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December 2009

Organic Baby

Sun, 12/20/2009 - 14:49 — admin

A newborn's head is very large in proportion to the rest of the body, and the cranium is enormous relative to his or her face. While the adult human skull is about 1/8 of the total body length, the newborn's is about 1/4. At birth, many regions of the newborn's skull have not yet been converted to bone, leaving "soft spots" known as fontanels. The two largest are the diamond-shaped anterior fontanel, located at the top front portion of the head, and the smaller triangular-shaped posterior fontanel, which lies at the back of the head. Later in the child's life, these bones will fuse together in a natural process. A protein called noggin is responsible for the delay in an infant's skull fusion.

Newborns can respond to different tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter, and salty substances, with a preference toward sweets.

Organic Baby

Trott, Pietersen steer England towards Test safety

Sun, 12/20/2009 - 07:41 — admin

CENTURION, South Africa (AFP) –
Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen steered England towards safety with a century partnership on the fifth and final day of the first Test against South Africa at SuperSport Park on Sunday.

England, set 364 to win, were 169 for three at tea.

Trott, who came to the wicket after the dismissal of nightwatchman James Anderson in the third over of the day, was unbeaten on 53 after facing 148 balls.

Pietersen was more aggressive in making 80 not out off 136 deliveries but the batsmen showed no serious intention of trying to chase down an unrealistic victory target. The pair had added 142 for the fourth wicket.

South African hopes were raised early in the day when Anderson gloved Friedel de Wet down the legside to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

Alastair Cook defended resolutely for 79 minutes and 56 balls, scoring 12 runs, before he too was caught off a glove, when a ball from left-arm spinner Paul Harris went to Graeme Smith at leg gully off his glove and pad.

But Trott and Pietersen dug in on a pitch which did not provide as much unpredictable bounce as it had on the previous two days.

Only one delivery truly misbehaved, a ball from De Wet which shot through low and trapped Pietersen, on 39, plumb in front of his stumps. But umpire Steve Davis no-balled De Wet for overstepping.

When he was on 31 Trott played a ball from Harris onto his boot and it was caught by Smith at a wide slip.

The umpires sought a review and Trott was given not out when it showed the ball had made contact with the ground before bouncing to Smith. In the same over Pietersen, on 57, pushed a ball from Harris dangerously close to Hashim Amla at short leg.

In virtually the only other alarm for England, Morne Morkel had a loud shout for leg before against Trott turned down by Davis when the batsman was on 45. After a discussion the South Africans decided not to call for a television review and replays showed the ball would have missed leg stump.

With the other bowlers unable to break through, Jacques Kallis came into the attack shortly before tea.

He had said before the match he did not expect to bowl because he was recovering from a rib injury. He bowled three unthreatening overs.

SCOREBOARD

South Africa, first innings, 418

England, first innings, 356

South Africa, second innings, 301-7 dec

England, second innings

(overnight 11-1)

A. Strauss c Boucher b Morkel 1A. Cook c Smith b Harris 12J. Anderson c Boucher b De Wet 10J. Trott not out 53K. Pietersen not out 80Extras (b6, lb1, nb6) 13Total (3 wkts, 60 overs) 169
Bowling:

Ntini 11-4-34-0Morkel 15-2-38-1Harris 17-6-42-1De Wet 11-3-36-1 Duminy 3-1-7-0Kallis 3-1-5-0
Match position: England require 195 to win with seven wickets remaining in the second innings

Toss: England

Umpires: Aleem Dar (PAK), Steve Davis (AUS).

TV umpire: Amish Saheba (IND).

Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (SRI).

Parks and Recreation Software

Sun, 12/20/2009 - 03:59 — admin

Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages or even microcode or a FPGA state. The types of software include web pages developed by technologies like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Word developed by technologies like C, C++, Java, C#, etc. Software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, toasters, etc.

The term "software" was first used in this sense by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all computer programs. The theory that is the basis for most modern software was first proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.

Parks and Recreation Software

Aiken takes name off voter list, ending NC probe

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 13:12 — admin

RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina election board has determined there's evidence showing former "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken may have voted illegally in Wake County this fall. But officials don't plan further action.
The county elections board voted unanimously Wednesday to end its investigation at a preliminary hearing because Aiken wrote a letter asking officials to remove him from their voting rolls, making the issue moot.
The local Republican Party chairman filed a complaint because Aiken voted in Wake County elections even though he has a house in adjoining Chatham County. Aiken has criticized local school board candidates.
Wake County GOP Chairman Claude Pope said after the hearing he was happy with the outcome.
Aiken didn't attend the meeting.

European stocks drop further amid debt worries

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 12:30 — admin

LONDON (AFP) –
European equities fell further on Wednesday, extending recent heavy losses amid mounting anxiety about government debt in Dubai and Greece, and ahead of a key budget statement in London, dealers said.

In late morning deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index lost 0.17 percent to stand at 5,214.60 points.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 slid 0.37 percent to 5,668.30 points and in Paris the CAC 40 shed 0.25 percent to 3,775.68.

The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of top eurozone shares dipped 0.38 percent to 2,838.48 points.

"Worries about sovereign credit risk and the ongoing global debt crisis are rattling the markets," said VTB Capital economist Neil MacKinnon.

All three main European markets had nosedived on Tuesday as traders were gripped by concerns about Dubai's debt crisis, more ratings gloom for Greece and shrinking German industrial output.

Added to the mix, Wall Street slumped Tuesday as recovery concerns festered after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's sobering assessment of the US economy.

"A weak day's trading on Wall Street and serious concerns about Greece's public finances and Dubai's debt restructuring ensured London ended deep in the red Tuesday," said Spreadex analyst Simon Rossington.

"Fears over the solvency of Greece reached new levels after Fitch downgraded its outlook on the country by one rating to 'negative'.

"Fellow ratings agency Standard & Poor's has already warned the Mediterranean country that it may have its credit rating cut."

The Fitch ratings agency had on Tuesday downgraded Greece's long-term debt ratings as well as those on four of the country's largest banks, describing prospects for Greek public finances as negative.

And on Wednesday, Fitch placed all rated structured finance transactions in Greece on negative watch.

"The recession that has been raging in Europe since the middle of 2008 has exposed those countries with weak government finances," said Rabobank analysts in a note to clients.

"The situation in Greece has been made worse by credibility problems, because its projected government deficit has exploded since a new government took over in October."

Elsewhere, London investors will focus Wednesday on the British government's latest plans for taxation and spending.

The Labour administration will announce a budget statement which it hopes will help fix public finances and revive its fortunes ahead of an election expected next year, amid reports it will slap a "supertax" on bankers' bonuses.

British finance minister Alistair Darling will unveil his pre-budget report at 1230 GMT, against the backdrop of Britain's worst recession on record.

"Darling?s main challenge is to rein in the budget whilst at the same time trying not to hurt the economy," Rabobank analysts added.

Ratings agency Moody's had warned Tuesday that Britain and the United States needed to take action on public debt to protect their cherished AAA ratings.

Across in the Middle East on Wednesday, Dubai share prices plunged 6.39 percent and Abu Dhabi shed 2.82 percent, even as the United Arab Emirates said it was coping with the global economic crisis.

UAE stocks have tumbled since real estate giant Nakheel, part of state-owned conglomerate Dubai World, sought a six-month freeze on a 3.5-billion-dollar Islamic bond debt on November 25, raising fears of a Dubai debt default.

Obama rights record questioned ahead of Nobel prize

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 11:48 — admin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Two leading international human rights groups gave U.S. President Barack Obama mixed reviews on his human rights record on Wednesday, a day before he is slated to accept the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International urged Obama to use his acceptance speech on Thursday to renew U.S. leadership on human rights after its position was undermined by abuses committed during the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

In awarding Obama the Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee said in October the president had made extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation and that it hoped this would strengthen democracy and human rights.

Obama has adopted a pragmatic style of foreign policy, winning praise for showing a willingness to talk to states such as Iran and North Korea, which his predecessor George W. Bush once dubbed part of an "axis of evil" and sought to isolate.

But Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said this pragmatism had sometimes come at the expense of speaking out about human rights in countries like China, Washington's biggest creditor and a major player in efforts to tackle the financial crisis.

"He has created a false choice between having to speak out forcefully on human rights or being pragmatic and getting results on other issues," Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox told Reuters in an interview.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch give Obama high marks for acting swiftly to announce the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, an end to the CIA's secret detention program, adopting a multilateral approach to diplomacy, and reaching out to the Muslim world.

But they fault him for failing to do enough to address specific human rights cases.

QUIET DIPLOMACY

"He has spoken out on some cases, like (Nobel peace laureate) Aung San Suu Kyi, but he has not raised forcefully enough issues of human rights in China, for example, where it would have demonstrated real commitment on our part not to let other needs prevent us from speaking out very forcefully," Cox said.

Human Rights Watch Associate Director Carroll Bogert said the administration appeared to have made the calculation that the United States would be a stronger player in the international arena if it downplayed human rights.

"I think the calculation is there that raising human rights will weaken the U.S. position. That's a miscalculation. The quiet approach makes him (Obama) look weak," Bogert said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows in February after saying the Obama administration would press China on human rights but this would not "interfere" with their work on the global financial crisis and climate change.

Obama himself was widely criticized at home and abroad after he avoided directly raising specific criticism and cases concerning China during his trip there last month.

In an interview with Reuters before the China trip, Obama strongly rejected criticism that he was backsliding on human rights and said his public statements had consistently espoused the values of freedom of speech, the press and religion.

Amnesty's Cox said Obama should use his Nobel speech to "say the United States after many, many decades, has failed to provide that kind of leadership (on human rights), and now wants once again to provide that leadership.

Human Rights Watch's Bogert said Obama should emphasize that his "policy of dialogue with unsavory regimes will not weaken America's voice for human rights."

(Editing by Patricia Wilson and Eric Beech)

WHO: Smoking kills 5 million every year

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 07:20 — admin

LONDON – Tobacco use kills at least 5 million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don't take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
In a new report on tobacco use and control, the U.N. agency said nearly 95 percent of the global population is unprotected by laws banning smoking. WHO said secondhand smoking kills about 600,000 people every year.
The report describes countries' various strategies to curb smoking, including protecting people from smoke, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, and raising taxes on tobacco products. Those were included in a package of six strategies WHO unveiled last year, but less than 10 percent of the world's population is covered by any single measure.
"People need more than to be told that tobacco is bad for human health," said Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative. "They need their governments to implement the WHO Framework Convention."
Most of WHO's anti-tobacco efforts are centered on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international treaty ratified by nearly 170 countries in 2003. The convention theoretically obliges countries to take action to reduce tobacco use, though it is unclear if they can be punished for not taking adequate measures, since they can simply withdraw from the treaty.
Other experts questioned how effective WHO's strategies were.
"It's like the well-intentioned blind leading the blind," said Patrick Basham, director of the Democracy Institute, a London and Washington-based think tank. He said WHO's policies were based more on hope than evidence.
Basham said measures like increasing taxes on tobacco products and banning advertising don't address the root causes of why people smoke. Smoking levels naturally drop off — as they have in Western countries — when populations become richer and better-educated.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death and WHO estimates that, unless countries take drastic action, tobacco could kill about 8 million people every year by 2030, mostly in developing countries.
Basham said officials should focus on anti-poverty measures to stem the smoking problem, though that is beyond WHO's mandate as a health agency.
"The cynical view is that the anti-tobacco lobby has itself now become an industry and we will never be able to do enough to stop smoking," Basham said. "Tobacco use will change, but it has very little to do with the kinds of things WHO is promoting."

US charges 5 with foreclosure scam in Philly area

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 06:41 — admin

PHILADELPHIA – Five people were charged with using a supposed mortgage-rescue program to steal nearly $15 million in home equity from homeowners facing foreclosure in suburban Philadelphia.
The federal indictment Tuesday accuses the owners of Axxium Mortgage, J&J Realty and two lawyers in the alleged scheme.
According to prosecutors, they defrauded at least 35 homeowners in Bucks and Montgomery counties by finding "investors" to buy their homes while the owners rented them back and tried to save money in hopes of repurchasing them.
Instead, the owners lost their homes — and whatever equity they had in them, an amount that sometimes topped $100,000 and in one case reached $500,000, authorities said.
The defendants include Axxium co-owners Edward McCusker of New Hope and John Bariana of Mullica Hill, N.J.; McCusker's wife Jacqueline; and lawyers Jeffrey Bennett of Springfield and Stephen Doherty of Doylestown.
McCusker used forged documents to get mortgages in the name of the straw purchasers, and then steered any proceeds from the sale to the defendants, sometimes through shell companies, the indictment charges.
The closings were held at Bennett and Doherty's title company in Doylestown.
McCusker and Bariana obtained mortgages for 10 homes, while the defendants also recruited and paid others to act as straw purchasers, authorities said. Bariana and Jacqueline McCusker owned J&J Realty, charged with similar conduct.
The charges in the case mirror those in a related civil suit filed last year on behalf of some alleged victims against Doherty, Bennett and others.
Bariana's lawyer, Ronald DeSimone, declined comment. Lawyers for the others did not immediately return messages Tuesday, and a message left at the Bennett & Doherty law firm was not immediately returned.

Police illegally execute hundreds in Nigeria: Amnesty

Wed, 12/09/2009 - 04:07 — admin

ABUJA (AFP) –
Police in Nigeria routinely and illegally kill with impunity hundreds of suspects each year, global rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday.

"The Nigeria Police Force is responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings and enforced disappearances every year," the London-based Amnesty said.

"The majority of cases go uninvestigated and unpunished," it said in a damning report.

The report, based on research carried out between 2007 and 2009, is based on evidence given in interviews with relatives of people who were executed by the police or disappeared in police custody. Amnesty also interviewed lawyers, judges, justice and health officials and local rights organisations.

Unlawful killings and enforced disappearances in Nigeria "are not random", it said. "In a country where bribes guarantee safety, those who cannot afford to pay are at risk of being shot or tortured to death".

Nigeria ranks low on the international corruption perception index and it is notorious for its high crime rate, especially armed robbery.

"The police exploit public anger at the high crime rates in the country to justify their actions...They do not only shoot people, Amnesty International has recorded cases of suspects who were tortured to death while in detention," it said.

Amnesty said that disregard for human rights is "prevalent" in the police and enforced disappearances in Nigeria are "rife".

Many of those who go missing have been extrajudicially executed, it said.

World AIDS Day warning on heterosexual transmission

Tue, 12/01/2009 - 07:23 — admin

PRETORIA (AFP) –
Calls for an end to discrimination against sufferers rang out on World AIDS Day on Tuesday as South Africa, the country worst affected by the pandemic, rolled out a new battleplan to beat the virus.

With more than 33 million people round the world carrying the virus, China said the incidence among homosexuals was gaining pace while there were warnings in Europe that heterosexual contacts had become the chief transmission route.

And French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy lent her star power to the global campaign against AIDS by calling for greater efforts to beat mother-to-child HIV transmission.

In China President Hu Jintao called on people in the world's most populous nation not to discriminate against those with HIV.

You "must care more and better for AIDS patients and people living with HIV, and in particular guide society into not discriminating against them," Hu told AIDS prevention volunteers in Beijing, comments broadcast by state television.

Levels of stigma and discrimination against sufferers remain high in large parts of Asia such as South Korea where many foreign workers are forced to undergo mandatory HIV tests to secure visas.

In an annual report released last week, the UN said that around two million people died of the disease in 2008, bringing the overall toll to around 25 million since the virus was first detected three decades ago.

Almost 60 million people have been infected by the HIV virus since it was first recorded, the UNAIDS agency said in its report, putting the total number of people currently living with the virus at 33.4 million. Related article: Uganda memory books tell of stark AIDS truths

South Africa remains the world's worst-hit country, a status which many campaigners have attributed to a history of "denialism" within government.

President Jacob Zuma, who was then head of the National AIDS Council, provoked ridicule three years ago when he said that he had showered to wash away the risk of AIDS after having sex with an HIV-positive woman.

But since then, Zuma has been trying to reshape his image and used World AIDS Day to announce a raft of new measures to rein in the disease that has hit 5.7 million of South Africa's 48 million people.

"Let today be the dawn of a new era. Let there be no more shame, no more blame, no more discrimination and no more stigma," he said in his speech.

The most eye-catching announcement from Zuma was that all babies with HIV would receive anti-retroviral treatment.

"All children under one year of age will get treatment if they test positive," Zuma said.

He also announced expanded treatment for pregnant women, in a bid to prevent the transmission of HIV to their children.

And he said that he planned to be tested again and urged the public to follow his lead.

"I am making arrangements for my own test. I have taken HIV tests before, and I know my status. I will do another test soon," he said. "I urge you to start planning for your own tests."

China's health ministry said homosexual transmission of the disease was gaining pace and called for health authorities nationwide to step up prevention work.

"Sexual contact continues to be the main channel of transmission with the speed of homosexual transmission clearly increasing," the health ministry said.

"This is a new situation that we need to pay attention to."

By the end of October 2009, China had 319,877 registered cases of HIV/AIDS, including 48,000 new cases this year, while nearly 50,000 people have died in China to AIDS, the ministry said.

The ministry has estimated that up to 740,000 people in China live with HIV.

But in a sign the epidemic is mutating differently in other parts of the world, authorities in the Ukraine said heterosexual contacts had become the chief transmission route for the HIV virus.

"Heterosexual contact has become the chief transmission path as the number of new cases transmitted through drug consumption has dropped," the UNAIDS coordinator in Ukraine Anna Shakarishvili told reporters.

Ukraine is one of Europe's worst affected countries. Some 340,000 people aged over 15 years are considered HIV-positive, which amounts to 0.86 percent of the adult population, government statistics showed.

UNAIDS website



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