Cyberattack suspect to be sent home to Netherlands

MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in Spain on suspicion of launching what authorities have called the biggest cyberattack in Internet history is expected to be handed over to the Netherlands within 10 days, a Spanish court official said Monday.

The suspect ? identified only by his initials S.K. ? was questioned Saturday in the National Court in Madrid after his arrest last week and agreed to the deal, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court rules prevent him from giving his name.

Police say the 35-year-old suspect operated from a bunker in northeast Spain and also had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country. He was arrested Thursday in Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona.

He is accused of attacking the anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus, whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.

Dutch authorities alerted Spanish police in March of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused outages at U.S. banking sites last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second. The attack on Spamhaus was three times that size.

Police from the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Spain and the U.S. took part in the investigation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyberattack-suspect-sent-home-netherlands-123458203.html

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"I'm going to buy some craft beers. Any suggestions?"

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

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/1BedMZMlHOA/im-going-to-buy-some-craft-beers-any-suggestions-483775658

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Inbee Park wins North Texas LPGA, 3rd win in '13

IRVING, Texas (AP) ? Inbee Park was already preparing to congratulate Carlota Ciganda for winning the inaugural North Texas LPGA Shootout.

Park, the top-ranked woman in the world, was in the middle of a solid final round and still trailed by two strokes after the playing partners both had birdies at the par-5 10th.

Everything changed in a two-hole stretch, when Park went ahead with consecutive pars. The 24-year-old South Korean went on to a bogey-free 4-under 67 that put her one stroke ahead of Ciganda, good enough for her third victory this season and fifth in her last 18 starts.

"She was hitting fairways and greens and making putts," said Park, who finished at 13 under. "And I thought I played really great today, but I just missed a lot of birdie opportunities, so I thought this tournament might not be mine because I missed that many opportunities and Carlota was playing great golf. But she made a couple mistakes on the back nine."

Ciganda's drive at the 416-yard 14th hole settled in the right rough with a tree between her and the green, and her shot from about 130 yards clipped a branch and came up short. She had a chance to save par but her 6-foot putt was short, and Park's par had her within a stroke of the lead.

After stepping away from her approach at No. 15, to a green surrounded by water on three sides, Ciganda hit a shot that went to the right and then rolled down into the water. Ciganda had to go back to a drop zone, where the 22-year-old Spaniard had a decent pitch before her first putt rolled over the left edge of the green for a double bogey 6.

Park had another par and never trailed again.

"I'm very happy with my round and with my week. ... I had two bad holes on the back nine," Ciganda said.

With the $195,000 check for first place, Inbee exceeded $6 million in career earnings and will be No. 1 for the third week in a row. It was her sixth career LPGA victory, along with four more wins in Japan.

Fifth-ranked Suzann Pettersen from Norway, the winner in Hawaii last week, had a closing 66 to get to 10 under and finish third. Hee Young Park (64) and So Yeon Ryu (68) tied for fourth at 275.

Ciganda played last season on the Ladies European Tour, where she was the top rookie and the top money winner ? the first player since Laura Davies in 1985 to accomplish that feat. She won twice in Europe last year and now has her best LPGA finish.

At the 403-yard 8th hole, Park made a birdie before Ciganda followed with one of her own and responded with a slight fist pump when her ball dropped into the cup. They both had pars at No. 9, where Park was closer to the hole even though she was missed the green to the left, and they traded birdies again at the par-5 10th.

"I was happy and playing good and having fun and enjoying the day," said Ciganda, who had a closing 70. "And then I think, let me see, the hole it bounced to the right, but I had a bogey there and then hit it to the water on 15."

Caroline Masson had a 75 and finished eight shots back. The LPGA Tour rookie from Germany led after each of the first two rounds and started the final round tied for second with Park.

Hee Young Park's 64 was the best round of the day on the 6,439-yard course with plenty of sloping fairways and raised greens.

Stacy Lewis, the Texas native and No. 2 player in the world, had a closing 66 when all six birdies and her only bogey came between Nos. 7-17. She tied for seventh for her sixth top-10 finish this season.

At the end of her round, Lewis signed the back brace of a 6-year-old Dallas girl who was diagnosed with scoliosis at 18 months old. Lewis wore a similar brace 18 hours a day for seven years after being diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11 and missed her first collegiate season after a spinal fusion.

Third-ranked Na Yeon Choi, among the four players tied for seventh, had 44 consecutive bogey-free holes and was 9 under before consecutive bogeys at Nos. 10-12. She went on to a 72.

Inbee Park sank a 4-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th after Ciganda also birdied even after her final drive went into the right rough. But they had an unusual wait after hitting their drives, when Jee Young Lee, playing two groups ahead of them, had to replay the hole.

Before Lee signed her scorecard, officials determined she took an improper drop after her drive at No. 18 went out of bounds. Lee carded a 10 before Ciganda and Park got to play out the hole.

"It was all right. I mean it was actually really good, it ended up really good for me because I made a birdie," Park said of the delay. "Maybe if I hit it in the water maybe I could have blamed it on them."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inbee-park-wins-north-texas-lpga-3rd-win-220908451.html

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Logitech Ultimate Ears Vocal Reference Monitors

First things first: This review is for a pair of $999 (direct) custom-molded earphones aimed squarely at musicians. Unlike most custom pairs in this pricing stratosphere, the Logitech Ultimate Ears Vocal Reference Monitors, as the name suggest, are designed with vocalists in mind. The lowest and highest frequencies are decreased drastically, so that the focus is squarely on the mid-range frequencies that vocals inhabit. As you'd expect from a high-end earphone pair that's custom-molded to your ear canals, there's no distortion to speak of, but it bears repeating: The UE Vocal Reference Monitors are a fantastic musical tool, but not designed for typical music listening.

Design
Visually, there are only so many directions you can go with custom in-canal earphones. When they're in your ears, the outside, flat panel will make it look as if your ears have been filled with a plastic substance. The earpieces themselves are offered in a wide variety of transparent and solid colors. It's also possible to customize your earpieces with artwork, for a higher price.

As for fit, if you've never worn a pair of custom-molded earphones, you're in for a treat. Not only do they fit comfortably and securely for hours on end, they also block out ambient noise more effectively than even active noise canceling headphones can.

A triple-braided, removable audio cable connects to each earpiece, terminating in a 3.5mm connection. There are no inline remotes or microphones to speak of?these earphones are intended for onstage and in-studio use. A gold, screw-on ?-inch adapter ships with the Vocal Reference Monitors,?as well as an earwax cleaning tool and a very sturdy hard case with your name engraved on it.

The fit of the earpieces will have everything to do with the audiologist you choose. The impression process is safe, quick, painless (though it can be uncomfortable for some), and, typically, the audiologist will then send your impressions to Logitech. Turnaround time will vary, but my earphones took about three weeks to arrive after my appointment. The cost for these appointments will also vary, especially if you have medical insurance that might cover your visit, but expect to add on roughly $50 to the price of the earphones.

Performance
Discussing the earphones from an audio standpoint is tricky. Someone who typically likes rich or heavy low-end will hate them, but that's not the point. The earphones act almost like a filter for singers, turning down lower and higher frequencies that can cause listening fatigue over time and compete with the midrange frequencies the vocalist needs to concentrate on.

From a performance standpoint, the Vocal Reference Monitors do not distort on tracks with seriously deep bass, even at maximum, painfully loud volumes. So, these earphones will always deliver clean audio, but remarking upon their sound signature, beyond saying that they're quite light on bass or sparkling, bright highs, is kind of pointless.

Instead of discussing our typical testing suite, I decided to test the earphones in my home recording studio, laying down some vocals over instrumental tracks I had been recording. Lucky for you, you don't have to hear the tracks or my vocals, but I tested using some studio-level gear (a Lomo 19A-9 microphone into an Ampex 351 mic pre, with some very minimal compression via a Shadow Hills Optograph and into Pro Tools, for the recording-gear geeks who want to know the signal chain). So, hopefully, this can at least be seen as comparable with a studio or live set-up, though the gear is far less similar to typical live gear, and it's safe to say my signal chain is not transparent. But that's not the point?the point is: Did the tuning of the Vocal Reference Monitors make it easier for me to lay down vocals?

One of the more difficult aspects of recording or performing vocals while wearing in-canal monitors is not being able to hear your actual voice much, if at all?you hear only what's coming through the earpiece itself, really, and it can be disconcerting at first. It's common to see a vocalist in studio, singing with one headphone ear cup off?many vocalists prefer to hear a blend of the mix and their actual voice occurring in a real acoustic space.?

This fact, combined with the very premise of the Vocal Reference Monitors?that they rid the vocalist of unnecessary frequencies?had me approaching testing with a healthy amount of skepticism. A common studio adage is that most musicians want to hear more of themselves in their monitors; the best musicians ask to hear more of the other musicians. Granted, vocals are different because the sound is literally coming from within, but I wasn't sure, prior to testing, if I agreed with the concept that hearing less of the bass and higher frequencies would necessarily help a vocalist perform better.

In practice, I can say the Vocal Reference Monitors perform as advertised?I felt that my vocals were almost boosted in the mix, although this was not the case. Instead, many of the frequencies they normally compete with were simply not as loud, and thus my vocals, while recording, seemed louder to me. Admittedly, my first reaction was to turn my vocal fader down, so that I felt that the vocals blended a bit more with the overall mix. This was mainly to help my own performance (trust me, I need tons of help).

The pleasant surprise upon turning the fader down? I could still hear my vocals crisply and clearly within the mix?the volume had been lowered, but they still stood out and were intelligible and clear. The lower-mids, and lows, and well as high frequencies, that might have begun to push them down in the mix at that level were not really part of the equation. Basically, no matter whether I had the vocal fader high in the mix, or relatively even with the rest of the tracks, I could always hear my part, and the vocals always sounded crisp.

Again, the earphones were used in a studio, not during a live performance onstage, so the testing does have its limitations. But the earphones block out so much outside noise, it seems likely that what you hear through them will not be competing much with any PA systems, even?they're as effective as earplugs, if not more so. The mic and mic pre I used are not likely to be found in any live setting, but the point is the Vocal Reference Monitor helped the vocals stand out against a busy mix by lowering the frequency ranges that tend to make them more difficult to hear. It's hard to see how this would not translate to better clarity in a live scenario as well.

Some vocalists may still prefer to have the full mix in their ears when performing, or having the engineer customize their mix by carving out the ranges that bug them, but the UE Vocal Reference Monitors do a solid job of bringing vocal clarity to the forefront on its own. Personal monitoring preference in both live and studio scenarios will dictate whether this is a necessary tool or not, but these custom monitors inarguably perform a task that many vocalists will find useful.

Comparing the Vocal Reference Monitors with regular stereo earphones seems a bit pointless, given their unique purpose, although we have reviewed other custom in-ear pairs in the past. Some favorites include the $1,150 JH Audio JH16 Pro, brought to you by Jerry Harvey, the founder of Ultimate Ears before it was sold to Logitech, and the $1,350 Logitech UE 18 Pro, another solid option with a far beefier sound signature than the Vocal Reference Monitor. If these are way out of your range, and you're looking for a simple, effective pair of home studio headphones, the circumaural (over-ear) Sennheiser HD 280 Pro may not be a custom-molded in-canal earphone pair, but it's comfortable, accurate, and powerful?three necessary characteristics for studio gear.

For the $1,000 (and audiologist visit), the Logitech Ultimate Ears Vocal Reference Monitors will prove an effective tool for vocalists who often struggle to hear their own performance in monitors over booming bass or crashing cymbals. If this sounds like you, the UE Vocal Reference Monitor may just be the solution you're looking for.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/s_ErDcsalHk/0,2817,2417720,00.asp

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Fire extinguished at Marathon Detroit refinery

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A fire on Saturday night at a Detroit crude oil refinery that forced the partial evacuation of the town of Melvindale, Michigan, has been extinguished, said a spokesman for the plant's owner, Marathon Petroleum Corp.

No injuries were reported at the refinery from the blaze in a tank containing wastewater from the refining process, said Marathon spokesman Shane Pochard.

"We're working with Melvindale police to return residents to their homes," Pochard said. "That has not yet been completed."

Melvindale Police Sergeant Michael Welch said the evacuation order was canceled before all the residents of a square mile (2.6 square km) of the Detroit suburb could be evacuated. He did not know how many residents were affected.

The blaze broke out about 6 p.m. EDT and was extinguished at about 8 p.m.

"As far as I know, the refinery is still operating normally," Pochard said.

Pochard and Welch said air monitoring in Melvindale showed the air in the community was within acceptable levels.

The tank contained what is called sour water, which includes hydrogen sulfide and ammonia from crude oil refining. The pollutants have to be stripped from the water before it can be reused or sent to an outside wastewater system.

Marathon's Detroit refinery is the only one in the state and can refine up to 106,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-extinguished-marathon-detroit-refinery-no-injuries-005303527.html

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Avis brings car rental expertise to Heathrow Terminal 5 | News ...

Avis Car Rental has announced the launch of its new location at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, home to British Airways, making Avis the first car rental company to operate in the new terminal.

As the exclusive car hire partner for British Airways and Iberia, Avis has been chosen to be based at the terminal, providing accessible and convenient car hire for the 80,000 passengers using T5 every day.

By renting with Avis at Terminal 5, business and leisure travellers do not have to take a bus to their car rental facility and therefore save an average of 20 minutes on travel time, reducing the overall transfer time from plane to car.

With British Airways and its partner Iberia exclusively operating at Terminal 5, customers will also benefit from Avis? partnership with both airlines, earning Avios points on all Avis rentals.

Avis Preferred customers will be able to enjoy the full range of benefits at the terminal, with customers able to use the Avis Preferred priority desk and take advantage of conveniently parked cars.

Commenting on the opening, Kaye Ceille, managing director, Avis UK, said: ?Our launch at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 forms an important part of our business strategy; to make high quality and accessible car hire available to those coming in and out of the UK, wherever and whenever they need it.

?We are delighted that Avis customers are the first to be served at Terminal 5 and are looking forward to offering a comfortable and convenient onward travel option.?

Recommended

Source: http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/avis-brings-car-rental-expertise-to-heathrow-terminal-5/

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Immigration senators: Boston no excuse to nix bill

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two senators who helped write bipartisan immigration legislation say the Boston Marathon bombings should expedite an overhaul of the current system.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday that the bombings that left three dead "should urge us to act quicker, not slower when it comes to getting the 11 million identified," referring to the estimated number of immigrants living in the country illegally. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York added "keeping the status quo is not a very good argument, given what happened" in Boston.

Schumer says critics are using the bombings to oppose a proposal they disliked from the start. He says that if they have suggestions to make the proposal better, they should speak up.

They spoke on CNN's "State of the Union."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-senators-boston-no-excuse-152515483.html

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FBI: We had no contact with suspect after bombing

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The FBI is disputing a claim by the mother of the suspected Boston bombers, who said the bureau had spoken to the older brother after the bombs exploded at last Monday's marathon.

At FBI headquarters in Washington, spokesman Michael Kortan says the bureau's 2011 interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) was the only FBI contact with him.

Kortan is standing by the bureau's public statement from Friday in which the bureau described that interview. That statement says the FBI did not learn of the identities of the bombing suspects, Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhokhar (joh-KHAR'), until Friday, the day Tamerlan was killed.

The brothers' parents in Russia have insisted that the FBI continued to monitor Tamerlan after the 2011 interview and say both of their sons were set up.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-had-no-contact-suspect-bombing-225132605.html

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RolePlayGateway?

I will provide a list of all Dragon species which exist in the world of Dragon Riders: Rebirth. All those marked with an asterisk are not accessible by any of our player controlled characters. There will be no arguing this decision.

Faerie Dragon - This Dragon is fairly small, standing only about ten feet at the shoulder. They have only a mildly powerful breath attack which is pure energy, but they are fast and can camouflage with nature when in extreme circumstances and danger.
(Link: http://whitneycarter.files.wordpress.co ... dragon.jpg)

Black Dragon - The Black Dragon is another small Dragon with no special properties to speak of. It has an ice breath attack, and is typically a mountain dwelling Dragon.
(Link: http://jennykellerford.files.wordpress. ... dragon.jpg)

* Hurricane Dragon - This mighty beast is enormous, standing over forty feet at the shoulder. It controls the power of the air currents around it to create powerful hurricanes and typhoons at will, but it rarely leaves the sanctity of the Sea.
(Link: http://th00.deviantart.net/fs20/PRE/f/2 ... imlock.jpg ((All credit goes to the artist)))

Cresthal Dragons - These Dragons stand over sixty feet at the shoulder, but have no breath attack. Instead they have powerful magic capabilities which far exceed anything any mortal creature could possibly muster.
(Link: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 0-1024.jpg)

* Crawling Dragon - This Dragon stands just over thirty feet at the shoulder and has an incredibly powerful energy based breath attack.
(Link: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs8/i/2005/2 ... chuang.jpg)

Sunset Dragon - This Dragon spends the majority of its time hiding away in caves until that mysterious time of Twilight. Once the sun begins to set and the sky turns orange, that is feeding time. They stand about fifteen to twenty feet at the shoulder. They have a powerful fire based breath attack.
(Link: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 0-1024.jpg)

Fire-Wing Dragon - These Dragons have wings made of fire and have one of the most powerful fire based breath attacks in the Dragon Kingdom. They are exceedingly rare and require a very special individual to control their immense power. They stand at fifty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4vx9Xrel4Z4/T ... dragon.jpg)

Red Razorback Dragon - This Dragon has a sharp and distinct row of scaly spines along its back connected by thin tissue similar to that in their wings. They have no breath attack, but are immensely strong for their size. They are easily capable of pinning a Dragon twice their weight. They stand about fifteen feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.draconika.com/img/red-dragon.jpg)

Green Dragon - These Dragons are about twelve feet at the shoulder and are exceedingly intelligent. They possess a mildly powerful ice based breath attack, and usually dwell within the forested regions.
(Link: http://www.draconika.com/img/green-dragon.jpg)

* Devil Dragon - This Dragon is one of a kind, and has existed beneath the surface of the world in a cave the size of a continent. It has only ever appeared once before in history, but was only driven back by the actions of the Divine Dragon. Should this evil, which stands over one hundred feet at the shoulder, ever rise again, there will not be much hope for the world unless something drastic takes place.
(Link: http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 24-768.jpg)

* Undead Thunder Dragon - This mighty beast wields powerful lightning magic in place of a breath attack and stands over fifty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/ ... _Shatterer).jpg)

Aquatic Serpent Dragon - This Dragon has scales similar to that of a snake rather than those of a regular Dragon, and is often mistaken as a large snake because of it. It stands only about seven feet at the shoulder, and dwells near streams and rivers in forested regions.
(Link: http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 0-1600.jpg)

Proto Dragon - Due to its primitive appearance and behavior, it is written off as a rather dumb species of Dragon which could not be further from the truth. They are very intelligent and use a powerful fire based breath attack at close range once they've lured opponents in close. They stand about twenty five feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://fantasticanimals.files.wordpress ... imlock.jpg)

Ancient Dragon - These Dragons have LONG life spans, even for Dragons. sometimes living in excess of fifty thousand years, these Dragons live up to their names. They have access to both fire and ice based attacks, and are very intelligent. They stand between the heights of about fifteen to thirty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NN1qBUwF4fc/U ... dragon.jpg)

Dark Horned Dragon - This Dragon has forward facing horns on the side of its head and has a fire based breath attack. It is usually found living in abandoned ruins and protects its nesting grounds with such violence and vigor that even Dragon Riders have been loathe to attack it.
(Link: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 80-800.jpg)

Blizzard Dragon - This Dragon stands about thirty feet at the shoulder and thrives in frigid environments. It has a strong ice based breath attack.
(Link: http://it.my-walls.net/wp-content/uploa ... agon-3.jpg)

Great Horned Dragon - This Dragon lacks arms and instead stands upright on two hind legs. It stands about twenty five feet at the shoulder and lives in desert areas.
(Link: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k3IsonHvfYE/T ... -19559.jpg)

* Vampire Dragon - Vampire Dragons feed on other Dragons, but unlike the mythical Vampires for which they are named, they kill their prey outright. By flying at high altitudes and dive bombing on their victims by biting their neck to quickly snap it and kill it.
(Link: http://art.ngfiles.com/images/14/o-eter ... dragon.jpg)

Red Temple Dragon - These Dragons live in ancient temples and ruins and horde gold and jewels as their bedding and will protect it at all costs. They stand about thirty five feet at the shoulder without a breath attack.
(Link: http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 00-500.jpg)

The Frilled Dragon - This Dragon has no special abilities to speak of and stands about twelve feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.draconika.com/types/images/silver-dragon.jpg)

Ocean Lord Dragon - This Dragon is serpentine in appearance but is well over one hundred and fifty feet long with a powerful air based breath attack and a certain level of control over the air currents within its general vicinity to cause miniature storms in a controlled space.
(Link: http://www.smashingapps.com/wp-content/ ... gon_13.jpg)

* Maximus Dragon - This Dragon is absolutely massive. It stands over two hundred feet tall just at its shoulder, and is the size of a small mountain. It has an air based breath attack, and they have a mild control over Earth based magic.
(Link: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... _large.jpg)

White Dragon - This Dragon stands about ten feet at the shoulder and lives in frigid environments. It has an air based breath attack.
(Link: http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 00-302.jpg)

Griffin Dragon - This Dragon has forward facing horns and appears similar to the mythical Griffin creature. It has no breath attack, but flies at faster speeds than any other Dragon species.
(Link: http://conniejjasperson.files.wordpress ... -abyss.jpg)

Cliff Dragon - This small Dragon lives at the base of mountains. It has a control of Earth based magic, but no breath attack.
(Link: http://downloads.khinsider.com/wallpape ... -wzdqa.jpg)

Spike Dragon - This Dragon has more spikes covering its body than any other species, and stands upright on two legs. It stands about forty feet at the shoulder and has no breath attack.
(Link: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 88-868.jpg)

Whispering Dragon - This Dragon stands about twelve to fifteen feet at the shoulder and has an air based breath attack. They have very strong telepathic capabilities.
(Link: http://www.draconika.com/types/images/bronze-dragon.jpg)

Ice Devil - This Dragon lives in and underneath large ice structures and mountains. It has a frigid breath attack which is colder than any other Dragon species. They stand about forty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://paizo.com/image/content/Pathfind ... Wooten.jpg)

Clubtail Dragon - This Dragon has a club on the end of its tail and stands only eight to ten feet at the shoulder. They have no breath attack.
(Link: http://paizo.com/image/content/Pathfind ... Wooten.jpg)

Black Dragon - This Dragon has a powerful ice based breath attack, and stand about twenty five feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://holdragons.webs.com/black-dragon.jpg)

Emerald Dragon - This Dragon has powerful magical capabilities which surpass most other Dragons. They have a powerful fire based breath attack and stand about fifteen to twenty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.celestialheavens.com/images/ ... Dragon.jpg)

Aged Dragon - These ancient Dragons are wise beyond the scope of any and all mortal kind. They have a powerful ice based breath attack and stand about twenty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos ... 40-440.jpg)

Bladed Dragon - These Dragons have no breath attack, but their bodies are so sharp that they can cut through other Dragon's scales with ease. They are also incredibly fast, but not as fast as the Griffin Dragon. They stand about thirty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AMGCdcTEUec/T ... Dragon.jpg)

Gargoyle Dragon - This Dragon stands about forty feet at the shoulder and is one of the strongest Dragons in existence. It stands about forty five feet at the shoulder and has powerful Earth based magic attacks.
(Link: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/ ... imlock.jpg)

* Fire Dragon - This Dragon is born of fire and can literally control its body as a controlled flame. It has no breath attack because it is a living flame and uses its entire body as its own attack. It shifts sizes and forms in accordance with the circumstances it finds itself in.
(Link: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... 2y4c5VByEQ)

Thunder Dragon - This Dragon controls the element of lightning, and stands about thirty five feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.tabletwallpapers.org/inc/wal ... 4x1024.png)

Celestial Dragon - This Dragon's body has translucent scales which it can manipulate at will and even use images of what is above it to make itself disappear from view down below. It usually travels only at night when it's easier to remain undetected, and it stands about twenty five feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.iwallscreen.com/stock/blue-d ... dragon.jpg)

Ascendant Dragon - This Dragon lives on mountain peaks and nowhere else. It stands over forty feet at the shoulder and has a powerful ice based attack.
(Link: http://www.dragonwallpapers.in/bulkuplo ... lpaper.jpg)

Ebon Dragon - This Dragon has a limited control over the dead and can call upon long dead Dragons to fight for and protect it. It has no breath attack of its own and its scales are fairly thin compared to most other Dragons which leaves it vulnerable to attacks. It stands about thirty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/ ... gon300.jpg)

Dark Horse Dragon - Because of its resemblance to horses in facial construction, it is used as a transportation mule by many cultures. It's peaceful and has no breath attack, and stands about fifteen feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://www.wallpaper4me.com/images/wall ... on_w1.jpeg)

Jeweled Dragon - This Dragon has been hunted nearly to extinction for its scales and jewel like extensions. It stands about forty five to fifty feet at the shoulder, but has not been seen in several thousand years.
(Link: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 0-1114.jpg)

Sapphire Dragon - These Dragons have entirely blue bodies which flash and shine like real gems in direct sunlight. They have a powerful ice based breath attack and can control water magic quite well. They stand about thirty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 0-1050.jpg)

Monarch Dragon - This regal Dragon is beautiful and deadly. Its spines are poisonous and their claws are the sharpest in the Dragon Kingdom next to the Bladed Dragon. They stand about forty feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://photos.imageevent.com/afap/wallp ... ansazz.jpg)

White Mountain Dragon - This Dragon stands about thirty feet at the shoulder and lives peacefully in the mountains. It has no breath attack.
(Link: http://beyondheroes2.zxq.net/white_dragon.jpg)

* Phoenix Dragon - This Dragon is spoken of only in legends passed down by the Dragons themselves. Supposedly this Dragon can transform its body into pure flame which burns as hot as the sun. It stands about seventy to eighty feet at the shoulder, and has the most powerful telepathic ability in the Dragon Kingdom.
(Link: http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos ... 80-960.jpg)

Ridgeback Dragon - This robust Dragon is about twenty five feet at the shoulder and is rugged and tough. It can take a licking and keep on kicking, but has no breath attack of its own to speak of. It's a pack Dragon.
(Link: http://art-of-fantasy.org/uploads_big/W ... yit-23.jpg)

Leviathan Dragon - This Dragon is massive and controls the seas and the air with ease to create the most powerful storms the world has ever seen. It lives primarily in the ocean, and stands over sixty five to seventy feet at the shoulder.
(Link: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... mbeyit.jpg)

Mountain Crown Dragon - This Dragon makes its home of the mountains themselves and stands over one hundred feet at the shoulder when fully grown. It has no breath attack because it does not need it.
(Link: http://www.tofuhaus.com/images/2013/01/ ... nclubs.jpg)

*More possibly to come*

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway

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Superstorm Sandy Shook the Earth

"It wasn't even unusual. Storms like Sany shaped the Eastern Seaboard. Why the continued moronic assumptions history began with European settlers?"

Two thumbs up.

We're supposed to believe that before Europeans arrived, the Americas were an idyllic paradise, that suffered no storms, no earthquakes, no wars, no famine. Ehhh - Europeans brought all those evils here, along with smallpox and polio.

Geocaching has a type of cache called Earthcache, where to log a find the geocacher must read about some feature, observe and report back to the cache owner. These really are some great eye openers in what is present, but in getting the mind working on how a feature came to be, what time was involved, how climate changed during the creation of the feature.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/hBvnyRxeIJs/story01.htm

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Texas plant blast evokes memories of Waco

The Branch Davidian compound outside Waco explodes in a burst of flames April 19, 1993 (Shelly Katz/Getty Imag??

WEST, Texas?Wednesday?s deadly blast at a fertilizer plant here that left at least 14 dead and injured more than 160 came just days before the anniversary of another fiery explosion in Central Texas that captivated the world.

Twenty years ago this week, on April 19, 1993, a federal raid on a cult compound in nearby Waco ended when the building exploded into a massive fireball that left nearly 80 people dead, including more than a dozen children.

Federal agents had raided the site known as Mount Carmel after a 51-day standoff with a religious group called the Branch Davidians. The group was headed by a charismatic leader, David Koresh, whom federal officials believed was illegally stockpiling guns and other weapons.

For some, Wednesday?s plant explosion just 20 miles north of Waco immediately brought back memories of the raid deadly fire, which still traumatizes the community two decades later.

?Of course, people thought about it,? a man named Mike, who declined to give his last name, said Friday as he wandered past a boarded-up storefront in downtown West, where the fertilizer blast was so intense it shattered windows. ?You don?t see crazy things like fire and explosions happen around here very often. Of course, that would come to mind.?

But many in the Waco vicinity have tried to put the Branch Davidian raid well out of their memory?in part because the date of the fatal fire?April 19?has become something of an unofficial holiday for people with anti-government sentiments.

Two years after the Waco raid, on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children.

McVeigh, who was executed for the attack in 2001, has said he was seeking to avenge what happened in Waco. He had been among the people who had gathered outside Mount Carmel in support of the Davidians during the standoff in 1993.

Investigators have explored links between other deadly attacks and the Waco raid, including the April 20, 1999, shooting at Columbine High School outside Denver, Colo., which killed 13 people and injured more than 20 more. That attack seemed to inspire the April 16, 2007, shooting at Virginia Tech University, in which a student shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.

And now added to that week of deadly anniversaries will be Monday?s bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed 3 people and injured more than 180 others.

Not every attack can be traced back to what happened in Waco in 1993. But that doesn?t matter to people in this community, who don?t like talking about what happened at Mount Carmel.

No public official in the region would even discuss the Waco attacks or the anniversary when contacted by Yahoo News. Their refusal to talk came as survivors of the attack reportedly gathered Friday to hold a memorial service for those who died two decades ago.

Still, the site of the raid is something of an underground tourist attraction in Waco. While the city makes no mention of the incident in any of its tourist materials, clerks at hotels around town have been known to hand out maps of how to get to the remote spot, located the rural farmland a few miles out of town.

?Just be careful,? a hotel employee said Friday.

There, visitors find a new chapel and a cluster of mobile homes, occupied by members of the sect?who still live and farm on the Davidian site. The only reminder of the raid is a broken down school bus that was once used by Koresh to transport his members, and a memorial gravestone that lists the names of the Davidian's killed during the 51-day standoff.

On Friday afternoon, the actual day of the 20th anniversary, a member of the sect waved off this reporter. But the group reportedly operates under a new name, The Branch, as they continue to await the end times.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/20-years-since-waco-raid-explosion-nearby-fertilizer-161223083.html

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Ultrafast technique unlocks design principles of quantum biology

Public release date: 19-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Steve Koppes
skoppes@uchicago.edu
773-702-8366
University of Chicago

University of Chicago researchers have created a synthetic compound that mimics the complex quantum dynamics observed in photosynthesis and may enable fundamentally new routes to creating solar-energy technologies. Engineering quantum effects into synthetic light-harvesting devices is not only possible, but also easier than anyone expected, the researchers report in the April 18 edition of Science Express.

The researchers have engineered small molecules that support long-lived quantum coherences. Coherences are the macroscopically observable behavior of quantum superpositions. Superpositions are a fundamental quantum mechanical concept, exemplified by the classic Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, in which a single quantum particle such as an electron occupies more than one state simultaneously.

Quantum effects are generally negligible in large, hot, disordered systems. Nevertheless, the recent ultrafast spectroscopy experiments in UChicago chemistry Prof. Greg Engel's laboratory have shown that quantum superpositions may play a role in the near perfect quantum efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting, even at physiological temperatures.

Photosynthetic antennae the proteins that organize chlorophylls and other light-absorbing molecules in plants and bacteria support superpositions that survive for anomalously long times. Many researchers have proposed that organisms have evolved a means of protecting these superpositions. The result: improved efficiency in transferring energy from absorbed sunlight to the parts of the cell that convert solar energy to chemical energy. The newly reported results demonstrate that his particular manifestation of quantum mechanics can be engineered into man-made compounds.

The researchers modified fluorescein the same molecule once used to dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day and then linked different pairs of these dyes together using a rigid bridging structure. The resulting molecules were able to recreate the important properties of chlorophyll molecules in photosynthetic systems that cause coherences to persist for tens of femtoseconds at room temperature.

"That may not sound like a very long time - a femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second," said study co-author Dugan Hayes, a UChicago graduate student in chemistry. "But the movement of excitations through these systems also occurs on this ultrafast timescale, meaning that these quantum superpositions can play an important role in energy transfer."

To detect evidence of long-lived superpositions, the researchers created a movie of energy flow in the molecules using highly engineered laboratories and state-of-the-art femtosecond laser systems. Three precisely controlled laser pulses are directed into the sample, causing it to emit an optical signal that is captured and directed into a camera.

By scanning the time delays between the arriving laser pulses, the researchers create a movie of energy flow in the system, encoded as a series two-dimensional spectra. Each two-dimensional spectrum is a single frame of the movie, and contains information about where energy resides in the system and what pathways it has followed to get there.

These movies show relaxation from high energy states toward lower energy states as time proceeds, as well as oscillating signals in very specific regions of the signal, or quantum beats. "Quantum beats are the signature of quantum coherence, arising from the interference between the different energetic states in the superposition, similar to the beating heard when two instruments that are slightly out of tune with each other try to play the same note," Hayes explained.

Computer simulations have shown that quantum coherences work in photosynthetic antennae to prevent excitations from getting trapped on their way to the reaction center, where the conversion to chemical energy begins. In one interpretation, as the excitation moves through the antenna, it remains in a superposition of all possible paths at once, making it inevitable that it proceeds down the proper path. "Until these coherences were observed in synthetic systems, it remained dubious that such a complex phenomenon could be recreated outside of nature," Hayes said.

###

---

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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.

Public release date: 19-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Steve Koppes
skoppes@uchicago.edu
773-702-8366
University of Chicago

University of Chicago researchers have created a synthetic compound that mimics the complex quantum dynamics observed in photosynthesis and may enable fundamentally new routes to creating solar-energy technologies. Engineering quantum effects into synthetic light-harvesting devices is not only possible, but also easier than anyone expected, the researchers report in the April 18 edition of Science Express.

The researchers have engineered small molecules that support long-lived quantum coherences. Coherences are the macroscopically observable behavior of quantum superpositions. Superpositions are a fundamental quantum mechanical concept, exemplified by the classic Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, in which a single quantum particle such as an electron occupies more than one state simultaneously.

Quantum effects are generally negligible in large, hot, disordered systems. Nevertheless, the recent ultrafast spectroscopy experiments in UChicago chemistry Prof. Greg Engel's laboratory have shown that quantum superpositions may play a role in the near perfect quantum efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting, even at physiological temperatures.

Photosynthetic antennae the proteins that organize chlorophylls and other light-absorbing molecules in plants and bacteria support superpositions that survive for anomalously long times. Many researchers have proposed that organisms have evolved a means of protecting these superpositions. The result: improved efficiency in transferring energy from absorbed sunlight to the parts of the cell that convert solar energy to chemical energy. The newly reported results demonstrate that his particular manifestation of quantum mechanics can be engineered into man-made compounds.

The researchers modified fluorescein the same molecule once used to dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day and then linked different pairs of these dyes together using a rigid bridging structure. The resulting molecules were able to recreate the important properties of chlorophyll molecules in photosynthetic systems that cause coherences to persist for tens of femtoseconds at room temperature.

"That may not sound like a very long time - a femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second," said study co-author Dugan Hayes, a UChicago graduate student in chemistry. "But the movement of excitations through these systems also occurs on this ultrafast timescale, meaning that these quantum superpositions can play an important role in energy transfer."

To detect evidence of long-lived superpositions, the researchers created a movie of energy flow in the molecules using highly engineered laboratories and state-of-the-art femtosecond laser systems. Three precisely controlled laser pulses are directed into the sample, causing it to emit an optical signal that is captured and directed into a camera.

By scanning the time delays between the arriving laser pulses, the researchers create a movie of energy flow in the system, encoded as a series two-dimensional spectra. Each two-dimensional spectrum is a single frame of the movie, and contains information about where energy resides in the system and what pathways it has followed to get there.

These movies show relaxation from high energy states toward lower energy states as time proceeds, as well as oscillating signals in very specific regions of the signal, or quantum beats. "Quantum beats are the signature of quantum coherence, arising from the interference between the different energetic states in the superposition, similar to the beating heard when two instruments that are slightly out of tune with each other try to play the same note," Hayes explained.

Computer simulations have shown that quantum coherences work in photosynthetic antennae to prevent excitations from getting trapped on their way to the reaction center, where the conversion to chemical energy begins. In one interpretation, as the excitation moves through the antenna, it remains in a superposition of all possible paths at once, making it inevitable that it proceeds down the proper path. "Until these coherences were observed in synthetic systems, it remained dubious that such a complex phenomenon could be recreated outside of nature," Hayes said.

###

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uoc-utu041913.php

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Poncho, For Those Who Can't Be Bothered To Open A Weather App

Long before the era of iPads and Snapchats and holographic Tupacs, some of the greatest minds in tech and science spent their life trying to understand weather patterns. Since, we’ve evolved to have an almost overwhelming amount of data on what today’s weather will be like, and it’s entirely possible that we’ve gone overboard with the notion of being ready for a little rain. That’s exactly the premise that Poncho, a new startup launching out of betaworks, operates under. Sure, you could download apps or log in to weather sites and get all kinds of hourly forecasts for the whole country, Doppler radar readouts, weather news (which is usually the most boring type of news), and a host of other types of information. Or you could see a daily breakdown of the weather in a way that’s meaningful to you, and only to you. Poncho works by first learning about your daily routine. When you sign up to the service, you’re asked a series of easy questions about the flow of your day: when do you wake up? Do you have any pets you need to walk? When do you head into work? What time do you take lunch? When do you leave work? How do you commute? After you’ve answered, you can choose to receive your daily weather updates by SMS or email. “The core objective is to have Poncho become a default part of your routine,” said co-founder Kuan Huang. “We want to take you away from the noise of other apps and clients and give you the weather in a simple way.” Updates from Poncho are clean and easy to understand. You get a general outline of the day, along with specific temperatures for the times Poncho knows you’ll be out and about in the world. Huang is part of the hacker in residence program at betaworks, which is led by Paul Murphy and aims to pull talented engineers into the betaworks family in order to co-found and develop great ideas into full-fledged service. Unlike traditional accelerators, there is no application process and there really aren’t any strict curricula either. In fact, betaworks isn’t really an accelerator at all. Rather, betaworks seeks out the most talented and creative entrepreneurs to supply them with everything they need to turn an idea into a business, at no up-front cost to the engineer (or Hacker in residence, as betaworks calls

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

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Athenaeum Electronica: The woes of standardized testing

The woes of standardized testing

I've been extremely busy lately and haven't had much time to write. But, this week's discussion question in my Psych 8760 - Ed Psych class proved to be worthy of a post here. This week we're talking about standardized testing and their role in the school system.?Honestly, I've sort of been waiting for this discussion to come up. I have rather strong opinions about this topic as I've witnessed this phenomenon firsthand.?

One must understand the potential benefits of standardized tests, of which there are many. First, standardized tests can be used effectively in the formation of summative assessments that can potentially be used as a guide to determine how much information a student has?retained?(note: this does not prove, necessarily, what they have?understood). To this end summative assessments and standardized testing can also be used to uncover flaws in the curriculum itself (a technique I employ frequently). If 80% of the students of a given class miss the exact same question on the test there are only two logical possibilities; the question is poorly written and confusing,?or?the information pertaining to that question was not effectively delivered.?Standardized testing can also be used in a secondary capacity to measure the teaching ability of a teacher; all things being equal (classes made up of the same demographic, teachers with access to the same curriculum and same resources), then the scores of multiple classes should be within a few points of each other, in theory. Any deviation above or below the median scores by a significant amount would warrant a closer look to determine what's going on.?


But, as good as standardized tests are, there are also many drawbacks. One drawback is that they make poor formative assessments. Another drawback is that they?cannot?measure how much a studentunderstands?about a subject. They also do not necessarily translate well to cultures, languages, or ethnic groups that are non-English speaking (a critique also shared by the Stanford-Binet IQ tests).
The biggest problem that I have, personally, with standardized testing is that they are over-hyped and over-emphasized by morons in politics. Bean counters in Washington and at the State and County levels wanted a way that they could easily track and compare data about how much a student has learned and make a determination if a school is being "effective" or not, which in turn directly affects the decision of how much money the school receives. Reading ?essay questions would take too much time and be impractical, so they forced the standardized testing down the school system's collective throat. People who have little to no background in education are dictating policy on how the education system should be run; a recipe for disaster. Now they are even beginning to tie teachers' annual pay raises (and even their continued employment) to how well their classes do on these tests! Is it any wonder that 50% of all new teachers quit within the first 5 years and that education is quickly becoming one of the professions with the highest turnover rates??

I say that I've seen what's going on first-hand because I have experienced it in other areas. In the IT Industry, which I have worked professionally for many years,?the certification?that everyone wants/needs is called the "A+ Cert". It is a standardized test consisting of about 120 questions. There are literally "boot camps" that you can attend for a nominal fee they will cram the test answers in your head through rote memorization long enough for you to pass the test. Hooray! Now you have your A+ certification on paper, but you quickly forget the material for the questions, and worse yet, you have no idea what any of it means. You know that the answer to question 27 is B, but you have no idea?why?the answer is B. Under those conditions, is that certification actually even worth the paper that it is printed on? I don't think so. But, that's all that matters to the companies who seek out such candidates. Our school systems are quickly emulating these behavior patterns with more and more teachers "teaching to the test" because they, and their districts, have a vested financial interest in how well the students do on them.?

Because the very system that we use to measure our students is flawed, every decision that is based on that information is also flawed as a result. Our school systems are performing poorly you say? Well, let's just throw more money at the problem blindly, because clearly if we just push enough money at the problem it will simply go away. Yet, annual studies by the US Department of Education comparing students from the G8 countries of the same age and grade reveal that while the US has?the single most expensive?primary and secondary education system in the entire world, our test scores and student performance is only middle-of-the-pack. Other countries are performing better with less money. Clearly, a change in our methodology is required to bring about effective changes in our scores. In that regard, I propose that teaching is just as much an art form as it is a science. In much the same way that you could not adequately measure the ability of a painter with a standardized test, it should not be the end-all, be-all of educational measurements either. Which would you rather have; the?caricature?painter at the fair who can crack out 100 paintings in a day, or Leonardo DaVinci who only paints 1 painting in a week? The quality of the student's cognition should be of paramount importance, more so than the quantity of their recollection. I would rather see students who are taught how to think, to reason, to research, to experiment and explore rather than to see students blindly parrot back the same information that I told them verbatim, devoid of intellect, curiosity, or desire to learn.

With regards to what manner is best for measuring students, I think it has to be a mixed approach; one that utilizes both standardized testing?and?cognitive assessments of reasoning ability. This is the same solution that was posited by Sanders and Horn (1995).?

References:

Sanders, W., & Horn, S. (1995). Educational assessment reassessed: The usefulness of standardized and alternative measures of student achievement as indicators for the assessment of educational outcomes.?Education Policy Analysis Archives, 3(6). Retrieved fromhttp://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/649/771

Source: http://athenaeumelectronica.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-woes-of-standardized-testing.html

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Protests flare as Venezuela government rejects vote recount

By Brian Ellsworth and Diego Ore

CARACAS (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters clashed with police in Venezuela's capital on Monday as the government rejected opposition demands for a vote recount after Sunday's contested election to replace the late Hugo Chavez.

Police fired tear gas to disperse young demonstrators who threw rocks in an upscale district of Caracas after opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles refused to recognize the narrow victory of Chavez's preferred successor, Nicolas Maduro, and called for peaceful demonstrations.

"What happened yesterday was fraud, a lie. The opposition won and they know it," said Briand Alvar, who was among the protesters involved in the battle with police.

Capriles hopes protests will highlight the weakness of Maduro's mandate and stir up opposition outrage over accusations that the electoral authority is biased in favor of the ruling party.

Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver, called on his supporters to mobilize peacefully on Tuesday. He is due to be sworn in on Friday, likely leaving Capriles' call for demonstrations as a symbolic show of defiance.

Opposition sources told Reuters their count showed Capriles won by more than 300,000 votes. His team says it has evidence of some 3,200 election day irregularities, ranging from allegations of voters using fake IDs to intimidation of volunteers at polling centers.

Venezuela's electoral authority on Monday formally declared Maduro the winner of the election, saying he won 50.8 percent of the vote, against 49.0 percent for Capriles.

"The majority is the majority. Democracy must be respected," said Maduro, who was handpicked by Chavez to continue his self-declared socialist revolution just weeks before dying of cancer on March 5. "The opposition cannot launch an ambush to jeopardize the will of the people."

'NO RECOUNT'

In a sharply worded speech, the head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) shot down Capriles' call for a recount and excoriated him for being disrespectful of Venezuelan law and institutions.

"Threats and intimidation are not the path to appeal the decisions of the CNE," said Tibisay Lucena, who opposition critics call a stooge of the ruling Socialist Party.

She also accused the U.S. government and the Organization of American States of trying to interfere in Venezuelan affairs after they backed the idea of a recount.

Opposition sympathizers flooded Twitter with the hashtag #CaprilesWonTibisayLied, which in the afternoon was the micro-blogging site's third most popular topic worldwide.

The official results showed Maduro winning by 265,000 votes but Capriles says he is sure he won and that he will only concede defeat if there is a full recount.

"All we're asking is that our rights and the will of the people be respected, and that every single vote be counted, every little piece of paper. That paper isn't for recycling, it's proof," Capriles said, urging his supporters to keep protests peaceful.

"We went out yesterday to vote against violence," he said. "We can never put ourselves on the side of violence."

FUTURE OF CHAVISMO

The controversy around Venezuela's first presidential election without Chavez on the ballot in two decades ushered in new uncertainty in the OPEC nation of 29 million people.

It also raised doubts about the future of "Chavismo," Chavez's self-proclaimed socialist movement, without its charismatic founder.

In his last public speech, Chavez named his longtime protege Maduro as his preferred successor, giving him a huge boost heading into Sunday's election. But neither the endorsement nor the burst of sympathy following Chavez's death were enough to ensure an easy victory.

Maduro, who does not have Chavez's charm, saw his poll lead shrink in the final days of the campaign. Even then, the vote was a lot closer than most people expected.

Maduro's slim victory raises the possibility that he could face challenges from rivals within the disparate coalition that united around the towering figure of Chavez, who was an icon of the Latin American left.

Chavez comfortably beat Capriles by 11 percentage points and 1.6 million votes in October.

In this campaign, Capriles slammed Maduro as an incompetent and a poor copy of Chavez unable to fix the nation's many problems. He also offered a Brazilian-style mix of pro-business policies and strong welfare programs.

Maduro was unable to match his former boss's electrifying speeches but nevertheless benefited from a well-oiled party machine and poor Venezuelans' fears that the opposition might abolish Chavez's slum development projects.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea and Mario Naranjo; Writing by Todd Benson; Editing by Kieran Murray and Jim Loney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/protests-flare-venezuela-government-rejects-vote-recount-005955110.html

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Researchers devise X-ray approach to track surgical devices, minimize radiation exposure

Public release date: 16-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State University

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have developed a new tool to help surgeons use X-rays to track devices used in "minimally invasive" surgical procedures while also limiting the patient's exposure to radiation from the X-rays.

Many surgical procedures now use long, thin devices such as "steerable needles" that can be inserted into a patient's body through a small incision and then steered to a target location. These "minimally invasive" procedures allow doctors to perform surgeries without having to make major incisions, which decreases the risk of infection and shortens the patient's recovery time.

However, these techniques pose a challenge to surgeons, because it is difficult for them to determine precisely where the surgical device is in the patient's body.

One solution to the problem is to use X-rays to track the progress of the surgical device in the patient. But doctors want to minimize the number of X-rays taken, in order to limit the patient's exposure to radiation.

"We have now developed an algorithm to determine the fewest number of X-rays that need to be taken, as well as what angles they need to be taken from, in order to give surgeons the information they need on a surgical device's location in the body," says Dr. Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and lead author of a paper on the research.

The new tool is a computer program that allows surgeons to enter what type of procedure they'll be performing and how precise they need the location data to be. Those variables are then plugged into the algorithm developed by the research team, which tells the surgeon how many X-rays will be needed and from which angles to produce the necessary location details.

For example, if a surgeon needs only a fairly general idea of where a device is located, only two or three X-rays may be needed whereas more X-rays would be required if the surgeon needs extremely precise location data.

###

The paper, "Continuous Shape Estimation of Continuum Robots Using X-ray Images," will be presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, being held in Karlsruhe, Germany, May 6-10. The paper was co-authored by Jingua Fu, a former graduate student at UNC; Luis Torres, a Ph.D. student at UNC; and Dr. Ron Alterovitz, an assistant professor of computer science at UNC. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

---

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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.

Public release date: 16-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State University

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have developed a new tool to help surgeons use X-rays to track devices used in "minimally invasive" surgical procedures while also limiting the patient's exposure to radiation from the X-rays.

Many surgical procedures now use long, thin devices such as "steerable needles" that can be inserted into a patient's body through a small incision and then steered to a target location. These "minimally invasive" procedures allow doctors to perform surgeries without having to make major incisions, which decreases the risk of infection and shortens the patient's recovery time.

However, these techniques pose a challenge to surgeons, because it is difficult for them to determine precisely where the surgical device is in the patient's body.

One solution to the problem is to use X-rays to track the progress of the surgical device in the patient. But doctors want to minimize the number of X-rays taken, in order to limit the patient's exposure to radiation.

"We have now developed an algorithm to determine the fewest number of X-rays that need to be taken, as well as what angles they need to be taken from, in order to give surgeons the information they need on a surgical device's location in the body," says Dr. Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and lead author of a paper on the research.

The new tool is a computer program that allows surgeons to enter what type of procedure they'll be performing and how precise they need the location data to be. Those variables are then plugged into the algorithm developed by the research team, which tells the surgeon how many X-rays will be needed and from which angles to produce the necessary location details.

For example, if a surgeon needs only a fairly general idea of where a device is located, only two or three X-rays may be needed whereas more X-rays would be required if the surgeon needs extremely precise location data.

###

The paper, "Continuous Shape Estimation of Continuum Robots Using X-ray Images," will be presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, being held in Karlsruhe, Germany, May 6-10. The paper was co-authored by Jingua Fu, a former graduate student at UNC; Luis Torres, a Ph.D. student at UNC; and Dr. Ron Alterovitz, an assistant professor of computer science at UNC. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

---

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?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/ncsu-rdx041613.php

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