CAIRO (AP) ? A popular television satirist known as Egypt's Jon Stewart has appeared before prosecutors after an arrest warrant was issued against him for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's leader.
Several dozen supporters gathered outside the public prosecutor's office Sunday as Bassem Youssef, the host of the weekly show "ElBernameg" or "The Program," arrived a day after the warrant was first reported in the media.
Government opponents said the warrant against such a high profile figure, known for lampooning President Mohammed Morsi and the new Islamist political class, was an escalation in a campaign to intimidate critics. It followed warrants for five prominent anti-government activists accused of instigating violence.
Youssef tweeted a series of quips from the prosecutor's office. "They asked me the color of my eyes. Really," one read.
Just in case you missed it last night buried in our interview with Epic Games VP Mark Rein, the company showed off a new real-time demo at GDC 2013 this week, titled "Infiltrator." The nearly four-minute clip, showcases a sci-fi shootout created with its Unreal Engine 4, and remarkably powered by a single GeForce GTX 680. Now that we've piqued your curiosity a bit, check out this gorgeous display of futuristic espionage after the break, plus a bonus clip of the "Elemental" UE4 demo running on a PlayStation 4 dev kit in real-time.
Chrome: When you get to that point in the day where you have twenty tabs open in several windows, everything gets a little chaotic. TabJuggler is a Chrome extension that offers a variety of ways to wrangle them in and manage them a bit better.
TabJuggler gives you a simple way to manage your tabs. You can move all tabs to single window, open each tab in its own window, open windows by website, sort them by title or address, and search through everything you have open. The search functionality is especially helpful when you have a ton of open tabs. The search also gives you the option to close every tab that meets that search term, close tabs that don't match, or move all the matched results to a new window. If you're a tab junky looking for a better way to manage it all, TabJuggler is worth a look.
Mar. 28, 2013 ? It?s a nocturnal aquatic predator that will eat anything that fits in its large mouth.
Dark and sleek, it hides beneath the water waiting for prey. A Texas Tech University researcher says the target will never know what hit them because they probably can?t smell the voracious pirate perch.
After careful investigations, William Resetarits Jr., a professor of biology at Texas Tech, and Christopher A. Binckley, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Arcadia University, found that animals normally attuned to predators from their smell didn?t seem to detect the pirate perch. It could be the first animal discovered that is capable of generalized chemical camouflage that works against a wide variety of prey.
The team published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal The American Naturalist.
Thankfully, at five-and-a-half inches long, only insects, invertebrates, amphibians and other small fish need worry about the danger hiding near the bottom among the roots and plantlife, Resetarits said.
?We use the term ?camouflage,? because it is readily understandable,? he said. ?What we really are dealing with is some form of ?chemical deception.? The actual mechanism may be camouflage that makes an organism difficult to detect, mimicry that makes an organism difficult to correctly identify, or cloaking where the organism simply does not produce a signal detectable to the receiver.?
Resetarits said pirate perch aren?t really perch at all, but related to the Amblyopsid cave fish family. Fossils from this fish date back about 24 million years ago.
They make their homes in freshwater ponds and streams in the Eastern United States. Once considered for the aquarium market, the fish got its name because of its penchant for eating all tank mates.
?Pirate perch have some unique aspects to their morphology and life history, but they are generalist predators, and so should have been avoided by prey animals like all the other fish tested,? he said. ?For some reason, they weren?t avoided at all.?
To test their theory, Resetarits and Binckley ran a series of experiments in artificial pools housing 11 different species of fish, including pirate perch.
The fish were kept at bay at the bottom of the pools with screens so that they could not prey on the beetles and tree frogs that colonized the water.
When it came to choosing a pool, the beetles and frogs consistently steered clear of the water with other fish species in them, most likely because they could smell the presence of fish in the water. However, they had no qualms about moving into pools containing the pirate perch.
?We were incredibly surprised,? Resetarits said. ?It took a while for us to pull this all together. When we first observed it with tree frogs, we were very surprised and puzzled. But when the same lack of response was shown by aquatic beetles, we were quite literally flabbergasted. We continued to do experiments with other fish and always got the same results. All fish except pirate perch were avoided.?
Exactly what the pirate perch is doing to hide isn?t yet known, he said. Researchers want to determine how the pirate perch are either scrambling chemical signals or masking their odor. Once they have identified chemical compounds that might explain the behavior, they will return to the field to test with the same tree frogs and beetles as well as other organisms known to respond to fish chemical cues, such as mosquitoes and water fleas.
?We will also test whether this chemical deception works against the pirate perch?s own predators,? Resetarits said. ?Of course, other critical questions that we are working on include just how much advantage in terms of prey acquisition do pirate perch gain as a result of chemical deception. Does this phenomenon occur in closely related species, such as cavefish? Are there prey species that have found a way around the chemical deception? There are many questions now, and I think we have just scratched the surface.
?I think the most important aspect is not the bizarre, just-so story, but the fact that there is no reason to believe that chemical camouflage is less common than visual camouflage. Humans? sense of smell is just not very sophisticated, so we can?t simply ?notice? examples of chemical camouflage the way we do visual camouflage. I think chemical camouflage is likely quite common. We are starting pursuit of the larger question, starting with close relatives of pirate perch.?
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William J. Resetarits, Christopher A. Binckley. Is the Pirate Really a Ghost? Evidence for Generalized Chemical Camouflage in an Aquatic Predator, Pirate PerchAphredoderus sayanus. The American Naturalist, 2013; : 000 DOI: 10.1086/670016
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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A national survey found 301,874 "zombie" properties dotting the U.S. landscape in which homeowners in foreclosure have moved out, leaving vacant property susceptible to vandalism and degradation.
Florida tops the list of zombie properties with 90,556 vacant homes in foreclosure, according to a foreclosure inventory released on Thursday by RealtyTrac, a real estate information company in Irvine, California.
Illinois and California ranked a distant second and third with 31,668 and 28,821 zombie properties respectively on the list.
The number of homes overall in foreclosure or bank-owned rose by 9 percent to 1.5 million properties nationally in the first quarter of 2013 compared to a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.
Another 10.9 million homeowners nationwide remain at risk because they owe more than their property is worth, according to company vice president Daren Blomquist.
RealtyTrac for the first time analyzed data on zombie properties after a Reuters' special report in January examined the special problem of zombie titles, Blomquist said.
Reuters revealed the plight of people who walked away from their homes not realizing that their names remained on the deed and that they were financially liable for taxes and other bills related to the abandoned property.
In some cases, homeowners vacated after receiving a notice from the bank of a planned foreclosure sale, only to find out later the bank never followed through.
Zombie properties can be easy to spot as they deteriorate into neighborhood eyesores and havens for criminal activity.
While Florida leads in volume of zombie properties, Kentucky, with less than 1,000 zombie properties, leads in percentage, with zombies representing 54 percent of its total foreclosure inventory, Blomquist said.
Zombies in Washington, Indiana, Nevada and Oregon also constitute 50 percent or more of the properties in foreclosure, according to the report.
Blomquist said the number of zombie properties could be higher than represented in the RealtyTrac report, which used a conservative methodology.
In Florida, for example, the company does not count any property that has been in foreclosure longer than the state average of 853 days and for which there has been no significant recent activity. The report also does not take into account cases in which a bank chose not to follow through on a foreclosure judgment, leaving the property in limbo.
Blomquist said the long average time to complete a foreclosure case in Florida likely contributes to the high number of zombie properties, as people give up hope over time and walk away.
Blomquist said the findings overall show a housing recovery is under way but not yet deeply rooted.
"I think the empty foreclosures is less of a long-term threat but it certainly is affecting individual communities and neighborhoods," Blomquist said.
According to the Reuters special report, municipalities are left to deal with the mess when people move out after receiving a notice of a planned foreclosure sale that the bank then cancels.
Some spend public funds on securing, cleaning and stabilizing houses that generate no tax revenue. Others let the houses rot.
Unsuspecting homeowners have had their wages garnished, their credit destroyed and their tax refunds seized. They've opened their mail to find bills for back taxes, graffiti-scrubbing services, demolition crews, trash removal, gutter repair, exterior cleaning and lawn clipping.
In some cities, people with zombie titles can be sentenced to probation, with the threat of jail if they don't bring their houses into compliance.
Last week at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok authorities arrested a Thai man after discovering 54 Ploughshare Tortoises in a suitcase he retrieved from a luggage carousel. That's a lot of tortoises, particularly when you consider that the Ploughshare is one of the rarest species on the planet, numbering just 400 around the world. More »
Robot ants successfully mimic real colony behaviorPublic release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Simon Garnier garnier@njit.edu 973-353-2527 Public Library of Science
Robotic ants successfully mimic a real colony
Scientists have successfully replicated the behaviour of a colony of ants on the move with the use of miniature robots, as reported in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The researchers, based at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, USA) and at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (Toulouse, France), aimed to discover how individual ants, when part of a moving colony, orient themselves in the labyrinthine pathways that stretch from their nest to various food sources.
The study focused mainly on how Argentine ants behave and coordinate themselves in both symmetrical and asymmetrical pathways. In nature, ants do this by leaving chemical pheromone trails. This was reproduced by a swarm of sugar cube size robots, called "Alices", leaving light trails that they can detect with two light sensors mimicking the role of the ants' antennae.
In the beginning of the experiment, where branches of the maze had no light trail, the robots adopted an "exploratory behaviour" modelled on the regular insect movement pattern of moving randomly but in the same general direction. This led the robots to choose the path that deviated least from their trajectory at each bifurcation of the network. If the robots detected a light trail, they would turn to follow that path.
One outcome of the robotic model was the discovery that the robots did not need to be programmed to identify and compute the geometry of the network bifurcations. They managed to navigate the maze using only the pheromone light trail and the programmed directional random walk, which directed them to the more direct route between their starting area and a target area on the periphery of the maze. Individual Argentine ants have poor eyesight and move too quickly to make a calculated decision about their direction. Therefore the fact that the robots managed to orient themselves in the maze in a similar fashion than the one observed in real ants suggests that a complex cognitive process is not necessary for colonies of ants to navigate efficiently in their complex network of foraging trails.
"This research suggests that efficient navigation and foraging can be achieved with minimal cognitive abilities in ants," says lead author Simon Garnier. "It also shows that the geometry of transport networks plays a critical role in the flow of information and material in ant as well as in human societies."
###
Everything published by PLOS Computational Biology is open access, allowing anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles, so long as the original authors and source are cited. Please mention PLOS Computational Biology in your report and use the link(s) below to take readers straight to the online articles. Thank you.
Financial disclosure: This work was partly supported by the Programme Cognitique from the French Ministry of Scientific Research. Simon Garnier was supported by a research grant from the French Ministry of Education, Research and Technology, and by an ATUPS grant from the University Paul Sabatier. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Garnier S, Combe M, Jost C, Theraulaz G (2013) Do Ants Need to Estimate the Geometrical Properties of Trail Bifurcations to Find an Efficient Route? A Swarm Robotics Test Bed. PLOS Comput Biol 9(3): e1002903. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903
Please add this link to the freely available article in online versions of your report (the link will go live when the embargo ends):
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903
CONTACT:
Simon Garnier
Assistant Professor
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Department of Biological Sciences
439 Boyden Hall, Rutgers University
195 University Avenue
Newark, New Jersey 07102
United States
Phone: 609-994-4990 (mobile)
Website: http://www.theswarmlab.com
Disclaimer
This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLOS Computational Biology. The release is provided by journal staff, or by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed in this release or article are the personal views of the journal staff and/or article contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the releases and articles and your use of such information.
Media Permissions
PLOS Journals publish under a Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits free reuse of all materials published with the article, so long as the work is cited (e.g., Brinkworth RSA, O'Carroll DC (2009) Robust Models for Optic Flow Coding in Natural Scenes Inspired by Insect Biology. PLOS Comput Biol 5(11): e1000555. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000555). No prior permission is required from the authors or publisher. For queries about the license, please contact the relative journal contact indicated here: http://www.PLOS.org/about/media-inquiries/embargo-policy/
About PLOS Computational Biology
PLOS Computational Biology features works of exceptional significance that further our understanding of living systems at all scales through the application of computational methods. All works published in PLOS Computational Biology are open access. Everything is immediately available subject only to the condition that the original authorship and source are properly attributed. Copyright is retained.
About the PLOS
PLOS is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.PLOS.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Robot ants successfully mimic real colony behaviorPublic release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Simon Garnier garnier@njit.edu 973-353-2527 Public Library of Science
Robotic ants successfully mimic a real colony
Scientists have successfully replicated the behaviour of a colony of ants on the move with the use of miniature robots, as reported in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The researchers, based at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, USA) and at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (Toulouse, France), aimed to discover how individual ants, when part of a moving colony, orient themselves in the labyrinthine pathways that stretch from their nest to various food sources.
The study focused mainly on how Argentine ants behave and coordinate themselves in both symmetrical and asymmetrical pathways. In nature, ants do this by leaving chemical pheromone trails. This was reproduced by a swarm of sugar cube size robots, called "Alices", leaving light trails that they can detect with two light sensors mimicking the role of the ants' antennae.
In the beginning of the experiment, where branches of the maze had no light trail, the robots adopted an "exploratory behaviour" modelled on the regular insect movement pattern of moving randomly but in the same general direction. This led the robots to choose the path that deviated least from their trajectory at each bifurcation of the network. If the robots detected a light trail, they would turn to follow that path.
One outcome of the robotic model was the discovery that the robots did not need to be programmed to identify and compute the geometry of the network bifurcations. They managed to navigate the maze using only the pheromone light trail and the programmed directional random walk, which directed them to the more direct route between their starting area and a target area on the periphery of the maze. Individual Argentine ants have poor eyesight and move too quickly to make a calculated decision about their direction. Therefore the fact that the robots managed to orient themselves in the maze in a similar fashion than the one observed in real ants suggests that a complex cognitive process is not necessary for colonies of ants to navigate efficiently in their complex network of foraging trails.
"This research suggests that efficient navigation and foraging can be achieved with minimal cognitive abilities in ants," says lead author Simon Garnier. "It also shows that the geometry of transport networks plays a critical role in the flow of information and material in ant as well as in human societies."
###
Everything published by PLOS Computational Biology is open access, allowing anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles, so long as the original authors and source are cited. Please mention PLOS Computational Biology in your report and use the link(s) below to take readers straight to the online articles. Thank you.
Financial disclosure: This work was partly supported by the Programme Cognitique from the French Ministry of Scientific Research. Simon Garnier was supported by a research grant from the French Ministry of Education, Research and Technology, and by an ATUPS grant from the University Paul Sabatier. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Garnier S, Combe M, Jost C, Theraulaz G (2013) Do Ants Need to Estimate the Geometrical Properties of Trail Bifurcations to Find an Efficient Route? A Swarm Robotics Test Bed. PLOS Comput Biol 9(3): e1002903. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903
Please add this link to the freely available article in online versions of your report (the link will go live when the embargo ends):
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903
CONTACT:
Simon Garnier
Assistant Professor
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Department of Biological Sciences
439 Boyden Hall, Rutgers University
195 University Avenue
Newark, New Jersey 07102
United States
Phone: 609-994-4990 (mobile)
Website: http://www.theswarmlab.com
Disclaimer
This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLOS Computational Biology. The release is provided by journal staff, or by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed in this release or article are the personal views of the journal staff and/or article contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the releases and articles and your use of such information.
Media Permissions
PLOS Journals publish under a Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits free reuse of all materials published with the article, so long as the work is cited (e.g., Brinkworth RSA, O'Carroll DC (2009) Robust Models for Optic Flow Coding in Natural Scenes Inspired by Insect Biology. PLOS Comput Biol 5(11): e1000555. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000555). No prior permission is required from the authors or publisher. For queries about the license, please contact the relative journal contact indicated here: http://www.PLOS.org/about/media-inquiries/embargo-policy/
About PLOS Computational Biology
PLOS Computational Biology features works of exceptional significance that further our understanding of living systems at all scales through the application of computational methods. All works published in PLOS Computational Biology are open access. Everything is immediately available subject only to the condition that the original authorship and source are properly attributed. Copyright is retained.
About the PLOS
PLOS is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.PLOS.org.
[ | 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.
Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...
FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2012 file photo, a Stanford University student walks in front of Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif. Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans. The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses. The difference between the two rates adds up to $6 billion. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2012 file photo, a Stanford University student walks in front of Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif. Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans. The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses. The difference between the two rates adds up to $6 billion. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans.
The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses. The difference between the two rates adds up to $6 billion.
Just a year ago, lawmakers faced a similar deadline and dodged the rate increase amid the heated presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But that was with the White House up for grabs and before Washington was consumed by budget standoffs that now seem routine.
"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."
The new rates apply only to those who take new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' nonsubsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans from commercial lenders.
But it translates to real money for incoming college freshmen who could end up paying back $5,000 more for the same maxed-out student loans their older siblings have.
House Education Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and the committee's senior Democrat, George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.
Adding another perspective to the debate, Obama will release his budget proposal on April 10.
Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. The House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels, but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.
In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.
"Two ideas ... have been introduced so far ? neither of which is likely to go very far," said Terry Hartle, the top lobbyist for colleges at the American Council on Education.
House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.
Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health, Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan-rate fix down the road.
But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.
"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."
Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; 1 in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student-loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.
The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.
For some, though, the interest rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.
"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success.
While we wouldn't have blamed you for thinking ICS was the end of the road for the Droid Bionic, a Motorola Support page now indicates that a Jelly Bean update is on its way in Q2 2013. The handy little tool that Motorola introduced last year to help people find out about upcoming updates on their device reveals the information when selecting the Bionic from a list of support devices. As pointed out by Droid-Life, prominently at the bottom of the page it lists "Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) upgrade rollout expected to begin Q2 2013."
Now that's a pretty darn vague window, if true, to have the update "start" somewhere in the next three months, but we're not going to look this gift horse in the mouth. If it does come true, there are going to be some seriously happy Bionic owners out there.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a Health Ministry investigator.
Prosecutors said Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.
De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder. Three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.
Prosecutors for the state of Parana said wiretaps of De Souza's phone conversations revealed that her motive was to free up hospital beds for other patients.
"I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch," she said in one recording released to Brazilian media. "Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life," she added in the same phone call.
De Souza's lawyer, Elias Mattar Assad, said investigators had misunderstood how an intensive care unit works and she would prove her innocence.
More cases are expected to emerge as investigators comb through 1,700 medical records of patients who died in the last seven years at the hospital, where De Souza headed the intensive care unit.
"We already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into," the chief investigator assigned by Brazil's Health Ministry, Dr. Mario Lobato, said on Globo TV's Fantastico program on Sunday.
If prosecutors prove that De Souza killed 300 patients, this could be one of the world's worst serial killings, rivaling the notorious case of Harold Shipman, the English doctor who was found to have killed at least 215 patients.
Lobato said the deaths he reviewed occurred under similar circumstances: a muscle relaxant such as Pancuronium (trademark Pavulon) was administered, increasing the patients' dependence on artificial respiration; then the oxygen supply was reduced, causing death by asphyxia.
Some of the patients were conscious moments before they died, he said.
Prosecutors said De Souza felt "all powerful" running the intensive care unit homicide, to the point where she "had the power to decree the moment when a victim would die."
In some cases, De Souza was absent from the hospital and gave instructions to end the life of a patient by telephone to members of her medical team, according to documents detailing the charges.
Last week, a Curitiba judge ordered the release of De Souza and her medical team. Prosecutors sought on Monday to have her returned to custody because she was the leader of the team and witnesses had reported being intimidated.
Parana state prosecutors asked police on Wednesday to investigate whether more hospital employees, including former managers, were involved in the case.
President Dilma Rousseff's government will announce steps on Thursday to reorganize the hospital, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co said on Monday it will pare its business units down to four starting on April 1 to boost productivity and lower costs, resulting in annual savings of about $85 million and the elimination of 200 jobs.
Raytheon, maker of the Patriot missile defense system and other weapons, said the changes will not affect its financial outlook for 2013, which foresees a drop in earnings of up to 12 percent. The company has 68,000 employees worldwide.
The company's new structure will include four businesses focused on Intelligence, Information and Services, Integrated Defense Systems, Missile Systems, and Space and Airborne Systems. Parts of the former Network Centric Systems business will be added to each of the four units.
Raytheon and other big weapons makers are girding for declining military spending after more than a decade of sharp growth. Eager to maintain profits, many companies have announced cost-cutting measures, layoffs and structural changes to cut overhead and drive down the cost of weapons programs.
"Our new structure will help us enhance productivity, agility and affordability in a challenging defense and aerospace market environment," said William Swanson, Raytheon's chairman and chief executive.
Top Pentagon officials are trying to rejig their budget plans for fiscal 2013 after Congress passed a stop-gap measure averting a government shutdown this week that left intact over $40 billion in defense spending cuts on top of cuts already proposed by the Obama administration.
Raytheon's board also elected Thomas Kennedy, the former head of Integrated Defense Systems, to the new position of executive vice president and chief operating officer. He will lead the company's consolidation efforts and manage day-to-day operations, while contributing to long-range strategic planning.
Loren Thompson, a defense consultant with close ties to the industry, said the appointment of Kennedy as chief operating officer signaled the start of succession planning for the retirement of Swanson, who is 64.
Raytheon does not have a mandatory retirement age and Swanson has not announced plans to retire anytime soon.
The company said Daniel Crowley, who joined Raytheon from Lockheed Martin Corp in 2009, will succeed Kennedy as president of the integrated defense systems business, while Lynn Dugle will head the newly formed intelligence, information and services business.
John Harris, who had headed the technical services business, will be vice president and general manager of the new business unit, reporting to Dugle.
The missile systems business will be headed by Taylor Lawrence, who had been in charge of engineering, technology and mission assurance at Raytheon, while Richard Yuse will stay on as president of Raytheon's space business, the company said.
Raytheon shares closed 28 cents lower at $56.76.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa. Editing by Andre Grenon)
"Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941" (Random House), by Lynne Olson
The bitter feelings that divided the nation during the Vietnam buildup and the Iraq invasion have become fading memories. But far fewer Americans still recall the even more passionate debate over our stance toward Nazi Germany during the first two years of World War II.
That tumultuous time between the invasion of Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor gave rise to a conflict at home that pitted isolationists against interventionists. Larger-than-life figures, from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to aviator Charles Lindbergh, were leading players in that ferocious battle in which the stakes couldn't have been higher.
In "Those Angry Days," journalist-turned-historian Lynne Olson captures that period in a fast-moving, highly readable narrative punctuated by high drama. It's an ideal complement to her previous books about Britain's Tory rebels who brought Winston Churchill to power and Americans who assisted England while it stood alone against a triumphant Germany.
The question of whether to intervene on Britain's behalf, and even to amend neutrality laws by shipping vitally needed supplies to the beleaguered nation, was one that divided families and friends.
Olson presents as a prime example the poignant story of celebrated author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was caught between her husband's leadership of the campaign to keep America out of the war and the efforts of her mother and sister on behalf of intervention.
Roosevelt, according to the author, was overly cautious and hesitant, preferring to follow public opinion rather than lead it. "He was intimidated by congressional isolationists, whose strength he tended to exaggerate, and was loath to challenge them," Olson writes.
Pioneering a tactic that would be used by subsequent presidents, Roosevelt sought to discredit his opponents by questioning their patriotism and went on to enlist the FBI to wiretap their phones and seek derogatory information that could be used against them.
One figure who stands tall is Republican Wendell Willkie, whose break with his party's isolationism strengthened his bid for president. The author conveys the excitement of the 1940 convention that chose Willkie as the unlikely GOP nominee and the campaign that ended with FDR's election to an unprecedented third term.
The book is filled with profiles of fascinating figures on both sides of the debate: syndicated newspaper columnist Dorothy Thompson, a leading voice for intervention; Burton Wheeler, a progressive Democrat who broke with Roosevelt over the war and led the isolationist cause in the Senate; and British ambassador Lord Lothian, who promoted support for his country and helped get the president to devise the Lend-Lease program that kept Britain afloat.
Arrayed against the interventionists were many high-ranking military officers and the America First movement, whose anti-Semitic strains came to the surface in a Lindbergh speech that left him discredited among many Americans who once glorified him.
The fight over intervention mobilized the public to take part in the debate and, in the end, helped to educate Americans about the need to prepare for entry into the war. "It was a robust, if tumultuous, example of democracy in action," Olson writes.
"Those Angry Days" is popular history at its most riveting, detailing what the author rightfully characterizes as "a brutal, no-holds-barred battle for the soul of the nation." It is sure to captivate readers seeking a deeper understanding of how public opinion gradually shifted as America moved from bystander to combatant in the war to preserve democracy.
For the first time ever, Namco Bandai has released a completely free version of PAC-MAN, and it's exclusively available on Google Play. PAC-MAN + Tournaments offers a full-featured free-to-play version of the original game, along with a new "tournaments" feature, which lets you play online against others on new stages each week. The game also has new never before seen mazes available for purchase, along with online leaderboards and achievements.
Namco Bandai also says that it plans on releasing Google Play-exclusive downloadable content in the future as well. The game is of course free to download in the Play Store, so if you're looking to take a trip down memory lane head to the link at the top of this post.
Galaxy S4 vs. iPhone 5 / ITProPortal.com Are you afraid of new things? Then by all means, buy theiPhone 5.Itsold-timey rows of icons and comforting, familiar design make you feel as if you've been sent in a time capsule back to 2007. It's retro-chic! But if you're into the latest and greatest technology the world has to offer, I'd suggest buying aSamsung Galaxy S4.The reasons are so numerous that they're hard to fit into a single article, but I've tried
View post:
15 Reasons Why the Galaxy S4 Destroys the iPhone 5
Editor's note:Sid Venkatesan is an IP partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.?James Freedman?is an associate in Orrick?s IP group and a recent Stanford Law School graduate. Online content providers and aggregators are well aware of the potential penalties that can result from a copyright infringement lawsuit. In addition to being expensive to litigate, a copyright lawsuit can result in statutory damages (which can range between $750 to $30,000 for each infringing work found on a website), some or all of an infringer?s profits and even steeper penalties for willful infringement.
??HP1gamma expression is elevated in prostate cancer and is superior to Gleason score as a predictor of biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy
Aberrant chromatin structure in cancer cells results from altered proteins involved in its packaging. Heterochromatin protein 1 gamma (HP1gamma) is a non-histone heterochromatic protein that functions to maintain chromatin stability and is important in embryonic development.
Given an interest in the role developmental genes play in cancer, we investigated HP1gamma expression in prostate cancer (PCa) and its prognostic associations.
Methods: Tissue microarrays consisting of benign (N=96), localized cancer (N=146), metastatic PCa (N=44), and HGPIN (N=50) were immunoflourescently stained for HP1gamma and Ki-67. Using a novel, automated quantitative imaging system, VECTRATM, epithelial staining in both the nucleus and cytoplasm was quantified and compared against clinicopathologic variables.
Results: HP1gamma is significantly elevated in HGPIN (80%), localized PCa (76%), and metastatic PCa (98%) compared to benign tissues from both the nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments (P
Increased nuclear and total HP1gamma expression was associated with Gleason score (P = 0.02 and P = 0.04 respectively). Given known binding to the C-terminus of Ki-67, a co-expression analysis was performed that revealed a correlation between nuclear and cytoplasmic HP1gamma and Ki-67 (Pearson Coefficient 0.321 and 0.562 respectively, P
Cox survival analysis demonstrated that cytoplasmic HP1gamma expression was an independent prognostic marker and out-performed pathological Gleason score for predicting PSA-recurrence after radical prostatectomy.
Conclusions: In this first detailed analysis of HP1gamma expression in cancer, VECTRATM demonstrates compartmentalized and total HP1gamma protein expression is increased in PCa and that expression correlates with clinical outcomes better than Gleason score. Given the critical role HP1gamma plays in chromatin organization and gene expression, it represents a novel prognostic and therapeutic target.
Author: Jon SlezakMatthew TruongWei HuangDavid Jarrard Credits/Source: BMC Cancer 2013, 13:148
Published on: 2013-03-23
Copyright by the authors listed above - made available via BioMedCentral (Open Access). Please make sure to read our disclaimer prior to contacting 7thSpace Interactive. To contact our editors, visit our online helpdesk. If you wish submit your own press release, click here. Social Bookmarking RETWEET This! | Digg this! | Post to del.icio.us | Post to Furl | Add to Netscape | Add to Yahoo! | Rojo
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Will Clyburn #21 of the Iowa State Cyclones goes up with the ball against Jack Cooley #45 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the first half during the second round of the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at UD Arena on March 22, 2013 in Dayton, Ohio.
DAYTON, Ohio -- Freshman Georges Niang matched a season high with 19 points and Iowa State, showing it can do much more than just fire away from outside the 3-point line, dismantled Notre Dame 76-58 on Friday night in the NCAA tournament.
The 10th-seeded Cyclones (23-11) will play No. 2 seed Ohio State on Sunday. The Buckeyes advanced with a 95-70 thrashing of Iona.
Iowa State led the nation in 3-pointers this season, but the Cyclones were just as effective from short range in ousting the Fighting Irish (25-10), who played their final game as a member of the Big East and will join the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.
Melvin Ejim added 17 points for Iowa State, which shot better than 70 percent for much of the second half.
President Obama is visiting my adopted country and excitement is in the air. The moment he stepped from his plane onto the soil of this Middle Eastern country, a palpable feeling reverberated. Dad is here, I felt. America -- the country of my provenance, the blood in my veins, the land of my ancestors -- is in da house.
I live in a very small, very storied and controversial country that is besieged on every border and by critics around the world. My new country is about the size of Vancouver Island or New Jersey and is inhabited by just under 8 million people. You can get lost in America, you can disappear. Not so here. There's nowhere to go.
Israel has a powerfully influential culture of family, obligation, discipline, tradition and connectedness. Everybody knows everybody, it seems. The laws here are harsher and social pressure to behave is powerful and sometimes a bit oppressive from my freer, more individual American perspective. There is an absence of the open road, manifest destiny, cowboy, yippee ki-yay ethos that is so specifically American. Sometimes I miss that.
Just under 200,000 survivors of the Holocaust live in my country. And innumerable refugees from Europe and North Africa. This is a country of traumatized survivors, immigrants starting over and a marginalized indigenous population fighting for an identity. It is a potent and too often incendiary mix.
The U.S. managed to neatly steamroll over both the experience of Native American Indians and the awareness of that genocide quite effectively. Few point fingers anymore. No, we think of cowboys and Indians, not small pox, lies and internment camps. Here the book is not yet closed; the conflict plays out in a public sphere and this is why my adopted country is scrutinized and draws sharp criticism with a push and a pull that seems to deflect solutions.
My new country, the ancient birthplace of monotheism, struggles with 21st century problems just as much as any other country. Domestic violence, sexual assault, drugs, education, security, inequality, racism, the impact of online pornography. The panoply of modern ills is a democratic and quite moveable feast.
Counter-balancing those realities is the fact that the state of Israel is quite unapologetically like a very stern father. If you do as you are told, you will be rewarded. If you do not, you will be punished. Simple as that. Expectations are clear.
The government in America is like a terrible weekend dad; absent much of the time, and a fan of pretty girls, self-serving half-truths, booze, porn, sports and, most of all, winners. Maybe you'll fall through the cracks, maybe you won't, but if you're a good-looking winner or a spectacularly dramatic failure, you'll get the attention you crave. There are no boundaries, no discipline, no sense of a collective right thing. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I really think there used to be.
The tenets of America -- of freedom, equality and liberty -- the right to pursue happiness, to flourish economically and the right to free speech and expression are an experiment that have elevated the United States to heights of courage, leadership and something like transcendence.
But something horrifying is happening in America and it seems to be gaining momentum. America, the light among nations, the great experiment, is beginning to crumble under its own weight. How can we pick up the torch of liberty and light but at the same time insist on decency and humanity -- some basic rules of behavior?
Living abroad, I generally rebut negative comments about America with historical and social context. The spill of history is not so simple. How did we get here? is not an easy question to answer, especially when we still do not know where we are going or whether we have arrived. But I find it is growing increasingly difficult to defend the trends of violence, rape and gun culture in America.
The Steubenville rape case has spun America into a painful conversation about "rape culture." The Sandy Hook tragedy is continuing to provoke dialogue about the need for gun control. The economic collapse of 2008 continues to radiate its impact globally and increasingly, there is an awareness of the disproportionate wealth and power of the 1 percent and a near-extinct middle class. America is coming face to face with a culture that has unwittingly bred greed, sex and violence as an outcome of liberty. Is this the inevitable price of freedom?
I have to think that the American can-do spirit of individuality and adventure, our pride in being a one of a kind nation, with freedom and liberty for all will find a way through this time of social and economic crisis. But how? I worry about another revolution in America and then chide myself for being paranoid. But the 1 percent in America controls a percentage of wealth not dissimilar to the distribution of wealth held by the aristocrats and monarchy in Russia before the violent revolution that changed the history of the world forever.
Watching my worst fears for America slowly coming true from abroad throws it into a harsher light. I have no illusions that I live in a perfect country -- far from it and impossible to declare -- but I look at America from afar and I am increasingly frightened. How could the teenagers involved in the horrifying Steubenville rape case have been so inhuman? What created the possibility for that? How could Sandy Hook have happened, and the Aurora, Colo., shooting not long before it and Columbine and so many other mass shootings in America?
Is America just too geographically big with an absent parent and too much freedom? Is this what we become when we're home alone for the weekend? We raise Lord of the Flies-like teenagers who savage a drunk child at an unsupervised party and then boast about it? Is this the Less Than Zero America, too distanced from itself to take humanity seriously? Has the Facebook, online dating, take-out, pre-packaged, car culture of America, the big-box stores, the freeways and conveniences created a nation disconnected from its soul?
Obama is in Israel and all eyes are turned toward him. What he says, what he does and who he visits is debated, weighed and analyzed. America is in da house, all right, but can Israel -- or any country -- look to America as an example anymore? Or is America in its last throes, a decadent empire, collapsing on itself from within?
Please say it ain't so. We need a Hail Mary right now. We need to move forward on gay rights and equality, we need to "just say no" to gun violence, we need to educate our children about human decency, kindness and the value of community. We need to connect with one another again.
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Follow Julie Gray on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Julie_Gray
Chrome: When you get to that point in the day where you have twenty tabs open in several windows, everything gets a little chaotic. TabJuggler is a Chrome extension that offers a variety of ways to wrangle them in and manage them a bit better. 
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Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
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Editor's note: Sid Venkatesan is an IP partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.?James Freedman?is an associate in Orrick?s IP group and a recent Stanford Law School graduate. Online content providers and aggregators are well aware of the potential penalties that can result from a copyright infringement lawsuit. In addition to being expensive to litigate, a copyright lawsuit can result in statutory damages (which can range between $750 to $30,000 for each infringing work found on a website), some or all of an infringer?s profits and even steeper penalties for willful infringement.
