Mobilitenin yeni b?l?m? yine yepyeni konularla kar??n?zda. ??k???na ?ok az bir zaman kalan Samsung Galaxy S IV, yeni nesil konsol Sony PlayStation 4, HTC'nin amiral gemisi One, Nvidia Tegra 4i, ? Snapdragon 200 ve 400 serisi i?lemciler ve ?ok daha fazlas? mobilitenin yeni b?l?m?nde Ender Y?ld?z ve Erdi ?z?a? taraf?ndan yorumlan?yor.
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Nothing moves faster than technology. No other sector has seen as much rapid change and development in such a short space of time, and education technology is no exception.
Faster, more powerful computers, cheap and accessible tablet devices and innovative learning resources have opened the door to a world of possibility in learning.
Around the world, students are learning by playing games and watching videos online, textbooks are being published as interactive ebooks and massive, number crunching computers are working out the best way to tailor learning to the individual.
But FE, it seems, is a little late to the party.
It?s clear, though, that emerging technologies are at least on the mind of FE Minister Matthew Hancock, who tweeted in January: ?There?s much more to do to take advantage of new technology delivering skills.?
Hopefully the minister, the proud owner of an A-level in IT, can pass his enthusiasm on to the
rest of the sector.
To help you on your way, our resident tech expert, Dan Duke brings you a dummy?s guide to four of the biggest new trends in learning technology.
Big data is the idea that data mining ? the automatic processing of large databases to find useful patterns ? and analytics can help us develop a better understanding of learners? behaviour,
allowing us to shape education and frameworks around them on a much more personal level.
One suggestion imagines students using online learning systems that deliver bespoke content and assessments at the same time as measuring and collecting data about the learning process, like how quickly they are completing particular tasks or what kind of additional resources they used in study.
At the end the teacher can use the software to create an analysis of the learner?s ability and progress, and from this they can tailor learning materials to suit the ability of the student.
If this process is then carried out with a whole classroom, a whole school or a whole country, the data can be used to get insight into student performance and which learning approaches work best.
Instead of waiting for end-of-year exams, teachers could continually analyse knowledge and performance and understand what methods work for which learners.
Data analysis like this could offer much more detailed and valuable insights than traditional methods.
This one sounds exotic but it?s pretty straightforward really, and it?s certainly not a new trend in education.
In its simplest form gamification means the incorporation of game elements into non-game settings.
In the classroom this can mean anything from using actual game design and development as a method of organising the learning framework, to introducing a simple points system that motivates learners by creating a competitive atmosphere.
Educators have been using interactive, game-based learning for a long time but the huge uptake of console and online gaming in recent years has prompted a rethink of how gamification can help improve learning.
Most modern computer games include an achievement system, a series of goals and tasks that exist outside of the game?s normal structure and narrative. This idea has been brought into the classroom, rewarding learners for achievements outside of the regular grading systems.
Many online learning resources have badge systems, where a learner earns a particular badge for reaching a certain level or completing a set number of tasks around a given topic, motivating the learner and allowing them to easily track their own progress.
This same technique is being introduced in classrooms and training schemes to great effect.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow very large-scale, and often free, participation in training via the internet.
MOOCs allow hundreds and even thousands of people all over the world to?get access to further and higher education that they otherwise wouldn?t have access to.
The term MOOC was coined in 2008 but many of the ideas behind the concept have existed since long before the ?digital age?.
In the late 1800s thousands of people were enrolling in correspondence courses and in the 1920s millions of draftees were being trained for war by watching films created by the US military.
MOOCs gained a lot of publicity last year due to high profile MOOC project founders and contributing institutions, as well as large financial investment in a push to make e-learning much more sustainable and scalable.
Their real feature is the huge student to teacher ratio, especially in comparison to traditional college or school courses.
This ratio would be impossible to recreate in a regular classroom so MOOCs offer a great opportunity to save resources.
Moocs not only overcome physical and geographical boundaries, they also allow many learners, unable to afford traditional pathways, access to specialised education.
Flip teaching is a broad term that refers to any use of technology that supplements classroom learning so that a teacher can spend more time interacting with learners rather than lecturing them.
It?s commonly done using video lessons, produced by the teacher or a resource provider, for students to watch outside of class time.
Originally developed in the 1990s, flip teaching saw the computer as an exciting new tool to help improve the quality of education by allowing learners who studied independently to be coached, instead of lectured.
The learner studies the topic independently, outside of the classroom and then applies that knowledge through problem solving and practical work in class.
This method transforms the traditional role of the teacher ? they no longer teach the initial lesson but instead become a tutor, able to guide the student if they are stuck.
Flip teaching allows for more time to do engaging work in class, avoiding long lectures where learners lose interest, and increases interaction time with the teacher.
The students also get to study the video lessons in their own time so it is likely they will choose to do so when they are more alert and ready to take in new information.
And, even if they do miss something, using video lessons lets them rewind and catch up on anything they didn?t understand the first time around.
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Source: http://feweek.co.uk/2013/02/22/guide-to-fe-learning-tech/
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Diabetes was once considered as a hereditary health problem, but today diabetes is also a top ranking lifestyle disease. But it?s not end of the road for those with diabetes; change in diet, lifestyle and discipline can help you control diabetes and can even reverse the symptoms. Dr. Shalini Jaggi, Senior Consultant with Action Diabetic Centre and head nutritionist with Perfect Wellness and Dr. Saritha Rajiv shares with us some vital lifestyle tips that diabetics can add to their life. *Images courtesy: ? Thinkstock photos/ Getty Images
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Yeni
Recently, a bi-partisan group is attempting to create a ?path to citizenship? for illegal immigrants. Many in our community (and country) support such a plan ? I do not.
Of course I?m biased. I?ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on fees, wiped away more tears than one can count, and have had my motives questions all to follow the rule of law and have Yeni and I keep within the bounds of legal immigration.
As most know, Yeni is Colombian. She?s also very funny, very attractive, and an amazing artist. The important part here is that Yeni is a Colombian citizen.
Although she had family here (US Citizens) and had visited previously under tourist visas, Yeni came to the US most recently under a work Visa. By trade and education, she?s a Microbiologist, and she initially came here to work for the University of Michigan / VA in research.
It took many years for her to learn a skill that allowed her to gain legal entry to the United States. She sacrificed a lot, risked a lot, and did actions according to the rule of law.
Today, Yeni studied for her citizenship test (it?s coming up this week). I guarantee you Yeni knows more about being a citizen than 60% of US Citizens.
Right now, without hesitation, my non-US Citizen wife can tell you how many representatives there are in the House of Representatives. She knows the terms of Congressman, Senators, the President.
She can name the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House, the President, the Vice-President. She knows their political affiliations.
She can name our US Representative to congress.
Yeni can name two wars fought by the US in the 1800s. Two in the 1900s. She can name several reasons why we had a civil war, as well as discussing the Emancipation Proclamation.
Yeni knows about the flag, can tell you how many amendments there are to the US Constitution, who wrote the Constitution, and can name several tribes of Native Americans habiting the land before the colonists.
She also can discuss the rule of law.
To pass her citizenship test, Yeni must know that the rule of law dictates:
I guess she?ll be forced to lie to that question; because clearly there is no rule of law.
A path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?
Let?s first start by removing the rule of law.
Source: http://www.fredposner.com/esposa/1341/rule-law-immigration/
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New research will help shed light on role of Amazon forests in global carbon cycle
Tuesday, January 29, 2013The Earth's forests perform a well-known service to the planet, absorbing a great deal of the carbon dioxide pollution emitted into the atmosphere from human activities. But when trees are killed by natural disturbances, such as fire, drought or wind, their decay also releases carbon back into the atmosphere, making it critical to quantify tree mortality in order to understand the role of forests in the global climate system. Tropical old-growth forests may play a large role in this absorption service, yet tree mortality patterns for these forests are not well understood.
Now scientist Jeffrey Chambers and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have devised an analytical method that combines satellite images, simulation modeling and painstaking fieldwork to help researchers detect forest mortality patterns and trends. This new tool will enhance understanding of the role of forests in carbon sequestration and the impact of climate change on such disturbances.
"One quarter of CO2 emissions are going to terrestrial ecosystems, but the details of those processes and how they will respond to a changing climate are inadequately understood, particularly for tropical forests," Chambers said. "It's important we get a better understanding of the terrestrial sink because if it weakens, more of our emissions will end up in the atmosphere, increasing the rate of climate warming. To develop a better estimate of the contribution of forests, we need to have a better understanding of forest tree mortality."
Chambers, in close collaboration with Robinson Negron-Juarez at Tulane University, Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amaz?nia [INPA]) and other colleagues, studied a section of the Central Amazon spanning over a thousand square miles near Manaus, Brazil. By linking data from Landsat satellite images over a 20-year period with observations on the ground, they found that 9.1 to 16.9 percent of tree mortality was missing from more conventional plot-based analyses of forests. That equates to more than half a million dead trees each year that had previously been unaccounted for in studies of this region, and which need to be included in forest carbon budgets.
Their findings were published online this week in a paper titled, "The steady-state mosaic of disturbance and succession across an old-growth Central Amazon forest landscape," in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"If these results hold for most tropical forests, then it would indicate that because we missed some of the mortality, then the contribution of these forests to the net sink might be less than previous studies have suggested," Chambers said. "An old-growth forest has a mosaic of patches all doing different things. So if you want to understand the average behavior of that system you need to sample at a much larger spatial scale over larger time intervals than was previously appreciated. You don't see this mosaic if you walk through the forest or study only one patch. You really need to look at the forest at the landscape scale."
Trees and other living organisms are key players in the global carbon cycle, a complex biogeochemical process in which carbon is exchanged among the atmosphere, the ocean, the biosphere and Earth's crust. Fewer trees mean not only a weakening of the forest's ability to absorb carbon, but the decay of dead trees will also release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Large-scale tree mortality in tropical ecosystems could thus act as a positive feedback mechanism, accelerating the global warming effect.
The Amazon forest is hit periodically by fierce thunderstorms that may bring violent winds with concentrated bursts believed to be as high as 170 miles per hour. The storms can blow down many acres of the forest; however, Chambers and his team were able to paint a much more nuanced picture of how storms affected the forest.
By looking at satellite images before and after a storm, the scientists discerned changes in the reflectivity of the forest, which they assumed was due to damage to the canopy and thus tree loss. Researchers were then sent into the field at some of the blowdown areas to count the number of trees felled by the storm. Looking at the satellite images pixel by pixel (with each pixel representing 900 square meters, or about one-tenth of a football field) and matching them with on-the-ground observations, they were able to draw a detailed mortality map for the entire landscape, which had never been done before.
Essentially they found that tree mortality is clustered in both time and space. "It's not blowdown or no blowdown?it's a gradient, with everything in between," he said. "Some areas have 80 percent of trees down, some have 15 percent."
In one particularly violent storm in 2005, a squall line more than 1,000 miles long and 150 miles wide crossed the entire Amazon basin. The researchers estimated that hundreds of millions trees were potentially destroyed, equivalent to a significant fraction of the estimated mean annual carbon accumulation for the Amazon forest. This finding was published in 2010 in Geophysical Research Letters. Intense 100-year droughts also caused widespread tree mortality in the Amazon basin in 2005 and 2010.
As climatic warming is expected to bring more intense droughts and stronger storms, understanding their effect on tropical and forest ecosystems becomes ever more important. "We need to establish a baseline so we can say how these forests functioned before we changed the climate," Chambers said.
This new tool can be used to assess tree mortality in other types of forests as well. Chambers and colleagues reported in the journal Science in 2007 that Hurricane Katrina killed or severely damaged about 320 million trees. The carbon in those trees, which would eventually be released into the atmosphere as CO2 as the trees decompose, was about equal to the net amount of carbon absorbed by all U.S. forests in a year.
Disturbances such as Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina cause large impacts to the terrestrial carbon cycle, forest tree mortality and CO2 emissions from decomposition, in addition to significant economic impacts. However, these processes are currently not well represented in global climate models. "A better understanding of tree mortality provides a path forward towards improving coupled earth system models," Chambers said.
Besides understanding how forests affect carbon cycling, the new technique could also play a vital role in understanding how climate change will affect forests. Although the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been rising for decades, we are now only just starting to feel the effects of a warming climate, such as melting glaciers, stronger heat waves and more violent storms.
"But these climate change signals will start popping out of the noise faster and faster as the years go on," Chambers said. "So, what's going to happen to old-growth tropical forests? On one hand they are being fertilized by some unknown extent by the rising CO2 concentration, and on the other hand a warming climate will likely accelerate tree mortality. So which of these processes will win out in the long-term: growth or death? Our study provides the tools to continue to make these critical observations and answer this question as climate change processes fully kicks in over the coming years."
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DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov
Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this article.
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By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Sun
Lawmakers from across the country are contemplating whether it?s worthwhile to move into a domain that?s been almost exclusively Nevada?s since 1949 ? legalized sports wagering.
But a top Las Vegas race and sports book director says that even if other states cleared the numerous legal and legislative hurdles to offer betting on sports in their states, it probably wouldn?t have a big effect on Nevada.
The issue of legalizing sports wagering was a topic of a panel discussion Saturday at the three-day meeting of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States. The organization?s winter meeting at the Rio in Las Vegas is being attended by about 100 lawmakers and regulators from 21 states, a Canadian province and Washington, D.C. Representatives of several American Indian tribes that operate casinos also are attending.
New Jersey is the state most likely to move in on Nevada?s territory after the state?s voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional question that would enable gamblers to place sports bets at New Jersey?s horse tracks and in Atlantic City casinos.
New Jersey voters approved the measure in 2011, and Gov. Chris Christie signed a constitutional amendment in January 2012 to pave the way for sports betting this month. The state decided not to challenge a federal law enacted in 1992 that makes it illegal for people to bet on professional and amateur athletics.
The Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act gives Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware exemptions from the law. Although Nevada is the only state with legal sports books, the three others were grandfathered in because they had laws on their books to allow football betting in conjunction with lotteries and contests.
Christie said New Jersey would continue to move toward licensing sports books, and the NCAA and the four major professional sports leagues filed a suit in federal court to block New Jersey?s plans.
Most of the panelists in the session of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States supported state efforts to get into the sports book game.
Donn Mitchell, chief administrative officer of St. Louis-based Isle of Capri, said sports wagering offers another ?hook? to get customers to come to a casino.
?Why does the federal government say you can?t have it anywhere except Nevada?? Mitchell asked. ?New Jersey is asking that question and rightfully so. It needs to be challenged.?
Alan Koslow, a lawyer with the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Becker & Poliakoff law firm, said while sports books don?t generate a high percentage of revenue for a casino?s bottom line, it does generate gross revenue in hotel rooms, food, beverages, shows and shopping.
?I talked with an executive at Wynn (Resorts) who said the biggest weekend by far at the Wynn Las Vegas properties is the Super Bowl weekend,? Koslow said. ?They?re coming here to have a good time, and they?re having a good time.?
Art Manteris, who oversees the sports books at 17 Station Casinos properties in Las Vegas, said the ban on sports wagering in most states diverts money to illegal offshore Internet casinos. Manteris, who lives in Boulder City, said he has a hard time reconciling that what he does for a living is illegal just across the Colorado River in Arizona.
He said the horse racing industry shot itself in the foot years ago when it didn?t attempt to get sports wagering legalized at tracks. Today, the horse-racing industry is dying, and it lost an opportunity to bring a new generation of young gamblers to the track.
Manteris thinks that if sports wagering were legalized in other states, it wouldn?t hurt Nevada?s industry. He said that like the perceived threats of riverboat gaming and tribal casinos to Las Vegas in the past, legalized sports wagering elsewhere would broaden the market and attract more people to the city.
?On Super Bowl weekend, where would you rather go: Las Vegas or some other place that may have a casino that has sports betting?? Manteris said.
In 2011, Nevada?s 216 sports books took $2.9 billion in wagers, but about 95 percent of that was returned to gamblers who won. The state wins about $10 billion in gaming a year, but of that, only about $150 million comes from sports wagering.
Only one panelist took an opposing viewpoint on encouraging states to legalize sports betting.
Former U.S. District Attorney Michael Fagan, now of the St. Louis-based Center for Advanced Prosecution, said states should be wary of the hidden costs of any form of gambling.
?If you think it?s something that can be regulated, you have to devote resources to it,? Fagan said. ?You?ll need to be able to investigate corruption and fraud and allegations that inevitably occur with sports wagering.?
Fagan said he has seen studies show that jurisdictions that allow sports wagering spend $3 for every dollar they make from gamblers on investigations and the social costs of problem gambling associated with sports betting.
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Learn the latest strategy in e-commerce and social media at Social Commerce Summit on February 6, 2013, in New York. Speakers include Walmart, Rue La La, TripAdvisor and other major brands, startups and VCs. Reserve your ticket now.
eCommerce and retail are engaged in a zero-sum game: one company's gain in eCommerce is another's lost retail sales. As such, the team refers to eCommerce in the context of "retail sales disruption."
The analysts made five conclusions:
1) Fulfillment infrastructure is critical.
2) Some categories (e.g. groceries, personal care products) are resistant to change.
3) Third-party marketplaces can prosper.? For example, Amazon's third-party volumes are growing faster than its first-party business.
4) Mobile eCommerce is an untapped opportunity.
5) Big players (e.g. Walmart, Amazon) will get bigger thanks to footprint and scale.
The team estimates that eCommerce currently comprises about 6.5 percent of total retail sales globally, and expect that figure to rise to just under 10 percent by 2016.
Morgan Stanley identified 16 companies best-positioned for this ongoing disruption.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-best-ecommerce-companies-2013-1
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If you caught Ion's All-Star Guitar in our holiday gift guide, but didn't find it under the Festivus pole since it lacked support for Apple's Lightning connector, there could be hope for next year's holiday haul. The faux guitar is getting refreshed with a Lightning connector and has kept the same form factor, complete with light-up fret buttons and built-in speaker. For the uninitiated, the rig above can accommodate an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch and allows users to learn notes and chords via a companion app. As of now, there's no word on when you'll be able to rock out with the axe or how many simoleons it'll set you back.
Filed under: Misc, Peripherals
Source: Ion (PDF)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/06/all-star-guitar-lightning-connector/
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Published December 28th, 2012
In return, Republicans expected a fair trade, and wanted spending cuts in 2013 & 2014 from the President, but they essentially received nothing.
It therefore appears increasingly likely that Washington lawmakers will strike a small deal to send the market higher ? but only temporarily.
Last night, we said we would probably see one more moment of fear, and then a 30 to 40 yard punt ? a deal without an extension of the debt ceiling, basically forcing another deadline on January 30th, when we will have to deal with it.
With this scenario, the markets will rally, and we are advising you to sell the rally hard unless there is an extension on the debt ceiling.
We have been buying dips, selling half our positions on rallies ahead of a small 30-yard punt. If we get a deal, roughly $150 billion to $300 billion of 2013 tax increases, which won?t include a 1-year extension of the debt ceiling, sell the rally. Once we get the relief rally, the markets will focus on the recessionary forces that will arrive like a storm in the South Atlantic, which will once again batter the markets.
We are currently predicting a choppy January, as these tumultuous forces start to clash with one another ? the financial stability of the United States, facing off against the recessionary forces still deeply entrenched in the economy.
We will be sending a note out shortly on the 17 Lehman Systemic Risk Indicators, which stand today 65% below their May / June, 2012 levels. Thus, we can buy the moments of fear in the market, without the risks of serious downside. I see a 3-5% selloff as a worst case once we hit the Fiscal Cliff, followed by a substantial relief rally once a deal is secured.
With only five days left before year-end, there has been no material progress to report toward a compromise to avert the fiscal cliff. President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appear focused on pushing forward with at least a smaller deal to address some of the largest elements of the fiscal cliff, but getting even that accomplished is far from certain at this point.
Following Speaker of the House John Boehner?s (R-OH) failure to pass his Plan B through the House, the political dynamics have shifted to the Senate from the House. Our partners in Washington, AGC Analytics reminded us this morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is reluctant to risk political capital by actively pursuing any compromise, especially given that he is up for re-election in 2014. The real question now is whether McConnell seeks to block any compromise at all.
There are three practical outcomes in the short-term:
(1) Plan A is resurrected and passed ? down to a 10% chance;
(2) A small deal is passed that mitigates roughly half of the cliff?s fiscal impact, leaving another battle for the first half of 2013 over the debt limit and spending cuts ? most likely outcome with a 55% chance; or
(3) No deal is reached at all before the new Congress is seated on January 3 ? the odds of this outcome have risen in the last few days to 35% and will go substantially higher if McConnell threatens a filibuster.
With President Obama and lawmakers returning to Washington today from their shortened Christmas recess, we will continue to monitor developments toward avoiding, or at least mitigating, the fiscal cliff.
Before leaving for Christmas vacation in Hawaii, President Obama explained that while he was still hoping for a larger deal, Congressional leaders should at least be prepared to pass a smaller deal that would extend the Bush tax cuts below the $250,000 threshold, suspend the $109 billion across-the-board spending cuts of the sequester, and continue extended unemployment insurance benefits.
Conspicuously, Obama did not mention increasing the debt limit, which until now he had insisted was necessary for any deal he signed.
Besides speaking by phone with Boehner, Obama also met at the White House with Reid, signaling greater Senate involvement in the next phase of negotiations. This smaller deal is not necessarily an easier sell with Republicans than the Plan A that Obama and Boehner were discussing before Boehner broke off negotiations, primarily because it still includes a tax increase on upper income tax brackets and does not include any spending cuts, two of the most contentious issues for the GOP. Nevertheless, this is where the focus has shifted in recent days.
Democratic hope that enough GOP members may be willing to pursue a smaller deal is based on two premises:
(1) Given that public polling has clearly indicated that Republicans will get the most blame for going over the cliff, a small deal is better than no deal; and
(2) While addressing some of the biggest elements of the cliff, a small deal theoretically leaves the GOP with leverage to continue to fight for further spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase in the ensuing months. Our partner, ACG Analytics has consistently expected that any compromise would first be voted on in the Senate, providing political cover for House Republicans.
However, we also assumed that the compromise would have first been struck between Obama and Boehner, leaving McConnell free to not officially support it while eschewing whipping against it. With a smaller deal needing to not only be navigated first through the Senate but also likely being negotiated there, it remains unclear whether McConnell is willing to play a facilitating role the way he did during the 2011 debt limit increase and last December?s payroll tax holiday extension. Even though we have been told that McConnell has an understanding in place with Tea Party favorite Rand Paul (R-KY) that Paul will not publicly support a primary challenge to McConnell in 2014, Paul likely would relish McConnell facing such a challenge given how McConnell opposed Paul?s candidacy during the 2010 GOP senatorial primary.
Additionally, McConnell is wary of a Democratic challenge in the general election from celebrity singer/actress Ashley Judd, who will have prodigious fundraising ability. This situation leaves us with the critical question of whether McConnell will allow Reid to push for passage of a smaller deal or will block it entirely with a filibuster.
Our partner, ACG Analytics believes McConnell will choose to limit his involvement as much as possible while neither supporting nor filibustering any compromise that Reid attempts to pass in the Senate. However, this stance by McConnell does not ensure success for a smaller deal ? though it does give it a fighting chance. With 54 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Reid will likely only need six Republican votes to pass any deal, assuming a 60-vote threshold is established.
There should be enough moderate Republicans, including several retiring Senators, who will be willing to vote in favor of a smaller deal. Should a bill move out of the Senate, the House will still need to pass any deal before sending it to the President. The open questions are whether Boehner would receive a ?majority of the majority? in support of any bill and, even if he does not, would he be willing to allow a vote given that he is up for a vote on his speakership on January 3.
As Plan B would have garnered approximately 200 Republican votes, we believe that any deal that successfully navigates the Senate would likely receive ?majority of the majority? support in the House. Even if such a bill did not appear likely to do so, we believe Boehner would still allow it to come to the floor for a vote and let the chips fall where they may.
The 3 Possible Outcomes
1. Best Case
It was only last week that negotiations toward a broader compromise were moving steadily along with a clear vision of the likely endgame. By splitting their remaining differences, Obama and Boehner could have found $1 trillion in both new revenues and further spending cuts, respectively. The major Republican concession would have been higher tax rates starting at a threshold of between $400,000 and $1 million.
The major Democratic concession would have been some specific entitlement reforms that would have affected beneficiaries, such as using chained CPI for determining Social Security payments and potentially further means testing of Medicare, but real 2013-15 cuts are crucial to winning over the GOP in the House.
This package also would have created the framework for broader tax and entitlement reforms to be addressed in 2013. And it would have facilitated solutions on most of the other elements of the fiscal cliff, minimizing the likely fiscal drag to approximately $180 billion for 2013. While this scenario arguably presents a better outcome for Republicans than a smaller deal, it will only be possible if Boehner assertively re-engages in negotiations with the White House?that no longer looks likely in the wake of Plan B?s failure.
2. Base Case
This is where the White House and Reid are now focusing their energies and such a bill stands a legitimate chance of success if McConnell chooses not to play the role of spoiler. It is important to point out the fact that if Plan A was never really seen as a solution but only a down payment, then this outcome seriously raises the question of whether a broader solution is even possible before the United States faces a true fiscal crisis.
A small deal would :
1. Extend the Bush tax cuts below a certain threshold, probably higher than the $250,000 level preferred by Obama, but likely not greater than $500,000.
2. Suspend the sequestration spending cuts for 2013.
3. Include an extension of unemployment insurance, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch.
4. Stave off scheduled Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) cuts (popularly referred to as the ?Doc Fix?).
Despite these measures, there is a lot that such a bill would not do.
The massive loss of perennial tax extenders, which include the R&D tax credit and Wind Production Tax Credit, would expire and not be applied to 2012 unless retroactively addressed in 2013.
Above all, there would not be a debt limit increase included in a smaller package, setting up another debt limit showdown in early 2013. While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects that this issue would become ripe in February or March, ACG Analytics believes that CBO?s assumptions are conservative and that a debt limit showdown could extend well into the second quarter of 2013.
In other words, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, may have more emergency cash than he?s let the market believe.
Another reason to sell the rally on a small deal, the fiscal drag for 2013 as a result of such a deal would likely be approximately $300 billion, but that does not include either the direct impact of spending cuts that could be coupled with a debt limit increase or the indirect impact of the prolonged uncertainty due to another debt limit battle. Passage of a small deal, ironically, could have a greater chance of inducing a U.S. credit downgrade as such a deal is unlikely to be deficit-neutral, let alone produce deficit reduction. The need for a small deal and a separate debt limit fight in 2013, would also seriously undermine prospects for comprehensive tax reform or entitlement reform.
3. Worst Case
There is a slightly better than 1-in-3 chance of fully going over the cliff at this point.
While many media commentators are arguing that the expected resulting adverse reaction in the financial markets will lead to a deal in early January, it is worth noting that the seating of the new Congress on January 3 could complicate any crisis mitigating legislative efforts.
The Treasury Department did not move to change the withholding tables in time to impact the first paychecks of 2013, but the reductions would be put in effect by the end of January. There would be an approximate two week lag before medical providers felt the impact of the reduction in Medicare payments. OMB would also have to move quickly to work with federal agencies to implement the across-the-board spending cuts as a result of the sequestration.
In the early weeks of January, these savings could likely be achieved through reduced travel and IT spending, but if the sequester dragged on into the Spring, there would be mandatory furloughs and service delays and disruptions. Our partner ACG Analytics expects that Congress, and particularly House Republicans, will come under enormous pressure to pass legislation to address the adverse impact of the cliff, but it very well could take weeks rather than days to turn this pressure into a successfully passed piece of legislation.
Source: http://www.redliontrader.com/streamingnews/reviving-brands-that-arent-quite-forgotten/
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TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto's main stock index finished broadly higher on Friday, with energy companies leading the gains, as encouraging North American economic data bolstered investor sentiment.
Energy stocks, which make up about 25 percent of the index were up 1.07 percent. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd
North American stock markets rose after U.S. reports showed employers there kept up a steady pace of hiring workers, even though the unemployment rate crept up, and the vast services sector expanded at a brisk rate.
"It shows that perhaps we've got stability in the U.S. labor market. It's not great, but it continues to show improvement and that again bodes well for prospects through 2013," said Philip Petursson, a managing director at Manulife Asset Management's portfolio advisory group.
Canada's economy defied expectations to create 39,800 jobs in December, surpassing even the most bullish prediction in a Reuters poll.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> finished 70.37 points higher, or up 0.56 percent at 12,540.81. All 10 of the TSX's main groups ended in positive territory and the index as a whole was up about 1.8 percent for the week.
"I still think there's a lot of people away. You're probably not going to get a good feel of the market until next week," said Bruce Latimer, a trader at Dundee Securities.
The heavyweight financial group climbed 0.5 percent, with Royal Bank of Canada
The overall materials group recouped early losses and finished the session up 0.52 percent. Potash Corp's
In corporate news, Lululemon Athletica
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc
(Editing by Diane Craft)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-may-open-lower-fed-minutes-jobs-data-131508082--finance.html
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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have achieved a feat in synthetic chemistry by inventing a scalable method to make complex natural compounds known as "polyhydroxylated steroids." These compounds, used in heart-failure medications and other drugs, have been notoriously problematic to synthesize in the laboratory.
The researchers demonstrated the new strategy by synthesizing ouabagenin [wa-bah-jenn-in], a close chemical cousin of ouabain, which Somali tribes once used as a potent poison on the tips of their arrows but was later developed as a treatment for congestive heart failure. This achievement, reported in the January 4, 2012 issue of Science, points the way to a scalable formation and modification of a variety of useful compounds that had been obtainable in significant quantities only from plants or animals.
"Previous synthetic routes to these compounds required so many steps as to be impractical on a large scale," said Phil S. Baran, a professor and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at TSRI, "but we were able to come up with a completely new strategy."
Looking for Answers
The Baran laboratory has a longstanding interest in the practical and scalable synthesis of complex natural products. The group's latest achievement was stimulated by a request from a Denmark-based drug company, LEO Pharma, whose chemists sought an efficient way to make complex, bioactive steroids. "We decided to go for the most complex member of the family, ouabagenin, which is probably the most polyhydroxylated steroid known on planet Earth," said Baran.
Polyhydroxylated steroids have four carbon-based rings and are adorned with several hydroxyl groups, giving these molecules a high oxidation level and making them very difficult to synthesize and modify using simple methods. "Ouabagenin has six of these hydroxyl groups, which also exist in a lopsided orientation," said Hans Renata, a graduate student in the Baran laboratory who was first author of the study. "This confers a strong directionality on ouabagenin molecules, so that they tend to stick even to inorganic material such as laboratory glassware, especially on small scale."
In 2009, the Baran laboratory reported in Nature a holistic approach to synthesizing a class of natural products called terpenes (for an article describing that discovery, see http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_20090518/baran.html). This approach includes a laboratory "oxidase phase" that relies on the direct incorporation of functional groups (such as hydroxyl groups) into carbon?hydrogen bonds to reach highly oxidized terpene targets. Since steroids form a sub-category within the terpene family, the scientists hypothesized that these guidelines for terpene construction should apply to the synthesis of steroids, and in particular, to ouabagenin. Organic chemists have traditionally propagated functional groups from one carbon atom in the molecule to an adjacent carbon atom, which could result in lengthy syntheses; a previous synthesis of ouabagenin had been completed by another research group in 2008, but in 41 steps. The Baran group sought to incorporate the logic of carbon?hydrogen functionalization and long-range functional group transformations for a completely new strategy toward ouabagenin.
Only 21 Steps
Putting this idea into practice, Baran and Renata devised a series of reactions to convert a common, cheaply available steroid, cortisone acetate, into ouabagenin. The process uniquely combines two broad strategies?redox relay and oxidative stereochemical relay?which essentially propagate functional groups to desired locations within the molecule to enable rapid modifications from the starting material to the final target. "From cortisone acetate to ouabagenin took us only 21 steps," said Renata.
Although the scalable synthesis of such a difficult compound is itself a major achievement, the new approach also enables a versatile modification of hydroxylated steroids. "With our strategy, we can make even small changes at any part of the molecule," said Baran. That could help pharmaceutical chemists, for example, to tweak the chemical structures of natural toxins such as ouabain to make them less dangerous and more therapeutic at high doses.
"LEO Pharma's collaboration with Professor Baran and his team has the potential to unlock the door to an array of new opportunities in our product discovery and research," said Michael Sierra, the company's director of external discovery.
###
Scripps Research Institute: http://www.scripps.edu
Thanks to Scripps Research Institute 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.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126131/Steroids_that_only_nature_could_make_on_a_large_scale____Until_now
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Everyone except the Jets is talking about Rex Ryan?s notorious tattoo.
The Pats have added QB Mike Kafka to their offseason roster.
The Dolphins didn?t make it to the postseason, but some have received postseason awards from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
The Bills built huge expectations on defense in 2012, and completely failed to meet them.
Ravens offensive coordinator Jim Caldwell reflects on facing the franchise with which he spent 10 years.
For Bengals QB Andy Dalton, a playoff game in his hometown is becoming a tradition.
If the Browns hire Chip Kelly, the roster may need yet another makeover.
More and more people are realizing that the Steelers need a good running back.
Titans DE Kamerion Wimbley, with only six sacks in 2012, says he fell short of his expectations.
Colts rookie RB Vick Ballard has gone from survival to, um, thrival?
Jaguars assistant coaches have been given permission to look elsewhere for work.
Texans QB Matt Schaub is ready for his playoff debut.? (His performance in big games this year would suggest otherwise.)
The Broncos? running backs have a ?next man up? attitude.
The Chargers will reduce or not increase prices on season tickets for 45,000 seats.
The deal between the Chiefs and coach Andy Reid covers five years, which likely gives him at least three or four years to turn things around.
When the Raiders coach one of the Senior Bowl rosters, there?s a chance they?ll actually be coaching a better team than the one they coached all year.
The Cowboys appeared in four of the six most-viewed games of the season.? (That and a Super Bowl championship will get you a Lombardi Trophy.)
As the Redskins uncharacteristically have thrived, owner Daniel Snyder uncharacteristically has remained in the background.
Giants G.M. Jerry Reese thinks that the team should have given WR Hakeem Nicks more rest when he was dealing with early-season injuries.
The image of Eagles LB Chuck Bednarik taunting a fallen Frank Gifford has been picked as one of the top sports photos of all time.
Life?s been good so far to Vikings K Blair Walsh.
The Bears have brought back speedy WR Brittan Golden.
The Lions were 1-6 against NFC teams that made it to the playoffs.
Since winning the Super Bowl less than two years ago, the Packers have replaced 14 of 22 starters.
First-year Falcons don?t want to hear about past-year playoff failures.
The good news for Buccaneers rookie RB Doug Martin?? He?s a finalist for the Pepsi Max Rookie of the Year Award.? The bad news?? So are Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, and Alfred Morris.
The Saints have added WR Preston Parker and DE Jay Richardson.
Despite getting a head start by firing G.M. Marty Hurney during the season, the Panthers won?t start interviewing G.M. candidates until Monday.
49ers TE Garrett Celek, the brother of Eagles TE Brent Celek, was the only undrafted rookie to make the team, and he participated in more snaps than six draft picks.
Returning from a four-game suspension won?t keep Seahawks CB Brandon Browner from starting on Sunday.
The notoriously parsimonious Cardinals are surely hoping Ken Whisenhunt gets a head-coaching job in this cycle.
Rams offensive line coach Paul Boudreau says he got the most out of a ?bunch of misfit toys? in St. Louis this year.
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Another year, another controversy surrounding Kathy Griffin's antics on CNN's New Year's Eve special. And yet Griffin keeps getting invited back to co-host alongside Anderson Cooper, and she keeps not apologizing for her behavior. This time she's gotten into some hot water for going down and attempting to kiss Cooper's crotch several times.
She talked -- with glee -- about the backlash on "Late Show with David Letterman." Griffin said, "People are tweeting things like, 'I didn't even watch the show, but now I have to explain to my children what you did.'"
The Parent's Television Council quickly released a statement condemning the act, and calling out the network for supporting and condoning Griffin's antics. Will CNN invite her back again next year after this latest round of controversy?
Bravo is showing faith in Griffin's ability to gain attention, even being so brave as to let her go live on her talk show "Kathy" when it returns to the network January 10 at 10 p.m. EST.
Watch "Late Show with David Letterman" every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. EST on CBS.
TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.
Related on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/03/kathy-griffin-backlash-nye-cooper-video_n_2400000.html
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FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, file photo, the dome of the Capitol is reflected in a skylight of the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington. By delaying hard choices on spending, the fiscal cliff deal guaranteed more confrontation and uncertainty this year, especially when Congress must vote later this winter to raise the government?s borrowing limit. That?s likely to keep businesses cautious about hiring and investing. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, file photo, the dome of the Capitol is reflected in a skylight of the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington. By delaying hard choices on spending, the fiscal cliff deal guaranteed more confrontation and uncertainty this year, especially when Congress must vote later this winter to raise the government?s borrowing limit. That?s likely to keep businesses cautious about hiring and investing. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Housing is rebounding. Families are shrinking debts. Europe has avoided a financial crackup. And the fiscal cliff deal has removed the most urgent threat to the U.S. economy.
So why don't economists foresee stronger growth and hiring in 2013?
Part of the answer is what Congress' agreement did (raise Social Security taxes for most of us). And part is what it didn't do (prevent the likelihood of more growth-killing political standoffs).
By delaying painful decisions on spending cuts, the deal assures more confrontation and uncertainty, especially because Congress must reach agreement later this winter to raise the government's debt limit. Many businesses are likely to remain wary of expanding or hiring in the meantime.
One hopeful consensus: If all the budgetary uncertainty can be resolved within the next few months, economists expect growth to pick up in the second half of 2013.
"We are in a better place than we were a couple of days ago," Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, said a day after Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid sharp income tax increases and government spending cuts. But "we really haven't dealt with the debt ceiling or tax reform or entitlement spending."
Five full years after the Great Recession began, the U.S. economy is still struggling to accelerate. Many economists think it will grow a meager 2 percent or less this year, down from 2.2 percent in 2012. The unemployment rate remains a high 7.7 percent. Few expect it to drop much this year.
Yet in some ways, the economy has been building strength. Corporations have cut costs and have amassed a near-record $1.7 trillion in cash. Home sales and prices have been rising consistently, along with construction. Hiring gains have been modest but steady.
Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, thinks the lack of finality in the budget fight is slowing an otherwise fundamentally sound economy.
"What a shame," Baumohl said in a research note Wednesday. "Companies are eager to ramp up capital investments and boost hiring. Households are prepared to unleash five years of pent-up demand."
The economy might be growing at a 3 percent annual rate if not for the threat of sudden and severe spending cuts and tax increases, along with the haziness surrounding the budget standoff, says Ethan Harris, co-director of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Still, Congress' deal delivered a walloping tax hike for most workers: the end of a two-year Social Security tax cut. The tax is rising back up to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent. The increase will cost someone making $50,000 about $1,000 a year and a household with two high-paid workers up to $4,500.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, calculates that the higher Social Security tax will slow growth by 0.6 percentage point in 2013. The other tax increases ? including higher taxes on household incomes above $450,000 a year ? will slice just 0.15 percentage point from growth, Zandi says.
Congress' deal also postpones decisions on spending cuts for military and domestic programs, including Medicare and Social Security. In doing so, it sets up a much bigger showdown over raising the government's borrowing limit. Republicans will likely demand deep spending cuts as the price of raising the debt limit. A similar standoff in 2011 brought the government to the brink of default and led Standard & Poor's to yank its top AAA rating on long-term U.S. debt.
Here's how key parts of the economy are shaping up for 2013:
? JOBS
With further fights looming over taxes and spending, many companies aren't likely to step up hiring. Congress and the White House will likely start battling over raising the $16.4 trillion debt limit in February.
Many economists expect employers to add an average of 150,000 to 175,000 jobs a month in 2013, about the same pace as in 2011 and 2012. That level is too weak to quickly reduce unemployment.
The roughly 2 million jobs Zandi estimates employers will add this year would be slightly more than the 1.8 million likely added in 2012. Zandi thinks employers would add an additional 600,000 jobs this year if not for the measures agreed to in the fiscal cliff deal.
Federal Reserve policymakers have forecast that the unemployment rate will fall to 7.4 percent, at best, by year's end. Economists regard a "normal" rate as 6 percent or less.
? CONSUMER SPENDING
Consumer confidence fell in December as Americans began to fear the higher taxes threatened by the fiscal cliff. Confidence had reached a five-year high in November, fueled by slowly declining unemployment and a steady housing rebound. Consumer spending is the driving force of the economy.
But the deal to avoid the cliff won't necessarily ignite a burst of spending. Taxes will still rise for nearly 80 percent of working Americans because of the higher Social Security tax rate.
Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, pay has barely kept up with inflation. The Social Security tax increase will cut paychecks further. And with the job market likely to remain tight, few companies have much incentive to hand out raises.
Thanks to record-low interest rates, consumers have whittled their debts to about 113 percent of their after-tax income. That's the lowest share since mid-2003, according to Haver Analytics.
Yet that hardly means people are ready to reverse course and ramp up credit-card purchases. Most new spending would have to come from higher incomes, says Ellen Zentner, senior economist at Nomura Securities.
"We don't see the mindset of, 'Let's run up the credit card again,'" she says.
The holiday shopping season in 2012 produced the worst year-over-year performance since 2008. Shoppertrak, a consulting firm, estimates that sales grew just 2.5 percent, down from an earlier forecast of 3.3 percent.
? HOUSING
Economists are nearly unanimous about one thing: The housing market will keep improving.
That's partly because of a fact that's caught many by surprise: Five years after the housing bust left a glut of homes in many areas, the nation doesn't have enough houses. Only 149,000 new homes were for sale at the end of November, the government has reported. That's just above the 143,000 in August, the lowest total on records dating to 1963. And the supply of previously occupied homes for sale is at an 11-year low.
"We need to start building again," says Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.
Sales of new homes in November reached their highest annual pace in 2? years. They were 15 percent higher than a year earlier. And October marked a fifth straight month of year-over-year price increases in the 20 major cities covered by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller national home price index.
Potential homebuyers "are more likely to buy, and banks are more likely to lend" when prices are rising, says James O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "It feeds on itself."
Higher prices are also encouraging builders to begin work on more homes. They were on track last year to start construction of the most homes in four years.
Ultra-low mortgage rates have helped spur demand. The average rate on the U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage is 3.35 percent, barely above the 3.31 percent reached in November, the lowest on records dating to 1971.
Housing tends to have an outside impact on the economy. A housing recovery boosts construction jobs and encourages more spending on furniture and appliances. And higher home prices make people feel wealthier, which can also lead to more spending.
"When you have a housing recovery, it's nearly impossible for the U.S. economy to slip into recession," Zentner says.
? MANUFACTURING
Factories appear to be recovering slowly from a slump last fall. The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity rose last month from November. And a measure of employment suggested that manufacturers stepped up hiring in December. Factories had cut jobs in three of the four months through November, according to government data.
Another encouraging sign: Americans are expected to buy more cars this year. That would help boost manufacturing output. Auto sales will likely rise nearly 7 percent in 2013 over last year to 15.3 million, according to the Polk research firm. Sales likely reached 14.5 million last year, the best since 2007. In 2009, sales were just 10.4 million, the fewest in more than 30 years.
And if Congress can raise the federal borrowing limit without a fight that damages confidence, companies might boost spending on computers, industrial machinery and other equipment in the second half of 2013, economists say. That would help keep factories busy.
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