Tusculum College is seeking a Site Coordinator for its new site in the Kingsport Center for Higher Education.? The Coordinator will be responsible for establishing and running the Tusculum College Office and assuring its success for recruiting and supporting Tusculum College students.?? The Site Coordinator will be employed full-time as an academic administrator and will coordinate work with Enrollment Management, Faculty Services, Academic Advising, TRIO, and Tusculum College Deans and School Director, among others.? Although primarily an office management and student/faculty support position, the Site Coordinator is also responsible for identifying and maintaining external relationships that are consistent with the success of recruiting prospective students.? This position may involve up to twelve (12) hours of instruction.
Review of applications will begin immediately and the position will be open until filled.?
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS:
A minimum of a Master?s degree is required with relevant post-secondary credentials to support instruction in one or more academic programs.?? The successful candidate will demonstrate relevant teaching, advising, recruiting, and administrative experiences in an educational environment with preference given to those with increasingly responsible management experience in higher education.?Required are effective communication skills, computer/Microsoft Office skills, demonstrated ability to establish and maintain strategic partnerships,? demonstrated commitment to student success, availability to work evening and weekend hours, a flexible and positive attitude,? and the ability to prioritize while working with multiple priorities and tasks.?
HOW TO APPLY:
Please send a cover letter, CV, graduate transcript, three reference letters, and a teaching philosophy electronically to tcresume@tusculum.edu or Tusculum College, Human Resources, Attn: Site Coordinator, Kingsport Center for Higher Education Search, P.O. Box 5093, Greeneville, TN 37743.? EOE/E-Verify
May 30, 2013 ? Rounded pebbles on the surface of Mars indicate that a stream once flowed on the red planet, according to a new study by a team of scientists from NASA's Curiosity rover mission, including a University of California, Davis, geologist. The study will be published in the May 31 issue of the journal Science.
Rounded pebbles of this size are known to form only when transported through water over long distances. They were discovered between the north rim of the planet's Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater.
The finding represents the first on-site evidence of sustained water flows on the Mars landscape, and supports prospects that the planet could once have been able to host life.
As a co-investigator for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory team, UC Davis geologist and study co-author Dawn Sumner played a key role in choosing Gale Crater as the landing site for Curiosity. Finding the rounded pebbles, which were deposited more than 2 billion years ago, was a matter of landing in the right place, she said.
"The main reason we chose Gale Crater as a landing site was to look at the layered rocks at the base of Mount Sharp, about five miles away," she said. "We knew there was an alluvial fan in the landing area, a cone-shaped deposit of sediment that requires flowing water to form. These sorts of pebbles are likely because of that environment. So while we didn't choose Gale Crater for this purpose, we were hoping to find something like this."
The finding comes from Curiosity's exploration of the Mars surface during its first 100 sols (102.7 days on Earth), or Martian days. During that time, the rover traveled about a quarter mile from its landing site, examining multiple outcrops of pebble-rich slabs. Curiosity took high-resolution images of these pebbles at three locations known as Goulburn, Link and Hottah. The grain size, roundness and other characteristics of the pebbles led the researchers to conclude they had been transported by water.
Sumner said the discovery involves some of the most basic principles of geology.
"On the first day of my sedimentary class, I have the students measure grain size and the rounding," Sumner said. "It's simple, and it's important."
Sumner's work in South Africa and Australia studying signs of past microbial life in rocks and her work on living microbial communities in Antarctica helped land her the spot on the Mars Science Laboratory team. NASA recognized her skills could be critical to the mission's goal: to determine whether there ever could have been life on Mars.
As part of the MSL team, Sumner helped coordinate the first scientific interpretations of what was seen during Curiosity's first few days on Mars, helps direct the rover, via computer, to shoot photographs of the planet, and continues to work on the mission from UC Davis. She will soon go on sabbatical to work on the mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
May 30, 2013 ? Motorway maintenance workers are exposed to various harmful emissions. Surprisingly, motorised hand-held tools such as strimmers (string trimmers) and chainsaws, rather than motorway traffic, are responsible for the highest emissions of particulate matter.
These are the conclusions of a study supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
The study was conducted between May 2010 and February 2012 by researchers working with Michael Riediker at the Institute for Work and Health in Lausanne. They accompanied 18 maintenance workers on 50 working days during tasks such as clearing snow, mending crash barriers, cleaning drains, cutting wood or mowing grass on the motorway central reservation. They measured the levels of air pollution, particulates and noise to which workers were exposed during each activity. The result compared to the average population, maintenance workers are exposed to between three and eight times higher particulate levels. In addition, noise levels often exceed the critical level of 85 decibels.
"Real belchers"
Surprisingly, motorway traffic is not the main source of noise and pollutants. More than 50 percent of airborne particulates are emitted by strimmers and chainsaws. "The small combustion engines which the workers carry on their backs use petrol with oil additives. This makes them real belchers," says Reto Meier, the lead author of the study. The quickest way to reduce particulate levels, therefore, is to improve the engines in these machines. This is primarily a challenge for the manufacturers, but Meier adds that employers can also play a role by considering emission levels when purchasing equipment.
Hearing protection
Maintenance workers are exposed to the highest noise levels when using pneumatic drills. But the use of strimmers or chainsaws and the traffic during maintenance work in tunnels also give rise to noise levels of 90 decibels or more. Researchers noticed that workers wear hearing protection reliably when they are the cause of the noise, but often fail to do so when the noise is caused by their colleagues or by the traffic. "To prevent damage to the ears, protection should be worn whenever possible," says Meier.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Foerderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
R. Meier, W. E. Cascio, B. Danuser, M. Riediker. Exposure of Highway Maintenance Workers to Fine Particulate Matter and Noise. Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 2013; DOI: 10.1093/annhyg/met018
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
The value of a higher education is undeniable ? but its sticker price is undeniably too high. Over the past decade, college costs have risen nearly 51 percent. For a family, figuring out how to pay can be quite taxing. Many families rely on financial aid to combat costs, assuming that assistance will come in the form of scholarships and grants that do not have to be repaid. In practice, however, more than half of federal financial aid comes in the form of loans that not only must be repaid but also incur interest.
A recent survey by Princeton Review found that 38 percent of students listed ?level of debt incurred to pay for the degree? as their primary concern when deciding where to apply to college. It?s understandable why: Student loan debt in the U.S. has topped $1 trillion. Almost 90 percent of survey respondents rated financial aid as ?very? necessary to pay for college.
As a strategy to offset the need for loans and keep families from getting saddled with debt, Section 529 college savings and prepaid tuition plans are a manageable and affordable alternative, designed to encourage early saving for future higher-education expenses. In 2012, American families invested a record $190 billion in 529 plans, according to data collected by the College Savings Plans Network.
More and more families are relying on 529 plans to reduce the amount of loan debt they take on. Today, national 529 College Savings Day, is a good time to consider how our congressional leaders can help further support this valuable vehicle for college savings and ensure that 529 programs nationwide remain as effective and versatile as possible. A bill recently reintroduced in the 113th Congress ? the Savings Enhancement for Education in College Act (HR 529) ? seeks to do just that.
Introduced by Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., and Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., HR 529 would include 529 plan contributions in the Saver?s tax credit and provide employers with an incentive to contribute to the 529 plans of their employees.
The Saver?s credit allows a nonrefundable tax credit to the contributor of up to $1,000 for single filers or $2,000 for joint filers. The eligibility for this credit is limited to those with incomes at or below $29,500 single/$59,000 joint for 2013. Research shows that children from moderate-income families who have a college savings account of any size are more likely to attend college and are more likely to complete college than similar children without any dedicated college savings. Extending the current Saver?s credit to college savings will encourage moderate-income families to save for college.
This bill also creates an incentive for employers to help employees save for college for themselves and/or their families by allowing employers to match employees? 529 plan contributions up to $600 per year.
No one should be denied access to higher education because they cannot afford it. A 529 plan is a powerful tool for helping families cope with the rising cost of college ? the improvements in this bill will help put a college degree within reach of more children. We encourage our congressional leaders to support HR 529. With the enhancements HR 529 will afford, 529 plans can help students and families defray college expenses and burgeoning student loan debt, ensuring that today?s students get the education they need to become tomorrow?s leaders.
When you name your product the 'Amazing Humidifier' it better be bringing something great to the table. After all, it's pretty hard to get excited over something as mundane as a humidifier. But the fact that this compact version transforms any water bottle into a secret weapon to battle dry skin is, admittedly, pretty amazing.
Powered via a USB connection, the $34 compact humidifier is easy to travel with since it uses any-sized water bottle as its reservoir. So the longer you want it to run without a refill, the larger the bottle you'll need to find, but an average-sized bottle should keep it going for up to eight hours.
A long filter sponge extends deep into the bottle, soaking up water while preventing unwanted particulates from clogging up the evaporation mechanism. Besides a giant wad of cash, there couldn't be a more perfect travel accessory for your next trip to Vegas.
It was just over a year ago, back in April 2012, that we first learned the intentions of a company known as Planetary Resources: Asteroid mining. As in going into space, finding an asteroid that's not-too-far from Earth, and mining it for precious minerals and/or water which could be used as space-fuel for other missions. In a word: Ambitious.
The city council on Tuesday postponed taking a vote on the 2013-14 budget while members try to figure out whether Mayor Pedro Segarra has the legal power to reject their amendments to his $543.9 million spending plan.
The panel is expected to vote Friday ? the city's deadline to adopt a budget.
The council last week cut $8.6 million from Segarra's proposed budget, including reductions of $2 million to the police department and $1 million to the fire department. But the mayor on Thursday rejected more than half those cuts, opting for $3.9 million in reductions instead of $8.6 million.
Council members raised concerns last week about whether Segarra has the legal authority to disapprove the cuts. The city charter states, "The mayor may reduce or disapprove any item or items of expenditure in any proposed appropriation." Council President Shawn Wooden said it was unclear whether the mayor could reject cuts made to the budget, or only reject additional expenditures.
Segarra's spokeswoman, Maribel La Luz, has said the council amendments all concern expenditures, and that the mayor does have the authority to reject them.
In an effort to clarify the issue, the council voted Tuesday to hire an independent attorney to issue an opinion on whether the mayor has the right to disapprove the cuts. The attorney, Steven Mednick of New Haven, will provide an opinion by Thursday, Wooden said.
If the mayor does not have the authority to reject the cuts, the council's amendments will stand, Wooden said. If he does have the authority, Wooden said, the council will likely overturn some of the mayor's changes. The council needs a super-majority vote ? seven members voting in favor ? to override any of Segarra's adjustments.
"We're in discussions to reach an overall compromise," Wooden said Tuesday. "If we're not comfortable, if we don't reach a consensus ? we'll proceed with the votes to override [the mayor's amendments]."
Council members have said the cuts are necessary to preserve the city's rainy day fund. The mayor's budget proposal calls for a withdrawal of $13.5 million from the fund, which currently has about $26 million. Withdrawing too much from the account could jeopardize the city's bond rating, members have said.
"I'm trying to work with the mayor," Wooden said. "I would prefer all of the cuts [stand], but I'm willing to accept something less than that.
"But there has to be significant additional cuts to his budget to add something back to the rainy day fund."
The council will meet at city hall Friday at noon.
May 28, 2013 ? Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have designed tiny spherical particles to float easily through the bloodstream after injection, then assemble into a durable scaffold within diseased tissue. An enzyme produced by a specific type of tumor can trigger the transformation of the spheres into netlike structures that accumulate at the site of a cancer, the team reports in the journal Advanced Materials this week.
Spherical nanoparticles labeled with red or green dye shift their shapes and accumulatte into netlike structures when they encounter a protease secreted by some kinds of cancerous tumors (Click on image for larger view).
Targeting treatments specifically to cancerous or other diseased cells depends on some means of accumulating high levels of a drug or other therapeutic agent at the specific site and keeping it there. Most efforts so far depend on matching a piece of the drug-delivering molecule to specific receptors on the surface of the target cell.
Inspiration for this new strategy came from biological systems that use shape to alter the ability of something to lock in place or slip away and escape, said Nathan Gianneschi, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, who led the project.
"We wanted to come up with a new approach," Gianneschi said. "Specifically, we wanted to design switchable materials that we could inject in one shape and have them change to another between the blood and tumors."
Some cancerous tissues produce high levels of a class of molecules called MMPs, for matrix metalloproteinases. These enzymes change how other proteins behave by altering their molecular configuration, leading to metastasis. Gianneschi and colleagues harnessed this ability to alter their nanoparticles in ways that would cause them to linger at the site of the tumor.
"We figured out how to make an autonomous material that could sense its environment and change accordingly," Gianneschi said.
Each nanoparticle is made of many detergent-like molecules with one end that mixes readily with water and another that repels it. In solution, they self assemble into balls with the water-repellant ends inside, and in that configuration can easily be injected into a vein.
When mixed with MMPs in vials, the enzymes nicked the peptides on the surface of the spheres, which reassembled into netlike threads.
The team tested the concept further by injecting their new nanoparticles into mice with human fibrosarcomas, a kind of cancer that produces high levels of MMPs.
To mark when the spheres broke down to form other structures, the chemists placed one of two fluorecent dyes, rhodamine or fluorescein, inside the spheres. In close proximity, the dyes interact to create a specific light signal called FRET for F?rster Resonance Energy Transfer, when energy jumps from rhodamine to fluorescein.
Within a day they detected FRET signals indicating that the spheres had reassembled at the sites of the tumors, and the signal persisted for at least a week.
The treatment is not inherently toxic. It did not appear to change the tumors in any way, and liver and kidney, the organs most vulnerable to collateral damage from treatments because they clear toxins from the body, were normal and healthy eight days after injection.
Different versions of these nanoparticles could be designed to respond to signals inherent to other types of cancers and inflamed tissue, the authors say. The spheres can also be engineered to carry drugs, or different diagnostic probes.
Right now, this same team is developing nanoparticles that carry an infrared dye, which would enable them to visualize tumors deeper inside the body along with other materials that can be imaged with instruments commonly available in the clinic.
Co-authors include Miao-Ping Chen and Matthew Thompson in Gianneschi's group, and Christopher Barbak and David Hall in UC San Diego School of Medicine's Department of Radiology. Funding agencies include National Institutes of Health, Army Research Office and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Gianneschi was also supported by a New Faculty Award from the Henry and Camille Dreyfus Foundation and a Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
I.? The empirical findings: The difference between liberals and conservatives as measured by the American National Election Survey over decades on issues such as the respective obligations of business, government, and individuals in regard to health insurance is well explained by two socio-economic hypotheses and poorly explained by two other socio-economic hypotheses.?? The hypotheses that work poorly to explain liberal and conservative positions are "Conservative elites vs. Liberal non-elites" and "Liberal elites vs. conservative non-elites."? The two that work well are "Conservative high-income elites vs. liberal high-education elites" (or "Executives vs. professors"), along with "Conservative low-education non-elites vs. liberal low-income non-elites" (or "Dropouts vs. the poor").?
2.? Some alternative normative stories consistent with the data: a) An MFT story, in which liberals and conservatives are both understood as biased, argumentative natural lawyers drawn from the lower ranks as well as the upper ranks of society.? b) An SJT story, in which liberals are understood as people benefiting from the way in which more education offers a broader, more reality-based, less system-justifying perspective, and conservatives are understood as people affected by the way in which more money relative to one's education leads one to have a greater interest in wanting to uphold a system that has allowed one to succeed financially. ? c) An Arthur Brooks story, in which liberals are understood as less well-adjusted people who value an oppositional, anti-business, pro-government culture associated with education and government employment, and conservatives are understood as better-adjusted people who value business and a well-functioning social order in which hard work and skill are rewarded.?? Variations on the MFT story: a1) business-skeptical libs and pro-business cons are both doing useful social work; it's all good!;? a2) libs and cons are keeping us away from harmony and truth with their ugly conflict--it's all bad!; and a3) libs and cons are simultaneously good and bad, comic and tragic in their oppositional passion; their emotions and their energy often help the social search for truth but create individuals who are fools in their dogmatism and whose us-them antipathy toward the other side can be destructive.
3.? Aesthetic/critical synthesis.? Intro material toward a synthesis: Beauty of opposites.? The truth finding that non-elites do seem to play a role in explaining the positions taken by American liberals and conservatives exists along with other truth findings that non-elites matter little or not at all (e.g., Bartels, 2010) and do not negate those other findings.? The different normative stories corresponding to the findings may be seen not as true or false but as corresponding to different people with distinctive characters.? No normative story covers all ideological believers; even if one believes that MFT and its balanced perspective on lib and con attitudes on business and other subjects provides a better take than SJT or Brooks, there are believers for whom the latter approaches get at truths that MFT does not.? What is beautiful is not the truth findings of this study in themselves, or any of the normative stories associated with it by itself, but the combination of these truths with other truths and the stories with other stories.??
Family studies suggest rare genetic mutations team up to cause schizophreniaPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Genome-wide analysis suggests 'no single genetic recipe' for the mental disorder
Using a novel method of analyzing genetic variations in families, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that individually harmless genetic variations affecting related biochemical processes may team up to increase the risk of schizophrenia. They say their findings, reported May 28 in Translational Psychiatry, bring some clarity to the murky relationship between genetics and schizophrenia, and may lead to a genetic test that can predict which medications will be effective for individual patients.
"It's long been clear that schizophrenia runs in families, but schizophrenia as a simple inherited disease didn't make sense from an evolutionary point of view because people with the disease tend to have fewer children and the disease-causing genetic variants shouldn't survive," says Dimitri Avramopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine. Moreover, he says, studies searching for schizophrenia-linked gene variants have found only weak connections to a few genes nothing that would explain the persistent prevalence of the disease, which affects about 1 percent of the population.
Most geneticists believe that the culprit in so-called complex genetic diseases such as schizophrenia is not just one genetic variant, but more than one acting in concert. It's also likely that individual cases of the disease are caused by different combinations of variants, Avramopoulos says. He and fellow researchers took this hypothesis a step further, theorizing that while our bodies can usually compensate for one faulty gene that affects a particular system, more than one hit to the same system is likely to tip people toward disease.
The research team devised a technique for analyzing gene-sequencing data that explores whether variants cluster in a subset of cases in a non-random way. After finding support for their hypothesis in previously obtained data on 123 families with at least two schizophrenia-affected members, they decided to sequence genes connected through a biochemical chain reaction that has been linked to the disease in 48 inpatients. Known as the neuregulin signaling pathway, that chain reaction relays signals within the nervous system.
As they had predicted, the researchers found that some of the families had multiple neuregulin signaling-related variants while others had none, a distribution that was highly unlikely to result from chance. Moreover, the schizophrenia patients with neuregulin signaling variants experienced more hallucinations but less impairment than the other schizophrenia patients in the study.
"These results support the idea that there's no single genetic recipe for schizophrenia, but that a buildup of mutations in a pathway related to the disease like neuregulin signaling can be the culprit," Avramopoulos says. "The results are also evidence for the current theory that schizophrenia isn't a single disease at all, but a suite of related disorders." Those patients in the study who did not have neuregulin signaling-related variants likely carried variants in a different pathway instead, he notes.
While the results of the study were surprisingly clear-cut given the small number of families in the study, Avramopoulos cautions that larger studies are needed to confirm the results before drawing any firm conclusions. He also plans to study the exact roles of the schizophrenia-linked variants the team identified. Finally, the encouraging results mean it would be worthwhile to apply the new analytic method to other common diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, which also appear to have complex genetic roots.
###
Other authors on the study were Alex Hatzimanolis, John A. McGrath, Ruihua Wang, Tong Li, Philip C. Wong, Gerald Nestadt, Paula Wolyniec, David Valle and Ann Pulver, all of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (grant numbers R01MH057314, R01MH068406, R01MH092515 and R01MH085018) and the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute.
Related stories:
Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover New Schizophrenia Gene: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/Johns_Hopkins_Researchers_Discover_New_Schizophrenia_Gene
A Schizophrenia Risk Gene?: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/psychiatry_newsletter/hopkins_brainwise___spring_2012/a_schizophrenia_risk_gene
New Evidence Ties Gene to Alzheimer's: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/new_evidence_ties_gene_to_alzheimers
The Genome Explosion: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/geneticmedicine/news/NewsletterStories/2010_03/2010_03_feature_CIDR.html
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Family studies suggest rare genetic mutations team up to cause schizophreniaPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Genome-wide analysis suggests 'no single genetic recipe' for the mental disorder
Using a novel method of analyzing genetic variations in families, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that individually harmless genetic variations affecting related biochemical processes may team up to increase the risk of schizophrenia. They say their findings, reported May 28 in Translational Psychiatry, bring some clarity to the murky relationship between genetics and schizophrenia, and may lead to a genetic test that can predict which medications will be effective for individual patients.
"It's long been clear that schizophrenia runs in families, but schizophrenia as a simple inherited disease didn't make sense from an evolutionary point of view because people with the disease tend to have fewer children and the disease-causing genetic variants shouldn't survive," says Dimitri Avramopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine. Moreover, he says, studies searching for schizophrenia-linked gene variants have found only weak connections to a few genes nothing that would explain the persistent prevalence of the disease, which affects about 1 percent of the population.
Most geneticists believe that the culprit in so-called complex genetic diseases such as schizophrenia is not just one genetic variant, but more than one acting in concert. It's also likely that individual cases of the disease are caused by different combinations of variants, Avramopoulos says. He and fellow researchers took this hypothesis a step further, theorizing that while our bodies can usually compensate for one faulty gene that affects a particular system, more than one hit to the same system is likely to tip people toward disease.
The research team devised a technique for analyzing gene-sequencing data that explores whether variants cluster in a subset of cases in a non-random way. After finding support for their hypothesis in previously obtained data on 123 families with at least two schizophrenia-affected members, they decided to sequence genes connected through a biochemical chain reaction that has been linked to the disease in 48 inpatients. Known as the neuregulin signaling pathway, that chain reaction relays signals within the nervous system.
As they had predicted, the researchers found that some of the families had multiple neuregulin signaling-related variants while others had none, a distribution that was highly unlikely to result from chance. Moreover, the schizophrenia patients with neuregulin signaling variants experienced more hallucinations but less impairment than the other schizophrenia patients in the study.
"These results support the idea that there's no single genetic recipe for schizophrenia, but that a buildup of mutations in a pathway related to the disease like neuregulin signaling can be the culprit," Avramopoulos says. "The results are also evidence for the current theory that schizophrenia isn't a single disease at all, but a suite of related disorders." Those patients in the study who did not have neuregulin signaling-related variants likely carried variants in a different pathway instead, he notes.
While the results of the study were surprisingly clear-cut given the small number of families in the study, Avramopoulos cautions that larger studies are needed to confirm the results before drawing any firm conclusions. He also plans to study the exact roles of the schizophrenia-linked variants the team identified. Finally, the encouraging results mean it would be worthwhile to apply the new analytic method to other common diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, which also appear to have complex genetic roots.
###
Other authors on the study were Alex Hatzimanolis, John A. McGrath, Ruihua Wang, Tong Li, Philip C. Wong, Gerald Nestadt, Paula Wolyniec, David Valle and Ann Pulver, all of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (grant numbers R01MH057314, R01MH068406, R01MH092515 and R01MH085018) and the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute.
Related stories:
Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover New Schizophrenia Gene: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/Johns_Hopkins_Researchers_Discover_New_Schizophrenia_Gene
A Schizophrenia Risk Gene?: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/psychiatry_newsletter/hopkins_brainwise___spring_2012/a_schizophrenia_risk_gene
New Evidence Ties Gene to Alzheimer's: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/new_evidence_ties_gene_to_alzheimers
The Genome Explosion: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/geneticmedicine/news/NewsletterStories/2010_03/2010_03_feature_CIDR.html
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - What sounded like a small explosion on Tuesday in a trash can at Disneyland in California appears to have come from dry ice in a plastic bottle and may have been a prank, police said.
Walt Disney Co evacuated a section of the theme park called Mickey's Toontown but allowed visitors to return within hours, Anaheim police spokesman Sergeant Bob Dunn said.
"What we found was indicative of dry ice," Dunn said. He added that a plastic bottle believed to have contained the material was located.
"This afternoon, a small bang was heard in a trash can at Mickey's Toontown," a spokeswoman for Disney said. "In an abundance of caution, we evacuated Toontown to allow local authorities the opportunity to investigate."
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Stacey Joyce)
The Bayern coach claimed that Robert Lewandowski would not stay at BVB for much longer but the club's CEO insists the Bavarians have not made an approach
Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has slammed Bayern Munich boss Jupp Heynckes over comments he made regarding the future of Robert Lewandowski.
The Poland striker has long been touted with a move to the Allianz Arena and?Roten coach claimed after Saturday's Champions League final win that the 25-year-old will be "hanging about too much".
And Watzke says that the former Real Madrid trainer should stay out of the saga and claimed that the Bavarians have not approached the club over a move for the player.
"Jupp Heynckes should stay out of this and concentrate on the line-up for next Saturday [for the DFB-Pokal final against Stuttgart]," he told reporters.
"I don't know how close Heynckes is to the management of Bayern. But if they want to have Lewandowski it would be good if we were told about this."
For his part, Lewandowski is remaining tight-lipped on his future, adding: "Now I will have a break for four or five days, then I will go to the national squad."
Bayern face Stuttgart on June 1, hoping to complete their first-ever treble.
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Hello, I am writing some code where i want user to enter the date in format(dd/mm/yyyy). how can i cross check if user has entered the date in correct format? second question, how can i split the date and store it in different variables? Example: let say user entered 26/05/2013 values should be stored like this in different variables int dd = 26 int mm = 05 int yyyy = 2013
Thank you
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Replies To: how to format and split date?
#2 andrewsw ?
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Posts:3,418
Joined:12-December 12
Re: how to format and split date?
Posted Today, 06:15 AM
Quote
So presumably you have some code to show us? What have you attempted so far? Otherwise it seems that you are just asking someone to provide the entire solution for you.
#3 NDragger ?
Reputation: 2
Posts:34
Joined:10-August 11
Re: how to format and split date?
Posted Today, 06:28 AM
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy"); format.parse(date1); System.out.println("Date " + date1 + " is not valid according to " + ((SimpleDateFormat) format).toPattern() + " pattern.");
the above code always throws an exception "not valid according to the format", whatever be the date. i need the tip/hint for the second question not the entire code />
This post has been edited by NDragger: Today, 06:29 AM
#4 andrewsw ?
Reputation: 1096
Posts:3,418
Joined:12-December 12
Re: how to format and split date?
Posted Today, 06:42 AM
The date format "dd-MM-yyyy" is not the same as the date format given in your first post.
Does it throw an exception, or does it just display the message that you have told it to display?
This line:
format.parse(date1);
does nothing as you do not assign the result to anything.
This post has been edited by andrewsw: Today, 06:42 AM
It's now possible to have fun in the sun and get good gas mileage with these four sensible convertibles.?
By Antony Ingram,?Guest blogger / May 25, 2013
The 2013 Volkswagen Beetle TDI convertible (2005 version shown here) is the only diesel convertible for sale right now, and it gets over 40 mph on the highway.
PRNewsFoto/Volkswagen of America/File
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Many things can signify summer--the weather finally being warm enough to ditch those outer layers of clothing; TV ads taking a distinctly more cheery tone; maybe simply hunting around for your sunshades for the first time in six months.
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It's now possible to have fun in the sun and get good gas mileage, with convertibles getting ever more frugal.
We've listed the four converibles with best gas mileage below. And for those of you buying such cars, you'll be measuring summer by the number of times the roof can come down...
1 - 2013 Smart Fortwo Cabriolet
The little Smart Cabriolet often tops such lists. Its unusual design means it isn't just a city car, but a converible too--with a canvas roof that slides back along two roof bars, and folds itself into a stack behind your head.
For a true wind-in-the-hair feel you can also remove those roof bars and stow them in the drop-down tailgate. Rearward visibility is compromised with the roof stowed, but the Fortwo's love-or-hate driving characteristics are a lot easier to stomach with the sun beating down on your head. Hard to complain about 36 mpg combined economy too, even if it probably should be better from the tiny 1.0-liter 3-cylinder engine. Prices start at $17,890.
2 - 2013 Volkswagen Beetle TDI Convertible
The Beetle TDI Convertible's true calling is clearly the summer road trip. For one, there's enough space for a few friends in the back. Secondly, the retro styling will always be a head-turner. And three, you're likely to get over 40 mpg from its 2.0-liter diesel engine, with official highway economy of 41 mpg.
It's the only diesel convertible for sale right now in the U.S. and enthusiastic drivers will appreciate the standard six-speed manual gearbox too. Roof-down the TDI's rattles are a little more audible, but you probably won't mind thanks to that gas mileage. It's the most expensive here though, at $27,895.
3 - 2013 MINI Cooper Roadster
There's quite a bit of choice for MINI fans who want to soak up the rays, with Cooper Roadster, Cooper Convertible, Cooper S Roadster and Cooper S Convertible all managing the same 27 mpg city, 35 highway and 30 combined.
Cooper S models are quicker than their Cooper counterparts, but also more expensive. Economy is the same whether you specify manual or auto, so you can choose on preference alone. The Convertible is the more practical, with an extra couple of seats, but the Roadster is marginally more fun and has a larger trunk. Take your pick--it's $25,150 for the Convertible, $25,550 for the Roadster.
4 - 2013 Fiat 500C
Were it not for the Smart Fortwo sitting pretty at the top there, this list would be a retro-styled washout. Like the MINI and VW Beetle, the Fiat 500C harks back to earlier, simpler times. Its convertible roof is simple too - rather than folding away entirely like the MINI and Beetle, a simple canvas shutter-style top slides down the solid roof rails and sits on the back shelf, more like the Smart.
Motive power comes from a 1.4-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine delivering 27 mpg city, 32 highway, and 29 mpg combined. Pricing starts at a slightly eye-watering $19,500, particularly considering the extra performance and economy of the cars above it, but what price can you put on style?
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best auto bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger,?click here.?To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link in the blog description box above.
The decision by the Boy Scouts of America to stop seeing homosexuality as a moral failing and accept gay boys raises an important question for troops from Sheboygan to Atlanta: Will Cub scouts and Eagle scouts exodus en masse, and, if so, to where?
The wrenched decision by an organization founded in 1910 on quasi-military and Christian values came after months of debate and member polling, and the final vote looked much like America's general feeling on gay rights: Sixty percent supported the decision, which does not extend to gay adults. But the minority 40 percent may have stronger feelings, fueling a potential search for a new "character" organization for boys.
That debate had already begun this weekend in places like northern Virginia, where the Arlington Catholic Diocese is "prayerfully considering" leaving the Boy Scouts, as Bishop Paul Loverde told the Washington Post.
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Boy Scout troops are sponsored by third party groups, the majority of which are churches. About 110 million Americans have been Boy Scouts since the organization was founded as part of the international Scout movement. In the 1980s, the organization went through a series of sex abuse scandals, and last year it was forced to release 20,000 pages of internal documentation of some 1,200 sex abuse cases that took place between 1965 and 1985.
That background explains in large part why the Boy Scouts of America has struggled to repair its image, and why the organization voted to continue excluding gay leaders.
But that concession isn't enough for some critics of the decision, including some in Baptist churches, which sponsor over 100,000 of the Boy Scouts' current 2.6 million members.
?Frankly, I can?t imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules,? Richard Land, a senior Southern Baptist Conference official, said Friday in an interview with the Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news agency.
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The Assemblies of God says that its own Royal Rangers youth group could be a "positive alternative" to the Boy Scouts under the new rule. The Royal Rangers, which have a similar skill-testing program as the Boy Scouts, has a stated purpose to "evangelize, equip and empower the next generation of Christlike men and lifelong servant leaders."
That push by some to leave the Boy Scouts ? which, if it happens, will be felt when the policy takes effect at the beginning of 2014 ? reveals a paradox of the long-awaited decision: By becoming more accepting, will membership be hurt or bolstered?
And that question seemed to undergird the internal debate, given that Boy Scouts membership under the old policy had fallen 27 percent since 1997. And the Boy Scouts aren't alone among religious and conservative organizations pushing back against past injustices. In order to stem membership dips, the Southern Baptist Convention last year elected its first black leader, the Rev. Fred Luter, in a major move for an organization that once backed segregation.
Some observers suggest the fallout may be milder than the rhetoric that preceded Friday's vote.
"I'm sure many [Scout] units will have meetings to decide what this means for them," Aaron Chusic, a spokesman for the National Capital Area Council of Scouts, told the Washington Post, but added that so far he had not heard from any group that has decided to leave.
The drive to allow gay boys came from deep within the organization itself, especially given that the Boy Scouts had the full legal right to say no. In 2000, the US Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scout policy, saying private organizations don't need to accept members or leaders in violation of their own moral creed, specifically a line in its bylaws that says that gay people should be excluded because they are not "morally straight."
Indeed, a deeper look at the Boy Scouts, which are highly decentralized into near-autonomous "units," is that the de facto acceptance of gay boys or gay families is a quiet fact in many troops, from rural Wyoming to the suburbs of Atlanta.
"I don't think it's going to impact scouting because there are already gay members," Melanie Mork, the mother of Alex Mork in Wyoming's Troop 101, told the Wyoming News on Friday. "Young men have come out and said, ?I am gay and I?m a Scout,? and it didn?t impact their ability to become an Eagle Scout. And I think we?ll hear more of those types of stories as they become free to do that under this change.?
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With $671,400, you could buy roughly 2,040.7 base-model iPad minis before taxes. One unnamed buyer, however, just laid that amount out for a single Apple 1 from 1976. Auctioned through a Germany-based Sotheby's, The New York Times Bits blog notes the price beats out the firm's $640K record from another unit last November. Interestingly, this current seller refurbished this latest Apple 1 to working condition, after paying only $40K for it privately. We'd be remiss not to mention that the seller also had Steve Wozniak grace it with a signature. You'll find more info at the source, while we wrap our heads around how this makes last summer's auction price of $374.5K look like a relative steal.
Sixth night of violence in Sweden, but police say capital calmer
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Community patrols and a beefed-up police presence helped to calm violence around Stockholm overnight on Saturday but 20 to 30 cars were still torched in poor immigrant suburbs and serious incidents were reported outside the capital for the first time. The rioting in Stockholm abated after a week of masked youths vandalizing schools and police stations, setting cars alight and hurling stones at firefighters, police said.
In Syria's shadow, Iraq violence presents new test for U.S.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddled with Middle East problems ranging from Iran to Syria and beyond, President Barack Obama now faces one that is both old and new: Iraq. Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say.
Pakistan school bus explosion and blaze kill 17 children: media
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Seventeen Pakistani children burnt to death on Saturday when a gas cylinder on the bus taking them to school exploded, media said. Ten children were injured in the blaze on the outskirts of Gujrat, 100 miles southeast of Islamabad, DawnNews said.
UK fighters escort Pakistan plane to airport, two arrests
LONDON (Reuters) - British fighter jets escorted a Pakistan International Airlines passenger plane to Stansted Airport near London on Friday, where police went on board and arrested two men on suspicion of endangering an aircraft. Passengers were leaving the plane and no one was hurt in the incident, a spokesman for the airport said.
Taliban attack international compound in Afghan capital
KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants launched a large-scale attack involving the United Nations in the center of the Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, sparking a five-hour battle with security forces. A plume of smoke hung over Kabul after the attack was launched, with the sound of .50 caliber heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire clearly audible throughout the city center as night fell.
IMF's Lagarde escapes formal investigation in court
PARIS (Reuters) - French magistrates decided on Friday not to place IMF chief Christine Lagarde under formal investigation over her role in a 285-million-euro ($368.5 million) arbitration payment made to a supporter of former president Nicolas Sarkozy. Lagarde instead was given the status of a "supervised witness" after two full days of questioning on her 2008 decision as Sarkozy's finance minister to use arbitration to settle a legal battle between the state and businessman Bernard Tapie.
Guatemalan ex-president extradited to U.S. on money-laundering charges
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face money-laundering charges, just days after former dictator Efrain Rios Montt's genocide conviction was overturned. A U.S. grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered $70 million through U.S. banks.
British security services in spotlight after soldier murder
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's security services faced questions on Friday over whether they could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a busy London street after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers. Suspects Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospital after being shot and arrested by police after the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday. They have not yet been charged.
Bosnia president, charged with graft, freed from jail
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The president of Bosnia's autonomous Muslim-Croat federation was freed from jail on Friday after the Constitutional Court ordered his release following his arrest last month on corruption charges. President Zivko Budimir was arrested along with 19 other officials in late April in the most high-profile anti-corruption drive in Bosnia since independence more than two decades ago.
U.S. casts doubt on credibility of Iran election
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The United States on Friday called into question the credibility of Iran's presidential election next month, criticizing the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access. On a visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also warned that time was running out to resolve the deadlock over Iran's contested nuclear program.
May 24, 2013 ? How much light has been emitted by all galaxies since the cosmos began? After all, almost every photon (particle of light) from ultraviolet to far infrared wavelengths ever radiated by all galaxies that ever existed throughout cosmic history is still speeding through the Universe today. If we could carefully measure the number and energy (wavelength) of all those photons -- not only at the present time, but also back in time -- we might learn important secrets about the nature and evolution of the Universe, including how similar or different ancient galaxies were compared to the galaxies we see today.
That bath of ancient and young photons suffusing the Universe today is called the extragalactic background light (EBL). An accurate measurement of the EBL is as fundamental to cosmology as measuring the heat radiation left over from the Big Bang (the cosmic microwave background) at radio wavelengths. A new paper, called "Detection of the Cosmic ?-Ray Horizon from Multiwavelength Observations of Blazars," by Alberto Dominguez and six coauthors, just published today by the Astrophysical Journal -- based on observations spanning wavelengths from radio waves to very energetic gamma rays, obtained from several NASA spacecraft and several ground-based telescopes -- describes the best measurement yet of the evolution of the EBL over the past 5 billion years.
Directly measuring the EBL by collecting its photons with a telescope, however, poses towering technical challenges -- harder than trying to see the dim band of the Milky Way spanning the heavens at night from midtown Manhattan. Earth is inside a very bright galaxy with billions of stars and glowing gas. Indeed, Earth is inside a very bright solar system: sunlight scattered by all the dust in the plane of Earth's orbit creates the zodiacal light radiating across the optical spectrum down to long-wavelength infrared. Therefore ground-based and space-based telescopes have not succeeded in reliably measuring the EBL directly.
So, astrophysicists developed an ingenious work-around method: measuring the EBL indirectly through measuring the attenuation of -- that is, the absorption of -- very high energy gamma rays from distant blazars. Blazars are supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies with brilliant jets directly pointed at us like a flashlight beam. Not all the high-energy gamma rays emitted by a blazar, however, make it all the way across billions of light-years to Earth; some strike a hapless EBL photon along the way. When a high-energy gamma ray photon from a blazar hits a much lower energy EBL photon, both are annihilated and produce two different particles: an electron and its antiparticle, a positron, which fly off into space and are never heard from again. Different energies of the highest-energy gamma rays are waylaid by different energies of EBL photons. Thus, measuring how much gamma rays of different energies are attenuated or weakened from blazars at different distances from Earth indirectly gives a measurement of how many EBL photons of different wavelengths exist along the line of sight from blazar to Earth over those different distances.
Observations of blazars by NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope spacecraft for the first time detected that gamma rays from distant blazars are indeed attenuated more than gamma rays from nearby blazars, a result announced on November 30, 2012, in a paper published in Science, as theoretically predicted.
Now, the big news -- announced in today's Astrophysical Journal paper -- is that the evolution of the EBL over the past 5 billion years has been measured for the first time. That's because looking farther out into the Universe corresponds to looking back in time. Thus, the gamma ray attenuation spectrum from farther distant blazars reveals how the EBL looked at earlier eras.
This was a multistep process. First, the coauthors compared the Fermi findings to intensity of X-rays from the same blazars measured by X-ray satellites Chandra, Swift, Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and XMM/Newton and lower-energy radiation measured by other spacecraft and ground-based observatories. From these measurements, Dominguez et al. were able to calculate the blazars' original emitted, unattenuated gamma-ray brightnesses at different energies.
The coauthors then compared those calculations of unattenuated gamma-ray flux at different energies with direct measurements from special ground-based telescopes of the actual gamma-ray flux received at Earth from those same blazars. When a high-energy gamma ray from a blazar strikes air molecules in the upper regions of Earth's atmosphere, it produces a cascade of charged subatomic particles. This cascade of particles travels faster than the speed of light in air (which is slower than the speed of light in a vacuum). This causes a visual analogue to a "sonic boom": bursts of a special light called ?erenkov radiation. This ?erenkov radiation was detected by imaging atmospheric ?erenkov telescopes (IACTs), such as HESS (High Energy Stereoscopic System) in Namibia, MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging ?erenkov) in the Canary Islands, and VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array Systems) in Arizona.
Comparing the calculations of the unattenuated gamma rays to actual measurements of the attenuation of gamma rays and X-rays from blazars at different distances allowed Dominquez et al. to quantify the evolution of the EBL -- that is, to measure how the EBL changed over time as the Universe aged -- out to about 5 billion years ago (corresponding to a redshift of about z = 0.5). "Five billion years ago is the maximum distance we are able to probe with our current technology," Dom?nguez said. "Sure, there are blazars farther away, but we are not able to detect them because the high-energy gamma rays they are emitting are too attenuated by EBL when they get to us -- so weakened that our instruments are not sensitive enough to detect them." This measurement is the first statistically significant detection of the so-called "Cosmic Gamma Ray Horizon" as a function of gamma-ray energy. The Cosmic Gamma Ray Horizon is defined as the distance at which roughly one-third (or, more precisely, 1/e -- that is, 1/2.718 -- where e is the base of the natural logarithms) of the gamma rays of a particular energy have been attenuated.
This latest result confirms that the kinds of galaxies observed today are responsible for most of the EBL over all time. Moreover, it sets limits on possible contributions from many galaxies too faint to have been included in the galaxy surveys, or on possible contributions from hypothetical additional sources (such as the decay of hypothetical unknown elementary particles).
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Public release date: 28-May-2013
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