Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295668105?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 31, 2013
Big depositors in Cyprus could lose up to 60 percent of savings
By Karolina Tagaris, Reuters
Major depositors in Cyprus's biggest bank will lose around 60 percent of savings over 100,000 euros, its central bank confirmed on Saturday, sharpening the terms of a bailout that has shaken European banks and saved the island from bankruptcy.
Initial signs that big depositors in Bank of Cyprus would take a hit of 30 to 40 percent - the first time the euro zone has made bank customers contribute to a bailout - had already unnerved investors in European lenders this week.
But the official decree published on Saturday confirmed a Reuters report a day earlier that the bank would give depositors shares worth just 37.5 percent of savings over 100,000 euros. The rest of such holdings might never be paid back.
The toughening of the terms will send a clear signal that the bailout means the end of Cyprus as a hub for offshore finance and could accelerate economic decline on the island and bring steeper job losses.
Banks reopened to relative calm on Thursday after an almost two-week shutdown and the imposition of capital controls. The streets of Nicosia were calm on Saturday, filled with crowds relaxing in its cafes and bars.
There is no sign for now that ordinary customers in other struggling euro zone countries like Greece, Italy or Spain are taking fright at the precedent set by the bailout.
"Cyprus is and will remain a special one-off case," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of the architects of the euro zone's response to a debt crisis now in its fourth year, told German mass-selling daily Bild.
"The savings accounts in Europe are safe."
European officials have worked hard this week to stress that the island's bailout was a unique case - after a suggestion by Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem that the rescue would serve as a model for future crises rattled European financial markets.
"Together in the Eurogroup we decided to have the owners and creditors take part in the costs of the rescue - in other words those who helped cause the crisis," said Schaeuble.
"Cyprus's economy will now go through a long and painful period of adjustment. But then it will pay back the loan when it is on a solid economic foundation."
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said on Friday that the 10-billion euro ($13 billion) bailout had contained the risk of national bankruptcy and would prevent it from leaving the euro.
Cypriots, however, are angry at the price attached to the rescue - the winding down of the island's second-largest bank, Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and an unprecedented raid on deposits over 100,000 euros.
Etyk, a bank worker's union, called a rally outside parliament for Thursday to protest against potential job cuts and a hit on their pension funds.
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Kenyan Supreme Court upholds election result
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? Kenya's Supreme Court on Saturday upheld the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country's next president and the loser accepted that verdict, ending an election season that riveted the nation with fears of a repeat of the 2007-08 postelection violence.
Jubilant Kenyatta supporters flooded the streets of downtown Nairobi, honking horns, blowing plastic noisemakers and chanting.
But supporters of defeated Prime Minister Raila Odinga angrily protested after the verdict and police fired tear gas at them outside the Supreme Court as well as in the lakeside city of Kisumu, Odinga's hometown.
Two young men participating in riots were fatally shot in Kisumu, police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi told The Associated Press, although it was not clear by whom, and residents there said they could hear gunshots late in the night.
Outbreaks of violence by Odinga supporters were also reported in some Nairobi slums and truckloads of police were called in to quell the demonstrations, according to reports on a police radio heard by an Associated Press reporter.
In a victory speech late Saturday, Kenyatta urged Kenyans to move past the election and pledged to "work with, and serve, all Kenyans without discrimination whatsoever."
"Above all, let us continue to pray for peace in our country," he said.
Odinga, who had challenged the election results, accepted the court ruling and urged national unity and peace.
"It is our view that this court process is another long road in our march toward democracy, for which we have long fought," he said. "The future of Kenya is bright. Let us not allow elections to divide us."
However, Odinga said it was unfortunate that some of his legal team's evidence had been disallowed by the court. This, he said after the court's verdict, means that "in the end Kenyans lost the right to know what indeed happened" in the counting of votes.
"Although we may not agree with some of its findings, and despite all the anomalies we have pointed out, our belief in constitutionalism remains supreme," he said. "Casting doubt on the judgment of the court could lead to higher political and economic uncertainty, and make it more difficult for our country to move forward."
Odinga wished Kenyatta success and said he hopes the incoming government "will have fidelity to our constitution, and implement it to the letter for the betterment of our people."
Saturday's Supreme Court verdict ? following a drawn-out court case that raised tensions across the nation ? means that Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president, is to be sworn in as president on April 9. He will become the second sitting president in Africa to face charges at the International Criminal Court.
Kenyatta and Deputy President-elect William Ruto both face charges that they helped orchestrate the 2007-08 postelection violence in which more than 1,000 people died. Both deny the charges. Ruto's trial is set to begin in late May; Kenyatta's is to start in July. Kenyatta has promised to report to The Hague.
Kenyatta's win may complicate the U.S. relationship with Kenya, which has the largest American embassy in Africa. Because of the ICC charges against Kenyatta, the U.S, Britain and other European countries have said they may have limited contact with Kenya's new president.
But Western powers can't completely sever the relationship. Kenya is a key component in the fight against the al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group al-Shabab. Additionally, as East Africa's largest economy, China is strongly courting Kenya's leaders, and the West will be loath to lose economic influence here.
The office of British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose government did not congratulate Kenyatta by name after he was declared the winner, said in a statement that Cameron wrote to Kenyatta on Saturday to note "his strong commitment to the partnership that exists between Kenya and the U.K." The statement said "the Kenyan people had made their sovereign choice" in electing Kenyatta.
The White House congratulated Kenyatta in a statement, which urged Kenyans "to peacefully accept the results of the election."
Lawyers for Odinga, the loser in Kenya's last two elections, had argued before the Supreme Court that the election was marred by irregularities and that Kenyatta did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff election. According to official results, Kenyatta won 50.07 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff election against Odinga, who said his case before the Supreme Court would put Kenya's democracy on trial.
But the Supreme Court's unanimous decision, read out by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, said the election was "conducted in compliance with the constitution and the law" and that Kenyatta and Ruto were legally elected.
"It is the decision of the court that (Kenyatta and Ruto) were validly elected," the ruling said. The reasons behind the judges' decision were not given Saturday. The chief justice said a detailed judgment would be delivered within two weeks.
Unlike after the 2007 election, which degenerated into tribe-on-tribe violence that damaged Kenya's reputation as a stable country, this time Odinga said he had faith in the judiciary's ability to give him a fair hearing.
The court's ruling ended days of anxiety since March 9, when Kenyatta was declared the winner of the March 4 vote that many described as the most complex in Kenya's history. More than 12 million Kenyans participated in the election. Some observers had expected a low registration of voters because of apathy following the 2007-08 violence, but campaigns by Kenyatta, Odinga and other presidential candidates led to the highest registration in the country ever. Kenya's electoral commission registered 14.3 million people.
Election day, though, did not go as planned. An electronic voter ID system intended to prevent fraud failed for reasons yet to be explained by the electoral commission. Vote officials instead used manual voter rolls.
After the polls closed, results were to be sent electronically to Nairobi, where officials would quickly tabulate a preliminary vote count in order to maximize transparency after rigging accusations following the 2007 vote. But that system failed, too. Election officials have indicated that computer servers were overloaded but have yet to fully explain the problem.
As the early count system was still being used, election results showed more than 330,000 rejected ballots, an unusually high number. But after the count resumed with the arrival in Nairobi of manual tallies, the number of rejected ballots was greatly reduced, and the election commission said the computer was mistakenly multiplying the number of rejected ballots by a factor of eight.
Odinga's lawyers told the Supreme Court this week that the switch from electronic voter identification to manual voter roll was contrived to allow inflation of Kenyatta's votes to take him past the 50 percent threshold. That accusation was vehemently denied by the electoral commission and Kenyatta's legal team.
___
Associated Press reporters Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, and Jason Straziuso in Mombasa, Kenya, contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenyan-supreme-court-upholds-election-result-164134832.html
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University of Washington to Offer Its First Ever Online-Only Degree ...
I'm all for exploring innovative ways to extend affordable access to quality higher education, especially for students who find their vocation in low-paying (if much needed) professions. But I'm really not confident that online-only degrees are they way to go.
The University of Washington will offer a new low-cost online bachelor?s degree completion program in early childhood and family studies. Pending final approval, the program will start in the fall.
[...] The Early Childhood and Family Studies degree, which is the first online-only bachelor?s completion program to be offered by the UW, will prepare individuals to work in child care, preschools, social and mental health services, parent and family support, and arts organizations.
So, um, the UW's first ever online-only bachelor's degree will be granted in program training people in a profession that consists mostly of face-to-face interpersonal interaction? I mean, if distance learning is so magical, why train preschool teachers at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective to just hand all the toddlers iPads and let them teach themselves?
The UW online degree costs $160 per credit ? which is about equivalent to $7,000 for a year of full-time study ? regardless of where students live.
No doubt that's cheaper, sure. But in every sense of the word. And it's not just the students (and their students) who might not get the value out of this that they expect. If the UW is selling a degree for $7,000 a year (and with relaxed admission requirements), won't that devalue the degrees of students paying almost twice the price? Top schools like the UW stand to cheapen their brand if they're not careful.
The program will be administered by UW Educational Outreach, which received a Next Generation Learning Challenges grant partially funded by the Gates Foundation, to help offset costs of developing the degree. The grant includes offering several core classes in early childhood education free to the public, as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the Coursera platform.
What a great humanitarian Bill Gates is, promoting education reforms that in no way generate profits for the industry on which he built his fortune. (But then, all those libraries Andrew Carnegie built sure did use a lot of steel, so I guess I shouldn't be too cynical.)
I don't mean to come off as a Luddite. There's a place in higher education for online learning. But let's be clear: The main advantage of MOOCs is that they're cheaper. Not better, or for the most part, not even just as good. Just cheaper.
And if our public policy solution to the crisis in higher education funding is focused on making college cheaper, well, in the end, chances are we'll get what we pay for.
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Saturday, March 30, 2013
Can a yoga studio calm Clackamas County politics? | OregonLive.com
First tongue-in-cheek question for Cassia Mark: Can her new yoga and fitness center calm the angry politics of Clackamas County?
She laughs and jokingly answers, "I sure hope so." But future students will no doubt have peace, not politics, on their minds when Mark's Karma Yoga and Fitness studio opens later this spring. The business, located in the Sunnybrook Center, 13031
S.E. 84th Avenue, will be the first of its kind in the area, Mark says.
As a devoted student who lives in nearby Happy Valley, she should know. "Believe me, I have looked high and low."
Since Mark couldn't find a studio -- "You can go to the gym, but it's not the same," she says -- she decided to open one herself. The 2,000 square foot studio opens in May. A class schedule is on the studio's website.
Mark doesn't teach yoga herself, but has hired seven instructors and is looking for more. Instructors will have a minimum of 200 hours teaching certification.
Classes will be offered in various forms of yoga, including vinyasa, hatha, yin, restorative, flow, pre-natal and for mothers and babies. The studio will offer free yoga classes to foster children and veterans, Mark says.
Mark, who has started and managed businesses in the past, is confident a ready market exists in the area.
"I'm my own demographic," she says. "I want a yoga studio, all my neighbors want a studio, and there's nothing around here."
--Eric Mortenson
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Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/03/can_a_yoga_studio_calm_clackam.html
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Veterans fight changes to disability payments
In this March 24, 2013 photo, former Marine Corps Cpl. Marshall Archer, left, a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, speaks to a man on a street in Portland. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
In this March 24, 2013 photo, former Marine Corps Cpl. Marshall Archer, left, a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, speaks to a man on a street in Portland. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
In this March 24, 2013 photo, veterans' liaison Marshall Archer, a former Marine Corps corporal, poses for a photo in Portland, Maine. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already.
Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate.
Advocates for the nation's 22 million veterans fear that the alternative inflation measure would also apply to disability payments to nearly 4 million veterans as well as pension payments for an additional 500,000 low-income veterans and surviving families.
"I think veterans have already paid their fair share to support this nation," said the American Legion's Louis Celli. "They've paid it in lower wages while serving, they've paid it through their wounds and sacrifices on the battlefield and they're paying it now as they try to recover from those wounds."
Economists generally agree that projected long-term debt increases stemming largely from the growth in federal health care programs pose a threat to the country's economic competitiveness. Addressing the threat means difficult decisions for lawmakers and pain for many constituents in the decades ahead.
But the veterans groups point out that their members bore the burden of a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past month, they've held news conferences on Capitol Hill and raised the issue in meetings with lawmakers and their staffs. They'll be closely watching the unveiling of the president's budget next month to see whether he continues to recommend the change.
Obama and others support changing the benefit calculations to a variation of the Consumer Price Index, a measure called "chained CPI." The conventional CPI measures changes in retail prices of a constant marketbasket of goods and services. Chained CPI considers changes in the quantity of goods purchased as well as the prices of those goods. If the price of steak goes up, for example, many consumers will buy more chicken, a cheaper alternative to steak, rather than buying less steak or going without meat.
Supporters argue that chained CPI is a truer indication of inflation because it measures changes in consumer behavior. It also tends to be less than the conventional CPI, which would impact how cost-of-living raises are computed.
Under the current inflation update, monthly disability and pension payments increased 1.7 percent this year. Under chained CPI, those payments would have increased 1.4 percent.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that moving to chained CPI would trim the deficit by nearly $340 billion over the next decade. About two-thirds of the deficit closing would come from less spending and the other third would come from additional revenue because of adjustments that tax brackets would undergo.
Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said she understands why veterans, senior citizens and others have come out against the change, but she believes it's necessary.
"We are in an era where benefits are going to be reduced and revenues are going to rise. There's just no way around that. We're on an unsustainable fiscal course," Sawhill said. "Dealing with it is going to be painful, and the American public has not yet accepted that. As long as every group keeps saying, 'I need a carve-out, I need an exception,' this is not going to work."
Sawhill argued that making changes now will actually make it easier for veterans in the long run.
"The longer we wait to make these changes, the worse the hole we'll be in and the more draconian the cuts will have to be," she said.
That's not the way Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs said he recently warned Obama that every veterans group he knows of has come out strongly against changing the benefit calculations for disability benefits and pensions by using chained CPI.
"I don't believe the American people want to see our budget balanced on the backs of disabled veterans. It's especially absurd for the White House, which has been quite generous in terms of funding for the VA," said Sanders, I-Vt. "Why they now want to do this, I just don't understand."
Sanders succeeded in getting the Senate to approve an amendment last week against changing how the cost-of-living increases are calculated, but the vote was largely symbolic. Lawmakers would still have a decision to make if moving to chained CPI were to be included as part of a bargain on taxes and spending.
Sanders' counterpart on the House side, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, appears at least open to the idea of going to chained CPI.
"My first priority is ensuring that America's more than 20 million veterans receive the care and benefits they have earned, but with a national debt fast approaching $17 trillion, Washington's fiscal irresponsibility may threaten the very provision of veterans' benefits," Miller said. "Achieving a balanced budget and reducing our national debt will help us keep the promises America has made to those who have worn the uniform, and I am committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to do just that."
Marshall Archer, 30, a former Marine Corps corporal who served two stints in Iraq, has a unique perspective about the impact of slowing the growth of veterans' benefits. He collects disability payments to compensate him for damaged knees and shoulders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He also works as a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, helping some 200 low-income veterans find housing.
Archer notes that on a personal level, the reduction in future disability payments would also be accompanied down the road by a smaller Social Security check when he retires. That means he would take a double hit to his income.
"We all volunteered to serve, so we all volunteered to sacrifice," he said. "I don't believe that you should ever ask those who have already volunteered to sacrifice to then sacrifice again."
That said, Archer indicated he would be willing to "chip in" if he believes that everyone is required to give as well.
He said he's more worried about the veterans he's trying to help find a place to sleep. About a third of his clients rely on VA pension payments averaging just over $1,000 a month. He said their VA pension allows them to pay rent, heat their home and buy groceries, but that's about it.
"This policy, if it ever went into effect, would actually place those already in poverty in even more poverty," Archer said.
The changes that would occur by using the slower inflation calculation seem modest at first. For a veteran with no dependents who has a 60 percent disability rating, the use of chained CPI this year would have lowered the veteran's monthly payments by $3 a month. Instead of getting $1,026 a month, the veteran would have received $1,023.
Raymond Kelly, legislative director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, acknowledged that veterans would see little change in their income during the first few years of the change. But even a $36 hit over the course of a year is "huge" for many of the disabled veterans living on the edge, he said.
The amount lost over time becomes more substantial as the years go by. Sanders said that a veteran with a 100 percent disability rating who begins getting payments at age 30 would see their annual payments trimmed by more than $2,300 a year when they turn 55.
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Post head-injury, Kristin Chenoweth goes on a "Family Weekend"
By Zorianna Kit
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tony and Emmy Award winning singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth is known for her perky personality ranging from roles in Broadway's "Wicked" to television's "Glee" and performing a closing number at February's Oscar ceremony with host Seth MacFarlane.
On Friday, the diminutive (4ft 11in) actress moves to the dark side in the indie movie "Family Weekend." She plays a mother so consumed by work that she ignores her own children and squabbles with her husband, until her teenage daughter kidnaps and ties up both parents in a bid to get their attention.
Chenoweth, 44, talked to Reuters about the film, her Christian faith and the serious accident last year that forced her to re-evaluate her life.
Q: What was it like being tied up for most of the duration of "Family Weekend?"
A: I am done with that tape! I was mostly in the same room and in the same position for four weeks. Lots of times I couldn't speak so I had to moan or grunt. And when I was spoken to, the tape (on my mouth) had to be ripped off. I was constantly getting waxed, I guess you could say.
Q: Are the parents the villains in the film?
A: One thing I learned is the basic good nature of people. They want to do right. This woman has a full plate and it has gone awry. It wasn't always bad. But with the pressure of being the breadwinner, she lost sight of what was truly important.
Q: Speaking of things going awry, you were cast on "The Good Wife" TV series but that all changed when a lighting rig fell on your head on the set last July.
A: It was bad. I was banged up, completely black and blue. My head was cut open, I had a skull fracture and cracked teeth. I had to get my memory going again (because) I was knocked out. My mom and dad came to stay with me and I was saying, "Why me? Why me? I was just standing there!"
My mom said: "Why not you? Life happens and you're no special or different or worse off or better off than anybody else. You're lucky to be alive and we are going to be grateful." It was a great piece of advice.
Q: Besides the physical trauma, what was the emotional damage?
A: One thing I really struggled with was having to stop and be quiet and still. That was the worst part about it. So I was like, Okay, clearly I'm supposed to be still. I've been going at it for so long, and so hard in so many different areas. Honestly, I think it was good. I can't believe I'm saying that, but it really makes you take stock of what's important.
Q: So how have you restructured you life post-accident? You still have a lot going on - voicing next year's animated film "Rio 2" and promoting a new ship that's being built for Royal Caribbean, among others things.
A: I'm being choosy with how I spend my free time. I can be very much a hermit and I'm trying not to do that anymore. I'm trying to enjoy the moments instead of going, 'Okay, I've got that behind me, what's next? I've got to do that and that and that ...' I want to enjoy it when it's happening.
Q: How does your Christian faith inform your professional and personal life?
A: Being a person of faith in show business is interesting. I've done lots of things maybe some Christians wouldn't do. But I've also said no to a lot of things that nobody knows about. It's a fine line to walk, but I have to keep true to my faith and pray and do the best I can.
I was at the History Channel (premiere) for "The Bible" miniseries and it's as important for me to go to that event as it is for me to go to a GLAAD event because I'm a gay rights activist. In some people's views, that is a direct conflict. But I don't see it as such. It's something that I've taken heat for and been praised for.
Q: You're adopted. How does that shape you?
A: Mainly that I feel a lot of love from my mom and dad who adopted me. Maybe I would have had a very different life had I not been adopted but my parents have really helped shape who I am. I do things sometimes they don't agree with, but I'm their kid and they love me. I know they feel like they won the lottery and I feel like I won the lottery. They got me and I got a home. The right home.
(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, Editing by Jill Serjeant)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/post-head-injury-kristin-chenoweth-goes-family-weekend-130305895.html
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New study aims to prevent sports-related brain injury in youngsters
Mar. 28, 2013 ? Ice hockey accounts for nearly half of all traumatic brain injuries among children and youth participating in organized sports who required a trip to an emergency department in Canada, according to a new study out of St. Michael's Hospital.
The results are part of a first-of-its-kind study led by Dr. Michael Cusimano that looked at causes of sports-related brain injuries in Canadian youth and also uncovered some prevention tactics that could be immediately implemented to make sports safer for kids.
"Unless we understand how children are getting hurt in sport, we can't develop ways to prevent these serious injuries from happening," said Dr. Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and the lead author of the study. "One would think that we know the reasons why kids are having brain injuries in sports, but until know, it was based mainly on anecdotes."
The study used data from The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program to look at the almost 13,000 children and youth aged 5-19 who had a sports-related brain injury between 1990 and 2009. The results appeared in the journal PLOS ONE today.
The researchers categorized injuries by players' ages, what sport they occurred in and what mechanisms had caused them -- "struck by player," "struck by object" (such as net or post), "struck by sport implement" (such as ball or stick), "struck by playing surface" and "other."
Hockey accounted for 44.3 per cent of all injuries and almost 70 per cent of them occurred in children over 10 as a result of player-to-player contact or being hit into the boards.
Dr. Cusimano said they expected to see high numbers in hockey because it's Canada's "national sport."
"This shows that body contact is still an area where we need to make major inroads to preventing brain injuries," Dr. Cusimano said. "For example, enforcing existing rules and making more effective incentives and disincentives about checking from behind could make huge improvements."
Nineteen per cent of the youth who suffered brain injuries got them during soccer, with most in the 10 to 14 or 15 to 19 age group. In these age ranges, the most common cause of injury was being struck by another player, kicks to the head or head-on-head collisions. In the younger group, age five to nine, players were more likely to suffer a traumatic brain injury from striking a surface or a goal post than those in older groups.
"There's a really straightforward solution here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Padding the goal posts could have potentially prevented a large number of these brain injuries in young children."
The results also found that the youngest age group was at the highest risk for getting seriously injured in baseball. Most of the 15.3 per cent of injuries occurred in children under the age of 14, with 45 per cent of them in children under nine.
Ball and bat injuries were most common, with the majority of injuries caused because the players stood too close to the batter or bat and were not supervised by an adult.
"These results give us a very specific prevention message for kids under nine who play baseball: make helmets and supervision a mandatory," said Dr. Cusimano. "The younger the child, the more supervision they need when using things like bats and balls. Simple rules around not being close to the batter can be taught to children and adults."
Football and rugby accounted for 12.9 per cent 5.6 per cent of injuries respectively, and the majority of them were caused by tackling.
Basketball made up 11.6 per cent of injuries, mostly caused by player-to-player elbowing, which increased as players got older.
"There is a real opportunity for prevention here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Having educational programs, proper equipment, rules and other incentives that support a culture of safety in sports should be a mandate of parents, coaches, players, sports organizations, schools, sports sponsors, and other groups like governments."
Funding for the research was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by St. Michael's Hospital, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Michael D. Cusimano, Newton Cho, Khizer Amin, Mariam Shirazi, Steven R. McFaull, Minh T. Do, Matthew C. Wong, Kelly Russell. Mechanisms of Team-Sport-Related Brain Injuries in Children 5 to 19 Years Old: Opportunities for Prevention. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58868 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058868
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/3M3mmJkKrl8/130329125301.htm
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Friday, March 29, 2013
How hard is it to 'de-anonymize' cellphone data?
Thursday, March 28, 2013
The proliferation of sensor-studded cellphones could lead to a wealth of data with socially useful applications ? in urban planning, epidemiology, operations research and emergency preparedness, among other things. Of course, before being released to researchers, the data would have to be stripped of identifying information. But how hard could it be to protect the identity of one unnamed cellphone user in a data set of hundreds of thousands or even millions?
According to a paper appearing this week in Scientific Reports, harder than you might think. Researchers at MIT and the Universit? Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, analyzed data on 1.5 million cellphone users in a small European country over a span of 15 months and found that just four points of reference, with fairly low spatial and temporal resolution, was enough to uniquely identify 95 percent of them.
In other words, to extract the complete location information for a single person from an "anonymized" data set of more than a million people, all you would need to do is place him or her within a couple of hundred yards of a cellphone transmitter, sometime over the course of an hour, four times in one year. A few Twitter posts would probably provide all the information you needed, if they contained specific information about the person's whereabouts.
The first author on the paper is Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a graduate student in the research group of Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Science Sandy Pentland. He's joined by C?sar Hidalgo, an assistant professor of media arts and science; Vincent Blondel, a visiting professor at MIT and a professor of applied mathematics at Universit? Catholique; and Michel Verleysen, a professor of electrical engineering at Universit? Catholique.
Focusing the debate
Hidalgo's group specializes in applying the tools of statistical physics to a wide range of subjects, from communications networks to genetics to economics. In this case, he and de Montjoye were able to use those tools to uncover a simple mathematical relationship between the resolution of spatiotemporal data and the likelihood of identifying a member of a data set.
According to their formula, the probability of identifying someone goes down if the resolution of the measurements decreases, but less than you might think. Reporting the time of each measurement as imprecisely as sometime within a 15-hour span, or location as imprecisely as somewhere amid 15 adjacent cell towers, would still enable the unique identification of half the people in the sample data set.
But while its initial application may be discouraging, de Montjoye and Hidalgo hope that their formula will provide a way for researchers and policy analysts to reason more rigorously about the privacy safeguards that need to be put in place when they're working with aggregated location data.
"Both C?sar and I deeply believe that we all have a lot to gain from this data being used," de Montjoye says. "This formula is something that could be useful to help the debate and decide, OK, how do we balance things out, and how do we make it a fair deal for everyone to use this data?"
Everybody's different
In the data set that the researchers analyzed, the location of a cellphone was inferred solely from that of the cell tower it was connected to, and the time of the connection was given as falling within a one-hour interval. Each cellphone had a unique, randomly generated identifying number, so that its movement could be traced over time. But there was no information connecting that number to the phone's owner.
The researchers randomly selected a representative sampling from the set of 1.5 million cellphone traces and, for each trace, began choosing points at random. For 95 percent of the traces, just four randomly selected points was enough to distinguish them from all other traces in the database. In the worst (or, from another perspective, best) case, 11 measurements were necessary.
The researchers suspect that similar relationships might hold for other types of data. "I would not be surprised if a similar result ? maybe requiring more points ? would, for example, extend to web browsing," Hidalgo says. "The space of potential combinations is really large. When a person is, in some sense, being expressed in a space in which the total number of combinations is huge, the probability that two people would have the same exact trajectory ? whether it's walking or browsing ? is almost nil."
###
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice
Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for this article.
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Canada Real Estate Investment Specialists Introduce Exciting New ...
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?
PRLog (Press Release) - Mar. 26, 2013 - VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Vancouver, BC ? The opportunities to invest in the projects introduced by Vision Investment Properties, a local turnkey real estate investment firm, have a tendency to disappear quickly. This was the case with its most recent sell-outs, Chestermere Manor and Meadowland, and it?s expected to happen again, following the recent announcement of its latest project, Stony Plain Manor.Nestled in the quaint community of the Greater Edmonton Region of Stony Plain is Stony Plain Manor, the latest and greatest in real estate investment opportunities from Vision. Leveraging the explosive growth this region has seen in the recent past, its lush and resource rich lands, and the lucrative returns its real estate market is expected to continue producing, Vision has opened up the opportunity for prospective investors to get in on this action.
?Stony Plain Manor is expected to provide a high return on investment,?
Properties include a 3-story and 4-story condominium, with one and two bedroom options. Each property comes with a washer and dryer, dishwasher, microwave, range, and top-mount fridge. Prices start at $149,000 with a $20,000 deposit to hold the property (deducted from down payment). As with all Vision property investment opportunities, turnkey is to be expected, with the company offering freehold ownership with full-service property management. Investors can also anticipate positive cash flow from day 1 with Vision?s rental assurance offering.
For more information on the Stony Plain Manor project and other opportunities from Vision, visit http://www.viproperties.com/
About Vision Investment Properties
Vision Investment Properties has become known as one of Canada?s foremost authorities in real estate investments. Founded by a group of investors who had purchased properties together in Canada over a period of several years, these professionals recognized a need for a turnkey investment solution. Nearly a decade later, Vision Investment Properties continues to benefit those seeking safety and value from investment properties by providing safe, secure, RRSP-eligible real estate investment opportunities.
For more information about Vision Investment Properties or Vision International Properties, visit http://www.viproperties.com.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
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Twitter's Ad Revenue Is Getting Close To The ... - Business Insider
Good morning, AdLand. Here's what you need to know today:
According to projections by eMarketer, Twitter's global ad revenue is going to hit $950 million by 2014. It's currently at $582.8 million, so that's quite the leap. Twitter's mobile presence is increasing by the minute, and that will help up ad revenue.
According to?GroupM, online ad spending will hit $113.5 billion worldwide this year. That's 14.6 percent more than last year and accounts for more than 21 percent of advertising budgets.
There's now a Doritos Taco Bell tortilla chip. This branding marriage keeps on getting more and more intense.
New York Magazine?has a new iPad app by The Wonderfactory that uses the platform Mag+.
OK Go?joined up with Saatchi & Saatchi to create a contest that will allow young filmmakers to make the band's next music video for the new track "I'm Not Through."
Kao USA, which makes Jergens and John Frieda products, picked Publicis' Spark and DIgitas to oversee its digital-creative and media accounts.
CP+B?promoted Ryan Nikolaidis to the Associate Director of Physical Computing. He was one of the guys behind the JELL-O Jiggle-It app.
Previously on Business Insider Advertising:
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Optimism in UN over 1st global arms trade treaty
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The first global treaty on regulating the multimillion-dollar arms trade appeared to be nearing consensus, supporters said, though worries remained that Iran, India or other countries would back off an agreement that requires approval from all 193 United Nations member states.
Thursday is the deadline for reaching a deal. U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations have been private, said Wednesday the United States was virtually certain to go along with the latest text.
Hopes of reaching agreement on what would be a landmark treaty were dashed last July when the U.S. said it needed more time to consider the proposed accord ? a move quickly backed by Russia and China. In December, the U.N. General Assembly decided to hold a final conference and set Thursday as the deadline.
"We need a treaty," China's U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong told The Associated Press. "We hope for consensus."
Iran, Egypt, India and several other countries have had serious concerns about the text.
There has never been an international treaty regulating the estimated $60 billion global arms trade. For more than a decade, activists and some governments have been pushing for international rules to try to keep illicit weapons out of the hands of terrorists, insurgent fighters and organized crime.
"It's important for each and every country in the world that we have a regulation of the international arms trade," Germany's U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig told the AP. "There are still some divergencies of views, but I trust we can overcome them."
The draft treaty does not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms, parts and components and to regulate arms brokers. It would prohibit states that ratify the treaty from transferring conventional weapons if they would violate arms embargoes or if they would promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
The final draft makes this human rights provision even stronger, adding that the export of conventional arms should be prohibited if they could be used in the commission of attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals.
In considering whether to authorize the export of arms, the draft says a country must evaluate whether the weapon would be used to violate international human rights or humanitarian laws or be used by terrorists or organized crime. The final draft would allow countries to determine whether the weapons transfer would contribute to or undermine peace and security.
Anna Macdonald, Oxfam's head of arms control, said the scope of the weapons covered in the latest draft is still too narrow.
"We need a treaty that covers all conventional weapons, not just some of them," she said. "We need a treaty that will make a difference to the lives of the people living in Congo, Mali, Syria and elsewhere who suffer each day from the impacts of armed violence."
Ammunition has been a key issue, with some countries pressing for the same controls on ammunition sales as arms, but the U.S. and others opposed such tough restrictions. The draft calls for each country that ratifies the treaty to establish regulations for the export of ammunition "fired, launched or delivered" by the weapons covered by the convention.
The Control Arms coalition, which represents about 100 organizations worldwide campaigning for a strong treaty, and diplomats from countries that support them, said this wouldn't cover hand grenades and mines.
India and other countries had insisted that the treaty have an opt-out for government arms transfers under defense cooperation agreements. The new text appears to keep that loophole, stating that implementation of the treaty "shall not prejudice obligations" under defense cooperation agreements by countries that ratify the treaty.
"Making this treaty was like making a sausage: Everyone has added an ingredient," said Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"Unfortunately, that has produced a document that leans much too far towards satisfying the concerns of the Arab Group and Mexico. The former view it as a rebellion prevention plan, while the latter wants a text that edges towards its view that the domestic firearms market in the U.S. should be subject to treaty regulation," he said.
But Daryl Kimball, executive director of the independent Washington-based Arms Control Association, said, "The emerging treaty represents an important first step in dealing with the unregulated and illicit global trade in conventional weapons and ammunition, which fuels wars and human rights abuses worldwide."
He said the text could have been stronger and more comprehensive, but it can still make an important difference.
"The new treaty says to every United Nations member that you cannot simply 'export and forget,'" Kimball said.
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GOP moves to catch up with Democrats on technology
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republicans are moving aggressively to repair their technological shortcomings from the 2012 election, opening a new tech race to counter a glaring weakness against President Barack Obama.
With the blessing of party leaders, a new crop of Republican-backed outside groups is developing tools to improve communication with voters, predict their behavior and track Democratic opponents. After watching Obama win re-election with the aid of an unprecedented technological machine, GOP officials concede an urgent need for major changes in the way they reach voters. They are turning to a younger generation of tech experts expected to play a bigger role in the 2014 midterm elections and beyond.
"I think everybody realized that the party is really far behind at the moment and they're doing everything within their realistic sphere of influence to catch up," said Bret Jacobson, a partner with Red Edge, a Virginia-based digital advocacy firm that represents the Republican Governors Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Foundation.
Alex Skatell, former digital director for the GOP's gubernatorial and Senate campaign operations, leads a new group that has been quietly testing a system that would allow Republicans to share details about millions of voters ? their personal interests, group affiliations and even where they went to school. Democrats began using related technology years ago, giving Obama a significant advantage last fall in personalizing communication with prospective supporters.
With no primary opponent last year, Obama's re-election team used the extra time to build a large campaign operation melding a grass-roots army of 2.2 million volunteers with groundbreaking technology to target voters. They tapped about 17 million email subscribers to raise nearly $700 million online.
Data-driven analytics enabled the campaign to run daily simulations to handicap battleground states, analyze demographic trends and test alternatives for reaching voters online.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in contrast, had only a few months after a lengthy primary fight to try to match Obama's tech advantage. He couldn't make up the difference. Romney's technology operation was overwhelmed by the intense flow of data and temporarily crashed on Election Day.
A 100-page report on how to rebound from the 2012 election, released last week by Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, includes several technology recommendations.
"The president's campaign significantly changed the makeup of the national electorate and identified, persuaded and turned out low-propensity voters by unleashing a barrage of human and technological resources previously unseen in a presidential contest," the report said. "Marrying grass-roots politics with technology and analytics, they successfully contacted, persuaded and turned out their margin of victory. There are many lessons to be learned from their efforts, particularly with respect to voter contact."
Skatell, 26, is leading one new effort by Republican allies to fill the void. His team of designers, software developers and veteran Republican strategists is now testing what he calls an "almost an eHarmony for matching volunteers with persuadable voters" that would let campaigns across the country share details in real time on voter preferences, harnessing social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Other groups are working to improve the GOP's data and digital performance.
The major Republican ally, American Crossroads, which spent a combined $175 million on the last election with its sister organization, hosted private meetings last month focused on data and technology. Drawing from technology experts in Silicon Valley, the organization helped craft a series of recommendations expected to be rolled out later this year.
"A good action plan that fixes our deficiencies and identifies new opportunities can help us regain our advantage within a cycle or two," said Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio.
A prominent group of Republican aides has also formed America Rising, a company that will have a companion "super" political action committee that can raise unlimited contributions without having to disclose its donors. Its purpose is to counter Democratic opposition research groups, which generated negative coverage of Romney and GOP candidates last year.
America Rising will provide video tracking, opposition research and rapid response for campaign committees, super PACs and individual candidates' campaigns but does not plan to get involved in GOP primaries. It will be led by Matt Rhoades, who served as Romney's campaign manager, and Joe Pounder, the research director for the Republican National Committee. Running its super PAC will be Tim Miller, a former RNC aide and spokesman for former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.
Romney and several Republican candidates were monitored closely by camera-toting Democratic aides during the campaign, a gap that Miller said American Rising hopes to fill on behalf of Republicans.
Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said his party has "a several years' lead on data and analytics infrastructure and we're not standing still."
Of the GOP effort, Woodhouse said, "We don't see them closing the gap anytime soon."
___
Peoples reported from Boston.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-moves-catch-democrats-technology-065816379--election.html
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Thursday, March 28, 2013
BlackBerry?s best hope said to be as a ?niche player? going forward
By Brian Homewood March 28 (Reuters) - Swiss champions FC Basel, renowned for their youth development programme, face a constant battle to stop teenage players moving to English, Spanish and Italian clubs. President Bernhard Heusler told Reuters in an interview that parents often do not listen to the club when warned against taking their sons elsewhere. "We get enormous pressure from outside, including English clubs," said Heusler before adding Basel were powerless to stop their youngsters leaving before the age of 16. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-best-hope-said-niche-player-going-forward-141730527.html
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Confirmed: Nexus 4 now shipping with updated design
Small nubs now lift the back of the phone up off a table; camera lens gets a slight redesign
Android Central has confirmed that the Nexus 4 has undergone a little bit of a design tweak. As first reported by German site MobiFlip. there are now a couple of small nubs on the rear of the phone, where the glass meets the foot, positioned just above the two screw holes.
We've confirmed the change on a pair of Nexus 4s we ordered on Monday this week and received on Wednesday. In the image above, our original Nexus 4, now some four months old, is on top, with a new retail unit (still in its protective plastic) at the bottom. Note the little nub between the screw holes of the two phones.
This small design change has a couple of effects. It lifts phone up ever so slightly, allowing sound to escape the flush speaker. It also should help keep the glass back from getting the little hairline scratches it's been prone to pick up.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/2FEmB3bMXDE/story01.htm
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Wednesday, March 27, 2013
'American Idol' Detroit Night: What Should Top Eight Sing?
We suggest songs for Candice, Kree, Amber and Burnell on Motor City night.
By Gil Kaufman and James Montgomery
Amber Holcomb on "American Idol"
Photo: Fox
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704403/american-idol-detroit-night-song-picks.jhtml
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Dad denies using daughter in child-porn extortion plot after professor's suicide
Courtesy Miriam Aune / AP
James Aune took his own life after he was allegedly blackmailed by a man who authorities say used his daughter to lure men into sexually explicit conversations online, then blackmail them.
By Juan A. Lozano, The Associated Press
HOUSTON -- A Louisiana man denied on Tuesday that he used his daughter to lure a college professor into a sexually explicit online relationship and then blackmailed him.
The professor, James Arnt Aune, of Texas A&M University, jumped to his death from the roof of a campus parking garage in January after paying part of an alleged demand for $5,000, sending a text to the man saying "Killing myself now. And u will be prosecuted for black mail."
Authorities allege that Aune, 59, was one of many victims of the same scam by the man. The Associated Press isn't naming him to protect the identity of his daughter.
Aune, who headed the school's Department of Communication, battled depression in recent years. He struggled with the administrative duties of being a department head, and he was badly shaken by his 2007 battle with prostate cancer, his widow said. "He never really came all the way back," Miriam Aune said of his surviving cancer.
He began drinking heavily, and in December he started a sexually explicit online relationship with what he thought was an underage girl, according to prosecutors. He was soon contacted by a man purporting to be her outraged father, who threatened to expose Aune unless he paid him $5,000.
Aune paid the man $1,500, but he didn't know if he could come up with the rest, authorities say.
The alleged blackmailer pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a Houston federal courtroom to an extortion charge.
The 37-year-old Metairie, La., resident was ordered to remain in jail without bail, and his trial is scheduled for May 28. If convicted, he faces up to two years in jail.
'A weak moment'
In the criminal complaint, prosecutors contend that the man's daughter told authorities in Louisiana in 2011 that her father took naked photos and videos of her and used them "to scam men" through MocoSpace, a social networking website mainly for mobile devices. On the site, "she would meet men, get their phone numbers and send them pictures and videos then (her father) would call them and say how she was his daughter and how she would need counseling and they had to pay for it."
At the time of that 2011 interview, her father was facing two counts of oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated incest. The charges were dropped in February 2012 due to a lack of corroborating evidence, said Rachael Domiano, a spokeswoman for the 21st Judicial District Attorney's Office in Louisiana.
It wasn't clear from the criminal complaint if prosecutors believe the defendant's daughter actually interacted with Aune, or if her image was used to allegedly dupe him.
Miriam Aune, 56, told The Associated Press that investigators told her that the defendant communicated with her husband and other men, pretending to be his daughter.
She said her husband told her he began the online chats sometime in December and the defendant then asked for money.
According to court records, undated texts show Aune scrambling to put money on prepaid credit cards and asking for his forgiveness, saying "I am very sorry. It was a weak moment."
A week before his suicide, James Aune confessed to his wife. Miriam Aune said her husband never told her why he did it.
"I was just telling him there was nothing that we couldn't get through. We have two autistic children we have raised to adulthood. We've been through rough stuff. I thought we could get through this," Miriam Aune said.
According to a criminal complaint, the defendant continued bombarding Aune with profanity laced emails, texts and voicemails, including a Jan. 7 email in which he warned Aune that he had until noon the next day to pay or else "the police, your place of employment, students, ALL OVER THE INTERNET ...ALL OF THEM will be able to see your conversations, texts, pictures you sent ...."
On Jan. 8 at 9:21 a.m., the defendant texted, "3 more hours. If i don't hear from you the calls start," according the criminal complaint by FBI agent Nikki Allen. Just over an hour later, Aune replied with the text to say he was taking his own life.
Miriam Aune doesn't excuse her husband's actions. She said it was his decision to go online and begin the conversations.
"It just shows you anybody can slip off the path. I know a lot of people are very surprised by this. He was very human with flaws, just like all of us," she said.?
? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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