Things are a little strange at the Vikings/Packers Game today. A drone has been photographed hovering around the Metrodome fan plaza on the west side, and a Homeland Security / TSA "VIPR" team has been hanging around as well, indicating the federal government is shifting into "protecting" the major Spectacles at taxpayer expense.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will avoid recession in 2013 and achieve growth rates similar to 2012, Dieter Hundt, leader of Germany's employer association, said in an interview with Reuters.
"I'm expecting that we won't experience recession in Germany next year and the economy will once again grow at similar levels as this year," Hundt said.
The German economy has so far managed to fend off the euro zone's troubles, expanding by 4.2 percent in 2010 and 3 percent last year.
The country's gross domestic product in 2012 is expected to grow by about 0.9 percent. In 2013, private economists have forecast GDP to increase by about 0.7 percent, down from mid-2012 predictions of 1.3 percent.
Hundt also said that he was concerned about high wage demands in Germany in 2013 after workers got big increases in 2012 thanks in part to intervention by Chancellor Angela Merkel and members of her cabinet.
Even though unions are calling for big increases again in 2013, Hundt said he was confident wage deals would be moderate.
He said he expected the wage negotiators would continue their flexible policies that differentiated between sectors doing well and others that were struggling.
He was optimistic the unions would factor in the slight economic weakening in Germany this year into their demands.
(Reporting By Gernot Heller; writing by Erik Kirschbaum. Editing by Jane Merriman)
Posted on: 5:14 pm, December 30, 2012, by Barrett Tryon, updated on: 05:16pm, December 30, 2012
WASHINGTON (CNN) ? Following increased pressure to pass farm legislation by the end of the year, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow said Saturday that the House and Senate have developed a short-term farm bill extension to prevent dairy prices from soaring in the new year.
The bill ?also prevents eventual damage to our entire agriculture economy,? Stabenow, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in a statement.
Rep. Frank Lucas, Stabenow?s Republican counterpart in the House, said the extension would last one year, but GOP leadership aides tell CNN there has been no decision on whether to bring the stopgap measure for a vote by January 1.
If the House does decide to take up the bill, lawmakers could vote as early as Sunday night.
The news on the possible extension came as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issued sharp warnings in an interview that aired Sunday morning on CNN, saying if Congress fails to act in the next two days, consumers could face a spike in the price of milk, along with other products, after the government?s dairy subsidy expires at the start of the year.
The overall five-year farm bill, which aids farmers with price protections and subsidies, expired on September 30 after the House faced GOP division over extending the bill. Some conservative lawmakers said the newer version didn?t go far enough in reform, while others said the price tag was too high, especially in provisions dealing with food stamps.
The recent expiration doesn?t affect existing federal support for the remainder of 2012, but Vilsack cautioned that Americans could see stark changes come 2013.
The reason: If a new bill isn?t passed or the most recent one extended, the formula for calculating the price the government pays for dairy products defaults back to a 1949 statute. Under that formula, the government would be forced to buy milk at twice today?s price ? driving up the cost for everyone, CNNMoney reports.
The absence of farm legislation will also hurt agricultural exports, farmers markets, hunting grounds and farming families, Vilsack added.
?Across the board, in virtually every aspect of our economy and society, there is an impact.?
Reiterating Vilsack?s remarks, Stabenow said in her statement that it was ?critical? for Congress to eventually pass a broader, five-year farm bill to give farmers and ranchers a better sense of security.
?If a new farm bill doesn?t pass this Congress we?ll soon hold another mark-up and just keep working until one is enacted next year,? she said.
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I've always been of the mindset that halls of fame should matter. It should take time to qualify, so impact and importance can be weighed with the full context and clarity of history. It should also be limited, so that those who change the way we think and feel, who inspire and innovate, who challenge and redefine, get the recognition they deserve, rather than simply getting lost in yet another list.
It takes 25 years after the release of a debut recording to qualify for the rock and roll hall of fame. It takes 5 years after retirement to qualify for the baseball hall of fame. And in most cases, only a handful are inducted each year. Given that, we figured it should take 5 years after the release of an app to qualify for the iMore hall of fame, and that we'd likewise restrict ourselves to only a handful of inductees each year.
Of course, since we're starting the iMore hall of fame in 2012, that means the first season of eligibility begins with the release of the original iPhone in June of 2007, and that means pre-App Store. And that's fitting.
Apple didn't initially support third-party apps or third-party app makers. That took until June of 2008 and iOS 2.0 (iPhone OS 2.0). Yet during that time, truly groundbreaking and trendsetting work was done by ingenious developers and designers. Using reverse engineering and jailbroken devices, they paved the way for much of what has come since, both from Apple and from the App Store.
We first started talking about an iMore hall of fame back in 2010, but we decided to wait and I'm glad we did. The people involved in the earliest of iOS apps did historic work, and they deserve historic recognition.
Starting tomorrow we'll be announcing our first inductees. If you were around at the beginning and marveled at (or even helped make) those first, pre-App Store apps, let me know what your favorites were, and who you would choose to honor, and why.
We're keeping the list really, really short, but we want to get it right.
As with any other types of businesses, publishing your own online newsletter a.k.a. eZine has its share of drawbacks, in spite of the several benefits it offer.
The purpose of this article is not to scare you away with the disadvantages of publishing your own eZine, as the benefits are often more attractive. However, I will also show you how you can easily tackle the cons.
One obvious challenge most beginning eZine publishers face is the creation of eZine content. Creating your own content can be tiresome, especially if you are not a gifted writer and that you run out of ideas every so often that your publishing schedule is threatening you.
A way of taking care of this problem is to create your content in advance. You can compile 30 days worth of content in one day, for example. If you are not blessed with writing skills, you can broker the writing task to capable freelance writers which you can find at places such as http://www.elance.com/ or http://www.rentacoder.com/. While you need to pay for such services, you are at liberty to take the credit for written articles.
Alternatively, you can republish articles from article directories such as http://ezinearticles.com/. This is a free method you can use in making content, provided you include the resource box of the original author and that the article has republishing rights conveyed.
In conclusion, you can easily tackle the content creation challenge using the mentioned methods that do not require writing on your part, free or paid.
[Insert Your Resource Box Here]
(Words: 253)
This entry was posted in Internet Marketing on December 25, 2012 by SWELEX.
The European Union said Satuday it expects Colombia to "assuage" concerns over impunity generated by a recently approved justice reform amplifying the jurisdiction of military tribunals.
In a press statement, the European High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, said she had "taken note of the adoption of the constitutional reform regarding the military jurisdiction in Colombia."
The reform amplified the Colombian military's jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed by its own members. The reform was rejected by the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who have claimed the reform will grant impunity to the military whose members are suspected of having committed at least 3,000 extrajudicial killings of civilians.
According to Ashton, "the EU had expressed a number of concerns on this sensitive issue. We have received reassurances that this reform will not lead to impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations, in line with Colombia's international commitments."
"The EU expects that remaining concerns will be assuaged by the forthcoming implementing legislation. The application of the new rules ? in particular with regard to the treatment of the pending investigations of alleged extrajudicial executions by state agents ? will be crucial to demonstrate that the worries expressed so far are unfounded," the E.U.'s top foreign affairs affairs said.
(Reuters) - After interviewing food historians, scholars, cooks, doctors, activists and consumers for his new film "Soul Food Junkies," filmmaker Byron Hurt concluded that an addiction to soul food is killing African-Americans at an alarming rate.
The movie, which will premiere on January 14 on U.S. public broadcasting television, examines how black cultural identity is linked to high-calorie, high-fat food such as fried chicken and barbecued ribs and how eating habits may be changing.
In the deeply personal film, Hurt details his father's fight and eventual death from pancreatic cancer. A high-fat diet is a risk factor for the illness, according to researchers at Duke University in North Carolina.
"I never questioned what we ate or how much," 42-year-old New Jersey-based Hurt says in the film that travels from New Jersey and New York to Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Chicago.
"My father went from being young and fit to twice his size."
Hurt, who also made "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes," decided to examine the link between calorie-loaded soul food and illnesses among blacks after his father was diagnosed in 2006.
He delves into his family history, as well as slavery, the African diaspora and the black power movement in the film and provides photographs, drawings, historic film footage and maps.
In Jackson, Mississippi, Hurt joined football fans for ribs and corn cooked with pigs' feet and turkey necks. He also visited Peaches Restaurant, founded in 1961, where freedom riders and civil rights activists including Martin Luther King Jr. ate.
Hurt, whose family came from Milledgeville, Georgia, grew up on a diet of fried chicken, pork chops, macaroni and cheese, potatoes and gravy, barbecued ribs, sweet potato pie, collard greens, ham hocks and black-eyed peas.
"The history of Southern food is complex," he said. "In many ways, the term soul food is a reduction of our culinary foodways."
The origins of the diet lie in the history of American slavery, according to food historian Jessica B. Harris, who appears in the film. Slaves ate a high-fat, high-calorie diet that would allow them to burn 3,000 calories a day working, she explained.
Southern food began to be called soul food during the civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s, according to Hurt.
"There's an emotional connection and cultural pride in what they see as the food their population survived on in difficult times," he said.
But Hurt said African-Americans are being devastated by nutrition-related diseases.
Black adults have the highest rates of obesity and a higher prevalence of diabetes than whites, and are twice as likely to die of stroke before age 75 than other population groups, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Besides tradition and habit, poverty and neighborhoods without good supermarkets also contribute to an unhealthy diet, Hurt said.
"Low-income communities of color lack access to vegetables and have an overabundance of fast food and highly processed foods that are high in calories and fats. I always know when I'm in a community of color because I see ... very, very few supermarkets and health food stores," he added.
In her book, "High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America," Harris said the prevalence of over processed foods, low-quality meats, and second- or third-rate produce in minority neighborhoods amounts to "culinary apartheid."
In the film, Marc Lamont Hill, an associate professor of English education at Columbia University in New York, described minority health problems related to poor diet as "21st-century genocide."
Hurt says the government can help by increasing urban access to quality food and requiring calorie counts to be displayed on restaurant menus.
Nonprofit organizations such as Growing Power Inc., which runs urban farms in Chicago and Milwaukee, provide fresh vegetables to minority neighborhoods.
Brian Ellis, 21, said all he ate was fast food when he started working at one of Growing Power's urban farms in Chicago when he was 14.
"Then I started eating food I'd never seen before like Swiss chard," said Ellis, who appears in the film. "I never knew what beets were. I'd never seen sprouts before. I'm not that big of a beet fan, but I love sprouts. I could eat sprouts all day."
If you have a good job, making good money still living at home shows you fear living alone and being independent. Is your Mother indigent? Are your Father's life insurance and other death benefit not enough for your Mom to be self sustaining financially without you? If the house is too much, it's time to down size to something more affordable so she can live comfortable and you can be an independent adult.
What I see in this situation is, you being your Mom companion until she dies, which could be many, many years from now and with that you'll find yourself isolated, unmarried and no family. And then the resentment will set in and you'll find yourself a unhappy old woman.
Granted the economy has many moving back home because they can't afford housing or don't have the jobs to afford housing depending on where one lives.
You have to figure out what you want for YOUR life. You have been living your life FOR your parents - now Mom - which leaves you with no life of your own. Do you want to have a man in your life? Do you want to get married? Have children? You certainly can't do that living with Mom. Newlywed couples can't have their parents as a part of their marriage as it will cause issues. If you truly need to take care of your indigent Mother, you have her in an assisted living facility or her own apartment where you can watch over her, yet have your own space and own life.
This is what you have to figure out; what YOU want from life and when you expect to start living it too.
- Response by msadvise, A Thinker, Female, 46-55, Transportation
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To a black ESPN sports analyst, this is the critical question: Is Robert Griffin III, aka RG III, the black rookie sensation Washington Redskins quarterback, "a brother, or is he a cornball brother?" What has RG III done or said to raise a suspicion about his bona fides as a black person? More importantly, what does this have to do with appreciating ? or choosing not to appreciate ? Griffin as an athlete?
The year is coming to a close, and a new year will rise. Do you have any new year?s resolutions? Is one of them trying to lose weight? Well, Jess Barron has written a blog about the steps on losing weight for the new year.
Losing weight was the number one new year?s resolution in 2012, according to University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology, and with the percentage of Americans who are obese at 36%, it is highly likely that weight loss will be on top of many people?s resolution lists again this year. Forty-five percent of Americans usually make new years resolutions. I?m one of them, are you?
The good news: Those of us who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain our goals than people who don?t explicitly make resolutions. Also, 75% of people who make their resolutions are able to keep them through the first week of the new year.
The bad news: Only 8% of people who make new year?s resolutions are able to succeed at them entirely to their satisfaction. Let?s try to raise that statistic to a higher percentage, and at the very least, help to make sure you and I are among the 8% who succeed at our resolutions this year!
Steps to Take to Ensure Your Success
1. Make your goal(s) measurable. For example, instead of saying that your new year?s resolution is to ?lose weight,? it is more effective to set a well-defined measurable goal such as ?I?d like to lose one to two pounds per week until I reach my goal of fifteen pounds lost? or ?my goal is to fit back into my favorite pair of jeans.? Similarly, if you have a fitness resolution, rather than saying your goal is to ?get strong? or ?get fit,? it?s very likely to be more effective if you set concrete goals such as ?my goal to be able to do 50 push-ups? or ?I want to be able to do bicep curls with 30-pound dumbbells,? or ?I will go to the gym 5 days per week.?
Instead of saying that your new year?s resolution is to ?eat healthy,? you?ll be more likely to achieve the success you?re looking for if you set a goal such as ?I will eat 4 servings of vegetables every day,? or ?I will eat 1,500 calories or less per day and track it using MyPlate? or ?I will eat less than 30 grams of sugar per day and track it on MyPlate.? If you?re a runner, your resolution could be to prepare to run a 5k in March, or a half marathon this summer, or to improve your time on whichever race you run. Make your goal challenging, but achievable. Write down your goal, sign it, date it, and put it somewhere prominent. This year, my new year?s resolution is to complete 8 weeks of the Gunnar Challenge and lose eight pounds. (The rest of the LIVESTRONG.COM team is also in this with me, and you can join us too! Are you in?)
2. Dare yourself to do it. Sign up for a Dare on LIVESTRONG.COM such as ?Dare to Track Food Daily,? ?Dare to Walk Twenty Minutes a Day,? and ?Dare to Take The Gunnar Challenge.? On the Dares, thousands of other like-minded LIVESTRONG.COM members are there online asking questions about how to get the goal accomplished, letting others know how they are making progress toward the goal, and offering support and motivation to each other.
3. Tell your friends and family. Share your resolution with your friends and family, and ask them what their resolutions are. This way, they understand your intention and what you are aiming to do, and some of them may even support you in it. You might also find that some of their goals are also to lose weight, eat healthy, exercise more, or get fit.
4. Reach out to your online social network for support and accountability. Letting your online network know your new year?s resolution is also helpful. They can help you to stay accountable. If your goal is to work out every day, log your workouts as status updates on Facebook or Twitter and tell what you did and how you feel afterward. If your goal is to eat more vegetables, take photos of your meals and upload them to Facebook or to a food blog. Your friends will likely leave comments praising your good efforts. Additionally, if you are having trouble getting motivation to work out on a particular morning, you can post a status update that you need motivation, and people might provide some or post inspiring quotes for you.
5. Find a workout buddy or online group. Having a workout buddy can help increase your motivation on those days in mid-January where you may be feeling less than thrilled about doing your workout. Scheduling time to to go running or lift weights with your buddy can make exercise more fun, and it can also make you less likely to skip your workouts. My husband and I decided last year that we both wanted to do all 90 days of P90X. Since those workouts are an hour long each day, we were concerned we wouldn?t have time in our busy schedules. We agreed to set our iPhone alarms an hour earlier on work days at 6a.m. so that we would have time to do the hour-long P90X workouts together before getting ready for work. Because we both knew we needed to get up, we were less likely to push the ?snooze? button. Also, there were definitely days where I did not feel like doing particular workouts such as Plyometrics or Ab Ripper X, but having a buddy helped make it seem more do-able. For example, some days we complained to each other how we were sore and we didn?t want to work out. One of us would say, ?We can do this. Let?s get it done.?
If you don?t have any friends around who share your fitness goals, there are so many websites such as LIVESTRONG.COM where you can find likeminded individuals in the Forums, online Groups, and Dares. You can also join an official challenge group, such as the 8-week Gunnar Challenge, which I?m starting with my LIVESTRONG.COM teammates on Monday, Jan 21, 2013. When I lost 20 pounds this past summer, I did it as part of a challenge group. The comraderie, healthy competition, and support from the challenge croups members in our online Facebook group helped to get me through times when I wanted to go out and get a glass of wine, or eat a snack that wasn?t on my diet plan. For example, our challenge group members posted what it felt like to skip cake at friends? birthday parties or to skip a beer with co-workers, and we knew that we were all making sacrifices in order to achieve our goals.
6. Prepare. This step is incredibly important. To succeed at weight loss or dieting, before you even begin, it?s important to remove temptations in your refrigerator, pantry, cupboards, or on your countertops. Find any junk food or high calorie food that you find too tempting (for me this means the bag of Kettle Corn, leftover holiday pumpkin pie, the English toffee, any cookies, even the healthy-sounding dark chocolate bars) and throw it away. If you?re concerned about wasting, just make yourself think of this moment and agree with yourself that you won?t buy any more of the offending food item for the first 6 months of the year.
Most importantly, plan out what you will eat for the week ahead and prepare it in advance. I always do this on Sundays. I cook up some chicken breast and steam some broccoli, asparagus, and spinach. Then I portion the chicken into 6-oz servings and put it into five or six different lunch-size Tupperware containers and in each one I?d also add some of the broccoli, spinach, or asparagus. Sometimes I add lettuce or arugula and make a grilled chicken salad. Sometimes I use salmon or tofu instead of chicken. Then each day as I?m heading out the door, I just grab one of these lunches, and heat it up in the microwave at work.
Also, prepare some healthy snacks that you enjoy and portion them in grab-and-go containers. On Sundays, I almost always boil six-to-ten eggs to bring to work as snacks throughout the week. Having healthy snacks on-hand is essential. Celery sticks bore me, so instead I slice up carrots, red peppers, and jicama and portion them out in baggies or small Tupperware containers. I bring the veggies to work with either a hard-boiled egg or a tablespoon and a half of almond butter, peanut butter or sunflower butter.
Preparation is also important for exercise goals. If your new year?s resolution is to go to the gym 5 days a week, look at the schedule of classes and plan which ones you will hit. Put them as appointments into your calendar so you will remember to get there. If you want to commit to a home fitness program such as P90X or INSANITY, look at the schedule, figure out how long you will need and which workouts you need to do each day.
7. Plan a reward for yourself. One of my former co-workers was trying to hit a goal weight and stay at it for a whole year. She loves clothes, and she promised herself a shopping spree when she reached her goal weight. She took this one step further and also made another rule that she could not buy herself any items of clothing when she was not at her target weight. This strategy of reward and ?punishment? rule-making not only helped her to reach her goal weight ? it also helped her maintain her goal weight over the whole year! She worked hard to keep herself eating and exercising properly so that she would be able to stay at her goal weight and so that she could allow herself to buy sweaters and blazers at J. Crew.
Of course, your reward doesn?t need to be clothing or other material goods, it can also be an experience such as going on a vacation or weekend get-away or even out to a special restaurant when you reach your goal. Make it something that you really want, and that really motivates you. Write down ?If I reach ___ pounds, I will allow myself to buy/go to/do/eat at __________? and sign the piece of paper. Carry it with you in your wallet, bag, briefcase, or purse. When a cookie or brownie tempts you or you?re feeling like you don?t have the motivation for your workout, take out the piece of paper and remind yourself how much you want your reward.
Since some end goals might take a long time to reach, it probably also makes sense to reward yourself with small treats along the way for each week of your successful compliance. For example, for each week of exercising every day along with calorie tracking on MyPlate, you might decide to allow yourself to go out for a movie (skip the snack bar and instead bring carrot or celery sticks if you need something to gnaw on), get a manicure/pedicure, buy some cool new workout gear or running shoes, get a massage. The clothing, movies, and massages all worked to help motivate me to lose twenty pounds this past summer.
8. Visualize what success at your resolution looks and feels like. Spend a few minutes thinking about what it will look like and feel like when you achieve your goal. If your resolution is to fit in your favorite jeans again, imagine yourself wearing them and how you will feel. Perhaps you?ll be lighter in your step and it will increase your confidence in social situations. If your goal is to strengthen your abs, perhaps when you have reached your goal, you?ll feel less fatigue sitting at your desk or decrease any lower back pain you might have. Try to visualize your success in as much detail as possible and spend a few minutes each day to set an intention for yourself.
9. Believe in your ability to do this, praise yourself, and take pride. Have confidence in yourself and your ability to commit to your resolution, and be proud of each accomplishment along the way toward your goal. Thank yourself for every workout you get done and really let yourself feel proud. It takes guts and determination to workout and eat healthy, and you?re doing it. Great job!
10. If you mess-up, forgive yourself and recommit to your goal. Despite all your best efforts and attention to steps one through nine, you might occasionally mess up. We?re all human, and it happens to all of us. My high school reunion happened in the second month of my challenge group this past summer. Even though I had sworn off of alcohol for two months as part of the challenge group, and I had gone a whole month without having a beer at birthday parties, BBQs, and baby showers, when an old friend passed me a cocktail during the midst of the reunion, I ended up toasting with her and taking a sip, and the next thing I knew, I had finished the drink. Rather than allowing this slip-up to make me feel bad and snowball into trying desserts and hors d?oeuvres, I forgave myself and recommitted myself to my goal. When friends I hadn?t seen in years were taking shots at the bar and handing me drinks, I simply handed them to another friend and said I was all set. I ordered sparkling water with a lime, and continued talking and catching up with everyone. The best part, the next day, I didn?t have a headache or a hangover and I recommitted to my goal of refraining from drinking until the end of the Challenge. If you slip up, forgive yourself, and reign yourself back in. Remember how important your goal is, and remember why you want to achieve it. I hope you?re now feeling like you have the information you need to set your intentions toward reaching all the goals that are important to you. Now?s the best time to get started, so let?s do this! 2013 is the year! And if you?re interested in losing 8-25 pounds in 8 weeks, go ahead and sign up for the Gunnar Challenge with me and my LIVESTRONG.COM teammates. We?ll be there online to support you along the way!
- Jess Barron
If you would like to learn more about losing weight, you can visit LiveStrong.
Dec. 27, 2012 ? Calpain, a calcium-regulated enzyme, is essential to a host of cellular processes, but can cause severe problems in its overactivated state. It has been implicated as a factor in muscular dystrophy, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. As such, finding and exploiting calpain inhibitors is an important area of research.
A team from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the University of California at San Francisco and the Department of Biochemistry and Protein Function Discovery at Queen's University, has developed a unique approach to calpain inhibition by mimicking a natural reaction with a synthesized molecule. The work was published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
One of calpain's less beneficial functions is that it eases the ability for cellular invaders such as the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is responsible for malaria, to exit their hosts and infect other cells. It is this property that caught the attention of Doron Greenbaum, PhD, assistant professor in of Pharmacology, whose laboratory studies how malaria spreads.
"We have an interest in this protein because it's important for Plasmodium development," he explains. "We initially found that calpain played a role in parasites being able to get out of their host cell, so we became interested in inhibitor development for human calpains."
Greenbaum and his collaborators examined the crystal structure of calpastatin, a natural calpain inhibitor, for clues. "We decided to take a different tack on inhibitor development, which has traditionally been designing small peptide-like inhibitors that fit across an enzyme's active site," Greenbaum says. Studying the configuration of how calpastatin bound to the active site of the calpain complex, "we found that there was a small alpha-helix that fit into the active site of the calpain enzyme."
Researchers have never before used an alpha-helix structure to inhibit a protease. "Traditionally people thought that alpha-helices normally make horrible inhibitors because it was thought that proteases don't like to bind to them preferring to bind motifs called a beta-sheet," Greenbaum notes. The research team created a peptide with an alpha-helical shape that would fit into the active site of the calpain protease.
The team set out to find a way to stabilize the helix by modifying it with a cross-linking peptide. They screened twenty-four commercially available crosslinkers, identifying five that succeeded in stabilizing the helix. They selected one in particular -- dibromo-m-xylene c15 -- and used it to mimic a protein-protein interaction between calpain and calpastatin. By binding to the active site and thus blocking it, the synthesized molecule inhibits the calpain enzyme from binding with other molecules that permit it to wreak its damaging effects.
"It's the first example of an alpha-helical inhibitor of any protease," Greenbaum says. "Previously no one's ever tried using an alpha-helical motif. It opens up a new way of inhibiting proteases." Aside from being a good inhibitor, the stabilized alpha-helical molecule is also highly specific for calpains, while ignoring other, similar-shaped proteases, thus hopefully downplaying potential side effects if used in humans.
Greenbaum and his collaborators are building upon this initial success to expand the basic concept to a wide range of protease molecules. "The next step is to show how this concept can be generalized to multiple classes of proteases, many of which are pharmaceutically of great interest," he explains. "It's not a single-hit wonder."
The extension of the technique to stabilize the alpha-helix shape in enzymes to other proteins could eventually lead to practical drug therapies for a wide range of diseases, predict the researchers.
This work was supported by funding from the Penn Genome Frontiers Institute; the National Institutes of Health (1R01AI09727301A1; 5T32GM071339; and GM54616); the Canadian Institutes for Health Research; and an R.J. Wilson Fellowship.
Co-authors are Hyunil Jo, Nataline Meinhardt, Yibing Wu, Swapnil Kulkarni, Xiaozhen Hu, Kristin E. Low, Peter L. Davies, and William F. DeGrado.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
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Journal Reference:
Hyunil Jo, Nataline Meinhardt, Yibing Wu, Swapnil Kulkarni, Xiaozhen Hu, Kristin E. Low, Peter L. Davies, William F. DeGrado, Doron C. Greenbaum. Development of ?-Helical Calpain Probes by Mimicking a Natural Protein?Protein Interaction. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012; 134 (42): 17704 DOI: 10.1021/ja307599z
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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.
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December 26, 2012. Posted 11 hours ago.Posted in: Drink Recipes
Boxing day split pea & ham soup handbag.com If you spent all of yesterday eating as much as you possibly could ? give your body something a tad healthier for Boxing Day. Why not use up some of your left over Christmas ham for this healthy soup? Alongside lots of lovely veg, split peas are rich ?
Before I begin, let me just say what this list is, and what it isn?t. It?s not just a random set of iPad apps that can, but on the other hand, don?t have to turn out to be that useful to you. I also didn?t want to give you countless alternatives for a specific single aspect of blogging.
Instead, I?ve tried to take a broad look at blogging as a profession and point out a set of apps that will simply allow you to do your work smoothly and with better effectiveness.
(By the way, I actually use these apps myself.)
Also, I will try to keep this as low budget as possible, but not everything is free. Even though the digital world of today allows us to get quite a lot of quality for no cost at all, sometimes investments need to be made if we want to make our work easier.
1. Blogsy
Let?s start with the main app for bloggers. You might be surprised that it?s not WordPress, but there?s actually something a lot better than the official app. Blogsy isn?t free, but it?s just a minor investment ($4.99).
The app allows you to write posts using a clear an usable interface, and then send them out to a number of publishing platforms including: WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, Typepad, Joomla, and more (image below). However, the biggest strength of this app is the possibility to create new posts offline and to do it in a clear and easy to grasp manner.
Of course, all standard text formatting features are available, and you can also include videos, pictures, links, and content from other platforms on the Internet. In the end, this is the most important app on this list. Without it your blogging would be a lot more difficult.
By the way, I?m using it right now to create this very post.
2. WordPress
Okay, time for the official app. Even though Blogsy is better for doing the actual blogging, the official app can still come handy. Besides, it?s free.
The main value of this app lies in its possibility to edit whatever has already been published on your blog. This includes posts, pages, and comments. There?s really no better way of moderating comments than through this app.
You can also use Blogsy for updating your live posts and pages, but from my experience, it just creates a big mess in your Blogsy files, so I don?t advise it.
3. Aviary
Aviary was one of the most popular online photo editing apps (before it went through a major direction change, so to speak). This is the iPad version of the main app. Both Blogsy and WordPress allow you to include photos in your blog posts, but the photo editing capabilities of these apps are not that great. Aviary does a much better job at it, and it?s free.
Some features Aviary has to offer: auto enhancement, orientation, cropping, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, red-eye removal, and more (image below).
Aviary takes photos from your camera roll or allows you to shoot new ones. Once you?re done editing, the new version of the image is saved back to your camera roll. Then you can upload it through Blogsy or WordPress.
4. MindMeister
Mind mapping is a great way to organize your thoughts, plans, strategies, and post ideas. If you don?t know what mind mapping is then feel free to visit Wikipedia, which does quite a good job at explaining it.
Mind mapping isn?t the most difficult thing to do on a standard PC, but on an iPad it becomes even easier. When you have the multitouch and drag and drop interface at your disposal you can make your work truly effortless. Plus, the tool itself is very easy to use, offers quite a lot of interesting features, and it?s free.
You can create an unlimited number of mind maps, synchronize them through the online interface of MindMeister.com, and even export them to other mind map formats, or standard PDF and PNG files.
5. Teed
It?s time for the first productivity app on this list. In essence, Teed is a to-do list management app. But what?s great about it (other than the fact that it?s free) is that it?s in tune with GTD ? one of the most popular time and work management methodologies.
Even if you?re not using GTD, you can still benefit from this app a lot. It has a clear interface, and all the features you?d need, including: the possibility to work on multiple projects, prioritize, set notifications, tagging, password protection, modify the app badge, and much more.
6. Analytics
It?s probably about time to mention an app for tracking your performance and web stats. There are many paid solutions out there, but one of the best ones is still free ? it?s Google Analytics (no surprise here).
As far as I know, there?s no decent Google Analytics app for the iPhone, but the one for the iPad lets you in on almost the complete set of features your Analytics profile has to offer. You can track multiple profiles (sites) and look at your stats from every possible angle (your audience, traffic sources, popular content, conversions, and so on).
7. Google Drive
Quite simply, this app gives you access to all your Google Docs files. It?s free and (kind of) offers you everything the full online version does. I?m saying kind of because, for some reason, you can?t edit the spreadsheets. I guess this is something the next versions will fix.
Other than that, this app is the complete package. You can browse your documents, create new ones, edit them, and share them with other users.
8. Dropbox
I?m sure that your iPad isn?t the only device where you keep your content and do your work, so a service like Dropbox can surely come handy for you. What?s important about this app is that it grants you access to your online Dropbox account.
I?m sure you?re familiar with Dropbox itself ? the online disk space and platform that keeps your files synchronized between every computer you own.
The important thing is that it?s not like a standard Dropbox app (the desktop one). It doesn?t create a folder on your iPad and automatically synchronize everything in it. This app is only a clearer interface to access your online account, through which you can download each file individually.
You can also upload pictures and videos directly from the app itself. Plus, if you install additional apps (like Documents), you can link them to Dropbox and upload other files as well.
When it comes to viewing your files, Dropbox has some basic capabilities to view images and text files, but for other types of files it?s good to install additional apps like FileApp, for example.
This closes my list of 8 essential iPad apps for bloggers. Feel free to let me know what you think and also point out other apps you find useful.
About the Author
Karol K. is a freelance blogger and writer. He's passionate about design, blogging and online business. If you want to get a list of websites that pay to write feel free to visit him at YoungPrePro.
Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.
Editor's note:?Yvo Schaap is a 27-year-old?entrepreneur from?Amsterdam?who loves data and code. TechCrunch has always been the most authoritative news outlet on what's hot in Silicon Valley regarding startup trends, early and late investments, product launches, celeb founders and of course geeky drama. I've developed research focused on analyzing TechCrunch's editorial posts, with an aim to expose this year's trends in tech.
Online radio is an innovation that has changed the way the world entertains and does business. Radio stations worldwide can be enjoyed over the internet. It also gives businesses? marketing strategy a new dimension.
With internet technology taking over the communication industry, traditional radio has taken a new avatar?radio on internet. Developers are now busy finding new and more efficient ways for integrating the radio to the internet. Radio streaming on the net has produced a number of audiences that conventional radio has never enjoyed before.
Radio on Internet: What It Is?
Audio stream is transmitted to listeners via a continuous stream over the World Wide Web. This enables users all across the world download radio software programs and listen to worldwide streaming of internet music stations, right in the comfort of their homes. This is different from podcasting as people are not required to download individual radio stations of their choice. The radio broadcasts streams freely sans any media device.
Radio on Internet: Entertainment Value
Online music stations are basically local music radio stations from different parts of the world. This enables you to listen to music according to your taste. The easy-to-use control panel, upon installation of the streaming software, enables users to quickly access worldwide radio stations with a clear reception. You can now find the radio station you prefer just by choosing either the particular region or the music genre. When you choose a region or music genre, you will get a list of radio stations broadcasting specifically on the genre.
Online radio music is also executable in a USB flash drive. The device allows the user to download the radio software straight to the flash drive. With this device, you can listen to your favorite programs anywhere in the world. The device is compact and can be easily carried, letting you entertain yourself anytime you want.
Radio on Internet: Business Value
Businesses can rope in radio on internet for their marketing strategy. They can partner with internet radio stations to promote their brand and message out to their consumers. Talk programs are the best way for creating a buzz about products. You can get experts or guests talking about the utility, benefits of your product, thus highlighting it.
Many online radio stations bear close resemblance to social media outlets. They invite the end users to comment or share what they think about related topics with the hosts and participants. This helps business managers to determine what the general public thinks about their products or services. After all, feedback carries great importance for every business. This feedback can be used for the betterment of the products.
Catchy infomercials are the key to captivate people on the internet. An intelligently produced commercial would drive people to the website or business, taking up the volumes in tandem. As the medium is not limited to any particular geographical or demographic region, advertising on internet radio would give the business an international audience base.
For enjoying radio on internet, you can use the services of several communications convergence technology providers. This would enhance your experience of online entertainment.
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#1 ? niNja_pWn3d?
Group:Normal Members
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Location:Tha' 204!
Interests:..:: My kids - Music - Production - Promotion - 8bit - amen - Hax0r ::..
Posted Today, 07:49 AM
Definitely NOT audio but worth a discussion... Lately i've been into hidden networks. Had a laugh in TOR for a bit... I know it goes deeper in this world and I want to discover. Any experiences in other simmilar quests? What should one be studying and what should one avoid? Anyone up for a discussion on the matter? Public or private dont be afraid
_o0merZ
Youtube! Soundcloud!
"The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together." -Epicurus
The Philadelphia Health Department will install clear plastic dispensers brimming with free condoms at 22 of Philadelphia?s public high schools over winter break.
The schools chosen for the pilot program have the highest rates of students infected with sexually transmitted diseases in the city, Philly.com reports. All students ? even those as young as 14 ? will be eligible to score free condoms unless their parents sign a form prohibiting them from participating.
The primary issue city officials hope to address with the pilot program is not teen pregnancy, but the growing prevalence of sexually transmitted disease among adolescents.
Teens currently account for a quarter of new HIV infections and STDs in the City of Brotherly Love.
?I support the policy strongly,? Mayor Michael A. Nutter told Philly.com. ?This is a serious public health matter.?
?Many of our teenagers, regardless of what adults think, are engaged in sexual activities,? Nutter added. ?Discussion about whether or not they should be sexually active is an appropriate discussion, but if they are, then we need to make sure they?re engaged in safe sexual practices.?
?If a teenager wants to use a condom, they should have access to a condom,? summarized Donald F. Schwarz, the deputy mayor for health and opportunity, according to Philly.com.
Schwarz also noted that he is aware of the possibility that the schools could ?have hundreds of condoms taken and used inappropriately, for water balloons or something like that.?
The machines will be ?supervised,? he promised Philly.com.
Free condom distribution is not a new phenomenon in Philadelphia high schools. A dozen already have ?health resource centers? where the condoms are available gratis. The health department also provides contraceptive during voluntary STD screenings at city high schools.
The new condom dispensaries will be positioned ?just inside the doorway near the entrance? to nurses? offices, according to an email that Assistant Superintendent Dennis W. Creedon sent to nurses.
?Opt-out letters are to be maintained by the school office,? Creedon wrote, according to Philly.com ?Students are to honor the wishes of their parents. If a student disrespects their guardian?s directive, that is an issue of the home.?
According to Deputy Mayor Schwarz, the city has no plan to advertise the condom dispensers.
?We?re going to allow word of mouth and the Internet and social media to start this off,? he told Philly.com.
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I installed some speed reading apps and tested them. I?ve so far notices a few ?categories? or groups of equals:
One kind exists mostly from showing a text word by word in the middle of the screen. Showing each word a very short time and so you can read at a high wpm because you never need to move your eyes.
Another kind is merely a speed reading article disguised as app.
Another kind is no speed reading app but just a reading app with a fancy name.
Yet another kind is training in the form of news/actually.
And the last kind is a training app, not for your own stuff but purely for training.
I only tested them quickly and unions talked the non-interesting. But they aren?t quite what I?m looking for. Maybe I should write one myself for training and guided reading.
This entry was posted in Other and tagged Android, Self Improvement, Speed Reading. Bookmark the permalink.
As another year winds to a finish, it?s time to look forward with a real estate outlook for the coming year.
Long time readers of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog might remember past efforts to predict the real estate activity for the coming years. My real estate forecast for 2012 was spot-on, and my past five years efforts have been very close. (For those that are interested, you can find my past real estate forecasts here).
But the real estate forecast for 2013 is going to be the toughest one since 2006.
Real Estate Outlook Is Based Upon Current Trends
The housing market in Tallahassee appears to be leaving a market bottom (for the final time I hope). Homebuyer activity is on the rise for the first time since the Homebuyer Tax Credit created a temporary recovery back in 2010. But I believe this time it is for real.
The real estate graph above shows that 2012 will record more home sales than 2009, 2010, and 2011, and possibly 2008 as well. While the total number of home sales is not where it once was, I think this upward move is a trend that will continue.
Of course, the graph also shows that 38% of the homes sold last year were distressed, and that trend is going to continue higher for quite some time.
In fact, our real estate outlook for 2013 is quite bullish for this very reason. Distressed homes for sale in Tallahassee are very tempting at these low prices, and low interest rates make them super affordable.
Distressed Property Impact On 2013 Housing Market
For six straight years, property values have fallen in the Tallahassee real estate market. While many real estate reports try to confuse us about property prices versus property values, the graph below is simple and clear, values are falling.
In the graph above, the green and red bars record the number of arms length and distressed home sales (respectively), while the green and red lines show their respective values.
Arms length home values will begin the 7th consecutive year of declining values, and the rate of decline is what makes this year?s real estate forecast so difficult.
It?s all dependent on the distressed properties for sale in Tallahassee. If they hit the market too rapidly, values will decline at a higher rate. If they enter the market very slowly, values will stay fairly stable, but the recovery will take much longer.
Ultimately, the demand side of the market is returning, so the question will be ?how will the supply side respond??
Real Estate Outlook Looks At Supply Side
We have written numerous articles on the supply side of the Tallahassee housing market. Long time readers download our monthly Tallahassee Housing Report to stay current on niche price range movements.
Consumers should be aware of the shadow inventory of homes and the forgotten inventory of homes, both of which are poised on the sidelines to enter the housing market as soon as there appears to be ample demand.
Additionally, the current supply of homes has been correcting nicely, but still represents 1.5x the amount needed to balance the market at our current rate of demand.
The real estate graph above shows that real supply (red) is falling, demand (green) is rising slightly, thus the relative supply of homes (blue) is at its lowest level since 2008.
Were it not for all the distressed homes and recently failed to sell homes waiting to enter the market, we would expect to reach market equilibrium in 2013. I just don?t think it can happen.
There are thousands of distressed homes that still need to get sold, and just because they aren?t listed for sale in the Tallahassee MLS does not mean they aren?t having an impact on the supply side of the market.
Real Estate Outlook 2013
We will see more homes sold in 2013 than we have seen since 2007.
Don?t be surprised if we see distressed properties surpass 50% of all sales at some point.
Our best case real estate outlook is that home sales in 2013 will double those recorded in 2011 (as we projected in our 2012 Real Estate Forecast), but it is more likely that the market will see a healthy growth without doubling.
My optimism for 2013 could turn dark with more problems in the world banking community, and I still think that a poorly managed recovery could cause the housing market to head backwards.
So ultimately, my real estate outlook for 2013 anticipates significant growth in unit sales and a slight decline or leveling off of home values, but don?t underestimate our ability to do something stupid and send the market backwards with a rush of distressed homes entering the market.
December 24, 2012 - 9:48 am by TallahasseeRealEstate Categories: TLH My Family, TLH My Nest | Tags: 2013 housing Tallahassee, 2013 real estate Tallahassee, Tallahassee housing outlook, tallahassee-housing-report |
Following 
Editor's note:?Yvo Schaap is a 27-year-old?entrepreneur from?Amsterdam?who loves data and code. TechCrunch has always been the most authoritative news outlet on what's hot in Silicon Valley regarding startup trends, early and late investments, product launches, celeb founders and of course geeky drama. I've developed research focused on analyzing TechCrunch's editorial posts, with an aim to expose this year's trends in tech.
? 
As another year winds to a finish, it?s time to look forward with a real estate outlook for the coming year.
