A-Rod implicated in PED use again as MLB probes

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 file photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez takes batting practice before Game 4 of the American League championship series against the Detroit Tigers, in Detroit. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 file photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez takes batting practice before Game 4 of the American League championship series against the Detroit Tigers, in Detroit. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2012 file photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez prepares to hit in the sixth inning during Game 4 of the American League championship series against the Detroit Tigers in Detroit. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

This undated booking photo provided by the Miami-Dade Police Department, on Tuesday, Jan 29, 2013, shows Anthony Bosch. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. The Miami New Times said in a story on Tuesday that it had obtained files through an employee at a recently closed clinic called Biogenesis. The report said that the notes of clinic chief Bosch list the players' names and the substances they received, including human growth hormone and steroids. (AP Photo/Miami-Dade Police Department)

FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2012, file photo, Oakland Athletics starter Bartolo Colon tosses the ball after Chicago White Sox's Gordon Beckham hit a two-run single during the sixth inning of a baseball game in Chicago. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link Alex Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. The Miami New Times said in a story Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, that it had obtained files through an employee at a recently closed clinic called Biogenesis. Other players named by the publication as appearing in the records include Colon, Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez and Nelson Cruz.(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - In this June 12, 2012, file photo, Texas Rangers' Nelson Cruz breaks his bat while hitting a double during the second inning of their baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif. Major League Baseball says it is "extremely disappointed" about a new report that says records from an anti-aging clinic in the Miami area link Alex Rodriguez and other players to the purchase of performance-enhancing drugs. The Miami New Times said in a story Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, that it had obtained files through an employee at a recently closed clinic called Biogenesis. Other players named by the publication as appearing in the records include Cruz, Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez and Bartolo Colon. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Alex Rodriguez is in the middle of Major League Baseball's latest doping investigation after an alternative weekly newspaper reported baseball's highest-paid star was among the big leaguers listed in the records of a Florida clinic the paper said sold performance-enhancing drugs.

The Miami New Times said Tuesday that the three-time AL MVP bought human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing substances during 2009-12 from Biogenesis of America LLC, a now-closed anti-aging clinic in Coral Cables, Fla., near Rodriguez's offseason home.

The new public relations firm for the New York Yankees third baseman issued a statement denying the allegations.

New Times said it obtained records detailing purchases by Rodriguez, 2012 All-Star game MVP Melky Cabrera, 2005 AL Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon and 2011 AL championship series MVP Nelson Cruz of Texas.

Cabrera left San Francisco after the season to sign with Toronto, while Oakland re-signed Colon.

Other baseball players the newspaper said appeared in the records include Washington pitcher Gio Gonzalez, who finished third in last year's NL Cy Young Award voting, and San Diego catcher Yasmani Grandal.

Biogenesis, which the New Times said was run by Anthony Bosch, was located in a beige, nondescript office park. The former clinic is no longer listed as a business in its directory,

"There was a flier put out by the building management a couple weeks ago. It was put on all the doors and windows of all the offices," said Brad Nickel, who works in a cruise planning company on the floor above where the clinic was located. "It just said this guy's not really a doctor, he doesn't belong here, he's no longer allowed here, call the police or the building management if you see him."

The New Times posted copies of what it said were Bosch's handwritten records, obtained through a former Biogenesis employee it did not identify.

Bosch's lawyer, Susy Ribero-Ayala, said in a statement the New Times report "is filled with inaccuracies, innuendo and misstatements of fact."

"Mr. Bosch vehemently denies the assertions that MLB players such as Alex Rodriguez and Gio Gonzalez were treated by or associated with him," she said.

Rodriguez appears 16 times in the documents New Times received, the paper said, either as "Alex Rodriguez," ''Alex Rod" or the nickname "Cacique," a pre-Columbian Caribbean chief.

Rodriguez admitted four years ago that he used PEDs from 2001-03. Cabrera, Colon and Grandal were suspended for 50 games each last year by MLB following tests for elevated testosterone. Responding to the testosterone use, MLB and the players' union said Jan. 10 they were authorizing the World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory outside Montreal to store each major leaguer's baseline testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio in order to detect abnormalities.

"We are always extremely disappointed to learn of potential links between players and the use of performance-enhancing substances," MLB said in a statement. "Only law enforcement officials have the capacity to reach those outside the game who are involved in the distribution of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. ... We are in the midst of an active investigation and are gathering and reviewing information."

A baseball official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements, said Monday that MLB did not have any documentation regarding the allegations. If MLB does obtain evidence, the players could be subject to discipline. First offenses result in a 50-game suspension and second infractions in 100-game penalties. A third violation results in a lifetime ban.

Rodriguez is sidelined for at least the first half of the season after hip surgery Jan. 16. A 50-game suspension would cost him $7.65 million of his $28 million salary.

"The news report about a purported relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Anthony Bosch are not true," Rodriguez said in a statement issued by a publicist. "He was not Mr. Bosch's patient, he was never treated by him and he was never advised by him. The purported documents referenced in the story ? at least as they relate to Alex Rodriguez ? are not legitimate."

Jay Reisinger, a lawyer who has represented Rodriguez in recent years, said the three-time AL MVP had retained Roy Black, an attorney from Rodriguez's hometown of Miami. Black's clients have included Rush Limbaugh and William Kennedy Smith.

Bosch did not return a phone message seeking comment.

MLB hopes to gain the cooperation of Bosch and others connected with the clinic, another baseball official said, also on condition of anonymity because no public statements on the matter were authorized. In order to successfully discipline players based on the records, witnesses would be needed to authenticate them, the official said.

Players could be asked to appear before MLB for interviews, but the official said MLB would be reluctant to request interviews before it has more evidence.

Rodriguez spent years denying he used PEDs before Sports Illustrated reported in February 2009 that he tested positive for two steroids in MLB's anonymous survey while with the Texas Rangers in 2003. Two days later, he admitted in an ESPN interview that he used PEDs over a three-year period. He has denied using PEDs after 2003.

If the new allegations were true, the Yankees would face high hurdles to get out of the final five years and $114 million of Rodriguez's record $275 million, 10-year contract. Because management and the players' union have a joint drug agreement, an arbitrator could determine that any action taken by the team amounted to multiple punishments for the same offense.

But if Rodriguez were to end his career because of the injury, about 85 percent of the money owed by the Yankees would be covered by insurance, one of the baseball officials said.

Gonzalez, 21-8 for the Washington Nationals last season, posted on his Twitter feed: "I've never used performance enhancing drugs of any kind and I never will, I've never met or spoken with tony Bosch or used any substance provided by him. anything said to the contrary is a lie."

Colon was not issuing a statement, agent Adam Katz said through spokeswoman Lisa Cohen.

"We are aware of certain allegations and inferences," Cruz's law firm, Farrell & Reisinger, said in a statement. "To the extent these allegations and inferences refer to Nelson, they are denied."

Cruz and Gonzalez had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Cruz hit 24 home runs last year for the Rangers.

The New Times report said it obtained notes by Bosch listing the players' names and the substances they received. Several unidentified employees and clients confirmed to the publication that the clinic distributed the substances, the paper said. The employees said that Bosch bragged of supplying drugs to professional athletes but that they never saw the sports stars in the office.

The paper said the records list that Rodriguez paid for HGH; testosterone cream; IGF-1, a substance banned by baseball that stimulates insulin production; and GHRP, which releases growth hormones.

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Kay in Coral Cables, Fla., and Curt Anderson in Miami, and AP Sports Writers Howard Fendrich and Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-01-30-MLB-Drug%20Investigation/id-2c5d29bd81df4fafb347ecf99a6fdc64

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Early-onset puberty in females explained

Jan. 29, 2013 ? New research from Oregon Health & Science University has provided significant insight into the reasons why early-onset puberty occurs in females. The research, which was conducted at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, is published in the current early online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The paper explains how OHSU scientists are investigating the role of epigenetics in the control of puberty. Epigenetics refers to changes in gene activity linked to external factors that do not involve changes to the genetic code itself. The OHSU scientists believe improved understanding of these complex protein/gene interactions will lead to greater understanding of both early-onset (precocious) puberty and delayed puberty, and highlight new therapy avenues.

To conduct this research, scientists studied female rats, which like their human counterparts, go through puberty as part of their early aging process. These studies revealed that a group of proteins, called PcG proteins, regulate the activity of a gene called the Kiss1 gene, which is required for puberty to occur. When these PcG proteins diminish, Kiss1 is activated and puberty begins.

PcG proteins are produced by another set of genes that act as a biological switch during the embryonic stage of life. The role of these proteins is to turn off specific downstream genes at key developmental stages.

OHSU scientists found that both the activity of these "master" genes and their ability to turn off puberty are impacted by two forms of epigenetic control: a chemical modification of DNA known as DNA methylation, and changes in the composition of histones, a specialized set of proteins that modify gene activity by interacting with DNA.

Using this new information, researchers were then able to delay puberty in female rats. They accomplished this by increasing PcG protein levels in the hypothalamus of the brain using a targeted gene therapy approach so that Kiss1 activation failed to occur at the normal time in life. The hypothalamus is a region of the brain that controls reproductive development.

"While it was always understood that an organism's genes determine the timing of puberty, the role of epigenetics in this process has never been recorded until now," said Alejandro Lomniczi, Ph.D., a scientist in the Division of Neuroscience at the OHSU Oregon National Primate Research Center.

"Because epigenetic changes are driven by environmental, metabolic and cell-to-cell influences, these findings raise the possibility that a significant percentage of precocious and delayed puberty cases occurring in humans may be the result of environmental factors and other alterations in epigenetic control," said Sergio Ojeda, D.V.M., who is also a scientist in the Division of Neuroscience at the OHSU ONPRC.

"There is also much more to be learned about the way that epigenetic factors may link environmental factors such as nutrition, human-made chemicals, social interactions and other day-today influences to the timing and completion of normal puberty."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon Health & Science University.

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. Alejandro Lomniczi, Alberto Loche, Juan Manuel Castellano, Oline K Ronnekleiv, Martha Bosch, Gabi Kaidar, J Gabriel Knoll, Hollis Wright, Gerd P Pfeifer, Sergio R Ojeda. Epigenetic control of female puberty. Nature Neuroscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nn.3319

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/VSkMvJk5S7U/130129130947.htm

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What to Wear to a Blue Collar Job Interview ? ZipRecruiter Blog

Guest post by Tyler Silvera

So you?ve got an upcoming interview for a blue collar job, and you don?t want to mess up the first impression. After all, first impressions determine how the hiring manager reacts to you?emotionally. It can even be the make-or-break factor between you and the other candidate waiting outside.

Most people think that dressing up applies only to corporate interviews. This isn?t strictly the case. While there are no strict rules when it comes to the blue collar profession, showing up in sloppy jeans and a wrinkled shirt can leave a bad impression no matter what the job may be.

As such, we?ve thrown together a guide so that aspiring employees like you aren?t left clueless on your big job interview.

Business vs. Casual

For many applicants, the first question is always ?Do I wear a suit or go casual??

The answer depends on the job you?re applying for. The traditional formal suit or skirt is still the best choice when being interviewed for an office position. The same rule applies to large corporations, even if the employees typically go casual (for example, at call centers).

On the other hand, it?s okay to go casual for industries that don?t need business attire. A construction company or a trucking firm, for instance, are two such fields where showing up in a suit makes you look out of place. This doesn?t mean that both industries are not professional. Rather, when it comes to work attire, the nature of the work places more emphasis on practicality than looking sleek. The exception for this is if you?re applying to an executive or other high-level position, particularly one where you will interact with formal?business people?at outside companies.

When in doubt, go for a smart casual look. Put on your best shirt and a dark pair of jeans, and throw on a nicely cut jacket. For ladies, a blouse and jeans will do the trick when paired with a nice pair of dress shoes. Also, if you really aren?t sure, it?s okay to ask the hiring manager what is appropriate dress. If anything, he or she will appreciate your attention to detail and the fact that you care about fitting in with the company culture.

How casual is too casual?

So you?ve figured out that people in the workplace wear casual clothing.?Just because everyone is wearing rumpled jeans doesn?t mean you can come in your paint-stained Levi?s ? you have to get past the gatekeeper first. And to do this, it pays to put yourself in his or her shoes.

Imagine you?re a recruiter facing dozens of applicants per day. Who makes a better impression ? the guy in the KYSS t-shirt and worn sneakers, or the pleasant-looking gentleman in a clean collared shirt and polished shoes?

The general rule is to dress similarly to the other people in the workplace, but to wear your very best version of it.?By placing yourself above the norm, the people you meet will see how important the interview is for you, earning you points for professionalism and conduct simply through your attire.

Dos and Don?ts

There are plenty of small details that, when overlooked, can land you lower in the applicant ladder.
Here are some practical dos and don?ts for your non-corporate interview.

DO:

• Wear your best clothing ? By best, we don?t necessarily mean your Sunday best.

Wear the best version of what other people are wearing in the workplace.?If it?s a t-shirt and jeans environment, don?t just throw on what you normally wear. Look for your best shirt and denim combo, and make sure you examine both for spots, stains or loose threads.

• Cover up ? Excessive display of skin is always a no-no for HR. This makes you look unprofessional and uncaring.

For men, avoid shirts are too tight or too short (you don?t want your behind sticking out when you bend over!). Women should avoid sleeveless tops, like tanks and spaghetti straps. The same applies for low-cut blouses, miniskirts and anything that exposes too much skin or cleavage.

• Pay attention to your accessories ? No matter how good your attire, the whole outfit can be ruined by simple things like that cap or bag you normally don?t pay attention to.

DON?T:

• Under-dress ? Coming in wearing shorts and flip-flops make you look like a customer or a lost tourist, not someone serious about the job.

• Wear stained clothes ? Go through your outfit for any stains, wrinkles or spots one last time before heading out the door.

• Wear statement shirts ? Shirts with slogans, funny captions, and other distracting designs can detract from an otherwise spotless resume and appearance, thus lowering your chances of getting hired.

Your turn ? What are your top tips for blue collar interviews?

Next:?5 Questions You Should Ask in a Job Interview??

Source: http://blog.ziprecruiter.com/2013/01/28/what-to-wear-to-a-blue-collar-job-interview/

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H&R Block At Home Deluxe Online (Tax Year 2012) | ITReviews

No personal tax preparation software/website publisher has a range of offerings as broad as H&R Block, understandably. Industry veteran Intuit is a relative upstart compared to H&R Block, which has been providing tax services since 1955. The company employs more than 100,000 tax professionals worldwide and has prepared more than 550 million tax returns worldwide. This year, we?ve reviewed H&R Block At Home Deluxe Online .

H&R Block?s digital presence is considerable. It has competed alongside Intuit and 2nd Story Software for years, first as a publisher of personal tax preparation software, and then as the host for matching websites. You can use these products entirely on your own, or you can ask questions along the way of H&R Block staff. You can prepare your return and then have a company representative review it, correct as necessary and sign it as the preparer of record.

And you can participate in a videoconference remotely with a representative, just as if you?d walked into a physical H&R Block office. Starting with the 2012 tax year, you will be able to do the latter on your iPad, and you can maintain a year-round conversation with H&R Block experts, even saving relevant documents to a personal portal as you acquire them, so that you don?t have such a mad scramble at prep time.

Interpreting the Arcane
Like TurboTax?and TaxACT, H&R Block At Home Deluxe Online helps you complete your 1040 and its related forms and schedules in a fashion that?s much easier and more understandable than sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of paper forms and a lot of apprehension.

Over the years, H&R Block has continued to hone its web-based version of an in-person sit-down with a company representative. The live interview that you do when you visit one of the company?s offices translates well to the approach that all tax preparation websites take: They ask you questions and provide fields or checklists or other conventions for your answers, and then they drop those answers in the correct fields on the actual IRS forms and schedules.

When you?ve answered all of the questions about your federal return, the service can use that information to work on any state returns required. The website does all of the calculating, and it combs your return for errors and omissions, insisting on correct responses before it lets you print the return or file it electronically.

Navigation is simple and straightforward. You advance through the interview by clicking ?Back? and ?Next? buttons (but the latter doesn?t work unless you?ve completed the current screen, a departure from what competitors allow). A series of buttons in the upper right corner takes you to a chronological, interactive index of the site?s topics; a utility that produces a link to the appropriate form when you enter a topic (new in the online version); your ?bookmarks? (a list of pages where you?ve indicated you?re missing information); and site utilities.

Help From the Pros
All of the tax sites we reviewed this year try to do three things primarily: help you fill out your forms as completely and accurately as you can; try to lower your tax obligation as much as is legally possible; and move you through the preparation process as quickly and painlessly as it can. So H&R Block, like its competitors, begins by asking for personal information (names, Social Security numbers, etc.) and then presenting you with a comprehensive list of the issues that are addressed within the IRS Form 1040 and its accompanying forms and schedules (employment wages, investments, interest income, mortgage interest, medical expenses, etc.). You check the ones that apply to you, and the step-by-step interview process begins.

As you go, H&R Block provides support for the challenging task. Some words and phrases within the site?s interview questions are hyperlinked, and clicking on them opens a window containing a more complete explanation of what?s needed there. Unlike in other sites, you can?t click directly from there to get additional assistance, but a vertical pane to the right contains commonly-asked questions and answers about the current topic.

If that?s not thorough enough for you, you can enter a search term in the box provided, which opens the Help Center. This window consists of a list of related help topics. There are often dozens of them, and they?re not necessarily prioritized for general interest users?some are state-specific, and there?s a lot of duplication. And many are answered in a sentence or two. You may have to do excessive clicking and reading to get your answer. Every other site offers more in-depth, easily-accessible, context-sensitive help.

When you click the ?Go? button under ?Need program help?? you?re directed to a window that connects you to either a live chat session or a live phone call with an H&R Block support agent. This is for technical site support only. If you have a tax-related question, you only get one shot at a live chat, email and phone call, and then fees apply for each. This is in sharp contrast to TurboTax, which offers unlimited contact for free, and TaxACT, which charges $7.95 for unrestricted access. There?s also online help and a community of users and experts asking and answering questions.

An Unusual Extra
H&R Block is making its huge stable of tax professionals available year-round now for ongoing support. It?s giving customers their own private portal, where they can upload documentation for the current year?s taxes. This is a great idea, and will be very helpful when prep time rolls around. The company will also provide tax law updates and advice from the pros on these individual sites.

H&R Block?s online tax preparation sites have always been rated highly in our reviews. The variety of ways that you can interact with the company?s experts is greater than what?s offered by any competitor. But its online help tools pale in comparison to its competitors?, and individualized tax help is prohibitively expensive.

If you?ve been using H&R Block At Home Deluxe or one of its sister sites (Free, Basic, and Premium) and you like it, there?s no reason not to keep using it. It?s an excellent site, backed up by the best-known name in tax preparation. But for the same price, you can get equally competent 1040 coverage with better onsite help and free remote access to tax experts through TurboTax Deluxe Online, our tax-prep Editors? Choice?the site I?ll recommend this year to anyone who asks.

More Accouting and Tax Reviews:

Published under license from Ziff Davis, Inc., New York, All rights reserved.
Copyright ? 2012 Ziff Davis, Inc

Source: http://www.itreviews.com/hr-block-at-home-deluxe-online-tax-year-2012/

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Secret Service dog dies while serving

A Belgian Malinois. (Getty Images via CNN)

A Secret Service dog fell to its death in New Orleans over the weekend while performing a sweep of a six-story parking garage. The garage was next to a Ritz Carlton where Vice President Joe Biden was speaking.

The bomb-sniffing dog, a Belgian Malinois, fell from the roof of the parking deck next to the hotel at approximately 6 p.m., New Orleans police told WWL-TV.

Biden was attending a fundraiser for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's re-election campaign.

Federal agents rushed the black and brown shepherd to a Metairie Veterinary hospital via motorcade, but veterinarians were unable to revive the dog, WWL reported.

According to CNN, the agency began using canines to detect explosives in 1975:

It uses Belgian Malinois because they are small and have short hair?making it easy for them to work in the heat. They are also very sociable. Each dog and its handler has to complete 20 weeks of training before beginning work, the agency said. When it's time for a dog to retire?usually after about 10 years?it is retired to its handler.

Secret Service spokesman Max Milien told the network the dog's death was a "tragic accident."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/secret-dog-death-144327207--politics.html

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Stocks approaching 2007 record highs

7 hrs.

Reuters

NEW YORK?- U.S. stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has gained 5 percent this year - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average is less than 3 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, N.J. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is less than 4 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on Oct. 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares led the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials, up 6.3 percent. Telecom, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 250 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts, Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minn.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index has jumped 6.1 percent and the S&P mid-cap index has shot up 6.8 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with the release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Ala. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/bears-hibernation-u-s-stocks-near-record-highs-1C8133666

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Hacker group hijacks U.S. government website

Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a Department of Justice agency this morning.

In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats to the free flow of information.

The lengthy essay largely mirrors previous demands from Anonymous, but this time the group also cited the recent suicide of Reddit co-founder and activist Aaron Swartz as has having "crossed a line" for the group. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in prison on computer fraud charges.

Prosecutors said he had stolen thousands of digital scientific and academic journal articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of disseminating them for free.

Read More: Aaron Swartz' Death Fuels MIT Probe, White House Petition to Oust Prosecutor

Anonymous says Swartz was "killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win - a twisted and distorted perversion of justice - a game where the only winning move was not to play."

"There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused," it reads, also mentioning recent arrests of Anonymous associates by the FBI.

In their statement, the hackers say they targeted the homepage of the Federal Sentencing Commission for "symbolic" reasons.

The group claimed that if their demands were not met they would release a trove of embarassing internal Justice Department documents to media outlets. Anonymous named the files after Supreme Court justices and provided links to them; an attempt by CNN to follow the links yielded dead-ends, mostly offline sites.

The file names use an ".aes256? suffix, denoting a common encryption protocol. The same system was used to encrypt the Wikileaks Afghan war documents before their release.

As of press time, the commission webpage had been taken down.

Also Read

Source: http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/anonymous-hijacks-federal-website-threatens-doj-document-dump-174943824--abc-news-politics.html

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Demagnetization by rapid spin transport

Jan. 27, 2013 ? For purposes of their research, the scientists irradiated two separate layered systems with ultrashort laser pulses on the order of just one hundred femtoseconds (10-15 s). One sample consisted essentially of a single thin layer of ferromagnetic nickel. By contrast, a second sample of this same nickel material was coated with a non-magnetic layer of gold. Only a mere 30 nanometers (10-9 m) thick, the gold layer swallowed up the lion's share of the laser light so that barely any light ended up reaching the nickel layer. In spite of this, the nickel layer's magnetization rapidly dissipated shortly after the laser pulse entered each sample.

However, in the case of the gold-coated sample, the researchers recorded a split-second delay. The observations were based on measurements obtained using circularly polarized femtosecond x-ray pulses at BESSY II, Berlin's own electron storage ring, with the help of the femtoslicing beamline.

"This allowed us to demonstrate experimentally that during this process, it isn't the light itself that is responsible for the ultrafast demagnetization but rather hot electrons, which are generated by the laser pulse," explains Andrea Eschenlohr. Excited electrons are able to rapidly move across short distances -- like the ultra-thin gold layer. In the process, they also deliver their magnetic moment (their "spin") to the ferromagnetic nickel layer, prompting the breakdown of the latter's magnetic order. "Actually, what we had hoped to see is how we might be able to influence the spin using the laser pulse," explains Dr. Christian Stamm, who heads the experiment. "The fact that we ended up being able to directly observe how these spins migrate was a complete surprise to everyone."

Laser pulses are thus one possibility to generate "spin currents" where the spin is transferred in place of an electric charge. This observation is relevant for spintronics research where scientists design new devices from magnetic layered systems, which perform calculations based on spins rather than electrons, enabling them to very quickly process and store information while at the same time saving energy.

Dr. Eschenlohr concluded her doctoral work at HZB, in the context of which she generated the results described above, in late 2012. As of January of this year, Dr. Eschenlohr is a scientific associate at University of Duisburg-Essen.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Journal Reference:

1. A. Eschenlohr, M. Battiato, P. Maldonado, N. Pontius, T. Kachel, K. Holldack, R. Mitzner, A. F?hlisch, P. M. Oppeneer, C. Stamm. Ultrafast spin transport as key to femtosecond demagnetization. Nature Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3546

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/most_popular/~3/yaAkGg3ST4E/130127134206.htm

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Why You Need Car Insurance ? Airborn Eduper

by admin on January 27, 2013

Each year, more cars and drivers travel the highways. With countless vehicles on the road, accidents will happen. Automobile insurance can be the difference between a small setback and a major hassle. But why do you need insurance and just how much should you buy? Car insurance protects you by covering the cost of damage caused to your vehicle or another person?s vehicle and injury to others, yourself, or your passengers, and certain other occurrences, such as theft. Every state and province mandates auto insurance by law. Without insurance, you risk having to pay the total price of any harm you cause others or of repairing or replacing your car if it is damaged or stolen.Liability pays for damages due to bodily injury and property damage to others for which you are responsible. Bodily injury damages include medical expenses, lost wages and pain and suffering. Property damage includes damaged property and loss of use of property. It also covers your defense and court costs if you are sued. State laws usually mandate minimum amounts, but higher amounts are available and usually recommended. Personal injury protection: This is required in some states and is optional in others. It pays you or your passengers for medical treatment resulting from a crash, regardless of who may have been at fault, and is often called no-fault coverage. It may also cover lost earnings, replacement of services and funeral expenses. The minimum amount of this insurance is usually set by the state. Medical payments: This coverage is available in non-no-fault states; it pays regardless of who may have been at fault. It pays for an insured person?s reasonable and necessary medical and funeral expenses for bodily injury from a crash. Collision: Pays for damage to your car caused by an accident. Comprehensive: This applies if your car is stolen or damaged by causes other than collision, including fire, wind, hail, flood or vandalism. Uninsured motorist: Pays for damages when an insured person is injured in a crash caused by another person who does not have liability insurance or by a person who cannot be identified (usually a hit-and-run driver). Under-insured motorist: Pays for damages when an insured person is injured in a crash caused by another person who does not have enough liability insurance to cover the full amount of the damages. Other coverages, like car rental and emergency road service, are also available.Your auto insurance payments vary by company and will depend on several factors, including: *Your selected coverage *Your vehicle?s make and model * Your driving record * Your age, sex and marital status and * Where you live Some have come to think of auto insurance as a necessary evil, but it can truly rescue your economic health Evaluate your needs, do your research and with the help of your insurance agent make the decision that best suits you. state farm fremont

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Source: http://airborneduper.com/why-you-need-car-insurance-6/

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Springer launches the 'Springer Book Archives'

Public release date: 25-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Alexander Brown
alexander.brown@springer.com
646-409-8091
Springer Science+Business Media

American Library Association Midwinter Meeting marks the end of 'out of print' for Springer

Springer now offers online access to 37,000 historic, English-language eBooks with the launch of the Springer Book Archives (SBA) at the 2013 American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting (ALA MW). The SBA will be completed by the end of this year, and when finished researchers, students and librarians will be able to access more than 170 years of science through 100,000 titles, available anywhere, at anytime, via Springer's online platform, SpringerLink (link.springer.com).

"The Springer Book Archives marks the culmination of years of planning, scanning and converting our historic titles to a digital format," said Derk Haank, Springer's CEO. "Our vision was to make those titles previously unavailable to researchers accessible, and breathe new life into the discoveries that have powered scientific progress. We have literally eliminated 'out of print' for Springer titles."

Rudolf Diesel, Paul Ehrlich and Emil Fischer are among the notable names who will appear in the SBA when it is complete. Overall, the work of more than 200 winners of the Nobel Prize will appear in the SBA, proving that at Springer great minds don't go out of print, they go online.

"Springer's commitment to the needs of our customers is absolutely central to our strategy," said Syed Hasan, President of Global STM Academic and Government Sales for Springer. "After hearing time and again that libraries and researchers who depend on the availability of Springer content wanted this accessibility, there was no question that we needed to forge ahead with this historic project."

An undertaking of this magnitude involved thousands of hours to carefully scan each historic title, clean up any markings or imperfections, convert illustrations into high-resolution digital images, make the content discoverable and offer it to users in convenient formats. The end result of these efforts is an unprecedented collection of historic, scholarly eBooks, available DRM-free with full text searchability, and optimized for any device. And by offering a print-on-demand option for most of the books in the SBA, Springer is also bringing titles unavailable in print for decades, if not longer, back to bookshelves.

The ALA MW opens on January 25 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, WA. Springer staff will be on hand offering visitors a chance to try the SBA at the Springer booth, number 2045, in the main exhibition hall. Opportunities for interviews with Springer's senior managers and SBA project staff are also available.

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Springer Science+Business Media is a leading global scientific publisher, providing researchers in academia, scientific institutions and corporate R&D departments with quality content via innovative information products and services. Springer is also a trusted local-language publisher in Europe especially in Germany and the Netherlands primarily for physicians and professionals working in the automotive, transport and healthcare sectors. Roughly 2,000 journals and more than 7,000 new books are published by Springer each year, and the group is home to the world's largest STM eBook collection, as well as the most comprehensive portfolio of open access journals. Springer employs more than 7,000 individuals across the globe and in 2011 generated sales of approximately EUR 875 million.

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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.

Public release date: 25-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Alexander Brown
alexander.brown@springer.com
646-409-8091
Springer Science+Business Media

American Library Association Midwinter Meeting marks the end of 'out of print' for Springer

Springer now offers online access to 37,000 historic, English-language eBooks with the launch of the Springer Book Archives (SBA) at the 2013 American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting (ALA MW). The SBA will be completed by the end of this year, and when finished researchers, students and librarians will be able to access more than 170 years of science through 100,000 titles, available anywhere, at anytime, via Springer's online platform, SpringerLink (link.springer.com).

"The Springer Book Archives marks the culmination of years of planning, scanning and converting our historic titles to a digital format," said Derk Haank, Springer's CEO. "Our vision was to make those titles previously unavailable to researchers accessible, and breathe new life into the discoveries that have powered scientific progress. We have literally eliminated 'out of print' for Springer titles."

Rudolf Diesel, Paul Ehrlich and Emil Fischer are among the notable names who will appear in the SBA when it is complete. Overall, the work of more than 200 winners of the Nobel Prize will appear in the SBA, proving that at Springer great minds don't go out of print, they go online.

"Springer's commitment to the needs of our customers is absolutely central to our strategy," said Syed Hasan, President of Global STM Academic and Government Sales for Springer. "After hearing time and again that libraries and researchers who depend on the availability of Springer content wanted this accessibility, there was no question that we needed to forge ahead with this historic project."

An undertaking of this magnitude involved thousands of hours to carefully scan each historic title, clean up any markings or imperfections, convert illustrations into high-resolution digital images, make the content discoverable and offer it to users in convenient formats. The end result of these efforts is an unprecedented collection of historic, scholarly eBooks, available DRM-free with full text searchability, and optimized for any device. And by offering a print-on-demand option for most of the books in the SBA, Springer is also bringing titles unavailable in print for decades, if not longer, back to bookshelves.

The ALA MW opens on January 25 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, WA. Springer staff will be on hand offering visitors a chance to try the SBA at the Springer booth, number 2045, in the main exhibition hall. Opportunities for interviews with Springer's senior managers and SBA project staff are also available.

###

Springer Science+Business Media is a leading global scientific publisher, providing researchers in academia, scientific institutions and corporate R&D departments with quality content via innovative information products and services. Springer is also a trusted local-language publisher in Europe especially in Germany and the Netherlands primarily for physicians and professionals working in the automotive, transport and healthcare sectors. Roughly 2,000 journals and more than 7,000 new books are published by Springer each year, and the group is home to the world's largest STM eBook collection, as well as the most comprehensive portfolio of open access journals. Springer employs more than 7,000 individuals across the globe and in 2011 generated sales of approximately EUR 875 million.

---

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?

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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/ssm-slt012513.php

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Scout pack may lose charter over pro-gay policy

By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

A Cub Scout pack in Maryland may lose its charter if it maintains a policy welcoming gay families and members, a Scout official said Friday, raising once more a controversial issue that has roiled the Boy Scouts of America in recent years.

Pack 442 of Cloverly, Md., is conducting a poll of its members on its website about whether to retain its non-discrimination policy, which reads: ?Pack 442 WILL NOT discriminate against any individual or family based on race, religion, national origin, ability, or sexual orientation.?

The members have until Friday 8 p.m., to decide if they will keep the policy and possibly not be rechartered, or if they will remove it and return to a ?don?t ask, don?t tell? policy welcoming all families, according to a statement on the pack?s website.

Les Baron, Scout Executive of the National Capital Area Council, or NCAC, to which the pack belongs, confirmed that the pack could lose its charter if it maintains the policy, which he noted was against the Boy Scouts? longstanding ban on openly gay Scouts or leaders.

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?Hopefully we don?t get to that point. We are working with the pack to try to work out our differences,? he told NBC News. ?The policy of the Boy Scouts are what they are and my job is to not bring into (it) my own personal feelings, and all I am trying to do is maintain the quality and integrity of the Boy Scouts of America and its policies.?

The pack said it must submit the chartering application by Saturday. At that point, Baron said, the council would then have to make a decision on the charter bid and would take the non-discrimination statement into account. He said the time to make a decision varied.

On the pack?s website, a statement said the council ?contacted us a few weeks ago pressuring us to remove our statement, we attempted to negotiate a rewording of the statement that would represent a compromise on the matter, but ultimately NCAC leadership felt only removal of the statement would be acceptable.? The pack?s committee chair did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The policy was voted on by member families and ?overwhelmingly approved? last August, according to the pack website, which also noted that its chartering organization supported the decision. The matter was discussed in detail with district leaders and the council from August through October 2012.

?As was stated above, it was only recently that NCAC contacted us saying they would no longer ?allow? this statement to be posted,? the website said.

The pack committee was split on the way forward, prompting the poll, according to the pack website.

?Some of the leaders feel the principle of non-discrimination is too precious to allow BSA to dictate that we abandon our local policy. Others feel that we should acquiesce to removal of the policy statement and return to a ?don?t ask, don?t tell? policy,? the website said.

Baron confirmed that he learned of the policy a few months ago. ?The only reason that we do this program is try to provide quality opportunities and experiences for young people. It?s not about political issues and I?m sorry that it?s come down to that.?

A national BSA spokesman, Deron Smith, said the private organization "has policies that all councils and local units agree to follow."

"In this instance, this pack will need to evaluate if they agree to the annual chartered organization agreement," he wrote in an email to NBC News, adding that he wasn't aware of any special deadline given to the unit to make the decision. Baron said he was not aware of any deadline.

The Boy Scouts reaffirmed its ban on gays and lesbians in 2012 following a two-year confidential review.

After the Boy Scouts reaffirmed its policy banning gays, dozens of Eagle Scouts said in online postings that they had returned their medals, badges or membership cards in protest. But many other Eagle Scouts said they agreed with the policy. Since then, Smith has said there were no plans to revisit the membership guidelines.

Activist groups stepped up their campaign to end the policy after Ryan Andresen, an 18-year-old California teen, was denied the Eagle rank late last year because he is gay, and following the dismissal of Jennifer Tyrrell last April from her post as den leader of her son?s Tiger Cub pack in Bridgeport, Ohio, because she is a lesbian.

A number of troops have said they don?t follow the policy, and some companies and charities have said they would not contribute to the Boy Scouts because of the ban.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/25/16702026-cub-scout-pack-may-lose-charter-if-it-keeps-gay-friendly-policy?lite

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Your Three Investing Opponents | The Big Picture

Your Three Investing Opponents
By Barry Ritholtz
?Tough Year!?

?

We hear that around the office nearly every day ? from professional traders to money managers to even the ?most-hedged? of the hedge fund community. This year?s markets have perplexed the best of them. Each week brings another event that sets up some confusing crosscurrent: call them reversals or head fakes or bear traps or (my personal favorite) the ?fake-out break-out? ? this volatile, trendless market has been unkind to Wall Street pros and Main Street investors alike.
Indeed, buy & hold investors have had more ups and downs this year than your average rollercoaster. The third and fourth quarters alone had more than a dozen market swings, ranging from 5 percent to more than 20 percent. Despite all of that action, the S&P 500 is essentially unchanged year-to-date. It doesn?t take much to push portfolios into the red these days.

Three Opponents in Investing
With markets more challenging than ever, individual investors need to understand exactly whom they are going up against when they step onto the field of battle. You have three opponents to consider whenever you invest.
The first is Mr. Market himself. He is, as Benjamin Graham described him, your eternal partner in investing. He is a patient if somewhat bipolar fellow. Subject to wild mood swings, he is always willing to offer you a bid or an ask. If you are a buyer, he is a seller ? and vice versa. But do not mistake this for generosity: he is your opponent. He likes to make you look a fool. Sell him shares at a nice profit, and he happily takes their prices so much higher you are embarrassed to even mention them again. Buy something from him on the cheap, and he will show you exactly what cheap is. And perhaps most frustrating of all, Mr. Market has no ego ? he does not care about being right or wrong; he only exists to separate the rubes from their money.
Yes, Mr. Market is a difficult opponent. But your next rivals are nearly as tough: they are everyone else buying or selling stocks.
Recall what Charles Ellis said when he was overseeing the $15-billion endowment fund at Yale University:
?Watch a pro football game, and it?s obvious the guys on the field are far faster, stronger and more willing to bear and inflict pain than you are. Surely you would say, ?I don?t want to play against those guys!?
?Well, 90% of stock market volume is done by institutions, and half of that is done by the world?s 50 largest investment firms, deeply committed, vastly well prepared ? the smartest sons of bitches in the world working their tails off all day long. You know what? I don?t want to play against those guys either.?
Ellis lays out the brutal truth: investing is a rough and tumble business. It doesn?t matter where these traders work ? they may be on prop desks, mutual funds, hedge funds, or HFT shops ? they employ an array of professional staff and technological tools to give themselves a significant edge. With billions at risk, they deploy anything that gives them even a slight advantage.

These are who individuals are doing battle with. Armed only with a PC, an internet connection, and CNBC muted in the background, investors face daunting odds. They are at a tactical disadvantage, outmanned and outgunned.
We Have Met the Enemy and They Is Us
That is even before we meet your third opponent, perhaps the most difficult one to conquer of all: You.
You are your own third opponent. And, you may be the opponent you understand the least of all three. It is more than time constraints, lack of discipline, and asymmetrical information that challenges you. The biggest disadvantage you have is that melon perched atop your 3rd opponent?s neck. It is your big ole brain, and unless you do something about it, it is going to lose all of your money for you.
See it? There. Sitting right behind your eyes and between your ears. That ?thing? you hardly pay any attention to. You just assume it knows what it?s doing, works properly, doesn?t make too many mistakes. I hate to disabuse you of those lovely notions; but no, sorry, it does not work nearly as well as you assume. At least, not when it comes to investing. The wiring is an historical remnant, hardly functional for modern living. It is overrun with desires, emotions, and blind spots. Its capacity for cognitive error is nearly endless. It was originally developed for entirely other purposes than risk assessment in capital markets. Indeed, when it comes to money, the way most investors use those 100 billion neurons or so of grey matter, they might as well not even bother using their brains at all.
Let me give you an example. Think of any year from 1990-2005. Off of the top of your head, take a guess how well your portfolio did that year. Write it down ? this is important (that big dumb brain of yours cannot be trusted to be honest with itself). Now, pull your statement from that year and calculate your gains or losses.
How?d you do? Was the reality as good as you remembered? This is a phenomenon called selective retention. When it comes to details like this, you actually remember what you want to, not what factually occurred. Try it again. Only this time, do it for this year ? 2011. Write it down. Go pull up your YTD performance online. We?ll wait.
Well, how did you do? Not nearly as well as you imagined, right? Welcome to the human race.
This sort of error is much more commonplace than you might imagine. If we ask any group of automobile owners how good their driving skills are, about 80% will say ?Above average.? The same applies to how well we evaluate our own investing skills. Most of us think we are above average, and nearly all of us believe we are better than we actually are.
(Me personally, I am not an above-average driver. This is despite having taken numerous high-performance driving courses and spending a lot of time on various race tracks. I know this is true because my wife reminds me of it constantly.) [JM here ? I am also in the bottom 25%, as my kids constantly remind me!])
As it turns out, there is a simple reason for this. The worse we are at any specific skill set, the harder it is for us to evaluate our own competency at it. This is called the Dunning?Kruger effect. This precise sort of cognitive deficit means that areas we are least skilled at ? let?s use investing decisions as an example ? also means we lack the ability to identify any investing shortcomings. As it turns out, the same skill set needed to be an outstanding investor is also necessary to have ?metacognition? ? the ability to objectively evaluate one?s own abilities. (This is also true in all other professions.)
Unlike Garrison Keillor?s Lake Wobegon, where all of the children are above average, the bell curve in investing is quite damning. By definition, all investors cannot be above average. Indeed, the odds are high that, like most investors, you will underperform the broad market this year. But it is more than just this year ? ?underperformance? is not merely a 2011 phenomenon. The statistics suggest that 4 out of 5 of you underperformed last year, and the same number will underperform next year, too.
Underperformance is not a disease suffered only by retail investors ? the pros succumb as well. In fact, about 4 out of 5 mutual fund managers underperform their benchmarks every year. These managers engage in many of the same errors that Main Street investors make. They overtrade, they engage in ?groupthink,? they freeze up, some have been even known to sell in a panic. (Do any of these sound familiar to you?)
These kinds of errors seem to be hardwired in us. Humans have evolved to survive in competitive conditions. We developed instincts and survival skills, and passed those on to our descendants. The genetic makeup of our species contains all sorts of elements that were honed over millions of years to give us an edge in surviving long enough to procreate and pass our genes along to our progeny. Our automatic reactions in times of panic are a result of that development arc.
This leads to a variety of problems when it comes to investing in equities: our instincts often betray us. To do well in the capital markets requires developing skills that very often are the opposite of what our survival instincts are telling us. Our emotions compound the problem, often compelling us to make changes at the worst possible times. The panic selling at market lows and greedy chasing as we head into tops are a reflection of these factors.
The sort of grinding market we had in 2011 only exacerbates investor aggravation, and therefore increases poor decision making. Facts and logic go out the window, and thinking gets replaced with naked emotions. We get annoyed, angry, frightened, frustrated ? and that does not help returns. Indeed, our evolutionary ?flight or fight? response developed for a reason ? it helped keep us alive out on the savannah. But the adrenaline necessary to fight a Cro-Magnon or flee from a sabre-toothed tiger does not help us in the capital markets. Indeed, study after study suggests our own wetware works against us; the emotions that helped keep us alive on the plains now hinder our investment performance.
The problem, as it turns out, lies primarily in those large mammalian brains of ours. Our wiring evolved for a specific set of survival challenges, most of which no longer exist. We have cognitive deficits that are by-products of that. Much of our decision making comes with cognitive errors ?secretly? built in. We are often unaware we even have these (for lack of a better word) defects. These cognitive foibles are one of the main reasons that, when it comes to investing, we humans just ain?t built for it.
We Are Tool Makers
But we are not helpless. These large mammalian brains of ours can do a whole lot more than merely overreact to stimulus. We think up new ideas, ponder new tools, and create new technologies. Indeed, our ability to innovate is one of the factors that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
As investors, we can use our big brains to compensate for our known limitations. This means creating tools to help us make better decisions. When battling Mr. Market ? as tough as any Cro-Magnon or sabre-toothed tiger ? it helps to be able to make informed decisions coolly and objectively. If we can manage our emotions and prevent them from causing us to make decisions out of panic or greed, then our investing results will improve dramatically.
So stop being your own third opponent. Jiu jitsu yourself, and learn how to outwit your evolutionary legacy. Use that big ole melon for a change. You just might see some improvement in your portfolio performance.
Individual Investors Have Certain Advantages Over Institutions
One final thought. Smaller investors do not realize that they possess quite a few strategic advantages ? if only they would take advantage of them. Consider these small-investor pluses:
? No benchmark to meet quarterly (or monthly), so you can have longer-term time horizons and different goals
? You can enter or exit a position without impacting markets.
? There is no public scrutiny of your holdings and no disclosures required, so you don?t have to worry about someone taking your ideas.
? You don?t have to limit yourself to just the largest stocks or worry about position size (this is huge).
? Cost structure, fees, and taxes are within your control.
? You can reverse errors without professional consequences ? you don?t get fired for admitting a mistake.
? You can have longer-term time horizons and different goals.
And with those thoughts, good luck and good trading in 2012!

Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/01/your-three-investing-opponents-2/

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Organic ferroelectric molecule shows promise for memory chips, sensors

Jan. 24, 2013 ? At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information's ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.

A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today's silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, display properties that make it well suited to a wide range of applications in memory, sensing and low-cost energy storage.

"This molecule is quite remarkable, with some of the key properties that are comparable with the most popular inorganic crystals," said co-corresponding author Jiangyu Li, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering.

The carbon-based material could offer even cheaper ways to store digital information; provide a flexible, nontoxic material for medical sensors that would be implanted in the body; and create a less costly, lighter material to harvest energy from natural vibrations.

The new molecule is a ferroelectric, meaning it is positively charged on one side and negatively charged on the other, where the direction can be flipped by applying an electrical field. Synthetic ferroelectrics are now used in some displays, sensors and memory chips.

In the study the authors pitted their molecule against barium titanate, a long-known ferroelectric material that is a standard for performance. Barium titanate is a ceramic crystal and contains titanium; it has largely been replaced in industrial applications by better-performing but lead-containing alternatives.

The new molecule holds its own against the standard-bearer. It has a natural polarization, a measure of how strongly the molecules align to store information, of 23, compared to 26 for barium titanate. To Li's knowledge this is the best organic ferroelectric discovered to date.

A recent study in Nature announced an organic ferroelectric that works at room temperature. By contrast, this molecule retains its properties up to 153 degrees Celsius (307 degrees F), even higher than for barium titanate.

The new molecule also offers a full bag of electric tricks. Its dielectric constant -- a measure of how well it can store energy -- is more than 10 times higher than for other organic ferroelectrics. And it's also a good piezoelectric, meaning it's efficient at converting movement into electricity, which is useful in sensors.

The new molecule is made from bromine, a natural element isolated from sea salt, mixed with carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen (its full name is diisopropylammonium bromide). Researchers dissolved the elements in water and evaporated the liquid to grow the crystal. Because the molecule contains carbon, it is organic, and pivoting chemical bonds allow it to flex.

The molecule would not replace current inorganic materials, Li said, but it could be used in applications where cost, ease of manufacturing, weight, flexibility and toxicity are important.

Li is working on a number of projects relating to ferroelectricity. Last year he and his graduate student found the first evidence for ferroelectricity in soft animal tissue. He was co-author on a 2011 paper in Science that documents nanometer-scale switching in ferroelectric films, showing how such molecules could be used to store digital information.

"Ferroelectrics are pretty remarkable materials," Li said. "It allows you to manipulate mechanical energy, electrical energy, optics and electromagnetics, all in a single package."

He is working to further characterize this new molecule and explore its combined electric and mechanical properties. He also plans to continue the search for more organic ferroelectrics.

The joint first authors of the new paper are Yuanming Liu, a UW postdoctoral researcher in mechanical engineering, and Da-Wei Fu, a doctoral student working with co-corresponding author Ren-Gen Xiong at Southeast University. Other co-authors are Hong-Ling Cai, Qiong Ye, Wen Zhang and Yi Zhang at Southeast University; Xue-Yuan Chen at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Gianluca Giovannetti and Massimo Capone at the Italian National Simulation Centre.

The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, China's National Natural Science Foundation and the European Research Council.

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Journal Reference:

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/2KxObSzvOQo/130124150758.htm

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The Meaning of The

An appeals court has blocked President Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB from last January.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Would you believe me if I told you that President Obama is in constitutional trouble?with hundreds of decisions of the National Labor Relations Board from the last year now potentially invalid?over the meaning of the word the?

That?s what three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said Friday. The president has constitutional egg on his face because the judges have blocked his appointments of three NRLB members on Jan. 4, 2012. The president said that on that day, the Senate was in recess, which meant he could exercise his authority to make a recess appointment. But the Senate claimed that it was not in recess at all. Never mind that its members were off on a 20-day holiday. The Republican minority took care during that time to gavel the Senate in and out, every few days, for what Obama called ?pro forma? sessions. And that, staunch conservative Judge David B. Sentelle says for himself, and two other judges who also happen to be Republican appointees, is enough to beat the president at the game of declaring recess.

Or perhaps I should say only the recess. What we?re looking at here is this clause from Article II of the Constitution:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

As Sentelle framed it, ?the Recess? cannot ever mean anything like ?a recess.? ?This is not an insignificant distinction,? he writes. ?In the end it makes all the difference.? The Framers were not talking about ?a generic break in the proceedings,? Sentelle continues, ?Either the Senate is in session, or it is in the recess. If it has broken for three days within an ongoing session, it is not in ?the Recess.? ? The upshot is that if the opposing party minority says the Senate is in session, then it does not matter where the flock has fled, or even for how long. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, essentially, gets to decide when the Senate is open or shut, with whatever fiction he wants. The president is at his mercy.

Wow, imagine how happy that must make Mitch McConnell. Maybe he will even crack the smile in my favorite picture in the Daily Caller?s slideshow of McConnell-turtle companion photos.

OK, enough irreverence. What exactly was Obama doing, declaring the power to make a recess appointment in the middle of a session, even a fake one? Well, for one thing, Senate Republicans had blocked his NLRB choices for months (via the filibuster with which Harry Reid has saddled us for another long winter). For another, Obama had some history on his side. On Volokh Conspiracy, John Elwood writes that what he calls ?intrasession recess appointments? (as in, Obama?s at the NLRB) ?have been made fairly commonly since WWII, and have been particularly common since the Reagan Administration. UN Ambassador John Bolton and Judge William H. Pryor, Jr. are two of the more high-profile intrasession recess appointments in recent years.?

Yes, Bolton and Pryor were George W. Bush appointees. Elwood also points out a 2004 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that?s on the president?s side here, and in conflict with the D.C. Circuit?s decision today. The 11th Circuit weighed in about the validity of Pryor?s appointment, which took place during a nice 10-day break for President?s Day in February 2004. In an opinion by Chief Judge Larry Edmondson, the court did not get stern about the meaning of the word ?the.? Instead, Edmondson wrote, ?We do not agree that the Framers' use of the term ?the? unambiguously points to the single recess that comes at the end of a Session. Instead, we accept that ?the Recess,? originally and through today, could just as properly refer generically to any one?intrasession or intersession ?of the Senate's acts of recessing, that is, taking a break.? Edmondson (a Reagan nominee) also pointed out that at the time, 12 presidents had ?made more than 285 intrasession recess appointments of persons to offices that ordinarily require consent of the Senate.?

That should at least assure you that President Obama did not run amok. Two other federal appeals courts decisions, by the 9th Circuit and the 2nd Circuit, also blessed judicial appointments made in the middle of a Senate session. It?s true that this practice didn?t get going until 1857, but according to Elwood, that?s because Congress took only three short midsession breaks up until that point (seven days in 1800, five days in 1817, and five days in 1828).

If you?re still bothered by the idea of the president rather than the Senate deciding on the Senate?s own rules?after all, concerns about separation of powers and a power-hungry executive come into play?consider this argument defending the Jan. 4 appointments from Akhil Amar and Timothy Noah. They point out that McConnell did not speak last January for a majority of senators. If anyone did, it was Majority Leader Harry Reid. ?Neither David Sentelle nor Mitch McConnell should decide when the Senate is or is not in session,? Akhil said when I talked to him today. ?Fifty-one Senators should decide. ?It's awkward when three Republican appointed judges substitute their decision for that of a Democratic controlled Senate.? Akhil also called one part of the D.C. Circuit?s ruling (not joined by a third judge, Thomas Griffith) ?radical.?

What happens next? Well, the NLRB is in a fix, because everything it?s done in the last year is now up for constitutional challenge. Also if the D.C. Circuit is right, it only has one member with a valid appointment, which means no quorum. And the appointment of Richard Cordray, head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is also in limbo, since he too got his job on Jan. 4, 2012. The Obama administration can appeal to the whole D.C. Circuit for what?s called en banc review?a do-over with eight of the court?s 13 judges.* Or it can go straight to the Supreme Court. The Obama lawyers must be making their own turtle faces right about now.

*Correction, Jan. 25, 2013: This article originally stated that the D.C. Circuit has 13 judges. That's true, but five of the 13 have senior status and do not hear en banc cases.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=81b05e4b54fd6956188e79d934650d88

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