Monday, April 29, 2013

HHero MotoCorp surges after Q4 earnings beat forecast

* Nadal beats fellow Spaniard Almagro 6-4 6-3 * Wins eighth Barcelona title in nine years (Updates with details, quotes) April 28 (Reuters) - Rafa Nadal became the first player to win four titles this year when he defeated fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 6-4 6-3 to win the Barcelona Open for the eighth time in nine years on Sunday. Since returning from a seven-month absence with a left knee injury in February, the world number five has reached the final at all six events he has played, his Barcelona triumph adding to the victories in Sao Paulo, Acapulco and Indian Wells. "I'm very happy. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hero-motocorp-shares-surge-jan-march-profit-beat-035251169.html

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Team of rivals: Italy, finally, forms new government (+video)

Center-left leader Enrico Letta will be Italy's new prime minister, after his party formed a coalition government with former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives.

By Frances D'Emilio,?Associated Press / April 27, 2013

Italian Premier-designate Enrico Letta speaks at the Quirinale Presidential Palace in Rome, Saturday, April 27, 2013. Italy has finally has a new government, a coalition of Berlusconi's forces and center-left rivals who forged an unusual alliance.

(AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

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Center-left leader Enrico Letta forged a new Italian government Saturday in a coalition with former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives, an unusual alliance of bitter rivals that broke a two-month political stalemate from inconclusive elections in the recession-mired country.

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The daunting achievement was pulled off by Letta, who will be sworn in as premier along with the new Cabinet on Sunday at the presidential Quirinal Palace.

Letta, 46, is a moderate with a reputation as a political bridge-builder. He is also the nephew Berlusconi's longtime adviser, Gianni Letta, a relationship seen as smoothing over often nasty interaction between the two main coalition partners.

Serving as deputy premier and interior minister will be Berlusconi's top political aide, Angelino Alfano. He is a former justice minister who was the architect of legislation that critics say was tailor-made to help media mogul Berlusconi in his many judicial woes.

The creation of the coalition capped the latest political comeback for Berlusconi, a former three-time premier who was forced to resign in 2011 as Italy slid deeper in to the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis.

On Monday, Letta is expected to lay out his strategy to Parliament, ahead of required confidence votes from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

"We negotiated for the formation of the government without throwing up any stop signs," Berlusconi to told one of his TV networks. "That's how we contributed to forming a government in short time" after Letta was tapped Wednesday.

Berlusconi, a fervent anti-Communist, views Italy's left as a personal nemesis, and Letta's Democratic Party has some of its roots in what was the West's largest Communist Party.

Letta expressed "sober satisfaction over the team we put together and its willingness" to form a coalition.

Only a few weeks earlier, the head of the Democrats, Pier Luigi Bersani, resigned from the party post in humiliation and he refused Berlusconi's offer for a "grand coalition" and futilely tried to form a government without the center-right. Letta was a Bersani loyalist.

Bersani hailed the coalition formula as a "necessary compromise" that gives the country "freshness and solidarity."

The No. 3 bloc in Parliament, the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement, is led by comic Beppe Grillo, who ruled out any alliance with the largely sullied political class that has ruled Italy for decades.

President Giorgio Napolitano, who tasked Letta with creating a government out of bitter rivals, called upon the coalition partners to work "in a spirit of absolute, indispensable cohesion" as they work for sorely needed political and economic reforms.

The 87-year-old head of state sounded almost breathless as he expressed confidence the rivals could work together "without conflict or prejudices to find the right solutions" to the country's pressing economic and political problems.

Napolitano didn't name the challenges, but they include fighting unemployment, especially for young people, and corruption sullying much of the political class.

Napolitano said: "It was and is the only possible government," and one "whose formation couldn't be delayed further, in the interest of our country and of Europe."

He reluctantly agreed to be re-elected by Parliament earlier this month for another seven-year term because of the political instability.

Italy's economy is No. 3 among eurozone members, and financial markets have been anxiously watching to see if an effective government could be formed to carry on with outgoing Premier Mario Monti's efforts to keep the country from sliding into the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis.

Some Italian political observers have predicted such a hybrid government might last only a few months of Parliament's five-year term, before collapsing in squabbling.

But the fear of elections, especially after the lightning-quick rise of comic Grillo's grassroots movement, could prove to be strong glue.

Giovanni Orsina, deputy director of LUISS university's school of government in Rome, ventured that Letta's new coalition could "last more than we expect, 18 to 24 months, more or less."

The history professor cited "lack of alternatives, and because I believe Parliament's members are not particularly eager to get back to the polling booth and face new elections."

Voters, fed up with new and higher taxes, including a despised property tax revived by Monti, rejected his severe austerity policies.

The small centrist party created in time for the election by Monti, an economist and former European Union commissioner, will participate in the coalition, although Monti won't be in the Cabinet, which is heavy on two novelties ? a large presence of female ministers and Italy's first black minister.

A native of Congo, Cecile Kyenge is a doctor who will serve as minister of integration. Proposals to make it easier for Italy' growing immigrant population to become citizens have gone nowhere in Parliament amid fierce opposition from the anti-immigrant Northern League party. The party, a Berlusconi ally, isn't in the new government.

Prominent among the women in the Cabinet is Emma Bonino, a former EU commissioner and Radical Party leader who will serve as foreign minister. Olympic gold medal kayaker Josefa Idem was tapped as minister of equal opportunity and sports.

Letta comes from a moderate wing of the left-rooted Democratic Party that is close to the Vatican. Since Parliament always includes an array of lawmakers enjoying good ties to the politically influential Catholic church in Italy, this was one more qualification on Letta's bridge-building resume.

The father of three sons, he lives in Rome's working-class Testaccio neighborhood. When he was tapped by Napolitano on Wednesday, he drove his own car to the Quirinal Palace, in what was seen as a photo opportunity gesture to Italian taxpayers who widely despise the huge fleet of luxury cars that shuttles around ministers and lawmakers.

In 1998, when he was 32, Letta became the youngest minister in Italy's history when he served as minister for European policy for then-Premier Massimo D'Alema, an ex-Communist leader. Letta seemed a natural for that post. He spent his childhood in Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament, and studied international law before jumping into politics.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/WJ77Gys4ack/Team-of-rivals-Italy-finally-forms-new-government-video

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Rachael McNeal: Creating a Culture of Unity Through Interfaith Cooperation

There's no question -- our country is divided. Tension hangs in the air over every conversation about the budget, gay marriage, immigration, and gun control. Of course, difference of opinion is nothing new in the U.S. This is a democracy after all. With the celebrated First Amendment as the cornerstone to our rights as Americans, we can freely shout our differing views from the rooftops -- though in this day in age, shouting exists rarely on rooftops, but on the 24-hour news cycle, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and Twitter. It seems to me that this pervasive exposure to differing opinions, partnered with increasingly more polarized party politics, has created a culture of division in our country.

Many Americans, particularly the younger generations, are disturbed by this culture of division and desire a more united, less polarized, America. The question becomes: how do we deconstruct our culture of division and build a culture of unity? Jim Wallis, in his piece, "On God's Side: For the Common Good," claims that much of the division felt in this country is because so many people audaciously claim that they are on God's side with their politics, actions, and words, and that those who don't think, act, and vote like them, are disobeying divine order. In an effort to move the country forward to unity, Rev. Wallis suggests that instead of making claims about being on God's side, we should start asking "are we on God's side?"

What would it mean to be on God's side? Rev. Wallis's answer is to focus on the common good:

Not just in politics, but in all the decisions we make in our personal, family, vocational, financial, communal, and public lives. That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths -- love your neighbor as yourself -- still the most transformational ethic in history.

I agree with Rev. Wallis -- focusing on the common good is a good step toward answering the question of how to be on God's side, and solving many of our nation's greatest points of division. In a country as diverse as ours, however, it can be challenging to know what the common good actually is. As individual participants in society, we all come to the table with different ideological structures for framing our understanding of what is commonly good. Those structures are often built around religion, philosophy, and our beliefs and understandings about existence, mortality, and the cosmos. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that we live in, arguably, the most religiously diverse nation of all time.

Yes, Jesus has called me to love my neighbor as myself, but what does that really mean when my neighbor is Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, secular humanist, or Hindu?

Religion is often blamed for the world's greatest conflicts, and rightfully so. One doesn't have to look far to see conflict or violence that is linked to religious motivations or sentiments in some way (think the tragedy at the Boston Marathon or the Sikh man that was murdered shortly after 9/11 because he was wearing a turban). In a country that becomes more religiously diverse every day, it is easy to allow conflict to arise between different religious and non-religious groups. It is true, difference in religious and philosophical ideology can be a cause of great division. But what if I told you it doesn't have to be that way?

I believe that amidst all of our nation's diversity, we must be able to find, or create, common ground among us in order to focus on the common good. This is exactly what the American interfaith movement aims to do. According to the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a non-profit organization whose mission is to make interfaith cooperation a social norm, the interfaith movement seeks to build religious pluralism in the U.S. IFYC understands religious pluralism to be respect for others' religious and non-religious identities, mutually inspiring relationships between people of different backgrounds, and common action for the common good.

Religious pluralism, in its most ideal form, not only paves the way to common ground but also creates action for the common good through personal relationships. Pluralism is necessarily relational: it only manifests itself in the give and take of relationships between people of different religious and non-religious identities.

Interfaith cooperation is the path to religious pluralism and a path toward ending the hostile ideological environment in which our country finds itself. It can be scary or intimidating for people of different religions to meet each other half way and to have a conversation. IFYC suggests creating interfaith service projects where Atheists, Christians, and Muslims can work alongside each other in the context of a service project that benefits their mutual communities (a soup kitchen, for example). The service becomes the common ground on which personal relationships across difference are built. In the safety of their common ground, they can then begin to have dialogue and discover each other's true selves; thus paving the way to developing mutually inspiring relationships between people of different backgrounds and respect for others' religious and non-religious identities, backgrounds, and beliefs.

Don't be fooled. You don't have to leave your own unique religious (or non-religious) identity at the door to engage in interfaith cooperation. In fact, it requires you to be authentically yourself, religious identity and all. You can fully and genuinely respect another's identity while simultaneously holding your own differing religious identity. I, an evangelical Christian, can appreciate, and even be inspired, by the dedication of my Muslim neighbor to pray five times a day, while at the same time wanting them to know Jesus. What interfaith cooperation does require is to listen openly, check presumption at the door, and suspend pointing fingers and placing blame on your interfaith cohorts for the ills of the world.

Interfaith cooperation is evolving all the time. With the daily growth of religious diversity in the country, and the growing awareness around the interfaith movement, new voices are being added every day to the conversation about religious pluralism, interfaith cooperation, and their roles in creating common action for the common good. In light of this evolution, what remains consistent and clear is that having personal relationships across religious difference creates religious literacy and interpersonal understanding; such understanding fosters compassion while cultivating a more peaceful and united society. These relationships become our common ground.

I challenge you to help create common ground by building relationships across religious and ideological difference, and to help lay the foundation on which we can build our understanding of the common good and begin to build a stronger more united America.

"This blog post is part of The Huffington Post's 'Common Good' series and Sojourners' Common Good Forum, inspired by Jim Wallis' latest book, "On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned about Serving the Common Good." Click here to read the rest of the blog posts in the series.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachael-mcneal/creating-a-culture-of-unity-through-interfaith-cooperation_b_3167765.html

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Facebook Home hits Google Play today, available for select Android devices

Facebook Home hits Google Play today, available for select Android devices

Chat heads, a virtual carousel of full screen (Instagram) images and enough status updates to let you keep close tabs on your nearest and dearest -- that's what Facebook's got in Home. And as of today, it's breaking free from AT&T's exclusive HTC First and heading to a choice few Android flagships. Now owners of the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II as well as the HTC One X+ can rush on over to Google Play or Facebook's site to download the free screen-stealing app / launcher. And when HTC's One and Samsung's GS 4 make their eventual way to the US market, Facebook heads will also have the privilege of setting up Home on those two flagships.

Developing...

Filed under: , , , ,

Comments

Source: Facebook, Google Play

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/12/facebook-home-hits-google-play-today-available-for-select-andro/

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CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein To Step Down This Summer ...

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein announced today in a message to the CUNY community that he intends to step down as Chancellor this summer.

Dr. Goldstein stated: ?Serving this exceptional university alongside so many extraordinary colleagues has been the greatest privilege of my professional life. I am deeply grateful to the trustees, members of the chancellery, presidents, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, who, every day, work so diligently to support and fulfill CUNY?s historic mission. As the first CUNY graduate to lead the University (City College, Class of 1963), I take enormous pride in what we have accomplished, together, to ensure an unparalleled educational experience for every CUNY student.?

A distinguished mathematician and a highly regarded administrator, Matthew Goldstein was appointed Chancellor of The City University of New York in 1999, which today comprises 24 colleges and professional schools throughout New York City. He was previously president of Baruch College/CUNY, president of the CUNY Research Foundation and president of Adelphi University.

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

Prior to Chancellor Goldstein?s appointment in 1999, a mayoral task force on The City University of New York, chaired by Benno Schmidt, former Yale University president and current CUNY Board Chairperson, issued a blunt report: ?The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift.? Among its many recommendations ? including the creation of clear standards, assessment methods and accountability policies ? the task force pointedly advised: ?CUNY must strive to become a unified, coherent, integrated public university system, for the first time in its history.?

Chairman Schmidt said: ?Chancellor Goldstein has led the unprecedented transformation of CUNY into the premiere integrated urban university in America. By all indications, CUNY?s outstanding reputation, rising enrollments, increased standards and enhanced resources should be attributed in large measure to his exemplary and courageous leadership. He is profoundly deserving of our deepest admiration and appreciation.?

From the outset, Dr. Goldstein focused on raising CUNY?s academic profile while maintaining its fundamental goals of access and opportunity. This emphasis on high standards, academic rigor and student preparation, including the University?s strengthened partnership with the New York City Department of
Education, has resulted in record enrollments (more than 270,000 degree-seeking students and 220,000 individuals in adult and continuing education), increased graduation rates, and ever increasing numbers of high-achieving students enrolling at CUNY, as demonstrated by the rise in average SAT scores of admitted students and the proliferation of CUNY students winning nationally competitive student awards, including Rhodes, Truman, and Marshall scholarships.

In addition, Dr. Goldstein?s tenure has seen a dramatic increase of more than 2,000 additional full-time faculty members, which has played a major role in strengthening CUNY?s core academic areas. CUNY has also achieved a significant measure of fiscal stability under his leadership through the CUNY Compact, a robust fundraising campaign, and a predictable tuition policy. These policies enable students and their families, as well as the University, to plan more efficiently for the future and gain access to available financial aid, and offer a powerful sign of stakeholder investment in public higher education. In addition, the introduction of University-wide accountability measures ensures consistent review, progress, and efficiency throughout CUNY.

Chancellor Goldstein?s vision also included the creation of new schools and colleges within CUNY, including the William E. Macaulay Honors College, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Public Health, and the New Community College, the first in the city in more than 40 years. The Macaulay Honors College, launched in 2001, offers a globally competitive program for some of the most academically talented students in New York. Its innovative curriculum includes four core seminars that link students with the history, arts, and resources of New York City and a ?cultural passport? that gives students access to the rich cultural resources the city offers. The college has been a resounding success, with increasingly competitive admissions and graduates who are admitted to the top graduate and professional schools.

Chancellor Goldstein also initiated the creation of the New Community College, which opened in the fall 2012, adding to the system?s six established community colleges. Given the increasing enrollments and relatively low graduation rates at community colleges nationwide, the Chancellor called for a new model to improve student success, with clearly defined pathways to degree completion and a cohesive support structure. The model is based on the University?s successful ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) initiative, which graduated 55 percent of community college students in three years, compared to the national average three-year graduation rate of 16 percent for urban two-year colleges.

When Dr. Goldstein was awarded the 2007 Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie?s president, Vartan Gregorian, made clear the reasons for the Chancellor?s recognition. ?By raising standards, strengthening student preparation, revolutionizing financing and adding new schools to the system, Matthew Goldstein has truly reinvigorated the City University,? said Gregorian. He added. ?Clearly, Matthew Goldstein?s accomplishments prove that excellence in leadership is much more than effective management.?

Chancellor Goldstein began his tenure with a series of bold reforms to elevate CUNY?s academic profile while maintaining its historic mission of access:

? Admission standards for the CUNY senior colleges were raised, and standardized assessment measures were implemented throughout the University.
? A faculty hiring initiative was begun, bringing talented scholars to the University, particularly in response to CUNY programs to strengthen core areas. More than 2,000 new full-time faculty members have been hired since 1999.
? Partnerships with the New York City Department of Education were strengthened in order to enhance student participation in, and preparation for, higher education. Today, CUNY has among the most comprehensive programs of K-12 collaborations of any university in the country.

The introduction of University-wide accountability measures has ensured consistent review of goals, progress and achievements, most notably through the Performance Management Process (PMP), which began in 2000. The PMP builds a set of annual goals for the University from the state-approved Master Plans. Each campus then sets its own annual goals, and its performance is measured against these goals. Performance feedback is provided to the campuses, and outstanding performance is recognized and rewarded. Incentive systems are designed to engage the entire campus community in reaching the PMP goals.

Chancellor Goldstein also emphasized the importance of research and study in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In 2005 he launched CUNY?s Decade of Science initiative. The University is increasing student participation and proficiency in STEM disciplines and enhancing its research capacity through an integrated approach: increasing funding to Ph.D. students, upgrading laboratories across campuses, intensifying faculty recruiting efforts, and building and upgrading science facilities, including the new CUNY Advanced Science Research Center.

In order to realize the University?s academic priorities and maintain student access during a time of declining state funding, Chancellor Goldstein developed the ?compact? approach to funding. The CUNY Compact is based on a partnership between government and the University that focuses on meeting the University?s operational needs, investing in its academic priorities, and enabling students to plan for the costs of tuition and maintain financial aid. The Compact also emphasizes the importance of philanthropy. In 2004, Chancellor Goldstein launched CUNY?s first University-wide fund-raising campaign, which met its goal of raising $1.2 billion in record time. Today, the campaign is in its second phase and on track to reach $3 billion.

At the Chancellor?s direction, the entire University is currently engaged in the creation of a common curricular structure that will streamline student transfer, enhance the quality of general education across the University and ensure system-wide learning outcomes. The ?Pathways to Degree Completion? initiative will bring CUNY more in line with national norms and ensure that students do not exhaust financial aid resources and increase time to degree because of inconsistent transfer and general education policies.

Chancellor Goldstein is nationally recognized for his educational work and has served on the U.S. Teaching Commission and the New York State Commission on Higher Education. He has led two national summits on public higher education, in 2008 and 2010, assembling system leaders from across the country to engage in conversations and make recommendations about the future of public universities.

He is also a civic leader, most recently chairing the 2010 New York City Charter Revision Commission (by appointment of Mayor Michael Bloomberg) and currently serving as chair of the New York City Regional Economic Development Council (by appointment of Governor Andrew Cuomo) and a member of the New NY Education Reform Commission (by appointment of Governor Andrew Cuomo).

Chancellor Goldstein?s Letter to the CUNY Community

April 12, 2013

Dear Members of the CUNY Community:

I write to let you know of my intention to step down as chancellor of The City University of New York early this summer.

Serving this exceptional university alongside so many extraordinary colleagues has been the greatest privilege of my professional life. I am deeply grateful to the trustees, members of the chancellery, presidents, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, who, every day, work so diligently to support and fulfill CUNY?s historic mission. As the first CUNY graduate to lead the University (City College, Class of 1963), I take enormous pride in what we have accomplished, together, to ensure an unparalleled educational experience for every CUNY student.

Since I began as chancellor in 1999, we have focused on raising the academic profile of the University while maintaining our fundamental goals of access and opportunity. The results of our emphasis on high standards, academic rigor, and student preparation?including our strengthened partnership with the New York City Department of Education?have been record enrollments, increased graduation rates, and more and more high-achieving students coming to CUNY. These students have the benefit of more than 2,000 additional full-time faculty members hired over the last 14 years, whose talents have greatly enhanced our core academic areas.

With the help of the state, the University has also achieved a vital measure of fiscal stability through the CUNY Compact, the initiation of a robust fundraising campaign, and a predictable tuition policy. This enables students and their families to plan more efficiently for the future and gain access to available financial aid, and is a powerful sign of stakeholder investment in our public higher education system. At the same time, University-wide accountability measures have been established to ensure consistent review, progress, and efficiency.

Our priority has always been to provide strong academic opportunities for a wide range of students. That goal has led to the creation of new schools and colleges, including the William E. Macaulay Honors College, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Public Health, and the New Community College, the first in the city in more than 40 years. It was also the impetus behind our Decade of Science initiative to increase student proficiency in the STEM disciplines and enhance the University?s research capacity. Most recently, our Pathways to Degree Completion initiative has created a common curricular structure to streamline student transfer, strengthen the quality of general education, and ensure system-wide learning outcomes.

Today CUNY is a transformed institution, re-energized by the creative, dedicated work of professionals across our 24 colleges and professional schools. A CUNY degree is highly valued in the marketplace of careers and ideas. I am extremely proud of the essential role the University plays in the well-being of our city, state, and nation, as well as the continued contributions of our accomplished graduates. Going forward, I know that the University?s mission will only be invigorated by the innovative work and collective efforts of our remarkable CUNY community.

I am working closely with Chairperson Benno Schmidt and the Board of Trustees to ensure a smooth transition with the appointment of an interim chancellor later this spring.

Please accept my heartfelt gratitude for your support and partnership during my tenure as chancellor and your invaluable service to the University. It has been my honor to serve this incomparable institution with you.

Sincerely,

Matthew Goldstein

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, The City University of New York (CUNY)
List of Accomplishments

? A distinguished mathematician and a highly regarded administrator, Matthew Goldstein was appointed chancellor in 1999. He is the first CUNY graduate (City College of New York) to lead the University, which comprises 24 colleges and professional schools throughout New York City. He was previously president of Baruch College, president of the CUNY Research Foundation, and president of Adelphi University. He has held faculty positions in mathematics and statistics at a number of universities and is the co-author of three books.

? Prior to Chancellor Goldstein?s appointment in 1999, a mayoral task force on The City University of New York, chaired by Benno Schmidt, former Yale University president and current CUNY board chairperson, issued a blunt report: ?The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift.? Among its many recommendations?including the creation of clear standards, assessment methods, and accountability policies?the task force pointedly advised: ?CUNY must strive to become a unified, coherent, integrated public university system, for the first time in its history.? Under Chancellor Goldstein?s leadership, CUNY, the country?s premier urban institution, is experiencing a widely lauded transformation.

? When Chancellor Goldstein was awarded the 2007 Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie?s president, Vartan Gregorian, made clear the reasons for the chancellor?s recognition. ?By raising standards, strengthening student preparation, revolutionizing financing and adding new schools to the system, Matthew Goldstein has truly reinvigorated the City University,? said Gregorian. He added. ?Clearly, Matthew Goldstein?s accomplishments prove that excellence in leadership is much more than effective management.?

? Chancellor Goldstein began his tenure with a series of bold reforms to elevate CUNY?s academic profile while maintaining its historic mission of access:
o Admission standards for the CUNY senior colleges were raised, and standardized assessment measures were implemented throughout the University.
o A faculty hiring initiative was begun, bringing talented scholars to the University, particularly in response to CUNY programs to strengthen core areas. Since 1999, more than 1,700 new full-time faculty members have been hired.
o Partnerships with the New York City Department of Education were strengthened in order to enhance student participation in, and preparation for, higher education. Today, CUNY has among the most comprehensive programs of K-12 collaborations of any university in the country.

? University-wide accountability measures were established to ensure consistent review of goals, progress, and achievements, most notably through the Performance Management Process (PMP) in 2000. The PMP builds a set of annual goals for the University from the state-approved Master Plans. Each campus then sets its own annual goals, and its performance is measured against these goals. Performance feedback is provided to the campuses, and outstanding performance is recognized and rewarded. Incentive systems are designed to engage the entire campus community in reaching the PMP goals.

? The result of a University-wide emphasis on high standards and academic rigor has been record enrollments (more than 270,000 degree-seeking students and 220,000 individuals in adult and continuing education), increased graduation rates, and more and more high-achieving students coming to CUNY, as demonstrated by the rise in average SAT scores of admitted students and the proliferation of CUNY students winning nationally competitive student awards, including Rhodes, Truman, and Marshall scholarships.

? Chancellor Goldstein?s vision also included the creation of new schools and colleges within CUNY, including the William E. Macaulay Honors College, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and the CUNY School of Public Health.

? The honors college, launched in 2001, offers a globally competitive program for some of the most academically talented students in New York. Its innovative curriculum includes four core seminars that link students with the history, arts, and resources of New York City and a ?cultural passport? that gives students access to the rich cultural resources the city offers. The college has been a resounding success, with increasingly competitive admissions and graduates who are admitted to the top graduate and professional schools.

? Chancellor Goldstein has also emphasized the importance of research and study in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) through the launch of the Decade of Science initiative, begun in 2005. The University is increasing student participation and proficiency in STEM disciplines and enhancing its research capacity through an integrated approach: increasing funding to Ph.D. students, upgrading laboratories across campuses, intensifying faculty recruiting efforts, and building and upgrading science facilities, including the new CUNY Advanced Science Research Center.

? Most recently, Chancellor Goldstein initiated the creation of a new community college, adding to the system?s six established community colleges. Given the increasing enrollments and relatively low graduation rates at community colleges nationwide, the chancellor called for a new model to improve student success, with clearly defined pathways to degree completion and a cohesive support structure. The model is based on the University?s successful ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) initiative, which graduated 55 percent of community college students in three years, compared to the national average three-year graduation rate of 16 percent for urban two-year colleges. The new community college, the first in New York City in more than 40 years, opened in fall 2012.

? In order to realize the University?s academic priorities and maintain student access during a time of declining state funding, Chancellor Goldstein developed the ?compact? approach to funding. The CUNY Compact is based on a partnership between government and the University that focuses on meeting the University?s operational needs, investing in its academic priorities, and enabling students to plan for the costs of tuition and maintain financial aid. The compact also emphasizes the importance of philanthropy. In 2004, Chancellor Goldstein launched CUNY?s first University-wide fund-raising campaign, which met its goal of raising $1.2 billion in record time. Today, the campaign is in its second phase and on track to reach $3 billion.

? The CUNY Compact has become the statewide financing model. In 2011, Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature approved historic legislation instituting a five-year tuition plan for CUNY and SUNY. The plan includes a maintenance-of-effort provision, ensuring that state funding remains at prior-year levels, as well as the maintenance of financial aid. The policy enables students and their families, as well as the University, to plan more efficiently for the future, and is a strong sign of state investment in public higher education.

? At the chancellor?s direction, the entire University is currently engaged in the creation of a common curricular structure that will streamline student transfer, enhance the quality of general education across the University, and ensure system-wide learning outcomes. The ?Pathways to Degree Completion? initiative will bring CUNY more in line with national norms and ensure that students do not exhaust financial aid resources and increase time to degree because of inconsistent transfer and general education policies.

? Chancellor Goldstein is nationally recognized for his educational work and has served on the U.S. Teaching Commission and the New York State Commission on Higher Education. He has led two national summits on public higher education, in 2008 and 2010, assembling system leaders from across the country to engage in conversations and make recommendations about the future of public universities.

? He is also a civic leader, most recently chairing the 2010 New York City Charter Revision Commission (by appointment of Mayor Michael Bloomberg) and currently serving as chair of the New York City Regional Economic Development Council (by appointment of Governor Andrew Cuomo) and a member of the New NY Education Reform Commission (by appointment of Governor Andrew Cuomo).

Source: http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2013/04/12/cuny-chancellor-matthew-goldstein-to-step-down-this-summer/

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Friday, April 12, 2013

Molecular 'superglue' based on flesh-eating bacteria

Apr. 11, 2013 ? In a classic case of turning an enemy into a friend, scientists have engineered a protein from flesh-eating bacteria to act as a molecular "superglue" that promises to become a disease fighter. And their latest results, which make the technology more versatile, were the topic of a report in New Orleans on April 11 at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

"We've turned the tables and put one kind of flesh-eating bacterium to good use," said Mark Howarth, Ph.D., who led the research. "We have engineered one of its proteins into a molecular superglue that adheres so tightly that the set-up we used to measure the strength actually broke. It resists high and low temperatures, acids and other harsh conditions and seals quickly. With this material we can lock proteins together in ways that could underpin better diagnostic tests -- for early detection of cancer cells circulating in the blood, for instance. There are many uses in research, such as probing how the forces inside cells change the biochemistry and affect health and disease."

Howarth's team at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom genetically engineered the glue from a protein, FbaB, that helps Streptococcus pyogenes (S. pyogenes) bacteria infect cells. S. pyogenes is one of the microbes that can cause the rare necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating bacteria syndrome, in which difficult-to-treat infections destroy body tissue.

They split FbaB into two parts, a larger protein and a smaller protein subunit, termed a peptide. Abbreviating S. pyogenes as "Spy," they named the small peptide "SpyTag" and the larger protein "SpyCatcher." The gluing action occurs when SpyTag and SpyCatcher meet. They quickly lock together by forming one of the strongest possible chemical bonds. SpyCatcher and SpyTag can be attached to the millions of proteins in the human body and other living things, thus gluing proteins together.

In an advance reported at the meeting, Howarth described how Jacob Fierer, a graduate student on the research team, greatly reduced the size of the SpyCatcher part of the technology. That achievement makes the technology more flexible, enabling scientists to connect proteins into new architectures, he said.

One of the applications on the horizon involves testing the technology as a new way to detect "circulating tumor cells," or CTCs. Tumors shed these cells into the bloodstream, where they may act as seeds, spreading or metastasizing cancer from the original site to other parts of the body. That spreading is the reason why cancer is such a serious health problem. Detecting CTCs is an active area of research worldwide because of its potential for early diagnosis of cancer -- from blood samples rather than biopsies -- and determining when new treatments may be needed to prevent the disease from spreading.

Howarth said that the Spy technology has advantages over other molecular gluing systems that are available. SpyCatcher and SpyTag, for instance, can glue two proteins together at any point in the protein. "That flexibility allows us many different ways to label proteins and gives us new approaches to assemble proteins together for diagnostic tests," Howarth explained.

Howarth and colleagues are working with Isis Innovation, the University of Oxford's technology transfer company, to find potential partners to bring the Spy system to the market.

The researchers acknowledge funding from the Clarendon Fund.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/eBwc9d-jaQg/130411105822.htm

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Crime and vampires driving Nordic film boom

By Simon Johnson

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Gone are the days of Greta Garbo and Ingmar Bergman, but from arty documentaries to brooding crime stories, Nordic movies and television shows are enjoying an international boom.

Swedish documentary "Searching for Sugar Man" won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Features. Two Swedish sound engineers also won Oscars and movies from Norway and Denmark were both nominated for best Foreign Language Film.

"Right now, here in Hollywood, we are talking about the Nordic trend because we have seen so much great stuff coming from there recently," said Fredrik Malmberg, CEO of Paradox Entertainment, a production company based in Los Angeles and Stockholm.

Scandinavia has in the past mainly been associated with arty, intellectual films. "Searching for Sugar Man", the story of two die-hard fans seeking a missing-and-assumed-dead musician with a cult following in South Africa, fits well in that genre.

"In Sweden, we have had Ingmar Bergman, but also others that have given Sweden a kind of aura - you can think of Garbo and Ingrid Bergman," Anna Serner, Head of Sweden's Film Institute.

"In Denmark, you have Lars von Trier who is one of the world's biggest directors. Finland has (Aki) Kaurismaki."

But it is the darker side of Scandinavian culture which has been the building block of recent success.

That has included the crime novels of Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo and Sweden's Henning Mankell, as well as the blockbuster "Millennium" trilogy of Stieg Larsson, of which "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was made into a Hollywood film with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

"'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' has been a big influence," said Anna Serner, head of Sweden's Film Institute

"When such a film breaks through - and the interest started with 'Let the Right One In' - then eyes are turned to us and since then there has been a lot of interest in Swedish film."

Malmberg, who was executive producer on "Let Me In", which was a 2010 Hollywood remake of moody Swedish vampire flick "Let the Right One In", said the success of Nordic crime novels had opened doors in Hollywood.

Tomas Alfredson, the director of "Let the Right One In" went on to direct Gary Oldman and Colin Firth in Cold War thriller "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" in 2011.

"Any book that gets published in the genre is optioned the day it is produced," he said, describing how Hollywood studios pay for the rights to turn novels into movies.

"Hollywood is very observant, and picks up on trends, that's what we do," he said.

WINTER LIGHT

Crime and horror are odd specialties for nations that are wealthy, healthy, where murder levels are relatively low and child well-being tops the international rankings.

But it is the contrast between light and dark that inspires fascination, said Peter Aalbaek Jensen, who founded film company Zentropa with award-winning Danish director Lars von Trier.

"We are living in darkness up here most of the year and the mentality is dark," said Aalbaek Jensen, whose collaboration with von Trier included "Melancholia" in 2011, "Dogville" in 2003 and executive producer credits for both men on Denmark's 2013, Oscar-nominated drama "A Royal Affair".

"We are these extremely rich and spoiled nations that like to be moody. That's exotic," Aalbaek Jensen said.

A small domestic market has also forced Scandinavians to adapt to the tastes of a wider audience to make their films pay.

"We make 90 percent of our income abroad and most of the financing also comes from outside Denmark," Aalbaek Jensen said. "So we are forced to be international because we don't have any money. Maybe that is an advantage."

TV shows like Denmark's "The Killing" have attracted millions of viewers in countries like Britain and spawned a copy-cat series in the United States.

Scandinavian directors also punch above their weight.

The 2011 smash movie "Drive", starring Ryan Gosling, was directed by Dane Nicolas Winding Refn, while Norway's Morten Tyldum, who made "Headhunters", based on a Nesbo crime novel, has signed up to direct "The Imitation Game" about English mathematician Alan Turing.

"When we are discussing projects right now, we are saying 'can we get a hot Nordic director for this', said Paradox's Malmberg.

Success has dragged along the region's acting talent, with Sweden's Alexander Skarsgard from TV-vampire series "True Blood", Dane Mads Mikkelsen - a recent Bond villain - and Sweden's Noomi Rapace, who has starred in both Bond and Sherlock Holmes - among the hottest international properties currently.

Malmberg, however, was cautious about whether the region could build on its success.

"Hollywood is so trendy, rest assured the trend will move on," he said.

"A couple of years ago it was Korea, Korean movies, then it was Nordic movies. Who knows what the next thing will be."

(Reporting by Simon Johnson, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/crime-vampires-driving-nordic-film-boom-112043878.html

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Thursday, April 11, 2013

Headlines revive memories of 80s economics

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, left, makes remarks after visiting United States President Ronald Reagan, right, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Friday, July 17, 1987. Thatcher died from a stroke at 87 on Monday, April 8, 2013. Credit: Howard L. Sachs - CNP Photo by: Howard L. Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, left, makes remarks after visiting United States President Ronald Reagan, right, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Friday, July 17, 1987. Thatcher died from a stroke at 87 on Monday, April 8, 2013. Credit: Howard L. Sachs - CNP Photo by: Howard L. Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Believers hailed its reduced tax rates and deregulation as springboards for economic miracles under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Critics dismissed the very same ideas as so much trickle-down hocus-pocus and voodoo.

It's been most of three decades since debate over "supply-side" economic policies was at the center of U.S. politics. But for the moment, talk of conservative economic ideas that were as central to the story of the 1980s as Michael Jackson's moonwalk and the first MacIntosh personal computer is back. Why? A pair of its leading proponents have returned to the headlines.

Memories of economic days gone by were rekindled last week when David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, unleashed a scathing attack on years of decision-making by U.S. leaders, including his former boss. It continued this week, when Thatcher's death on Monday prompted recollections ? some fond, others not so much ? of how the Iron Lady imposed her will on a long-stagnant British economy.

The confluence of events got economists waxing about what the past means for today, although there's disagreement on how much supply-side's ideas have been abandoned in the U.S. or are just awaiting their moment of return. In the meantime, there was Arthur Laffer, the U.S. economist often called the father of supply-side, back on television three times Monday, recalling a warm friendship with Thatcher that highlighted a time when prevailing wisdom on taxes, deficits, and the roles of government and individuals was very different.

"We're back in the time machine," said Yoram Bauman, a Seattle economist who makes a living doing stand-up comedy about the dismal science ? and who has long opened with a joke or two about supply-side to test the depth and endurance of his audience's knowledge.

Supply-side economists argued that reducing taxes through lower rates would encourage work, saving and investment. Early supply-side theory promised that the reduced tax rates could pay for themselves by raising tax revenues. Under Reagan, the government lowered tax rates and reduced government regulation as the Federal Reserve worked to rein in inflation. The administration's focus on lowering tax rates for the wealthy, labeled "trickle-down economics," reflected the belief that these gains would encourage the rich to spend and invest more to create jobs for others.

Now that theory ? and Bauman's comic material, for that matter ? may have found its moment, but it's not clear how long it will last.

It began last week when Stockman wrote a lengthy opinion piece in The New York Times, followed by interviews, to build awareness of his new book, "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America." He used the forum to go after everyone from Richard Nixon to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush for decades of decisions that he said have left government bloated and swimming in deficits and the economy on a fault line.

Along the way, Stockman also lambasted Reagan ? whom many Republicans embrace as an economic hero ? for the "destruction of fiscal rectitude" inherent in running up big deficits. The criticism by Stockman, who resigned from the administration in 1985 over disagreement with those policies, was labeled as a rant by some economists. But there was little doubt that, if only briefly, it revived memories of the economics of the 1980s ? and pointed out how much the landscape has changed.

"I think to the extent that anyone is thinking about supply-side anymore it's nostalgically. It's not with an expectation that it's going to make a comeback," said Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist for Yardeni Research

"In many ways, Stockman's book is just a scathing indictment of how the supply-side revolution has been taken apart by a counter-revolution, by the promoters of big government," he said.

With Washington focused on gun control, immigration reform and other issues, attention to the economics debate as embodied by Stockman might not have lasted. But Thatcher's death Monday unearthed memories of the economic malaise that saddled both Britain and the U.S. through the early 1980s. It was characterized by high inflation, weak financial markets, multiple recessions and, in Britain's case, the sense of "an economy that was producing goods that nobody wanted to buy," said Brian Domitrovic, author of "Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity."

In obituaries and recollections, observers recalled how Thatcher cut back on regulation, cut taxes and reduced government's role in enterprise, to recast the British economy. In doing so, she adopted some tenets of the economic gospel preached by Laffer. According to Washington legend, he had introduced the basics of supply-side to Nixon-era officials Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld during a 1974 lunch at a restaurant not far from the White House by drawing, on a cocktail napkin, a curve showing the tradeoff between tax rates and revenue.

To Domitrovic, the revived debate over old economic ideas is a sign that people have not forgotten the crises of the 1970s or the way the Reagan and Thatcher administrations wrestled with them.

"When these great names come up, there is a sense of impressiveness and a kind of awesomeness," said Domitrovic, chair of the history department at Sam Houston State University.

Laffer, who runs an economic consultancy in Nashville, said there are still many believers in supply-side ideas, which he maintains are just as applicable to the huge deficits and economic sluggishness of today as back then.

"I don't think it's Thatcher's death that brought it back or Stockman's resurrection," Laffer said. "I mean, do you think the economy is doing well?"

Even now, the legacy of 1980s economics is quite vibrant, he said. Despite Obama's quest to raise taxes on the wealthy, no one in Washington would consider returning to the policies inherited by Reagan, who lowered the top tax rate from 50 percent to 28 percent, Laffer said. And in states like Kansas and Wisconsin, many governors, most of them Republicans, are working to cut taxes and reduce the size of government, he said.

Others, though, say memories of 1980s economic ideas have largely faded. Their prediction: Even the current turn in the spotlight will be brief.

Bauman, the economic comedian who billed a 2008 series of performances as his "Supply Side Tour," points out how much times have changed. Stumbling on such old economic policies now, Bauman says, is like rummaging through a pantry and finding a bag of chocolate chips with an expiration date from long, long ago and realizing that something once delicious might now be better to leave out of the recipe.

On stage, he introduces himself as a supply-side economist who does standup and lets the jokes trickle down, a line that wins knowing chuckles. But during frequent performances on college campuses, he notices that a joke about the Laffer Curve often brings groans or simply blank stares.

To get the joke about the economics of the 1980s, Bauman said, it helps to have been there.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? AP National Writer Adam Geller can be reached at features (at) ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-10-US-Economics-Back-to-the-Future/id-6ca9a12d81ed406b96b7ec6b4f96578f

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Will "Pandora s Promise" Start A New Environmental Movement FOR Nuclear Power?

The last line in Pandora's Promise , Robert Stone's new documentary about the environmental advantages of nuclear power, comes from Michael Shellenberger, co-head of the Breakthrough Institute. "I have a sense that this is a beautiful thing, the beginning of a movement," he says. Provoking a new environmental movement in favor of nuclear power is a tall order, but a recent screening of Pandora's Promise suggests that it might play a part, for some intriguing reasons. Stone's film premiered at Sundance to positive reviews (Variety, Slate) and is scheduled for theatrical release this summer. It makes a convincing case for nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy to reduce the harm of climate change in a world in which population is rising and the demand for electricity is soaring as the developing world develops. (For the record, I was already convinced; See Beware the Fear of Nuclear...FEAR) Nuclear power, Shellenberger says, can contribute to "...a world of seven to ten billion people, living resource-intensive high energy lives, without killing the climate." But beyond making a clear and compelling case, Pandora's Promise may persuade environmentalists to rethink their opposition to nuclear power because of the subliminal ways the film plays to the subconscious cognitive processes that shape our views about risk. Yes, it offers a lot of facts. (Too many, actually. The explanation for why we ended up with light water instead of breeder reactor technology is superfluous, as is the whole digression at the end about future reactor technologies, which hold a lot of potential but are a decade or more away.) But the reason those facts are likely to have persuasive impact is that the film hits a lot of the right emotional, instinctive, affective buttons that shape how people feel about risks such as nuclear power and climate change. One of the most powerful of those buttons is the influence of trust, and Stone is wise to use environmentalists as protagonists to make the environmental case. Each of the main speakers in the film establishes early on that, like all good members of the tribe, they were anti-nuclear too, at least at first, as if to say 'Trust me, I'm an environmentalist, like you'. "I grew up in an anti-nuke family. My parents were anti-nuclear. To us anybody who believed in nuclear power was by definition a dupe.", says Gwyneth Cravens, author of The Power to Save the World. Mark Lynas, author of The God Species, who helped organize radical environmentalist opposition to genetically modified food in Europe, says "We were against nuclear power. As an environmentalist, those two things go together." Stewart Brand, one of the original Merry Pranksters in the 60s and founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue, goes further, and notes how for the baby boom generation, the fear of nuclear power had little to do with the pros and cons of nuclear as a way to produce electricity. It grew directly out of fear of bombs, and fallout from atmospheric weapons testing, and cancer, all of which played key roles in the rise of the modern environmental movement. "Nuclear bombs were not just weapons. They were like Armageddon, the end of all we know," he says. "I grew up having nightmares that my home was bombed into oblivion." "There was Duck and Cover. It made it all pretty personal." Such confessions from the now pro-nuclear environmentalists in the film, that their own initial anti-nuke views were more the product of automatic enviro groupthink than informed independent analysis, and their acknowledgement that it felt scary to change their minds and go against the group - "I was at no doubt that my entire career as an activist was at risk if I went and talked (positively) about nuclear," Lynas - will likely challenge environmentalists in the audience to think for themselves, and not default to what the leaders of the tribe tell them to think, as people usually do. As in, Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader oppose nuclear power? Well then I do, too. Bill McKibben says stop the Keystone pipeline? Well then so do I. Stone also effectively undermines the trust in prominent anti-nuclear leaders, particularly Helen Caldicott. Calidcott tells a producer for the film that people who deny the science of climate change are "...idiots," adding " How dare they deny science." But the film accuses her of doing the same thing by denying the science regarding the death toll from Chernobyl. 20 years of research by the World Health Organization estimates the world's worst nuclear plant accident will cause a maximum of about 4,000 lifetime excess cancer deaths, but Caldicott claims Chernobyl may ultimately kill more than a million people. She is asked how she can she reconcile doing the same thing she says the 'idiot' deniers of climate change are doing? "I can not," she stumbles. (Surprisingly, Stone fails to go beyond the Chernobyl numbers and report what the study of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has learned about how weak a carcinogen nuclear radiation actually is. Those grotesquely high exposures increased the lifetime cancer fatality risk by only half of one percent, and caused no multi-generational genetic damage, findings that shock and surprise most people, as they did me. This is the radiation biology on which the WHO Chernobyl estimates are based, and it's remarkable that such relevant information is missing from a documentary that advocates that we worry too much about nuclear radiation.) Beyond the matter of trust, Stone taps the psychology of risk perception in a number of other ways. He challenges the irrationality of worrying more about risks that are human-made than risks that are natural, mocking the anti-nuclear environmentalists protesting against the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant who are handing out bananas, a single one of which contains more radiation than the entire radioactive water emissions from the plant they were protesting about (radioactive potassium 40 is absorbed into the banana from the soil, see Banana Equivalent Dose. People are more worried by invisible undetectable risks, so Pandora's Promise visualizes and demystifies radiation by having Lynas display the readings on a hand held radiation detector in several locations - Tokyo, Paris, on a mountain top in New Hampshire, on a plane ride, at Chernobyl, outside trailers that evacuees are living in Fukushima where parents say they won't let their kids play outside for more than an hour a day - confirming how low the levels, and the risk, actually are. Environmentalist culture is part of a communitarian worldview that believes 'we are all in this together', and Rhodes appeals directly to that social conscience when he says, "Unless you want to condemn more than half the population of the earth to sickness and impoverished lives, we have to produce more electricity." And we worry more about risks to children than risk to adults, so to shift the fear nuclear power to the far greater environmental peril of climate change, Pandora's Promise shows Lynas - who admits it was 'scary as shit' to be in the deserted ghost town of Fukushima - playing with his children as he says "Having kids has deepened my commitment to the future and concern about global warming." This is all psychologically effective risk communication - the facts presented in ways that appeal to the emotional filters that shape our views of those facts. But there is no shortage of information. The film covers all the main issues about nuclear power. Shellenberger calls solar and wind 'a hallucinatory illusion' that can't supply nearly as much electricity as the world will need (and needs natural gas back-up for windless or cloudy days), as we see rows of huge windmills in California not turning. Cravens tells us that particulate pollution from fossil fuels kills 13,000 Americans a year, as we see a sequence of earth-gouging coal mining sure to upset any environmentalist. We are told that the volume of nuclear waste is small (graphics show how all of America's nuclear waste would fit on a football field a few feet deep) and can be safely stored (we're shown how such waste is currently stored in containers outdoors at many American nuclear power plants). Brand describes as 'poetic' the way decommissioned nuclear warheads from the U.S and Russia are being recycled into nuclear power that is lighting American cities, as we see glowing nighttime skylines. Anyone who knows the nuclear power issue will immediately recognize that all these arguments are one-sided and simplistic. Important caveats are missing. The biggest of these is Shellenberger's casual dismissal of the greatest obstacle of all to nuclear power, the billions it costs to build these plants, which can't be raised because they aren't close to cost-competitive (to build - they are competitive once they're operating, since they have low refueling costs) and without a price on carbon emissions or help from regulators, they probably won't be competitive for years. This misleading one-sidedness detracts from the film's credibility, and trust, and potential impact. But only a bit, because Pandora's Promise is not one of those documentaries that hides its point of view behind a pretense of being neutral and objective. It is open, earnest, unabashed advocacy, and it makes a makes a persuasive case, laced with images and emotional messages that will tap subconscious affective cues that influence our perceptions of risk. It may not change the minds of baby boomer environmentalists whose fear of anything nuclear grows from deep historic roots and whose self-identities are too tightly bound to the expected tribal opposition to nuclear power. But to younger viewers, and to any viewer with an open mind, Pandora's Promise may well play an important role in broadening the conversation about the huge pros as well as the better known cons of this important, if controversial, source of clean energy. (In the name of transparency, I have participated twice in the Breakthrough Institute's annual Breakthrough Dialogue, a two-day retreat that brings together experts and thinkers - not sure how I got invited - to ponder solutions to big problems. Shellenberger, Lynas, Brand, Cravens, and Stone, have been part of those conversations.) Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pandora-promise-start-environmental-movement-nuclear-power-160500207.html

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After Rebooting, Lulu Sees Its Database Of Guys App Hit 200K Users In 8 Weeks Across U.S. Campuses

unnamed-2Lulu (formerly Luluvise), the controversial mobile app that lets girls anonymously review and recommend guys, is seeing some pretty decent traction since it rebooted in February to focus on launching across U.S. college campuses, early Facebook-style. The London/U.S. company, backed by Passion Capital, PROfounders and a host of prominent angels including Yuri Milner and Dave Morin, has garnered 200,000 users in 8 weeks across the five U.S. universities where it?s actively been marketed.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/I_ihyyiaG2I/

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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Ghostly green bubble: Detailed image of planetary nebula

Apr. 10, 2013 ? Stars the size of the Sun end their lives as tiny and faint white dwarf stars. But as they make the final transition into retirement their atmospheres are blown away into space. For a few tens of thousands of years they are surrounded by the spectacular and colourful glowing clouds of ionised gas known as planetary nebulae.

A new image from the VLT shows the planetary nebula IC 1295, which lies in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It has the unusual feature of being surrounded by multiple shells that make it resemble a micro-organism seen under a microscope, with many layers corresponding to the membranes of a cell.

These bubbles are made out of gas that used to be the star's atmosphere. This gas has been expelled by unstable fusion reactions in the star's core that generated sudden releases of energy, like huge thermonuclear belches. The gas is bathed in strong ultraviolet radiation from the aging star, which makes the gas glow. Different chemical elements glow with different colours and the ghostly green shade that is prominent in IC 1295 comes from ionised oxygen.

At the centre of the image, you can see the burnt-out remnant of the star's core as a bright blue-white spot at the heart of the nebula. The central star will become a very faint white dwarf and slowly cool down over many billions of years.

Stars with masses like the Sun and up to eight times that of the Sun, will form planetary nebulae as they enter the final phase of their existence. The Sun is 4.6 billion years old and it will likely live another four billion years.

Despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. This descriptive term was applied to some early discoveries because of the visual similarity of these unusual objects to the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, when viewed through early telescopes, and it has been catchy enough to survive [1]. These objects were shown to be glowing gas by early spectroscopic observations in the nineteenth century.

This image was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, using the FORS instrument (FOcal Reducer Spectrograph). Exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light (coloured blue), visible light (coloured green), and red light (coloured red) have been combined to make this picture.

Notes

[1] Even early observers such as William Herschel, who discovered many planetary nebulae and speculated about their origin and composition, knew that they weren't actually planets orbiting the Sun as they did not move relative to the surrounding stars.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by ESO.

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

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/1kYV_db-eP4/130410082738.htm

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Google Unveils Redesigned Play Store Android App, Rollout To Phones And Tablets Starts Today

newgoogleplayRemember that hefty leak from a few weeks back that pointed to a dramatic redesign for Google's Play Store Android app? Well, in case you were still unconvinced, Google has confirmed that just such a facelift has been in the works, and that the new 4.0 version of the Play Store app will start rolling out to devices running Android 2.2 and newer some time today.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9GYlg8r_4x4/

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

AT&T announces plans for 1Gbps fiber service in Austin, Texas; Google gets immediate competition

AT&T announces plans for 1Gbps fiber service in Austin, Texas Google gets immediate competition

First thought: "Ha!" Second thought: "Oh, wait -- competition is an excellent thing." While it's highly probable that AT&T is looking to both overshadow Google's launch party and maintain a foothold in one of its most prized states, the outfit's terse announcement of an impending 1Gbps fiber network should honestly be seen as nothing but excellent news for residents of Austin. Merely hours after Google and the city of Austin jointly made clear that Google Fiber would be hitting up local homes in mid-2014, Ma Bell has made public its "intent" to built a 1 Gigabit fiber network in the same area.

AT&T's expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the "same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives." Of course, it's seriously unlikely AT&T will offer up basic fiber connections for free in the way that Google's doing, but on a macro level, we certainly hope this type of one-upping continues in more towns across the country. And, more specifically, that AT&T continues to roll out fiber networks on its own accord in various locales; with FiOS expansion indefinitely paused, we sure need someone to step up and keep the dream alive.

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Source: AT&T

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet-austin-texas-official/

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UN ready to investigate Syrian chemical weapons

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? U.N. experts are poised to move into Syria within 24 hours to investigate reported chemical weapons attacks in the country's civil war, but President Bashar Assad's government still has not given them the green light to enter the country, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

Ban told reporters in The Hague that an advance team is already waiting at a final staging post on Cyprus, while the U.N. negotiates "technical and legal" issues with Damascus.

All reports of chemical attacks "should be examined without delay, without conditions and without exceptions," Ban said.

His comments appeared aimed at increasing pressure on Assad's regime and ensuring that U.N. inspectors are given access to all sites of reported chemical weapons attacks and not just those Damascus wants them to see.

Ban said it is "a matter of principle" to investigate all allegations and not just a case in which Syria alleges that rebels used poison gas.

"I am hopeful we will be able to finish this as soon as possible, and I urge the Syrian government to be more flexible so this commission can be deployed as soon as possible," Ban said. "We are ready."

Syria asked the United Nations last month to investigate an alleged chemical weapons attack by rebels on March 19 on Khan al-Assal village in northern Aleppo province. The rebels blamed regime forces for the attack.

Britain and France followed up by asking the U.N. chief to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in two locations in Khan al-Assal and the village of Ataybah in the vicinity of Damascus, all on March 19, as well as in Homs on Dec. 23.

Ban was speaking at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, which is sending a team of 15 experts to join the commission, along with World Health Organization staff.

The team is led by Ake Sellstrom, a Swedish professor who was a U.N. chemical weapons inspector in Iraq and now works at a research institute that deals with chemical incidents. Ban said he spoke to Sellstrom on Sunday night and he was now heading to join the advance party in Cyprus.

Syria is widely believed to have a large stockpile of chemical weapons, but it is one of only eight countries in the world that have not signed up to the chemical weapons convention, which means that it does not have to report any chemical weapons to the Hague-based organization that monitors compliance with the treaty.

Ban said the experts need to get to Syria as soon as possible to investigate the attacks.

"The longer we wait, the harder this essential mission will be," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-chemical-investigators-ready-syria-104632401.html

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Two senators key to Obama's push for broader checks of gun buyers

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fate of one of President Barack Obama's key gun-control proposals appeared on Monday night to be in the hands of two senators: one Democrat, the other Republican, both of them longtime opponents of restrictions on guns.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are seeking a compromise on expanding background checks for prospective gun buyers. The proposal appears to be Obama's best hope for meaningful gun-control legislation in the wake of the December massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Connecticut, where the president spoke Monday evening to a crowd that included some victims' families.

If Manchin and Toomey can't strike a deal, Obama's calls to require nearly all gun buyers to submit to background checks for criminal records and mental health problems likely will fail, Senate aides said on Monday.

Another centerpiece of Obama's efforts, a renewal of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, appears unlikely to be approved, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. A proposed 10-bullet limit on ammunition magazines also appears to be in trouble, he has said.

Obama, who has called the day of the Newtown massacre the worst of his presidency, made a strong appeal on Monday for action in Congress.

But at this point, Senate aides said, there seems to be strong, bipartisan support for only two of Obama's proposals: a crackdown on gun trafficking and improvements to security at schools.

The talks between Manchin and Toomey - both allies of the National Rifle Association, the nation's largest gun-rights group - symbolize why the background checks proposal is not a sure thing in Congress, even though polls have indicated that it is backed by 80 to 90 percent of Americans.

Toomey is pushing for expanded background checks even as 13 conservative Republican senators are threatening a filibuster to delay votes on any gun-control bills.

And Manchin represents how Democrats' move in recent years to embrace candidates who strongly support gun rights is complicating the Democratic president's push for gun restrictions.

Manchin is among eight Senate Democrats rated as friendly to gun rights by the NRA to have joined the chamber since 2006.

That was when the Democratic officials - fed up with losing congressional races to Republicans in rural and conservative states such as Montana, Virginia, North Carolina, Alaska and West Virginia - stepped up its recruiting of pro-gun candidates.

The strategy worked.

Democrats won control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2006 and increased their majorities in 2008, when Obama captured the White House.

The House fell back to Republicans in 2010, but not before conservative Democrats such as Manchin helped Obama get his healthcare overhaul through Congress.

But now, those conservative Democrats have become speed bumps for several of Obama's gun-control proposals - particularly his call to ban assault weapons, which both sides see as unlikely to pass even the Senate, where Democrats control 55 of the 100 seats.

On expanding background checks, "Manchin is upbeat about their chances of success," said one Senate aide, who offered an assessment of her own: "50-50."

SEEING A 'SLIPPERY SLOPE'

Reid, who schedules floor votes in the Senate, had planned to begin consideration of gun legislation this week. But that timetable could be pushed to next week to give Manchin and Toomey more time to negotiate, or if Republicans try to delay action, aides said.

Even the gun trafficking plan, which would make it a federal crime for someone banned from having a firearm to buy one, could face problems. The NRA is seeking to revise it in a way that critics say would make it difficult to enforce.

Obama's call to ban rapid-firing assault weapons - a pet cause of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat - has gone nowhere in part because even those in Feinstein's party are not solidly behind it.

Several Democrats who have joined the Senate since 2006 have said they could not vote for Feinstein's plan.

They include Manchin, Mark Begich of Alaska and Jon Tester of Montana, a gun-rights Democrat and farmer who won a Senate seat in 2006 by unseating a three-term Republican.

Tester said he sees an assault weapons ban as "a slippery slope" that could lead to other restrictions on gun ownership. He said he favors stepping up efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

"That would be the smart thing to do," Tester said.

Begich, another Democrat rated as a friend on Capitol Hill by the NRA, ousted a six-term Republican when he was elected in 2008. Begich is a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to clarify when a person loses the right to possess a firearm based on mental illness.

Critics of the bill, which is backed by the NRA, say the measure could make firearms more accessible to the mentally ill.

Manchin, elected to the Senate in 2010, has been trying for months to find a way to expand background checks while addressing gun-rights' advocates concerns that such checks could be used to create registries of gun owners. Gun rights advocates say the government could use such registries to confiscate weapons.

"I think everyone wants to do something that is right and responsible," Manchin said. "I really do."

A POLITICAL CALCULATION

Few Democrats regret the party's decision to recruit gun-rights candidates in recent years.

If senators such as Tester and Begich had not won their seats, many Democrats figure, the seats would be held by pro-gun Republicans - and many of Obama's legislative accomplishments, including the healthcare overhaul and new regulations on Wall Street, would not have happened.

"The profile of the guy who can win in these states is the profile of a guy who is pro-gun," said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Larry Sabato, who tracks congressional races as head of University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said that in 2006, "Democrats made a practical decision ... to win rather, than to be (ideologically) pure."

Sabato said he now sees some Republicans similarly bending their stances on some issues to try to appeal to more voters, such as easing their opposition to gay marriage and tax increases.

(Editing by David Lindsey and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-senators-key-obamas-push-broader-checks-gun-003114309.html

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