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New discoveries in cell aging

[N.B....Fullerenes (Hydrated Fullerenes Hy-C60) likely regulate/prevent protein aggregation and protein mis-folding--WD]

New discoveries in cell aging

A group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and
Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have achieved to
quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging
processes using as models the Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which
triggers Alzheimer's disease. Scientists demonstrated that the effect can be
predicted before it occurs. Protein aggregation is related to several diseases,
including neurodegenerative diseases.

The research, published recently in the Journal of Molecular Biology, provides an
extremely reliable system with which to model and quantify the effect of
protein aggregation on the viability, division and aging of cells. It also aids
in further understanding the natural evolution of proteins. According to
Salvador Ventura, researcher at IBB and director of the research project, "it
will serve to develop computer approximations to predict the effects
aggregation has on cell aging, as well as to search for molecules that act as
natural chaperones, highly conserved proteins which are present also in humans
and which have the ability to reduce this effect in the bacteria".

Although it is widely accepted that bad folding and aggregation of proteins reduces the
cell's ability to survive and reproduce, the damage caused had not been
previously measured experimentally as precisely as it was in this research.

In previous studies scientists had verified that the expression of the Alzheimer's AB42
peptide in bacteria induces the process of protein aggregation. Now they have
demonstrated that this effect is coded in the protein aggregation sequence and
that it depends on intrinsic properties, not on a direct response from within
the cell. This makes it possible to predict the effect. Scientists also
demonstrated that damage caused to the bacteria is controlled by molecular
chaperones, which reduce the tendency of proteins to aggregate and favour cell
survival.

In addition to researchers from IBB and the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, participating in the project were scientists from the Biophysics Unit
at CSIC-UPV, the University of the Basque Country, the Institute for
Bioengineering of Catalonia and the Barcelona Centre for International Health
Research.

 

Cancer Biomarkers: Molecular fingerprint discovered that may improve outcomes for head and neck cancer patients

January 23, 2012 – (BRONX, NY) – Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein, have found a biomarker in head and neck cancers that can predict whether a patient's tumor will be life threatening. The biomarker is considered particularly promising because it can detect the level of risk immediately following diagnosis. This discovery could become a component of a new test to guide how aggressively those with head and neck tumors should be treated. The findings were published online January 9 in the American Journal of Pathology.

"Previous efforts to identify biomarkers for guiding treatment of head and neck cancer have not developed anything clinically useful for patients," said Geoffrey Childs, Ph.D., professor of pathology at Einstein and co-senior author of the paper.

Head and neck cancers, the sixth most common malignancy among men worldwide, most often affect the mouth, back of the throat and larynx (voice box). Smoking and alcohol use are major risk factors. Only half of patients are still alive more than five years after diagnosis—a survival rate that hasn't changed in 40 years.

In their study, researchers took tissue samples from tumors and nearby healthy tissue of 123 head and neck cancer patients at Montefiore and measured levels of 736 members of a class of RNA molecules known as microRNAs. Certain members of this family of RNAs, which regulate protein abundance in cells, are abnormally expressed in head and neck cancers as well as every other malignant cell type yet examined. Of all the microRNAs measured, one in particular – miR-375 – stood out for being the most down-regulated (i.e., expressed at low levels) in head and neck tumors compared with its levels in adjacent normal tissue.

The researchers ranked these 123 patients according to how extreme the difference was between the miR-375 in their tumor and in adjacent normal tissue, with that difference expressed as the ratio "miR-375 level in patient's tumor tissue divided by miR-375 level in patient's normal tissue." All patients were then followed throughout the course of their illness.

MiR-375 proved to be a highly useful biomarker for predicting disease outcome. The patients for whom the difference between their tumor and normal-tissue miR-375 levels was most extreme (i.e., the one-fourth of patients with the lowest ratios) were nearly 13 times more likely to die or 9 times more likely to experience distant spread (metastasis) of their cancer compared to patients with higher miR-375 ratios.

"As as a result of our study," Dr. Childs noted, "we hope that miR-375 will become part of a laboratory test to determine which patients have potentially lethal tumors and therefore should be treated aggressively following initial diagnosis. Our entire head and neck cancer group is working to identify and refine additional biomarkers to create a useful clinical test or 'personalized genetic signature' to help individual patients get the best possible treatment."

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The title of the paper is "Low-Level Expression of miR-375 Correlates with Poor Outcome and Metastasis While Altering the Invasive Properties of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas." Other Einstein-Montefiore researchers involved in the study were Jeffrey E. Segall, Ph.D.; Thomas M. Harris, Ph.D.; Lizandra Jimenez, M.S.; Nicole Kawachi, M.S.; Thomas J. Belbin, Ph.D.; Andrew Ramnauth, B.S.; Olivier D. Loudig, Ph.D.; Christian E. Keller, M.D.; Nicolas F. Schlecht, Ph.D.; and Michael B. Prystowsky, M.D., Ph.D. Surgery was carried out by co-author Richard V. Smith, M.D. and members of the head and neck surgery team. This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. In 2011, Einstein received nearly $170 million in awards from the NIH for major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS, as well as other areas. Through its affiliation with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein, and six other hospital systems, the College of Medicine runs one of the largest post-graduate medical training programs in the United States, offering 155 residency programs to more than 2,200 physicians in training. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu and follow us on Twitter @EinsteinMed.

Montefiore Medical Center

As the University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore is a premier academic medical center nationally renowned for its clinical excellence, scientific discovery and commitment to its community. Montefiore is consistently recognized among the top hospitals nationally by U.S. News & World Report, and excels at educating tomorrow's healthcare professionals in superior clinical and humanistic care. Linked by advanced technology, Montefiore is a comprehensive and integrated health system that derives its inspiration for excellence from its patients and community. For more information, please visit www.montefiore.org and www.montekids.org and follow us on Twitter @MontefioreNews.

Could Siberian volcanism have caused the Earth’s largest extinction event?

Washington, D.C. — Around 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian geologic period, there was a mass extinction so severe that it remains the most traumatic known species die-off in Earth’s history. Although the cause of this event is a mystery, it has been speculated that the eruption of a large swath of volcanic rock in Russia called the Siberian Traps was a trigger for the extinction. New research from Carnegie’s Linda Elkins-Tanton and her co-authors offers insight into how this volcanism could have contributed to drastic deterioration in the global environment of the period. Their work is published January 9 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The end-Permian mass extinction saw the sudden loss of more than 90 percent of marine species and more than 70 percent of terrestrial species. The fossil record suggests that ecological diversity did not fully recover until several million years after the main pulse of the extinction. This suggests that environmental conditions remained inhospitable for an extended period of time.

Volcanic activity in the Siberian Traps has been proposed as one of the mechanisms that may have triggered the mass extinction. Gases released as a result of Siberian magmatism could have caused environmental damage. For example, perhaps sulfur particles in the atmosphere reflected the sun’s heat back into space, cooling the planet; or maybe chlorine and other chemically similar nonmetal elements called halogens significantly damaged the ozone layer in the stratosphere.

The team designed experiments to examine these possibilities.

Led by Benjamin Black of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the group included Elkins-Tanton, formerly of MIT and now director of Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Michael C. Rowe of Washington State University, and Ingrid Ukstins Peate of the University of Iowa.

The geology of the Siberian Traps is comprised of flood basalts, which form when giant lava eruptions coat large swaths of land or ocean floor with basaltic lava. This lava hardens into rock formations. The team investigated concentrations of sulfur, chlorine and fluorine (another halogen) that were dissolved in tiny samples of ancient magma found within basalt samples from the Siberian Traps. These small frozen droplets, which preserve a record of volcanic gases from the time of the eruption 250 million years ago, are called melt inclusions.

Sulfur, chlorine, and fluorine gasses could have been released into the atmosphere from eruptions spewing out of large fissures, which is common in basalt flood formation. Plumes escaping from these cracks could have reached the stratosphere. If sulfur, chlorine, and fluorine made it to the upper atmosphere, these gasses could have cause a wide array of adverse climate events, including temperature change and acid rain.

Based on their findings, the team estimated that between 6,300 and 7,800 gigatonnes of sulfur, between 3,400 and 8,700 gigatonnes of chlorine, and between 7,100 and 13,700 gigatonnes of fluorine were released from magma in the Siberian Traps during the end of the Permian period.

They say more research on atmospheric chemistry and climate modeling is urgently needed to determine whether these gasses could have been responsible for the mass extinction.

 

Caption: The moon-like landscape of the mountains reveals the volcanic origins of Siberia's Putorana Plateau. Photo is courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC.

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Funding for this research was provided by the NSF’s Continental Dynamics program, the MIT Wade Fund, and University of Iowa start-up funds. Some samples were provided by the American Museum of Natural History

Zbigniew Brzezinski: National Strategy and US Education

By Leonard Liggio

Foreign Policy magazine (January-February 2012) lists Zbigniew Brzezinski among the five most important living influences on US foreign policy. In the weekend Financial Times (January 14-15, 2012), Edward Luce (FT’s chief US commentator) describes his recent luncheon interview with the former National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter and current trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. After 1981, he continued in Washington as a professor at Georgetown University. Over his Dubonnet, he begins with his disappointment with President Barak Obama: “I’m all in favor of grand important speeches but the president then has to link his sermons to a strategy.” Although he has voted for Republican presidential candidates (such as George H. W. Bush in 1988) he is highly doubtful of the current Republican candidates. Compared to how well informed about the world he considers Chinese leaders: “And then you watch one of our Republican presidential debates …. The GOP field is just embarrassing.”

Brzezinski is 83 years old and was born in Warsaw. His father was a diplomat and Brzezinski spent his first three years in Paris and the next three in Berlin. His father was assigned to the embassy in Canada, so the family remained there when World War II began. He attributes his skills to attending Loyola High School in Montreal. (My graduate professor at Fordham University, Oskar Halecki (who had been secretary of the Polish delegation at the Versailles conference and then dean of Warsaw University) was a visiting professor at Grenoble University when the war began and was fortunate to move to Laval University in Quebec before the invasion of France.)

I first became aware of Brzezinski when I was working for the William Volker Fund assigned to read journal articles or books that might relate to its scholarly program. I extensively reviewed a book of Brzezinski written (c. 1961) (when he was at Harvard University) on the economic system of the Soviet Bloc. I recommended the book as knowledgeable and insightful.

He was appointed a professor of international relations at Columbia University. He became an advisor to Hubert Humphrey’s vice-presidential campaign and defended Lyndon B. Johnson’s war in Vietnam on the basis of the ‘Falling Dominos’ theory (if South Vietnam came under the Viet Cong, then Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia would become Communist.) (That theory arose in the 1950s: that Japan would want to trade with Red China if communists blocked Japan’s markets in Southeast Asia. Japan was trading with China through third countries, so the theory was questionable.)

Brzezinski opposed Republican senators critical of Johnson’s war. Senators Sterling Morton of Kentucky and Mark Hatfield of Oregon led the revival of the Republican party with over forty new Republican congressmen in 1966.

To him, today’s America appears to lack education in world politics. He sees a US failure in history and geography (French education always twined geography and history). “Americans don’t learn about the world, they don’t study world history, other than American history in a very one-sided fashion, and they don’t study geography. In that context of widespread ignorance, the ongoing and deliberately fanned fear about the outside world, which is connected with this grandiose war on jihadi terrorism, makes the American public extremely susceptible to extremist appeals.”

Fifty years ago when I began as a college instructor, there was a textbook which combined European and American history. However, as I was teaching fifteen hours a week the course in World Civilizations there was a dilemma. The chairman of the history and government department was a Viennese who had studied Japanese in the US army. He selected a textbook which went beyond European civilization to include: Hindu, Chinese, Japanese , etc. I had no background in those areas and told my five classes to ignore those chapters. American students have a hard enough time with European names, trying to have them or myself master exotic names was not education but chaos. I am reminded of one of my colleagues, a Chinese refugee from Red China, who upset his students of Chinese history when he later explained that the first seven dynasties they had struggled to learn were mythical.

Brzezinski considers America’s greatest national security threat to be the weak US economic situation, especially the political failure to address the government’s economic problems. His strategic advice: “the US should prod Europe to bring both Russia and Turkey into an enlarged west. America should hedge against China’s rise, without explicitly attempting to contain it. Most importantly, the US should revitalize its domestic economy if it wants to stave off further decline. On all counts, Brzezinski seems pessimistic about the likelihood that Washington’s elites will start to act strategically again.”

In Solar Cells, Tweaking the Tiniest of Parts -Quantum dots Yields Big Jump in Efficiency

Company led by university researchers employs charged quantum dots to increase the efficiency of solar cell technology

-- Researchers from the University at Buffalo, Army Research Laboratory and Air Force Office of Scientific Research have developed a new, nanomaterials-based technology that has the potential to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells up to 45 percent.

-- Specifically, the researchers have shown that embedding charged quantum dots into solar cells can improve electrical output by enabling the cells to harvest infrared light, and by increasing the lifetime of photoelectrons. The technology can be applied to many different photovoltaic structures.

-- A new company the researchers founded, OPtoElectronic Nanodevices LLC. (OPEN LLC), is commercializing this technology.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- By tweaking the smallest of parts, a trio of University at Buffalo engineers is hoping to dramatically increase the amount of sunlight that solar cells convert into electricity.

With military colleagues, the UB researchers have shown that embedding charged quantum dots into photovoltaic cells can improve electrical output by enabling the cells to harvest infrared light, and by increasing the lifetime of photoelectrons.

The research appeared online last May in the journal Nano Letters. The research team included Vladimir Mitin, Andrei Sergeev and Nizami Vagidov, faculty members in UB's electrical engineering department; Kitt Reinhardt of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research; and John Little and advanced nanofabrication expert Kimberly Sablon of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Mitin, Sergeev and Vagidov have founded a company, OPtoElectronic Nanodevices LLC. (OPEN LLC.), to bring the innovation to the market.

The idea of embedding quantum dots into solar panels is not new: According to Mitin, scientists had proposed about a decade ago that this technique could improve efficiency by allowing panels to harvest invisible, infrared light in addition to visible light. However, intensive efforts in this direction have previously met with limited success.

The UB researchers and their colleagues have not only successfully used embedded quantum dots to harvest infrared light; they have taken the technology a step further, employing selective doping so that quantum dots within the solar cell have a significant built-in charge.

This built-in charge is beneficial because it repels electrons, forcing them to travel around the quantum dots. Otherwise, the quantum dots create a channel of recombination for electrons, in essence "capturing" moving electrons and preventing them from contributing to electric current.

The technology has the potential to increase the efficiency of solar cells up to 45 percent, said Mitin, a SUNY Distinguished Professor. Through UB's Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), he and his colleagues have filed provisional patent applications to protect their technology.

"Clean technology will really benefit the region, the state, the country," Mitin said. "With high-efficiency solar cells, consumers can save money and providers can have a smaller solar field that produces more energy."

Mitin and his colleagues have already invested significant amounts of time in developing the quantum dots with a built-in-charge, dubbed "Q-BICs." To further enhance the technology and bring it to the market, OPEN LLC is now seeking funding from private investors and federal programs.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.

Related Stories:

Vladimir Mitin Among Three UB Faculty Members Named SUNY Distinguished Professors: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/9243

ion beams detect art forgery

Notre Dame physicists use ion beams to detect art forgery

University of Notre Dame nuclear physicists Philippe Collon and Michael Wiescher are using accelerated ion beams to pinpoint the age and origin of material used in pottery, painting, metalwork and other art. The results of their tests can serve as powerful forensic tools to reveal counterfeit art work, without the destruction of any sample as required in some chemical analysis.

Their research is featured on the front cover of the current issue of Physics Today in an article titled, "Accelerated ion beams for art forensics." Wiescher and Collon say, "Art experts play an important role in identifying the style, history and context of a painting, but a solid scientific basis for the proper identification and classification of a piece of art must rely on information from other sources.

"A host of approaches with origins in biology, chemistry and physics have allowed scientists and art historians not only to look below a painting's or artifact's surface, but also to analyze in detail the pigments used, investigate painting techniques and modifications done by the artist or art restorers, find trace materials that reveal ages and provenances, and more," Wiescher and Collon continue.

The information that is revealed can shed light on trading patterns, economic conditions and other details of history. For example, the amount of silver in Roman coins can indicate the degree of inflation in the ancient economy.

Laboratories in Europe, including several in Italy and one in the basement of the Louvre in Paris, have accelerators dedicated to the forensic analysis of art, and archaeological artifacts. These accelerator-based techniques have allowed not only to analyze the works themselves, but also to determine origin, trade and migration routes as well as dietary information. As an example, the analysis of the ruby eyes in a Babylonian statue of the goddess Ishtar using the Louvre's accelerator showed that the rubies came from a mine in Vietnam, demonstrating that trade occurred between those far-apart regions some 4,000 years ago.

At Notre Dame, researchers are using proton-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) and Accelerator Mass Spectroscopy (AMS) to study artifacts brought by local archeologists, Native American cultures in the American Southwest and the Snite Museum of Art extensive collection of Mezzo-American figurines.

Wiescher, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Physics, and Collon, associate professor of physics, are using their findings to teach undergraduates. Wiescher initially developed the undergraduate physics class called Physical Methods in Art and Archaeology, and now Collon teaches the class which attracts students from nearly every major. The course covers topics such as X-ray fluorescence and X-ray absorption, proton-induced X-ray emission, neutron-induced activation analysis, radiocarbon dating, accelerator mass spectroscopy, luminescence dating, and methods of archeometry.

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The advantage of ambiguity --why does human language has so many words with multiple meanings?

Cognitive scientists develop a new take on an old problem: why human language has so many words with multiple meanings.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Why did language evolve? While the answer might seem obvious — as a way for individuals to exchange information — linguists and other students of communication have debated this question for years. Many prominent linguists, including MIT’s Noam Chomsky, have argued that language is, in fact, poorly designed for communication. Such a use, they say, is merely a byproduct of a system that probably evolved for other reasons — perhaps for structuring our own private thoughts.

As evidence, these linguists point to the existence of ambiguity: In a system optimized for conveying information between a speaker and a listener, they argue, each word would have just one meaning, eliminating any chance of confusion or misunderstanding. Now, a group of MIT cognitive scientists has turned this idea on its head. In a new theory, they claim that ambiguity actually makes language more efficient, by allowing for the reuse of short, efficient sounds that listeners can easily disambiguate with the help of context.

“Various people have said that ambiguity is a problem for communication,” says Ted Gibson, an MIT professor of cognitive science and senior author of a paper describing the research to appear in the journal Cognition. “But once we understand that context disambiguates, then ambiguity is not a problem — it’s something you can take advantage of, because you can reuse easy [words] in different contexts over and over again.”

Lead author of the paper is Steven Piantadosi PhD ’11; Harry Tily, a postdoc in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, is another co-author.

What do you ‘mean’?

For a somewhat ironic example of ambiguity, consider the word “mean.” It can mean, of course, to indicate or signify, but it can also refer to an intention or purpose (“I meant to go to the store”); something offensive or nasty; or the mathematical average of a set of numbers. Adding an ‘s’ introduces even more potential definitions: an instrument or method (“a means to an end”), or financial resources (“to live within one’s means”).

But virtually no speaker of English gets confused when he or she hears the word “mean.” That’s because the different senses of the word occur in such different contexts as to allow listeners to infer its meaning nearly automatically.

Given the disambiguating power of context, the researchers hypothesized that languages might harness ambiguity to reuse words — most likely, the easiest words for language processing systems. Building on observation and previous studies, they posited that words with fewer syllables, high frequency and the simplest pronunciations should have the most meanings.

To test this prediction, Piantadosi, Tily and Gibson carried out corpus studies of English, Dutch and German. (In linguistics, a corpus is a large body of samples of language as it is used naturally, which can be used to search for word frequencies or patterns.) By comparing certain properties of words to their numbers of meanings, the researchers confirmed their suspicion that shorter, more frequent words, as well as those that conform to the language’s typical sound patterns, are most likely to be ambiguous — trends that were statistically significant in all three languages.

To understand why ambiguity makes a language more efficient rather than less so, think about the competing desires of the speaker and the listener. The speaker is interested in conveying as much as possible with the fewest possible words, while the listener is aiming to get a complete and specific understanding of what the speaker is trying to say. But as the researchers write, it is “cognitively cheaper” to have the listener infer certain things from the context than to have the speaker spend time on longer and more complicated utterances. The result is a system that skews toward ambiguity, reusing the “easiest” words. Once context is considered, it’s clear that “ambiguity is actually something you would want in the communication system,” Piantadosi says.

Implications for computer science

The researchers say the statistical nature of their paper reflects a trend in the field of linguistics, which is coming to rely more heavily on information theory and quantitative methods.

“The influence of computer science in linguistics right now is very high,” Gibson says, adding that natural language processing (NLP) is a major goal of those operating at the intersection of the two fields.

Piantadosi points out that ambiguity in natural language poses immense challenges for NLP developers. “Ambiguity is only good for us [as humans] because we have these really sophisticated cognitive mechanisms for disambiguating,” he says. “It’s really difficult to work out the details of what those are, or even some sort of approximation that you could get a computer to use.”

But, as Gibson says, computer scientists have long been aware of this problem. The new study provides a better theoretical and evolutionary explanation of why ambiguity exists, but the same message holds: “Basically, if you have any human language in your input or output, you are stuck with needing context to disambiguate,” he says.

Written by: Emily Finn, MIT News Office

Why bats, rats and cats store different amounts of fat

Animals differ in the amount of fat they carry around depending on their species, status and sex. However, the causes of much of this variation have been a mystery. The Bristol study shows that many differences can be understood by considering the strategies animals employ to avoid two causes of death: starvation and being killed by predators.

These causes of death often exert opposite pressures on animals, for example, storing lots of fat helps animals survive periods without food but also slows their running and so makes getting caught by a predator more likely. Animals can be stronger to compensate, but the energetic costs of extra muscle mean that the animal would starve quicker during a food shortage.

Led by Dr Andrew Higginson of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, the researchers used mathematical models to explore how much muscle and fat animals should have in their body to give themselves the best chance of survival. They showed that an important consideration was how much carrying fat increases the energetic costs of movement. The models revealed that the size of this cost influenced whether larger animals should have more fat than smaller animals, or vice versa.

Dr Higginson said: "Our results explain differences between different families of mammal. For example, larger bats carry proportionally less fat than small bats but larger carnivores carry more fat than small carnivores. Among rodents, it's the medium-sized species that carry around the most fat! These differences agree with the models predictions if you consider the costs of carrying fat for these three groups. Bats fly and so have high costs of carrying extra weight, whilst carnivores spend much of their time resting and so will use less energy than busy scurrying rodents."

The work, published in The American Naturalist, also shows that much of the variation between animals in their amounts of fat and muscle can be explained by differences between the sexes, how much animals have to fight to get food, and the climate in which they live.

The researchers plan to put the theory to the test by looking in more detail at the amounts of fat stored by different animals. If their theory is correct, much of the mystery in how species and sexes differ in their amount of fat will have been solved.

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How antiseptic proteins in teardrops, lysozymes annihilate harmful bacteria

UCI team discovers how protein in teardrops annihilates harmful bacteria

Finding that lysozymes have jaws could aid in early diagnosis of cancer

Irvine, Calif. – A disease-fighting protein in our teardrops has been tethered to a tiny transistor, enabling UC Irvine scientists to discover exactly how it destroys dangerous bacteria. The research could prove critical to long-term work aimed at diagnosing cancers and other illnesses in their very early stages.

Ever since Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming found that human tears contain antiseptic proteins called lysozymes about a century ago, scientists have tried to solve the mystery of how they could relentlessly wipe out far larger bacteria. It turns out that lysozymes have jaws that latch on and chomp through rows of cell walls like someone hungrily devouring an ear of corn, according to findings that will be published Jan. 20 in the journal Science.

"Those jaws chew apart the walls of the bacteria that are trying to get into your eyes and infect them," said molecular biologist and chemistry professor Gregory Weiss, who co-led the project with associate professor of physics & astronomy Philip Collins.

The researchers decoded the protein's behavior by building one of the world's smallest transistors – 25 times smaller than similar circuitry in laptop computers or smartphones. Individual lysozymes were glued to the live wire, and its eating activities were monitored.

"Our circuits are molecule-sized microphones," Collins said. "It's just like a stethoscope listening to your heart, except we're listening to a single molecule of protein."

It took years for the UCI scientists to assemble the transistor and attach single-molecule teardrop proteins. The scientists hope the same novel technology can be used to detect cancerous molecules. It could take a decade to figure out, but would be well worth it, said Weiss, who lost his father to lung cancer.

"If we can detect single molecules associated with cancer, then that means we'd be able to detect it very, very early," Weiss said. "That would be very exciting, because we know that if we treat cancer early, it will be much more successful, patients will be cured much faster, and costs will be much less."

 

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The project was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation. Co-authors of the Science paper are Yongki Choi, Issa Moody, Patrick Sims, Steven Hunt, Brad Corso and Israel Perez.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's second-largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. Use of this line is available for a fee to radio news programs/stations that wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.

UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit www.today.uci.edu/experts. For UCI breaking news, visit www.zotwire.uci.edu.

The biodiversity crisis: Worse than climate change

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Biodiversity

Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for the planet. This is the main conclusion from scientists from University of Copenhagen, after 100 researchers and policy experts from EU countries were gathered this week at the University of Copenhagen to discuss how to organise the future UN Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES - an equivalent to the UN panel on climate change (IPCC).

Species extinction and the degradation of ecosystems are proceeding rapidly and the pace is accelerating. The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.

Mass extinctions of species have occurred five times previously in the history of the world – last time was 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs and many other species disappeared. Previous periods of mass extinction and ecosystem change were driven by global changes in climate and in atmospheric chemistry, impacts by asteroids and volcanism. Now we are in the 6th mass extinction event, which is a result of a competition for resources between one species on the planet – humans – and all others. The process towards extinction is mainly caused by habitat degradation, whose effect on biodiversity is worsened by the ongoing human-induced climate change.

"The biodiversity crisis – i.e. the rapid loss of species and the rapid degradation of ecosystems – is probably a greater threat than global climate change to the stability and prosperous future of mankind on Earth. There is a need for scientists, politicians and government authorities to closely collaborate if we are to solve this crisis. This makes the need to establish IPBES very urgent, which may happen at a UN meeting in Panama City in April," says professor Carsten Rahbek, Director for the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen.

A biodiversity equivalent to the UN panel on climate change

Professor Rahbek was one of the main forces behind this week’s conference on biodiversity and the organisation of the new Biodiversity panel IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). The conference was arranged and hosted in cooperation with the Danish Ministry of Environment and took place at the University of Copenhagen, where more than 100 scientists and decision makers, primarily from EU countries were gathered. The conference has been organised just as Denmark is taking over the EU Presidency, which provides an opportunity to influence the process of organising the UN Biodiversity Panel.

The new panel is the biodiversity equivalent to the UN panel on climate change, which has resulted in enhanced policy awareness and changes around the world, and initiated a change of behaviour for billions of people in many companies. Unfortunately, the same is not true when it comes to reducing the threats to ecosystems and the loss of animal and plant species.

"There is a need to produce future scenarios that are easily understood and at the same time bring together the best scientists in this field. It is technically possible to develop such scenarios, if they are requested by decision-makers and politicians involved in the IPBES process. The myth that university scientists cannot or will not contribute to concrete solutions of large-scale society problems in close collaboration with practitioners, decision makers and politicians has been shown to be untrue through our close engagement in the organisation and participation in these workshops. The collaboration between the Danish Ministry of Environment, the EU presidency and University of Copenhagen over organising this conference is a successful example of how universities can contribute in dealing with some of the largest challenges that face the world at large," states Carsten Rahbek.

The Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at University of Copenhagen led by Carsten Rahbek and producing world class research within biodiversity is arranging this conference in cooperation with the ministry of environment and EPBRS, European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy supported by EEA.

Further information:

Professor Carsten Rahbek
Mobile: +45 40 96 39 67

The Convention on Biological Diversity
UN Environment Program on biodiversity
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

UC Davis researchers refine nanoparticles (dual-responsive boronate cross-linked micelles (BCMs)) for more accurate delivery of cancer drugs

January 18, 2012

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —

A new class of nanoparticles, synthesized by a UC Davis research team to prevent premature drug release, holds promise for greater accuracy and effectiveness in delivering cancer drugs to tumors. The work is published in the current issue of Angewandte Chemie, a leading international chemistry journal.

In their paper, featured on the inside back cover of the journal, Kit Lam, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, and his team report on the synthesis of a novel class of micelles called dual-responsive boronate cross-linked micelles (BCMs) , which produce physicochemical changes in response to specific triggers.

A micelle is an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in water-based liquid such as saline. Micelles are nano-sized, measuring about 25-50 nanometers (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter), and can function as nanocarriers for drug delivery.

BCMs are a unique type of micelle, which releases the payload quickly when triggered by the acidic micro-environment of the tumor or when exposed to an intravenously administered chemical compound such as mannitol, an FDA-approved sugar compound often used as a diuretic agent, which interferes with the cross-linked micelles.

"This use of reversibly cross-linked targeting micellar nanocarriers to deliver anti-cancer drugs helps prevent premature drug release during circulation and ensures delivery of high concentrations of drugs to the tumor site," said first author Yuanpei Li, a postdoctoral fellow in Lam's laboratory who created the novel nanoparticle with Lam. "It holds great promise for a significant improvement in cancer therapy."

Stimuli-responsive nanoparticles are gaining considerable attention in the field of drug delivery due to their ability to transform in response to specific triggers. Among these nanoparticles, stimuli-responsive cross-linked micelles (SCMs) represent a versatile nanocarrier system for tumor-targeting drug delivery.

Too often, nanoparticles release drugs prematurely and miss their target. SCMs can better retain the encapsulated drug and minimize its premature release while circulating in the blood pool. The introduction of environmentally sensitive cross-linkers makes these micelles responsive to the local environment of the tumor. In these instances, the payload drug is released primarily in the cancerous tissue.

The dual-responsive boronate cross-linked micelles that Lam's team has developed represent an even smarter second generation of SCMs able to respond to multiple stimuli as tools for accomplishing the multi-stage delivery of drugs to the complex in vivo tumor micro-environment. These BCMs deliver drugs based on the self-assembly of boronic acid-containing polymers and catechol-containing polymers, both of which make these micelles unusually sensitive to changes in the pH of the environment. The team has optimized the stability of the resulting boronate cross-linked micelles as well as their stimuli-response to acidic pH and mannitol.

This novel nano-carrier platform shows great promise for drug delivery that minimizes premature drug release and can release the drug on demand within the acidic tumor micro-environment or in the acidic cellular compartments when taken in by the target tumor cells. It also can be induced to release the drug through the intravenous administration of mannitol.

The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Postdoctoral Award. Other authors are Wenwu Xiao, Kai Xiao, Lorenzo Berti, Harry P. Tseng, and Gabriel Fung of UC Davis; and Juntao Luo of SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York.

UC Davis Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute- designated center serving the Central Valley and inland Northern California, a region of more than 6 million people. Its top specialists provide compassionate, comprehensive care for more than 9,000 adults and children every year, and offer patients access to more than 150 clinical trials at any given time. Its innovative research program includes more than 280 scientists at UC Davis and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The unique partnership, the first between a major cancer center and national laboratory, has resulted in the discovery of new tools to diagnose and treat cancer. Through the Cancer Care Network, UC Davis is collaborating with a number of hospitals and clinical centers throughout the Central Valley and Northern California regions to offer the latest cancer-care services. For more information, visit cancer.ucdavis.edu.

Carbon dioxide is "driving fish crazy"

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.

Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes’ ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, says Professor Philip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

“For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 – and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival,” Prof. Munday says.

In their latest paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Munday and colleagues report world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.

“We’ve found that elevated CO2 in the oceans can directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, which poses a direct and previously unknown threat to sea life,” Prof. Munday says.

Prof. Munday and his colleagues began by studying how baby clown and damsel fishes performed alongside their predators in CO2-enriched water. They found that, while the predators were somewhat affected, the baby fish suffered much higher rates of attrition.

“Our early work showed that the sense of smell of baby fish was harmed by higher CO2 in the water – meaning they found it harder to locate a reef to settle on or detect the warning smell of a predator fish. But we suspected there was much more to it than the loss of ability to smell.”

The team then examined whether fishes’ sense of hearing – used to locate and home in on reefs at night, and avoid them during the day – was affected. “The answer is, yes it was. They were confused and no longer avoided reef sounds during the day. Being attracted to reefs during daylight would make them easy meat for predators.”

Other work showed the fish also tended to lose their natural instinct to turn left or right – an important factor in schooling behaviour which also makes them more vulnerable, as lone fish are easily eaten by predators.

“All this led us to suspect it wasn’t simply damage to their individual senses that was going on – but rather, that higher levels of carbon dioxide were affecting their whole central nervous system.”

The team’s latest research shows that high CO2 directly stimulates a receptor in the fish brain called GABA-A, leading to a reversal in its normal function and over-excitement of certain nerve signals.

While most animals with brains have GABA-A receptors, the team considers the effects of elevated CO2 are likely to be most felt by those living in water, as they have lower blood CO2 levels normally. The main impact is likely to be felt by some crustaceans and by most fishes, especially those which use a lot of oxygen.

Prof. Munday said that around 2.3 billion tonnes of human CO2 emissions dissolve into the world’s oceans every year, causing changes in the chemical environment of the water in which fish and other species live.

“We’ve now established it isn’t simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption – as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons – but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes’ nervous systems.”

The work shows that fish with high oxygen consumption are likely to be most affected, suggesting the effects of high CO2 may impair some species worse than others – possibly including important species targeted by the world’s fishing industries.

The team’s latest paper “Near-future CO2 levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function” by Göran E. Nilsson, Danielle L. Dixson, Paolo Domenici, Mark I. McCormick, Christina Sørensen, Sue-Ann Watson, and Philip L. Munday appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

View Images

More information:
Prof. Philip Munday, CoECRS and JCU, ph +61 (0)7 47815341 or 0408 714 794
Dr Sue-Ann Watson, CoECRS, ph +61 (0)419 422 815
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, ph +61 (0)417 741 638
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

When will the Recession End? Part 269 Oil And Gas Dependence Weakening Russia's Resistance to Crisis - Kudrin

Oil And Gas Dependence Weakening Russia's Resistance to Crisis - Kudrin

MAKHACHKALA, Russia. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Russia's dependence on oil and gas exports may "double" the impact on the country of the second wave of the global financial crisis, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin warned on Saturday.
Russia's "congenital problems" amplify the effects of the crisis on the country, Kudrin said at a meeting at Dagestan State University in Makhachkala.
"One of them is the problem of dependence on energy. Forty percent of state revenues and 40% to 45% of Russia's GDP come from profits from sales of oil and gas. This means that Russia may get a double blow during the second wave of the economic crisis," he said.
Focusing on the national currency alone would be the wrong path to take, he argued.
Strengthening the ruble would result in cheaper imports and hence damage domestic production, while taking no measures to strengthen the currency might set off uncontrolled inflation, he said.
He called for a diversified range of measures, including inflation control.
Kudrin gave a lecture at the university meeting entitled "The Global Economic Crisis and the Development Outlook for Russia."
University rector Murtuzali Rabadanov awarded him a diploma and gown of an honorary professor. Rabadanov said the title had been conferred on Kudrin in April 2011.

Sack your forecasters and embrace the chaos

Old Assumption: My business environment is stable so I can do annual plans once a year, and even some long range planning

New Assumption: My business environment is chaotic, uncertain and is in perpetual turbulence I need to be spotting and anticipate opportunity windows and threats/risks on an on-going basis, beyond my annual strategic planning cycle (like the Opportunity Clinic developed by Walter Derzko at the Idea Lab, Design Exchange, Toronto)

Walter Derzko

This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business

By: Robert Safian
January 9, 2012

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/generation-flux-future-of-business?partner=gnews

Sack your forecasters and embrace the
chaos
The business world is descending into chaos, and bosses should stop trying to fight it, writes Robert Safian. Long-range forecasts and strategic plans are a lost cause, so bosses should focus instead on developing a "mind-set that embraces instability, that tolerates -- and even enjoys -- recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions," Safian writes

When will the Recession End? Part 268 Russian news website stresses role of Facebook in driving today's protest moods in Russia

Russian news website stresses role of Facebook in driving today's protest moods

Text of report by Russian Gazeta.ru news website, often critical of the government, on 12 December

[Commentary by Boris Falikov under the "Trend" rubric: "Network of Non-Violence. The Cult of Friendship and Openness Has Transformed Facebook Into A Reliable Instrument for A Campaign of Civil Disobedience"]

A protest by citizens based on non-violent actions could prove to be a far more effective political instrument than the powerful ones of this world believe.

The social network Facebook finds itself at the centre of events connected with the Russian elections. It is on it that videos of numerous violations have appeared and have been immediately overrun with clusters of indignant comments.

While the state television channels were showing the usual ceremonial rubbish, Facebook users were testifying to what was happening, initially at the polling stations, and then on the streets of Moscow too.

It is not surprising that it was precisely on this network that the campaign in support of the rally "For Honest Elections sprang up, and in a few days attracted tens of thousands of potential participants. It is effectively around Facebook that a social movement dominated by well-educated urban-dwelling young people unhappy with the state of affairs in the country has united. But here is what is curious. The commonwealth of Facebook users continually insists on exclusively peaceful means of expressing protest. The spirit of nonviolence that reigns in it involuntarily brings to mind the satyagrahara (stubbornness in truth) of Mahatma Gandhi and the campaign of civil disobedience of Martin Luther King. With the difference that those great men called for the peaceful flouting of the law for the sake of a higher justice, while in Russia, people are peacefully defending the law with the same goal in view. The teachings of Gandhi and King had a religious impulse at their basis. What inspires the youths of the capital, who are at best indifferent towards religion?

What prompted Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg to create his virtual brainchild, which has won millions of adherents in just a few years, is well known. It was the need for friendship, the deficit of which is felt especially keenly in our contemporary atomized society. The computer wunderkind with his many hang-ups was not received in Harvard's closed clubs, so he created his own club, open to all.

You can argue as much as you like that virtual friendship is no match for real friendship, and even that it hinders socialization. You can say that people who have become glued to the computer screen have no time to tear themselves away from it for normal life. But the fact remains. Relations on Facebook are struck up easily, and, as a rule, do not bear a confrontational character.

Its main rival LiveJournal, for instance, brims over with aggression, and arguments on it not seldom give way to vulgar abuse. Zuckerberg's brainchild has a different character entirely. This is also facilitated by the magic word "like." At times it creates ethical complexities. For example, how can you record "like" about a message that in one electoral precinct a female monitor was kicked by the zealous officials of the electoral commission. But it is possible to "comment" on this vile piece of news or "share" it. These options also exist. At the same time, it is the friendly "like" that undoubtedly reigns on Facebook and determines relations on it.

The absolutization of friendship, all the signs suggest, is what endows Facebook users with the enthusiasm that Gandhi and Christ derived from Hinduism and Christianity. The protest movement that has arisen on this basis not only unites supporters, but also instills in them the hope that the opponent need not be seen as an irreconcilable enemy either. The main thing is not to respond to his aggression; after all, in this case he may in time turn into a friend (hence the calls not to be rude to the police at a rally, or even to give them flowers). As for the absolutely irreconcilable users, they will lose their former influence, and there will be nothing left for them to do but to depart in peace.

Why has Facebook and its cult of friendship and openness become the most successful platform of the protest movement in Russia? Probably because this protest is aimed, above all, against deceptio n and hypocrisy.

The authorities are behaving like a crook who has been caught in the act, but who insolently claims that he did not take anything belonging to anyone else, and as for the man who has been robbed, he has never laid eyes on him. Such cynical lies provoke moral indignation. In such a situation, even non-believers begin to swear by higher powers.

But Russia's religions, seeking to preserve good relations with the authorities, are maintaining a deathly silence, and not providing any outlet for moral indignation. It is not surprising that a social network with clear ethical guiding principles channels it so perfectly.

Meanwhile, the nature of this indignation is absolutely unintelligible to the country's leadership. It is not adverse to discoursing on morality itself, but only when this does not threaten its interests. And if it does, what kind of morality is this! No, it is enemy sabotage, aimed at overthrowing the existing order. Having become accustomed to regarding their own people as an object for manipulations, the authorities simply cannot believe that the dumb creature has suddenly begun to speak, making efforts to restore to itself a sense of its own worth. No, it is an enemy that broadcasts through its lips. However, Facebook displays a steadfast immunity to the promotion of such ideas. Curses aimed at the "malevolent yankees" sometimes by a miracle find their way onto its pages, but are seen there as foreign impregnations. No one argues with them, people simply do not pay attention to them.

The impression arises that the Russian authorities live in a parallel world that has no contact whatsoever with the world of the Facebook commonwealth. Hence they are adopting way-and-see tactics, consoling themselves with all the strength they can muster with the local scale of the protest. Russia with its enormous expanses are on our side, and the capital city's public will sow its wild oats and then disperse among the fashionable clubs.

All this has happened before. Stoned hippies used to thrust flowers into the barrels of soldiers' rifles. Where are these non-resisters now? Nothing in the world has changed, naked force reigns in it just as before. V.V. Putin once let fall, with his trademark sergeant-major's humour, - Gandhi is dead, and there is no one to talk to. And he is confident this time too that the capital's hysterics will make a loud noise for a while, and then die down. And that the transatlantic puppet masters headed by Ms Clinton will not succeed in realizing their cunning plan.

However, civil disobedience based on non-violent actions could prove to be a far more effective political instrument than the powerful ones of this world believe. It is fuelled by the energy of moral indignation, and it has the property of spreading over the top of social and even world-outlook barriers. The rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad showed that it has spilt out beyond the limits of Facebook and poured through the streets of Moscow. Virtual reality has become one with real life. But this could prove to be not life as it is seen from behind the walls of the Kremlin.

Credit: Gazeta.ru website, Moscow, in Russian 12 Dec 11

When will the recession End? Part 267 George Soros: Global Financial System In 'Self-Reinforcing Process Of Disintegration'

George Soros: Global Financial System In 'Self-Reinforcing Process Of Disintegration'

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/12/01/soros-world-financial-system-on-brink-of-collapse/

The world financial system not only isn’t functioning, it’s on the brink of collapse, according to investor George Soros.

The Hungarian-born philanthropist, who recently spent time in areas where his charities are active, such as Africa, said he sees a growing bifurcation between emerging and developed countries – and he’s more confident about prospects for the emerging ones.

Despite their assorted problems, including corruption, weak infrastructure and shaky government, developing countries are relatively unscathed by the “deflationary debt trap that the developed world is falling into,” Mr. Soros said at a New York gathering to mark the 10th anniversary of the International Senior Lawyers Project, a group that provides pro bono legal services around the world. Mr. Soros was among those honored by ISLP, for his work as founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, which supports democracy and human rights.

The current global financial system is in a “self-reinforcing process of disintegration,” Mr. Soros warned, and “the consequences could be quite disastrous. You have to do what you can to stop it developing in that direction.”

While the economic and fiscal woes of the developed world remain critical, Mr. Soros said his recent travels gave him a sense of optimism about Africa and the Arab world.

“A lot of positive things are happening,” he said. “I see Africa together with the Arab Spring as areas of progress. The Arab Spring was a revolutionary development.”

However, he noted, Hungary’s 1956 revolution changed the political atmosphere but didn’t bear fruit until 1989.

“You can’t expect immediate success but what is happening will have a lasting impact,” he said.

++++++++++++++++++

What is changing?

Billionaire investor George Soros says that the global financial system is on the brink of collapse

Why is this important?

The global financial system is in a "self-reinforcing process of disintegration which likely will be accelerated by further austerity measures coming from last week's European Community meeting. We may face far worse than another depression. Contact us today for help in how to deal now with a potential catastrophic meltdown in key international markets.

Fountains of methane 1,000m across erupt from Arctic ice

'Fountains' of methane 1,000m across erupt from Arctic ice - a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide 'Methane fields on a scale not seen before' - researcher More than 100 fountains, but could be 'thousands' Could cause rapid climate change Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2073686/Fountains-methane-1-000m-erupt-Arctic-ice--greenhouse-gas-30-times-potent-carbon-dioxide.html#ixzz1gYRmumuI

What bacteria don't know can hurt them

Interfering with the ability of biofilm-forming bacteria to sense starvation increases their susceptibility to antibiotics

		IMAGE:Dr. Dao Nguyen, now at McGill University, trained in the University of Washington lab of Dr. Pradeep Singh, a lung specialist who studies bacterial biofilm infections. Click here for more information.

Many infections, even those caused by antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, resist treatment. This paradox has vexed physicians for decades, and makes some infections impossible to cure.

A key cause of this resistance is that bacteria become starved for nutrients during infection. Starved bacteria resist killing by nearly every type of antibiotic, even ones they have never been exposed to before.

What produces starvation-induced antibiotic resistance, and how can it be overcome? In a paper appearing this week in Science, researchers report some surprising answers.

"Bacteria become starved when they exhaust nutrient supplies in the body, or if they live clustered together in groups know as biofilms," said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Dao Nguyen, an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University.

Biofilms are clusters of bacteria encased in a slimy coating, and can be found both in the natural environment as well as in human tissues where they cause disease. For example, biofilm bacteria grow in the scabs of chronic wounds, and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Bacteria in biofilms tolerate high levels of antibiotics without being killed.

"A chief cause of the resistance of biofilms is that bacteria on the outside of the clusters have the first shot at the nutrients that diffuse in," said Dr. Pradeep Singh, associate professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, the senior author of the study. "This produces starvation of the bacteria inside clusters, and severe resistance to killing."

		IMAGE:Dr. Pradeep Singh is a pulmonary and critical care physician at UW Medicine in Seattle and a scientist who studies bacterial biofilms and their resistance to antibiotics. Click here for more information.

Starvation was previously thought to produce resistance because most antibiotics target cellular functions needed for growth. When starved cells stop growing, these targets are no longer active. This effect could reduce the effectiveness of many drugs.

"While this idea is appealing, it presents a major dilemma," Nguyen noted. "Sensitizing starved bacteria to antibiotics could require stimulating their growth, and this could be dangerous during human infections."

Nguyen and Singh explored an alternative mechanism.

Microbiologists have long known that when bacteria sense that their nutrient supply is running low, they issue a chemical alarm signal. The alarm tells the bacteria to adjust their metabolism to prepare for starvation. Could this alarm also turn on functions that produce antibiotic resistance?

To test this idea, the team engineered bacteria in which the starvation alarm was inactivated, and then measured antibiotic resistance in experimental conditions in which bacteria were starved. To their amazement, bacteria unable to sense starvation were thousands of times more sensitive to killing than those that could, even though starvation arrested growth and the activity of antibiotic targets.

"That experiment was a turning point," Singh said. "It told us that the resistance of starved bacteria was an active response that could be blocked. It also indicated that starvation-induced protection only occurred if bacteria were aware that nutrients were running low."

		IMAGE:Bacterial clusters living in the lungs of a cystic fibrosis patient are highly resistant to killing by antibiotics. Click here for more information.

With the exciting result in hand, the researchers turned to two key questions. First does the starvation alarm produce resistance during actual infections? To test this the team examined naturally starved bacteria, biofilms, isolates taken from patients, and bacterial infections in mice. Sure enough, in all cases the bacteria unable to sense starvation were far easier to kill.

The second question was about the mechanism of the effect. How does starvation sensing produce such profound antibiotic resistance?

Again, the results were surprising.

Instead of well-described resistance mechanisms, like pumps that expel antibiotics from bacterial cells, the researchers found that the bacteria's protective mechanism defended them against toxic forms of oxygen, called radicals. This mechanism jives with new findings showing that antibiotics kill by generating these toxic radicals.

The findings suggest new approaches to improve treatment for a wide range of infections.

"Discovering new antibiotics has been challenging," Nguyen said. "One way to improve infection treatment is to make the drugs we already have work better. Our experiments suggest that antibiotic efficacy could be increased by disrupting key bacterial functions that have no obvious connection to antibiotic activity."

The work also highlights the critical advantage of being able to sense environmental conditions, even for single-celled organisms like bacteria. Cells unaware of their starvation were not protected, even though they ran out of nutrients and stopped growth. This proves again that, even for bacteria, "what you don't know can hurt you."

What bacteria don't know can hurt them

Interfering with the ability of biofilm-forming bacteria to sense starvation increases their susceptibility to antibiotics

		IMAGE:Dr. Dao Nguyen, now at McGill University, trained in the University of Washington lab of Dr. Pradeep Singh, a lung specialist who studies bacterial biofilm infections. Click here for more information.

Many infections, even those caused by antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, resist treatment. This paradox has vexed physicians for decades, and makes some infections impossible to cure.

A key cause of this resistance is that bacteria become starved for nutrients during infection. Starved bacteria resist killing by nearly every type of antibiotic, even ones they have never been exposed to before.

What produces starvation-induced antibiotic resistance, and how can it be overcome? In a paper appearing this week in Science, researchers report some surprising answers.

"Bacteria become starved when they exhaust nutrient supplies in the body, or if they live clustered together in groups know as biofilms," said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Dao Nguyen, an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University.

Biofilms are clusters of bacteria encased in a slimy coating, and can be found both in the natural environment as well as in human tissues where they cause disease. For example, biofilm bacteria grow in the scabs of chronic wounds, and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Bacteria in biofilms tolerate high levels of antibiotics without being killed.

"A chief cause of the resistance of biofilms is that bacteria on the outside of the clusters have the first shot at the nutrients that diffuse in," said Dr. Pradeep Singh, associate professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, the senior author of the study. "This produces starvation of the bacteria inside clusters, and severe resistance to killing."

		IMAGE:Dr. Pradeep Singh is a pulmonary and critical care physician at UW Medicine in Seattle and a scientist who studies bacterial biofilms and their resistance to antibiotics. Click here for more information.

Starvation was previously thought to produce resistance because most antibiotics target cellular functions needed for growth. When starved cells stop growing, these targets are no longer active. This effect could reduce the effectiveness of many drugs.

"While this idea is appealing, it presents a major dilemma," Nguyen noted. "Sensitizing starved bacteria to antibiotics could require stimulating their growth, and this could be dangerous during human infections."

Nguyen and Singh explored an alternative mechanism.

Microbiologists have long known that when bacteria sense that their nutrient supply is running low, they issue a chemical alarm signal. The alarm tells the bacteria to adjust their metabolism to prepare for starvation. Could this alarm also turn on functions that produce antibiotic resistance?

To test this idea, the team engineered bacteria in which the starvation alarm was inactivated, and then measured antibiotic resistance in experimental conditions in which bacteria were starved. To their amazement, bacteria unable to sense starvation were thousands of times more sensitive to killing than those that could, even though starvation arrested growth and the activity of antibiotic targets.

"That experiment was a turning point," Singh said. "It told us that the resistance of starved bacteria was an active response that could be blocked. It also indicated that starvation-induced protection only occurred if bacteria were aware that nutrients were running low."

		IMAGE:Bacterial clusters living in the lungs of a cystic fibrosis patient are highly resistant to killing by antibiotics. Click here for more information.

With the exciting result in hand, the researchers turned to two key questions. First does the starvation alarm produce resistance during actual infections? To test this the team examined naturally starved bacteria, biofilms, isolates taken from patients, and bacterial infections in mice. Sure enough, in all cases the bacteria unable to sense starvation were far easier to kill.

The second question was about the mechanism of the effect. How does starvation sensing produce such profound antibiotic resistance?

Again, the results were surprising.

Instead of well-described resistance mechanisms, like pumps that expel antibiotics from bacterial cells, the researchers found that the bacteria's protective mechanism defended them against toxic forms of oxygen, called radicals. This mechanism jives with new findings showing that antibiotics kill by generating these toxic radicals.

The findings suggest new approaches to improve treatment for a wide range of infections.

"Discovering new antibiotics has been challenging," Nguyen said. "One way to improve infection treatment is to make the drugs we already have work better. Our experiments suggest that antibiotic efficacy could be increased by disrupting key bacterial functions that have no obvious connection to antibiotic activity."

The work also highlights the critical advantage of being able to sense environmental conditions, even for single-celled organisms like bacteria. Cells unaware of their starvation were not protected, even though they ran out of nutrients and stopped growth. This proves again that, even for bacteria, "what you don't know can hurt you."

News from Ukraine about fullerenes in nanomedicine!!!

Science, Research & Technology
News from Ukraine about fullerenes in nanomedicine!!!

Grigoriy Andrievsky
Director of Science, PhD. at "Institute of Physiological Active Compounds" LLC
To:Walter Derzko, […]

Dear sir/madam,
Dear colleagues,

After many years of scientific research and extended preclinical and clinical trials, at the end of 2010 in Ukraine, for the first time in the world, the following products “Concentrated solutions of hydrated С60 fullerene” (C60FWS), “Water with hydrated С60 fullerene” and fully highly purified С60 fullerene were approved by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine for use as a component in food products and cosmetics. This includes their administration as a multifunctional dietary supplement, which has unique medicinal and preventive properties while, at the same time, being absolutely safe for humans.

You may find this same information upon visiting our site http://www.ipacom.com, in particular via the following links: http://www.ipacom.com/index.php/ru/products-left/68 and
http://www.ipacom.com/index.php/ru/products
http://ipacom.com/index.php/en/fullerenes-and-water-left/74
http://ipacom.com/index.php/en/publications-about-c60hyfn/70
http://ipacom.com/images/Articles/annotation_en.pdf

In addition, you may see our News and obtain the file of presentation: “About the most important physical, chemical and biological properties of hydrated С60 fullerene (С60HyFn) and its water solutions (С60FWS)” on our site:
http://ipacom.com/index.php/en/publications-about-c60hyfn/92

Thus, the water solutions of hydrated fullerene С60 have already become available commercially and they can now be purchased for your own research and applications in many areas of human activity and, especially, as optimum means for preventive medicine of the future.

Thank you very much in advance.

On behalf of my colleagues,

Grigoriy Andrievsky

Director of Science, PhD.
Institute of Physiological Active Compounds, LLC.
58, Lenin ave.,
61072, Kharkov,
Ukraine
Phone: +38 057 763 0521 (Phone/Fax, Office)
+38 057 763 0336 (Lab.)
E-mail: yard@kharkov.ua or
science@ipacom.com
http://www.ipacom.com (russ./engl.)

Walking through doorways causes forgetting, new research shows

We've all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find.

New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses. "Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an 'event boundary' in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away," Radvansky explains.

"Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized."

The study was published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Conducting three experiments in both real and virtual environments, Radvansky's subjects – all college students – performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.

In the first experiment, subjects used a virtual environment and moved from one room to another, selecting an object on a table and exchanging it for an object at a different table. They did the same thing while simply moving across a room but not crossing through a doorway.

Radvansky found that the subjects forgot more after walking through a doorway compared to moving the same distance across a room, suggesting that the doorway or "event boundary" impedes one's ability to retrieve thoughts or decisions made in a different room.

The second experiment in a real-world setting required subjects to conceal in boxes the objects chosen from the table and move either across a room or travel the same distance and walk through a doorway. The results in the real-world environment replicated those in the virtual world: walking through a doorway diminished subjects' memories.

The final experiment was designed to test whether doorways actually served as event boundaries or if one's ability to remember is linked to the environment in which a decision – in this case, the selection of an object – was created. Previous research has shown that environmental factors affect memory and that information learned in one environment is retrieved better when the retrieval occurs in the same context. Subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. The results showed no improvements in memory, suggesting that the act of passing through a doorway serves as a way the mind files away memories.

Could Ukraine become Russia's (Gazprom's) new money laundering center?

‎

Moscow, Kyiv Agree on New Gas Price - Newspaper

[...Wonder what else Ukraine gave up in the negotiations that's undisclosed?..."Lending in Roubles" seems to be the

"main event" overshadowing the actual gas agreement, turning the Ukrainian government into one huge legal money laundering operation (or conversion center) for black market Russian Roubles from the huge Russian shadow economy and for delighted Russian Oligarchs. –as someone said on FB recently. … Roubles lead to Troubles---N.B. Trade between

China and Russia is bilateral in both Roubles and Yuan. With Russia and Ukraine it’s only one way-sorry Jack (Ivane), we only take Roubles, no Hryvnias…but you can be sure….Ukrainian Party of Regions politicians will get their cut off the top-Walter Derzko]

Moscow, Kyiv Agree on New Gas Price - Newspaper

Interfax

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

KYIV. Nov 15 (Interfax) -

Ukraine and Russia finished gas talks, having agreed on a new price for natural gas and other conditions facilitating the resolution of the dispute over the reduction of its price, a source from the Ukrainian presidential administration told the Economic News newspaper."Roughly, in late November to early December (when the new contracts are due to be signed). Currently, the process of agreeing upon technical details pertaining to the new agreements continues at the level of the governments and the companies - Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom. When everything is

ready, a date will be set for the meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents who will countersign the documents," the source was quoted as saying by the newspaper. Among the new conditions for gas cooperation are the gas price in the region of $220-$230 per 1,000 cubic meters, payment for gas supplies and a possibility of lending in rubles. Besides this, the new agreements allow information to be provided to Russian investors in case of their participation in the privatization of Ukrainian companies, the source told the newspaper.

Ukraine's Watergate-KOPANKA coal scandal could lead to western sanctions against the Yanukovich regime, bringing down Yanukovich and the Party of Regions

KOPANKA coal scandal (child labour and money laundering) could lead to western sanctions against the Yanukovich regime, bringing down Yanukovich and the Party of Regions

(Ukrainian text from Russian original followed by English Briefing paper on the business model behind KOPANKAS-how they work)

Олександр Янукович зазіхнув на інтереси Ріната Ахметова (Ukrainian version via Google Translate from Russian) Check against Russian original below

http://donetskie.com/novosti/2011/10/13/aleksandr-yanukovich-posyagnul-na-interesy-rinata-ahmetova

Такими темпами "татко" не дотягне до наступних виборів. Кількість ворогів перейде в якість, тим більше, альтернатива є ...

У боротьбі за місце у вугільному бізнесі від важкої руки Януковича може постраждати навіть Ринат Ахметов

Днями енергогенеруюча компанія «Донбасенерго», 85,77% акцій якої належать державі, уклала контракт з «Асоціацією фінансових, промислових і торгових підприємств« Донбаський розрахунково-фінансовий центр »(ДРФЦ) на поставку їй вугілля на 532 млн. гривень. «Донбасенерго» має намір закупити кам'яне вугілля марки А і П по 250 тис. тонн кожній. При цьому відтісняються традиційні постачальники палива цієї енергоструктур, в тому числі і ДТЕК Ріната Ахметова. Звідки у того ж Ахметова взявся такий потужний конкурент, який за рік з маловідомої фірмочки перетворився на найбільшого учасника всіх держзамовлень і тендерів у вугільному секторі, «переварюючи» мільярдні суми, пояснюється просто. Серед її засновників компанія, пов'язана з засновниками фірм, яке свого часу займалися відведенням земельних ділянок під «Межигір'я». Вона ж близька до Олександра Януковичу.

Нагадаємо, на початку літа поточного року ДРФЦ успішно стартувала на тендерній арені, вклинившись в список престижних імен на вугільних торгах, що проводяться Міненергоуглем і Мінфіном, із закупівель для державних підприємств обладнання і матеріалів за бюджетні кошти в основному у приватних компаній. Як повідомляє «Вісник державних закупівель», ДП «Селідоввугілля» за результатами тендеру 1 червня підписав з ДРФЦ договір на послуги зі збагачення 2 млн. тонн вугілля на суму 79,60 млн. грн. Ще у вересні минулого року Антимонопольний комітет обурювався, що ця компанія з моменту створення не здійснювала господарської діяльності, але, тим не менш, планує управляти корпоративними правами великих підприємств і структур вуглепрому, а вже через півроку ДРФЦ отримав підряди на постачання вугілля державі на майже мільярд гривень.

Звідки у фірми, офіційно не займається вуглевидобутком, з'являється вугілля, можна тільки гадати. Багато експертів стверджують, що мова йде про вугілля, що добувається в «копанках». Ще в березні поточного року Президент країни Віктор Янукович дав губернаторам Донецької та Луганської областей доручення «вивчити можливість легалізації тіньової вуглевидобутку», створити спільну робочу групу, висновки якої стануть ключовими для узаконення «копанок». Керувати процесом довірено міністру енергетики та вугільної промисловості Юрію Бойко. А вже в травні при Міненергоугле була створена робоча група, яка «пропрацювала» проект постанови Кабміну про «Деякі питання діяльності малих шахт». Згідно з цим документом, «копанки» повинні реєструватися як малі шахти. Наприкінці вересня Донецька облрада, яким керує екс-менеджер будівельної компанії «МАКО», що належить Олександру Януковичу, Андрій Федорук, затвердив новий порядок надання надр у користування області. Спікер облради відверто зізнався, що даний документ можна розглядати як перший крок до легалізації «копанок» у регіоні.

Про те, хто стане новим господарем перш нелегальної вуглевидобутку тепер уже на цілком законних підставах, сумніватися не доводиться, якщо врахувати вищенаведені факти. Бізнес-інтерес «сім'ї» до «копанок» не випадковий. За експертними оцінками, щорічно в шахтарських дірках видобувається 5-6 мільйонів тонн вугілля. Як не дивно, але основними покупцями продукції з «копанок» стали державні вугледобувні підприємства. Видаючи потім цей більш дешеве вугілля як власний, керівництво шахт може розраховувати на отримання та бюджетних дотацій. У підсумку щорічна тіньова прибуток від подібних операцій може становити близько 15 мільярдів гривень, що в два рази більше, ніж весь держбюджет вуглепрому. Взявши під повний свій контроль весь цей процес, за п'ять років можна стати першим олігархом країни.

Для цього Міненергоуголь вже зробив другий крок. На розгляді в Донецькій облраді знаходиться кілька десятків звернень щодо відведення вугільних ділянок державних шахт приватним фірмам. Причому за вказівкою згори лобіюють даний процес директора самих держпідприємств. Якщо це станеться, то держшахти стануть банальним прикриттям для господарської діяльності тих самих «малих шахт», прописаних у спеціальному урядовій постанові. Як заявив перший заступник голови Донецької облдержадміністрації Сергій Дергунов, якщо шахта належить до малої, то для неї спрощуються умови отримання дозволу на земельну ділянку і правила техніки безпеки. Причому дозвіл на видобуток вугілля повинна видаватися в короткі терміни, до 30 днів. Про те, що облрада задовольнить подібні «звернення», теж сумніватися не доводиться.

Крім того, за підтримки «охоронця сімейного вогнища» народного депутата Юрія Іванющенка Олександр Янукович активно вклинився в боротьбу олігархів за самі державні вугільні активи. Днями в найбільшому ДП «Макіїввугілля» розігрався серйозний скандал. Туди нагрянули силовики, влаштувавши показові маски-шоу. Обласна прокуратура звинуватила керівництво об'єднання в незаконному списанні вугілля. Даний наліт на «Макіїввугілля» «сімейної» структури виглядав досить дивно. Справа в тому, що ключовим партнером держпідприємства з недавніх пір є структура, близька до Іванющенко. Згідно з повідомленням «Вісника державних закупівель», наприкінці жовтня минулого року близька до нардепа фірма «Іолід» укладає з ДП «Макіїввугілля» контракт, за яким приватна компанія зобов'язалася поставити державних вуглевидобувних об'єднанню 1,2 млн. т. вугілля, отримавши за це 865 , 2 млн. грн. Тобто керівництво «Макіїввугілля» було лояльно до «сім'ї», а тут - «маски - шоу». Однак, як розповів порталу «Донецьк. Коментарі »джерело в Міненерго,« стратегічні партнери »вирішили приструнити гендиректора« Макіїввугілля »Станіслава Толчина, який відмовився віддати під контроль служби безпеки впливової« даху »свої госвладенія. Місцеві вугільні профспілки, захищаючи свого «генерала», навіть пригрозили владі акціями протесту. Але їм швидко пояснили, хто відтепер є господарем в «Макіїввугіллі». Опальний ж Толчин відразу відправився «у відпустку» за кордон.

Як вдалося з'ясувати, збиралися силовики влаштовувати маски-шоу і на найбільшій держшахт «Краснолиманській», що опинилася в ході майбутньої приватизації «спірною територією» для бізнес-структур Юрія Іванющенка та Ріната Ахметова, а також на ПАТ «Шахтоуправління« Покровське »(екс-шахта «Красноармійська-Західна № 1»), що є власністю Віктора Нусенкіса. Але, схоже, конфліктні питання вдалося вирішити мирним шляхом. Хоча впливовим вугільним конкурентам красномовно продемонстрували, що тим тепер доведеться рахуватися і з бізнес-інтересами «сім'ї».

Олександр Міщенко

За матеріалами: donetsk.comments.ua

Теги: Ринат Ахметов, Олександр Янукович, ДРФЦ, Донбасенерго, Макіїввугілля, конфлікт, Копанки, вуглевидобуток, Віктор Нусенкіс, шахта

 

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Briefing Paper on How KOPANKAS work, published last week......UKRAINIAN KOPANKA –THE BUSINESS SIDE or the “Smoking Gun” against the Yanukowych Regime

UKRAINIAN KOPANKAS –THE BUSINESS SIDE or the “Smoking Gun” against the Yanukowych Regime

Coal industry experts in Ukraine tell us that the production of the “kopanka coal” is officially banned in Ukraine. Accordingly, there are no official figures or data in the public domain, that allow to us to trace a piece of coal from an illegal kopanka to the furnaces of Akhmetov's power plant or metallurgy giant, or to the exports shipment of Ivanushchenko's COAL-2000 trader. Nevertheless, a reasonable case may be formulated for the use of illegal kopanka revenues by the family of president Victor Yanukowych, thus further strengthening the business case for sanctions against Victor Yanukowych, his son Alexander, Energy Minister Boyko and PM Azarov.

(for a backgrounder see this short ILO video on child labor in mining in Ukraine dating back from 2005 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_RREduic8&feature=share ). N.B. unbelievably, a government working commission was set up earlier this year in Donbas, to explore ways of legalizing kopanka’s instead of eliminating them.

The business model that kopanka coal pits employ is simple. The illegally-produced coal using child labour. is delivered to the local trading site –or coal bazaar (usually by the truckloads), where it is bought, usually for cash, hand-to-hand by the representatives of conditioning and refinement factories. No paper trail. Afterwards, this illegal coal undergoes conditioning and refinement, where it becomes fully “legal” and a standardized product of these factories, which is then sold for metallurgy, power generation, or is exported. The profitability of kopanka operations was estimated by the ”Segodnya” newspaper^[1] as US$125,000 per month per mine, a “backyard cottage” industry that produces 100 tons of coal per day. The subset of such a business model is the cradle to grave operation when the official state owned coal mines are buying this illegal coal at the local coal “bazaar”, and submitting it for processing to either of conditioning factories, as their own production. In this case, they also receive certain government subsidies for the coal that they have “produced”, while their actual production costs are much lower (they don't need to deal with workplace safety, methane detection, mineshaft reinforcements, other traditional safety measures, worker compensation etc.). The key element in this business model is using cash to buy coal, and transactions that involve business accounts of coal conditioning factories, and cash paid hand-to-hand to the miners that work at kopanka pits, including children. This requires the engagement of so called “conversion centers”, which provide such a services, that are, essentially, money laundering transaction operations.

The main business vehicle of Victor Yanukovych's older son Alexander is DONBASS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS CENTER («Донбасский расчетно-финансовый центр», DFTC). The core business of DFTC is the legalization of cash money transactions, and cashing out the money from the business accounts; in reality, this is a large “conversion center” operation. These operations are illegal, but are a “necessary evil” for the Ukrainian economy, which operates 40-50% “in the shadows”. According to the press, during 2010, DFTC had concentrated control over the following coal refinement and conditioning factories: DONETSS-UGLEPERERABOTKA (ООО «Донбасс-углепереработка»), KALININSKAYA, UZLOVAYA, DONBASS REFINERY COMBINATE, and VOSTOKUGLEMASH. The combination of the transaction capabilities of DFTC along with control over the several coal conditioning factories creates an ideal system for handling the kopanka production, and creates “clean” image for this coal, that is further used by legitimate business ventures of Akhmetov and/or Ivanuschenko. DFTC had already received serious contracts for delivery of US$65mln worth of coal for State-owned Donbass-Energo company (power generation), while there are no data in any registers about signing the contracts between DFTC and registered mines. This means that kopanka coal will likely be used.

Interestingly, DONBASS REFINERY COMBINATE already offers coal at the prices far below market value, according to their advertisements. Laundering of this shadow economy money is at the center of its operations.

 

[1] http://www.segodnya.ua/news/14266848.html

 

When will the Recession End? Part 266 Russia Collapse Scenarios 2014

Russia Collapse Scenarios 2014

http://www.neva24.ru/a/2011/11/08/Deljagin_Deljagin/

Russian expert predicts death for Russia in 2014
Publication time: 11 November 2011, 12:01

Economist and political scientist Mikhail Delyagin, director of Moscow Institute of Globalization, said in an interview with a Russian news agency, Neva-24, when, in his view, Russia will be destroyed:

"Definitely not in 2012. Social tensions will start to rise in the fall of 2012, but they will not cause the change of power yet. The most likely date is 2014 or later. This state has a very large margin. The problem of authorities is that many people in Russia believe that the essence of the state is their personal enrichment. This is a difficult diagnosis. A deadly one".

 

When will the Recession End ? Part 265 Helsinki Conference: Russia is doomed. Russian Bear will be eaten by Chinese Dragon

Helsinki Conference: ''Russia is doomed. Russian Bear will be eaten by Chinese Dragon''
13 November 2011,

KEY QUOTE: [Russia].. is doomed to be a declining great power".

The main ideas of the opening speech by Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Erkki Tuomioja at International Aleksanteri Conference in Helsinki (November 9-11) have been published on the Internet.

In his speech, entitled "The Dragon and the Bear: Strategic Choices of China and Russia", the Finnish Minister, in particular said:

"Over the past two decades, Russia and China have both experienced extensive socio-economic and political transformation, as well as foreign policy reorientation.

Within the framework of "transition studies", these developments have naturally been a rather popular subject of academic study and applied research. However, only a few scholars have studied the post-Cold War developments in Russia and China in comparative perspective.

The 11th Aleksanteri Conference compares Russia´s and China´s transformation from three interrelated perspectives: socio-economic system, political system, and international system. The outcomes of the Chinese and Russian reforms differ considerably.

From a social and economic impact perspective, the "Chinese way" has undoubtedly been a great success. For almost three decades now, the averaged annual growth rates of the Chinese GDP and industrial added value have been about 10%, far higher than the world average.

Over the same period, the annual net income per capita, calculated at comparable prices, has increased more than five times both in urban and rural areas.

In sharp contrast, Russia's economic development after the collapse of the Soviet Union was characterised by a sudden decrease of GDP and industrial output, followed by major problems throughout the 1990s, leading to the crash in 1998. This development naturally resulted in major negative social consequences.

The thesis that the economic development of large countries can produce major power shifts in international politics is widespread and generally accepted. There are many speculations that suggest that China, after it has become the most important regional economic and military power in East Asia, will ultimately become the strongest great power in the world.

By contrast, much of the literature on Russia points out that the country with its rather modest economic power (despite its energy resources) is doomed to be a declining great power".

When will the Recession End? Part 264 Russia in big trouble with sinking commodity prices, on the road to bankrupcy.

Why is Ukraine getting closer to Russia? A sinking ship.

Top Banker Believes No Second Wave Of Crisis In Russia, [ BUT.....?]

KEY QUOTE: [BUT......The macroeconomic situation in Russia can get worse if commodity prices fall, he said. "Falling prices on raw materials, metals, oil, and chemical fertilizers will be bad for us. If the prices fall, we will find ourselves in a much deeper crisis," the head of Sberbank said.]

N.B......all these commodity prices continue to fall, just like in the 1989 financial crisis before the collapse of the Soviet Union, USSR in 1991. Remember 2 years ago now, ex-Russian finance minister A. Kudrin said Russia needs oil to stay at well above $100 per barrel for Russia to stay solvent, otherwise it's well on the road to bankrupcy--this will makes EU zone financial troubles look like loose change....Oil no where close to $100...Walter Derzko

Interfax
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Text of report by corporate-owned Russian news agency Interfax

Moscow, 12 November: The head of Sberbank (Savings Bank) and former economic development minister, German Gref, believes that inflation in Russia will not go beyond 7 per cent in 2011. Gref does not think that inflation will accelerate in the first half of next year.

"So far we do not see any reason for high inflation early next year," Gref said. "It is difficult to say how the situation will develop in the second half of the year," he said.

He also said that so far he did not see an immediate threat of a second wave of crisis in Russia. "I would not scare people with a second wave of crisis. I think that if oil prices do not fall much, we will maintain the current growth rates, which are not very high for Russia, 3 to 4 per cent," Gref said.

The macroeconomic situation in Russia can get worse if commodity prices fall, he said. "Falling prices on raw materials, metals, oil, and chemical fertilizers will be bad for us. If the prices fall, we will find ourselves in a much deeper crisis," the head of Sberbank said.

"Now we have every reason to maintain stability going through this time period," he added. However, Gref said that "for next year's budget any fall in oil prices below 110 dollars will be critical". "And we think for ourselves that the price below 70 dollars a barrel makes it difficult to resolve current problems," he said.

UPDATE:

World Financial Crisis Under Way, Economic Crisis Likely to Follow - Kudrin (Part 2)
Interfax
Saturday, November 12, 2011

 

(Part 2)

MOSCOW. Nov 12 (Interfax) - A financial crisis in the world is under way, and it is quite likely that a recession will follow, said former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
"Considering that the safety fuse has already been ignited and is burning, we are entering a crisis. We already have a financial crisis, and an economic crisis is likely to follow. It is so far difficult to understand its scope and depth," Kudrin said at a Sberbank business breakfast in Moscow on Saturday.
Russia is prepared for a crisis better than most economically developed countries, Kudrin said. "A state debt of only 12% of GDP and considerable gold and foreign currency reserves provide a good margin of safety," Kudrin said.
"However, we should understand that the challenges are about the same for us (as for the EU countries and the U.S.)," Kudrin said, adding that it would be unreasonable to expect high oil prices within the next 3, 5 or even 10 years.
The EU problems cannot be solved fully, Kudrin said. "Unfortunately, we have already lost the battle for Greece, and we are now in the process of battling for other, larger Eurozone economies," he said.
This phase will cost two to three billion euros, Kudrin said.
"The world has a chance to settle the crisis, but it is very slim. The crisis is likely to spread over other parts of the world and the U.S. We will be balancing on very low growth on the brink of another recession," Kudrin said.

 

How to prevent or slow down age-related disorders

How to prevent or slow down age-related disorders

November 3, 2011

 

Eliminating “deadbeat” cells that accumulate with age could prevent or delay the onset of age-related disorders and disabilities, Mayo Clinic researchers have shown.

The researchers genetically engineered mice so their senescent cells harbored a molecule called caspase 8 that was only turned on in the presence of a drug with no effect on normal cells. When the transgenic mice were exposed to this drug, caspase 8 was activated and killed the senescent cells.

The researchers found that lifelong elimination of senescent cells delayed the onset of age-related disorders such as cataracts and muscle loss and weakness, and that removing these cells later in life could slow the progression of already established age-related disorders.

Ref.: Darren J. Baker et al., Clearance of p16^Ink4a-positive senescent cells delays ageing-associated disorders, Nature (2011) [DOI: 10.1038/nature10600]

Vitamin D metabolite effective for blood pressure, immune health benefits

Vitamin D metabolite effective for blood pressure, immune health benefits Delivering vitamin D as its metabolite 25-hydroxyvitamin D (HyD) results in a greater drop in blood pressure compared to the sunshine vitamin itself, says new data. http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Vitamin-D-metabolite-effective-for-blood-pressure-immune-health-benefits

Chemically assembled metamaterials may lead to superlenses

 

Nanomanufacturing technology has enabled scientists to create metamaterials -- stuff that never existed in nature -- with unusual optical properties. They could lead to "superlenses" able to image proteins, viruses and DNA, and perhaps even make a "Star Trek" cloaking device

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-chemically-metamaterials-superlenses.html

Raising a child doesn't take a village, U-M research shows

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---It doesn't take a village to raise a child after all, according to University of Michigan research.

"In the African villages that I study in Mali, children fare as well in nuclear families as they do in extended families," said U-M researcher Beverly Strassmann, professor of anthropology and faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "There's a naïve belief that villages raise children communally, when in reality children are raised by their own families and their survival depends critically on the survival of their mothers."

Strassmann's recently published studies provide the first empirical data on two theoretical pillars of the belief that it takes a village to raise a child. One of these is the grandmother hypothesis---the idea that a child is more likely to survive if a grandmother is nearby.

The other is cooperative breeding theory, based on animal behavior studies that have shown that in a wide variety of birds, including scrub jays, and many mammals, such as the mongoose, adults may delay their own reproduction to help raise the offspring of others.

"Some researchers have suggested that humans may also be a cooperatively breeding species," said Strassmann, who views human behavior from the perspective of evolutionary biology. "But the evidence I found shows that this is not always the case and there can be quite a lot of competition and coercion within families."

In a study published this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Strassmann analyzed data on child survival in various family structures from her ongoing, 25-year study of the Dogon people of Mali, West Africa, a traditional, agricultural society in which resources are scarce and mortality is high. Like many human groups in the past, Dogon society is patrilineal, with a tight-knit web of kinship established through fathers. The Dogon practice polygyny and do not use contraception; Dogon women give birth to 9 children, on average, over their lifetimes.

Strassmann's study is the only research on the subject to date that is both prospective in nature and that controls for confounding variables, such as family wealth and family structure, that could affect child survival.

In the 1,700 Dogon children she followed, Strassmann found that children were over four times more likely to die by age 5 if their mothers were dead.

"In the Dogon, it is mothers alone who are critical for getting children past the early-life bottleneck in survival," Strassmann said. "Adding an extra adult to the family did not improve a child's survival. Although it's important to note that these findings are about child survival up to age 5, they don't speak to the value of having grandparents later on.

"Children were 52 percent less likely to die if their paternal grandparents were dead. Why? Because in a patrilineal society, the paternal grandparents are likely to live with the child, competing for scarce resources."

In another study, published this summer in Human Nature, Strassmann and ISR researcher Wendy Garrard further investigated the validity of the grandmother hypothesis. This study involved a meta-analysis of published studies done over several centuries in 17 patrilineal societies in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

"Our analysis showed that the grandparents who actually lived with their grandchildren did not have a beneficial effect on the grandchildren's survival," Strassmann said. "Grandparents who did not live with the grandchildren sometimes did have a positive effect because they were not competing for scarce resources.

"Cooperative breeding is not the universal, evolved pattern. Instead there is huge diversity in the array of successful family systems in humans. For example, in the U.S., there are a huge proportion of nuclear families and single moms. Certainly many children of single mothers not only survive but thrive. Look at Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

"Cooperative breeding does help to understand 19th century European societies, for example, in Ireland, where marriage was postponed to the late 20s or even 30s due to the scarcity of farms to inherit. In these societies, celibate individuals often worked on the farms of siblings as helpers and can be compared to cooperatively breeding birds that delay reproduction and act as helpers at their parents' nest when the habitat is saturated and all nest sites are taken. However, cooperative breeding does not fit many other societies, such as the one I study in Africa."

In her study of the Dogon, Strassmann found that children's risk of death is higher in polygynous than in monogamous families. This reflects the hazard of living with unrelated females whose own children are competing with the children of co-wives for limited resources.

Supporting this finding, Strassmann cites "Hamilton's Rule," established by British evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton in the 1960s. It is the first formal, mathematical description of kin selection theory, the idea that the degree to which we are willing to invest our resources in another person depends, in part, on the degree of genetic kinship we share with them.

But kinship cuts both ways, according to Strassmann.

"Our results also suggest that kin competition is an important aspect of human family systems," she said. "Genetic conflicts of interest occur even within the family. This competition starts before birth, with maternal genes allocating resources strategically between present and future offspring. The competition extends throughout childhood with sibling rivalry.

"At reproductive maturity, kin compete for the resources needed for mating and parental effort. And finally, in old age, net producers eventually become net consumers who compete with other family members for food and shelter.

"The grandmother hypothesis does not take into account that grandmothers may need help themselves, not just among the groups like the Dogon but in societies like our own."

 

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Established in 1949, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research is the world's largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world. ISR conducts some of the most widely cited studies in the nation, including the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the world's largest digital social science data archive. Visit the ISR website at www.isr.umich.edu for more information.

EDITORS: Watch/download video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29h491Z8yQ

Freeze and desist: Disabling cardiac cells that can cause arrhythmia

Majority of cryoballoon ablation patients show no signs of a-fib year after procedure
Chicago – Many patients are responding to a new, minimally invasive way of treating irregular heartbeats by freezing out the bad cells. Atrial fibrillation (A-Fib) is one such heart rhythm disorder, and it's the most common arrhythmia affecting Americans. However, new research shows that 70 percent of patients with the disorder who were treated with cryoballoon ablation, the freezing technique, are free of any heart rhythm irregularities one year out from having the procedure. These results suggest that this minimally invasive procedure may be faster, safer and more effective than the commonly used approach of burning the cells in order to put the heart back into a normal rhythm pattern. Northwestern Memorial Hospital is the only hospital in the city of Chicago, and one of only three in the state of Illinois, performing this procedure. According to cardiologist, Bradley Knight, MD, the switch from "hot" to "cold" has been good for patients.

"This novel technology has the potential to help a large number of patients with symptomatic atrial fibrillation," said Knight, director of electrophysiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. "It represents the first major advance in the tools available to us to perform catheter ablation for patients with intermittent atrial fibrillation in over a decade."

Not only is A-Fib the most common heart rhythm disorder, it's one of the most undertreated. Approximately three million Americans are estimated to have the disease. A-Fib results from abnormal electrical impulses in the heart. The irregularity can be continuous, or it can come and go. Some people can become light-headed or faint, and other symptoms include weakness, lack of energy or shortness of breath and chest pain. A big concern for patients with atrial fibrillation is preventing blood clots or stroke. Half of all diagnosed atrial fibrillation patients fail drug therapy, and if left untreated, have up to five times higher risk of stroke and increased chance of developing heart failure.

Catheter ablation procedures for patients with A-Fib are typically performed by delivering radiofrequency energy (heat) through an electrode at the tip of a catheter to cauterize small amounts of heart tissue responsible for A-Fib. The tissue that is targeted is in the left atrium, near the entrance to the pulmonary veins, while using a point-to-point treatment.

"This new technology called cryoballoon, represents a way to perform ablation in two important ways," says Rod Passman, MD, medical director of the program for atrial fibrillation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. "The first is that it freezes the heart tissue rather than using heat. Freezing may lead to less disruption of the lining of the heart chamber and might cause less damage to nearby structures like the esophagus compared to heating the tissue. The second way is that the large balloon allows for a much larger area of heart tissue to be ablated at one time. This should prevent gaps in the ablation lines that can occur with point-to-point radiofrequency ablation."

The FDA's approval of the technology used to do this procedure was based on a trial that demonstrated the safety and efficiency of the device in treating A-Fib. The study showed that 70 percent of patients treated with this freezing technique were free of A-fib at one year, compared to 7 percent of patients treated with drug therapy only. The study also demonstrated that patients enrolled in the study displayed a significant reduction of symptoms, a decrease in the use of drug therapy and great improvement in both physical and emotional quality-of-life factors.

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For more information about heart care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, visit our website. To schedule an appointment please call 312-926-0779.

About Northwestern Memorial HealthCare

Northwestern Memorial HealthCare is the parent corporation of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an 854-bed academic medical center hospital and Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, a 205-bed community hospital located in Lake Forest, Illinois.

About Northwestern Memorial Hospital

Northwestern Memorial is one of the country's premier academic medical center hospitals and is the primary teaching hospital of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Along with its Prentice Women's Hospital and Stone Institute of Psychiatry, the hospital comprises 854 beds, 1,603 affiliated physicians and 7,144 employees. Northwestern Memorial is recognized for providing exemplary patient care and state-of-the art advancements in the areas of cardiovascular care; women's health; oncology; neurology and neurosurgery; solid organ and soft tissue transplants and orthopaedics.

Northwestern Memorial possesses nursing Magnet Status, the nation's highest recognition for patient care and nursing excellence. It is also listed in 13 clinical specialties in U.S. News & World Report's 2011 "America's Best Hospitals" guide and ranks No. 1 in Chicago in the 2011 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals metro area rankings. For 10 years running, Northwestern Memorial has been rated among the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" guide by Working Mother magazine. The hospital is a recipient of the prestigious National Quality Health Care Award and has been chosen by Chicagoans as the Consumer Choice according to the National Research Corporation's annual survey for 11 years.

 

 

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Novel alloy could produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight

Using advanced theoretical computations, a team of Kentucky scientists has derived a means to "tweak" an inexpensive semiconductor to function as photoelectrochemical catalyst.

Scientists from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville have determined that an inexpensive semiconductor material can be "tweaked" to generate hydrogen from water using sunlight.

The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was led by Professors Madhu Menon and R. Michael Sheetz at the UK Center for Computational Sciences, and Professor Mahendra Sunkara and graduate student Chandrashekhar Pendyala at the UofL Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research. Their findings were published Aug. 1 in the Physical Review Journal (Phys Rev B 84, 075304).

The researchers say their findings are a triumph for computational sciences, one that could potentially have profound implications for the future of solar energy.

Using state-of-the-art theoretical computations, the UK-UofL team demonstrated that an alloy formed by a 2 percent substitution of antimony (Sb) in gallium nitride (GaN) has the right electrical properties to enable solar light energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. When the alloy is immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water is broken. The hydrogen can then be collected.

"Previous research on PEC has focused on complex materials," Menon said. "We decided to go against the conventional wisdom and start with some easy-to-produce materials, even if they lacked the right arrangement of electrons to meet PEC criteria. Our goal was to see if a minimal 'tweaking' of the electronic arrangement in these materials would accomplish the desired results."

Gallium nitride is a semiconductor that has been in widespread use to make bright-light LEDs since the 1990s. Antimony is a metalloid element that has been in increased demand in recent years for applications in microelectronics. The GaN-Sb alloy is the first simple, easy-to-produce material to be considered a candidate for PEC water splitting. The alloy functions as a catalyst in the PEC reaction, meaning that it is not consumed and may be reused indefinitely. UofL and UK researchers are currently working toward producing the alloy and testing its ability to convert solar energy to hydrogen.

Hydrogen has long been touted as a likely key component in the transition to cleaner energy sources. It can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, burned to produce heat, and utilized in internal-combustion engines to power vehicles. When combusted, hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water vapor as its only waste product. Hydrogen also has wide-ranging applications in science and industry.

Because pure hydrogen gas is not found in free abundance on Earth, it must be manufactured by unlocking it from other compounds. Thus, hydrogen is not considered an energy source, but rather an "energy carrier." Currently, it takes a large amount of electricity to generate hydrogen by water splitting. As a consequence, most of the hydrogen manufactured today is derived from non-renewable sources such as coal and natural gas.

Sunkara says the GaN-Sb alloy has the potential to convert solar energy into an economical, carbon-free source for hydrogen.

"Hydrogen production now involves a large amount of CO2 emissions," Sunkara said. "Once this alloy material is widely available, it could conceivably be used to make zero-emissions fuel for powering homes and cars and to heat homes."

Menon says the research should attract the interest of other scientists across a variety of disciplines.

"Photocatalysis is currently one of the hottest topics in science," Menon said. "We expect the present work to have a wide appeal in the community spanning chemistry, physics and engineering."

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For more information, please contact Keith Hautala at the University of Kentucky at (859) 323-2396 or keith.hautala@uky.edu. At the University of Louisville, please contact Judy Hughes at (502) 852-6171 or judy.hughes@louisville.edu.

Engineers test effects of fire on steel structures, nuclear plant design

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Ten years after 9/11, researchers at Purdue University are continuing work that could lead to safer steel structures such as buildings and bridges and also an emerging type of nuclear power plant design.

"I want people to understand that in the last 10 years we've not been quiet," said Amit Varma, a Purdue associate professor of civil engineering. "We've been working to make structures better and safer."

The researchers are using a custom heating system and a specialized laboratory for testing large beams and other components and have created models that could be used in designs to improve fire safety.

New findings are detailed in two research papers appearing this month as part of a special 9/11 issue of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Structural Engineering. The work has been led by Varma, doctoral student Lisa Choe and graduate student Emily Wellman.

Data will be used to potentially update design codes for steel structures and to test and verify computational building-design models.

The work is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, the American Institute of Steel Construction, and the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Building fires may reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, or more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the strength of steel structures drops by about 40 percent when exposed to temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius.

Steel components in buildings are covered with fireproofing materials to resist the effects of extreme heating.

"So the air could be 1,000 degrees in a fire, but the insulated steel might be 500 degrees or less," Varma said. "However, once the steel gets beyond 600 degrees Celsius, there can be some major problems."

The Purdue researchers designed a system made up of heating panels to simulate the effects of fire. The heating system is being used to test full-scale steel columns at Purdue's Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research. The panels have electrical coils, like giant toaster ovens, and are placed close to surfaces being studied. As the system is used to simulate the effects of fire, test structures are subjected to forces with hydraulic equipment to mimic the loads experienced in real structures.

"We wanted to build an experimental method that engineers can use to study the behavior of buildings in fire using a structures laboratory," he said. "Most of the previous work has been done in fire laboratories, which don't have the same experimental resources of a structures lab. We can subject the structures to failure and make more fundamental observations of behavior and failure to build models. Almost no tests or data like we have can be found in the public domain."

Doctoral student Anil Agrawal led work to create a model that shows precisely what happens to a steel member subjected to fire while forces are applied by the hydraulic cylinders. The model has been found to be accurate when compared to the experimental results from work led by Choe.

"These are very difficult experiments to perform," Varma said. "Having a dependable model to predict behavior means you don't have to do as many experiments when testing new designs."

Wellman led a portion of the work focusing on the effects of fire on a building's steel-and-concrete floor and its connections to the building. The composite design is the most common type of floor system used in steel structures.

"Conventional wisdom says the presence of concrete floors improves the fire resistance of a building," Varma said. "We found that this isn't necessarily true for the worst-case scenario, unless you set out to design the floor specifically to perform well in fire."

The aim of the research is to learn precisely what happens to the connections between a floor's steel beams and the building columns. Extreme heat causes the beams to sag.

"When it starts sagging, the question is, how do the connections perform? This has been a big question for the industry," Varma said.

The researchers analyzed critical joints after a floor system was subjected to extreme heat in a special oven at Michigan State University. Results will be used to help researchers create a model of the steel-concrete floor system.

"It is far more difficult to model a floor system than it is to model columns," Varma said. "But we will eventually be able to do that."

Another paper to be published in December in the American Institute of Steel Construction's Engineering Journal shows how to use the models to create design specifications for columns. The paper was written by Agrawal, who also is involved in modeling the steel columns and the collapse of entire building systems. The work is ongoing.

Varma also has led research to test a new type of design for nuclear power plants. The work focuses on testing structures like those to be used in the Westinghouse Electric Co. AP1000 standard nuclear power plant design. Engineers tested components of an "enhanced shield building" that will contain the plant's main system components.

The building consists of an inner steel-wall containment vessel and an outer radiation shield made using a technology called steel-concrete-composite construction. Instead of using more conventional reinforced concrete, which is strengthened with steel bars, the steel-concrete approach uses a sandwich of steel plates filled with concrete.

The new design may reduce the cost of building nuclear power plants by speeding construction time. The composite construction method was first used more than a century ago, but no codes or standards for its use in nuclear power plants yet exist, said Varma, who is vice chair of an industry committee writing a new specification for composite structures in nuclear power plants.

Findings have shown the design withstands the seismic forces that would result from strong earthquakes. Data also indicate the construction method, also called armored construction, could be used to create structures capable of withstanding aircraft or missile attacks.

"When you have steel plates on the inside and on the outside, it's a structure that would hold up against an aircraft impact or extreme weather events, such as tornados," Varma said. "Nothing can easily punch through that sort of structure."

The Bowen lab is one of a handful of facilities where testing can be performed on full-scale structures instead of smaller-scale specimens, yielding more accurate data. The 66,000-square-foot laboratory is equipped with special hydraulic testing equipment and powerful overhead cranes.

 

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Related websites:

Amit Varma:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/People/view_person?group_id=1920&resource_id=2280

Bowen Lab:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/Academics/Groups/Structural/BOWEN/index_html

ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering:
http://ascelibrary.org/sto/resource/1/jsendh

 

Amit Varma, a Purdue associate professor of civil engineering, is leading work that could lead to safer steel structures such as buildings and bridges and also an emerging type of nuclear power plant design. The work is based at Purdue's Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research. (Purdue University file photo/Andrew Hancock)

A publication-quality file photo is available at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/2011/varma-911.jpg

Abstracts on the research in this release is available at: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110901Varma911.html

PHOTO CAPTION:

A study reveals the rhythms of communications between people

A study reveals the rhythms of communications between people

 

Communication between people is produced in bursts, with intense periods of conversations and long periods of inactivity. And it happens at the same time between members of the same social group, which accelerates the spreading of information within that group, according to a scientific study carried out by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in collaboration with Telefónica I+D.

 

This study, which has analyzed around 9,000 million calls throughout almost a year period, is the first to identify these features of the communication process and to quantify their impact in the diffusion of information. "This is something very important in the processes such as the diffusion of commercial information, viral marketing and the market trends of products, but also in situations such as the spreading of rumours, opinions, policies, etc.”, explained one of the authors of this research, Esteban Moro, from the Grupo de Investigación Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos (Interdisciplinary Research Group of Complex Systems) of the Mathematics Department at the UC3M and the Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas ICMAT (Institute of Mathematic Sciences), a CSIC, UAM, UCM and UC3M joint center.

 

The study’s main conclusion, published in the scientific Journal, Physical Review E, is the finding that people communicate in bursts. In this way, our behaviour (in communication as well as in other activities) does not happen in a homogenous way over time, but rather there is universal behaviour in which there is no communication, followed by short intervals called bursts. "This aspect of human activity which has also been observed in other activities such as e-mail, web page visits and stock market operations governs communication between people,” , the researchers concluded. The effect of the bursts is that it slows down the information diffusion since the large periods of inactivity in the communication between two persons make it less likely that information is passed from one to the other. The study also highlights another important aspect of human communications: in group conversations, that is, although it is produced in bursts, these bursts happen at the same time among the members of the social group, which then accelerates information diffusion within these groups.

 

When, how much, and how do I communicate

 

The main objective of the research is to try to understand the temporal pattern of communication among persons in a social network. "As opposed to the static vision of a social network (who I interact with), our study seeks to understand when and how these social relations are produced,” Professor Esteban Moro elaborated. And with two purposes, the first being, to see if relations in a social network can be quantified better, that is, determine if the communication rhythm between two persons allows us to know something about the "strength" or characteristics of the relation (family member, acquaintance, friend, colleague, etc..); and the second, to investigate the impact of these rhythms on the propagation of information in social networks, in processes such as viral marketing, product recommendations, etc.

 

Static visualization of the social network of some of the persons speaking by phone (300,000 customers). Each circle is a customer and each line is a call between two customers. The network is very dense, a reflection of the small world of the social networks. .

 

 

This study, which receives funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation through the MOSAICO Science and Innovation project, has been possible thanks to the framework agreement that the UC3M has with Telefónica I+D and a program of Becas de Formación de Doctores. (Professional Training Grants for PhD’s) In addition, the company facilitated access to totally anonymous databases of calls in a country during a period of eleven months. In all, the researchers analyzed approximately 9,000 million calls between 20 million people, around 30 percent of the population of a country. "This large volume of data and the extended time period guarantees the representiveness and universality in the results", pointed out another one of the study’s author, Giovanna Miritello, a PhD candidate in the Mathematics Department of UC3M, with a grant-contract from Telefónica I+D.

 

More info:

 

Title: Dynamical strength of social ties in information spreading

Authors: Giovanna Miritello, Esteban Moro y Lara Rubén

Source: Physical Review E. Volume: 83. Issue: 4.

ISSN: 1539-3755

Researchers investigate new mechanism for predicting how diseases spread

Northwestern University professor Dirk Brockmann and his group at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have investigated the outcomes of a previously ignored mechanism in modeling how humans travel.

By challenging a long-held assumption, Brockmann, associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics, hopes to create models that can more accurately predict the spread of disease and the spread of human-mediated bioinvasions.

"Though there are many sophisticated computer models out there to model mobility patterns, we can now expect significant differences in disease model predictions," Brockmann said.

Their work, done in collaboration with scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany and with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently published on the first page of the inaugural issue of Physical Review X, a new open-source journal developed by the American Physical Society.

Previous models of how diseases spread made assumptions that human populations are like chemicals being stirred in a container: they interact and travel randomly. Each city is its own container, and when people travel there, they become part of that container.

"Most of the time that's a pretty good assumption," Brockmann said. "But it's not realistic." Most people don't randomly travel from place to place; they travel somewhere, then come back home. Travel again, then come back home.

"They have a base location," Brockmann said. "They don't wander around like a fox in the woods."

Brockmann and his collaborators created a model that used this "base location" assumption and found that it created significant differences in predicting the spread of disease.

A key result was the speed of the disease "wave," or how certain diseases (especially before the advent of air travel) spread in a giant wave across a city or country. It was previously thought that the more people travel, the faster the wave spreads. Now, using this new mechanism, Brockmann has found that the wave actually reaches a maximum speed and then levels off.

"Since you always return home, you don't carry the disease to as many places as we assumed in previous models," he said. "This has been previously overlooked in mathematical epidemiology research."

Brockmann and his group hope to incorporate this new sort of model in realistic models of specific diseases, like the H1N1 influenza, and bioinvasions.

"We've shown this basic mechanism that wasn't known before," he said. "Now we need to see just how it impacts specific diseases."

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This research was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Contact: Megan Fellman

fellman@northwestern.edu

847-491-3115

Northwestern University

 

 

 

Flawed Strategy (Ukrainian version) By Dr Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko and Walter Derzko

ВИ ЦЕ СЕРЙОЗНО? СПРАВДІ?

By Dr Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko and Walter Derzko

У своїй дивно анти-російській промові у Душанбе на саміті глав держав СНД Янукович сказав, що “ існує дві головні складові в питанні перегляду газових контрактів. Перш за все мова йде про те, що відповідна угода була підписана господарюючими суб'єктами України та Росії без урахування існуючих між двома країнами угод. «А точніше — з порушенням цих угод», — зауважив він.

«Але якщо Росія з цим не погодиться, безумовно, ми будемо змушені тоді йти в міжнародний суд. Проте, я сподіваюся, у нас вистачить мудрості знайти спільне рішення — без суду. Я розглядаю суд уже як останню інстанцію, коли будуть вичерпані під час переговорів всі наші можливості», — сказав президент України.

Другою складовою, яка повинна враховуватися в питанні перегляду газових контрактів, В. Янукович назвав той факт, що «Нафтогаз Україна» укладав угоду без затверджених урядом повноважень. Правомірність дій у цьому питанні особисто Юлії Тимошенко оцінить суд, підкреслив В. Янукович. «На це питання, я сподіваюся, ми отримаємо відповідь дуже скоро».

(http://news.dt.ua/articles/87216)

 

Таким чином, cхема проста, і досить примітивна: засудити Тимошенко за зловживання владою, а потім використовувати це судове рішення, щоб почати міжнародну юридичну битву з Росією, аби анулювати контракти, які були підписані Тимошенко. Можна згадати, що вона зробила це, аби відновити газопостачання Україні, і щоб врятувати Європу від холоду взимку 2009 року. Але кого це обходить?

Загальновідомо, що Янукович і прем'єр-міністр Азаров підтвердили свою прихильність до 2009 контрактів, коли вони підписали "Харківські угоди" 2010 року. За цими угодами продовжено  перебування в Чорноморського флоту Росії на 25 років в обмін на знижки у цні природного газу. Єдина суттєва зміна, яку було зроблено по відношенню до документів 2009 року є введення штрафів за розпуск угод; Угода і контракт 2009 року таких санкцій не передбачали. За Угодою 2010 року Україна зобов”язалась забезпечити посткпове зростання імпорту Російського природного газу щорічно у порівнянні з аналогічним періодом минулого рокую За зміну обсягу імпорту - також штрафні санкції. Кінцевий обсяг імпорту природного газу в Україну був встановлений в 2010 році, як 52мільярдів. кубометрів (bcm) на рік, що приблизно Україна споживає в даний час, тоді як власне виробництво становить приблизно 20bcm. Іншими словами, в 2010 році Янукович зобов”язався поступово замінити недорогий газ вітчизняного виробництва з Полтави, Криму, і Галичини на дорогий Російський газ з-за Полярного кола. Не дивно, що опозиція використала все, що мала (включаючи яйця), щоб запобігти ратифікації "Харківських угод".

 

Наріжним каменем цій грі є вирок Тимошенко. План інакше не спрацює. Ймовірно, він не спрацює все одно, але Янукович старається. І Печерський суд України робить все можливе, щоб виконати завдання, незалежно від того, які докази представлені.

Перш за все, зловживання владою тут ні до чого. За українським законодавством, прем'єр-міністр уповноважений підписувати міжнародні угоди за посадою, і немає необхідності в затвердженні повноважень кабінетом. Прокурори також стверджують, що директиви для української газової монополії “Нафтогаз” на підписання контракту були сфальсифіковані Тимошенко, щоб виглядати, як директиви Кабінету міністрів. Позаяк вони не навели  оригіналу директиви, а документ, який вони долучили до справи був лише з факсиміле Тимошенко, і на  копії, а не на оригіналі. І це була особиста директива прем'єр-міністра, а не директива Кабінету міністрів. Інші претензії у тому ж стилі, але одна все-таки виділяється: Тимошенко буцім намагалися збільшити свою популярність, виглядаючи занадто гарною. Шо, вочевидь, є злочин, якщо навіть побіжно поглянути на портретну галерею нинішнього українського "Політбюро".

Процес також вражає. Тимошенко привозять до суду щодня за 2-3 години до слухань, і замикають в комірці 1X1 метр до початку слухань. Слухання зазвичай закінчуються після 6 вечора, так що її захист не може переговорити з нею, тому що такі правила у  в'язниці; насправді вона позбавлена ​​права належним чином захистити себе. Суд відмовився розглядати переважну більшість документів, які підтверджують невинність Тимошенко, всі документи, стосовно скандального "Росукренерго", і навіть дані офіційного аудиту "Ernst & Young", які показують, що “Нафтогаз” став прибутковим в результаті рішення про усунення "РосУкрЕнерго" від торгівлі газом у 2009 році. Слухання проходять під головуванням молодого судді Родіона Кірєєва, який все ще проходить 5-річний випробувальний термін, і який вже має догану від Апеляційного суду за відмову визнавати документи захисту, а також за незаконне і упереджене рішення у справі про корупцію в селищі Березань — у єдиний випадку корупції, який він розглядав у його житті. Кірєєв був переведений з Березані до Києва, щоб обробляти Тимошенко випадку. Щоб зробити коротше кажучи, слухання суміш глузування і цирку найнижчого гатунку. Природно, Кірєєв відхилив прохання про звільнення Тимошенко під заставу, що надійшли від сенатора США  Джона Маккейна, Далай-лами, від лауреатів Нобелівської премії, і заклики, які були підтримані Державним департаментом США. Природно, він Тимошенко засудить, у послідовності йому не відмовиш, що є, те є у хлопця.

 

Всі ці процедури є неконституційними, і несуть масові порушення процедур та українського законодавства. Президент, чия робота полягає в гарантуванні Конституції, продовжує говорити, що він не може втручатися в судовий розгляд. Позаяк він не остерігся передбачити судове рішення, виступаючи в Душанбе. Тобто: він нехтує своїми прямими обов'язками, що, безумовно, є підставою для імпічменту. Але він не звертає на те уваги. Він купує автомобілі для перевезення ув'язнених, і продовжує додавати кількість поліції та власних охоронців - пояснивши, що це все робиться для "Євро-2012». Це вже стало свого роду універсальним виправданням, що Донецький режим використовує доречно і недоречно.

Чому так? «Це є Газ», як сказано на обкладинці вічно молодого звіту "Transparency International" 2006 року про тіньові газові оборудкиі. Хімічні підприємства Дмитра Фірташа, основного спонсора Януковича, не можуть вижити, коли ціна на газ вище 280дол. США за 1000 кубометрів. Інший спонсор Януковича, Ахметов, володіє металургійними заводами і компаніями, що виробляють електрику.  Вониі також потребують дешевого газу. Коли небудь ми розповімо, як вони залишаються прибутковими, в той час як Україна купує газ по 355дол.США за 1000 кубометрів. Всі олігархи хочуть отримати більше прибутку. Фірташ більш ніж у п'ять разів своє багатство протягом року, але для нього не існує такого поняття, як розум в цій гонці. А ще й якщо отримавши дешевший газ Фірташ зможе посадити за грати особистого ворога - Юлю Тимошенко, то це буде приємний бонус для нього. Все, що з усьоло цього має Янукович — то клопоти. Його рейтинг котиться вниз, і він на шляху до отримання міжнародного статусу  Лукашенка чи Кім Чен Іра, але це включено до рахунку.

 

Отже, що ж далі? Тимошенко буде винесено вирок. Після того як вона буде засуджена, Янукович (чи, вірніше, його юристи, яким спала на думку ця "блискуча" схема) подадуть на анулювання угод 2009 року. Важко повірити, що будь-який європейський суд або трибунал буде навіть розглядати справу, яка заснована на такому рішенні, яке очікуєтся, і добутому в такий спосіб. Плюс будуть апеляції, національні і міжнародні, і важкі міжнародні наслідки. Але припустимо, добре пошукавши, і і де-інде заплативши, суд буде знайдений. Давайте навіть припустимо, що цей суд видавасть те, чого так сильно хотіла влада - рішення на користь Януковича. Що відбувається далі? Може суд, будь-який суд, змусити Росію продавати газ Україні, якщо Росії не подобається ціна? Ні. Чи буде будь-яка іноземна держава підтримувати такі правові трюки, та ще й засновані на завідомо незаконних слуханнях? Абсолютно ні. Тоді єдиний варіант, який залишається для України, є відбирати транзитний газ, змушуючи Росію припинити транзит Російського природного газу в Європу. Але в мене є погані новини для режиму в Києві. Це не 2009, це буде у 2012 році. Росія тепер може прокачати 76.5bcm природного газу до Європи без використання українських трубопроводів, Європа створила мережу інтерконекторів у газових мережах, що дозволить вивести природний газу з Північного моря в Словаччину, та ще й додала 16bcm об”ємів газосховищ. Нова газова війна буде болючою для Європи і для Росії, але це буде далеко від катастрофи 2009 року. До того ж Росія отримає залізне обгрунтування для будівництва "Південного потоку" - саме те, чого дуже не вистачає російським постачальники труб і газовим сервісним компаніям, що близькі до Путіна.

Все зводиться до того, що вся ця стратегія є неправильною. Вона не принесе нічого, крім неприємностей Януковичу, і нічого, крім втрат Україні, якщо вирок буде зупинений в останню хвилину.

І в кінці тільки одне зауваження: чи не виглядає цинічним і потворними, коли Президент країни, де лідера опозиції протизаконно судять щоб ув”язнити не зважаючи на обставини справи, планує звертатися до міжнародних судів в суперечці за газ? І коли він робить це в той час як приятель всесвітньо відомого газового спекулянта Фірташа є міністром енергетики в уряді? Він це серйозно?

Flawed Strategy

Flawed Strategy by Dr Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko and Walter Derzko

In his strange, anti-Russian pitch at the Dushanbe CIS Summit (http://news.dt.ua/articles/87216), Victor Yanukowych said that: “ there are two main components in the question of reviewing the Ukrainian Russian gas contracts. First of all, we are talking about the fact that the corresponding agreement was signed by business entities in Ukraine and Russia, without taking into account existing agreements between the two countries. "To be exact - in violation of these agreements."
"But if Russia does not agree with this, of course, we will then have to go to international courts" he said. "However, I hope we have enough wisdom to find a common solution - without a trial. I consider the court as a last resort, when we exhaust all of our opportunities, during negotiations. " said the President of Ukraine.

The second element that must be considered in the question of reviewing gas contracts, said Victor Yanukovych - "Naftogaz Ukraine" concluded an agreement without the approval by the government authority. The legality of this matter will be decided by the court said Yanukowych. "To this question, I hope we get a response very soon"

So the scheme is simple, and fairly basic: get Tymoshenko sentenced for abuse of power, and then use this court decision to launch an international legal battle with Russia to void the contracts that were signed by Tymoshenko. Many will remember that she did so to renew the gas supply of Ukraine, and to save Europe from the winter chill of 2009.

Notoriously, Yanukowych and Prime Minister Azarov had confirmed their adherence to the 2009 contracts, when they signed the “Kharkiv deal” in 2010. The deal extended the stay of the Russian Black Sea Fleet by 25 years in exchange for discounted natural gas supplies. The only essential alteration that was made to the 2009 documents was the introduction of penalties for disbanding the Agreements; note that the 2009 Agreement and contract could be disbanded without any penalty. The 2010 Agreement also presumes the incremental growth of the imports of Russian natural gas on year-over-year basis, and also adds penalties if Ukraine declines to buy more gas this year than the year before. The import target of natural gas for Ukraine was set in 2010 at 52 bln. cubic meters (bcm) per year, which is roughly what Ukraine consumes now, while its own production is circa 20 bcm. In another words, in 2010 Yanukovych committed to replace inexpensive locally produced gas from Poltava, Crimea, and Halychina, with more expensive Russian gas from above the Arctic Circle. It’s not a surprise that the opposition used all it had at hand (including eggs) to prevent the ratification of the “Kharkiv deal”.

The cornerstone of this game plan is the sentencing of Tymoshenko. It will not work otherwise. It probably will not work anyway, but Yanukovych is still trying. And Ukraine's Pechersk court is doing its best to accomplish the task, no matter what “evidence” is presented.

First and foremost, the abuse of power claim does not hold any water. According to Ukrainian regulations, the Prime Minister was authorized to sign international agreements by her position, no need for approval by the Cabinet, that's the rule. Prosecutors also claim, that the directive to Ukrainian gas monopoly NAFTOGAZ to sign the correspondent contract was falsified by Tymoshenko, to look as if it was a Directive from the Cabinet of Ministers. They failed to produce the original directive, and the document that they produced had a rubber-stamped facsimile of Tymoshenko, which was applied to the copy of the document-not the original. And it is a personal directive of the Prime Minister, not the directive of the Cabinet.

Proceedings are also impressive. Tymoshenko is brought to court every day, 2-3 hours before hearings start, and is kept in 1x1 meter cell until hearings start. Hearings usually end after 6PM, so that her defence cannot confer with her because of the jail regulations; in fact she is deprived of the right to properly defend herself. The court has refused to consider the vast majority of the documents, that confirm the innocence of Tymoshenko, all documents that mention the scandalous “Rosukrenergo”, and even the official audit statement of “Ernst & Young”, which shows that NAFTOGAZ turned to profitability as result of the 2009 decision to eliminate “Rosukrenergo” from the gas trade. Hearings are presided by the young judge Rodion Kireyev, who is still going through a 5-year probation period, and who was already reprimanded by the Appeals Court for failing to admit documents from the defence, and for an unlawful and biased judgment in the corruption case in the township of Berezan – the only corruption case that he has ever handled in his life. Kireyev was transferred from Berezan to Kiev to handle the Tymoshenko case. To make long story short, the hearings are a mix of mockery and circus of bad-taste. Naturally, Kireyev turned down requests for bail by US Senator John McCain, by the Dalai-Lama, by Nobel Prize Laureates, and appeals that were backed by the US Department of State. And naturally he will sentence Tymoshenko – there is consistency in his actions, we shall grant him this.

All these proceedings are unconstitutional, and bear massive violations of legal procedures and of Ukrainian Law. The President, whose job is to guarantee the Constitution, keeps saying, that he cannot interfere the court proceedings. He did not mind prejudging the outcome of the court at the Dushanbe Summit though. In plain English: he neglects his direct duties, which is certainly an impeachable offense. But he doesn't mind. He keeps buying vehicles for transporting prisoners, and keeps adding to the numbers of police and bodyguards – explaining that this all is done for “Euro-2012”, a sort of universal excuse that the Donetsk regime uses.

So why? “It's a Gas”, as the 2006 report of “Transparency International” about the shady gas trader say on its cover. The chemical companies of Yanukovych's main sponsor, Dmitro Firtash cannot survive when gas prices are above US$280/1000 cu.m, and another Yanukovych's sponsor, Akhmetov, owns metallurgy and power generation assets, which also needs cheap gas. They all want to make more profits. Firtash more than quintupled his wealth during the past year, but there is no such thing as reason, in this race. If getting cheaper gas will help put Firtash ‘s personal enemy Tymoshenko behind bars, then it will be a nice bonus for him. And all the while, Yanukowych’s ratings are plunging, and he is about to gain the international standing of Lukashenko or Kim Jong Il.

So, what's next ? Tymoshenko will be sentenced. Afterwards, Yanukowych (or rather his lawyers, who came up with this “brilliant” plan) will file a court case to void the 2009 Agreements. It is hard to believe that any European court or tribunal will even take the case that is based on such a “Kangaroo court” ruling, as the expected ruling in Kyiv will be. Plus, there will be appeals, both national and international ones, and a heavy international backlash. Well, let’s assume that after looking both high and low, and after paying here and there, some “court” will be found. Let's even go wild, and assume that this court will issue the badly needed decision in favor of Yanukowych. What happens next? Can a court, any court, force Russia to sell gas to Ukraine, if Russia doesn't like the price? No. Will any foreign country support such a legal trick, which is based on such a notoriously flawed court hearing? Absolutely not. Then the only option that remains for Ukraine is to tap into transit gas, forcing Russia to cut off transit of Russian natural gas to Europe. But there is bad news for the regime in Kyiv. It is not 2009, it will be 2012 when this action may come. Russia can now pump 76.5 bcm of natural gas to Europe without using Ukrainian pipelines. Europe has built a network of gas interconnectors, that allow it to bring natural gas from the Northern Sea to Slovakia, and has added 16 bcm of storage capacity. A new gas war will be painful for Europe and for Russia, but it will be far cry from the disaster of 2009. And Russia will get an iron-clad justification to build the “South Stream” pipeline – something that Russian pipe providers and gas service companies, that are close to Putin, badly want.

The bottom line is that the whole Yanukowych strategy is wrong. It will bring nothing but trouble to Yanukovych, and nothing but losses to Ukraine, unless the Tymoshenko sentencing will be stopped at the eleventh hour.

And as a final statement, just one more remark: doesn't it  look cynical and ugly, when the president of the country, where the leader of the opposition is tried in a real illegitimate “kangaroo court” plans to turn to seek legitimate international justice in a dispute over gas? And he does this while the good pal of world-famous gas speculator Dmitro Firtash serves as the Minister of Energy in his government? Is he serious?

Microscale device made from graphene metamaterials-one atom thick

A whole new light on graphene metamaterials

Berkeley Lab scientists demonstrate a tunable graphene device, the first tool in a kit for putting terahertz light to work

		IMAGE: The graphene microribbon array can be tuned in three ways. Varying the width of the ribbons changes plasmon resonant frequency and absorbs corresponding frequencies of terahertz light. Plasmon response is... Click here for more information.

Long-wavelength terahertz light is invisible – it's at the farthest end of the far infrared – but it's useful for everything from detecting explosives at the airport to designing drugs to diagnosing skin cancer. Now, for the first time, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated a microscale device made of graphene – the remarkable form of carbon that's only one atom thick – whose strong response to light at terahertz frequencies can be tuned with exquisite precision.

"The heart of our device is an array made of graphene ribbons only millionths of a meter wide," says Feng Wang of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, who is also an assistant professor of physics at UC Berkeley, and who led the research team. "By varying the width of the ribbons and the concentration of charge carriers in them, we can control the collective oscillations of electrons in the microribbons."

The name for such collective oscillations of electrons is "plasmons," a word that sounds abstruse but describes effects as familiar as the glowing colors in stained-glass windows.

"Plasmons in high-frequency visible light happen in three-dimensional metal nanostructures," Wang says. The colors of medieval stained glass, for example, result from oscillating collections of electrons on the surfaces of nanoparticles of gold, copper, and other metals, and depend on their size and shape. "But graphene is only one atom thick, and its electrons move in only two dimensions. In 2D systems, plasmons occur at much lower frequencies."

		IMAGE: At a constant carrier density, varying the width of the graphene ribbons -- from 1 micrometer (millionth of a meter) to 4 micrometers -- changes the plasmon resonant frequency from... Click here for more information.

The wavelength of terahertz radiation is measured in hundreds of micrometers (millionths of a meter), yet the width of the graphene ribbons in the experimental device is only one to four micrometers each.

"A material that consists of structures with dimensions much smaller than the relevant wavelength, and which exhibits optical properties distinctly different from the bulk material, is called a metamaterial," says Wang. "So we have not only made the first studies of light and plasmon coupling in graphene, we've also created a prototype for future graphene-based metamaterials in the terahertz range."

The team reports their research in Nature Nanotechnology, available in advanced online publication.

How to push the plasmons

In two-dimensional graphene, electrons have a tiny rest mass and respond quickly to electric fields. A plasmon describes the collective oscillation of many electrons, and its frequency depends on how rapidly waves in this electron sea slosh back and forth between the edges of a graphene microribbon. When light of the same frequency is applied, the result is "resonant excitation," a marked increase in the strength of the oscillation – and simultaneous strong absorption of the light at that frequency. Since the frequency of the oscillations is determined by the width of the ribbons, varying their width can tune the system to absorb different frequencies of light.

The strength of the light-plasmon coupling can also be affected by the concentration of charge carriers – electrons and their positively charged counterparts, holes. One remarkable characteristic of graphene is that the concentration of its charge carriers can easily be increased or decreased simply by applying a strong electric field – so-called electrostatic doping.

The Berkeley device incorporates both these methods for tuning the response to terahertz light. Microribbon arrays were made by depositing an atom-thick layer of carbon on a sheet of copper, then transferring the graphene layer to a silicon-oxide substrate and etching ribbon patterns into it. An ion gel with contact points for varying the voltage was placed on top of the graphene.

The gated graphene microarray was illuminated with terahertz radiation at beamline 1.4 of Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, and transmission measurements were made with the beamline's infrared spectrometer. In this way the research team demonstrated coupling between light and plasmons that were stronger by an order of magnitude than in other 2D systems.

A final method of controlling plasmon strength and terahertz absorption depends on polarization. Light shining in the same direction as the graphene ribbons shows no variations in absorption according to frequency. But light at right angles to the ribbons – the same orientation as the oscillating electron sea – yields sharp absorption peaks. What's more, light absorption in conventional 2D semiconductor systems, such as quantum wells, can only be measured at temperatures near absolute zero. The Berkeley team measured prominent absorption peaks at room temperature.

"Terahertz radiation covers a spectral range that's difficult to work with, because until now there have been no tools," says Wang. "Now we have the beginnings of a toolset for working in this range, potentially leading to a variety of graphene-based terahertz metamaterials."

The Berkeley experimental setup is only a precursor of devices to come, which will be able to control the polarization and modify the intensity of terahertz light and enable other optical and electronic components, in applications from medical imaging to astronomy – all in two dimensions.

 

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"Graphene plasmonics for tunable terahertz metamaterials," by Long Ju, Baisong Geng, Jason Horng, Caglar Girit, Michael Martin, Zhao Hao, Hans A. Bechtel, Xiaogan Liang, Alex Zettl, Y. Ron Shen, and Feng Wang, appears in Nature Nanotechnology, available in advanced online publication at http://www.nature.com/nnano/index.html.

Martin, Hao, and Bechtel are with Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source. Hao is also with the Lab's Earth Sciences Division. Liang is with the Lab's Molecular Foundry. Ju, Geng, Horng, Girit, Zettl, Shen, and Wang are with UC Berkeley's Department of Physics. Geng is also with Lanzhou University, China. Zettl, Shen, and Wang are also with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.

For more about the Advanced Light Source, visit http://www-als.lbl.gov/.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 12 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.

 

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Thinking Outside the Rocks in the Search for Ancient Earthquakes

 

 EARTH: Thinking Outside the Rocks in the Search for Ancient Earthquakes

Alexandria, VA – The eyewitness accounts, written in columns from right to left, top to bottom, testify that there was no warning of the tsunami, no shaking to drive villagers to high ground before the wave hit, drowning rice paddies and swamping a castle moat. The entries, written by merchants, peasants and samurai, all clearly mark the time and date: just after midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1700.

For centuries, it was unclear why no shaking preceded the Japanese tsunami of 1700. Now, researchers know that it’s because the tsunami was set off by an earthquake clear across the Pacific. By noting the height of the waves described in the accounts and working backward from the moment the tsunami struck, modern-day researchers detailed the magnitude and timing of the causative event: a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake that demolished villages along North America’s Pacific Northwest coast about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1700.

As EARTH details in its September feature, ―Thinking Outside the Rocks in the Search for Ancient Earthquakes,‖ modern-day scientists are getting creative in the search for information about past quakes.

Read more about how researchers are turning to old newspaper articles and photographs, folklore, petroglyphs, crumpled buildings and toppled monuments — and how learning about past quakes can help seismologists to assess future seismic risk — and read other stories on topics such as what scientists are learning from the dust from the Twin Towers’ collapse on 9/11 that might help them determine how it affects people’s health; how clean rivers are actually creating a problem with ―rock snot‖; and how CAT scans may help us find oil and gas in the September issue. And be sure to check out the travelogue about Nova Scotia’s ancient rocks.

These stories and many more can be found in the September issue of EARTH, now available digitally (http://www.earthmagazine.org/digital) or in print on your local newsstands.

For further information on the September featured article, go to http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/476-7db-8-19

Keep up to date with the latest happenings in earth, energy and environment news with EARTH magazine, available on local newsstands or online at http://www.earthmagazine.org/. Published by the American Geological Institute, EARTH is your source for the science behind the headlines.

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When will the Recession End? Part 263 Turkey, Ukraine Most Exposed in Crisis Repeat, Goldman Says

Turkey, Ukraine Most Exposed in Crisis Repeat, Goldman Says

Bloomberg Friday, August 26, 2011

 (Updates with comment from third paragraph, Hungary in sixth, Israel in eighth, South Africa in ninth.)

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey and Ukraine are more vulnerable to a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis than other nations in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.

Turkey has "accumulated substantial external imbalances" and an International Monetary Fund program has been sidelined in Ukraine, economists including Clemens Grafe and Ahmet Akarli said in an e-mailed report today. Russia would also be exposed, though "a more resilient banking system and increased ruble flexibility" should limit the impact, they said.

"Our analysis suggests there are marked financing risks in a number of CEEMEA economies should we see a repeat of 'crisis- like' stress conditions," Goldman said. "The 'stress-case' scenario implies that Turkey and Ukraine may be relatively more vulnerable to potential balance of payments incidents."

Turkey's current account deficit, which widened to a record $72.5 billion in the 12 months through June, or about 9 percent of economic output, has brought losses for the lira of 13 percent this year, the biggest decline among more than 20 emerging markets tracked by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the IMF has delayed a visit planned for next week until October, pending a revamp of its pension system and steps to narrow the budget deficit.

'More Abrupt'

In the event of external financial stress, the adjustment to correct Turkey's current account deficit "would have to be much more abrupt, leading to significant output losses, further lira weakness and possibly a fall in foreign exchange reserve levels," Goldman said.

In Hungary, five-year credit default swaps, which measure the cost of insuring a country's debt against default, have surged to the highest since April 2009, partly on concern that disagreements with the IMF leave the country more exposed to a financial shock.

"The breakdown in negotiations with the IMF means that the government will need to convince the markets of the credibility of its reforms and fiscal commitments; an unconvincing performance would increase the likelihood that the country would have to undergo another painful adjustment," Goldman said.

The external balances of Israel and Kazakhstan look more resilient, the report said.

In South Africa, "the required current account adjustment is to a large extent generated by the existing moderate current account deficit," Goldman said. "In addition, we would expect to see a relative outperformance of gold under a 'back to 2008' scenario."

--Editors: Alan Purkiss, Chris Peterson

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/26/bloomberg1376-LQISBE6TTDS001-5CTSQS5U0NP6IK02TBUONVAG88.DTL#ixzz1WIDsQvIN

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Out and Out Ukrainian government LIE  !!!!!

 

Info is that the  IMF has no plans to come to Ukraine , and that the commitment --a "maybe"  for October/November was all  that Yaroshenko (Finance) and Bojko (Energy) could get. Tihipko did not even go to Washington, as he knows how hopeless it was...wd

Ukrainian PM Sees No Obstacle to Getting Another IMF Tranche
Interfax
Friday, August 26, 2011

Ukrainian PM sees no obstacle to getting another IMF tranche

KYIV. Aug 26 (Interfax) - There is no reason why Ukraine cannot get another tranche from the International Monetary Fund, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.
"I am saying once again: We do not need money now. If we need it, this means we will go to Washington, set certain conditions, look at the conditions required from us by the creditors, and get this tranche," he told journalists on Friday.
"There are no obstacles to getting the tranche," Azarov said.
The cooperation between Ukraine and the IMF has been not just active, but also growing, he said.
The fact that the IMF mission has postponed its visit to Ukraine is the result of talks between Ukraine and the IMF, he said.
"The statement made by the IMF yesterday says that the cooperation does not just continue, but is actively developing. The real situation is that our finance minister, our minister of fuel and energy and the head of the National Bank held talks with the IMF management and agreed to determine how the program is being implemented and slated the dates for the mission's arrival," Azarov said.
=====================================

Ukraine does not need IMF money - premier
Interfax-Ukraine
Friday, August 26, 2011

Kiev, 26 August: There are no obstacles to Ukraine's receiving the next tranche of the IMF loan, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said.

"I am telling you again: we do not need the money now. If we need it, we will go to Washington, set certain conditions, (agree) the fulfilment of conditions set by our creditors and get the tranche. There are no obstacles to receiving the tranche (from the IMF - Interfax-Ukraine)," Azarov said to journalists today.

(The IMF's mission was to arrive in Kiev on 29 August to discuss the transfer of a new trache. The visit has been postponed until November. The Kommersant-Ukraina business daily reported on 26 August, quoting a Ukrainian official source "close to the talks with the IMF", that the decision to defer the visit was a move supported by both Ukrainian and IMF officials.)

(Description of Source: Kiev Interfax-Ukraine in Russian -- Service provided by the Russian news agency Interfax focusing on events in Ukraine)

 

Cognition> How Do I Remember That I Know You Know That I Know?

How Do I Remember That I Know You Know That I Know?
“I’ll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time,” says the character Aaron in the 1987 movie Broadcast News. He and the woman he’s talking to have a lot of common ground, the shared territory that makes conversations work.  Common ground is why, after you’ve mentioned Great-Aunt Mildred’s 80th birthday party once in a conversation, you can just refer to it as “the party.” In a new study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the authors pinpoint the type of memory required to make common ground work and confirm that people with a particular type of amnesia have trouble making common ground in conversation.

People with declarative memory impairment (amnesia) have good memories of what happened before their amnesia started, but they can’t form new declarative memories. That’s the kind of memory for facts and events, like what they did yesterday or the name of a person they just met. They can still form non-declarative memories, like learning how to ride a bike or other skills, says Rachael Rubin of the University of Illinois. For this study, she worked with five people with declarative memory amnesia and five healthy people. Rubin cowrote the new paper with Sarah Brown-Schmidt and Neal Cohen of the University of Illinois and Melissa Duff and Daniel Tranel of the University of Iowa.

Rubin and her colleagues tested people on whether they could keep up with common ground in conversation. In one condition, the participant and experimenter sat facing each other, looking at back-to-back monitors. Each monitor showed a 3×3 grid, which looked like a real set of cubbyholes between the two people, with objects in each compartment. The participant could see right through the top row of compartments. The middle row was blocked off, and the bottom row was blocked at the back so the participant could see what was in the compartments but the experimenter couldn’t. The experimenter asked the participant: “What object is in the bottom left?” The participant would answer – “an elephant.” After 40 seconds of conversation about something else, the experimenter would say, “Look at the elephant.” The catch was, the participant had two elephants to choose from. Normal people looked to the elephant that had been referred to just previously. But people with amnesia looked equally at the two elephants, showing no benefit from the earlier portion of the conversation.

This suggests that declarative memory is required for keeping track of what’s going on in a conversation, even if it was something that was mentioned less than a minute ago. “Memory and language are related more than people thought before,” Rubin says. And it’s a reminder that people with amnesia don’t just have trouble with memory; their memory problems extend to other parts of their lives, like the ability to connect with other people through conversation.

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For more information about this study, please contact: Rachael Rubin at rrubin2@illinois.edu.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "How do I remember that I know you know that I know?" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.org.

Tags: Language, Learning, Learning Disabilities, Long-Term Memory, Memory, Mental Health, Psychological Science

Dentistry breakthought- Filling without drilling

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a pain-free way of tackling dental decay that reverses the damage of acid attack and re-builds teeth as new.

The pioneering treatment promises to transform the approach to filling teeth forever.

Tooth decay begins when acid produced by bacteria in plaque dissolves the mineral in the teeth, causing microscopic holes or 'pores' to form. As the decay process progresses these micro-pores increase in size and number. Eventually the damaged tooth may have to be drilled and filled to prevent toothache, or even removed.

The very thought of drilling puts many people off going to see their dentist, whether or not they actually need treatment. This tendency to miss check-ups and ignore niggling aches and pains means that existing problems get worse and early signs of decay in other teeth are overlooked.

It's a vicious cycle, but one that can be broken, according to researchers at the University of Leeds who have developed a revolutionary new way to treat the first signs of tooth decay. Their solution is to arm dentists with a peptide-based fluid that is literally painted onto the tooth's surface. The peptide technology is based on knowledge of how the tooth forms in the first place and stimulates regeneration of the tooth defect.

"This may sound too good to be true, but we are essentially helping acid-damaged teeth to regenerate themselves. It is a totally natural non-surgical repair process and is entirely pain-free too," said Professor Jennifer Kirkham, from the University of Leeds Dental Institute, who has led development of the new technique.

The 'magic' fluid was designed by researchers in the University of Leeds' School of Chemistry, led by Dr Amalia Aggeli. It contains a peptide known as P 11-4 that - under certain conditions - will assemble together into fibres. In practice, this means that when applied to the tooth, the fluid seeps into the micro-pores caused by acid attack and then spontaneously forms a gel. This gel then provides a 'scaffold' or framework that attracts calcium and regenerates the tooth's mineral from within, providing a natural and pain-free repair.

The technique was recently taken out of the laboratory and tested on a small group of adults whose dentist had spotted the initial signs of tooth decay. The results from this small trial have shown that P 11-4 can indeed reverse the damage and regenerate the tooth tissue.

"The results of our tests so far are extremely promising," said Professor Paul Brunton, who is overseeing the patient testing at the University of Leeds Dental Institute. "If these results can be repeated on a larger patient group, then I have no doubt whatsoever that in two to three years time this technique will be available for dentists to use in their daily practice."

"The main reason that people don't go to the dentist regularly is fear. If we can offer a treatment that is completely non-invasive, that doesn't involve a mechanical drill, then we can change that perceived link between dental treatment and pain. This really is more than filling without drilling, this is a novel approach that enables the patients to keep their natural teeth!"

 

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The study is being funded by credentis ag who have licensed the technology and are preparing to introduce P11-4 to dentists worldwide.

Contact: Paula Gould
p.a.gould@leeds.ac.uk
44-113-343-8059
University of Leeds

Why does stress causes DNA damage?

DURHAM, N.C. – For years, researchers have published papers that associate chronic stress with chromosomal damage.

Now researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain the stress response in terms of DNA damage.

"We believe this paper is the first to propose a specific mechanism through which a hallmark of chronic stress, elevated adrenaline, could eventually cause DNA damage that is detectable," said senior author Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Duke University Medical Center.

The paper was published in the Aug. 21 online issue of Nature.

In the study, mice were infused with an adrenaline-like compound that works through a receptor called the beta adrenergic receptor that Lefkowitz has studied for many years. The scientists found that this model of chronic stress triggered certain biological pathways that ultimately resulted in accumulation of DNA damage.

"This could give us a plausible explanation of how chronic stress may lead to a variety of human conditions and disorders, which range from merely cosmetic, like graying hair, to life-threatening disorders like malignancies," Lefkowitz said.

P53 is a tumor suppressor protein and is considered a "guardian of the genome" – one that prevents genomic abnormalities.

"The study showed that chronic stress leads to prolonged lowering of p53 levels," said Makoto Hara, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Lefkowitz laboratory. "We hypothesize that this is the reason for the chromosomal irregularities we found in these chronically stressed mice."

Lefkowitz earlier had proved the existence of isolated, and characterized the G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) such as the beta adrenergic receptor. These receptors, which are located on the surface of the membranes that surround cells, are the targets of almost half of the drugs on the market today, including beta blockers for heart disease, antihistamines and ulcer medications.

Now he is continuing studies along another pathway,stemming from the GPCRs, that was discovered in his lab, which is known as the beta-arrestin pathway. At first, the theory was that beta-arrestin proteins turned off or desensitized the G-protein pathways, but evidence is accumulating that these proteins are also responsible for causing certain biochemical activities in their own right.

In the current study, the scientists found a molecular mechanism through which adrenaline-like compounds acted through both G-protein and the beta-arrestin pathways to trigger DNA damage.

The Nature publication showed that the infusion of an adrenaline-like compound for four weeks in the mice caused degradation of p53, which was present in lower levels over time.

The study also showed that the DNA damage was prevented in mice lacking beta-arrestin 1. Loss of beta-arrestin 1 stabilized cellular levels of p53 both in the thymus, an organ that strongly responds to acute or chronic stress, and in the testes, where paternal stress might affect an offspring's genome.

Future studies planned by the Lefkowitz laboratory include studying mice that are placed under stress (restrained), thus creating their own adrenaline or stress reaction to learn whether the physical reactions of stress, rather than an influx of adrenaline in the lab as was done in the current study, also leads to accumulation of DNA damage.

 

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Other authors include Jeffrey J. Kovacs, Erin J. Whalen, Sudarshan Rajagopal, Ryan T. Strachan, Seungkirl Ahn, Barbara Williams, Christopher M. Lam, Kunhong Xiao, and Sudha K. Shenoy, all of the Duke Department of Medicine; Aaron J. Towers and Simon G. Gregory of the Department of Medicine and the Center for Human Genetics at Duke; and Wayne Grant and Derek R. Duckett of the Translational Research Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, Fla..

The study was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

When will the Recession End? Part 262 What's behind the London Riots? consumerism

THE SHOPPING RIOTS

By Gwyneth Holland, Sr. Editor, Europe - Iconowatch

As the world and his wife now knows, England was last week beset with a string of riots. The unrest began in London but sprung up later in towns across the country, including major cities like Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool and Birmingham. While the burning buildings and terrorised citizens looked much like other imiages of unrest around the world, the events in England had a troubling undertone — consumerism.

Disenfranchised youth may have railed against police mistreatment of young black and Asian men in London’s most deprived boroughs, but their outrage soon mushroomed into a protest not just against the police, but against government cuts, splintered communities and — most visibly — against the things the rioters didn’t have. Taking particular punishment were electronics stores, jewellers and department stores, where rioters ran out of broken shopfronts with armfuls of aspirational goods. As the Guardian’s Zoe Williams put it, “these are shopping riots”, not simply the “pure criminality” declaimed by Cameron’s government. The Financial Times commented that in comparison to the young revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia, “Our young people have nothing to lose and nothing to gain, except thrills and new trainers”.

The spreading riots set a new paradigm for the fast-moving story, with social networks being used to alert rioters of the next location. But those networks were likewise used by people to keep one another safe, by warning of new pockets of violence and helping people to unite against wrongdoers and coordinate damage cleanup. Twitter-fuelled cleanup campaigns hit the streets last Tuesday morning, while online campaigns sprung up to support local businesses who had lost everything. The “Keep Aaron Cutting” campaign (http://keepaaroncutting.blogspot.com/) raised £35,000 to enable 89-year-old Tottenham barber Aaron Biber to get back on his feet, while DeLoot London (http://www.delootlondon.co.uk/) aims to help independent shopkeepers restock after looting.

While the riots created a subset of public enemies, it also created some public heroes, like the fearless Hackney woman who questioned the politics of looters: "We're not gathering together to fight for a cause, we're running down Foot Locker and thieving shoes”. The English are still looking for answers to why the rioting and looting took hold so quickly and brutally, but the effects of last week’s events will be far-reaching. For rioters this may mean swift justice, but for everyone else, it also means reexamining the social divisions that led to the riots. 

What's behind London's shopping riots - Iconowatch

World Future 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver. The Annual Conference of the World Future Society July 27-29, 2012; Toronto, Canada

WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver.The Annual Conference of the World Future Society July 27-29, 2012; Toronto, Canada Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel Toronto, Ontario, Canada Register Today and Save $300! http://www.wfs.org/content/register-worldfuture-2012 The World Future Society's annual conference, "WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver" will give you the opportunity to learn from others in many different fields, and to explore actions affecting our futures in as yet unimagined ways. You can join about 1,000 futurists from more than 35 countries around the world. This is truly an international event. And if you register by August 31, you'll save $300 off the on-site fee. Should your plans change, you can receive a full refund through June 29, 2012. The conference will feature approximately 100 leading futurists offering more than 60 sessions, workshops, and special events over the course of two and a half days. And for those who want to take a “deeper dive,” into key studies of interest, the preconference Master Classes allow for an in-depth look in a small group setting. The focus throughout WorldFuture 2012 is empowering individuals to effect change, particularly in this time of global unrest. The theme of “Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver” evokes the energy of entrepreneurship and the spirit of “DIY” as applied to all of our endeavors for building a better tomorrow. Sessions will address a wide range of sectors, including business and careers, technology and its impacts, futures methodologies and processes, governance and communities, resources and the environment, education and learning, consciousness and spirituality, health--and much more! Those of you who attended our 2011 conference in Vancouver experienced some of the most innovative programs and speakers that WFS has ever offered. That conference offered new and creative ways to help futurists connect, because the best thing about a WorldFuture conference is always the people who attend. From the conference-wide WiFi to the Microsoft Tag system and from the Twitter network to our innovative new Web site, launched at the conference, Vancouver was a whirlwind of innovation and imagination. In addition, the two-night Futurists:BetaLaunch event gave attendees a chance to relax after the day’s sessions and try out tomorrow’s technology today. The highly competitive event brought inventors to the conference to showcase their creative solutions to real-world problems. Another feature of WFS conferences is the opportunity afforded to specialty foresight groups to meet, focusing on national security, international women’s issues, governmental forecasting, and global regions. This is a glimpse of the continuing outreach and networking offered at every WorldFuture meeting. As one Vancouver attendee said, “This conference is a wake-up call to the real alternatives for go-forward thinking.” And of course, the 2012 conference in Toronto will continue this focus on innovation. Speakers will be seasoned futurists as well as fresh voices in a resource-rich weekend of seminars, workshops, keynotes, panel discussions, coffee bar think tanks, and the like.  We’re also trying new events, like “Speed Futuring,” a fast-paced networking event designed to give you immediate connections with a personal team of other forward-thinking people you can collaborate with beyond the conference weekend. Speakers will be added to the program continuously throughout the next several months, so be sure to check the Web site for the latest updates: http://www.wfs.org/content/worldfuture-2012 A "Meeting of the Minds" Who attends World Future Society conferences? Business executives, government officials, educators, corporate planners, researchers, scientists, students, forecasters, well-known authors, and many other thought-leaders and visionaries like you--all with a deep interest in learning more about the future. Some conference goers will be coming to share their innovative ideas, while others are coming to learn new skills and hear about new opportunities. And still others want to explore the diversity of people and viewpoints to be found at Society meetings. Attendees range from those new to the study of the future to those already responsible for tracking trends and their implications for their companies, organizations or government, as well as those ultimately responsible for crafting responses to these challenges and opportunities. Conference attendees will be envisioning--and creating--humanity's future in the decades ahead. It's a rare opportunity to discover what's happening not only in your sector, industry, or region, but in many others as well. And there is one lesson the study of the future teaches, it is that many more factors affect your own future than you might have expected--and so a broad view is the most productive one. World Future Society conferences have earned their reputation as unique and exciting events. With so many creative, forward-looking people gathered in one place, addressing a common purpose, and bringing together a fantastic diversity of experience, opinion, and expertise, WFS meetings provide an incredibly rich, valuable, and stimulating experience. "WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver" will examine exciting new technologies now emerging in fields such as information science, genetics, and medicine, as well as practical strategies you can use to make important decisions in both your work and private life. No other meeting attracts such a broad array of leaders and experts from as many fields and nations to share ideas and forecasts and to establish networks of common concern. Special facilitated discussions and interactive learning sessions will give you the opportunity to share your experiences and expertise and to build relationships with others whom you would not otherwise have an opportunity to meet. For those who use futuring methods and ideas in their professional capacity, be sure to plan to stay an extra day for the WFS Professional Members' Forum. This Forum is open to all Professional Members of WFS free of charge as part of their membership. Toronto Welcomes You! Toronto, Ontario, located on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, is actually one of the southernmost cities in Canada. Accordingly, it has a mild climate and is the entertainment capital of Canada, with live theater, concerts and international headliners. Toronto is also a highly cosmopolitan city, with distinctive neighborhoods representing a myriad of diverse global cultures. Its international airport sees 25 million passengers from around the world and offers a range of convenient connections with downtown Toronto. The Sheraton Toronto Centre Hotel--our home for the conference--offers beautifully appointed meeting rooms and sophisticated design to enhance the conference experience. The hotel includes the largest indoor/outdoor pool in the city, as well as a 24-hour fitness center and full service spa. Several full service restaurants and the waterfalls garden and the stunning view from the hotel combine to create a warm inviting atmosphere and a highly enjoyable stay. Why Come to WorldFuture 2012? “It was a great pleasure and experience for me to meet all these people--futurists, consultants, etc.--at the WorldFuture,” said Dr. Heiko A. von der Gracht, managing director of the Center for Futures Studies and Knowledge Management (CEFU) at EBS Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany. “I found this a really inspiring networking event and I am sure that that I will come back and contribute again.” Indeed, participating at a conference is like getting the whole World Future Society experience live in one place and in person, at a dynamic event that you can share with old friends and fascinating new acquaintances. Many members have been attending Society conferences over the years as a unique vacation--an adventure of the mind--where they can explore the exciting world that they are helping to build themselves: The future! We look forward to welcoming you to Toronto--and bringing your World Future Society experience to life! Please join us. Cordially, Timothy C. Mack President P.S. And don't forget that if you register right away, you'll save a substantial amount over regular registration costs--$300. Register Today and Save $300! http://www.wfs.org/content/register-worldfuture-2012

When will the Recession End? part 261 Putin Ignores The Gathering Economic Storm in Russia

Putin Ignores The Gathering Economic Storm

The volatile turbulence that battered the world economy last week should have passed Russia by, but it did not. Indeed, Russia is not burdened by a massive debt and is spared political feuds about budget cuts and is not even exposed to the looming Greek default; nevertheless, its stock exchange fell deeper than most. The Dow Jones index, for that matter, opens this Monday on about the same level where it was a week ago, while the RTS slipped from the plateau of about 11,600 to a low of 9,600 and barely bounced to 9,900 on Friday (Kommersant, August 13). Certainly, the speculative games are only a symptom, and not necessarily a reliable one, of the real economic trends, but statistics suggest that Russia’s economic growth slowed down in the second quarter, and experts argue that the country is entering into the new phase of turmoil, for which it is not any better prepared than it was in mid-2008 (www.newsru.com, August 10; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 12).

Most world leaders frequently hold emergency sessions of their cabinets and try to convince opposition parties to accept austerity packages, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remains supremely relaxed. He made a few headlines with a loose remark about US “parasitism” on the global economy and advised scared markets to calm down, but obviously sees no burning need in his trademark “manual management” (RIA Novosti, August 1; Kommersant, August 10). It was his diving in the Black Sea that received most media attention, when he discovered two ancient amphorae in a shallow bay that had been thoroughly searched by archeologists and combed by the security service, a feat that has given much joy to Russian bloggers (www.besttoday, August 13). Perhaps playing these PR-games is indeed the best Putin could do in a situation where the US dollar and the Euro are seriously unstable, but the ruble is “unpatriotically” depreciating against both (www.gazeta.ru, August 12).

It is exactly Putin’s confident steering that has made the Russian economy so vulnerable to the swings of markets’ moods because he took particular pride in rising pensions and other social programs, which has made the budget seriously over-loaded with irreducible obligations. In the next few years, steep increases of funding for law enforcement and rearmament are earmarked, but the stagnation of revenues guarantees the execution of severe cuts in populist and militarist commitments, which could hardly be postponed longer than a few months after the presidential elections in spring 2012 (www.gazeta.ru, August 11). The foreboding in the middle classes translates into the deepening and widening urge to move away from the crumbling “stability” (Moskovskiy Novosti, August 12). It also drives the discontent with the too generous federal funding for the North Caucasus where the smoldering civil war has become a profitable business for local elites (Vedomosti, August 3).

Russian corporate debt is now higher than it was in 2008 and the reserve fund is depleted, so the solvency is entirely a function of high-and-rising petro-revenues, which are in fact flat with a tendency to fall (www.newsru.com, August 8). Russian oil companies are bracing for lower profit margins, but it is the almighty Gazprom that feels threatened by the shrinking demand in Europe and the falling prices on the spot market (RBC Daily, August 12). Sticking to the letter of its treasured long-term contracts Gazprom has shown so little flexibility on prices that now even its trusted German partner E.ON is taking it to court for abusing its monopolistic position (Ekspert, August 1; Vedomosti, August 11). Desperate demands for price cuts come also from Ukraine where former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko is even behind bars for signing an allegedly detrimental gas deal with Russia in January 2009 (RIA Novosti, August 6). Moscow is not impressed with this politicized investigation, and the meeting between President Dmitry Medvedev and Viktor Yanukovych in Sochi last week brought no compromise (Kommersant, August 12). Russia has no interest in pushing Ukraine to bankruptcy and it is not even pressing Putin’s proposal for Gazprom’s “big-brotherly” takeover of Ukrainian Naftogaz, it appears to pursue the simple aim of revenue maximization.

This reduction of the political agenda to securing the inflow of petro-dollars shows that Russian rulers believe that in the dawning era of market volatility and “quantitative easing” of major currencies the value of oil and gas as secure assets is set to grow. This goes against Medvedev’s “modernization” discourse based on the lesson from the painful contraction of 2008-2009, which pointed to the unacceptable risk of over-dependency upon energy exports. The key pre-condition for modernization is investment, but entrepreneurs showed only superficial enthusiasm for Medvedev’s “innovations,” while strategically moving their money out of Russia. In the last week, this trickling-out turned into a current, as only the investment funds evacuated from the Russian market more than $400 million (Kommersant, August 13). Even in the energy sector, modernization is not happening and the failed attempt to build the “Bolshoi Petroleum” alliance between the BP and Rosneft, torpedoed by vicious business-political intrigues, testifies to that (RBC Daily, August 11).

Anxiety about Russia’s entry into a new phase of economic crisis is inevitably influenced by the reflections on the collapse of the USSR, because this week marks the twentieth anniversary of the military putsch that sought to rescue the imploding super-power and instead precipitated its demise. Public opinion remains divided and more sour than celebratory about that event, and Putin is hardly going to orate about it, but it has definitely left a deep scar on the national psyche (Ekho Moskvy, August 11). The shock from seeing tanks in Moscow streets has long been erased by impressions from too many other tanks burning in the squares of Grozny or rolling towards Tbilisi, but the sinking feeling of living through a state failure is back. It was the military-industrial complex that bankrupted the oil-based Soviet economy in the 1980’s, and now it is the corrupt bureaucracy that proceeds along the same track. Putin is both the master and the servant of this system that has extracted from Russia value exceeding the limits of economic self-reproduction, and he is set to preside over the unraveling.

--Pavel K. Baev

Eurasia Daily Monitor -- Volume 8, Issue 157

When will the Recession End? part 260 Russia still faces risk of economic meltdown - expert

Abstract (summary) 

The basis for the return of the world's financial markets to growth were yesterday's statements (heard late in the evening Moscow time) by representatives of the US Federal Reserve System. They effectively promised to "increase liquidity" if the situation…

Text of report by Russian political commentary website Politkom.ru on 10 August

[Report by Ivan Preobrazhenskiy, leader of IA Rosbalt's political desk: "Premature End to Panic"]

The Federal Reserve System in the United States, the Ministry of Finances in Russia, and financial departments in other countries have put an end to the financial panic that arose at the end of last week. Real monetary "injections" for the financial markets, and to a greater extent, even the simple promise to pour money on the fire, were enough, many people think, to avert a second wave of financial economic crisis. However, in reality, it is rather too early to rejoice. And the rouble could still easily be devalued, oil prices go down again, and the US economy enter the stage of recession. After all, the main cause - the gigantic, simply unmanageable debts of those states that after 2008 assumed the obligations of major corporations - has not gone anywhere.

The basis for the return of the world's financial markets to growth were yesterday's statements (heard late in the evening Moscow time) by representatives of the US Federal Reserve System. They effectively promised to "increase liquidity" if the situation on the stock markets does not enter a normal channel, and the United States' debt problem remains as acute. And after this, the American stock markets quietly crept upward. True, not with the fervour with which, before this, they collapsed into the "minus" abyss.

Incidentally, Russia also resorted to measures similar to those employed by the Americans. Here things were not limited to Vladimir Putin's promises alone. In order to stabilize the situation, the Ministry of Finances floated temporarily available budget funds to the tune of 40 billion roubles. In the upshot, the combination of the external and internal factors brought some long-awaited calm to the Russian stock markets. Like the American markets, they resumed their growth. Accordingly, the US dollar exchange rate also fell slightly against the Russian rouble. It may appear that Russians can relax. And that those of them who managed to open "metal" accounts in banks, or who bought investment coins, can altogether grow sick at heart, because the growth of prices on the most important valuable metal virtually stopped. However, such an optimistic conclusion is premature.

The first sign is the continuing, albeit limply, fall of the rouble exchange rate. Against the Euro, if not the dollar. Second, there is the continuing growth in the price of gold. Albeit not such significant growth as in the previous few days, but tangible growth all the same. Finally, the third indirect sign is the bankruptcies of small tourist firms and airlines that have been observed in Russia. It does not testify directly to continuing instability in the financial markets, of course. However, it is painfully reminiscent of the 2008 situation, when the first financial problems also began among tour operators and air carriers, and it all ended with a large-scale market collapse and a pronounced devaluation of the rouble.

In point of fact, it is devaluation that is predicted by many analysts as the first, and most probable consequence of what has happened. In other words, we can expect, if not in the next month or two, then in the foreseeable future, a fall in the rouble exchange rate, and, in parallel, inflation, with all its charms; that is to say, first and foremost, rising prices and tariffs. Even entirely official people do not conceal this. For example, Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak, justifying the need for the population to have roubles in their hands by the fact that they buy bread with these same roubles, nevertheless says: "When it comes to large sums of savings, there is still some sense in turning to exotic currencies. But if it is a question of the comparatively small sums of money that our population has in their hands, it is not worth abandoning the dollar."

So that it is clearly not worth being in a hurry. Even if those who optimistically state that the panic of recent days is not the first phase of an burgeoning new world economic crisis are right, for Russia individually, its own micro-crisis is virtually guaranteed. It is especially likely if oil prices, which ground to a halt rather than beginning to go up, continue over the next few days the fall began earlier, and drop below the 80 dollars per barrel barrier.

Admittedly, it is after the elections that one should most likely prepare for a collapse. It is then that it is most possible. Because, as many experts note, before the elections, political objectives are more important for the Russian authorities than economic ones, and even though accumulated funds are not as considerable as in 2008, all the same, they are entirely sufficient to "stretch" until the spring of 2012 and to elect a president. Well, and after that, he will have six years to combat all possible crises.

Credit: Politkom.ru website, Moscow, in Russian 10 Aug 11

Politkom.ru website, Moscow, in Russian 10 Aug 11/BBC Monitoring/(c) BBC

 

 

When will the Recession end? part 259 Why did the Soviet Union Collapse? It went BROKE!

This new evidence  supports my earlier notion for the key reason why the USSR fell apart. see http://bit.ly/gDR578

Stefan Lemieszewski says "A historian has secretly copied 30,000 pages of secret archival material from the Gorbachev Foundation and made them available to Spiegel.  They blow away the myth of Gorbachev as a “reformer” and replace it with the image of “Gorbachev the beggar” by revealing that the economic decline of USSR got so bad that Gorbachev had gone to London begging for $30 billion to keep the Communist empire (and himself) afloat. Documents also show that Kohl supported Gorbachev and not Yeltsin. Kohl didn’t want the USSR to collapse.

 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,779277,00.html#ref=nlint

Spiegel Online

11Aug2011

The Gorbachev Files

Secret Papers Reveal Truth Behind Soviet Collapse

By Christian Neef

 

[ . . . ]

Gorbachev: You know, Helmut, there are many people among our American friends who are whispering things about "Gorbachev's situation." They're saying, for example: Look, Gorbachev supports preserving the union, while Yeltsin might grant the Baltic states and other republics their independence. Yeltsin supports private ownership, while Gorbachev favors a mixed economy. Yeltsin will be more preoccupied with domestic issues and therefore won't get in the way of the Americans in various parts of the world. These are not credible recommendations. Bush and his secretary of state, (James) Baker, are still holding their ground, but they are coming under growing pressure. Of course, I also have to overcome these difficulties.

Kohl: You can rely on me, Mikhail. I will make this sufficiently clear to the Western European and American leaders.

On July 5, when Yeltsin was already the de-facto president of Russia, waiting only for his inauguration, Kohl met with Gorbachev at the summer residence of the Ukrainian Communist Party in Mezhgorye. At that moment, neither of the two leaders could know that, half a year later, Ukraine would already be an independent country.

As they were being driven from the Kiev airport to Mezhgorye, Kohl reviewed the worst-case scenario:

Kohl: I've thought about it: What would happen if Gorbachev would suddenly leave and Yeltsin would take his place? I have to say that the mere thought of it horrified me. Of course the country cannot be left to such a man.

Gorbachev: We certainly agree on that point.

Kohl: What will you do, Mikhail, when the Baltic states finally leave the union?

Gorbachev: They can do that, of course. It's difficult to change their ideas about sovereignty. They refuse to engage in any reasonable argumentation. If they truly want to withdraw, there is only one way to do it -- the constitutional approach. But they are terrified of taking the normal constitutional path.

Kohl: You really won't keep them in the union by force. On the other hand, it must be clear to the Baltic states that there is no option other than the one prescribed by the constitution. And the West's verbal support for them changes nothing in this regard.

Neither the German nor the Russian would later publicize this conversation, because Kohl's view of Yeltsin was as devastating as Gorbachev's. What the chancellor also preferred not to see in print was the fact that he drew a clear distinction between his public support for the principle of self-determination and his actual position. Kohl did not truly support the Baltic Soviet republics withdrawing from the union, and he demanded that such decisions be approved by the parliament in Moscow -- which, by then, was already wishful thinking.

Kohl: Only a donkey can assume that the destruction of the union benefits anyone. The collapse of the Soviet Union would be a catastrophe for everyone.

[ . . . ]

Part 4: 'We Need Money for Current Expenses'

Two weeks later, he traveled to London to attend, for the first time, a summit of the seven leading industrialized nations, and to request that his country be admitted to this club of economic heavyweights. Kohl had paved the way to London for Gorbachev, over the objections of the Americans and Japanese. In reality, however, he traveled to London to beg for at least $30 billion to rescue the ailing Soviet Union and its president.

Many of the reports written in those weeks -- none of which Gorbachev would later publish -- indicate that he must have perceived the situation as demeaning.

[ . . . ]

The new friendship with the Germans has been given yet another large scoop of cement. If all goes well with the Soviet-German factor, it will determine the fate of both Europe and global politics.

On the flight back to Moscow, Gorbachev said:

Kohl ... will do everything to help us rise up again and become a modern superpower. Well, he is very anxious about Ukraine (Kohl also met with the Ukrainian leadership in Kiev ). But for him it's no longer Hitler's Lebensraum.

By early September, about three weeks after the August coup, the financial situation in the USSR was so precarious that Gorbachev took then German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher aside while Genscher was visiting Moscow and, abandoning any sense of pride, said:

Gorbachev: We need money for current expenses, so that we can continue to live and maintain imports while the negotiations on the restructuring of our short-term debts are underway. I plan to discuss this with Kohl on the phone today.

Genscher: I don't know if you should address such a delicate matter on the telephone. I can send the chancellor an encrypted telegram right away, so that only he can read it.

Gorbachev: We need two billion dollars. Perhaps you advance half a billion from the payments we are to receive from you in October, and we'll take another half out of our reserves. We hope to obtain the second billion in the Middle East . I have sent (the deputy head of the KGB) Primakov there with this mission.

===============================================

 

Smart materials Revolutionary material dramatically increases explosive force of weapons

A revolutionary material that will replace steel in warhead casings will bring added lethality and increase the likelihood of a hit on an enemy target, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced August 10.

By combining several metals with standard manufacturing techniques, High-Density Reactive Material (HDRM) has the potential to dramatically increase the explosive impact of most weapons with little or no compromise in strength or design.

Unlike conventional munitions, the innovative materials approach integrates the casing with approved warhead explosives for increased lethality. In addition, the unique design for fragmenting warheads allows release of chemical energy after impact, increasing the probability of a catastrophic kill.

"Recent testing and demonstrations have consistently shown that the new casings can be integrated into naval missiles and are durable enough to withstand both high acceleration of missile launch and the forces exposed to during the detonation event," said Dr. Clifford Bedford, ONR's energy conversion program officer. The HDRM fragments can penetrate a target's skin, followed by a rapid and sustained combustion/explosion."

The last test shots were fired at the Army's Blossom Point Field Test Facility in Maryland at the end of June.

HDRM has the strength of common aluminum alloys yet the density of mild steel, making it an ideal replacement for steel components. This is important because, in order for existing weapon systems to maintain probability of a hit, they must have a density similar to that of steel.

ONR is planning additional test shots in mid-August at Blossom Point. A large-scale demonstration against multiple stationary targets is tentatively planned for September.

###

The reactive materials team at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division, a partner with ONR, was recently honored with a Top Scientists and Engineers of the Year award for developing the material

Public release date: 10-Aug-2011

Contact: Peter Vietti
onrcsc@onr.navy.mil
703-588-2167
Office of Naval Research

PETITION to the president of Ukraine from the 20 million Ukrainians in the Diaspora

Президентові України Вікторові Януковичу

Прем`єр-міністрові Миколі Азарову

Голові Верховної Ради Володимирові Литвину

 

Звернення

 

Ми,  українці, Канади, стурбовані сповзанням Yкраїни до авторитаризму. За майже півторарічне перебування за кермом держави Презедента Януковича Україна за багатьма показниками скотилася до рівня найвідсталіших країн світу.

Постійне порушення Конституції України, формування парламентської більшості шляхом підкупу, тиску; відтермінування парламентських виборів, відміна політреформи, проведення псевдореформ з метою неймовірного збагачення олігархів на тлі катастрофічного зубожіння населення; корупція в найвищих ешелонах влади; підпорядкування державних інтересів кримінально-клановим і родинним, знищення середнього й малого бізнесу, порушення прав людини, задекларованих ООН  не може залишити байдужим кожного, хто бажає кращої долі Україні.

Не даремно міжнародні структури, світова спільнота, міжнародні правозахисники б`ють тривогу з приводу згортання в Україні демократичних свобод, посилення ролі СБУ, використання силових структур, судочинства, прокуратури, міліції для вибіркового кримінального переслідування, тиску на ЗМІ, кримінального переслідування за мирні зібрання, придушення свободи слова, повсюдне порушення прав людини тощо. Окрема тема: нищення національної ідентичності, рідної мови, культури, фальшування історії так званим міністром освіти і науки Д. Табачником.

 

Викликом для світу став безпрецедентний арешт екс-прем`єр-міністра, нинішнього опозиційного лідера Ю. Тимошенко. Зазначимо, що її  кримінальна справи зрежисерована й провадиться в дусі часів сталінізму.

 

Ми  занепокоєні тим, що після судової розправи над Юлією Тимошенко влада може зробити все, щоб остаточно зачистити політичну арену від будь-якої неконтрольованої нею опозиції, від кожного, хто не хоче жити за донецькими «понятіями». Це також сцівпадає з цілями Кремля: позбутися опозиції в сусідних країнах.

 

Ми,  українці, Канади, стурбовані сповзанням Yкраїни до авторитаризму. За майже півторарічне перебування за кермом держави Презедента Януковича Україна за багатьма показниками скотилася до рівня найвідсталіших країн світу.

Постійне порушення Конституції України, формування парламентської більшості шляхом підкупу, тиску; відтермінування парламентських виборів, відміна політреформи, проведення псевдореформ з метою неймовірного збагачення олігархів на тлі катастрофічного зубожіння населення; корупція в найвищих ешелонах влади; підпорядкування державних інтересів кримінально-клановим і родинним, знищення середнього й малого бізнесу, порушення прав людини, задекларованих ООН  не може залишити байдужим кожного, хто бажає кращої долі Україні.

Не даремно міжнародні структури, світова спільнота, міжнародні правозахисники б`ють тривогу з приводу згортання в Україні демократичних свобод, посилення ролі СБУ, використання силових структур, судочинства, прокуратури, міліції для вибіркового кримінального переслідування, тиску на ЗМІ, кримінального переслідування за мирні зібрання, придушення свободи слова, повсюдне порушення прав людини тощо. Окрема тема: нищення національної ідентичності, рідної мови, культури, фальшування історії так званим міністром освіти і науки Д. Табачником.

 

Викликом для світу став безпрецедентний арешт екс-прем`єр-міністра, нинішнього опозиційного лідера Ю. Тимошенко. Зазначимо, що її  кримінальна справи зрежисерована й провадиться в дусі часів сталінізму.

 

Ми  занепокоєні тим, що після судової розправи над Юлією Тимошенко влада може зробити все, щоб остаточно зачистити політичну арену від будь-якої неконтрольованої нею опозиції, від кожного, хто не хоче жити за донецькими «понятіями». Це також сцівпадає з цілями Кремля: позбутися опозиції в сусідних країнах.

 

Канадський комітет «Сприяння демократії в Україні»

Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine

CGforDU@gmail.com

 

Narcissists Look Like Good Leaders—But They Aren’t!

Narcissists rise to the top. That’s because other people think their qualities—confidence, dominance, authority, and self-esteem—make them good leaders.

Is that true? “Our research shows that the opposite seems to be true,” says Barbora Nevicka, a PhD candidate in organizational psychology, describing a new study she undertook with University of Amsterdam colleagues Femke Ten Velden, Annebel De Hoogh, and Annelies Van Vianen. The study found that the narcissists’ preoccupation with their own brilliance inhibits a crucial element of successful group decision-making and performance: the free and creative exchange of information and ideas. The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study recruited 150 participants and divided them into groups of three. One person was randomly assigned to be the group’s leader; all were told they could contribute advice, but that the leader was responsible for making the decision. Then they undertook a group task: choosing a job candidate.  Of 45 items of information about the candidate, some were given to all three, and some to only one of the participants.

The experiment was designed so that using only the information all three were privy to, the group would opt for a lesser candidate. Sharing all the information, including what each possessed exclusively, would lead to the best choice. Afterwards, the participants completed questionnaires. The leaders’ questions measured narcissism; the others assessed the leaders’ authority and effectiveness.  All checked off the items among the 45 that they knew—indicating how much the group had shared—and rated how well they’d exchanged information. Experimenters tallied the number of shared items, noted the objective quality of the decision, and analyzed these data in relation to the leader’s narcissism.

As expected, the group members rated the most narcissistic leaders as most effective. But they were wrong. In fact, the groups led by the greatest egotists chose the worse candidate for the job. Says Nevicka,  “The narcissistic leaders had a very negative effect on their performance. They inhibited the communication because of self-centeredness and authoritarianism.”

Narcissism can sometimes be useful in a leader, says Nevicka. In a crisis, for instance, people feel that a strong, dominant person will take control and do the right thing, “and that may reduce uncertainty and diminish stress.”

But in the everyday life of an organization, “communication—sharing of information, perspectives, and knowledge—is essential to making good decisions.  In brainstorming groups, project teams, government committees, each person brings something new. That’s the benefit of teams. That’s what creates a good outcome.” Good leaders facilitate communication by asking questions and summarizing the conversation—something narcissists are too self-involved to do.

Nevicka says the research has implications beyond the workplace—for instance, in politics. “Narcissists are very convincing. They do tend to be picked as leaders. There’s the danger: that people can be so wrong based on how others project themselves. You have to ask: Are the competencies they project valid, or are they merely in the eyes of the beholder?”

 ###
For more information about this study, please contact: Barbora Nevicka at B.Nevicka@uva.nl.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Reality at odds with perceptions: Narcissistic leaders and group performance" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.org.