Temple University raised $65.8 million in its 2013 fiscal year, which ended June 30, making the year the best for fund raising in the North Philadelphia university?s history.
Temple?s previous best fiscal year for fund raising was 2008 when it raised $65.4 million during its Access to Excellence fund-raising campaign. The average amount the university raised in the four succeeding fiscal years was $45.5 million.
Gifts and pledges nearly doubled in two categories: Scholarships, where they rose to $16.5 million from $8.8 million; and faculty and research initiatives, where they rose to $16.26 million from $8.14 million.
Drexel, Temple profs get grants
Two area professors were among the eight recipients of the first grants made by the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, which is part of the Pittsburgh Foundation.
Both were awarded grants in the New Investigator category. The grants are $150,000 over two years.
William Wuerst, an assistant professor of chemistry in Temple?s College of Science and Technology, received a grant to support his research on developing new molecules that could inhibit the processes of bacterial biofilms, which cause bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.
Michelle Dolinski, an assistant professor of physics in Drexel University?s College of Arts & Sciences, won a grant to support her effort to develop a new kind of radiation detector that could be used for research in the fields of particle physics and medical imaging.
Penn sports channel being launched
The University of Pennsylvania and the other Ivy League schools will each have their own channel on the Ivy League Network, which is set to debut later this month.
Peter covers education, energy, labor, technology and venture capital.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration is planning to transfer two Guantanamo Bay detainees to Algeria, the first movement of terrorist suspects from the prison since the president announced a renewed push to close the contentious facility run by the U.S. military in Cuba.
The White House said Friday it was starting the transfers as part of President Barack Obama's goal to close the prison, a campaign promise that has eluded him since he took office. The move signaled a new push to reduce the population of 166 detainees at the prison, where dozens are on a hunger strike to draw attention to their indefinite detention.
The White House said the two detainees will not be identified until after the transfer, which can't come until after a 30-day waiting period. Administration officials also wouldn't say what security assurances they had from the Algerian government as part of the arrangement.
An administration official said the detainees were chosen because Algeria is a close U.S. ally that has successfully managed detainees in the past ? none of the previous 12 to be released have returned to terrorist activities, unlike some returned to other countries. The official, speaking on a condition of anonymity without authorization to publicly discuss the process, said it has been in the works since several months before Obama announced his intention this spring to push anew for closure.
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel signed off on the transfer based on the recommendation of an interagency team after a months-long review. As part of the certification process that has been required by Congress for more than two years, Guantanamo detainees can be transferred if the defense secretary certifies that the individual is not at risk to engage in terrorist activities.
That's a high bar that had slowed the transfer process with 166 remaining at Guantanamo, with the last transfer in September 2012.
Seven Algerian detainees remain at Guantanamo, including five who have been cleared for transfer. Attorney Cori Crider of the British human rights group Reprieve was on a previously scheduled phone call with one of them, 34-year-old Nabil Hadjarab, when the White House announced the certification. She said they were both sort of "shocked" about the prospect of movement. Crider said she did not know whether he or her other Algerian client, 43-year-old Ahmed Bel Bacha, were among the two up for transfer.
The hunger strike, in which both her clients have taken part, and pressure from members of Congress have clearly forced the administration to take action, Crider said. "I think this month there has been more attention and more pressure on the administration in some years to make some progress and there is finally a response," she said in a phone interview from London.
As of Friday, the military said 68 prisoners met the criteria to be classified as being on hunger strike, but officials have said most of the men are eating at least occasional meals and none is in immediate danger. Of the 68, 44 have lost enough weight that the military says they meet the criteria to be force-fed if necessary.
In the past, Bel Bacha has said he does not wish to return to Algeria, where he has been convicted in absentia for belonging to a terrorist group and given a 20-year-sentence.
In 2010, six Algerian detainees resisted efforts to be repatriated, saying they'd rather stay at the prison camp than return to their home country. The most prominent case was that of Aziz Abdul Naji, who argued all the way to the Supreme Court that he might face torture in Algeria. The Supreme Court rejected his plea, and he was transferred in 2010, indicted and placed under judicial supervision.
Administration official say they carefully examine standards of treatment in receiving countries as part of the repatriation process and are confident the Algerians being transferred will be treated humanely.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., was quick to criticize the move because of security concerns.
"With 28 percent of former Guantanamo detainees re-engaging or suspected of re-engaging in terrorist activities, I am deeply troubled by the president's plan to release detainees to a country where there is an active al-Qaida affiliate," she said in a statement. "Rather than releasing detainees who could potentially return to the battlefield, the administration should focus on developing a coherent policy for the long-term detention of foreign terrorists ? something it has failed to do after four and a half years."
Some Democratic lawmakers, however, applauded the certification and called on the Obama administration to work to transfer out the 84 other detainees who have been cleared. "At a cost of $454 million annually ? or $2.7 million per detainee ? it is in the national security interests of the United States to transfer these detainees to their home countries rather than keep them at our isolated military base in Cuba," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement.
Despite Obama's effort to shutter the prison, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress have repeatedly resisted. The House voted 247-175 Tuesday to reject an amendment that would have allowed Obama to begin closing the facility.
At his speech in May, Obama announced several steps to move detainees out of Guantanamo, including a lifting on the ban of transfers to Yemen because of security concerns there and the appointment of senior officials at the State and Defense departments responsible for negotiating transfers.
Last month, Washington attorney Clifford Sloan was named to reopen the State Department's Office of Guantanamo Closure, but the Pentagon official has yet to be announced. William Lietzau, deputy secretary of defense for detainee affairs, who has been the top Pentagon adviser on Guantanamo, told Pentagon colleagues Thursday that he's leaving to take a position in the private sector.
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Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Miami and Donna Cassata and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.
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HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) ? A gunman holding hostages inside a South Florida apartment complex killed six people before being shot to death by a SWAT team that stormed the building early Saturday following an hours-long standoff, police said.
Sgt. Eddie Rodriguez told The Associated Press that police got a call around 6:30 p.m. Friday that shots had been fired in a building with dozens of apartments in Hialeah, a few miles north of Miami.
Rodriguez said that when police arrived, they discovered an active shooter situation: "He's inside the building, moving from floor to floor. Eventually he barricades himself in an apartment."
A crisis team was able to briefly establish communication with the man. Rodriguez said negotiators and a SWAT team tried talking with him from the other side of the door of an apartment unit where he was holding two hostages.
But Rodriguez said the talks eventually "just fell apart." Officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman in an exchange of gunfire.
"They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages," Rodriguez said. Both hostages survived. Rodriguez said he didn't have any information on how long negotiations lasted.
He said police discovered two people, a male and female, shot to death in the hallway in front of one unit. Three more, a male and two females, were found shot and killed in another apartment on a different floor. Another man who was walking his children into an apartment across the street also was killed. Rodriguez said it wasn't immediately clear whether the gunman took aim at him from an upper-level balcony or if he was hit by a stray bullet.
Zulima Niebles said police told her that three of her family members were among the victims. She said her sister Merly Sophia Niebles, her sister's husband, and her sister's daughter Priscila Perez, 16, were all shot and killed.
Zulima Niebles' husband, Agustin Hernandez, was moving the family's things out of the apartment building and into his car Saturday. Among them were several photos, one showing the teen girl smiling in a red graduation gown, another of his sister-in-law in a white dress, wearing pearls.
Marcela Chavarri, director of the American Christian School, said Priscila Perez, 16, was about to enter her senior year at the school.
"She was a lovely girl," Chavarri said through tears. "She was always happy and helping her classmates."
Officials were not identifying the gunman or victims. Rodriguez said police were still investigating.
Neighbor Fabian Valdes, who lives across the street from the site of the standoff, said he heard shots fired and then looked out his window and saw a man lying on the floor, outside the front lobby. He was on his back and had his arms and legs outstretched.
Valdes said he was in shock. "It's something you never expect," he said.
In Hialeah ? a suburb of about 230,000 residents, about three-quarters of whom are Cuban or Cuban-American ? the entrance to the quiet neighborhood lined with apartment buildings was blocked off early Saturday.
The standoff occurred in an aging beige five-story building with an open terrace in the middle. The apartment where neighbors said the shooting started was charred, the door and ceiling immediately outside burned black.
Miriam Valdes, 70, said she lives on the top floor ? one floor above where the shooting began. She said she heard gunfire and later saw smoke entering her apartment.
She described running in fear to the unit across the hall, where she stayed holed up as officers negotiated with the gunman.
From the apartment, Valdes said she could hear about eight officers talking with the gunman.
She said she heard the officers tell him to "let these people out."
"We're going to help you," she said they told him.
She said the gunman first asked for his girlfriend and then his mother but refused to cooperate.
Ester Lazcano said she lives two doors down from where the shooting began and was in the shower when she heard the first shots. Then there were many more.
"I felt the shots," she said.
Neighbors said the gunman lived in the building with his mother, but police wouldn't confirm that information.
Rodriguez said police were still investigating identities of victims and the gunman, as well as a possible motive.
"Investigators are talking with families of the victims, neighbors, people that were present when all this began," he said. "That way we can start to piece together this huge puzzle that we're working with."
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Associated Press writer Suzette Laboy contributed to this report.
Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB) and LinkedIn (LNKD) have all earned a vaunted "wide economic moat" rating from Morningstar (Full Disclosure: Morningstar is an investor in YCharts). While all three companies enjoy fundamental competitive advantages that separate them from the crowd, right now they are a case study in how a great business does not necessarily make for a great investment.
With more than 200 million users who have gone through the sticky process of creating an online career profile, LinkedIn isn't just dominant online, it is actively disrupting the executive search industry.
Revenue from corporate hiring/recruitment (deemed Talent Solutions in LinkedIn-ese) accounts for nearly 60% of company-wide revenue (ads and premium subscriptions bring in the rest.) In the first quarter of this year, revenue from this segment grew 80% compared to a year earlier. If the economy continues to ever-so-slowly keep growing, that should provide a soft breeze tailwind for LinkedIn as more companies look to hire.
Great company, great business model. But not so great valuation, as a little investment analysis shows. LinkedIn currently trades at a 50% premium to Morningstar's estimate of the company's fair value price. That makes it the worst value among the 150 or so companies that Morningstar says have compelling wide moats. As Morningstar bluntly puts it: "Despite our optimism for the company, we don't believe investors would be adequately compensated for their risk if they were to overpay."
Or overstay. If you're sitting on a nice profit, this chart should encourage you to maybe take some of that off the table. What sort of rationalization can you come up with to explain a forward PE ratio running more than 1700x?.
LNKD PE Ratio TTM data by YCharts
Sure, wide moat companies can demand a premium; but owning a stock -- no matter how great the company -- that is deemed to be trading at a 50%+ premium to its fair value is bordering on gambling, not investing.
At a 14% premium to Morningstar's fair value estimate, Google rates as not cheap, but not screamingly expensive either. Sure a 14% discount would be nice -- the average for all wide moat stocks is a 4% discount to fair value -- but it's not as if Google has hit a speed bump of late. It's actually one of the few megacap global leaders that has been able to deliver strong revenue growth. Here's how Google's quarterly revenue growth stacks up to the five largest companies in the S&P 500: Apple (AAPL), Exxon Mobil (XOM), General Electric (GE), Chevron (CVX) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). Google's market cap ranks as the eighth highest in the S&P 500.
GOOG Revenue Quarterly YoY Growth data by YCharts
While Google is a better value relative to LinkedIn, investors decided to play catch up when Google delivered surprisingly strong first-quarter results in mid April: the stock is up 15%, compared to a 4% gain for the S&P 500. That run-up has pushed the stock's PE ratio above 25, the highest level coming out of the global recession and nearly 50% above where it was a year ago. Second quarter earnings will be released on July 18th.
Of the three Internet wide-moaters, Facebook is the only full-on value according to Morningstar, which estimates the stock currently trades at a 30% discount to its fair value. That's the second biggest discount among the 20 stocks in the Market Vectors Wide Moat Focus ETF (MOAT) that tracks Morningstar's Wide Moat index. Western Union (WU) currently trades at a 32% discount.
Granted, Morningstar's $34 fair value estimate would put the stock where it hasn't been since its May 2011 IPO.
FB data by YCharts
Morningstar is long-term bullish on Facebook's ability to increase ad revenue from an expanding user base. An average of 660 million daily users in the first quarter of this year was 26% higher than a year earlier; monthly active users hit 1.1 billion, a 23% increase from a year earlier. Mobile usage grew by 54%. The $1.25 billion in first-quarter ad revenue was 43% higher than a year earlier; total revenue grew 38%.
Morningstar analyst Rick Summer notes that Facebook will need to expand its ad revenue -- which accounts for 85% of Facebook's total revenue -- across the internet, rather than just relying on revenue from ads it can jam into its own users' news feed. But Summer doesn't see a Google/Facebook zero-sum death match for ad dollars. "Although they compete for display advertising dollars, we do not expect one firm to disrupt the other," Summer recently wrote.
Though all three companies have generated a wide moat rating, it's important to note that Morningstar also assigns a high level of uncertainty to its fair value estimates for each company. (That's the mid point of its uncertainty ratings, which run from low to extreme.) It's hard to have a high level of confidence in financial modeling, going out 10 years or more, when a company has only been publicly traded for little more than year (Facebook and LinkedIn), in addition to the ever-evolving nature of what is still a very young Internet business world. As Warren Buffett wrote in Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.B) 2007 shareholder letter, "A truly great business must have an enduring "moat" that protects excellent returns on invested capital. Business history is filled with "Roman Candles," companies whose moats proved illusory and were soon crossed."
It's going to take years before Facebook and LinkedIn can be judged on endurance. Google, public since 2004, is barely out of its infancy. Its current 15% return on invested capital (ROIC) is about half that of Apple, which only rates a "narrow" moat from Morningstar given the shifting nature of consumer technology tastes.
Carla Fried, a senior contributing editor at ycharts.com, has covered investing for more than 25 years. Her work appears in The New York Times, Bloomberg.com and Money Magazine. She can be reached at editor@ycharts.com. You can also request a demonstration of YCharts Platinum.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.(More...)
By Nick Brown July 21 (Reuters) - With more than $18 billion at stake in Detroit's restructuring, big law firms and other advisers are clamoring to represent the city's many creditors - including some advisers not exactly known for municipal work. The city, which filed the largest-ever U.S. municipal bankruptcy on Thursday, tapped high-priced lawyers from Jones Day, financial advisers from Ernst & Young and restructuring consultants from Conway MacKenzie, court papers show. For creditors and related parties, there is clearly a lot at stake. That means bondholders, insurers, retirees and others are sure to be accompanied in court by platoons of lawyers. Detroit owes more than $8 billion in bond debt, and the insurers likely on the hook for those costs have already retained big-name law firms to take their cases. Federal Guaranty Insurance Co tapped Weil Gotshal & Manges, according to a source close to the matter, who declined to be named because the information was not public as of Saturday. An attorney for Weil declined to comment. David Dubrow, a lawyer at Arent Fox, confirmed on Saturday that he has been tapped by Ambac Financial Group. And, according to the court's electronic docket, Syncora hired Kirkland & Ellis, known for its corporate bankruptcy work, while Assured Guaranty retained Winston & Strawn, and National Public Finance Guarantee Corp hired Sidley Austin. Bond insurers will play a key role in Detroit's case. While a portion of the city's $1.13 billion in general obligation bonds are secured by city assets, about $651 million of it is secured only by the ability to raise taxes. The city's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, has said he will treat that portion of the debt as an unsecured claim. That classification, which has been largely untested in federal courts, is likely to be hotly contested and possibly litigated by bondholders or their insurers. Detroit also owes $5.7 billion in unfunded healthcare and other benefits to retirees, and has asked the judge to form a committee to look out for their interests. The Department of Justice may also appoint a committee of unsecured creditors in the case. Both moves would mean opportunities for professional advisers. The city needs to negotiate new labor deals with unions, and its pension funds are underfunded by $3.5 billion, providing yet more opportunities for attorneys to advise creditors. Chapter 9, the section of the bankruptcy code that governs municipal bankruptcies, is attractive for advisers, provided there is money to pay them. Unlike in Chapter 11, where billing is subject to court and regulatory review, Chapter 9 allows bills to stay between the adviser and its client. In corporate restructurings, creditors, judges and the Justice Department pore over fees line by line, and can raise objections to unnecessary or overpriced items. Over the past few years, the Justice Department has ramped up its policing of high fees and has required bankruptcy lawyers to disclose more. In municipal bankruptcies, fees could be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, but they do not need to be reported publicly in court. "You're used to being in a world where you have to explain yourself, and suddenly you don't anymore," said a bankruptcy lawyer, who asked not to be named. The catch is that, unlike in corporate bankruptcies, there is no mechanism under Chapter 9 to make the bankrupt entity pay certain creditors' fees. And corporate bankruptcies are generally more lucrative for advisers because there is often more money to go around. But with $18.5 billion in debt, Detroit is an outlier among municipal bankruptcies, where advisers see the potential for high fees without the hassle of having to justify them in court.
A NEW FRONTIER In the past, only a small handful of professionals were known for having expertise in municipal restructuring. But a recent slew of Chapter 9 filings has yielded many new faces, and Detroit's bankruptcy will only continue that trend. "Every time a case gets bigger, there are new players," said Richard Levin, a partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore who is representing the Detroit Institute of Arts in the restructuring. Chapter 9 filings are rare, with only about 650 cases filed in the 75 years to 2012, mostly involving small municipal entities like sewer districts. But, the last three years have seen filings by the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Jefferson County, Alabama and the California cities of Stockton and San Bernardino. And a concurrent lull in corporate bankruptcies has put strain on big restructuring firms like Weil Gotshal, which last month laid off 170 associates and support staff, driving professionals toward municipal work. "Chapter 9 is not something I started out doing," said George South, a partner at DLA Piper who has become well-versed in the arena, representing creditor groups in the bankruptcies of both Harrisburg and Jefferson County.
PLENTY OF CONSTITUENCIES In addition to general obligation bonds, Detroit owes nearly $6 billion in revenue bonds and $1.43 billion in pension certificates. Even though the bond insurers are likely to be the ones on the hook, the bondholders themselves will also "lawyer up." Subsets of the holders may even band together to form committees if they feel a united front would better serve their interests, providing yet another potential path for advisers. A number of other large law firms, including Brown Rudnick, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and DLA Piper, are involved in the case or looking for ways in, according to people familiar with the matter. Even if advisers lose out on big-money clients, Detroit's restructuring calls for a slew of projects and transactions that will require their own armies of professionals. "There's all kinds of consulting opportunities," said Levin, whose client, the Detroit Institute of Arts museum, is at the center of a dispute over whether the city can sell the museum's art collection. Orr, the emergency manager, has outlined in court papers his plans to create a new water and sewer management authority, transfer Detroit's Belle Isle Park to the state of Michigan, and restructure Coleman A. Young airport, which has not serviced commercial jets in 13 years but which the city must maintain to keep some federal subsidies. Each of those moves will require lawyers, consultants and financial advisers to strategize the most cost-efficient execution, said Kenneth Klee, a Chapter 9 expert and bankruptcy lawyer at Klee Tuchin Bogdanoff & Stern. "Chapter Nines require complete expertise in the area of municipal finance," Klee said. "If you only have bankruptcy expertise, that's not enough." Eventually, hedge funds and other investment vehicles could find ways into the case, as Orr has stressed the importance of new investment, particularly with respect to the proposed new water and sewer authority, which could finance its operations with new bond issuance. The case could be a boon for smaller law firms, too. While large, corporate creditors are apt to tap similarly colossal law firms with whom they have preexisting relationships, smaller or locally-based stakeholders may opt to hire attorneys native to Detroit. "There are a lot of talented lawyers in Detroit," Levin said. "I would think pensions and unions, for example, might opt for those guys."
1. Download free Acronis Western Digital edition (look it up, its free with WD external drives but unlike Seagate edition it doesn't check for a drive to be present).
2. Back up the whole, all partitions, 750GB drive to some external drive with enough free space (for me it was about 16GB since laptop was the way it came from Dell and I haven't installed anything but Windows 8 updates)
3. Install mSATA drive
4. Change SATA to AHCI mode in BIOS
5. Restore your back up to the mSATA drive in Windows. Acronis will re-size partitions automatically so going from 750GB to 256GB is ok.
6. Change boot drive in BIOS to mSATA
7. Erase 750GB drive and delete all the partitions on it to have one full 750GB parting on it. I did that in Linux since Windows8 didn't let me delete Dell's recovery and diag partitions.
(New York) ? The Indian government should appoint an independent commission to promptly and transparently investigate the killing of four protesters by Border Security Force (BSF) troops in Jammu and Kashmir state, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should act to end the BSF?s longstanding impunity for large numbers of killings over many years.
The unclear circumstances resulting in the deaths of four protesters, and the wounding of nearly a dozen more people, highlight the urgency of an independent inquiry. The BSF reported that on July 18, 2013, in Ramban district, its troops interrogated a local resident who it said ?made baseless and false allegations about being mistreated.? After protesters gathered and ?started stone pelting vigorously on the BSF post,? troops fired at the protesters in self-defense, the BSF said.
Local residents allege that BSF soldiers entered a mosque during a search operation and were rude and disrespectful to the mosque staff. When unarmed protesters gathered at the post, the BSF troops called for police support. The security forces then opened fire on the protesters, the local residents said.
?The loss of life at the Ramban mosque needs a prompt investigation by an independent commission,? said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. ?Any finding of illegal use of force by BSF troops should result in prosecutions. Too often the BSF?s version of events is simply accepted, allowing killing after killing for which no one is held to account.?
Senior Indian officials have responded appropriately to the incident, but need to follow up with action, Human Rights Watch said. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that it is ?highly unacceptable to shoot at unarmed protesters.? Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has promised an investigation and said that ?any use of excessive force or irresponsible action will be dealt with strictly.? Previous investigations of BSF abuses have often been delayed and prosecutions stalled.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented misbehavior and serious human rights violations by BSF troops along the Bangladesh border. The border guards, who are deployed to prevent infiltration, trafficking, and smuggling, had engaged in numerous cases of unlawful use of force, arbitrary detention, and torture, and killed over a thousand Indian and Bangladeshi nationals. The BSF was ordered to exercise restraint and use rubber bullets instead of live ammunition, which led to a decrease in the number of people fatally injured, though unlawful killings continue.
The government has repeatedly failed to prosecute BSF personnel responsible for serious abuses. Inquiries by the National Human Rights Commission receive a standard response that fatalities occurred when troops had to fire in self-defense.
Human Rights Watch called on the Indian government to publicly order the security forces to follow the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials. The Basic Principles state that security forces shall ?apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms,? and that ?whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, law enforcement officials shall: (a) Exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offence and the legitimate objective to be achieved; (b) Minimize damage and injury, and respect and preserve human life.? Furthermore, ?intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.?
Since the shootings, violent protests have broken out in several parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and authorities have imposed curfews in some areas. Human Rights Watch called on organizers of protests to take steps to deter supporters from engaging in violence, including attacks on law enforcement officers.
?Security forces sometimes react with gunfire when outnumbered by an angry crowd, which is why they need to be properly trained in nonlethal crowd control methods,? Ganguly said. ?Incidents that end in shootings are not only terrible for all those involved, but set the stage for unnecessary bloodshed in the future.?
With the Pacific Ocean in the background, a rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. on Jan. 21, 2011.
Pat Corkery/U.S. Air Force
Stars and Stripes
Published: July 18, 2013
The U.S. Air Force will consider leasing land on Vandenberg Air Force Base for private companies to extract offshore oil and gas from the central California coast, officials said Wednesday.
The proposal would allow oil companies to use onshore equipment with new extended reach ?slant drilling? technology to access deposits several miles offshore. Sunset Exploration and Exxon Mobil recently asked the Air Force to revisit their proposal to use the technology to build an oil and gas drilling project on the base near Lompoc, officials said.
Over the next several months, the military will study whether the new type of drilling is compatible with the base?s space and satellite-launching missions and determine if it is ?economically, environmentally and politically feasible,? the Air Force said in a statement.
?Initial information obtained by the Air Force indicates there may be potential for new technology slant drilling capable of targeting oil deposits off Vandenberg Air Force Base?s coastline from locations with minimal or mitigable mission/environmental impacts,? Master Sgt. Kevin Williams, a spokesman for Air Force Space Command, wrote in an email to The Times.
Environmental groups, which have long fought attempts to open the California coast to new drilling, say land-based drilling operations can pose many of same risks to marine life as offshore platforms.
"We have tremendous concerns about their proposal," Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center, told The Times. "This would be a new oil drilling project along a very biologically rich and sensitive area of the California coast. It would threaten migrating whales and other important species with oil spills and other impacts that result from offshore oil drilling."
[Updated at 6:11 p.m.: Sunset Exploration President Bob Nunn said the land-based drilling operation the company has proposed would fully avoid the marine environment, with its drill bit sitting one-half mile below the seafloor. "It's the antithesis of offshore drilling," he said.]
Sunset and Exxon for years have sought to drill for oil from the base, but Santa Barbara County deemed their application incomplete in 2006 because the Air Force did not sign off on it.
U.S. law allows the military to lease land for oil development, and Vandenberg currently has five active oil wells, Air Force officials said.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Creek), California?s former lieutenant governor, and State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson are among the politicians who have urged the Air Force to move forward with Sunset Exploration?s drilling project.
California regulators rejected a previous proposal to drill for oil near the base from an offshore rig over concerns it would harm the marine environment.
Last month, House Republicans launched a new effort to open federal waters off California to drilling, reviving an idea that has been controversial ever since a 1969 spill off Santa Barbara devastated the coast.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. housing starts and permits for future home construction unexpectedly fell in June, offering further evidence of a sharp slowdown in economic activity in the second quarter.
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday housing starts dropped 9.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 836,000 units. That was the lowest level since August last year.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected groundbreaking to rise to a 959,000-unit rate last month. June's drop unwound the prior month's gains, suggesting a smaller boost from residential construction to second-quarter gross domestic product growth.
Permits to build homes fell 7.5 percent last month to a 911,000-unit pace. Economists had expected them to rise to a 1-million unit pace.
Data including retail sales, trade and inventories indicate the economy lost considerable momentum in the last quarter, with growth estimates as low as 0.5 percent.
The economy, which grew at a 1.8 percent annual pace in the first quarter has been hit by tighter fiscal policy and slowing global demand. Housing has been providing some buffer against those headwinds.
Despite the unexpected drop in groundbreaking and permits last month, there was little in the report to suggest the housing recovery in unraveling as the volatile multi-family segment accounted for much of the decline.
Sentiment among single-family home builders hit a 7-1/2 year high in July, a report showed on Monday, amid optimism over current and future home sales. But many builders have been complaining about a shortage of labor and materials, which may have contributed to last month's surprise decline in activity.
"We should see growth in single-family construction into 2014. That's positive for housing, jobs and overall growth," said Gus Faucher, senior macroeconomist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
Last month, groundbreaking for single-family homes, the largest segment of the market, slipped 0.8 percent to a 591,000-unit pace, the lowest since November 2012. Starts for multi-family homes declined 26.2 percent to a 245,000-unit rate.
Permits for multi-family homes fell 21.4 percent to a 287,000-unit rate. But permits for single-family homes rose 0.6 percent to a 624,000-unit pace, the highest since May 2008.
Housing's recovery is being aided by still-low mortgage rates engineered by the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary policy and steady employment gains.
While mortgage rates have spiked in recent weeks after the Fed expressed its desire to start cutting back on its bond purchases later this year, economists do not believe that this will derail the housing recovery. The monthly $85 billion in bond purchases have been holding down interest rates.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the central bank still expected to start scaling back its massive asset purchase program later this year, but left open the option of changing that plan in either direction if the economic outlook shifted.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
AMMAN (Reuters) - About 30 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday.
If confirmed, the Hezbollah toll from Sunday's battles in Qusair near the Lebanese border would highlight a deepening intervention in Syria by the guerrilla group set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon.
The reported Hezbollah losses also reflect the extent to which the Syrian conflict is turning into a proxy war between Shi'ite Iran and U.S.-aligned Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which back Assad's mostly Sunni foes.
Western countries and Russia, an ally of Damascus, back opposing sides in this regional free-for-all which is also sucking in Israel. Three times this year Israeli planes have bombed presumed Iranian arms stocks destined for Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "preparing for every scenario" in Syria and held out the prospect of more Israeli strikes inside Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel getting advanced weapons.
Israel has not confirmed or denied reports by Western and Israeli intelligence sources that its raids targeted Iranian missiles stored near Damascus that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
FOG OF WAR
Syrian opposition sources and state media gave widely differing accounts of Sunday's ferocious clashes in Qusair, long used by rebels as a supply route from the nearby Lebanese border to the provincial capital Homs. Hezbollah has not commented.
The air and tank assault on the strategic town of 30,000 people appeared to be part of a campaign by Assad's forces to consolidate their grip on Damascus and secure links between the capital and government strongholds in the Alawite coastal heartland via the contested central city of Homs.
The government campaign has coincided with efforts by the United States and Russia, despite their differences on Syria, to organize peace talks to end a conflict now in its third year in which more than 80,000 people have been killed.
A total of 100 combatants from both sides were killed in Sunday's offensive, according to opposition sources, including the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Troops have already retaken several villages around Qusair and have attacked increasingly isolated rebel units in Homs.
"If Qusair falls, God forbid, the opposition in Homs city will be in grave danger," said an activist who called himself Abu Jaafar al-Mugharbil.
State news agency SANA said the army had "restored security and stability to most Qusair neighborhoods" and was "chasing the remnants of the terrorists in the northern district".
However, opposition activists said rebels in Qusair, about 10 km (six miles) from the Lebanese border, had pushed back most of the attacking forces to their original positions in the east of the town and to the south on Sunday, destroying at least four Syrian army tanks and five light Hezbollah vehicles.
The Western-backed leadership of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group trying to oversee hundreds of disparate rebel brigades, said the Qusair fighters had thwarted Hezbollah with military operations it dubbed "Walls of Death".
Syrian government restrictions on access for independent media make it hard to verify such videos and accounts.
"NO DIALOGUE WITH TERRORISTS"
The fighting raged as Western nations seek to step up pressure on Assad - Britain and France want the European Union to allow arms deliveries to rebels - while preparing for the peace talks brokered by Russia and the United States next month.
Assad has scorned the idea that the conference expected to convene in Geneva could end a war that is fuelling instability and deepening Sunni-Shi'ite rifts across the Middle East.
"They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin, in reference to Syria's mainly Sunni rebels.
Assad ruled out "dialogue with terrorists", but it was not clear from his remarks whether he would agree to send delegates to a conference that may falter before it starts due to disagreements between its two main sponsors and their allies.
The fractured Syrian opposition is to discuss the proposed peace conference at a meeting due to start in Istanbul on Thursday, during which it will also appoint a new leadership.
Attacks by troops and militias loyal to Assad, who inherited power in Syria from his father in 2000, have put rebels under pressure in several of their strongholds in recent weeks.
Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, has been battling an uprising which began with peaceful protests in March 2011. His violent response eventually prompted rebels to take up arms.
Hezbollah has supported Assad throughout the crisis but for months denied reports it was fighting alongside Assad's troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the Hezbollah casualties on Sunday at 23 dead and more than 70 wounded, while 48 rebel fighters and four civilians were also killed.
Tareq Murei, an activist in Qusair, said six more people were killed on Monday as Syrian army artillery and Hezbollah rocket launchers bombarded rebel-held parts of the town.
Video footage purportedly showed a Syrian tank on fire at a street corner in the town. In another video a warplane was shown flying over the town amid the sound of explosions.
Lebanese security sources said at least 12 Hezbollah fighters were killed in Qusair on Sunday. Seven were to be buried in the Lebanese town of Baalbek and nearby villages on Monday.
(Writing by Dominic Evans,; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Alistair Lyon)
Soft matter offers new ways to study how ordered materials arrange themselvesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology
A fried breakfast food popular in Spain provided the inspiration for the development of doughnut-shaped droplets that may provide scientists with a new approach for studying fundamental issues in physics, mathematics and materials.
The doughnut-shaped droplets, a shape known as toroidal, are formed from two dissimilar liquids using a simple rotating stage and an injection needle. About a millimeter in overall size, the droplets are produced individually, their shapes maintained by a surrounding springy material made of polymers. Droplets in this toroidal shape made of a liquid crystal the same type of material used in laptop displays may have properties very different from those of spherical droplets made from the same material.
While researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology don't have a specific application for the doughnut-shaped droplets yet, they believe the novel structures offer opportunities to study many interesting problems, from looking at the properties of ordered materials within these confined spaces to studying how geometry affects how cells behave.
"Our experiments provide a fresh approach to the way that people have been looking at these kinds of problems, which is mainly theoretical. We are doing experiments with toroids whose geometry can be precisely controlled in the lab," said Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics. "This work opens up a new way to experimentally look at problems that nobody has been able to study before. The properties of toroidal surfaces are very different, from a general point of view, from those of spherical surfaces."
Development of these "stable nematic droplets with handles" was described May 20 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and also involves researchers at the Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics at Leiden University in The Netherlands and at York University in the United Kingdom.
Droplets normally form spherical shapes to minimize the surface area required to contain a given volume of liquid. Though they appear to be simple, when an ordered material like a crystal or a liquid crystal lives on the surface of a sphere, it provides interesting challenges to mathematicians and theoretical physicists.
A physicist who focuses on soft condensed matter, Fernandez-Nieves had long been interested in the theoretical aspects of curved surfaces. Working with graduate research assistant Ekapop Pairam and postdoctoral fellow Jayalakshmi Vallamkondu, he wanted to extend the theoretical studies into the experimental world for a system of toroidal shapes.
But could doughnut-shaped droplets be made in the lab?
The partial answer came from churros Fernandez-Nieves ate as a child growing up in Spain. These "Spanish doughnuts" actually spirals are made by injecting dough into hot oil while the dough is spun and fried.
In the lab at a much smaller size scale, the researchers found they could use a similar process with two immiscible liquids such as glycerine or water and oil, a needle and a magnetically-controlled rotating stage. A droplet of glycerine is injected into the rotating stage containing the oil. In certain conditions, a jet forms at the needle, which closes up into a torus because of the imposed rotation.
"You can control the two relevant curvatures of the torus," explained Fernandez-Nieves. "You can control how large it is because you can move the needle with respect to the rotation axis. You can also infuse more volume to make the torus thicker."
If the stage is then turned off, however, the drop of glycerine quickly loses its doughnut shape as surface tension forces it to become a traditional spherical droplet. To maintain the toroidal shape, Fernandez-Nieves and his collaborators replace the surrounding oil with a springy polymeric material; the springy character of this material provides a force that can overcome surface tension forces.
"When you are making the toroid, the forces on the needle are large enough that the surrounding material behaves as a fluid," he explained. "Once you stop, the elasticity of the outside fluid overcomes surface tension and that freezes the structure in place."
The researchers have been using the doughnut shapes to study how liquid crystal materials, which are well known for their applications in laptop displays, organize inside the torus. These materials have degrees of order beyond those of simple liquids such as water. For these materials, the toroidal shape provides a new set of study opportunities from both theoretical and experimental perspectives.
"This changes how you think about a liquid inside a container," said Fernandez-Nieves. "The materials will still adopt the shape of the container, but its energy will be different depending on the shape. The materials feel distortions and will try to minimize them. In a given shape, the molecules in these materials will rearrange themselves to minimize these distortions."
Among the surprises is that the nematic droplets created with toroidal shapes become chiral, that is, they adopt a certain twisting direction and break their mirror symmetry.
"In our case, the materials we are using are not chiral under normal circumstances," he noted. "This was a surprise to us, and it has to do with how we are confining the molecules."
Beyond looking at the dynamics of creating the droplets and how ordered materials behave when the torus transforms into a sphere, Fernandez-Nieves and colleagues are also exploring potential biological applications, applying electrical fields to the droplets, and sharing the unique structures with scientists at other institutions.
"This is the first time that stable nematic droplets have been generated with handles, and we have exploited that to look at the nematic organization inside those spaces," said Fernandez-Nieves. "Our experiments open up a versatile new approach for generating handled droplets made of an ordered material that can self-assemble into interesting and unexpected structures when confined to these non-spherical spaces. Now that theoreticians realize we can generate and study these systems, there may be much more development in this area."
###
In addition to those already mentioned, the paper's authors included V. Koning, B.C. van Zuiden and V. Vitelli from Leiden University, M.A. Bates from the University of York in the United Kingdom, and P.W. Ellis from Georgia Tech.
The research described here has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation under CAREER award DMR-0847304. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation.
CITATION: E. Pairam, et al., "Stable nematic droplets with handles," (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013)
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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.
Soft matter offers new ways to study how ordered materials arrange themselvesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology
A fried breakfast food popular in Spain provided the inspiration for the development of doughnut-shaped droplets that may provide scientists with a new approach for studying fundamental issues in physics, mathematics and materials.
The doughnut-shaped droplets, a shape known as toroidal, are formed from two dissimilar liquids using a simple rotating stage and an injection needle. About a millimeter in overall size, the droplets are produced individually, their shapes maintained by a surrounding springy material made of polymers. Droplets in this toroidal shape made of a liquid crystal the same type of material used in laptop displays may have properties very different from those of spherical droplets made from the same material.
While researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology don't have a specific application for the doughnut-shaped droplets yet, they believe the novel structures offer opportunities to study many interesting problems, from looking at the properties of ordered materials within these confined spaces to studying how geometry affects how cells behave.
"Our experiments provide a fresh approach to the way that people have been looking at these kinds of problems, which is mainly theoretical. We are doing experiments with toroids whose geometry can be precisely controlled in the lab," said Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics. "This work opens up a new way to experimentally look at problems that nobody has been able to study before. The properties of toroidal surfaces are very different, from a general point of view, from those of spherical surfaces."
Development of these "stable nematic droplets with handles" was described May 20 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and also involves researchers at the Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics at Leiden University in The Netherlands and at York University in the United Kingdom.
Droplets normally form spherical shapes to minimize the surface area required to contain a given volume of liquid. Though they appear to be simple, when an ordered material like a crystal or a liquid crystal lives on the surface of a sphere, it provides interesting challenges to mathematicians and theoretical physicists.
A physicist who focuses on soft condensed matter, Fernandez-Nieves had long been interested in the theoretical aspects of curved surfaces. Working with graduate research assistant Ekapop Pairam and postdoctoral fellow Jayalakshmi Vallamkondu, he wanted to extend the theoretical studies into the experimental world for a system of toroidal shapes.
But could doughnut-shaped droplets be made in the lab?
The partial answer came from churros Fernandez-Nieves ate as a child growing up in Spain. These "Spanish doughnuts" actually spirals are made by injecting dough into hot oil while the dough is spun and fried.
In the lab at a much smaller size scale, the researchers found they could use a similar process with two immiscible liquids such as glycerine or water and oil, a needle and a magnetically-controlled rotating stage. A droplet of glycerine is injected into the rotating stage containing the oil. In certain conditions, a jet forms at the needle, which closes up into a torus because of the imposed rotation.
"You can control the two relevant curvatures of the torus," explained Fernandez-Nieves. "You can control how large it is because you can move the needle with respect to the rotation axis. You can also infuse more volume to make the torus thicker."
If the stage is then turned off, however, the drop of glycerine quickly loses its doughnut shape as surface tension forces it to become a traditional spherical droplet. To maintain the toroidal shape, Fernandez-Nieves and his collaborators replace the surrounding oil with a springy polymeric material; the springy character of this material provides a force that can overcome surface tension forces.
"When you are making the toroid, the forces on the needle are large enough that the surrounding material behaves as a fluid," he explained. "Once you stop, the elasticity of the outside fluid overcomes surface tension and that freezes the structure in place."
The researchers have been using the doughnut shapes to study how liquid crystal materials, which are well known for their applications in laptop displays, organize inside the torus. These materials have degrees of order beyond those of simple liquids such as water. For these materials, the toroidal shape provides a new set of study opportunities from both theoretical and experimental perspectives.
"This changes how you think about a liquid inside a container," said Fernandez-Nieves. "The materials will still adopt the shape of the container, but its energy will be different depending on the shape. The materials feel distortions and will try to minimize them. In a given shape, the molecules in these materials will rearrange themselves to minimize these distortions."
Among the surprises is that the nematic droplets created with toroidal shapes become chiral, that is, they adopt a certain twisting direction and break their mirror symmetry.
"In our case, the materials we are using are not chiral under normal circumstances," he noted. "This was a surprise to us, and it has to do with how we are confining the molecules."
Beyond looking at the dynamics of creating the droplets and how ordered materials behave when the torus transforms into a sphere, Fernandez-Nieves and colleagues are also exploring potential biological applications, applying electrical fields to the droplets, and sharing the unique structures with scientists at other institutions.
"This is the first time that stable nematic droplets have been generated with handles, and we have exploited that to look at the nematic organization inside those spaces," said Fernandez-Nieves. "Our experiments open up a versatile new approach for generating handled droplets made of an ordered material that can self-assemble into interesting and unexpected structures when confined to these non-spherical spaces. Now that theoreticians realize we can generate and study these systems, there may be much more development in this area."
###
In addition to those already mentioned, the paper's authors included V. Koning, B.C. van Zuiden and V. Vitelli from Leiden University, M.A. Bates from the University of York in the United Kingdom, and P.W. Ellis from Georgia Tech.
The research described here has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation under CAREER award DMR-0847304. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation.
CITATION: E. Pairam, et al., "Stable nematic droplets with handles," (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013)
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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.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- About 30 Saudi women teachers have demonstrated outside the kingdom's Education Ministry, demanding full time jobs.
An Associated Press reporter saw women holding posters Monday calling for full time contracts and benefits that include steady pay and retirement packages.
Some say they have been teaching part time in government schools for more than 10 years. The teachers have demonstrated in the past outside the ministry to press their demands.
Saudi Arabia is struggling to employ some of its best educated women. The Saudi statistics agency says women represent just 15 percent of the country's workforce.
The Labor Ministry says there are more than 200,000 unemployed women seeking jobs in the kingdom, and around 75 percent of them are college graduates.
New research indicates that women's reproductive function may be tied to their immune status. Previous studies have found this association in human males, but not females.
The study appears in the American Journal of Human Biology.
An animal's energetic resources must be carefully allocated, said University of Illinois anthropology professor Kathryn Clancy, who led the new research. The body's first priority is maintenance, which includes tasks inherently related to survival, including immune function, she said. Any leftover energy is then dedicated to reproduction. There is a balance between resource allocation to maintenance and reproductive efforts, and environmental stressors can lessen available resources, said Clancy, who co-directs the Laboratory for Evolutionary Endocrinology at Illinois.
The study participants were a group of healthy, premenopausal, rural Polish women who participate in traditional farming practices. The researchers collected the women's urine and saliva samples during the harvest season, when physical activity levels are at their peak. This physical work constrains available energetic resources. In previous studies, the highest levels of ovarian suppression occurred during the harvest season.
Researchers measured participants' salivary ovarian hormone levels daily over one menstrual cycle. They also tested urine samples for levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a commonly used marker of inflammation.
"Depending on the other factors that you look at alongside it, CRP can tell you about immune function or it can tell you about psychosocial stress, because CRP has been correlated to both of those things in other populations," Clancy said.
The researchers observed a negative relationship between CRP and progesterone in the Polish women ? in women with high CRP, progesterone was low. Further, the researchers found that estradiol and the age of first menstruation were the strongest predictors of CRP levels.
Clancy noted that it is too early to tell whether these correlational relationships indicate a causal relationship in which inflammation suppresses ovarian hormones. However, she believes that there are two possible pathways that explain these results.
"One is that there is an internal mechanism, and this local inflammation drives higher levels of CRP, and that is what's correlating with the lower progesterone," she said. "The other possibility is that there is an external stressor like psychosocial or immune stress driving allocation to maintenance effort, which in turn is suppressing ovarian hormones."
Clancy believes that her research will help women "understand their bodies better."
"From an anthropological perspective, these trade-offs are really important because they help us understand the timing of different life events: Why does someone hit puberty when they do, why do they begin reproducing when they do, why do they space babies the way they do?" Clancy said.
"It's really interesting to see the interplay between a person's intentions about when and why to have children, and then their own body's allocations to reproduction or not," Clancy said.
###
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu
Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
If Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano ever gets tired of having to tell people Josh Freeman is his starting quarterback, someone should probably mention to him that it?s kind of his own fault.
Schiano started singing like Tammy Wynette again in relation to Freeman Monday, the day after he was quoted as saying he was ?not against? the notion of starting rookie Mike Glennon instead.
?We have a starting quarterback, and it?s Josh Freeman,? Schiano said, via Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times.
According to the report, Schiano said he?s trying to be honest, and doesn?t mean to put pressure on Freeman by saying such things in the national media.
?I guess nationally, they don?t sit here with me every day like you guys [local media] do,? Schiano said. ?From the day we arrived, our whole program has [been based on] competition, . . . That?s what we believe in. It?s the most competitive sports league in the world. It?s competition, and I love it.
?But we have our starting quarterback, and it?s Josh Freeman. I?m not looking to find another.?
If he really wanted to clear things up, he could always, you know, stop leaving the door open a crack every time he talks about Glennon.
Or, if he wanted a stronger statement on Freeman and how much he loves him under center, he could give him a new contract to replace the final year of his rookie deal.
But it doesn?t appear at the moment that Schiano intends to do either.
And that?s fine, as long as everyone?s clear about the implication sent by those actions.
He likes Freeman, right up until the point he decides he doesn?t.
So Schiano?s apparently going to have to keep clarifying all the things that he keeps saying, whether to the national or local media.
Exposure to traffic pollution increases asthma severity in pregnant womenPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nathaniel Dunford ndunford@thoracic.org American Thoracic Society
ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA ? Air pollutants from traffic are associated with increased asthma severity levels in pregnant asthmatic women, according to a new study.
"Air pollution is a known trigger for asthma symptoms," said lead author Janneane Gent, PhD, Research Scientist in Epidemiology (Environmental Health) at the Yale School of Public Health. "In our study, exposures were assessed using a sophisticated air pollution modeling system (Community Multiscale Air Quality, CMAQ) that permits community-level estimates (i.e., close to where the subject resides) instead of assigning regional measurements made at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) central site monitors to all subjects. Using community-level estimates, we found that exposure to nitrogen dioxide at levels much lower than the current EPA standard was associated with increased risk of asthma morbidity."
The results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference.
The study enrolled 637 pregnant women (
Exposure to nitrogen dioxide, fine particulate matter, and the elemental carbon content of fine particulate matter were estimated using the CMAQ modeling system. Analyses of the relationship between exposure to traffic-related pollutants and asthma severity were adjusted for a number of possible confounding factors, including month of pregnancy, pre-pregnancy body mass index, demographics, health, household exposures and season.
Mean community-level predicted concentrations for nitrogen dioxide, elemental carbon and fine particulate matter were 23.7 parts per billion (ppb), 0.67 micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per cubic meter of air (g/m3) and 11.1 g/m3, respectively.
Each 10 ppb increase in community-level nitrogen dioxide was associated with an increased risk of wheeze, with an odds ratio (the odds that an outcome will occur after a particular exposure, compared to the odds of the outcome occurring in the absence of that exposure) of 1.27. Each 10 ppb increase in nitrogen dioxide was also associated with a higher asthma severity score (odds ratio 1.31). Similarly, each 0.5 g/m3 increase in elemental carbon was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (odds ratio 1.30) and higher asthma severity score (odds ratio 1.32).
Exposure to fine particulate matter did not significantly increase asthma morbidity or asthma severity score.
"Exposure to air pollution from traffic is known to have a number of deleterious effects on human health," said Dr. Gent. "Our study suggests that exposures to community-level concentrations of traffic-related pollutants are associated with increased asthma morbidity, and that these pollutant concentrations are likely to be lower than those measured at EPA central monitoring sites."
###
* Please note that numbers in this release may differ slightly from those in the abstract. Many of these investigations are ongoing; the release represents the most up-to-date data available at press time.
Abstract 38621
Asthma Severity During Pregnancy: Effect Of Community-Level Exposure To Traffic-Related Pollutants
Type: Scientific Abstract
Category: 01.08 - Asthma: Epidemiology (EOH)
Authors: J.F. Gent1, J.M. Kezik1, T.R. Holford1, M.E. Hill1, L. McKay1, K. Belanger1, M.B. Bracken1, K. Demerjian2, B.P. Leaderer1; 1Yale University School of Public Health - New Haven, CT/US, 2State University of New York - Albany, NY/US
Abstract Body
Rationale: In a study of pregnant, asthmatic women (n=637) living in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, we assessed the association between symptoms and medication use and community-level exposures to nitrogen dioxide (1-hr maximum NO2), fine particles (24-hr mean PM2.5), and elemental carbon content of PM2.5 (24-hr mean). Exposures were estimated using the high-resolution Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model which predicts community-level values in 12x12 km grids. Methods: Women with active asthma (physician-diagnosed asthma plus symptoms and/or asthma medication use in the previous 12 months) were recruited before 24 weeks gestation. Subjects' home addresses were geocoded for assignment to pollution exposure grids. Symptoms and medication use for each 28-day gestational month were collected through phone interviews. Outcome measures included days of wheeze (categorized as 0, 1-7, > 7 but not daily, daily) and monthly 5-level asthma severity score (adapted from Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines). Effects of exposures (daily estimates averaged over gestational month) to NO2, elemental carbon and PM2.5 on asthma morbidity were examined with hierarchical, ordered logistic regression analyses using generalized linear mixed models adjusted for covariates related to pregnancy (month of pregnancy, pre-pregnancy body mass index); demographics and health (age, ethnicity, education level, allergies, [asthma medication use for models with wheeze]); household exposures (gas stove, reported mold or mildew, use of tobacco);and season. Results: Mean (standard deviation) community-level concentrations for NO2, elemental carbon and PM2.5, respectively were: 23.7 (8.6) ppb, 0.67 (0.25) g/m3 and 11.1(2.7) g/m3. In single pollutant models adjusted for covariates, each 10 ppb increase in community-level NO2 was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (odds ratio [OR] 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10, 1.46) and higher asthma severity score (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.16, 1.49). Each 0.5 g/m3 increase in elemental carbon was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.06, 1.58) and higher asthma severity score (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.10, 1.58). No significant effects on asthma morbidity were observed for exposure to PM2.5 (wheeze OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.95, 1.25; severity score OR 1.08, 95% CI 0.96, 1.21). Conclusion: Risk of increased asthma morbidity during pregnancy is significantly associated with exposure to ambient levels of traffic-related pollutants NO2 and the elemental carbon content of PM2.5. Health effects were associated with community-level estimates of NO2 at concentrations much lower than the EPA 1-hr maximum standard of 100 ppb. There currently is no EPA standard for elemental carbon.
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Exposure to traffic pollution increases asthma severity in pregnant womenPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nathaniel Dunford ndunford@thoracic.org American Thoracic Society
ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA ? Air pollutants from traffic are associated with increased asthma severity levels in pregnant asthmatic women, according to a new study.
"Air pollution is a known trigger for asthma symptoms," said lead author Janneane Gent, PhD, Research Scientist in Epidemiology (Environmental Health) at the Yale School of Public Health. "In our study, exposures were assessed using a sophisticated air pollution modeling system (Community Multiscale Air Quality, CMAQ) that permits community-level estimates (i.e., close to where the subject resides) instead of assigning regional measurements made at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) central site monitors to all subjects. Using community-level estimates, we found that exposure to nitrogen dioxide at levels much lower than the current EPA standard was associated with increased risk of asthma morbidity."
The results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference.
The study enrolled 637 pregnant women (
Exposure to nitrogen dioxide, fine particulate matter, and the elemental carbon content of fine particulate matter were estimated using the CMAQ modeling system. Analyses of the relationship between exposure to traffic-related pollutants and asthma severity were adjusted for a number of possible confounding factors, including month of pregnancy, pre-pregnancy body mass index, demographics, health, household exposures and season.
Mean community-level predicted concentrations for nitrogen dioxide, elemental carbon and fine particulate matter were 23.7 parts per billion (ppb), 0.67 micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per cubic meter of air (g/m3) and 11.1 g/m3, respectively.
Each 10 ppb increase in community-level nitrogen dioxide was associated with an increased risk of wheeze, with an odds ratio (the odds that an outcome will occur after a particular exposure, compared to the odds of the outcome occurring in the absence of that exposure) of 1.27. Each 10 ppb increase in nitrogen dioxide was also associated with a higher asthma severity score (odds ratio 1.31). Similarly, each 0.5 g/m3 increase in elemental carbon was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (odds ratio 1.30) and higher asthma severity score (odds ratio 1.32).
Exposure to fine particulate matter did not significantly increase asthma morbidity or asthma severity score.
"Exposure to air pollution from traffic is known to have a number of deleterious effects on human health," said Dr. Gent. "Our study suggests that exposures to community-level concentrations of traffic-related pollutants are associated with increased asthma morbidity, and that these pollutant concentrations are likely to be lower than those measured at EPA central monitoring sites."
###
* Please note that numbers in this release may differ slightly from those in the abstract. Many of these investigations are ongoing; the release represents the most up-to-date data available at press time.
Abstract 38621
Asthma Severity During Pregnancy: Effect Of Community-Level Exposure To Traffic-Related Pollutants
Type: Scientific Abstract
Category: 01.08 - Asthma: Epidemiology (EOH)
Authors: J.F. Gent1, J.M. Kezik1, T.R. Holford1, M.E. Hill1, L. McKay1, K. Belanger1, M.B. Bracken1, K. Demerjian2, B.P. Leaderer1; 1Yale University School of Public Health - New Haven, CT/US, 2State University of New York - Albany, NY/US
Abstract Body
Rationale: In a study of pregnant, asthmatic women (n=637) living in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, we assessed the association between symptoms and medication use and community-level exposures to nitrogen dioxide (1-hr maximum NO2), fine particles (24-hr mean PM2.5), and elemental carbon content of PM2.5 (24-hr mean). Exposures were estimated using the high-resolution Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model which predicts community-level values in 12x12 km grids. Methods: Women with active asthma (physician-diagnosed asthma plus symptoms and/or asthma medication use in the previous 12 months) were recruited before 24 weeks gestation. Subjects' home addresses were geocoded for assignment to pollution exposure grids. Symptoms and medication use for each 28-day gestational month were collected through phone interviews. Outcome measures included days of wheeze (categorized as 0, 1-7, > 7 but not daily, daily) and monthly 5-level asthma severity score (adapted from Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines). Effects of exposures (daily estimates averaged over gestational month) to NO2, elemental carbon and PM2.5 on asthma morbidity were examined with hierarchical, ordered logistic regression analyses using generalized linear mixed models adjusted for covariates related to pregnancy (month of pregnancy, pre-pregnancy body mass index); demographics and health (age, ethnicity, education level, allergies, [asthma medication use for models with wheeze]); household exposures (gas stove, reported mold or mildew, use of tobacco);and season. Results: Mean (standard deviation) community-level concentrations for NO2, elemental carbon and PM2.5, respectively were: 23.7 (8.6) ppb, 0.67 (0.25) g/m3 and 11.1(2.7) g/m3. In single pollutant models adjusted for covariates, each 10 ppb increase in community-level NO2 was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (odds ratio [OR] 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10, 1.46) and higher asthma severity score (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.16, 1.49). Each 0.5 g/m3 increase in elemental carbon was associated with an increased risk of wheeze (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.06, 1.58) and higher asthma severity score (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.10, 1.58). No significant effects on asthma morbidity were observed for exposure to PM2.5 (wheeze OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.95, 1.25; severity score OR 1.08, 95% CI 0.96, 1.21). Conclusion: Risk of increased asthma morbidity during pregnancy is significantly associated with exposure to ambient levels of traffic-related pollutants NO2 and the elemental carbon content of PM2.5. Health effects were associated with community-level estimates of NO2 at concentrations much lower than the EPA 1-hr maximum standard of 100 ppb. There currently is no EPA standard for elemental carbon.
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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