Artificial intelligence allows automated worm sorting

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2012) ? Research into the genetic factors behind certain disease mechanisms, illness progression and response to new drugs is frequently carried out using tiny multi-cellular animals such as nematodes, fruit flies or zebra fish. Often, progress relies on the microscopic visual examination of many individual animals to detect mutants worthy of further study.

Now, scientists have demonstrated an automated system that uses artificial intelligence and cutting-edge image processing to rapidly examine large numbers of individual Caenorhabditis elegans, a species of nematode widely used in biological research. Beyond replacing existing manual examination steps using microfluidics and automated hardware, the system's ability to detect subtle differences from worm-to-worm -- without human intervention -- can identify genetic mutations that might not have been detected otherwise.

By allowing thousands of worms to be examined autonomously in a fraction of the time required for conventional manual screening, the technique could change the way that high throughput genetic screening is carried out using C. elegans.

Details of the research were scheduled to be reported August 19th in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Methods. The research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

"While humans are very good at pattern recognition, computers are much better than humans at detecting subtle differences, such as small changes in the location of dots or slight variations in the brightness of an image," said Hang Lu, the project's lead researcher and an associate professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This technique found differences that would have been almost impossible to pick out by hand."

Lu's research team is studying genes that affect the formation and development of synapses in the worms, work that could have implications for understanding human brain development. The researchers use a model in which synapses of specific neurons are labeled by a fluorescent protein. Their research involves creating mutations in the genomes of thousands of worms and examining the resulting changes in the synapses. Mutant worms identified in this way are studied further to help understand what genes may have caused the changes in the synapses.

One aspect the researchers are studying is why synapses form in the wrong locations, or are of the wrong sizes or types. The differences between the mutants and the normal or "wild type" worms indicate inappropriate developmental patterns caused by the genetic mutations.

Because of the large number of possible genes involved in these developmental processes, the researchers must examine thousands of worms -- perhaps as many as 100,000 -- to exhaust the search. Lu and her research group had earlier developed a microfluidic "worm sorter" that speeds up the process of examining worms under a microscope, but until now, there were two options for detecting the mutants: a human had to look at each animal, or a simple heuristic algorithm was used to make the sorting decision. Neither option is objective or adaptable to new problems.

Lu's system, an optimized version of earlier work by her group, uses a camera to record three-dimensional images of each worm as it passes through the sorter. The system compares each image set against what it has been taught the "wild type" worms should look like. Worms that are even subtly different from normal can be sorted out for further study.

"We feed the program wild-type images, and it teaches itself to recognize what differentiates the wild type. It uses this information to determine what a mutant type may look like -- which is information we didn't provide to the system -- and sorts the worms based on that," explained Matthew Crane, a graduate student who performed the work. "We don't have to show the computer every possible mutant, and that is very powerful. And the computer never gets bored."

While the system was designed to sort C. elegans for a specific research project, Lu believes the machine learning technology -- which is borrowed from computer science -- could be applied to other areas of biology that use model genetic organisms. The system's hardware and software are currently being used in several other laboratories beyond Georgia Tech.

"Our automated technique can be generalized to anything that relies on detecting a morphometric -- or shape, size or brightness difference," Lu said. "We can apply this to anything that can be detected visually, and we think this could be expanded to studying many other problems related to learning, memory, neuro-degeneration and neural developmental diseases that this worm can be used to model."

Individual C. elegans are less than a millimeter long and thinner than a strand of hair, but have 302 neurons with well-defined synapses. While research using single cells can be simpler to do, studies using the worms are good in vivo models for many important processes relevant to human health.

Other researchers who contributed to this paper include student Jeffrey Stirman from Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary program in bioengineering, Professor James Rehg from Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, and three researchers from the Department of Biology at Stanford University's Howard Hughes Medical Institute: Chan-Yen Ou, Peri Kurshan, and Professor Kang Shen.

The autonomous processing facilitated by the new system could allow researchers to examine more animals more rapidly, potentially opening up areas of study that are not feasible today.

"We are hoping that the technology will really change the approach people can take to this kind of research," said Lu. "We expect that this approach will enable people to do much larger scale experiments that can push the science forward beyond looking what individual mutations are doing in a specific situation."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications, via Newswise. The original article was written by John Toon.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Matthew M Crane, Jeffrey N Stirman, Chan-Yen Ou, Peri T Kurshan, James M Rehg, Kang Shen, Hang Lu. Autonomous screening of C. elegans identifies genes implicated in synaptogenesis. Nature Methods, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/NMETH.2141

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/23Q_0lj-pno/120819153447.htm

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Web snares Vietnam as bloggers spread protests over land

HANOI (Reuters) - Farmer Le Dung and his fellow villagers stockpiled rocks and petrol bombs to battle police trying to take over their land for a luxury property development near Vietnam's capital city.

But their most powerful weapon turned out to be the equipment they had set up with the help of Internet activists to record and broadcast the confrontation, which was ignored by state-controlled media.

Within hours of the fight on a clear April morning, video of several thousand police firing tear gas and beating farmers in the Van Giang district just east of Hanoi had gone viral.

The unlikely alliance between farmers and urban Internet activists illustrates a rapidly evolving challenge to the Communist government's authority as Vietnamese grow bolder in their protests over issues ranging from land rights to corruption and China's expanding regional influence.

Vietnam has responded with a crackdown on bloggers that has earned it the title of "Enemy of the Internet" from media freedom group Reporters Without Borders, which says only China and Iran jail more journalists.

Censors in the one-party state routinely block Facebook and other social networking sites, although a nimble Web activist community often finds ways around them, illustrating the enormous challenge facing the government in a country where a third of the 88 million population is online.

"At first we didn't understand how it could help us but now we see the value. Our struggle was published to the world," said Le Dung, who fought in Vietnam's 1979 war against China, as he sat under a framed picture of late Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

"If we hadn't used the Internet the authorities may have killed us; now they know they have to be careful."

The Van Giang incident and other land disputes covered by bloggers have triggered an unusually heated national debate over how the government should reform Vietnam's land laws before the expiry of farmers' 20-year public land leases in 2013.

Rapid economic growth has put pressure on farmers as industrial estates, houses, and roads have expanded, leading to a rash of violent land conflicts. Farmers complain the compensation offers for their land are far too low from companies that often have ties to influential politicians.

Fish farmer Doan Van Vuon was catapulted to hero status early this year after he organized armed resistance to local authorities trying to take over his land near Hai Phong city, a case that was covered by official media as well as bloggers.

CHINA RESENTMENT SPURS BLOGGERS

Bloggers are linking land with other causes they say have a common theme -- a government that is beholden to powerful economic interests and unresponsive to popular demands.

"The blogging movement is growing stronger," said Nguyen Van Dai, a lawyer and rights activist who was jailed for four years for using the Internet to call for democracy and who remains under a loose form of house arrest in Hanoi.

"The government can't keep secrets like it could before."

One influential activist, who goes by the pseudonym Boris and works at a state-owned firm, helped educate the farmers at Van Giang about their rights and taught them how to send pictures and videos through cellphones. Although about 1,000 families there have so far failed to stop the 500-hectare Ecopark project, Boris said wide publicity from the incident had prevented other land developers going ahead with similar plans.

Boris, who boasts he could bring 1,000 people onto Hanoi's streets at a day's notice, said he had also played a key role in organizing regular protests against China's territorial goals in the South China Sea -- a claim backed by other bloggers. The government allowed anti-China protests to go ahead last year, but soon clamped down on them after it became clear they could be a lightning rod for broader discontent.

Some activists exhibit a boldness that is startling, considering the stiff jail terms that have been handed down to others for "anti-government propaganda".

Alfonso Le, a 42-year-old blogger who writes the "Homeland Arise" blog, spoke to Reuters at a tiny Hanoi cafe within earshot of a green-uniformed police officer across the room.

"Now that social networks are more popular, it's not so easy for the police to arrest people," said Le, using his Facebook nickname. "If the police make trouble, I just send a status message on Facebook and a lot of people will come."

His activism has come at a price. He said he has been arrested three times and divorced his wife after she gave information to the police.

Another blogger, who asked not to be identified, also occupies the world of tolerated blogging. She believes she is safe as long as her writing stays within certain "red lines". In her blog, a protest march might be described as a "parade" or a "walk".

Still, she is sometimes followed by police and was arrested at an anti-China protest this month and kept for a day at a rehabilitation camp for "drug users and prostitutes".

"They (the authorities) are scared to death after what has happened in Burma and the Arab Spring," she said.

Former military officer Le Thanh Tung became the latest online activist to be punished this month, receiving a five-year sentence after a trial that lasted an hour, according to Reporters Without Borders. That came less than a week after blogger Dinh Dang Dinh was handed a six-year sentence.

The trial of three other high-profile bloggers was postponed this month after the mother of one of them committed suicide by setting herself on fire.

FUTILE CRACKDOWN?

Washington has voiced concern to Vietnam over a proposed new decree that would require Internet users to register with their real names, enabling the government to track its online critics more easily.

But Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said the government's attempts to control the Internet were probably futile given the web's deep penetration and bloggers' talent for sidestepping technological barriers.

Vietnam has among the world's fastest-growing rates of Internet use, according to market-research firm Cimigo.

Internet penetration in Hanoi and the southern commercial capital Ho Chi Minh City has risen above 50 percent.

"It is a battle I don't think the Vietnamese government is going to win," Thayer said.

The thorny problem of land rights, which goes to the heart of the Communist Party's legitimacy in its traditional power base of more than 10 million farmers, is where the bloggers have had the biggest impact.

In the wake of the Van Giang and Hai Phong violence, some lawmakers and academics have called for private land ownership to help protect farmers -- an unthinkable proposal until recently in a country where the state's ownership of all land is enshrined in the constitution.

Nguyen Duc Kien, the vice chairman of the National Assembly's economic committee, told Reuters the country's Land Law would be revised and that farmers would be allowed to remain on their land after 2013. Literally interpreted, the current law allows the state to take back farms without any compensation at the end of the lease period.

"Land is an issue that is a potential cause of tension in society," he said.

Nguyen's and other comments from officials have convinced blogger activists that the leases will be extended, although that in itself will not resolve the problem of land grabs by private developers backed by the state.

"The bloggers were a big part of that," said the blogger Le. "We told a different side of the story. We showed that the ruling party's words don't match its actions."

(Editing by Jason Szep and Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snares-vietnam-bloggers-spread-protests-over-land-215312039.html

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Don't Obess Over Rankings - Small Business Online Coach

Are You Obsessing About Your Search Engine Rankings?

I am writing this post because I see so many small businesses who obsess about the wrong things in SEO and often end up pouring their entire link building budgets into 1-2 ?Head Keyword Terms? or as I like to call them ?EGO? terms. They could do so much better if they understood the majority of their website?s traffic comes from the long tail keyword searches.? For those people reading this who may not know the difference between a long-tail keyword vs a short term keywords, see these examples below.

Short-Term Keyword Examples (Head Terms):

• Immigration Lawyer
• Junk Removal
• Merchant Account

Long Tail Keyword Examples:

• H1B Immigration Lawyer
• US Immigration Lawyer in Toronto
• Sofa Garbage Removal Toronto
• Junk Removal Company in Scarborough
• Canadian Merchant Account Services
• Wireless Point-of-Sale Terminal

Most Websites Search Engine Traffic Comes From The Long Tailed

I?ve managed 100?s of websites now and I feel it?s safe to say, 75% of the traffic comes from the long tail and other 25% comes from the head terms.? On average most searches averagely contain 3.5 words.?? Ideally, it?s best to focus on keywords in length between 3-5 words length because they are a hell of lot less competitive then keyword phrases with 1-2 keywords (especially if the keyword term has commercial intent and/or search volume).? Those 1-2 keyword searches are the ?obvious keywords? that all your competitors are focused on and they are often so competitive that you can end up using your entire link building budget every month to compete on those terms.?? Be UN-obvious and focus on the keyword phrases your competitors are NOT paying attention to.? Bring a gun to a knife fight. This is a much savvier approach to SEO.

Best Practices to Search Engine Marketing

Once you?ve created a website that is proven to convert, the next best search engine marketing decision is to focus on less competitive keywords that require little or no links to rank well.? Now be smart about it, don?t just randomly select any old long tailed keywords.? Pick ones that show up in Google Suggest, Google Related Terms and ideally show some search volume and the of course do some competitive analysis to make sure your competitors are not (or doing little) link building for that keyword phrase.? Then create optimized pages for each of those target keywords.?? You can never create too many pages!?? This is why content creation should be a high priority to your SEO strategy.?? Google ranks and indexes ?web pages? and not ?websites?.?? The more ?pages? you have the more long tail keyword opportunities you have.

At SBOC, we usually try to focus on half dozen long tail keyword phrases to target per month with backlinking, instead of 1-2 head terms.? And because we are focused on the long-tail keywords we usually can accomplish those targets goals in 30 days, as opposed to focusing on a head keyword term that may take 3, 4, 6 months or more.? We also try to get most clients on a content creation strategy that produces 20-30 new pages every month (and that is NOT too many).

As they say ? ?An apple a day keeps the doctor away.?? Well, we have a saying at SBOC, ?A page a day keeps your competitors away.?

Take Away

Don?t obsess over ranking 1st if you can increase your conversions through increased website design, content creation, & link building to the long tail.? The goal in search engine optimization is to grow traffic, not to waste time and energy trying to rank number 1 for a small number of keywords.? This is how you get an amazing ROI on search engine marketing.

Source: http://www.smallbusinessonlinecoach.com/blog/tips/obess-rankings/

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Former Menendez star Piagno continues to prove baseball is a game for everyone

Women?s baseball is not softball. It?s baseball.

That?s the point St. Augustine native Stacy Piagno has been making ever since her days pitching at Menendez High School. She?s now currently a part of the US women?s national team competing in Canada for the IBAF Women?s Baseball World Cup.

?It?s been amazing being with all the girls,? Piagno said. ?Some of them are still in high school and a few are in their 30s, but we all really enjoy playing with each other and it?s gone well so far.?

Having finished pool play yesterday with a 5-1 loss against Venezuela, the US National team plays in the World Cup semifinals tonight with a chance at gold in Sunday?s championship game. Piagno has pitched well in the tournament, using her 80-mph fastball to stifle batters, including a one-hit performance against Cuba over her four innings.

Now at the University of Tampa after starting her softball career at Flagler College, Piagno hasn?t stopped playing baseball despite having to make the transition. Though she grew up and currently fills her role dutifully as a pitcher, Piagno mainly plays the middle infield for Tampa.

And why the position change?

?They?re just two completely different sports,? Piagno said. ?Baseball is my favorite, but I?ve grown to love softball as well. It?s just that I grew up loving the game of baseball and that?s almost impossible to change.?

Piagno failed at her first attempt to make the 2008 squad and decided not to try out in 2010 in order to focus on making the transition to softball, but this past year she successfully made the roster.

?Only 20 girls made the team,? Piagno said. ?I was pretty sure I?d made it after the tryout, but there was still that second-guessing going on until it became official.?

Rick, Stacy?s father, had no such trepidations.

?It didn?t become official until (July) but we pretty much knew she had made it after the tryouts earlier last year,? Rick said. ?It was only her and one other girl that were told to go to Salt Lake City right from the tryouts, and at that point I at least could connect the dots.?

Piagno has been a known commodity as a baseball oddity since she was 14. She first garnered attention by being the only girl in eight different northeast Florida counties playing baseball with the Bullets Police Athletic League team. Her senior year at Menendez was her best, leading the entire pitching staff in innings pitched through February.

She?s not half bad in softball, either. At Tampa this past season, Piagno hit .271 with two home runs and 18 RBIs in 45 games played.

As to why women aren?t more involved in the nation?s pastime is anyone?s guess. Gender lines routinely became pass? ever since the implementation of Title IX 40 years ago, but for whatever reason, the sport most closely identified with American culture has yet to experience the widespread participation sports like basketball and volleyball enjoy.

?Nobody tries to turn volleyball players into badminton players,? said Mary Jo Stegeman, one of the founders of the Chicago Pioneers, an all-women?s baseball league. ?It?s general pigheadedness or ignorance of the differences between the two games. Girls are boxing, playing football, weightlifting in the Olympics, so why wouldn?t they play baseball? They want to play, they?re just not offered it.?

Stegeman admits to standing on a soapbox when the topic of women?s baseball is approached. The mother of a baseball playing daughter herself, she saw firsthand the backwardness and hostility female baseball players received. So with the help of a few people, the Chicago Pioneers were created as an all-girl?s baseball league for women to play the sport amongst their peers, and Stacy has fit in well in that arena as well.

?It mostly comes from two things: One, the majority of people honestly believe softball is baseball for girls, which just isn?t true,? Stegeman said. ?They?re totally different sports, different governing bodies and everything. And also I don?t think the female population has stood up for themselves in the sense of playing baseball. Because of the combo of that and the general misconception of the two sports cripples women?s chances to enter the world of baseball.?

At this point in Piagno?s career, playing baseball is about enjoying herself. There?s no paycheck, no ulterior motive other than doing what she wants at the highest level possible, and making everyone else see there?s nothing that strange about a girl playing baseball.

Source: http://staugustine.com/sports/2012-08-17/former-menendez-star-piagno-continues-prove-baseball-game-everybody

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Employer: Ex-servant using trial to get US status

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? A woman accused of keeping an illegal immigrant as a servant at her upstate New York mansion says the housekeeper has become a prosecution witness in an effort to get legal status to remain in the United States.

But prosecutors say the woman, who faces a federal felony, kept her emigre servant overworked, underpaid and essentially captive for several years.

Both sides agree the housekeeper, identified in court papers only as V.M., a middle-aged widow from India, worked for Annie George, her late husband and six children for five years. Immigration investigators removed her in May 2011 after her son in India called the National Human Trafficking Resources Center, which says it has identified hundreds of similar U.S. cases.

Bradley Miles, executive director of the nonprofit Polaris Project, which runs the 24-hour phone service, said the most frequently reported type of labor trafficking the organization hears about on the hotline are domestic servitude cases. Since 2008, it has received more than 2,500 calls directly from survivors of sex and labor trafficking, and about 60 or 70 daily looking for referrals, resources, training or "crisis calls," he said.

"I feel it's just the tip of the iceberg," Miles said. They try to determine if there are specific indicators of force, fraud or coercion and since 2008 have recorded 340 domestic servitude situations "with high indicators" that the cases constitute human trafficking. The callers are referred to a network of nonprofits and police across the country.

Miles said other highly publicized household forced labor cases over the past decade involved ?migr?s from the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt. His organization is guided by a federal definition of human trafficking from the 2000 federal law and looks for types of control that include violence, threats, isolation or holding debt over someone's head.

The 40-year-old George, who faces trial Aug. 27, is accused of harboring an illegal immigrant for private financial gain, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe dismissed the charge in July on a scheduling technicality but prosecutors got a new indictment days later. George has pleaded not guilty.

Her lawyer, Mark Sacco, had requested dismissal and said he hoped prosecutors had better things to do with their time. He also said the pay dispute, using corrected math, was about $40,000 and could easily be settled in civil court. Prosecutors said V.M. is due at least $240,000 in wages and $79,000 in overtime based on the minimum wage.

In a trial brief, Sacco said V.M. had legal papers and was working with a family in New Jersey in 2005. She left that job for a romantic relationship that ended, leaving her homeless. She was taken in by a church ? which she asked to help her find work ? claimed to be a legal U.S. visitor, and was hired by George's husband, Mathai Kolath George, in 2006 to work for his family as a live-in domestic servant for $1,000 a month. She filled out no paperwork and didn't change her visa status.

"She was provided room, board and a stipend which was forwarded to her children in her home country," Sacco wrote. "As an avenue to secure permanent legal status in the United States for both herself and her children, she has condemned my client."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Belliss said V.M. is still in the United States and self-supporting at this point. She has temporary status in the country pending the outcome of the trial, he said. She also may testify at trial, along with the immigration investigators who removed her from George's home, after first being told she wasn't there.

Prosecutors said V.M. was eventually pushed out a side door of the mansion without her bags, later got them and found her diary missing.

They said V.M. was paid about $26,000 for more than five years of cooking, cleaning and child care every day from 5:30 a.m. to almost midnight. She spoke little English, never saw a doctor or dentist, seldom left the house and was taken to an immigration lawyer once but got no documents.

She worked in the family's homes first in Catskill in the Hudson Valley, suburban Albany and then the more than 20,000-square-foot stone mansion called Llenroc, 15 miles northwest of Albany.

Prosecutors could claim the mansion as the "vehicle ... used in the commission of the offense" if George is convicted.

Mathai George, a native of India who built a hotel and real estate development business in the U.S., was killed in 2009 along with his 11-year-old son and another man when their private plane crashed after takeoff.

____

Online: Polaris Project

http://www.polarisproject.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-08-18-Illegal%20Servant/id-478bdd454ef44d4695763f488406f730

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Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude > Free Classic Ebook ...

Free Classic Self Improvement ebook ?Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude? by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Hill includes 355 pages of successful business attitude principals. Free ebook comes with give away rights. Click ?Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude? to download (4.6 MB pdf) or view this free Self Improvement Classic ebook. Download pdf & ecover zip file HERE.

Source: http://free-ebooks-canada.com/?p=5644

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Should an American medal winner wave a Mexican flag at the Olympics? (Americablog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/241580989?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Facebook stock near half of public offering value

NEW YORK (AP) ? Facebook's stock has come a penny short of hitting $19 for the first time, meaning it has nearly lost half of its market value since its public offering in May.

It hit $19.01 on Friday, a day after the expiration of a lock-up period that has provided some early investors and insiders with an opportunity to exit.

Investors have been concerned about Facebook's ability to keep increasing revenue and make money from its growing mobile audience, even as many analysts hold positive long-term views.

The stock closed on its first day barely above its initial public offering price of $38. It has been below that level since.

The stock fell to $19.01 before bouncing back to $19.17 in morning trading Friday. That's 70 cents, or 3.5 percent, below Thursday's close.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-08-17-Facebook-Stock/id-2a7c526b87064c4298949d8c0f986f13

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UN leader slams Iran president's Israel comment

AFP - UN leader Ban Ki-moon is "dismayed" by the latest anti-Israel comments made by Iranian leaders, a spokesman said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attack on Israel as being a "cancerous tumour" has already been condemned by the United States and France. Ahead of mass demonstrations in Tehran on Friday, supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Israel will "disappear".

"The secretary general is dismayed by the remarks threatening Israel's existence attributed over the last two days to the supreme leader and the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said a statement released by his spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Ban "condemns these offensive and inflammatory statements," he said.

Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders have frequently made such statements to condemn Israel.

The UN secretary general said that "all leaders in the region should use their voices at this time to lower, rather than to escalate, tensions," added the spokesman.

"In accordance with the United Nations Charter, all members must refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Iran is locked in a nuclear showdown with the United States and its allies in Europe. Israeli media has speculated that the Israeli military could attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20120818-un-leader-slams-iran-presidents-israel-comment

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Irish Pharmacy Union launches online guide for sick children

17/08/2012 - 11:20:04
Pharmacists are reaching out to parents with ill children with an online guide.

The Irish Pharmacy Union has launched the guide to provide practical advice on treating common ailments.

Problems such as colds, coughs, pain and fever, as well as teething and colic are covered.

Irish Pharmacy Union guide to common ailments in babies and young children

Source: http://feeds.breakingnews.ie/~r/bnireland/~3/sdDyluMSQK8/irish-pharmacy-union-launches-online-guide-for-sick-children-563346.html

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Youngsters go hunting for Olympic Gold | Enderby Eye

Young treasure hunters sport their medals

?

Over 250 residents attended the event organised by Blaby District Council?s Health and Recreation team, which involved finding eight Olympic themed sports with the aid of a map and clues hidden around the park.

There was also face painting, sports day activities, and an arts and crafts area where children could make their own medals and fridge magnets of London 2012 mascot Wenlock and other Olympic motifs.

Councillor David Clements, health improvement and corporate services portfolio holder at Blaby District Council, said:

?The aim of the event was to inspire the young people of Blaby district about sport and the Olympics.

?As most of the children were too young to take park in the mainstream sport due to the majority being under five years old, this was a way for them to have fun while learning about Olympic sports and values.?

The Health and Recreation team will also be hosting a story adventure day on Wednesday August 22, using the Olympics as inspiration.

The event is aimed at the under fives and takes place at Countesthorpe Sure Start Centre, Winchester Road, Countesthorpe.

For full details of activities and events visit www.blaby.gov.uk/activetogether ?or email activetogether@blaby.gov.uk alternatively,?telephone ?0116 272 7703.

Source: http://enderbyeye.co.uk/?p=3461

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Ecuador leader seeks moral halo in asylum fight

LIMA, Peru (AP) ? An economist schooled in the United States and Belgium, Rafael Correa was judged among the more cerebral of Latin America's new breed of leftist leaders well before Julian Assange strolled into his country's London embassy and gave Ecuador's president a chance to seize the global spotlight

Correa's decision to grant asylum to the WikiLeaks founder Thursday seems anything but an emotional roll of the dice.

The former lay missionary knew he was apt to deeply offend the United States, Britain, Sweden and likely the European Union.

He knew he would be inviting commercial and political retaliation that could hurt his small petroleum-exporting nation of 14 million people.

No such retaliation has yet come, but the standoff is young.

Britain says it won't allow Assange safe passage out of the country. Sweden, where Assange is wanted for questioning for alleged sexual misconduct, summoned Ecuador's ambassador to issue a stern protest.

Offering asylum to the man responsible for the biggest-ever spilling of U.S. secrets was apparently too attractive for Correa to resist.

It let him stake a claim to moral high ground, associating himself with a man whose adherents see him as a digital age Robin Hood crusading against abuses of big governments and corporations and who believe the Swedish extradition request is a pretext for shipping Assange to the United States to face a kangaroo court.

U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House's Western Hemisphere subcommittee, has met with Correa several times and believes he understands the gamble.

"He's a very smart guy and this wasn't done in a vacuum," Engel said. "The reason is to kind of be the head of the poke-the-United States-in-the-eye group."

That club includes Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba ? the latter formerly the top Latin American destination for people fleeing U.S. and European prosecution.

"It's not just done because Julian Assange should have freedom or shouldn't be persecuted," Engel said of Correa. "If that were the case, why is he persecuting his own journalists?"

Correa was the reason the director of Ecuador's main opposition newspaper did some asylum-seeking of his own early this year, holing up in Panama's embassy in Quito for 14 days when Ecuador's high court upheld a criminal defamation ruling against him and other top editors.

Correa later pardoned them and forgave a $42 million damage award against El Universo, but free press and human rights groups say Ecuador's president remains a threat to any speech not to his liking.

He has also used media ownership restrictions enacted by a loyal congress to diminish the power of opposition-owned media, which he claims are intent on destroying him.

Political scientist Vicente Torrijos of Universidad del Rosario in Colombia said giving Assange asylum provides Correa "a huge smoke screen to try to hide his treatment of the press."

Torrijos called it "propagandistic pragmatism" likely to please those who like to cheer on anyone who stands up to the United States and its allies.

Such people have played a big role in electing leftist leaders across South America as U.S. influence waned over the past decade.

Marta Lagos, director of the Chile-based Latinobarometro polling firm, said she found it remarkable how Correa seized an opportunity to become standard-bearer of the sovereignty of little nations fed up with the sometimes imperious U.S. meddling in Latin America exposed in 2010 as WikiLeaks unleashed a quarter million cables sent home by Washington's diplomats.

"It made the world bigger," she said. "There have been very few times when an emerging, underdeveloped country like Ecuador has committed an international political act of this potency."

Correa, 49, met the 41-year-old Assange for the first time in May, in a long-distance video hookup, when the Australian ex-hacker interviewed the president for his Kremlin-funded TV program.

"Your WikiLeaks have made us stronger," Correa told Assange. "Welcome to the club of the persecuted."

A month later, Assange was bedding down inside Ecuador's embassy in London.

One cable published by WikiLeaks prompted Correa to expel a U.S. ambassador in 2010 for alleging a former Ecuadorean police chief was corrupt and suggesting Correa had looked the other way.

Correa has spurned U.S.-backed multinational lenders and alienated international capitalists as he courts the likes of Russia, Iran and China. The latter is now Ecuador's main lender and buys most of its oil.

At home, analysts don't think the Assange embrace will have much effect on Correa's high popularity. His approval ratings top 70 percent, in large part due to generous social welfare spending.

Outside is another question.

"It is hard to see how Correa comes out a winner," said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "There are no gains, only potential losses."

Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said he was surprised by the move.

"Ecuador's diplomatic relations with Europe, especially the U.K., are in danger of collapsing," he said.

Engel expects the decision will alienate the U.S. Congress, prompting it to vote against renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act, which allows Ecuadorean goods into the United States free of tariffs.

Forty-five percent of Ecuador's exports go to the U.S., accounting for about 400,000 jobs.

Trade with Sweden and Britain, by contrast, are a piddling. Ecuador exported $23 million in goods, mostly food, to Sweden and $134 million in goods to Britain last year. Sweden doesn't even have an embassy in Ecuador.

A preferential trade pact with the European Union expires at the end of 2013 and if it's not renewed Ecuador's exports could be cut 4 percent, costing it jobs. Talks on renewing that pact already have been stalled for six months.

Correa, in typical fashion, proclaims that he doesn't want a free trade agreement. He wants a different sort of pact, one that would protect Ecuador's weaker agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

It's a bit like Correa's proposal for preventing oil development in Ecuador's pristine Yasuni rainforest reserve. He has been asking European nations to pay Ecuador not to drill in the reserve.

So far, commitments have been few.

___

Associated Press writers Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador; Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Colombia; Karl Ritter in Stockholm and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ecuador-leader-seeks-moral-halo-asylum-fight-072346607.html

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This Could Be the Easiest Way to Make a Stuffed Burger [Daily Desired]

Burger stuffed with peppers. Burger stuffed with mushrooms. Burger stuffed with cheese. Sounds like a restaurant menu, but with Cat Cobra by Star Fruit's new 2-in-1 Burger Press you can actually fill your patties with whatever accoutrements you want. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Zyz8wq7znv8/this-could-be-the-easiest-way-to-make-a-stuffed-burger

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Verdict, protests loom for Russia's jailed punks

A masked demonstrator stands in front of a placard reading: 'Justice' in support of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot during a protest outside Spain's Foreign Office in Madrid Thursday Aug. 16, 2012. Three members of Pussy Riot were jailed in March and charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after their punk performance against President Putin in Moscow?s main cathedral. They are awaiting the verdict on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012 (AP Photo/Paul White)

A masked demonstrator stands in front of a placard reading: 'Justice' in support of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot during a protest outside Spain's Foreign Office in Madrid Thursday Aug. 16, 2012. Three members of Pussy Riot were jailed in March and charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after their punk performance against President Putin in Moscow?s main cathedral. They are awaiting the verdict on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012 (AP Photo/Paul White)

Pussy Riot punk group supporters place masks on a monument to WWII heroes to resemble Pussy Riot members, at an underground station in Moscow on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012. Three group members who were jailed in March following a guerrilla performance denouncing President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral have unwillingly emerged as vivid ? and very different ? characters. They await a verdict Friday on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. (AP Photo/Yevgeny Feldman, Novaya Gazeta)

FILE In this Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012 file photo feminist punk group Pussy Riot members, from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow, Russia. Three members of Pussy Riot were jailed in March and charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after their punk performance against President Putin in Moscow?s main cathedral. Theyare awaiting the verdict on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, file)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Security is tight around a Moscow courthouse where three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot are to hear the verdict Friday in a trial that could send them to prison for seven years.

The case has attracted international attention as an emblem of Russia's intolerance of dissent. The three women have been jailed since March after the band put on a brief guerrilla performance in Moscow's main cathedral, a so-called punk prayer entreating the Virgin Mary to protect Russia from Vladimir Putin, who at the time was on the verge of winning a new term as Russian president.

The women, two of whom have young children, are charged with hooliganism connected to religious hatred. But the case is widely seen as a warning that authorities will tolerate opposition only under tightly controlled conditions.

It also underlines the vast influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although church and state are formally separate, the church identifies itself as the heart of Russian national identity and critics say its strength effectively makes it a quasi-state entity.

Protests timed to just before the verdict or soon afterward are planned in more than three dozen cities worldwide.

Prosecutors have asked for three-year sentences, down from the possible seven-year maximum and Putin himself has said he hopes the sentencing is not "too severe."

Celebrities including Paul McCartney, Madonna and Bjork have called for them to be freed, and protests are planned around the world Friday.

The women "hope for an acquittal but they are ready to continue to fight," defense lawyer Nikolai Polozov said outside the court building, where there was a heavy police presence

Acquittal appeared unlikely. But even if the women are sentenced only to time already served, the case has already strongly clouded Russia's esteem overseas and stoked the resentment of opposition partisans who have turned out in a series of massive rallies since last winter.

The case comes in the wake of several recently passed laws cracking down on opposition, including one that raised the fine for taking part in an unauthorized demonstrations by 150 times to 300,000 rubles (about $9,000).

Another measure requires non-government organizations that both engage in vaguely defined political activity and receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents."

______

Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-17-Russia-Punks%20vs%20Putin/id-a44b5ce8ff9e4736aab54c34a47b9625

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