income families, according to a study to be presented Sunday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC.
The study also found that disabilities related to physical health conditions have decreased, while disabilities due to neurodevelopmental and mental health problems have increased greatly.
"Nearly 6 million kids had a disability in 2009-2010 almost 1 million more than in 2001-2002," said lead author Amy J. Houtrow, MD, PhD, MPH, chief, Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and pediatrics at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Houtrow said previous studies have indicated that the prevalence of childhood disability is increasing. She and her colleagues wanted to look more closely at the conditions and socio-demographic factors associated with disabilities.
The researchers analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001-2002 and survey data from 2009-2010. A total of 102,468 parents of children ages 0-17 years participated in the surveys.
Parents were asked whether their child had any limitations in play or activity, received special education services, needed help with personal care, had difficulty walking without equipment, had difficulty with memory or had any other limitation.
If they answered yes to any of those questions, they were asked whether their child's limitations were due to a vision or hearing problem; asthma or breathing problem; joint, bone or muscle problem; intellectual deficit or mental retardation; emotional or behavior problems; epilepsy; learning disability; speech problems; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; birth defect; injury or other developmental problem.
Researchers classified conditions into three groups: physical, neurodevelopmental/mental health and other.
Results showed that the prevalence of disability increased 16.3 percent from 2001-2002 to 2009-2010.
While neurodevelopmental and mental health-related disabilities increased, those due to physical conditions decreased. This trend was most notable among children under 6 years of age whose rate of neurodevelopmental disabilities nearly doubled over the study period from 19 cases to 36 cases per 1,000 children.
"The survey did not break out autism, but we suspect that some of the increase in neurodevelopmental disabilities is due to the rising incidence or recognition of autism spectrum disorders," Dr. Houtrow said.
The data also showed that children living in poverty experienced the highest rates of disability at both time periods but not the highest growth. The largest increase was seen among children living in households with incomes at or above 300 percent of the federal poverty level (about $66,000 a year for a family of four).
"We are worried that those living in poverty may be having problems with being diagnosed and getting services," Dr. Houtrow said.
Since the study could not pinpoint why the disability rate is increasing, more research is needed, she concluded.
###
To view the abstract, "Childhood Disability Trends, 2000-2010," go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS13L1_2600.3.
The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) are four individual pediatric organizations that co-sponsor the PAS Annual Meeting the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Academic Pediatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Members of these organizations are pediatricians and other health care providers who are practicing in the research, academic and clinical arenas. The four sponsoring organizations are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy within pediatrics, and all share a common mission of fostering the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow news of the PAS meeting on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PedAcadSoc.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
British human rights activists say about 4,000 people have fled the predominantly Sunni Mediterranean city of Banias. At least 62 people, including children were killed Friday by pro-government gunmen and troops.
By Bassem Mroue,?Associated Press / May 4, 2013
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (c.) walks among his supporters during an inauguration of a memorial dedicated to university students who died during the country's ongoing civil war at Damascus University May 4. On Saturday, thousands of Sunni Muslims fled the Mediterranean city Banias after pro-government gunmen shot more than 60 people Friday.
Reuters
Enlarge
Thousands of Sunni Muslims fled a Syrian coastal town Saturday, a day after reports circulated that dozens of people, including children, had been killed by pro-government gunmen in the area, activists said.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The violence occurred as embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad made his second public appearance in a week in the capital, Damascus. Also, Israeli officials confirmed that the country's air force carried out an airstrike against Syria, saying it targeted a shipment of advanced missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Assad regime.
It was the second Israeli strike this year against Syria and the latest salvo in its long-running effort to disrupt Hezbollah's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state.
The violence in the coastal region of Syria underscored the sectarian nature of the two-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands and sent more than 1 million Syrians refugees to neighboring countries.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 4,000 people were fleeing from the predominantly Sunni southern parts of the Mediterranean city of Banias amid fears that pro-government gunmen "might commit a massacre."
There were conflicting reports of the death toll in Banias on Friday. The Observatory said at least 62 people, including 14 children, were killed in Ras al-Nabeh, a neighborhood in Banias, but that the number could rise as many people are still missing. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said 102 people were killed.
The Observatory said security forces were checking people's identity cards and asking them to return to Banias so that the situation could appear normal. It said those fleeing were mostly heading to the city of Tartus to the south and the town of Jableh just north of Banias.
Banias residents told The Associated Press by telephone that the central market was mostly closed Saturday amid fears of more violence. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.
The reported exodus from Banias came after activists said Friday that regime troops and gunmen from nearby Alawite areas beat, stabbed and shot at least 50 people in the Sunni Muslim village of Bayda, near Banias.
The killings in Bayda brought wide condemnation as footage of dead children were widely circulated on TV stations and social media sites.
"We strongly condemn atrocities against the civilian population and reinforce our solidarity with the Syrian people," said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
"Those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of human rights law must be held accountable," Psaki said.
Syria's crisis, that began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests and later turned into a civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people, has largely broken along sectarian lines.
The Sunni majority forms the backbone of the rebellion, while Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, anchors the regime's security services and the military's officer corps. Other minorities, such as Christians, largely support Assad or stand on the sidelines, worried that the regime's fall would bring about a more Islamist rule.
Syria's mountainous coastal region is the Alawite heartland, although it is also dotted with Sunni villages
An amateur video released by the Observatory Saturday showed a man and at least three children dead inside a room. A baby had burned legs and a body stained with blood. Next to him was a young girl whose face had been deformed after apparently being hit with a sharp object.
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, identified the man killed as Haitham Sahyouni. He said Sahyouni was found dead along with his three children, his brother Hamid and mother Watfa. He said it was not clear if Sahyouni was an opposition supporter.
Elsewhere in Syria, activists and state media said troops have captured most of the villages and towns around the town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon.
The Observatory said five rebels, including a local commander, were killed in Qusair. It added that members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group are taking part in the battles against the rebels.
Hezbollah had acknowledged that it is aiding Lebanese villagers who live on the Syrian side of the border after they cane under rebel attacks.
State TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying that troops put under control al-Abadi and Tel Ghraifi areas near Damascus. He said "tens" of rebels were killed or wounded in the fighting.
Also Saturday, Syrian state TV said Assad, who rarely appears in public, visited a Damascus campus and was walking in the middle of hundreds of people. The report said Assad inaugurated a statue dedicated to "martyrs" from Syrian universities who died in the country's uprising and civil war.
A photograph posted on Assad's Facebook page showed him surrounded by bodyguards as young men, who appeared to be students, waved at him. On Wednesday, Assad visited a Damascus power station to mark May Day, according to the media.
May 3, 2013 ? A research group at the University of Alicante (Spain) has invented an algae removal and treatment system that turns this underused residue into a renewable source of energy: biomass. The process involves several stages of washing, drying and compacting without leaving the beach. Therefore, according to the team led by Professor Irene Sentana Gadea, the system is cheaper, more efficient and more environmentally friendly than the procedure commonly followed now.
With the invention, protected with a national patent, up to an 80 percent of the weight and volume currently removed would stay on the beaches, as now with the seaweed water and sand are also sent to rubbish tips or treatment plants. Professor Eloy Sentana Cremades says that as well as considerable savings on transportation, the new procedure would allow to give more uses to the dried seaweed.
The system is based on a moving platform with wheels where three hoppers are installed. The first receives shovelfuls of wet seaweed with sand attached. Seawater is pumped in and poured back into the sea dragging the sand with it. In the next hopper, water purified with a solar-powered device would wash most of the residual salt from the algae, and in the third hopper it would be dried with air heated also by solar energy. The clean and dry seaweed could be then pressed by a system similar to the one used by rubbish trucks or converted into bales or pellets, ready to be commercialized. No chemical products would be used in the process.
The method currently used has drawbacks such as the deterioration of beaches due to the extraction of sand that then has to be replaced, the weight of the waste, and the saturation of certain landfills to which it is taken. Also, as the material is impregnated with sand and salt and mixed with other wastes, the use of the dead seaweed is limited to rudimentary applications, such as aerating the ground for agricultural purposes.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Asociaci?n RUVID, via AlphaGalileo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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.
The United States will remain the world's most powerful nation for years to come, but the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers are now focused on debt, immigration, guns and growth.
A war-weary, under-employed American public wants results at home, leaving U.S. officials to look for allies willing to share costs and risks abroad.
Unfortunately, it's not easy to build and sustain alliances in a world where America can't afford its traditional share of the heavy lifting.
No wonder then that the Obama administration's greatest foreign policy successes haven't depended on such alliances.
Withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't require consensus among the world's powers. President Barack Obama's single indisputable foreign policy triumph, the killing of Osama bin Laden, needed buy-in only from the members of Seal Team 6.
Nor should we look to Europe for help. Its leaders are still hard at work duct-taping the euro zone, and cash-strapped governments consider an activist European foreign policy prohibitively expensive.
Nor will next-wave powers look to shoulder new burdens. Economic slowdowns in China, India and Brazil remind us that not every emerging market will fully emerge, much less accept the costs and risks that come with a share of global leadership.
In this G-Zero world, where no single government or alliance can lead others toward compromise, solutions to transnational problems range from ad hoc to beyond reach. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the U.N.'s Conference on Sustainable Development last June with a warning: This gathering is too big to fail.
But for Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, the event was simply too big to attend. None of them has the muscle, individually or together, to force compromise on the policies that fuel climate change ? and they know it.
This leadership vacuum continues to expand. The risk of confrontation in Asia has grown ? between China and Japan (the world's second- and third-largest economies) in the East China Sea, and between China and several Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea.
Making matters even more dangerous, the U.S. transition toward a sharper foreign policy focus on Asia, progress toward a massive U.S.-led transpacific trade deal that excludes China and conflict in the under-governed expanse of cyberspace are worsening tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Fights over commercial and investment rules and the clash between the state-driven and free-market varieties of capitalism have gathered momentum. In years to come, no ties will be more important for global peace and prosperity than those that bind America and China, the world's most powerful developed and developing states, and no development would more quickly exacerbate the G-Zero dilemma than a dramatic worsening of relations between them.
In the Middle East, Syria's civil war grinds on with worrisome implications for Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Russia. Sectarian tensions are again stoking violence in Iraq. Attacks on U.S. diplomatic targets in Libya, Egypt and Yemen have heightened Washington's aversion to direct involvement in the region's conflicts. This is another region in which a lack of global leadership and rivalries among local heavyweights ensure that pain will get worse before real progress can be made.
Ironically, the nation most likely to fill the leadership vacuum left by America the Vulnerable is America the Resilient. A technology-driven U.S. energy boom has begun to create jobs, revitalize U.S. manufacturing and offer Washington the chance to use exports of natural gas, technology and knowhow to reverse the decline in U.S. international influence.
Over the longer term, Washington will have to address the growing imbalances on U.S. books, but as the financial crisis reminded us, when volatility and fear are the order of the day, safety becomes the world's most valuable commodity. That's why the United States remains the world's investment safe haven ? and why, for better and worse, not even ratings agency downgrades can make it more difficult for America's government to borrow money, at least for the moment.
Nor is it inevitable that America and China will collide. Washington and Beijing seem at times destined for conflict, a dispute more likely to be fought in financial markets and in cyberspace than on more familiar battlegrounds. Yet heavy volumes of bilateral trade and investment ensure that neither side has much to gain from the other's weakness.
The two countries can't afford a zero-sum, Cold War-style confrontation, and both governments know it. It remains to be seen, however, if Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping have the vision and political will to build the sort of pragmatic partnership that might finally bring the G-Zero era to an end.
(Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group, the leading global political risk research and consulting firm. Bremmer created Wall Street's first global political risk index, and has authored several books, including the national bestseller, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?, which details the new global phenomenon of state capitalism and its geopolitical implications. He has a PhD in political science from Stanford University (1994), and was the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution.)
(Ian Bremmer)
(Ian Bremmer is a Reuters columnist but his opinions are his own.)
May 1 (Reuters) - Post position for Saturday's 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs after Wednesday's draw (listed as barrier, HORSE, jockey, trainer) 1. BLACK ONYX, Joe Bravo, Kelly Breen 2. OXBOW, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas 3. REVOLUTIONARY, Calvin Borel, Todd Pletcher 4. GOLDEN SOUL, Robby Albarado, Dallas Stewart 5. NORMANDY INVASION, Javier Castellano, Chad Brown 6. MYLUTE, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss 7. GIANT FINISH, Jose Espinoza, Tony Dutrow 8. GOLDENCENTS, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill 9. OVERANALYZE, Rafael Bejarano, Todd Pletcher 10. PALACE MALICE, Mike Smith, Todd Pletcher 11. ...
In the few weeks that "Anchorman: The Legend Continues" has been filming in Atlanta, the actors have been tight-lipped on what exactly will happen when Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team reassemble this December. Things weren't any different on Sunday at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards when MTV News' Josh Horowitz got a [...]
A mother caught on cell phone video apparently throwing her baby across the aisle of a bus, prompting a police investigation, says she didn't do it.
"I didn't toss my baby. I set her down," said the woman when NBC Connecticut confronted her at her Hartford home.
The startling scene was caught on tape by a concerned passenger during a bus ride on Albany Avenue Wednesday morning. It's since gone viral with internet postings on YouTube, Facebook, and elsewhere.
The two minute video shows a woman screaming obscenities at another passenger, as her baby sits on her lap at times holding her little ears.
The woman repeatedly asks other passengers to take her child so she can fight the woman. "I will thrash you. Somebody grab my baby. I'm going to beat the... of you on this bus," she's heard saying in the video. Then, it gets worse.
The woman is seen throwing the baby across the aisle into the arms of another passenger. Then, she heads up front and gets into a fist fight.
Read more stories on NBCConnecticut.com
The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and opened the doors, according to CT Transit. As he called for help, the woman retrieved her baby and left the bus. So did the other passenger involved in the fight.
When NBC Connecticut arrived at her home Friday night, police and child welfare workers were inside talking to her. After they left, we knocked on the door and the woman answered.
When asked if she had any comment on the situation, the woman said, "No. Connecticut Transit, get the full video. I didn't toss my baby. Get the full video."
She then closed the door, only to open it once again.
"I never tossed my baby," she said. "Get the full video from Connecticut Transit. I didn't toss my baby. I set her down."
The video was so shocking that an NBC Connecticut viewer brought it to our attention. We asked Hartford police if they knew about it, and they launched an investigation.
Hartford police have not filed any charges in the case.
As part of their ongoing investigation, they're reviewing a second cell phone video from a different angle. The camera on board the bus was not working at the time of the incident, so there is no surveillance video available from CT Transit.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many top U.S. companies have been cutting forecasts for their earnings at a rapid pace in recent weeks, but an analysis of historical data shows that rather than being a cause of despair it may be a reason for investor optimism.
Big companies are almost always conservative, regardless of whether business is humming along or not, but by one measurement, the first quarter has been the ugliest for corporate outlooks since 2001. Among S&P 500 companies making forecasts, 4.5 have come in below Wall Street estimates for every one above them, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Downbeat outlook announcements from companies, though, have a way of creating the conditions for big gains.
First, the share prices of the companies tend to decline. Then, Wall Street analysts often lower their own estimates in line with the corporate outlooks. Finally, having created an environment of lower expectations, many companies manage to beat the forecasts (their own and the analysts) after all when the results are announced.
"The companies are doing a very good job of guiding the analysts lower to pave the way for what I call 'manufactured earnings surprises,'" said Nick Raich, chief executive of The Earnings Scout, an independent research firm specializing in earnings trends, in Cleveland, Ohio. "That's the way the earnings game is played."
S&P 500 earnings were expected to increase just 1.5 percent for the first quarter when earnings season began and the latest estimate stands at 1.1 percent. But investors and strategists say that earnings will more than likely look substantially better when the season comes to a close.
So far there have been 108 warnings for first-quarter results. The 4.5-to-1 negative-to-positive ratio is the seventh worst for any quarter since 1996. Yet four of the previous six of those dire warnings periods have been followed by quarterly gains in the S&P 500; the average gain for those four with gains is 6.68 percent while the average gain for all six periods is a much lower 0.6 percent.
A 6.68 percent gain this quarter would take the S&P 500 <.spx><.inx> to 1,674 by the end of June, extending a rally that has already taken it to record highs.
A look at a greater sample shows the persistence of this pattern. Of the 20 quarters with the most negative ratios since 1996, the average gain in the S&P 500 in the following quarter was 2.3 percent. By comparison, the average move for all of the past 68 quarters dating back to 1996 is 1.7 percent.
It is in the best interest of companies to avoid disappointments. Warnings have outnumbered positive pre-announcements in all but five of those 68 quarters, and yet companies almost always report results above analysts' expectations.
The last time earnings have fallen short of analysts' forecast was the fourth quarter of 2008 was when the impact of the financial crisis was so sudden and severe that it took time for everyone to assess its depth.
In the last 16 quarters, in all but one, the analysts' expectations at the beginning of earnings season have been exceeded by anywhere from one to 22 percentage points, with an average difference of 6.4 points.
On average, 63 percent of companies beat earnings estimates, according to Reuters data going back to 1994. Investors have come to anticipate this, and recent gains may be in part due to the belief that earnings, once again, will not be as dire as forecast.
"The buy-side takes sell-side analysts with more than a grain of salt," said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in New York. "I don't think anybody's being fooled who doesn't want to be fooled."
This time, Wall Street analysts may be cottoning on to the usual move by companies to lower earnings expectations. Analysts have not been reducing forecasts at the same pace as the companies themselves.
"There's been a kind of a decoupling," said Dan Suzuki, U.S. equity strategist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in New York. However, Suzuki wrote in a note last week that changes in management forecasts tend to precede analyst revisions, so the outlook could theoretically worsen.
Full-year S&P 500 earnings are expected to hit a 2013 record of $111.62, based on an aggregate measurement of analysts' forecasts of earnings per share for the companies in the index, surpassing last year's record of $103.80, according to Thomson Reuters data.
CONSUMER COMPANIES SUFFER
This time around, consumer companies sound among the most depressed, blaming increased U.S. tax rates and ongoing weakness in Europe for lowered forecasts.
Consumer discretionary stocks currently have a negative-to-positive pre-announcement ratio of 6.5 to 1, Thomson Reuters data shows.
More than half of the roughly 30 corporate outlooks in the consumer discretionary sector are warnings from retailers, which analysts said could be the result of the higher U.S. payroll tax, a delay in income tax refunds and other recent U.S. fiscal policy changes, such as automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.
"In essence, we've had a tightening of fiscal policy which includes the sequester but also includes tax rate increases," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
Target , for example, offered a cautious outlook and reported a lower-than-expected profit in late February, followed by Nordstrom , with a disappointing profit forecast in the same month.
A number of companies, including some airlines and other travel-related businesses, have said they have been hit by the U.S. government spending cuts. Delta Airlines recently cut its first-quarter revenue forecast, saying federal budget cuts hurt demand for travel by government staff.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Caroline Valetkevitch, editing by David Gaffen and Martin Howell and Theodore d'Afflisio)
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t5UCycYiQmQmrGzE3STOFBZP4ZFBLxkHTfNcSgP4ijLoDKKGu2m_fphkwP-xgRsEC2Q72e7E5PnSJXtucik-5IOUrmX6o3KCrjYPrruTw=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 5-May-2013
Share ] 
