NEW YORK ? New York City police officers pleaded not guilty Friday to a range of corruption charges in a sweeping probe touched off by an investigation into whether a Bronx officer had ties to a drug dealer.
In total, 16 officers were arraigned in a packed courtroom. The halls were swarmed with people, and hundreds of officers carrying signs stood outside the courthouse and applauded as the accused officers walked through.
The Bronx officer, Jose Ramos, pleaded not guilty to drug and other charges. An internal affairs lieutenant pleaded not guilty to charges she leaked information to union officials about the probe. The rest of the officers pleaded not guilty to charges including official misconduct and obstructing governmental authority after prosecutors said they abused their authority by helping family and friends avoid paying traffic tickets.
The case evolved from a 2009 internal affairs probe of Ramos, who owned a barber shop and was suspected of allowing a friend to deal drugs out of it. Prosecutors said he also transported drugs in uniform.
"He sold his shield, he violated his oath," Assistant District Attorney Omer Wiceyk said.
Wiceyk said Ramos was recorded as saying he "stopped caring about the law a long time ago."
Ramos' attorney, John Sandleitner, said the charges were ridiculous. "If he had done any of these things that they say, they would've arrested him two months ago. Or two years ago," he said. "Why did they let him go to work, then?"
While listening to Ramos' phone, investigators caught calls from people seeing if Ramos could fix tickets for them. The conversations led to more wiretaps that produced evidence of additional officers having similar conversations.
Internal affairs lieutenant Jennara Cobb, who pleaded not guilty to charges of divulging a wiretap, was accused of meeting with union officials about the probe. As a result, word spread through the department's most powerful union and delegates started to alter the way they fixed tickets, prosecutor Jonathan Ortiz said.
"The investigation was significantly compromised because of her actions," he said.
Her attorney, Philip Karasyk, said she denied the charges and had been unfairly singled out. She was released on bail.
"That wiretap was leaking like a sieve," he said.
Many of those arrested include high level members of the union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the department's most powerful with 22,000 members.
"This has been laid on the shoulders of police officers, but when the dust settles and we have our day in court, it will be clear that this is part of the NYPD at all levels," union President Patrick Lynch said through a spokesman.
Among those charged were Bronx union delegates Officers Joseph Anthony, 46; Michael Hernandez, 35; and Brian McGuckin, 44. Officer Virgilio Bencosme, 33, and Officer Luis R. Rodriguez, 43, both of the 40th Precinct; Officer Christopher Scott, 41, of the 48th Precinct; Officer Jaime Payan, 37, of the 46th Precinct; Officer Eugene P. O'Reilly, 39, of the 45th Precinct; Officer Christopher Manzi, 41, of the 41st Precinct; and Jason Cenizal, 39, a former delegate from the 42nd Precinct.
Ramos' supervisor, Jacob G. Solorzano, 41, was charged with misconduct. Sgt. Marc Manara, 39, Officer Ruben Peralta, 45, Jeffrey Regan, 37 and Officer Christopher Scott, 41, of the 48th Precinct were all charged with covering up an assault for a an acquaintance. Some of the charges also overlap to include ticket fixing.
The case doesn't appear to rise to the level of the more notorious corruption scandals in the nation's largest police department. But in terms of the number of officers facing criminal or internal administrative charges, the probe represents the largest crackdown on police accused of misconduct in recent memory. Dozens of other officers may face internal charges.
Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan brought conspiracy and other charges against five current and three former officers alleging they were part of a gun-running ring. In two other recent unrelated federal cases, one officer was charged with arresting a black man without cause and using a racial slur to describe the suspect, and another with using a law enforcement database to try to trump up charges against an innocent man.
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama said a new European plan to tackle the continent's debt crisis would have an impact on the U.S. economy, but he stopped short of saying whether it would be enough to prevent another global recession.
"If Europe is weak, if Europe is not growing, as our largest trading partner that's going to have an impact on our businesses and our ability to create jobs here in the United States," Obama said during remarks in the Oval Office.
European leaders agreed Thursday to a deal to have banks take bigger losses on Greece's debts and to boost the region's weapons against market turmoil.
While Obama did not address specifics of the deal, he praised European leaders for recognizing that it was in the world's interest to stabilize the continent's economy. When asked whether the deal would prevent another recession, Obama would only say that the agreement was a sign of progress.
"The key now is to make sure that it is implemented fully and decisively and I have great confidence in the European leadership to make that happen," he said.
Obama is due to meet with several European leaders next week in France during the G-20 economic summit.
The president spoke at the beginning of a meeting with Prime Minister Petr Necas of the Czech Republic. Necas had arrived in Washington from Brussels, where he had been part of the Eurozone negotiations, Obama said.
World stock markets surged Thursday on the news that the leaders had clinched a deal that everyone hopes will prevent the crisis from pushing Europe and much of the developed world back into recession and keep the currency union from unraveling. But analysts were more cautious, noting that the deal remains vague and its success hangs on the details.
The strategy unveiled after 10 hours of negotiations focused on three key points. These included a significant reduction in Greece's debts, a shoring up of the continent's banks, partially so they could sustain deeper losses on Greek bonds, and a reinforcement of a European bailout fund so it can serve as a $1.39 trillion firewall to prevent larger economies like Italy and Spain from being dragged into the crisis.
In an appearance with Greek Foreign Minister Stavros Lambrinidis in Washington Thursday, U.S. Secretary of States Hillary Rodham Clinton also praised the European plan and Greece's efforts to reform its economy.
"The Greek people are making major changes and big sacrifices to return their country to financial health and economic competitiveness," she said.
_____
Associated Press writer Desmond Butler contributed to this report.
Amy Winehouse died as an “unintended consequence” of drinking too much alcohol, the coroner ruled on Wednesday. The singer downed so much liquor in the [...]
FRANKFURT, Germany ? Deutsche Bank AG said Tuesday that it made euro777 million ($1.1 billion) in net profit in a turbulent third quarter, beating analysts' estimates.
The third quarter earnings figure contrasts with a loss of euro1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter, when the bank took a euro2.3 billion writedown related to consolidating its acquisition of Postbank.
CEO Josef Ackermann cited stronger results from the bank's basic banking business and an effort to cut risky business at its investment banking operation amid market swings caused by Europe's crisis over heavily indebted governments.
He said it was the toughest quarter since the one that followed the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in late 2008.
"During the third quarter, the operating environment was more difficult than at any time since the end of 2008, driven by a deteriorating macro-economic outlook, and significant financial market turbulence," he said in a statement.
He said the bank "benefited significantly from the strategic decisions we have taken to recalibrate and de-risk our investment bank, increase the earnings contribution from our 'classic' banking businesses, and strengthen our capital, liquidity and funding position.
The bank's ratio of highest-quality reserves to loans and other investments reached 10.1 percent. The so-called Core Tier 1 capital ratio is an important measure of a bank's ability to absorb losses. European leaders are seeking to push banks that are undercapitalized to hold at least 9 percent.
The bank, Germany's largest, also wrote down euro228 billion worth of shaky Greek bonds, whose value has fallen during the eurozone's government debt crisis.
The bank had already signalled the Greek writedown and said it won't make its profit target for this year.
Market analysts surveyed by Factset had forseen net profit of euro425 million. The company's net revenues for the quarter were euro7.3 billion, up euro2.3 billion, or 47 percent, from a year ago. In last year's third quarter revenues were reduced by the Postbank charge; if that is tossed out revenues were essentially unchanged from a year ago as lower investment banking revenues were offset by higher retail and commercial banking revenues, primarily reflecting the addition of Postbank and its large branch banking network.
Informatics professionals meet in DC at AMIA's 35th Annual SymposiumPublic release date: 24-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Light nlight@amia.org 301-275-1203 American Medical Informatics Association
Meeting agenda reflects Informatics' leadership in delivering health care
Washington, DC -- The 35th Annual Symposium on Biomedical and Health Informatics opened this week with keynote speaker Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, addressing a crowd of more than two thousand professionals who are engaged in translational bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, clinical informatics, public health informatics, and consumer health informatics.
The Symposium's theme, "Improving Health: Informatics and IT Changing the World," highlights the herculean agenda informatics professionals have assumed in enabling translational science through the use of information technology, electronic health records, on-the-spot clinical decision support, and methods that include data mining, interactive systems, biosurveillance, simulation and modeling, and development of standardized terminologies for specific applications and designs. Energized by the recent decision of the American Board of Medical Specialties to recognize Clinical Informatics as a board-certified medical subspecialty, the informatics community is gaining momentum in several key areas: growing its workforce through new and strengthened training programs at federally funded universities and community colleges, sharing informatics knowledge, experience, and expertise in a broad array of topics related to information technology and informatics applications, and reaching out across disciplines to health-related professionals in industry, research, clinical care, health policy, and education.
In his opening keynote, Dr. Collins provided a summary of the enabling role of informatics and computation in the evolution of genomics and DNA sequencing. He discussed the basic pillars of research and advancing medical science, identifying computational biology and bioinformatics as major supports to advancements in biomedical research and combating cancer and other life-threatening diseases and chronic conditions. He also discussed the planned National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), designed to speed up the process of "rescuing and repurposing" drug therapies out of the lab and into advanced clinical trials. The expectation, Dr. Collins said, is for NCATS to continue the work of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) -- all of which are required to leverage informatics as a core component of their scientific structure.
"In the ten years since the genome sequence was completed," said Dr. Collins, "the economic return resulted in a return on investment of 141:1 -- a $3 billion investment led to $790 billion of economic growth. We should not be shy to point out that medical research is not only a wonderful way to plan for a revolutionizing of medicine that is more effective and gives people a change to live healthy lives, but also is one of the best things we can do to nurture the American economy."
In his remarks during the opening session, Scientific Program Committee Chair R. Scott Evans, PhD, of Intermountain Healthcare, University of Utah, indicated that informatics had captured the imagination of mainstream America during the past year, when Watson of Jeopardy! fame triumphed over the human intellect of two long-running champions. An example of computer-assimilated intelligence, Watson is a robotic expression of how computerized health systems and informatics could one day support quality healthcare delivery. A panel composed of the Watson strategy team from IBM (Watson's creator), and clinical experts from Columbia University and University of Maryland School of Medicine is scheduled to take place Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. to examine how Watson might succeed as a clinical decision support tool, once he is tutored through medical school!
In remarks about the growth of Symposium attendance and the burgeoning field of informatics, AMIA President and CEO Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, FACMI, said, "The informatics community has a vision of remarkable ingenuity and impact: to improve health locally, nationally, and globally by connecting, collecting, and making available for exchange the vast stores of research data and evidence that are available; and mining that knowledge to benefit patients and populations everywhere. The implications are enormous," he noted, "health equity for all, standard quality care across communities and borders, and a cooperative, collegial community in terms of knowledge resources and tools." He added, "The transformation is underway -- AMIA is where this collective vision and know-how come together."
This morning's keynote speaker Gregory Abowd, PhD, Distinguished Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, discussed his research that focuses on using "ubiquitous computing technology" to promote better health outcomes and health management. Dr. Abowd described living labs instrumented with body sensors, cameras, microphones, and sensors embedded in objects to support judgment of human behavior, and the use of mobile phones and text messaging to extend health surveys that support better health management of chronic illnesses. The latter health management intervention resulted in a response rate of 87% among children with asthma, ages 8-16. Dr. Abowd projected that "within five years, the majority of clinically relevant data will be collected in non-clinical settings." Along with the use of mobile phones, which are ubiquitous among many households, his goal, he said, "is to tap into a home's infrastructure to sense and infer about human activity." Ultimately, Dr. Abowd suggested, such information could answer questions like 'What does a healthy lifestyle look like?'
A late-breaking session held yesterday examined Sorrell vs. IMS Health, a legal case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision that challenged Vermont legislation, which attempted to limit the ability of pharmaceutical companies to use analysis of large clinical datasets to support marketing activities with physicians. The case underscores the ethical considerations inherent to secondary uses of health information -- an issue of critical importance in the informatics community.
###
About AMIA
AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, serves as the voice of the nation's top biomedical and health informatics professionals and plays an important role in medicine, health care, and science, encouraging the use of data, information and knowledge to improve both human health and delivery of healthcare services.
For more information, contact:
Nancy Light
301-275-1203
nlight@amia.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Informatics professionals meet in DC at AMIA's 35th Annual SymposiumPublic release date: 24-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Light nlight@amia.org 301-275-1203 American Medical Informatics Association
Meeting agenda reflects Informatics' leadership in delivering health care
Washington, DC -- The 35th Annual Symposium on Biomedical and Health Informatics opened this week with keynote speaker Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, addressing a crowd of more than two thousand professionals who are engaged in translational bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, clinical informatics, public health informatics, and consumer health informatics.
The Symposium's theme, "Improving Health: Informatics and IT Changing the World," highlights the herculean agenda informatics professionals have assumed in enabling translational science through the use of information technology, electronic health records, on-the-spot clinical decision support, and methods that include data mining, interactive systems, biosurveillance, simulation and modeling, and development of standardized terminologies for specific applications and designs. Energized by the recent decision of the American Board of Medical Specialties to recognize Clinical Informatics as a board-certified medical subspecialty, the informatics community is gaining momentum in several key areas: growing its workforce through new and strengthened training programs at federally funded universities and community colleges, sharing informatics knowledge, experience, and expertise in a broad array of topics related to information technology and informatics applications, and reaching out across disciplines to health-related professionals in industry, research, clinical care, health policy, and education.
In his opening keynote, Dr. Collins provided a summary of the enabling role of informatics and computation in the evolution of genomics and DNA sequencing. He discussed the basic pillars of research and advancing medical science, identifying computational biology and bioinformatics as major supports to advancements in biomedical research and combating cancer and other life-threatening diseases and chronic conditions. He also discussed the planned National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), designed to speed up the process of "rescuing and repurposing" drug therapies out of the lab and into advanced clinical trials. The expectation, Dr. Collins said, is for NCATS to continue the work of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) -- all of which are required to leverage informatics as a core component of their scientific structure.
"In the ten years since the genome sequence was completed," said Dr. Collins, "the economic return resulted in a return on investment of 141:1 -- a $3 billion investment led to $790 billion of economic growth. We should not be shy to point out that medical research is not only a wonderful way to plan for a revolutionizing of medicine that is more effective and gives people a change to live healthy lives, but also is one of the best things we can do to nurture the American economy."
In his remarks during the opening session, Scientific Program Committee Chair R. Scott Evans, PhD, of Intermountain Healthcare, University of Utah, indicated that informatics had captured the imagination of mainstream America during the past year, when Watson of Jeopardy! fame triumphed over the human intellect of two long-running champions. An example of computer-assimilated intelligence, Watson is a robotic expression of how computerized health systems and informatics could one day support quality healthcare delivery. A panel composed of the Watson strategy team from IBM (Watson's creator), and clinical experts from Columbia University and University of Maryland School of Medicine is scheduled to take place Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. to examine how Watson might succeed as a clinical decision support tool, once he is tutored through medical school!
In remarks about the growth of Symposium attendance and the burgeoning field of informatics, AMIA President and CEO Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, FACMI, said, "The informatics community has a vision of remarkable ingenuity and impact: to improve health locally, nationally, and globally by connecting, collecting, and making available for exchange the vast stores of research data and evidence that are available; and mining that knowledge to benefit patients and populations everywhere. The implications are enormous," he noted, "health equity for all, standard quality care across communities and borders, and a cooperative, collegial community in terms of knowledge resources and tools." He added, "The transformation is underway -- AMIA is where this collective vision and know-how come together."
This morning's keynote speaker Gregory Abowd, PhD, Distinguished Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, discussed his research that focuses on using "ubiquitous computing technology" to promote better health outcomes and health management. Dr. Abowd described living labs instrumented with body sensors, cameras, microphones, and sensors embedded in objects to support judgment of human behavior, and the use of mobile phones and text messaging to extend health surveys that support better health management of chronic illnesses. The latter health management intervention resulted in a response rate of 87% among children with asthma, ages 8-16. Dr. Abowd projected that "within five years, the majority of clinically relevant data will be collected in non-clinical settings." Along with the use of mobile phones, which are ubiquitous among many households, his goal, he said, "is to tap into a home's infrastructure to sense and infer about human activity." Ultimately, Dr. Abowd suggested, such information could answer questions like 'What does a healthy lifestyle look like?'
A late-breaking session held yesterday examined Sorrell vs. IMS Health, a legal case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision that challenged Vermont legislation, which attempted to limit the ability of pharmaceutical companies to use analysis of large clinical datasets to support marketing activities with physicians. The case underscores the ethical considerations inherent to secondary uses of health information -- an issue of critical importance in the informatics community.
###
About AMIA
AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, serves as the voice of the nation's top biomedical and health informatics professionals and plays an important role in medicine, health care, and science, encouraging the use of data, information and knowledge to improve both human health and delivery of healthcare services.
For more information, contact:
Nancy Light
301-275-1203
nlight@amia.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Debris from Japan's tsunami approaching Hawaii. (KITV/ABC)
Some 5 to 20 million tons of debris--furniture, fishing boats, refrigerators--sucked into the Pacific Ocean in the wake of Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami are moving rapidly across the Pacific. Researchers from the University of Hawaii tracking the wreckage estimate it could approach the U.S. West Coast in the next three years, the UK Daily Mail reports.
"We have a rough estimate of 5 to 20 million tons of debris coming from Japan," University of Hawaii researcher Jan Hafner told Hawaii's ABC affiliate KITV.
Crew members from the Russian training ship the STS Pallada "spotted the debris 2,000 miles from Japan," last month after passing the Midway islands, the Mail wrote. "They saw some pieces of furniture, some appliances, anything that can float, and they picked up a fishing boat," said Hafner. The boat was 20-feet long, and was painted with the word "Fukushima." ?"That's actually our first confirmed report of tsunami debris," Hafner told KITV.
Crew on Russian ship STS Pallada spotted the debris almost 2,000 miles from Japan, including a fishing boat from??
Researchers say up to 20 mn tons of debris from Japan's March 11 tsunami could reach U.S. West Coast in three years.??
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan on March 11 has left some 20,000 people dead or missing.
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The 2011 Philadelphia Eagles seem to make news every week, so why not make some news on their bye week, too?
Cornerback Asante Samuel joined Tim McManus and Pat Callahan of 97.5 The Fanatic in Philly earlier today.? And Samuel made it clear that he?s not happy with the team?s reported willingness to trade him.
?Definitely, it doesn?t sit well with me,? Samuel said.? ?Definitely, I?ve been nothing but what they expected me to be when they brought me there. . . .? Definitely, it doesn?t sit well with me.? And obviously they don?t want me there, so life goes on.? So we?ll see where I?ll be at.?
Samuel says that knowing the team doesn?t want him won?t affect his play.
?Well, as long as I?m getting paid I?m gonna do my job,? Samuel said.? ?So whoever [is] cutting the check, I do my job. . . . So I?m not worried about that.? I just know in the back of my head they don?t want me there.? So, you know, that?s not gonna leave.? They put it out there so everybody could know that, so I know that and everybody knows that.? So it?s in the back of my head.? And Asante Samuel is a business entity first, so I?m going to make sure I handle my business accordingly.?
Samuel was the subject of trade rumors after the Eagles acquired Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nnadmi Asomugha in the days after the lockout ended.? Last week, those rumors resurfaced before the annual trading deadline.
Samuel joined the Eagles on the first day of free agency in 2008, only weeks after dropping what would have been a perfect-season-clinching interception for the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.? Signed through 2013, Samuel?s salary spikes from $5.9 million this year to $8.4 million next season.? He?s due to earn $10.4 million in base salary in the final year of the deal.
Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Microsoft Talks Portrait Mode For Windows 8 The Scourge Of Pentile Returns With The Galaxy Nexus Crayola Trace & Draw Lets Your Kids Get Dangerously Close To Your iPad Feet On With Fila?s New Skele-Toes EZ Slide Monkey Shoes Will RIM and Porsche Design Unveil A New BlackBerry Next Week?
ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2011) ? If the front part of the cerebral cortex is less active then people have less control over their social behaviour and automatically follow their inclinations more. This emerged from a study by Inge Volman that will be published on 25 October in the Journal Current Biology. The research was the first to make use of magnetic stimulation (TMS) to suppress this part at the front of the prefrontal cortex. During TMS a changing magnetic field on the head temporarily influences the activity of the underlying part of the brain.
Study subjects in whom the activity of the prefrontal cortex was temporarily suppressed could control their emotional impulses less well than normal. Their amygdala deep in the brain that is responsible for emotional reactions then becomes extra active. This emerged from the study by Inge Volman and her colleagues from the Behavioural Science Institute and the Donders Institute of Radboud University Nijmegen. This study is important for a good understanding of the role played by various parts of the brain and could in the future contribute to the treatment of aggression and social anxiety disorders.
Social-emotional behaviour
Neuroscientist Inge Volman investigates the regulation of social behaviour and emotions. She is particularly interested in how exactly that works in the brain and the factors affecting this. For example, she has previously published a study which revealed that men with more testosterone have a less active prefrontal cortex if they have to control their behaviour. Yet what exactly happens if your prefrontal cortex is less active? Are you then less capable of managing your behaviour adequately and does that make you more impulsive? Now TMS can be used investigate what happens if the prefrontal cortex in the same study subjects is made more or less active.
Disrupting brain function
TMS is the acronym for transcranial (through the skull) magnetic stimulation. A brief magnetic pulse can temporarily stimulate or suppress brain activity in a small area. Previous experiments used TMS more on top of the head and could therefore influence the movement centres, for example. Volman is the first to have used the technique on the front of the head. She placed the equipment just above the eyelashes as the area she is interested in is located directly underneath these: the foremost part of the cerebral cortex. By doing this she could control and temporarily suppress the activity of the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). At the Donders Institute the TMS equipment is situated next to the brain scanner. This allows the direct measurement of changes in the brain activity as a result of TMS. Many other TMS studies only examine changes in behaviour.
Approach versus avoidance
Volman allowed the study subjects to perform a so-called approach-avoidance task in which they were shown emotional faces. Normally we withdraw when we see an angry face and try to come closer if we see a happy person. The study subjects were asked to respond in exactly the opposite manner. Using a joystick study subjects had to approach angry faces and push away happy faces. They were significantly worse at doing this after disruption of the aPFC. The emotion area -- the amygdala -- of the study subjects became extra active. 'This ties in with what we already knew from animal and patient studies. Instead of just measuring and observing behaviour we can also directly influence brain activity with the help of TMS. Furthermore, combining TMS with fMRI makes the design of this study extra special, as then we can observe the effects in both the behaviour and the brain,' says Volman.
Therapeutic application
Even though we do not know exactly how it works, TMS is already used commercially for the treatment of depression. Based on this study are there possible therapeutic applications of TMS in people who have a disrupted control system?
'The effect of TMS is temporary and that makes it difficult to apply therapeutically. A possible application could be helping people to overcome a certain behaviour. For example, people suffering from a social anxiety disorder have a strong urge to avoid social situations, such as a party. They are often stuck in a vicious circle: as a result of this avoidance they never learn that they can cope with the situation and so the anxiety increases. This avoidance tendency could possibly be reduced with the help of TMS. Then after a treatment the patient might dare go to a party and discover that it was quite an enjoyable experience. He or she might then dare to go to another party without the need for TMS first.'
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Radboud University Nijmegen.
Note: ScienceDaily reserves the right to edit materials for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Inge Volman, Karin Roelofs, Saskia Koch, Lennart Verhagen, Ivan Toni. Anterior Prefrontal Cortex Inhibition Impairs Control over Social Emotional Actions. Current Biology, 2011; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.050
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
HANOI, Vietnam -- The siren's wail at the historic Metropole Hotel sent American folk singer Joan Baez and other guests scampering across a garden and into an underground bunker. Even through five feet of concrete, they could still hear the roar of American bombs raining on parts of Hanoi.
Nearly four decades have passed since the so-called Christmas Bombings rocked parts of Vietnam's capital in December 1972. After the war ended three years later, the bunker was sealed and all but forgotten. (*SEE PHOTOS BELOW*)
Its exact location remained a mystery until this summer, when a worker's drill pierced its thick concrete roof during renovations of a poolside bar. Since then, workers have been excavating the flooded and low-ceilinged space. Not much has been found in the seven rooms: a wine bottle, a rusty paint can and a light bulb still in a socket. But a few tales remain, some involving famous guests.
"If these walls could talk, they would tell a lot of stories," says hotel general manager Kai Speth, while giving The Associated Press an exclusive first glimpse. The bomb shelter "needs to be brought back into the life of the hotel as a reminder of what this hotel and this town went through."
The North Vietnamese government used the French colonial-era hotel, a stately four-story building in the shadow of Hanoi's Opera House, to house foreign guests during the war.
Nguyen Thi Xuan Phuong, now 82, remembers staying in the bunker during the Christmas Bombings with anti-war activist Baez. On one of the 12 nights that B-52s pounded areas around the city, the lights went out, prompting a few foreigners to scream in the darkness.
"Can you sing a song?" Phuong asked the young singer. "We may not change the situation, but your songs may help calm people down." When Baez's voice rang out as someone plucked a guitar, the bunker was revitalized, Phuong recalls.
Others who sheltered there included war correspondents and American actress Jane Fonda, says Phuong, who worked for the government as a doctor assisting foreign guests.
Fonda's visit to enemy territory ignited fury at home. She criticized U.S. policy on North Vietnamese radio and earned the nickname "Hanoi Jane" after posing for a photo atop an anti-aircraft gun ? an incident that Fonda later said she regretted.
Publicists for Baez and Fonda did not respond to requests for comment.
French entrepreneurs opened the Metropole in 1901, calling it the "the largest and best appointed hotel in Indo-China." Over the years, it welcomed celebrities from Charlie Chaplin ? who came in 1936 on his honeymoon ? to Graham Greene, who wrote parts of his famous novel, "The Quiet American," at the hotel.
The Metropole was renamed the Thong Nhat (Reunification) Hotel after Vietnam gained its independence from France in 1954. But after communist forces won the Vietnam War in 1975, the hotel languished under state management as a reunified Vietnam struggled to recover from fighting that killed some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.
It wasn't until the early 1990s, after a French company assumed partial ownership, that the Metropole regained its earlier name and its place as one of the city's spots to see and be seen.
Today, with Vietnam emerging as one of Asia's fastest growing economies, Hanoi's nouveau riche roll up in Bentleys and Rolls-Royces and toss down $70 per person on Sunday brunch. Upscale boutiques line its green-shuttered white facade, with electric blue handbags selling at Hermes for $7,000 ? nearly seven years salary for the average Vietnamese. Mick Jagger, Angelina Jolie and Fidel Castro have all spent the night.
Even those who can't afford the $10 cocktails gravitate toward the city landmark. Every day soon-to-be Vietnamese brides in pouffy layers of white silk and lace pose for wedding photos outside its walls.
Discovery of the roughly 500 square-foot (nearly 50 square-meter) bunker with its mildewed, mustard-colored walls raises questions about how it will be preserved and who will be allowed to visit, especially since half of the hotel is indirectly owned by the government.
Prominent Vietnamese historian Duong Trung Quoc says it should be opened to the public. While the bunker primarily protected foreign guests, he says it could play an important role in illuminating Vietnam War history.
But Speth, the general manager, says he doesn't want mobs of tourists turning his five-star hotel into a Southeast Asian "Grand Central Station."
"I have an obligation to my guests to keep the Metropole luxurious and exclusive," he says. "If I just leave it open, can you imagine? All of the tour guides of Hanoi would take everybody down there."
The first, which called for creation of a new director of national intelligence to ?connect the dots,? is finally making some progress in coordinating the 17 agencies of the intelligence community. But the commission?s second big proposal ...
In November 2012, one of the current GOP presidential field is looking to send President Barack Obama off to reoccupy Chicago, leaving room for one of them to occupy the White House. Here is what the GOP front-runners have said publicly about the Operation movements going on around the country:
Mitt Romney
At an event in Hopkins, N.H., on Tuesday, Romney said, "We have a very capable financial services sector that makes loans and allows business to start and thrive. Are there bad actors on Wall Street? Absolutely. And are there bad actors on Main Street? Absolutely. All the streets are connected -- Wall Street's connected to Main Street. And so finding a scapegoat, finding someone to blame, in my opinion isn't the right way to go." Romney went on to criticize the government for pushing home ownership to the point "that financial institutions make loans to people who couldn't pay them back."
Rick Perry
While Perry has not addressed Occupy Wall Street directly, he said at the recent Value Voters Summit: "You know liberals are now pointing the finger of blame at successful employers under the guise of fairness, but when they utter phrases like 'fair share' you just know, they're once again playing fast and furious with the truth. And the truth is you can't rev up the engine of economic growth by heaping higher taxes on job creators, you can't spread success by punishing it, you can't unite our country by dividing it. The answer to our troubles lies in a positive optimistic vision with policies rooted in American Exceptionalism."
Ron Paul
At a National Press Club Event on Oct. 5, Paul supported the Occupy movement saying ,"As far as the federal government involved in the practice of civil disobedience in the various states, it's really up to the states to deal with it. I think that civil disobedience, if everybody knows exactly what they are doing, is a legitimate effort. It's been done in this country for many grievances. Some people end up going to jail for this. But to speak for a special group and say, 'Yeah, I like what they are doing or they are not doing,' but what I want to do is try to sort it out and tell people why they are struggling and that this was a predictable event."
Paul also said "I can argue the case for their right to express their outright frustration with what is going on. Some are liberals and some are conservatives and some are libertarians and some are strict constitutionalists. And if you read carefully over what I've written over the past 10 or 15 years, I talk a lot about this, that eventually we will go bankrupt."
Herman Cain
To the Social Conservatives Convention in Washington, Cain said, "They are not working on the right problem. Wall Street didn't write those failed policies. Wall Street didn't spend a trillion dollars. You can demonstrate all you want on Wall Street. The problem is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. If you never work on the right problem, you'll never get the right answer."
LOS ANGELES ? Nine women were honored at Elle magazine's Women in Hollywood event, yet all were dazzled by one lady in particular.
Barbra Streisand wowed her fellow honorees and an audience of Hollywood insiders Monday night at the 18th annual celebration of the industry's leading ladies. Actresses such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Viola Davis, Evan Rachel Wood, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts said before the ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel that Streisand has inspired them, and the love fest continued throughout the private dinner.
Jennifer Aniston told the 69-year-old entertainer that she loved her, and Pinto said on stage that "sharing the same oxygen" as Streisand was an incredible birthday gift. The actress turns 27 Tuesday.
"You're a legend not only in Hollywood but literally all over the world," the "Slumdog Millionaire" star told Streisand. "I can say that because I come from India."
She said Streisand's song "Putting it Together" is "like a reality check that every girl that wants to get into this big entertainment industry needs to listen to."
"That was a truly inspirational song, so thank you so much for that," Pinto said.
Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow introduced Streisand as "a world icon" and "somebody who has mastered virtually every art form imaginable: directing, acting, composing, singing, producing, writing."
Streisand returned the love in kind, congratulating her fellow honorees, which included Pfeiffer, Davis, Wood, Pinto, Watts, Aniston, actress Elizabeth Olsen and DreamWorks Studios chief Stacey Snider.
"They're all so charming, so well spoken, and so thin," Streisand said, adding, "I ate the chocolate cake."
(Also on the menu: Alaskan halibut and a roasted peach salad.)
Streisand said that only seven percent of the top 250 films were directed by women and she urged her colleagues to be fearless about moving forward in the entertainment industry.
"Let's be bold and don't wait for the phone to ring," she said. "Create your own material. Tell me a story."
The love didn't stop with Streisand. Olsen said Pfeiffer inspired her to become an actress, and Reese Witherspoon said Aniston had "sex appeal and complete lovability."
"You just want to get your nails done with her and you want to make out with her at the same time. At least I do," Witherspoon said. "And that's what we do sometimes on Saturdays."
"The Help" co-star Octavia Spencer traded "I love yous" with Davis, whom she said recently became a new mom. (Davis said her baby's name is Genesis, but offered no other details.)
The Oscar nominee said it isn't love that drives her to keep working in Hollywood.
"What keeps me in the business is hope, and that's the hope that women of color are also part of the narrative," Davis said. "(I'm) sending a telepathic message to you: Every time some young actress of color comes in a room with a character they're auditioning for that's not ethnically specific, that you have a space in your brain that can open up and embrace them and allow them in, because I'm telling you, their lives are just as fascinating and multifaceted."
The audience gave her a standing ovation, and welcomed Streisand the same way.
The Women in Hollywood honorees are featured in Elle's November issue.
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Online:
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy.
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AP Entertainment Writer Natalie Rotman contributed to this report.
NEW YORK ? Shannen Doherty has married for the third time.
Doherty's publicist confirms the actress married wedding photographer Kurt Iswarienko on Saturday in Malibu, Calif.
The 40-year-old actress is most famous for her performance as Brenda Walsh on "Beverly Hills 90210." She reprised the role in the CW "90210" spinoff.
She was previously briefly married to actor Ashley Hamilton in 1993 and Rick Saloman in 2002. Saloman is known for making a sex videotape with then-girlfriend Paris Hilton that surfaced in 2003.
Iswarienko is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in celebrity portraits.
In any political debate, you would expect the candidates would be able to, for the most part, hold themselves together. So why did Congressman Ron Paul?s eyebrows look like they were falling off during this week?s presidential showdown?
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Paul gathered with the other Republican candidates for president at Dartmouth College, but he was the only one whose face looked like it was about fo melt off. Specifically, The New York Times observed that Paul?s ?appeared to have a second, thinner brow under the one headed south, creating a delicate X over his right eye.?
And it?s true ? you can see in the video of the debate that Paul?s eyebrows are at least a little askew. The congressman?s spokespeople say his allergies were acting up (which, you know, great explanation), and that any suggestion that he?s using some kind of false brows is an insult. Still, it?s a little suspicious. We get the sniffles any time we?re prevailed upon to be around cats, but our sideburns don?t float away from our faces. And if you take a look at the close up, that?s sort of what it looks like is happening. Either that or Paul has some weird genetic mutation that allows him to have one double helix brow that no one has noticed for 76 years.
RELATED: Rep. Aaron Schock Flaunts His Abs On Men?s Health Cover
So what happened? Is his face experiencing the kind of tectonic shift normally reserved for, um, tectonic plates? Were the brows glued on? Take a look at video of his remarks at the debate below, and tell us what you think is going on up there.
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Dartmouth College Eyebrows facial hair GOP Presidential Debate Ron Paul
I'm interested in joining. ^^ I am confused though, do we have to reserve set places? I mean, if so then I can't really join since there aren't any places. XD
If I can join then do tell me and i'll work on my character. He might not be up until tomorrow though since I am really tired and have been working all day.
Dennis Ritchie, a computer scientist who wrote the popular C programming language and helped develop the Unix operating system, has died. He was 70.
Ritchie died a month after his birthday, according to his biography on a Web page of Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs. Ritchie joined Bell Labs in the late 1960s.
The company announced his death Thursday but did not give the cause or say when Ritchie died.
Ritchie is best known for his contributions to computer programming and software. The C programming language, which he developed in the early 1970s, is still popular. It has gone through a number of upgrades, and it is commonly used for website development and other computer tasks. The Unix operating software also surged in popularity. It and its offshoots, including the open-source Linux, are widely used today, in corporate servers and even cellphones.
Ritchie was born Sept. 9, 1941, in Bronxville, N.Y. His father, Alistair, was a systems engineer at Bell Labs and his mother, Jean, was a homemaker. After studying physics and math at Harvard University, Ritchie joined Bell Labs.
"My undergraduate experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be a physicist, and that computers were quite neat," Ritchie wrote. "My graduate school experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be an expert in the theory of algorithms and also that I liked procedural languages better than functional ones."
At Bell, Ritchie and colleague Kenneth Thompson worked closely to create Unix. In writing the C language, Ritchie built on Thompson's earlier B language. Their collaborations were intended to simplify operating systems and make the software portable and easy to move from existing hardware to new computers, resulting in the open-source movement of sharing ideas.
"I wanted to find out what things a program or operating system could make possible that you couldn't do before," Ritchie told Investors Business Daily in 2003.
Bell Labs' emphasis on research provided opportunities for Ritchie and Thompson to develop pioneering innovations.
"There are features in C that everyone takes for granted now," Doug McIlroy, a Bell colleague, told Investors Business Daily. "But when Dennis created them, they were new to the world."
ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2011) ? It is known that the unmarried are in general more likely to die than their married counterparts and there is some indication that the divide is in fact getting worse. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Public Health looks at the changes in cancer survival over the past 40 years and show that the difference in mortality between the married and never married, especially between married and never married men, has also increased.
H?kon Kravdal from the University of Oslo and Dr Astri Syse from the Cancer Registry of Norway looked at survival data from patients diagnosed with cancer between 1970 and 2007 and compared this to their marital status -- married, never married, divorced/separated, or widowed. Their results showed that the unmarried have a greater risk of mortality regardless of age, education, site of tumour, time since diagnosis, and cancer stage. Additionally, over the 40 years for the study, the effect of never having been married on mortality increased from 18% to 35% for men and from 17% to 22% for women.
Dr Astri Syse explained, "The differences in survival between unmarried and married people with cancer could possibly be explained by better general health at time of diagnosis or better adherence to treatment regimes and follow ups. H?kon Kravdal continued, "One problem with this kind of study is that cohabiting people are scattered throughout the never married, divorced/separated, or widowed groups. Consequently, presuming cohabiters to have the same benefits as married couples, the actual differences between couples and singletons are probably much higher."
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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by BioMed Central, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Journal Reference:
H?kon Kravdal and Astri Syse. Changes over time in the effect of marital status on cancer survival. BMC Public Health, 2011 [link]
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It's not exactly "All in the Family," yet, but they're trying.
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The MTV duo were busted in Jacksonville, Ark., on suspicion of child endangerment and drug-related charges after authorities found them living in disgusting conditions. Per police, traces of human and dog feces were found on clothing and on the floors and walls of the residence, which was also full of flies and maggots in some parts. Investigators also turned up in the search 1 gram of synthetic marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
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According to TMZ, officials from the state's Department of Child Services granted Rendon and Jackson two meetings a week with Jocelyn with a supervisor present, though it looks like they've a ways to go before they can regain even temporary custody.
The pair has reportedly enrolled in parenting classes and therapy in an effort to get Joceyln back. And Ebony herself expressed a desire to clean up their act in a post to her official fan page shortly after her and her hubby's arrest.
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"I would like u all to know those tabloids aren't all true," she wrote. "My family is Wat [sic] is important to me right now [and] they have always been...we just ask for support in our time of hardship...I don't expect u all to support us but we lost a kid and didn't deal now we [are]."
A rep for the Arkansas Department of Human Services told E! News the department is unable to release information regarding the case, citing privacy reasons.
MTV declined to comment on the matter.
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If you've been dreaming of a world where Android apps are free to roam across your Windows desktop, you're in luck, because BlueStacks has just turned your reverie into reality. Today, the startup unveiled an alpha version of its App Player -- software that allows users to run a host of Android apps on Windows PCs, tablets or desktops, without requiring them to make modifications to their original OS. Available as a free download, this early test version comes pre-loaded with ten apps, and can support an extra 26, on top of that. BlueStacks' free Cloud Connect app, meanwhile, allows you to port third-party apps directly from your handset to your computer, though some games, including Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, are prohibited. Those, it turns out, will be included under a paid version of the App Player, which BlueStacks hopes to launch at a later date. You can take the free software for a spin at the source link below, or meander past the break for a demo video, along with a pair of press releases.
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Public release date: 24-Oct-2011
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Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Microsoft Talks Portrait Mode For Windows 8 The Scourge Of Pentile Returns With The Galaxy Nexus Crayola Trace & Draw Lets Your Kids Get Dangerously Close To Your iPad Feet On With Fila?s New Skele-Toes EZ Slide Monkey Shoes Will RIM and Porsche Design Unveil A New BlackBerry Next Week?
