Many readers will be familiar with the idea that games and reward go together. Yet reward by itself isn't rewarding. The reason is that it's not the reward that's interesting, but rather what it signifies: satisfaction of a job well done, a stroke of luck, a problem solved, a situation overcome, an enemy defeated. In short, it's about winning. All games are played to win.
This image provided by CBS shows a CBS advertisement in Times Square in New York on Friday, Aug. 2, 2013. Three million Time Warner Cable customers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas lost access to CBS programming in a fee dispute Friday, threatening their ability to watch popular shows like "Under the Dome" or see Tiger Woods pursue his 8th win at the Bridgestone Invitational. The nation's second largest cable operator said that CBS refused to have productive negotiations, which were repeatedly extended after their previous deal expired at the end of June. (AP Photo/CBS)
This image provided by CBS shows a CBS advertisement in Times Square in New York on Friday, Aug. 2, 2013. Three million Time Warner Cable customers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas lost access to CBS programming in a fee dispute Friday, threatening their ability to watch popular shows like "Under the Dome" or see Tiger Woods pursue his 8th win at the Bridgestone Invitational. The nation's second largest cable operator said that CBS refused to have productive negotiations, which were repeatedly extended after their previous deal expired at the end of June. (AP Photo/CBS)
Time Warner Cable's blackout of CBS continued Saturday, and neither side indicated a resolution of their dispute over fees is imminent.
Time Warner dropped CBS Friday in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and several other cities, leaving three million customers without the network's programs. The issue is fees that the cable company pays CBS to air its programs.
Each has accused the other of making unreasonable demands. On Saturday the two sides even seemed to disagree on the status of negotiations. A Time Warner spokeswoman said Saturday afternoon that negotiations are ongoing. CBS said it expects talks to resume soon, but the decision rests with Time Warner.
Without a deal, Time Warner customers were missing Tiger Woods' attempt at his 8th win at Firestone Country Club near Akron, Ohio, in this weekend's Bridgestone Invitational. Woods held a lead of 7 strokes as he played Saturday. CBS fans also won't see programs such as "Under the Dome" or "60 Minutes."
Time Warner cut off the CBS shows as well as cable networks Showtime, TMC, Flix and Smithsonian. The cable company's customers are caught in the middle, and the stakes will only go higher. CBS will air the PGA's final major tournament starting Thursday, and its preseason National Football League coverage begins on local stations next week.
Late Friday night, Time Warner posted a message to subscribers on its website from CEO Glenn Britt saying that CBS has been "uncompromising" by making demands that are inconsistent with deals made with hundreds of other broadcasters. If Time Warner gives in to CBS' demands, he said, then other programmers will ask for more as well.
"Cable TV bills would skyrocket. You'd be mad. We'd be mad. It won't end well for anyone," Britt wrote.
Time Warner charges about $20 monthly per subscriber for broadcast channels. One industry analyst estimates that CBS got 75 cents to $1 per Time Warner subscriber in the contract that recently expired.
CBS said this is the first time it's been dropped by a cable system, and it has successfully negotiated deals with Comcast, Cablevision, Charter, DirecTV, AT&T, Verizon and other companies.
"CBS programs are among the most popular in the industry, and yet there are many cable networks - with considerably less viewership - that receive more money for their programming from Time Warner Cable than we do," CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said in July memo to employees.
The fight could be a long one with CBS trying to gain revenue from retransmission fees to buffer against cyclical swings in advertising revenue and Time Warner caught in a competitive environment that limits price increases to pay for rising programming costs.
Research firm SNL Kagan estimates retransmission fees paid to programmers will reach $3 billion industry-wide this year and double to $6 billion by 2018.
Earning revenue from pay TV subscribers is crucial to CBS's growth prospects, analysts say. Even though CBS sends its signal out over the airwaves for free to anyone with an antenna, about 85 percent of its viewers watch TV through a pay TV provider.
Time Warner spokeswoman Maureen Huff said the company is not worried about customers switching to a different TV-service provider to get CBS. Programming fee disputes are common in the industry and could happen to other providers in the future, she said, adding that the number of such disputes has risen in the last few years.
Indeed, a competitor, DirecTV, came to Time Warner's defense on Saturday, issuing a statement that praised the cable company. "In trying to protect our won customers, DirecTV has certainly had its share of these battles, so we applaud Time Warner Cable for fighting back against exorbitant programming cost increases," the statement said.
The dispute may bring some government action. In New York, the City Council announced Saturday that it would convene hearings Thursday on the spat, demanding answers from both companies. "Television service should not be dependent on the whims of a bitter corporate standoff," said the council's speaker, Christine Quinn, who is also a leading candidate for mayor.
Time Warner is fighting to hold the line on costs as it struggles to keep subscribers. It lost 191,000 cable TV subscribers in the most recent quarter, ending with 11.7 million at the end of June.
Still, both companies posted healthy quarterly earnings this week. Time Warner Cable grew its net income 6 percent to $481 million, or $1.64 per share, as revenue rose 3 percent to $5.6 billion. CBS grew net income 11 percent to $472 million, or 76 cents per share. CBS's revenue also grew 11 percent to $3.7 billion thanks in large part to the fees that are in dispute with Time Warner Cable.
The CBS stations that went dark are WCBS and WLNY in New York; KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles; KTVT and KTXA in Dallas; WBZ and WSBK in Boston; KDKA, WPCW-CW in Pittsburgh; KCNC in Denver; WKBD-CW in Detroit and WBBM in Chicago.
About 2.5 million Time Warner Cable customers lost access to Showtime, the premium channel that carries shows such as "Dexter."
Time Warner said it would temporarily replace lost programming with shows from Starz Kids and Family.
___
Krisher reported from Detroit. David B. Caruso contributed from New York.
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Two girls and two guys are kidnapped and held hostage in a dreary cellar without knowing why and without knowing where. Can they survive on their kidnappers whims of insanity and violence?
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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Taken With Force?. Anything posted here will also show up there.
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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
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Ok, I finally have a post up guys I'm really sorry if it's not much to go off of but at least it's something.
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A recent study published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 18, 2013) evaluated the efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicines for vascular dementia, using efficacy, Mini-Mental State Examination score, Hasegawa Dementia Scale score, and adverse reactions as evaluation indices by performing a meta-analysis. The results suggested that Chinese herbal medicine appears to be safer and more effective than control measures in the treatment of vascular dementia. Chinese herbal medicines for vascular dementia exert characteristics of syndrome differentiation of traditional Chinese medicine, and have good potential in the clinic.
(Updated 3:56 p.m.) For Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, President Benigno Aquino III's fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) was like the work of a college student who has nothing much to say.
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In a television interview Wednesday, Santiago lamented how Aquino's speech failed to focus on issues affecting ordinary Filipinos, such as poverty and unemployment.
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"Kulang ang trabaho. Unemployment rate is very high. Yan ang pinaka importanteng problema na nakaharap ngayon sa taong bayan, hindi problema sa foreign affairs kundi problema saan kukuha ng kakainin nila," Santiago said in an interview over GMA News TV's News To Go.
In the same interview, Santiago said Aquino's speechwriters should have used bullet points to sum up the administration's accomplishments in the past year.
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"Nagkamali ang kanyang media adviser na ipaliwanag lahat ng detalye tungkol sa isang taon lang na buhay ng bansa. Walang tao who can keep up with this for 2 hours. Mali talaga ang media operations nila sa Malaca?ang," she said.
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Due to this, Santiago said the President's SONA seemed like it was written by a college student who might get scolded by his professor.
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"Kamukha 'yan sa college na lahat na lang pati footnotes nilagay mo sa paper mo. Lagay mo sa likuran, sa end note. Wag mo lalagay sa main page kundi magagalit propesor mo at maghihinala na wala kang masabi," she said.
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Santiago failed to attend the President's SONA last Monday due to chronic fatigue.
'Speechless'
Later in the afternoon, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda wondered what Santiago was complaining about.
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"What more can she not see in the State of the Nation Address? I am speechless," he said during a press briefing.
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Lacierda explained that Aquino's SONA topics addressed in detail how they plan to solve poverty and unemployment in the country.
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"The President has enumerated the things that we are going to do. We are going to increase manufacturing. We are going to increase tourism. We are going to increase agriculture. We are going to expand the economy so that we?ll have fiscal space to provide for our less privileged," he said.
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"It was 55 pages. Fifty-five pages long and, if you can?t find any word there on generating employment; if you can?t find any statement there addressing poverty, then you must be reading another SONA or another speech?definitely not from the President," Lacierda stressed.
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Silent on 'pork'
Aquino's fourth SONA
?focused on his administration's accomplishments in the past year. He also used his speech to praise some of his Cabinet members, and to criticize erring agencies.
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But Santiago noted that Aquino failed to mention anything about the recent controversy on the use of the priority development assistance fund (PDAF), commonly known as the "pork barrel."
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"Dapat sana pinaliwanag ang napaka iskandaloso na pork barrel... There should have been a specific discussion on corruption and telescope it to the anomalies connected to pork barrel," she said.
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Last week, the Philippine Daily Inquirer ran a series of reports detailing the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)'s ongoing probe on a supposed racket, allegedly masterminded by businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, to defraud lawmakers and various government agencies. Napoles has denied involvement in the anomaly.
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Santiago said the President should have tackled this issue since his administration has an anti-corruption agenda.
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"Bakit wala tayong imik doon? Ang tema ng administrasyon na ito ay daang matuwid, laban sa korupsyon," she said.
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Santiago had earlier called on her colleagues who were linked to the controversy to file a leave of absence pending investigation on the supposed anomaly.
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Majority solons satisfied
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Meanwhile, members of the House of Representatives aligned with the majority bloc were satisfied with Aquino's fourth SONA.
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Pangasinan Rep. Rosemarie Arenas described the President's speech as "fantastic," since it managed to "capture all aspects of what the President wanted to tell the people."
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"The President was forceful and at the same time he delivered his SONA gently. ?It?s really his style," Arenas said in a separate statement.
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For ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Samuel Pagdilao, the President's SONA last Monday was already "comprehensive."
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"The President touched on a lot of things that were actually put into concrete terms. Example is our economic growth as assessed by foreign entities, he presented concrete examples in many areas, which are indicators of our rising economy like more housing projects, additional CCT recipients, more jobs, more focus on education," Pagdilao said. ? with Andreo Calonzo and Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMA News
President Barack Obama will use a series of back-to-back speeches over two days to sell the public on his vision of a thriving economy. He gave the first of those speeches Wednesday at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.
GALESBURG, Ill. -- President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Washington has "taken its eye off the ball" as he pledged a stronger second-term commitment to tackling the economic woes that strain many in the middle class nearly five years after the country plunged into a recession.
Obama returned to the college campus where he gave his first major economic address as a U.S. senator, and he chided Congress for being less concerned about the economy and more about "an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals."
"I am here to say this needs to stop," Obama said in a speech at Knox College. "This moment does not require short term thinking. It does not require having the same old stale debates."
The president's attempt to refocus on the economy comes amid some hopeful signs of improvement, with the unemployment rate falling and consumer confidence on the rise. But looming spending and budget deadlines this fall could upend that progress if Washington spirals into contentious fiscal fights like those that plagued Obama's first term.
"I believe there are members of both parties who understand what's at stake," Obama said. "But I will not allow gridlock, inaction or willful indifference to get in our way."
Even before the president spoke, Republicans panned his pivot back to the economy as little more than vague, empty promises.
"It's a hollow shell, it's an Easter Egg with no candy in it," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
The president announced no fresh policy proposals, though he promised new ideas in a series of speeches he plans in the coming weeks. They will focus on manufacturing, education, housing, retirement security and health care.
On education, the president promised to outline "an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs, and improve value for middle-class students and their families." He renewed his call for increasing the minimum wage.
Despite pressing public concerns over jobs and economic security, the economy has taken a back seat in Washington to other issues in the first six months of Obama's second term. That's in part due to the White House's decision to focus on other agenda items following Obama's re-election, most notably stricter gun control measures and immigration.
Some distractions also have thrown the White House off balance, including revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political groups and the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records. Foreign policy crises, particularly in the Middle East, have competed for Obama's attention, too.
The president said that while he will continue to press for his other agenda items, there will be few resources and little resolve for solving other problems without a strong economy.
Perhaps more than any other issue, the economy will also be central to Obama's legacy as president. The deep economic troubles that accompanied his first inauguration have eased and the stock market has soared. But at 7.6. percent, the nationwide unemployment rate remains high and millions more Americans are underemployed or have seen their wages stagnate.
"This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong. It's bad economics," Obama said. "When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther apart, it undermines the very essence of this country."
The economic themes Obama spoke of Wednesday were strikingly similar to address at Knox College eight years ago as a young Illinois senator. White House advisers say Obama has frequently harkened back to that speech throughout his two runs for the White House and nearly five years as president.
The economy in the surrounding Galesburg, Ill., community reflects much of the underlying economic concerns facing Americans. A Maytag plant in the town shuttered its doors in 2004, leaving hundreds of people unemployed. Today, the factory still sits vacant. Galesburg's unemployment rate is just under 8 percent and nearly one-quarter of its population lives in poverty.
"Those old days aren't coming back," Obama conceded. He said the proposals he will outline in speeches later this summer will be aimed at adapting the U.S. economy to an increasingly competitive and interconnected world.
Among the initiatives Obama will tout in the coming weeks is pre-school for all 4-year-olds and training tailored to the jobs of the future, along with a strategy to tackle the rising cost of higher education.
The president also promised steps to encourage homeownership, make it easier for people to save for retirement and to continue to put in place the elements of his unpopular health care law in the face of efforts by Republicans in Congress to repeal, delay or eliminate funding for its various parts.
He also pledged new efforts to help manufacturers bring jobs back to America and to create jobs in the energy sectors of wind, solar and natural gas.
From Galesburg, Obama planned to travel to neighboring Missouri for a similar economic speech. He was also scheduled to visit a port Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday to call for increased spending on infrastructure.
ESPN is reporting two Arizona Wildcats, along with six current college football players from major programs, have joined a federal antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, raising the stakes in a court battle that challenges the economic model of big-time college sports.
Aluminum-clad 4.3-incher 'will remain on the current version of Android and HTC Sense'
Bad news for HTC One S owners this afternoon, as HTC has confirmed to Android Central that the One S — one of its 2012 flagship devices — will not see any official upgrades beyond its current software version. That means as far as official firmware goes, users will remain on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and HTC Sense 4+ for the remainder of their devices' lives.
Plain white socks these are not. The Atlas sock is a performance dress sock made from cotton, polyester and carbonized coffee. Carbonized coffee? Yes, it helps filter and absorb sweat and odor. Even more, the sock uses strain analysis, pressure mapping and thermal imaging to create something ridiculously comfortable.
In a post explaining why he thinks Google shuttered Google Reader, Marco Arment calls Google, Facebook, and Twitter "by far the three most important web players today" when it comes to how we discover and consume information. But a?report out from Pew points to another site making an impact. Reddit -- the self-described "front page of the internet," where users can post, discuss and promote links to other sites, GIFs, and more -- now sees visits from 6% of all adults in the U.S., with 18-29 year-old males being the biggest users of all, at 15%.
Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe
Review by Allison Bohac
By Mario Livio
Web edition: June 28, 2013 Print edition: July 13, 2013; Vol.184 #1 (p. 30)
Even brilliant scientists have bad days. Consider chemist Linus Pauling, who described the alpha helix structure of proteins in 1951. When he attempted to do the same for DNA, however, he botched it ? badly. Among other problems, he flubbed the basic chemistry, proposing a structure for deoxyribonucleic acid that wasn?t an acid.
When asked about Pauling?s faulty DNA model, one of his contemporaries commented, ?You could not have written a fictional novel in which Linus would have made an error like this.?
Why Pauling stumbled is just one of the questions that astrophysicist Livio attempts to answer. Countless scientists have made major mistakes over the centuries, but Livio wisely focuses on gaffes from just five great minds: Pauling, Darwin, Einstein, astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin.
Livio outlines the scientific context for each scientist?s work and pores
over personal correspondence and historical records to try to explain what went wrong. Hoyle, for instance, stubbornly dismissed the Big Bang model of the universe for decades, and Einstein failed to see the importance of his cosmological constant, which he had devised as a fix for general relativity. Though Livio can only speculate on the reasons behind these errors, his clear and compelling writing reinforces the important contributions each of these men made to their fields.
The double helix may have eluded Pauling, but his mistake helped to galvanize James Watson and Francis Crick into a concentrated effort to find the correct structure. Livio?s ultimate message is that blunders ? even big ones ? can play a role in scientific discovery.
June 25, 2013 ? North Carolina State University researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments -- such as collapsed buildings.
The researchers have incorporated Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect system into an electronic interface developed at NC State that can remotely control cockroaches. The researchers plug in a digitally plotted path for the roach, and use Kinect to identify and track the insect's progress. The program then uses the Kinect tracking data to automatically steer the roach along the desired path.?
The program also uses Kinect to collect data on how the roaches respond to the electrical impulses from the remote-control interface. This data will help the researchers fine-tune the steering parameters needed to control the roaches more precisely.
"Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that," says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work.
"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," Bozkurt says. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."
The roaches would also be equipped with sensors, such as microphones, to detect survivors in collapsed buildings or other disaster areas. "We may even be able to attach small speakers, which would allow rescuers to communicate with anyone who is trapped," Bozkurt says.
Bozkurt's team had previously developed the technology that would allow users to steer cockroaches remotely, but the use of Kinect to develop an autopilot program and track the precise response of roaches to electrical impulses is new.
The interface that controls the roach is wired to the roach's antennae and cerci. The cerci are sensory organs on the roach's abdomen, which are normally used to detect movement in the air that could indicate a predator is approaching -- causing the roach to scurry away. But the researchers use the wires attached to the cerci to spur the roach into motion. The wires attached to the antennae send small charges that trick the roach into thinking the antennae are in contact with a barrier and steering them in the opposite direction.
The paper, "Kinect-based System for Automated Control of Terrestrial Insect Biobots," will be presented at the Remote Controlled Insect Biobots Minisymposium at the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society July 4 in Osaka, Japan. Lead author of the paper is NC State undergraduate Eric Whitmire. Co-authors are Bozkurt and NC State graduate student Tahmid Latif. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
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Child, Adolescent and Family Therapist
Granville Health System
POSITION SUMMARY:
Responsible for providing direct clinical therapy and or counseling services to patients and their families as part of the multidisciplinary team with most emphases on completing Psychosocial Assessments, facilitating individual and/or family therapies, assisting in program development, implementing and reviewing Treatment Plans. Accepts direction from Director of Behavioral Health. Some hazard potential from physically acting out patients and health related communicable diseases. Travel to speaking engagements or other activities may be required.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Master's degree in social work, counseling, marriage and family counseling or related field from a accredited graduate school of the same specialty. Licensed or certified per speciality noted above is required. Ability to effectively assess, plan and implement therapeutic services in a multidisciplinary setting. Particular skills in therapy and assessment, considerable knowledge of social work/counseling/therapeutic techniques and human services principles and practice, social health and welfare programs and laws governing eligibility for these programs; ability to mobilize and coordinate resources effectively. Knowledgeable about developmental, social, educational, familial needs of children and adolescent population. Minimum of two years relevant experience. If recovering, at least two years of unbroken sobriety (alcohol and drugs).
Internal Number: 2154
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Especially with the upcoming demise of Google Reader, RSS alternatives abound. But how do you pick the one that's right for you from all the riff raff? Well, if you're someone who's feed tends to stick to the more image oriented, Highly Visual 2.0 may be exactly what you're looking for?at least in a mobile reader, that is.
Past brain activation revealed in scansPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yivsam Azgad news@weizmann.ac.il 972-893-43856 Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute scientists discover that spontaneously emerging brain activity patterns preserve traces of previous cognitive activity
What if experts could dig into the brain, like archaeologists, and uncover the history of past experiences? This ability might reveal what makes each of us a unique individual, and it could enable the objective diagnosis of a wide range of neuropsychological diseases. New research at the Weizmann Institute hints that such a scenario is within the realm of possibility: It shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place.
The new research stems from earlier findings in the lab of Prof. Rafi Malach of the Institute's Neurobiology Department and others that the brain never rests, even when its owner is resting. When a person is resting with closed eyes that is, no visual stimulus is entering the brain the normal bursts of nerve cell activity associated with incoming information are replaced by ultra- slow patterns of neuronal activity. Such spontaneous or "resting" waves travel in a highly organized and reproducible manner through the brain's outer layer the cortex and the patterns they create are complex, yet periodic and symmetrical.
Like hieroglyphics, it seemed that these patterns might have some meaning, and research student Tal Harmelech, under the guidance of Malach and Dr. Son Preminger, set out to uncover their significance. Their idea was that the patterns of resting brain waves may constitute "archives" for earlier experiences. As we add new experiences, the activation of our brain's networks lead to long-term changes in the links between brain cells, a facility referred to as plasticity. As our experiences become embedded in these connections, they create "expectations" that come into play before we perform any type of mental task, enabling us to anticipate the result. The researchers hypothesized that information about earlier experiences would thus be incorporated into the links between networks of nerve cells in the cortex, and these would show up in the brain's spontaneously emerging wave patterns.
In the experiment, the researchers had volunteers undertake a training exercise that would strongly activate a well-defined network of nerve cells in the frontal lobes. While undergoing scans of their brain activity in the Institute's functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, the subjects were asked to imagine a situation in which they had to make rapid decisions. The subjects received auditory feedback in real time, based on the information obtained directly from their frontal lobe, which indicated the level of neuronal activity in the trained network. This "neurofeedback" strategy proved highly successful in activating the frontal network a part of the brain that is notoriously difficult to activate under controlled conditions.
To test whether the connections created in the brain during this exercise would leave their traces in the patterns formed by the resting brain waves, the researchers performed fMRI scans on the resting subjects before the exercise, immediately afterward, and 24 hours later. Their findings, which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that the activation of the specific areas in the cortex did indeed remodel the resting brain wave patterns. Surprisingly, the new patterns not only remained the next day, they were significantly strengthened. These observations fit in with the classic learning principles proposed by Donald Hebb in the mid-20th century, in which the co-activation of two linked nerve cells leads to long term strengthening of their link, while activity that is not coordinated weakens this link. The fMRI images of the resting brain waves showed that brain areas that were activated together during the training sessions exhibited an increase in their functional link a day after the training, while those areas that were de-activated by the training showed a weakened functional connectivity.
This research suggests a number of future possibilities for exploring the brain. For example, spontaneously emerging brain patterns could be used as a "mapping tool" for unearthing cognitive events from an individual's recent past. Or, on a wider scale, each person's unique spontaneously emerging activity patterns might eventually reveal a sort of personal profile highlighting each individual's abilities, shortcomings, biases, learning skills, etc. "Today, we are discovering more and more of the common principles of brain activity, but we have not been able to account for the differences between individuals," says Malach. "In the future, spontaneous brain patterns could be the key to obtaining unbiased individual profiles." Such profiles could be especially useful in diagnosing or learning the brain pathologies associated with a wide array of cognitive disabilities.
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Prof. Rafi Malach's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Human Brain Imaging; the Murray H. and Meyer Grodetsky Center for Research of Higher Brain Functions; the Kahn Family Research Center for Systems Biology of the Human Cell; the Friends of Dr. Lou Siminovitch; the Adelis Foundation; and the Mike and Valeria Rosenbloom through the Mike Rosenbloom Foundation. Prof. Malach is the recipient of the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation; and he is the incumbent of the Barbara and Morris L. Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
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Past brain activation revealed in scansPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Yivsam Azgad news@weizmann.ac.il 972-893-43856 Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute scientists discover that spontaneously emerging brain activity patterns preserve traces of previous cognitive activity
What if experts could dig into the brain, like archaeologists, and uncover the history of past experiences? This ability might reveal what makes each of us a unique individual, and it could enable the objective diagnosis of a wide range of neuropsychological diseases. New research at the Weizmann Institute hints that such a scenario is within the realm of possibility: It shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place.
The new research stems from earlier findings in the lab of Prof. Rafi Malach of the Institute's Neurobiology Department and others that the brain never rests, even when its owner is resting. When a person is resting with closed eyes that is, no visual stimulus is entering the brain the normal bursts of nerve cell activity associated with incoming information are replaced by ultra- slow patterns of neuronal activity. Such spontaneous or "resting" waves travel in a highly organized and reproducible manner through the brain's outer layer the cortex and the patterns they create are complex, yet periodic and symmetrical.
Like hieroglyphics, it seemed that these patterns might have some meaning, and research student Tal Harmelech, under the guidance of Malach and Dr. Son Preminger, set out to uncover their significance. Their idea was that the patterns of resting brain waves may constitute "archives" for earlier experiences. As we add new experiences, the activation of our brain's networks lead to long-term changes in the links between brain cells, a facility referred to as plasticity. As our experiences become embedded in these connections, they create "expectations" that come into play before we perform any type of mental task, enabling us to anticipate the result. The researchers hypothesized that information about earlier experiences would thus be incorporated into the links between networks of nerve cells in the cortex, and these would show up in the brain's spontaneously emerging wave patterns.
In the experiment, the researchers had volunteers undertake a training exercise that would strongly activate a well-defined network of nerve cells in the frontal lobes. While undergoing scans of their brain activity in the Institute's functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, the subjects were asked to imagine a situation in which they had to make rapid decisions. The subjects received auditory feedback in real time, based on the information obtained directly from their frontal lobe, which indicated the level of neuronal activity in the trained network. This "neurofeedback" strategy proved highly successful in activating the frontal network a part of the brain that is notoriously difficult to activate under controlled conditions.
To test whether the connections created in the brain during this exercise would leave their traces in the patterns formed by the resting brain waves, the researchers performed fMRI scans on the resting subjects before the exercise, immediately afterward, and 24 hours later. Their findings, which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that the activation of the specific areas in the cortex did indeed remodel the resting brain wave patterns. Surprisingly, the new patterns not only remained the next day, they were significantly strengthened. These observations fit in with the classic learning principles proposed by Donald Hebb in the mid-20th century, in which the co-activation of two linked nerve cells leads to long term strengthening of their link, while activity that is not coordinated weakens this link. The fMRI images of the resting brain waves showed that brain areas that were activated together during the training sessions exhibited an increase in their functional link a day after the training, while those areas that were de-activated by the training showed a weakened functional connectivity.
This research suggests a number of future possibilities for exploring the brain. For example, spontaneously emerging brain patterns could be used as a "mapping tool" for unearthing cognitive events from an individual's recent past. Or, on a wider scale, each person's unique spontaneously emerging activity patterns might eventually reveal a sort of personal profile highlighting each individual's abilities, shortcomings, biases, learning skills, etc. "Today, we are discovering more and more of the common principles of brain activity, but we have not been able to account for the differences between individuals," says Malach. "In the future, spontaneous brain patterns could be the key to obtaining unbiased individual profiles." Such profiles could be especially useful in diagnosing or learning the brain pathologies associated with a wide array of cognitive disabilities.
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Prof. Rafi Malach's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Human Brain Imaging; the Murray H. and Meyer Grodetsky Center for Research of Higher Brain Functions; the Kahn Family Research Center for Systems Biology of the Human Cell; the Friends of Dr. Lou Siminovitch; the Adelis Foundation; and the Mike and Valeria Rosenbloom through the Mike Rosenbloom Foundation. Prof. Malach is the recipient of the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation; and he is the incumbent of the Barbara and Morris L. Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
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June 25, 2013 ? By managing macro-economic parameters, scientists believe that -unlike previously thought- it is possible to steer an economy around irreversible changes in its complex dynamics and avert potential economic disasters. These findings, about to be published in The European Physical Journal B, stem from the theoretical work of Michael Harr? and colleagues at the Complex Systems Group at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Physicists have a long experience of using statistical mechanics to study equilibrium points and small fluctuations in large numbers of interacting particles under varying pressure and temperature conditions. By applying statistical-mechanics methods to economic game theory, it is possible to describe the strategic interactions between, say, businesses which are influenced by their own incentives as well as the incentives of third parties.
By changing a macro-economic parameter like tax rates, previous research has shown the system will usually move away a little from where it had settled, but not much. Their new results show that such optimisation can produce a tipping point where a change in the tax regime, for example, will cause the whole economy to suddenly collapse.Harr? and colleagues found that it is possible to find a steady state in the specific scenario where the contributions each business makes to the whole economy are maximised in terms of financial return. And even if an economy is drifting inexorably towards a tipping point, they showed that small perturbations of the system parameters can move an economy around a tipping point, thus averting it.
The ability to exert control on economies depends on having sufficient control of the system parameters -potentially addressed by empirical research, and knowing where the economy is relative to these tipping points- provided by recent measuring techniques.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Springer.
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Journal Reference:
Michael S. Harr?, Simon R. Atkinson, Liaquat Hossain. Simple nonlinear systems and navigating catastrophes. The European Physical Journal B, 2013; 86 (6) DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2013-31064-x
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DEAR ABBY: I was taken away from my parents at 13 and placed into foster care, where I stayed until I aged out at 21. My biological mother is a drug addict who abandoned me to my father when I was 11. She never tried to contact me while I was in care.I am now 24 and she won't leave me alone. She sends Facebook messages that alternate between begging me to let her get to know me, and condemning me for being vindictive and not having forgiveness in my heart. Abby, this woman exposed me to drugs and all manner of seedy people and situations. ...
NEW YORK (AP) ? Paula Deen will appear on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday, according to host Matt Lauer.
Lauer's announcement came Monday, three days after the celebrity cook abruptly canceled on the morning show, where she was scheduled to answer questions about her past use of racial slurs.
Lauer said Deen "told us she will be here this time."
While questioned last month in a discrimination lawsuit, the 66-year-old Food Network star admitted to using the N-word in the past, but she insisted she and her family do not tolerate prejudice.
Deen issued videotaped apologies Friday afternoon seeking forgiveness from fans and critics.
But hours later, the Food Network announced it wouldn't renew her contract when it ends this month.
Aerialist Nik Wallenda near the end of his quarter mile walk over the Little Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona on Sunday, June 23, 2013. The daredevil successfully traversed the tightrope strung 1,500 feet above the chasm near the Grand Canyon in just more than 22 minutes, pausing and crouching twice as winds whipped around him and the cable swayed. (AP Photos/Discovery Channel, Tiffany Brown)
Aerialist Nik Wallenda near the end of his quarter mile walk over the Little Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona on Sunday, June 23, 2013. The daredevil successfully traversed the tightrope strung 1,500 feet above the chasm near the Grand Canyon in just more than 22 minutes, pausing and crouching twice as winds whipped around him and the cable swayed. (AP Photos/Discovery Channel, Tiffany Brown)
In this photo provided by the Discovery Channel, aerialist Nik Wallenda walks a 2-inch-thick steel cable taking him a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge, Ariz. on Sunday, June 23, 2013. The daredevil successfully traversed the tightrope strung 1,500 feet above the chasm near the Grand Canyon in just more than 22 minutes, pausing and crouching twice as winds whipped around him and the cable swayed. (AP Photos/Discovery Channel, Tiffany Brown)
Daredevil Nik Wallenda smiles during a news conference after crossing a tightrope 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River Gorge Sunday, June 23, 2013, on the Navajo reservation outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. Wallenda completed the tightrope walk that took him a quarter mile across the gorge in just more than 22 minutes. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Daredevil Nik Wallenda crosses a tightrope 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River Gorge Sunday, June 23, 2013, on the Navajo reservation outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
LITTLE COLORADO RIVER GORGE, Ariz. (AP) ? Aerialist Nik Wallenda's tightrope walk over a gorge near the Grand Canyon drew nearly 13 million viewers to the live television broadcast.
The Discovery Channel said Monday that the quarter-mile stunt at the Little Colorado River Gorge was among the most highly viewed shows in the station's history.
It also prompted 1.3 million tweets Sunday, making it one of the top trending topics.
Wallenda took 22 minutes to cross the 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the dry river bed. He did it without a harness or safety net.
The well-known daredevil contended with the wind and repeatedly called on God to calm the swaying cable.
He wore a microphone and two cameras, one that looked down on the river bed and one that faced straight ahead.
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian government forces stepped up their attack against rebel strongholds north of the capital, Damascus on Saturday, while opposition fighters declared their own offensive in the country's largest city Aleppo.
The fighting in Damascus came as the Syrian government announced salary increases for state employees and members of the military, days after the Syrian currency dipped to a record low of 210 pounds to the dollar compared with 47 when the crisis began more than two years ago. The raise also covered pensions.
Both sides intensified operations as an 11-nation group that includes the U.S., dubbed the Friends of Syria, began meeting in Qatari capital of Doha to discuss how to coordinate military aid and other forms of assistance to the rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The donors agreed on Saturday to do more to help the embattled rebels trying to overthrow Assad, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said. While he offered no specifics, Kerry said the assistance would help change the balance on the battlefield. Kerry also denounced Assad for inviting Iranian and Hezbollah fighters to fight alongside his troops, saying the Syrian president risked turning the civil war into a regional sectarian conflict.
Activists, meanwhile, reported heavy shelling of many districts north of Damascus, apparently an attempt to cut links between rebel-held districts that have served as launching pads for operations against the capital. Three children, including two from the same family, have been killed in shelling of the outlying district of Qaboun since Friday, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on an extensive network of activists in Syria.
The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, quoted a military official as saying that the operation aims to cut rebel supply lines, separate one group from another and secure the northern entrances to the capital. The regime's forces have struggled for months to regain control of these suburbs.
The Observatory said the neighborhood was being attacked from several different sides, while the shelling has caused structural damage and started fires. Activists from Qaboun posted on Facebook that government forces had deployed new tanks to reinforce its positions outside the neighborhood, and the bombardment had brought buildings down.
The Observatory said rebels targeted a police academy in the nearby Barzeh area Saturday, pushing back against a government attempt to storm the neighborhood. One rebel was killed in overnight fighting, it said.
State news agency SANA said troops "inflicted heavy losses" among rebels in several suburbs of Damascus.
The uprising against Assad began in March 2011 as peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war as rebels took up arms against a government crackdown. The Syrian regime has gained momentum in recent weeks with the help of Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah. The opposition is hoping the Obama administration's decision to begin supplying them with arms will help swing the tide in their favor.
Rebels say they have already received new weapons from allied countries? but not the U.S. ? that they claim will help them to shift the balance of power on the ground. Experts and activists said the new weapons include anti-tank missiles and small quantities of anti-aircraft missiles.
It was not clear if any of the new weapons have made it to the Damascus area. A spokesman for one of the main groups fighting outside of Damascus, the al-Islam brigade, said his group had none of the new weapons. The spokesman, who declined to be named for fear of government reprisals, spoke to The Associated Press on Skype.
He said government forces were shelling Barzeh from Qasioun mountain overlooking Damascus. Syria's main Western-backed opposition group said Thursday that 40,000 civilians in the two northern districts of Damascus are suffering from shortages of food and medical supplies.
Rebels and government also clashed in and around the northern city of Aleppo, where government forces launched an offensive earlier this month. Activists reported clashes in southern and western neighborhoods.
The Observatory also said rebels pounded a military academy in the area, causing a fire in the compound. No casualties were immediately reported. In Rashideen, rebel forces have pushed government forces out from parts of the neighborhood, according to the local Aleppo Media Center network and posts on Facebook.
A statement by a coalition of rebel groups, posted on the Center's page, declared that the fighters are launching a new operation to seize control of the western half of Aleppo.
Also Saturday, Syrian forces fired a dozen shells that landed in a northern Lebanese border town, causing a panic among residents, the Lebanese news agency reported.
SANA said government troops were targeting a group of infiltrators across the border. It gave no further details.
Rockets from Syria fall regularly into towns and villages near the border.
In Damascus, a presidential decree said that the raise for the public sector could reach up to 40 percent depending on the salary of the civil servant. Pensions could rise by up to 25 percent, according to the decree.
It said those who make 10,000 pounds ($54) a month will get a 40 percent raise, while those who make double that amount will get a 20 percent boost. People making 40,000 pounds a month will get a 5 percent raise, it said.
Many readers will be familiar with the idea that games and reward go together. Yet reward by itself isn't rewarding. The reason is that it's not the reward that's interesting, but rather what it signifies: satisfaction of a job well done, a stroke of luck, a problem solved, a situation overcome, an enemy defeated. In short, it's about winning. All games are played to win.
President Barack Obama will use a series of back-to-back speeches over two days to sell the public on his vision of a thriving economy. He gave the first of those speeches Wednesday at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.
In a post explaining why he thinks Google shuttered Google Reader, 
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Public release date: 25-Jun-2013
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