The great SA internet radio stats debacle explained | memeburn

In the world of South African internet radio, all eyes were recently on NetDynamix, the audio streaming provider that services online radio stations such as 2OceansVibe Radio and Ballz Radio.

Richard Hardiman from 2OceansVibe radio claims that the internet radio station attracts an average listenership of 35 000 [an hour], while Ballz co-founder Darren Scott, a former national DJ, recently told media news site Media Update that ?weekly statistics for May show an average hourly listenership of just over 51 000 between 12:00 and 18:00?. Shaun Dewberry an IT specialist from Pretoria, called the numbers reported by the radio stations into question.

The radio stations pointed to NetDynamix, saying that they are only reporting the numbers as provided by the audio streaming provider. If they are doing just that, they might have misinterpreted NetDynamix?s figures.

In a press release, NetDynamix gives the following explanation of the numbers given through to the radio stations.

?NetDynamix, on request, provide their clients with numbers based on ?sessions?. A session is defined as a connection to the server(s) in order to receive the audio/video stream. This does not take into account that a listener could change devices or lose their connection to the server, at which point it needs to be reestablished, or the change in IP address of that connection or change in route from point of connection to breakout onto the internet; to name just a few examples of multiple sessions being initiated to the service. It would not be in the interest of NetDynamix to give their clients any information other than the raw numbers generated by these ?sessions?.

The figures reported to the radio stations are sessions and not unique listeners and it is the responsibility of the radio stations to report the numbers as such.

For example, NetDynamix states that on a random day in May of this year, Ballz Radio initiated a total number of 59 764 sessions during the hour of 2PM to NetDynamix?s servers.

It?s quite clear then. Since we are counting sessions, it would be remiss to say that Ballz Radio had 59 764 total listeners during the hour. If I connected to the radio station, lost my internet connection and reconnected, I would create two sessions. Yet, I am only one listener.

Source: http://memeburn.com/2012/06/the-great-sa-internet-radio-stats-debacle-explained/

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At The Table: Touring Latvia

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Why to Create an Ecommerce Website | Immerse CMS

In today?s internet dominated world, almost everything is available on internet. Be it clothes, books, groceries or jewelry, if you have the internet connection, you can easily purchase anything sitting at home by just making a few clicks. This has lead to a tremendous increase in the number of ecommerce websites on the World Wide Web. More and more business owners are realizing that ecommerce website development is an excellent opportunity to expand the business and reach to international customers as well.

Today, people prefer to order things online due to paucity of time. Online shopping has become a convenient way of shopping. It helps to save time. This is the reason why there is no dearth of ecommerce websites. Therefore, to keep up with the competitors and stay ahead of them, it is necessary to create an ecommerce website. Ecommerce web development provides a golden opportunity to sell your products and services to customers both nationally and internationally, 24*7 a day. Customers can access the site any time of the day. There are several other benefits offered by custom ecommerce development.

First of all, it helps to build up the brand value of your business. More and more customers come to know about the existence of your business and it increases your reputation eventually. It also helps you to launch new products and services easily. You can sell products and services to the customers across the world. Another benefit of an ecommerce website is that it helps to develop a better understanding of the customers? requirements.

Ecommerce websites are the best way to enhance existing marketing programs. It also helps you to sell more products as compared to a physical store. It also allows various payment options. Customers can pay through credit cards, PayPal, Google checkout etc. An ecommerce website also helps to reduce the cost of sale. Since there is no human interaction involved in an online transaction, the direct cost-of-sale is much lower than the traditional means i.e. retail, paper based etc. Also the online selling and purchasing is much faster. It is also the cheapest means of doing business.

Thus it is clear that why it is so important to have an ecommerce website in today?s time. It not only boosts the performance of a business but also helps it to generate more ROI than ever before. Always hire a professional and reputed ecommerce web design company to get the best ecommerce web design.

Source: http://www.immersecms.com/why-to-create-an-ecommerce-website/

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Convenience shoulders tomato taste aside

Breeding for consistent color in unripe fruit may have diminished flavor

Web edition : Thursday, June 28th, 2012

It looks like 70 years of breeding for better color in unripe fruit has inadvertently helped create the wet-paper towel flavor of the modern tomato.

Growers care about the green of unripe tomatoes, explains biochemist Ann L. Thomas Powell of the University of California, Davis. Ripening globes that are each uniformly green let growers easily judge when a field will be ready for harvest. Over decades breeders have selected for this uniform green coloring instead of for tomatoes that turn a deeper shade around the stem end, Powell says.

The problem is, getting rid of that dark green zone, called green shoulders, turns out to have sabotaged a gene called SlGLK2 that boosts sugar and other sources of flavor in the ripe tomato, Powell and her colleagues report in the June 29 Science.

?It is a good illustration of unintended consequences,? says molecular biologist Harry Klee of the University of Florida in Gainesville, who studies tomato flavor.

For years, Powell says, breeders assumed that a ripe red tomato got all of its sugars from the little photosynthetic engines known as chloroplasts in the plant leaves. It turns out, however, that a green-shouldered tomato gets about 20 percent of its sugars from its own chloroplasts. Without a functional SlGLK2 gene, the ripening tomato forms fewer and punier chloroplasts that don?t deliver, Powell and her colleagues have found.

Skimping on sugars certainly could make a difference in flavor, says Klee, who routinely does taste tests in his lab. His tomato testing panels respond strongly to sugar content. ?The more the better,? he says.

Volatile compounds wafting off a tomato?s flesh also play a big role in its appeal. The problem is, inadequate chloroplasts likewise won?t produce as much of the chemical precursors for some of those compounds. ?It?s totally obvious you?re going to take a hit in some of the volatiles,? Klee says.

In the June 5 Current Biology, he and his colleagues highlighted the importance of a handful of volatiles ? some of them mere whiffs ? in seducing the nose and taste buds.

Exactly what the loss of the green-shoulders trait means for tomato flavor remains to be measured. But, Klee says, ?it's not the whole story of why modern tomatoes are so bad, by a long shot.?

Picking them before they?re fully ripe diminishes flavor, as does refrigerating them. Chilling tomatoes below 13? Celsius kills metabolic processes still functioning in a picked tomato, Klee says, so the fruit never manages to replace the lovely volatiles that float away.

Even under ideal conditions, genetic differences will matter in flavor. When Klee and his colleagues pamper various commercial varieties, taste panels pan some of them and give the best ones decent but not brilliant ratings. And just because a variety is an heirloom doesn?t mean it tastes great, he cautions. For his taste panels, Cherry Roma is the reigning favorite.

When choosing among generic tomatoes, he recommends going for cherry tomatoes and other little types: ?Breeders haven?t had as much time to mess them up,? he says.
Found in: Genes & Cells and Life

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341845/title/Convenience_shoulders_tomato_taste_aside

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Colorful light at the end of the tunnel for radiation detection

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2012) ? A team of nanomaterials researchers at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new technique for radiation detection that could make radiation detection in cargo and baggage more effective and less costly for homeland security inspectors.

Known as spectral shape discrimination (SSD), the method takes advantage of a new class of nanoporous materials known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Researchers discovered that adding a doping agent to an MOF leads to the emission of red and blue light when the MOF interacts with high-energy particles emanated from radiological or nuclear material, enabling more effective detection of neutrons. Neutron detection is currently a costly and technically challenging endeavor due to the difficulty in distinguishing neutrons from ubiquitous background gamma rays.

Initial work on the use of MOFs for radiation detection was internally funded by Sandia's Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, but subsequent funding for the project has come from the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation research office.

"Improving our radiation detection capabilities is crucial to advancing NNSA's nonproliferation mission," said Anne Harrington, NNSA's deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation. "Preventing the illicit movement of radiological and nuclear materials around the globe supports the president's nuclear security objectives and helps to mitigate the threat of a nuclear terror attack."

The new technology works with plastic scintillators, materials that fluoresce when struck by charged particles or high-energy photons, making it suitable for commercialization by companies who produce plastic and other organic scintillators used in radiation detection devices. Though work remains before it can move into the marketplace, Sandia is currently seeking commercial partners to license the technology.

(See a video clip at www.youtube.com/SandiaLabs that shows Sandia researchers demonstrating and explaining their work.)

Current radiation detection methods are limited in terms of speed and sensitivity, crucial elements for dynamic scenarios, such as border crossings, cargo screenings and nuclear treaty verification. This new technology monitors the color of light emissions, which have the potential to make the screening process easier and more reliable.

"We are approaching the problem from a materials-chemistry perspective," said Sandia materials scientist Mark Allendorf. "Fundamentally, it is easier to monitor the color of light emissions rather than the rate at which that light is emitted. That's the crux of this new approach." Current radiation detection methods use time to discriminate between neutrons and gamma rays, requiring complex and costly electronics.

MOFs and dopants lead to more light

Allendorf and his team have been working with MOFs for more than five years. Early on, they discovered a fluorescent, porous MOF with superb scintillation properties, an important breakthrough and the first new class of scintillators found in decades. The MOF's porosity is a key feature because it allows researchers to add other materials to fine-tune the scintillation.

The MOF's nanoporosity triggered a new idea when team member Patrick Doty read about the use of dopants to increase the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). These dopants, usually compounds containing heavy metals such as iridium, dramatically increase OLED brightness by "scavenging" the excited-state energy in the device that was not converted to light. This energy represents as much as 75 percent of the possible light output.

Combining MOFs with OLED dopants led to a second breakthrough. By filling MOF pores with dopants, the team created a material that not only produces more light, but light of another color. Doty, a materials scientist working in Sandia's radiation/nuclear detection materials and analysis department, hypothesized that the discovery could be applied to radiation detection.

The trick, Doty said, is to add just the right amount of dopant so that both the scavenged light and fluorescence from the excited MOF itself are emitted. Then the ratio of the intensities at the two wavelengths is a function of the type of high-energy particle interacting with the material. "That's the critical thing," Doty said. "SSD allows one particle type to be distinguished from another on the basis of the color of the emitted light."

Because the ratio of neutrons to gamma rays is so low -- on the order of one neutron to 105 gamma rays -- the threshold at which current detectors can see neutrons is fairly high. Sandia calculations suggest that the threshold for detecting neutrons produced by fissionable material could be lowered substantially using SSD, perhaps improving the "figure of merit" by a factor of 10 compared to the current standards. "In principle, we could quadruple the sensitivity of the gold standard," said Allendorf.

SSD also addresses another radiation detection problem -- active interrogation. Using an active source to create a signal from special nuclear material is an effective means for detection, say Sandia researchers. But current detectors are often overwhelmed by the onslaught of gamma rays. The new materials developed at Sandia can be tuned for improved timing performance at high rates, and the new technology also could be used in radiation detectors for treaty verification.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Sandia National Laboratories, via Newswise.

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/9th6Ilz75NM/120629115657.htm

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China's first female astronaut returns to Earth

China's first female astronaut and two other crew members completed a 13-day mission Friday to an orbiting prototype for a future Chinese space station.

By Christopher Bodeen,?Associated Press / June 29, 2012

China's first female astronaut Liu Yang waves as she comes out of the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Friday, June 29, 2012. Liu and two other crew members returned safely to earth Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting prototype space station.

AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Jianmin

Enlarge

China's first female astronaut and two other crew members emerged smiling from a capsule that returned safely to Earth on Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that is a prototype for a future space station.

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The Shenzhou 9 parachuted to a landing on the grasslands of the country's sprawling Inner Mongolia region at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT). China declared the first manned mission to the Tiangong 1 module ? the space program's longest and most challenging yet ? a major stride ahead for the country's ambitious space program.

About an hour later, mission commander and veteran astronaut Jing Haipeng, 45, emerged from the capsule, followed by crew mates Liu Wang, 43, and 33-year-old Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut.

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The three, all experienced air force pilots, were lifted on to folding chairs and appeared in good health. They smiled, waved, chatted and saluted as state television ran live footage from the landing site.

"Tiangong 1, our home in space, was comfortable and pleasant. We're very proud of our nation," Liu Yang told national broadcaster CCTV.

Space program commander, Gen. Chang Wanchuan, declared the astronauts in good health and declared the mission "completely successful."

He was followed by Premier Wen Jiabao, who said the mission marked "absolutely important progress" for the space program.

The mission had included both remote control and piloted dockings with the module and extensive medical monitoring of the astronauts as part of preparations for manning a permanent space station.

China's next goals include another manned mission to the module originally scheduled for later this year but which may be delayed depending on an evaluation of the Shenzhou 9 mission and the condition of the Tiangong 1. China has been extremely cautious and methodical in its manned missions, with more than three years passing since the previous one, and all four have been relatively problem-free.

Chen Shanguang, director for the Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Center, told a news conference that preparations and selection of astronauts were already under way for the Shenzhou 10 mission.

Tiangong 1 is due to be retired in a few years and replaced with a permanent space station around 2020 that will weigh about 60 tons, slightly smaller than NASA's Skylab of the 1970s and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station that China was barred from participating in, largely on objections from the United States. Possible future missions could include sending a rover to the moon, possibly followed by a manned lunar mission. Launched June 16 from the Jiuquan center on the edge of the Gobi desert in northern China, Shenzhou 9 is the latest success for China's manned space program that launched its first astronaut, Yang Liwei, into space in 2003, making China just the third nation after Russia and the U.S. to achieve that feat. China would also be the third country after the United States and Russia to send independently maintained space stations into orbit.

Earlier in the week, a spokeswoman said China spent 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) on its space program between 1992 and 2005 ? a rare admission for a program with close links to the secretive military. By the time the next Shenzhou mission is completed, Beijing will have spent an additional 19 billion yuan ($3 billion), the spokeswoman said.

Wang Zhaoyao, director of China's manned space program office, said the program mirrors the rising global status of China.

"For any country, for any people, a space program is indispensable," Wang said.

___

Associated Press writer Didi Tang contributed to this report.

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Q1G9nC7bTpQ/China-s-first-female-astronaut-returns-to-Earth

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Nadal shocked as Wimbledon reels from scandal

Rafael Nadal crashed to his worst Grand Slam defeat in seven years on Thursday when Czech journeyman Lukas Rosol, the world number 100, pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Wimbledon history.

After a day when the sleepy All England Club had been rocked by allegations of cheating and sexism, it was the unknown Rosol who delivered the final, late night, earth-shattering blow.

Rosol, whose only other five visits to Wimbledon had ended in first round losses in qualifying, stunned the 2008 and 2010 champion, and 11-time Grand Slam title winner Nadal, 6-7 (9/11), 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in the second round.

It was a remarkable upset as Nadal slumped to his earliest exit at a major since the same stage of the 2005 Wimbledon championship when he was beaten by Luxembourg's Gilles Muller.

"It's painful to lose tonight, I'm not very happy but it was just the second round, I was a long way from the final," said Nadal.

"The last four months have been great for me. I lost a tennis match tonight, it's not a tragedy. There are more important things."

Rosol, 26, who has never gone beyond the third round of a Grand Slam, was stunned by his own performance which was capped by three aces, out of a total off 22, and a forehand winner in the decisive last game.

"It's like a miracle for me. He's a superstar. I played unbelievable. I guess Nadal is only human," said Rosol, after the match had been delayed by 45 minutes to allow the Centre Court roof to close and for the match to finish.

Rosol goes on to face Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber in the next round.

Earlier Thursday, Wimbledon had been engulfed by scandal with Ivo Karlovic accusing officials of cheating him out of victory against home hope Andy Murray and Gilles Simon refusing to back down in the equal prize money row.

Croat giant Karlovic was called for 11 foot faults in his 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) loss and accused All England Club line judges of deliberately attempting to ease the British player's path through the tournament.

"I feel cheated. On a Grand Slam, Centre Court," said 33-year-old Karlovic.

"It was outrageous. It's Wimbledon and they do this. This is bullshit.

"The whole credibility of this tournament went down for me. I don't expect it here. Even though it is against an English guy who they always want to win."

Murray, the fourth seed, admitted he was surprised to see so many foot faults called against the big-serving Croat.

"If he wasn't foot faulting then he has a right to be upset, because there was a lot of them. But if he was, then you can't do it. It's not allowed," said the Scot, who has been a semi-finalist in the last three years.

Murray will tackle Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus for a place in the last 16.

Meanwhile, Simon defended his controversial views on equal prize money which he opposes, claiming the men's game is more attractive than the women's and is more popular with the fans.

And he believes that the men's locker room supports him but players are afraid to speak out.

"The 128 male players here think like me," said Simon, who was knocked out of the tournament by Xavier Malisse in the second round.

"Maybe they can't say it; maybe they won't; maybe they will lose $2 million on the contracts. In the conversation in the locker room, for sure they agree with me. Trust me."

Simon, who has never got beyond the quarter-finals of any Grand Slam, was lambasted by Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, two of the women's game's superstars, after they had secured their places in the last 32.

Top seed Sharapova, the 2004 champion, had to dig deep to clinch a gritty 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (3/7), 6-0 victory over Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova, a semi-finalist in 2010 and quarter-finalist last year.

She will next face Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei as last year's runner-up tries to reach the Wimbledon final for the third time.

Four-time champion Williams reached the third round with a 6-1, 6-4 demolition of Hungarian qualifier Melinda Czink and next faces Chinese 25th seed Zheng Jie, who she beat in the 2008 semi-finals, for a place in the last 16.

But instead of discussing their tournament prospects, the two All England Club A-listers aimed their fire at Simon.

"No matter what anyone says, or the criticisms that we get, despite everything else, I'm sure there are a few more people that watch my matches than his, so....," said Sharapova in an ice-cold put down.

Williams backed up her title rival.

"She's way hotter than he is, so more people will watch Maria," said the American.

Defending champion Petra Kvitova and second seed Victoria Azarenka also reached the third round.

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10 great ideas from Micah Solomon's High-Tech, High Touch ...

{This is an article by hospitality writer/reviewer? Josiah Mackenzie.Thanks, Josiah! }

High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service by business keynote speaker, customer service consultant, and bestselling author Micah Solomon is packed with good ideas ? here are ten of my favorites after reading it last week:

1. ?Technology needs people?and a culture that supports those people?s best efforts.
2. ?Expect things to go wrong. Plan for this eventuality, keeping the emotional needs of your customer central.
3. ?A well-thought-out problem-resolution process starts by active ?harvesting? of complaints?by being eagerly open to receiving input.
4. ?For masterful companies, providing something extra is the standard throughout the customer experience. These extras are always the things the more shortsighted among a company?s stakeholders want to cut first, but without them it?s almost impossible to differentiate your service.
5. ?Nobody ever shouts out, ?Yeehaw?I just had an incredibly satisfactory customer service experience.? But if your service truly anticipates your customers? desires and wishes, your customers will be well on their way to feeling they can?t, or certainly don?t want to, live without you.
6. ?Any business advantage you pride yourself on can be copied by a competitor?.The culture of your company is the exception to this rule. Strong company cultures are overwhelmingly knockoff resistant.
7. ?Ritz-Carlton?s Three Stages of Service are: 1. Warm welcome 2. Anticipation of and compliance with guest needs 3. Fond farewell
8. ?Restaurateur Danny Meyer: the two things people want from the hospitality experience are a sense of acknowledgment and, on returning, a sense of being remembered.
9. ?Small Error + Slow Response Time = Colossal PR Disaster. The magnitude of a social media uproar increases disproportionately with the length of your response time.
10. ?You need technologically savvy people supporting your social media customer service work, but the people actually helming the operation and responding to customers need to be the same ones who are expert at day-to-day customer service operations and are responsible for interacting with your customers.?

And a bonus tidbit from Cornell?s Center for Hospitality Research: a 250-room hotel will have approximately 5,000 staff-guest interactions per day. As Micah says,? ?There?s no way someone in a leadership position can dictate every single one of those five thousand interactions. Rather, a leader?s only chance to get the preponderance of these interactions right is to develop a shared cultural understanding of what needs to be done?and why.?

The book is a great read for anyone looking to design and deliver better customer experiences with the help of technology. See the details here?.

????????????????????

?Micah Solomon conveys an up-to-the minute and deeply practical take on customer service, business success, and the twin importance of people and technology.? ?Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder

Micah Solomon ? Author-Speaker-Strategist ? Customer Service ? Marketing ? Loyalty ? Leadership

See Micah in action ? including video and free resources ? at http://www.micahsolomon.com. Or, click here for your own free chapter? of Micah?s new book,? High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service (AMACOM Books) and Micah?s #1 bestseller, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization

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Puttinglocalbusinessesonline.com Estimated Value N/A - WideStat

This domain registered on 2010-09-25. It has 4 backlinks according to Alexa.
The website's IP address is 174.120.127.58, which tells us that the geographical location of its server is in Houston, United States. This site has Google PageRank? 0 of 10.

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Title:

Putting Local Businesses Online

Description:

Giving Offline Businesses An Online Presence For Increased Profits

Tags:

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Rebels storm Pro-Assad Syrian TV channel

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Gunmen stormed a pro-government Syrian TV channel headquarters on Wednesday, bombing buildings and shooting dead three employees, state media said, in one of the boldest attacks yet on a symbol of the authoritarian state.

President Bashar al-Assad declared late on Tuesday that his country was "at war". U.S. intelligence officials said the Syrian government was "holding fairly firm" and digging in for a long struggle against rebel forces who are getting stronger.

The dawn attack on Ikhbariya television's offices, located 20 km (15 miles) south of the capital, as well as overnight fighting on the outskirts of Damascus showed 16 months of violence now rapidly encroaching on the city.

Ikhbariya resumed broadcasting shortly after the attack that killed three journalists and four security guards, displaying bullet holes in its two-storey concrete building and pools of blood on the floor. One building was almost entirely destroyed.

"I heard a small explosion then a huge explosion and gunmen ran in. They ransacked the offices and entirely destroyed the newsroom," an employee who works at the offices in the town of Drousha told state media at the scene.

Syrian media are tightly regulated by the Ministry of Information. Although Ikhbariya is privately owned, opponents of Assad say it is a government mouthpiece.

After Tuesday's fighting unprecedented in its intensity around Damascus, violence appeared to ease off around the capital following the attack on the television complex. But rebel forces were clearly becoming stronger and more ambitious.

SYRIA "AT WAR"

During the pro-democracy revolt against the Assad family's four-decade rule, Ikhbariya has been pushing to counter what it says is a campaign of misinformation by Western and Arab satellite channels on the uprising that began in March 2011.

"We live in a real state of war from all angles," Assad told a cabinet he appointed on Tuesday, in a speech broadcast on state television. "When we are in a war, all policies and all sides and all sectors need to be directed at winning this war."

The declaration marks a change of rhetoric from Assad, who had long dismissed the uprising against him as the work of scattered militants in "terrorist gangs" funded from abroad.

The rambling speech - Assad also commented on subjects as far afield as the benefits of renewable energy - left little room for compromise. He denounced the West, which "takes and never gives, and this has been proven at every stage".

International mediator Kofi Annan said he had convened a ministerial-level meeting on Syria in Geneva on Saturday with the aim of seeking an end to the violence and agreeing on principles for a "Syrian-led political transition".

In a statement, the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy said he had invited foreign ministers from the five major powers - Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States - as well as Turkey, the European Union, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar.

Despite the deterioration in Syria, so far there has been no sign of an appetite for full-scale Western intervention. However, last week's shooting down of a Turkish warplane by Syrian air defenses has focused attention on a volatile situation on Turkey's southeastern border with Syria.

"We will not refrain from teaching a lesson to anyone trying to test Turkey's greatness," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, referring to the incident near the countries' maritime borders.

Turkey's land border territories, hosting over 33,000 refugees and units of the rebel Free Syria Army (FSA), are quickly becoming a potential flashpoint. Tuesday's comments by Erdogan may if anything have added further uncertainty to the situation there.

Erdogan said on Tuesday that Syrian military elements approaching the border and posing a threat would be deemed a military target. He made no public clarification of new terms of engagement issued to troops.

"With Tayyip Erdogan's announcement, and if Syria complies with it, Turkey will have by itself declared a de facto 'buffer zone'," Radikal newspaper columnist Cengiz Candar wrote.

"And if Bashar al-Assad doesn't comply with this? That is, if he continues to send soldiers right up to the border? Turkey runs the risk of a military operation against him."

Turkey has in the past spoken of possible establishment of a 'humanitarian corridor' on Syrian soil - a venture that would inevitably require armed protection. But it has always insisted such a measure, if required by a rising tide of refugees or by evidence of massacres, would need international endorsement

United Nations investigators said on Wednesday Syrian government forces had committed human rights violations, including executions, across the country "on an alarming scale" during military operations in the past three months.

The report by the U.N. Human Rights Council, issued in Geneva, also listed killings and kidnappings by armed opposition groups trying to topple President Assad.

"The situation on the ground is dangerously and quickly deteriorating," the report said.

Syria's ambassador dismissed the accusations and threatened to end cooperation with international agencies.

The United Nations accuses Syrian forces of killing more than 10,000 people during the conflict, which began with a popular uprising and has built up into an armed insurgency.

DIGGING IN FOR LONG HAUL

Despite some military defections, mainly from low to mid-level ranks, Assad's inner circle remains cohesive and the war is still likely to be a drawn-out struggle, senior U.S. intelligence officials said, in an assessment dimming any U.S. hopes that Assad will fall soon.

"Our overall assessment ... would be that we are still seeing the military regime forces fairly cohesive, they've learned some lessons over the last year and a half about how to deal with this kind of insurgency," an official said.

The insurgency is also getting stronger, he said.

"Both sides seem to be girding for a long struggle. Our sense is that the regime still believes it can ultimately prevail or at least appears determined to try to prevail and the opposition at the same time seems to be preparing for a long fight."

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Washington, additional reporting by Jonathon Burch and Jon Hemming, Editing by Ralph Boulton/Janet McBride)

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News Corp considering splitting into two: WSJ

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Injected Proteins Protect Mice From Lethal Radiation Dose

Radiation and life are not mutually exclusive. Heck, there are fungi and bacteria that THRIVE on radiation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus [wikipedia.org]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans [wikipedia.org]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermococcus_gammatolerans [wikipedia.org]

This treatment mentioned here has another key use besides radiation accidents on Earth: long term space travel.

If we are going to Mars, we are going to have to harden the human body to radiation exposure.

Through some combination of genetic treatments gleaned from researching radiation extremophiles, and research like this excellent find on these proteins, the human body should be able to be hardened to long term high levels of radiation. That's excellent news for space travel.

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TEXT-S&P:K-REIT Asia rtg unaffected by stake acquisition

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Speeding up bone growth by manipulating stem cells

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2012) ? If you break a bone, you know you'll end up in a cast for weeks. But what if the time it took to heal a break could be cut in half? Or cut to just a tenth of the time it takes now? Qian Wang, a chemistry professor at the University of South Carolina, has made tantalizing progress toward that goal.

Wang, Andrew Lee and co-workers just reported in Molecular Pharmaceutics that surfaces coated with bionanoparticles could greatly accelerate the early phases of bone growth. Their coatings, based in part on genetically modified Tobacco mosaic virus, reduced the amount of time it took to convert stem cells into bone nodules -- from two weeks to just two days.

The key to hastening bone healing or growth is to coax a perfectly natural process to pick up the pace.

"If you break a rib, or a finger, the healing is automatic," said Wang. "You need to get the bones aligned to be sure it works as well as possible, but then nature takes over."

Healing is indeed very natural. The human body continuously generates and circulates cells that are undifferentiated; that is, they can be converted into the components of a range of tissues, such as skin or muscle or bone, depending on what the body needs.

The conversion of these cells -- called stem cells -- is set into motion by external cues. In bone healing, the body senses the break at the cellular level and begins converting stem cells into new bone cells at the location of the break, bonding the fracture back into a single unit. The process is very slow, which is helpful in allowing a fracture to be properly set, but after that point the wait is at least an inconvenience, and in some cases highly detrimental.

"With a broken femur, a leg, you can be really incapacitated for a long time," said Wang. "In cases like that, they sometimes inject a protein-based drug, BMP-2, which is very effective in speeding up the healing process. Unfortunately, it's very expensive and can also have some side effects."

In a search for alternatives four years ago, Wang and colleagues uncovered some unexpected accelerants of bone growth: plant viruses. They originally meant for these viruses, which are harmless to humans, to work as controls. They coated glass surfaces with uniform coverings of the Turnip yellow mosaic virus and Tobacco mosaic virus, originally intending to use them as starting points for examining other potential variations.

But they were surprised to find that the coatings alone could reduce the amount of time to grow bone nodules from stem cells. Since then, Wang and co-workers have refined their approach to better define just what it is that accelerates bone growth.

Over the course of the past four years, they've demonstrated that it's a combination of the chemistry as well as the topography of the surface that determines how long it takes a stem cell to form bone nodules. The stem cells are nestled into a nanotopgraphy defined by the plant virus, and within that nanotopography the cells make contact with the variety of chemical groups on the viral surface.

Wang and his team are now asserting control over these variables. In the most recent effort spearheaded by Lee, they built up a layer-by-layer assembly underneath the virus coating to ensure stability. They also genetically modified the viral protein to enhance the interaction between the coating and the stem cells and help drive them toward bone growth.

Their efforts were rewarded with bone nodules that formed just two days after the addition of stem cells, compared to two weeks with a standard glass surface. They're also carefully following the cellular signs involved with success. BMP-2 is involved, but as an intrinsic cellular product rather than an added drug.

"BMP-2 is bone morphogenetic protein 2. It can be added as a protein-based drug, but it's a natural protein produced in the cell," said Wang. "We see upregulation of the BMP-2 within 8 hours with the new scaffold." They also find osteocalcin expression and calcium sequestration, two processes associated with bone formation, to be much more pronounced with their new coatings.

"What we've seen could prove very useful, particularly when it comes to external implants in bones," said Wang. "With those, you have to add a foreign material, and knowing that a coating might increase the bone growth process is clearly beneficial."

"But more importantly, we feel we're making progress in a more general sense in bone engineering. We're really showing the direct correlation between nanotopography and cellular response. If our results can be further developed, in the future you could use titanium to replace the bone, and you might be able to use different kinds of nanoscale patterning on the titanium surface to create all kinds of different cellular responses."

Chuanbin Mao, a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma who was not involved in the work, wrote in an e-mail that he was "amazed and excited" by the results. "The display of peptides on viruses, including Tobacco mosaic virus, is a powerful approach for studying how engineered virus particles can direct stem cell differentiation."

"The discovery that the display of a cell adhesion peptide on Tobacco mosaic virus can enable the rapid differentiation of stem cells into bone-forming cells is very important for guiding scientists in designing a scaffold that can induce rapid bone formation in regenerative medicine."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of South Carolina. The original article was written by Steven Powell.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. L. Andrew Lee, Sevan M. Muhammad, Quyen L. Nguyen, Pongkwan Sitasuwan, Gary Horvath, Qian Wang. Multivalent Ligand Displayed on Plant Virus Induces Rapid Onset of Bone Differentiation. Molecular Pharmaceutics, 2012; : 120530092656003 DOI: 10.1021/mp300042t

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.

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Business Networking Myths | Business Networking Win

Posted on Jun 24, 2012 in Articles | 0 comments

With the advent of social media and on-line referral generating systems, person-to-person business networking seems to be taking more of a back seat in many marketing plans. And when I look at some of the marketing strategies of new entrepreneurs, I?m surprised that expensive advertising is the primary tactic used to find prospects, and that networking sometimes isn?t even considered a viable option for generating new clients. I?ve been successfully sharing referrals with other business folk for many years now, so I hadn?t considered that the belief systems of some people about business networking could be so different from the reality. There seem to be a lot of myths out there, so let?s bust some of them right now.

Myth 1

Networking is selling.

False.

It is not selling. Selling is about attracting the person in front of you to your product or service. Networking is marketing. It?s about attracting the 200+ people the person in front of you knows to your product or service. Networking is wayyyyyy less stressful for those who are terrified of selling.

Myth 2

Networking is about going to business events and making sure everyone in the room receives your business card.

False.

It is about building relationships with other business folk who have a reciprocal mindset for sharing clients. When I see people desperately trying to work a room by giving everyone their business cards and scurrying off to the next person, here?s what I do. I make them my clients.

Myth 3

Networking is about spending valuable personal time attending events.

False.

It?s a way of life. You can easily build a profitable referral network without ever attending an event.

Myth 4

Networking is about delivering your elevator speech.

False.

Elevator speeches are for addressing an audience at an event. They do not work in day-to-day conversation, where networking is most effective.

Myth 5

Networking is a task that is completed when you walk out the door of an event.

False.

It is a marketing technique that becomes a way of life. When you develop the skills of networking, you can never become the old you again.

Myth 6

Networking is about joining a business referral group and having to work with people you may not like.

False.

There are advantages to joining a business referral group, but you can build a profitable referral network just as effectively without ever joining one.

Myth 7

Only extroverts can be successful at business networking.

False.

I?m an introvert myself. I do a few things differently at events to reduce my anxiety, such as taking frequent breaks to make notes and breathe, but I have found business networking quite manageable.

If your false beliefs about business networking have been holding you back from taking advantage of a referral-based marketing strategy, now is the time to give it a try and see for yourself how effective it can be.

Happy networking!

Dave is the creative energy behind Streetwise Marketing Strategies. Download his free e-book, ?What to do Before, During, and After a Networking Event?, at http://www.StreetwiseMarketingStrategies.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Gutscher

http://EzineArticles.com/?Business-Networking-Myths&id=7100143

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Keeping Up With the Kardashians Recap: Scott Disick and Bruce Jenner are Just Friends!

On Sunday night's installment of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the gang went on an extra special, totally relaxing, not at all staged family vacation.

Which of the girls almost pulled a no-show and why? Would Kris tell Bruce about Todd Waterman? What caused a big rift between Bruce and Scott?

Find out in THG's +/- Keeping Up recap!

"This just doesn't feel right, like I'm sneaking around. And maybe the healthiest thing for me to do is just not see Todd." - Kris Jenner. Ya think? Plus 20.

"Ever since Kourtney got pregnant she's extra-indecisive, extra-hormonal and it's really frustrating." - Kim. Imagine how Scott feels, girlfriend. Minus 10.

At the speedway, Bruce introduces Scott as his "friend." Ouch! Plus 70.

Scott Disick is steamed and storms off, but sympathy is limited here. He may not be the worst guy in the world, but if you don't propose after that long ...

Khloe surprises the fam in the Dominican Republic early. Plus 5?

Bruce decides Kim should date Eric, the local golf pro. Does he meet her list of criteria? He's no Kanye West. Still, a nice Plus 5 to Bruce for trying.

Kim Kardashian tells the fam Kourt and Scott didn't make it. Rough. Minus 5.

Kris gets a bit boozy and decides to go jet skiing. Minus 10.

"My mom is really nuts. I don't think you're supposed to operate vehicles or heavy machinery once you're heavily intoxicated, and this b!tch just decides to get on a jet ski with her prized possession on the back, Kim." - Khloe. Plus 90.

The girls paint themselves in some tribal fashion to perform a faux sacrifice. Plus 10 for having fun. Minus 10 because we wish we could get sacrificed.

Minus 10 more for Bruce's earrings.

Kourtney and family do show up, eventually, but Scott notes, "I'm not that excited to see Bruce because I've heard that he's been going around talking bad about me. It's pretty immature." Takes one to know one, but Plus 5.

Scott tells Rob Kardashian that he has "no real connection" with Bruce, has "no interest in a relationship" with him and doesn't like that Bruce thinks he's Mason's grandfather. Talk about hitting a nerve! Let it go, B. Minus 10.

Kourt lets the Todd Waterman thing slip at dinner. Minus 30.

Bruce learns that she and Todd have been communicating and walks out of dinner. The rest of the family takes his side, immediately. Plus 40.

"I can't believe that everybody just once again, deserts me at dinner. You're gonna all make up your own little scenario in your head and you won't listen to one little thing I have to say, which is the truth." - Kris.

Come on lady. How do you expect them to take it? Minus 130.

EPISODE TOTAL: +10. SEASON TOTAL: -390.

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Chinese Economic Data Is Looking Horrible, And The Government Is Lying About It

It's long been believed that China's economic data is untrustworthy, but now that the Chinese economy is clearly cooling down, that theory is being put to the test, and it seems to be confirmed that the government isn't always forthright about the numbers.

Keith Bradsher at the New York Times has a good overview of the situation.

He notes that in addition to there being an economic slowdown, this is a year of political transition, which further creates pressure on folks at all levels of government and in state-owned-enterprises to juice up the data.

?The government officials don?t want to see the negative,? so they tell power managers to report usage declines as zero change, said a chief executive in the power sector.

Another top corporate executive in China with access to electricity grid data from two provinces in east-central China that are centers of heavy industry, Shandong and Jiangsu, said that electricity consumption in both provinces had dropped more than 10 percent in May from a year earlier. Electricity consumption has also fallen in parts of western China. Yet, the economist with ties to the statistical agency said that cities and provinces across the country had reported flat or only slightly rising electricity consumption.

Meanwhile, for some ugly numbers that are coming from official sources, check out these reports from Xinhua.

• Chinese cement output is up just 5% this year compared to growth of 14.3% for the same period last year.
• In May, flat glass output fell 10.2% (!) vs. growth over over 20% in the same period last year.
• The building material sector has seen a 7% profit drop.

Combine the weak China news with the cracking of the German economic miracle, and it's clear that the big export-dependent economies are in a world of pain.

The US continues to look good by comparison.

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Egypt braces for announcement of president

An Egyptian man wears a hand-made hat with a picture of Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Egypt will release results from disputed presidential elections Sunday, the country?s top elections commission official said _ a highly anticipated announcement that will put an end to the immediate uncertainty about who is the official winner, but will almost certainly see the power struggles between Islamists, the military and other factions continue. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

An Egyptian man wears a hand-made hat with a picture of Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Egypt will release results from disputed presidential elections Sunday, the country?s top elections commission official said _ a highly anticipated announcement that will put an end to the immediate uncertainty about who is the official winner, but will almost certainly see the power struggles between Islamists, the military and other factions continue. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

FILE - COMBO - This combination of two photos shows Egyptian presidential candidates, from left, Ahmed Shafiq, and Mohammed Morsi. Egypt will release results from disputed presidential elections Sunday, the country?s top elections commission official said _ a highly anticipated announcement that will put an end to the immediate uncertainty about who is the official winner, but will almost certainly see the power struggles between Islamists, the military and other factions continue. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra; Nasser Nasser, File)

Egyptian protesters shout slogans in Tahrir Square as the country awaits the outcome of a presidential runoff vote in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Tens of thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have rallied in the capital's Tahrir Square in a show of force backing candidate Mohammed Morsi, who has warned against manipulating results in a vote that he says he has won. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

Egyptians chant slogans to support Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Egypt will release results from disputed presidential elections Sunday, the country's top elections commission official said _ a highly anticipated announcement that will put an end to the immediate uncertainty about who is the official winner, but will almost certainly see the power struggles between Islamists, the military and other factions continue. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

CAIRO (AP) ? Egyptian police were ordered to confront any attempt to break the law with decisive force ahead of the announcement Sunday of a new president as soaring tensions in the country raised fears of a new outbreak of political violence.

The electoral commission was to announce the results of last weekend's presidential runoff at 3 p.m. local time (1300 GMT, 9 a.m. EDT). The results of Egypt's first free presidential vote have been delayed for several days, giving way to wild rumors, speculation and anxiety about back room deals and suspected interference by the ruling military council in determining the outcome in favor of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's last Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq.

Shafiq and Islamist challenger Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood have both declared that they won what was by all accounts a very close race.

The announcement of the president was supposed to be the end of Egypt's post-uprising transition to democracy. However the military made a series of last minute moves that stripped the office of president of most of its major powers and kept those powers concentrated in the hands of the military. A court ruling a few days before that dissolved the freely elected parliament that was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the pro-democracy uprising, a swelling crowd of thousands gathered in sweltering midday heat awaiting the announcement. They were a mix of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis along with some of the revolutionary youth groups that drove last year's uprising. A separate pro-Shafiq rally of some 2000 protesters gathered in northern Cairo district of Nasr City.

A military official told The Associated Press late Saturday: "This time, we won't be kidding. We were kind ... before" with lawbreakers, adding that a curfew can be imposed if needed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

On Saturday, authorities deployed extra security forces across the country, especially near key state institutions. Government and private sector employees were sent home early on Sunday, while many Egyptians stocked up on food and jewelry shops shut down because of concerns over new violence.

Armored vehicles and troops were deployed at exits and entrances to Cairo airport. Riot police clad in black uniforms with shields were deployed around parliament and the streets leading to the Cabinet building nearby were blocked by troops and armored vehicles.

Minister of Interior Gen. Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of police and other security forces, ordered top security officers in a meeting Saturday that police should "confront with firmness, force and decisiveness any attempt to violate" the law, according to a security official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"Neither Morsi, nor Shafiq, Tantawi is the president of Egypt," read one headline of the weekly Sout el-Umma in a reference to the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Tantawi was Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

Egyptian media and social media are rife with the competing claims and theories about behind- the-scenes deals being cut at the last minute to divide up power between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military, the two biggest power brokers to emerge from the uprising that ousted Mubarak.

A leading Brotherhood member, Mohammed el-Beltagi, warned on his Facebook page that some within the current regime are pressing for reelections in a number of provinces around the country in order to "enable Shafiq to win in less tense atmosphere." He alluded to agencies, possibly a reference to security agencies still dominated by figures from the old Mubarak regime.

"... All parties and agencies must stop playing with fire," he wrote.

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AP Correspondent Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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