App helps wealthy travelers hitch rides on private jets

By Natasha Baker

TORONTO (Reuters) - Wealthy travelers wanting to fly in style can book empty seats on private planes with a new app for a jet-sharing service.

Although there are dozens of apps for buying seats on commercial flights, BlackJet is a new iPhone app that connects travelers with private jets that have extra room on their planes.

Flights are shared with from two to 14 other passengers, and the price is on par with a premium fare on a commercial airline, according to the San Francisco-based company.

"We had the idea to use the existing aircraft out there and to leverage the excess capacity," said BlackJet chief executive Dean Rotchin.

Passengers who are members of the service and pay an annual fee of $2,500 can book a seat on any of 4,000 airplanes the company has access to through partnerships. They can also buy add-on services such as meals and ground transportation.

The service is geared primarily towards business travelers looking for convenience, time-savings and reliability, according to Rotchin.

Travelers using the app can buy a seat in advance but they will not get a precise itinerary until the day before the flight.

"On the day of travel the experience is completely different than at the major airports. You're basically driving right up to the plane, getting on the airplane, and within 15 minutes the airplane is leaving," he said.

Flights booked with the app cost between $900 for a trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to $3,500 for a coast-to-coast flight.

The company offers flights from San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, Los Angeles and South Florida, and plans to expand service to Chicago, Washington, Boston, Dallas and Seattle.

Since the web app was launched in October, more than 3,000 flights have been booked through it, the company said.

Another app called PrivateFly, which is available worldwide for iPhone, iPad and Android, allows jet-setters and companies to book an entire private jet.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/app-helps-wealthy-travelers-hitch-rides-private-jets-172251174.html

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Japan factory output seen up for fourth straight month, recovery slow

By Stanley White

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's industrial production is expected to have risen for a fourth consecutive month in March albeit at a modest pace, a Reuters survey showed, in a sign that factory output is recovering slowly as exports struggle to gain momentum.

The median forecast was for a 0.4 percent rise from the previous month, which would follow a 0.6 percent increase in February and a 0.3 percent rise in January. The data are due on Tuesday at 8:50 a.m. (Monday at 1950 EST).

The figures are expected to show that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to correct excessive yen strength and end years of stubborn deflation with a policy prescription dubbed "Abenomics" has yet to produce a significant increase in exports and factory output.

"It's difficult to expect a firm rebound in output without a turnaround in exports," economists at Mitsubishi UFJ Research & Consulting said in their forecast.

"The effects of 'Abenomics' cannot be seen yet in the real economy."

"Abenomics" combine fiscal stimulus spending with aggressive monetary expansion and a promise of pro-growth reforms in a gamble to end 15 years of deflation and lackluster economic growth.

The policy mix has so far driven the yen to a four-year low against the dollar and sparked a 50 percent rally in Japanese share prices from November, which has helped buoy consumer sentiment.

However, economists say it will still take some time before exports start to pick up, which is necessary to spur capital expenditure and shift economic growth into a higher gear.

The data from the ministry of economy and trade also contain manufacturers' forecasts for output in April and May.

Last month, manufacturers said they expected output to rise 0.6 percent in April.

Separate data on private consumption and the labor market are expected to paint a more positive picture as an improvement in consumer sentiment and rising stock prices encourage more people to spend.

Wage-earners' household spending is seen up 1.8 percent in March from a year earlier, the Reuters poll showed, which would mark the fastest pace of growth since May last year.

The unemployment rate is expected to have held steady at 4.3 percent in March, while the jobs-applicants ratio is forecast to have risen to 0.86 in March, matching the level seen in August 2008.

The ministry of internal affairs and the labor ministry will release the data on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. (Monday at 2330 GMT).

Retail sales figures also due on Tuesday are expected to show a 0.6 percent rise in March from a year earlier, the first gain in two months, according the median estimate from the poll.

(Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Shri Navaratnam)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-factory-output-seen-fourth-straight-month-recovery-013257286.html

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Glider Launches At Disrupt NY With SaaS That Automates Approving And Signing Contracts, Adds Intelligence To Deal Flow

At Disrupt NY 2013, Glider?unveiled its SaaS for corporate teams to bring structure, clarity and reporting to the contract process much like Salesforce.com did for the sales funnel. The visual analytics tool should help shed light on the number of contracts closed, those?outstanding?and a host of other metrics to help executives get a better view of deal flow. The service is meant to replace the massive ?reply all” email thread and the Excel spreadsheets that have dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of rows listing the tasks necessary to complete a deal. With Glider, companies can?manage sales contracts, non-disclosure agreements,?partnerships and any contractual process used by the organizations. The service lets users see all of?their open contracts in one place, request documents from legal teams, get quick approval from managers, sign documents and see exactly who and what is holding up any given deal. Glider demonstrated onstage how an employee can import contracts into the Glider platform, track versions of the contract, manage approvals and collect digital signatures. The highlight came with the deal flow analytics. This showed how a larger organization can quickly see how the quarter is progressing, what deals look like, what will close and what will not. The service n users people to sign a contract and tasks that the individual and group members have completed or still need to do. Glider supports most major file formats and?is compatible with services, such as Box, Dropbox, Gmail and Google Drive. Contracts get emailed to other people on the team. Recipients can then view the document in a secure web link or download it as a Word file or PDF. Glider uses password-based security, tracks the IP address of the user and serves a cookie to verify the signer’s identity. Documents are encrypted and the service uses SSL for communication security. The company says two-factor authentication is on the roadmap. “We have modeled ourselves after Box,” said Co-Founder Eli Rubel. “Ninety percent Fortune 500 companies?trust Box to use Box.” The company has initially built an HTML5 app for mobile, said Co-Founder Justin Thiele. The roadmap includes plans for native iOS and Android apps. Co-Founder Eli Rubel said Glider, which took about four months to build, targets customers who have a deeper deal flow and need a better picture to help prepare for the end-of-quarter reporting to management or investors. They are still working through the cost, but it will most

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gnK-w4wZONc/

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Residents concerned about health effects of hydrofracking

Apr. 28, 2013 ? s living in areas near natural gas operations, also known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are concerned their illnesses may be a result of nearby drilling operations. Twenty-two percent of the participants in a small pilot study surmise that hydrofracking may be the cause of such health concerns as sinus problems, sleeping difficulties, and gastrointestinal problems.

The findings will be presented at the American Occupational Health Conference on April 28 in Orlando, Florida.

Scientists collected responses from 72 adults visiting a primary care physician's office in the hydrofracking-heavy area of Bradford County, Pa., who volunteered to complete an investigator-faciliated survey.

"Almost a quarter of participants consider natural gas operations to be a contributor to their health issues, indicating that there is clearly a concern among residents that should be addressed," says Poun? Saberi, MD, MPH, the study's principal investigator with the department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She is also an investigator with the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at Penn.

Within these 22 percent of responders, 13 percent viewed drilling to be the cause of their current health complaints and 9 percent were concerned that future health problems can be caused by natural gas operations. The previous health complaints by participants were thought to be anecdotal in nature as they were individual cases reported publicly only by popular media.

"What is significant about this study is that the prevalence of impressions about medical symptoms attributed to natural gas operations had not been previously solicited in Pennsylvania. This survey indicates that there is a larger group of people with health concerns than originally assumed," explains Saberi.

The survey included questions about 29 health symptoms, including those previously anecdotally reported by other residents and workers in other areas where drilling occurs. Some patient medical records were also reviewed to compare reported symptoms with those that had been previously documented. "Sinus problems, sleeping difficulties, and gastrointestinal problems were the most common symptoms reported on the Bradford survey," notes Saberi. "Of the few studied charts, there were no one-to-one correlations between the participants' reported symptoms on the survey and the presenting symptom to the medical provider in the records. This raises the possibility of communication gaps between residents with concerns and the medical community and needs further exploration. An opportunity exists to educate shale region communities and workers to report, as well as health care providers to document, the attributed symptoms as precisely as possible."

The CEET team also mapped the addresses of patients who agreed to provide them in relation to drilling to determine if proximity to drilling operations may relate to health problems.

"We hope this pilot study will guide the development of future epidemiological studies to determine whether health effects in communities in which natural gas operations are occurring is associated with air, water, and food-shed exposures and will provide a basis for health care provider education," says CEET director Trevor Penning, PhD. "The goal of science should be to protect the public and the environment before harm occurs; not simply to treat it after the damage has been done."

The Bradford County health concerns pilot study is one of three hydrofracking studies currently underway at CEET, one of 20 Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers (EHSCC) in the US, funded by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

CEET is also partnering with Columbia University's EHSCC to measure water quality and billable health outcomes in areas with and without hydrofracking on the Pennsylvania-New York border. Using a new mapping tool developed by Harvard University, CEET and Harvard researchers are creating maps of drilling sites, air quality, water quality, and health effects to locate possible associations. Initial studies will focus on Pennsylvania. Results of both studies are expected in early 2014. These collaborative studies are funded by pilot project funds from the respective EHSCCs, which in turn obtain their financial support from NIEHS.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/IVvBTUbZKJQ/130428230423.htm

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Microglia can be derived from patient-specific human induced pluripotent stem cells and may help modulate the course of central nervous system diseases

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Today, during the 81st American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting, researchers announced new findings regarding the development of methods to turn human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) into microglia, which could be used for not only research but potentially in treatments for various diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).

Microglia are the resident inflammatory cells of the CNS and can modulate the outcomes of a wide range of disorders including trauma, infections, stroke, brain tumors, and various degenerative, inflammatory and psychiatric diseases. However, the effective therapeutic use of microglia demonstrated in various animal CNS disease models currently cannot be translated to patients due to the lack of methods for procuring high-purity patient-specific microglia. Developing a method for obtaining these cells would be highly valuable.

In the study Differentiation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells to Microglia for Treatment of CNS Diseases, mouse and human iPSCs were generated and sequentially co-cultured on various cell monolayers and in the presence of added growth factors. The microglial identity of the resulting cells was confirmed using fluorescence activated cell sorting analyses, functional assays, gene expression analyses and brain engraftment ability. The study results will be shared by presenting author John K. Park, MD, PhD, FAANS,? on Monday, April 29. Co-authors are Michael Shen, BS; Yong Choi, PhD; and Hetal Pandya, PhD.

In the results, researchers found mouse and human iPSCs co-cultured with OP9 cells differentiate into hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). HPCs in turn co-cultured with astrocytes, generate cells that express CD11b, Iba-1 and CX3CR1; secrete the cytokines IL-6, IL-1? and TNF-a; generate reactive oxygen species; and phagocytose fluorescent particles, all consistent with a microglial phenotype. Gene expression clustering using self-organizing maps indicates that iPSC-derived microglia more closely resemble normal microglia than other inflammatory cell types. The iPSC-derived microglia engraft and migrate to areas of injury within the brain. These finding have led researchers to conclude that iPSC-derived microglia may one day be useful as gene and protein delivery vehicles to the CNS.

"The actual results of our research were not surprising to us, but the overall importance of microglia in a wide variety of brain and spinal cord diseases was surprising. Microglia likely have a role in improving or worsening diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, obsessive compulsive disorder and Rett's syndrome, just to name a few," said John K. Park, MD, PhD, FAANS. "Microglia are the principal immune system cells of the brain and spinal cord, and help fight infections as well as help the healing process after injuries such as trauma and strokes. They also play a poorly understood role in many neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. We have developed methods to turn iPSCs into microglia. Because human iPSC can easily be obtained in large numbers, we can now generate large numbers of human microglia not only for use in experiments, but also potentially for use in treatments. The ability to study normal and diseased human microglia will lead to a greater understanding of their roles in healthy brains and various diseases. Diseases that are caused or exacerbated by defective microglia or a paucity of normal microglia may potentially be treated by microglia generated from a patient's iPSC."

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/rYlje-GoEtU/130429175914.htm

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SRI EV1 brings all-electric racing to the Mexican 1000 rally (video)

We've seen electric off-roaders tackle the Dakar Rally, but racing on the Baja peninsula has proven elusive -- until this weekend. After driving in smaller races, SRI's EV1 has joined the big leagues by starting in NORRA's Mexican 1000 rally. The 535HP, 400kW open-wheeler has participated in at least the first trio of special stages, and it will ideally join a handful of further stages that fit within the vehicle's 100-mile range. While the EV1 is far from the front of the Evolution class, at 36th place as of this writing, winning isn't the point -- SRI wants to drum up enough funding to hot-swap batteries and complete every stage in future races. Its project should at least be proof that smaller EVs can thrive in some of the world's harshest racing conditions.

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Source: SRD (Facebook), SRI, NORRA

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YouTube now offers more MLB highlights and full archived games

YouTube just keeps adding quality content. Last week it was comedy, and this week it's bulking up on its sporting chops with a Major League Baseball partnership. Always among the most tech-savvy of major sports leagues, MLB has beefed up the offerings on its YouTube channel to include highlights from every game of 2013 (two days after they've occurred), and a vast archive of full games from as far back as 1952. Plus, should you reside outside the US, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, you'll get to watch two live games every day during the regular season for free. So, seamheads, head on over to the MLB.com YouTube channel -- your digital field of dreams awaits.

Filed under: Internet, HD, Google

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Source: YouTube (Google+), MLB.com (YouTube)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/29/youtube-mlb-highlights-full-archived-games/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Actor Jeffrey Wright busted for DWI in NYC

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Actor Jeffrey Wright attends the Tribeca Film Festival 2013 after party for "A Single Shot" on April 26 in New York City.

By Brandi Fowler and Marcus Mulick, E! Online

It's safe to say Jeffrey Wright's weekend didn't get off to the best start.?The 47-year-old "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" ?actor was busted for DWAI (driving while ability impaired) in New York City early Saturday morning, E! News has confirmed.

Catching Fire casting: Jeffrey Wright wires into Hunger Games sequel

According to the NYPD, officers pulled Wright over after they saw him driving erratically, and detected an alcohol odor coming from his vehicle.

Wright was arrested after officers conducted a field sobriety test and he failed it.

The thesp, known for his roles in "Casino Royale" and "Angels in America," will play Beetee in the second installment of the "Hunger Games" ?franchise.

The film is set to hit theaters Nov. 22.

Jeffrey Wright isn't the only star that's gotten into trouble. Check out our gallery.

?

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/28/17957780-jeffrey-wright-busted-for-dwi-in-new-york?lite

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FAA suspends employee furloughs, bill held up by typos

David Goldman / AP

A passenger sits at right in the international terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, Friday, April 26, 2013, in Atlanta.

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

The Federal Aviation Administration will suspend all employee furloughs and return air traffic facilities to their regular staffing levels by Sunday evening, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Travelers across the nation faced delays while the FAA grappled with cuts to air traffic controllers this week forced by the sequester, the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that took effect on March 1.

The FAA was forced to furlough 13,000 air traffic controllers among its 47,000 employees.

A bill to give the FAA flexibility in defraying its spending cuts was passed by the House of Representatives on Friday. White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Friday that President Obama would sign the legislation when it arrives on his desk.

A few typos have delayed the delivery of the bill to the president for a day or two, however, NBC News? Chuck Todd reported on Saturday. The president may not sign the bill until Monday.

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Apps of the Week: Scam School, Sixaxis Controller, House of the Dead Overkill and more!

Your weekly look at the apps we're using from day to day

You probably know it by this point, but every week we take just a little time for each of the Android Central writers to show off one of the apps they've been using on their own device in the previous week. They may not be the most popular or well-known, but they work for us, and we think that merits letting the readers know about them as well.

Another great random assortment of apps awaits you after the break, so stick around and see how we did with our picks this week.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/ZQJe5ZwJTzg/story01.htm

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Aircraft part believed to be from 9/11 attack found in New York

New York police officials confirm that a piece of landing gear found this week is believed to be from one of the hijacked planes involved in the Sept.11 attacks at the World Trade Center.

By Mark Guarino,?Staff writer / April 27, 2013

A piece of landing gear that authorities believe belongs to one of the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, was found wedged between a mosque and another building, in New York.

New York City Police Department/AP

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New York City police officials have confirmed that a 5-foot-tall piece of landing gear discovered this week is believed to be from one of the hijacked planes involved in the Sept.11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

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The debris was not discovered until recently because it was jammed for over a decade in an 18-inch-wide sliver of open space between two buildings. Police say they know it is from one of the American Airlines airliners because it bears a Boeing identification number. Besides the single piece of twisted metal, there is also a piece of rope and a broken part of a broken pulley police say was likely torn from the roof from one of the buildings.

The odds of the wrecked metal resting there for nearly 12 years ?is amazing,? New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne told reporters Friday. ?It had to have fallen just the right way to make it into that space.?

Building surveyors discovered the debris Wednesday. They were inspecting the site of a planned Islamic community center at 51 Park Place, at the request of the building owner. The site is located three blocks from ground zero in Manhattan. The debris was located between that building and a luxury loft rental building located at 50 Murray St.

In a statement, Sharif El-Gamal, president of Soho Properties, which owns the 51 Park Place building, said his company is cooperating with city and police officials to ensure the wreckage ?is removed with care as quickly and effectively as possible.?

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is going to complete a medical exam of the area Monday to evaluate possible toxicity of the site; depending on the outcome of that review, investigators will search for possible human remains. When the aircraft wreckage is eventually removed, it will be housed and secured by the city property clerk.

The discovery follows a similar investigation over the past month at a landfill on nearby Staten Island where forensic scientists from the city medical examiner office have found potential human remains connected to the attack at the World Trade Center. To date, 41 percent of victims of the Sept. 11 attack have not been formally identified.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/6dDzmxlir4c/Aircraft-part-believed-to-be-from-9-11-attack-found-in-New-York

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Lawyer: Jailed pair shocked by Boston bomb claims

BOSTON (AP) ? Two college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who were jailed by immigration authorities the day after his capture had nothing to do with the deadly attack and had seen no hints that he harbored any violent thoughts or terrorist sympathies, a lawyer for one of them said Friday.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, who are from Kazakhstan, were classmates with Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They appeared alongside him in a recent photograph of a group of young men visiting New York City's Times Square. They were detained April 20 after being questioned in connection with the bombing, which had killed three people and injured more than 260 others a few days earlier.

"These kids are just as shocked and horrified about what happened as everyone else," Kadyrbayev's lawyer, Robert Stahl, said in a phone interview. "They can't even fathom something like this from a kid who seemed to be a typical young college student."

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev have been interviewed at length, twice, by FBI agents and have cooperated fully, said Stahl, a former federal prosecutor. They are not suspects but are being held for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes, Stahl said. They are being detained at a county jail in Boston.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said Monday night that U.S. authorities came across the two while searching for "possible links and contacts" to Tsarnaev, a sophomore at the university. U.S. immigration officials have declined to discuss the reasons why the men were detained.

John Hoey, an assistant chancellor at UMass Dartmouth, said Kadyrbayev is no longer enrolled; he was last a student in the fall. Tazhayakov is enrolled.

The pair had lived at an off-campus apartment in New Bedford, about 60 miles south of Boston, and got around in a car registered to Kadyrbayev with a souvenir plate that says "Terrorista (hash)1." The car was pictured on Tsarnaev's Twitter feed in March.

That plate was just a joke gift from some of Kadyrbayev's friends, meant to invoke his penchant for late-night partying rather than his political sentiments, Stahl said.

"It's such a silly thing. Bad timing," Stahl said. "His desire is to be released so he can return home. He would like to go home to the comfort of his family. You can imagine being 19 years old and having SWAT teams break down your door. It's a terrible situation."

Stahl said the young Kazakhs didn't see Tsarnaev in the days before or after the April 15 bombing.

Tazhayakov's lawyer, Thomas Kirsch, did not immediately return a phone call or an email message Friday evening.

Tsarnaev, who was captured hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston yard after a lengthy manhunt, is in federal custody. His older brother, the other identified suspect in the bombing, died after a shootout with police. Their mother has said the allegations against them are lies.

___

Associated Press writer Erika Niedowski contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-jailed-pair-shocked-boston-bomb-claims-014232408.html

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SKorea to withdraw workers at factory in NKorea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Seoul said Friday that it has decided to withdraw the roughly 175 South Koreans still at a jointly run factory complex in North Korea, raising a major question about the survival of the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

The statement by the country's minister in charge of inter-Korean relations came after North Korea rejected Seoul's demand for talks on the factory park that has been closed nearly a month.

Seoul said it issued a Friday deadline for North Korea to respond to its call for talks because it was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine. North Korea hasn't allowed supplies or workers to cross the border since early this month.

"We've made the inevitable decision to bring back all the remaining personnel in Kaesong for the protection of our people as their difficulties continue to grow," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said in a televised statement. He didn't take questions from reporters.

Ryoo urged North Korea to protect the property of South Korean companies at Kaesong and ensure the safety of South Korean managers when they return home. He didn't say when the withdrawal would take place.

Pyongyang's powerful National Defense Commission earlier said Seoul's demand for working-level talks was deceptive and that ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills and the spreading of anti-North Korea leaflets at the border were proof of Seoul's insincerity.

"This is a war of pride between the Koreas, but they are conducting it while leaving some room for talks," Lee Hochul, a political science professor at Incheon National University in South Korea, said, adding neither side is mentioning a permanent shutdown of the industrial complex.

"Once drills end and tension subsides, they may try to revive contact over Kaesong," Lee said.

An association of South Korean businessmen with factories in Kaesong released a statement saying they were shocked at Seoul's decision to pull the workers out.

The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the Koreas. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea early this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines. More than 800 South Korean managers were stationed in Kaesong before the ban.

"If they are truly worried about the lives of South Korean personnel in the (complex), they may withdraw all of them to the south side where there are stockpiles of food and raw materials and sound medical conditions," the statement from an unidentified spokesman for the North's National Defense Commission said Friday. It added that North Korea would guarantee the workers' safety during the withdrawal.

"If the South's puppet group looks away from reality and pursues the worsening of the situation, we will be compelled to first take final and decisive grave measures," the statement said.

The statements on Kaesong this week follow what had been something of a lull after a weeks-long tirade of warlike North Korean rhetoric that included threats of nuclear war and missile strikes. Tension rose as Seoul responded with its own tough language to Pyongyang's outburst, which was unusually violent, even by the standards of the already hostile relationship between the Koreas.

Meanwhile, the military drills continue. On Friday, airplanes flew over South Korea's southeastern city of Pohang and amphibious vessels landed on the coast. North Korea calls the drills, which are set to end Tuesday, war preparations.

"Even at this moment, South Korea is ramping up the intensity of coastal landing drills with the United States in the east, driving the already tense situation to a point of explosion," North Korea said in its statement. It said the annual drills and the scattering of North Korean leaflets along the border belie the South Korean government's calls for talks.

The Kaesong complex has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.

"Seoul has executed a high-stakes gambit" by deciding to pull South Korean workers from Kaesong, said Kim Han-jung, a Yonsei University professor who once served as an aide to liberal President Kim Dae-jung, under whom the idea of the park was conceived. "The deadlock over the park is likely to persist for a long time. It will take a lot of political effort to restore it."

Both analysts said that Pyongyang could confiscate South Korean properties in Kaesong in the worst scenario as it did in 2010 at a South Korean-built mountain resort on North Korea's east coast. The cross-border tourism project came to a halt in 2008 after a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean guard at the Diamond Mountain resort.

Impoverished North Korea objects to views in South Korea that the Kaesong park is a source of badly needed hard currency. South Korean companies paid salaries to North Korean workers averaging $127 a month, according to South Korea's government. That is less than one-sixteenth of the average salary of South Korean manufacturer workers.

Pyongyang also has complained about alleged South Korean military plans in the event the North held the Kaesong managers hostage.

A South Korean employee at Kaesong said she watched the ministry's briefing on television. She did not know whether she would leave Kaesong because her company's headquarters in the South had not called her yet.

"I've been staying here to protect our factory and our goods," she said when reached by phone, declining to be identified because her company asked her not to speak to the media. She has been in Kaesong since April 2, one day before North Korea blocked entry to South Korean workers, and has been eating rice and noodles, she said. One other colleague is staying with her.

___

AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skorea-withdraw-workers-factory-nkorea-101844845.html

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How to stop Excel errors driving austerity economics

A global row has erupted over errors in research used to bolster the case for austerity. Open data might have spared us the pain, says Velichka Dimitrova of the Open Knowledge Foundation

Another economics storm has hit the headlines but this time it is not the grand global gambles of the banks that matter ? it is the minutiae of Excel spreadsheet entries. At the centre of it are two professors from prestigious Harvard University, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

In 2010 they wrote a paper, "Growth in a time of debt", which concluded that economic growth slows when the ratio of a nation's public debt to its gross domestic product (GDP) exceeds 90 per cent. It goes to the heart of the debate over austerity policies.

Reinhart and Rogoff's results were published in the Papers and Proceedings of one of the most prestigious economics journals ? The American Economic Review ? and had a powerful resonance in a period of serious economic and public policy turmoil. Some argue that the paper prompted governments around the world to slash spending in the hope of stimulating economic growth. For example, US congressman Paul Ryan and the vice president of the European Commission Olli Rehn both cited the 90 per cent threshold level as a benchmark in their policies.

This month Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin from the less prestigious University of Massachusetts Amherst tried to replicate the results of Reinhart and Rogoff but instead discovered errors that, when corrected, create a very different outcome.

Debt redeemed

Most widely reported among their three grounds of criticism is a single spreadsheet mistake that meant five countries were excluded from the sample used by Reinhart and Rogoff. The University of Massachusetts team say that, taken together, the problems they have identified in the original paper resulted in significant error in the conclusion that a large public debt cripples growth.

After correcting the mistakes, the researchers found that countries with a lot of public debt suffer only "modestly diminished" average GDP growth rates, rather than the stronger effect shown in the 2010 paper. Their analysis shows that when countries owe about 90 per cent of their GDP, they do indeed tend to have slower economic growth ? but the trend does not follow the data at all well. This means that if a country's public debt exceeds the threshold, its economic performance will not necessarily deteriorate. It may even get better.

The debate continues. Reinhart and Rogoff have admitted they made mistakes but say their core point remains valid. Herndon has responded that his results do not show that public-debt-to-GDP ratio above a certain threshold has a significant impact on growth.

So how did such errors go unnoticed for so long? The American Economic Review has an excellent policy on data availability, implemented in 2004 and a model for other economics journals . However, the Review does not apply it to Papers and Proceedings, an edition of the journal published each May to reflect the annual meetings of the American Economic Association and which is not subject to its usual rigorous peer review. As a result, it did not make the data and regression code of the Reinhart and Rogoff study available to other researchers.

Even if peer review did not apply, does this really exempt researchers publishing in the May issue from sharing their data and code? It is the policy of The American Economic Review "to publish papers only if the data used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and are readily available to any researcher for purposes of replication". Note that there is no differentiation between users of the data as peer-reviewers or as researchers who want to replicate the results: data and code should be available to any researcher.

Coding errors happen, but the greater problem was this failure to allow others to review and replicate the results by making the data openly available. If this had been done upon publication in 2010 ? or if the idea of open data was universally applied ? it might not have taken three years to prove these results wrong, and the odd case of Reinhart and Rogoff's slip of the keyboard wouldn't be making such huge waves around the world.

Profile

Velichka Dimitrova is project coordinator of Open Economics at the Open Knowledge Foundation, which advocates the release of datasets and code along with published academic articles. It defines open data as "a piece of data or content? free for anyone to use, reuse, and redistribute ? subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and/or share alike".

This article is based on a blog first posted on the London School of Economics website

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Pinque Peacock: Make a Note of It! by PINQUETTE Lisa

How are all of our Pretty Little Peacocks Today?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Today, we have PINQUETTE Lisa with
an altered project she created using
Pinque Peacock products!

?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Hey?there, ho' there?how are our peacocks today??Thank you for joining me for my project today.? Before we get to it, I have a few admissions?. I HATE to be disorganized? I like my home to run like a finely tuned machine.?I have a husband, a 14 year old son, a 10 year old daughter, 2 adult children, 1 grandchild, 2 dogs and a cat?. ANY freaking idea how long it has been since my home has run like a finely tuned machine?? LOL?(me either!).? Moreover, my two kids at home live part-time with us, and part-time with?well??the one we do not speak of??so it?s even more difficult to communicate on a daily basis.?I have tried the gammet of household communication techniques?neither of the two have text devices, sticky notes lost are blamed on ?the cat??enter Charlie Brown teacher noises here?something to the tune of ?wah wah?wah wah wah wa..?? So? I have made a family communication board with the help of Pinque Peacock!? (Enter second admission here)?.I hate?HATE?LOATHE?will scratch my eyes out at the site of?. office and organizational supplies that look like office and organizational supplies!?I stopped working at an office long ago.?I left the land of sticky notes, dry erase meeting boards, magnetic calendars, etc. to stay home with my family? not to indoctrinate my home into that world.? I love organizational supplies?.I just want them to be??homey.?? (harder than it looks).?For this project I took $10 worth of supplies and turned it into a world of peace and sanctuary for me.? It starts with a chalkboard paint covered cookie pan?the cheapest one ever? the ones that make that awful noise the minute you put them into the oven? the ones that you are AFRAID to bake things on.? I painted it with chalkboard paint?

?

THEN, I found, OMG, OOOHHH MY GAWWDDD, the most awesome sauce

CORK initials?so I got one for each member of my family.? I decorated them to match my d?cor (which, duh? includes crackle).?? They have magnets on the back, so? not only are they mini bulletin boards? they are magnets!? I picked a Pinque Peacock stick pin for each as our ?thumbtacks? (I HATE thumbtacks and pushpins! Then, I picked some felt poppers and buttons, attached magnets, and wrapped them in Hemp twine (which is my pull it?all together medium?)? I actually used the twine to reinforce the bond between the buttons and poppers and magnets.? I added a few river rocks?well?because my whole kitchen is stone?stone floor, stone counters, stone walls, blah blah blah.? I added grommets and twine at the top, and VOILA? a kitchen communitcation center!? And you know how I know it works?? After these pics?.I now have a note that my 10 year old needs bodywashed?pinned stylishly with my Pinque Peacock pin to my ?L? (cuz well?I gather things for the family?I am the ?gatherer?)? So yeah? It works.?Do it? Do it NOW.? I am more organized tonight than I have been in 6 years.? Whew.??

?

Thanks so much for viewing my project?Pick up your

Pinque Peacock products today?and ORGANIZE your life!

~Lisa

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Thank you PINQUETTE Lisa,

your project is AWESOME!!!

Be sure to visit Lisa at her

become a New Follower,?and be

inspired by her beautiful creations!!!

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Are you a follower??... Become a follower

and check out the rules...

you could be a lucky winner. Tell your?

Prize Includes

~ One Cricut Destinations Cartridge

~ One Thank You Embossing Folder

~1 set of Pinque Peacock Purple Beaded Stick Pins

~Several Pinque Peacock Handmade Felt Poppers

~ One set of?NOT EVEN RELEASED YET?Pinque Peacock

Teal Fabric Covered Buttons (1.5" eyelet) with small purple star flower accent

~ One Button BINGO Stamp by Unity Stamp Co.

Source: http://pinquepeacock.blogspot.com/2013/04/make-note-of-it-by-pinquette-lisa.html

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Best Business Blogs | Content for Reprint

Author: Martie McCabe | Total views: 59 Comments: 0
Word Count: 1167 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 4:27 PM

Online marketing is essential for any business owner in this day and age. There are a ton of ways in which you can target new customers and drum up business. You can do a lot of these things without spending any money at all. The information here can introduce you to Website marketing, and help you build up your online business to achieve higher profits than you ever expected.

When making your website, try to make it visibly appealing with as much interesting content as possible. You need to give your customers the information they need so that they can make informed decisions about their purchases. Repeat information, fluff and unreliable information should be avoided.

To increase the quality of your internet promotion, start blogging. A blog gives you another way to communicate with your customer base. As you increase the breadth of your site, you will cause more visitors to show up.

It can be a bit overwhelming when you try and decide exactly what type of business you want to create. To start off, you need to narrow down all of your interests until you find the one you enjoy the most. Pick something that you like and know much about. Creating a tangible goal will make it much easier to market your website.

The internet is an effective free resource to help evaluate your market approach since you may not be able to afford a marketing consultant for best business blogs. Consider joining up with an online forum, groups in your hometown, or borrowing books from your local library.

One fun marketing campaign is to have a contest on your website that offers great prizes. For instance, make your site like a scavenger hunt with hidden words scattered around the page. Ask visitors to find them. Offer prizes and discounts for those that find them. When customers are involved in the site, they are more likely to feel comfortable making a purchase from you.

Don't overlook the little details. Place your site's title in the top corner of each page. Also, place a description of your site here. Visitors may get to different pages, depending on their search. If they do not know exactly what your page has to offer, they may simply leave.

The language you use on your site should be rich, creative and descriptive, especially for a niche marketing blog. People like adjectives so make sure that you use plenty of them in any item descriptions. Come up with creative turns-of-phrase, and find ways to amaze people with your writing. Engender a desire to come back to your website, just to see what you might say next.

If you are good at writing, write an article about your business and submit it to magazines that accept submissions. Make sure these articles are signed with your full name and contain information about your business. If you get published in an online magazine, include a link to your site. Ask the editors if they would accept some free products or commission on affiliate work if they will put your articles on their site.

Create a well-designed and interesting website. What your website looks like, as well as the content it contains, will have a huge bearing on your degree of success. Interesting articles and a user friendly design will go a long way in keeping visitors on your site. The design should be engaging enough to grab your audience's attention, making them want to keep looking around.

If you want your site to be successful, it should contain rich, entertaining text. You want the information on your website to appear at the front of search engines, but you also want it to be original enough that you will bring in visitors.

To get a better idea of what is most effective with your customers, test your emails. A/B testings is a great option. Develop your email campaign, then focus on changing only one thing. Choose something to compare. For example, you may want to test a couple of different subject lines or intro paragraphs in your marketing copy. You would then send both types of emails out to two different equal-sized subsets of customers, measuring the results. Whichever methods test as the most successful can become the singular method or format you keep to finish out the campaign.

Put yourself in your customers' shoes. Is your site easy to navigate through? Does it offer enjoyment to the reader? Can orders be placed on your website quickly and easily? You don't want to bring in business only to lose it because of a poorly designed website.

Your URL should be memorable, so that people come back. You will want to incorporate your brand name or your business's name into your site address, if you can. Use an URL that will be easy to remember for your customers. They will be more likely to visit your website if they can remember it.

Try to get inside the brain of your customers when creating your website. If you can provide them with the information or products they are searching for, then sooner or later your marketing efforts will have paid off and result in many sales. Ask visitors for their direct input and objective analysis of your site. Ask friends or family, or even ask for comments from those in a marketing forum. Research well and develop a site that will give people the help they need.

When advertising a deal or product include words that make them feel like they are getting a deal. People shop online because they are tired of what their local stores have to offer. Online consumers seek unique products different from what they are used to seeing. By offering a product that is limited in quantity, it will cause customers to snap them up quickly, so that they don't lose out on something that is different or unusual.

People often do not believe everything they read in ads. For years, advertising has been misleading. This makes it very important to support every claim you make on your site as fully as possible. You can use reviews, before-and-after pictures, test reports, and testimonials. Don't claim that your product or service does something you're not able to prove. Your customers should be treated like they're smart and are informed. You should not take advantage of any person -- ever. Build a trustworthy reputation, and customers will flock to your business.

As has been revealed earlier, web marketing is an amazing way to reach out to customers and to bring attention to your business and products. The opportunities are endless and the benefits are immense. By utilizing the information in the article, you can build your customer base and bring new recognition to your company.

Martie McCabe is an internet marketer.. My articles focuses on developing strategies and tips on promoting your blog. Learn more about promoting your blog and blog names. For more articles go to my blog at http://www.empowernetwork.com/10k/best-business-blogs/

Related to: best business blogs - niche marketing blog - network marketing blog - business marketing blog - promoting your blog - online business blog

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1: Article Marketing Strategy: Putting Together a "Class Schedule" For Your Article Topics

Businesses go to so much trouble when there is one sure-fire, simple, very inexpensive way to attract new clients to a business: Teach a free class. That is what article marketing is like. Your articles are just like free classes. You teach your target readers something helpful in your article. Your resource box then says, "If you enjoyed this article you can visit my website and apply what you have learned."

by: Steve Shaw on: Sat, 23 Apr 2011

2: Why You Need To Build Multiple Streams of Income For Yourself

Being an entrepreneur and earning multiple streams of income is a dream that many have, but in reality it does take some initial hard work to achieve this. Earning multiple streams of income is the wave of the future, and here are some tips and advice for you when you are looking for ways in which to do this for yourself.

by: Michel Maling on: Sat, 29 Sep 2012

3: Understanding Online Business Success

Starting a home based business to earn income online takes a significant amount of time and energy upfront to get things going. Not seeing results immediately can be discouraging and cause people to give up too early. In this article, we look at the process of starting a home based business and working through the frustrations to be there when the sales come flowing in.

by: Mike Christie on: Sat, 29 Sep 2012

4: What is Cyber Marketing And Why It Is So Important For The Success Of Your Website

Cyber marketing has now become an indispensable segment of e-commerce as well as the internet and World Wide Web related topics. Cyber marketing simply refers to a technique of attracting potential customers by advertising your products or services through such means as websites, emails, and banners.

by: WJaegel on: Tue, 18 Dec 2007

5: The Best Way To Optimise Your Website SEO For Google Panda

If you want your SEO to work you now need to concentrate on appeasing Google Panda, and to do this you need to know what Google Panda's spiders/bots will be looking for. Find out here how to search engine optimise your website for the latest Google Panda algorithm, and achieve the success you deserve.

by: K Damian Qualter on: Mon, 26 Mar 2012

Source: http://www.content4reprint.com/internet-marketing/best-business-blogs.htm

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Foster Care /FTP - Community - TheBump.com

I think a foster care shower could be great. Ask your friend first, and maybe they can do a wishlist/registry.

Things that may be helpful for a variety of ages: children's books, toys, storage bins, baby toiletries, first aid kit, bedding, convertible car seat, pack and play, booster seat for eating

Source: http://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/73594709.aspx

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Satoru Iwata stepping in as Nintendo of America CEO following weak Wii U sales, diminished forecast

Yannick LeJacq , NBC News contributor ? ? ? 3 hrs.

Current president and CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd. Saturo Iwata was just given a new gig by his struggling employer. In addition to the roles he already has, Iwata will now assume the position of CEO of Nintendo of America (NoA), replacing current chief executive and chairman Tatsumi Kimishima, who is transferring to the company's Kyoto headquarters to serve as the General Manager of both the Corporate Analysis and Administration as well as the General Affairs Division.

Iwata will now oversee NoA president and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime. His and Kimishima's new appointments are just one part of an executive-level reshuffling for Nintendo's board of directors as several key members plan to retire.

In a statement announcing the new appointments, Nintendo said the move will support "the company's unified global strategy" and "allow streamlined decision making and enhance Nintendo's organizational agility in the current competitive environment."

Nintendo announced the executive shifts alongside its 2013 fiscal year earnings report, which saw the company return to profitability after posting its first loss in three decades the previous year.

The news is hardly encouraging for the world's largest video game console maker, however. Nintendo reported a net profit of ?7.10 billion ($71.7 million) for the year ended in March, up from a loss of ?43.20 billion in the previous year but nearly half the company's projected ?14 billion.

Much of this income gap stems from lower-than-expected sales of its new home entertainment console, the Wii U, which was first released last November. The company announced that just 3.45 million Wii U units have shipped worldwide so far?more than half a million units short of its January forecast for 4 million, which was itself a diminished forecast from the original 5.5 million projection. These figures imply that the Wii U only shipped an additional 390,000 units globally in the last three months.

The company predicted that net income will rise to ?55 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, saying that it expects to sell 9 billion Wii U consoles in the coming year. Analysts, however, have remained wary about the console's commercial prospects as it faces increased competition from competitors like Sony and Microsoft ? both of which are expected to release next-generation gaming devices of their own in time for the 2013 holiday season.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities who told NBC News last week in no uncertain terms that he thinks Iwata "sucks" at his job, said the Wii U is "just a baffling thing" that disregards the very interests of the home console market to which it is meant to appeal.

"I've always said that I think they came up with a solution and never identified the problem that they were solving," Pachter said.

"And the proof of that is: how many people call it a tablet when it first came out?" he added, referring to the large touchscreen controller officially known as a "GamePad" that comes with the device.

Pachter didn't doubt the attraction that many gamers still feel to beloved Nintendo game franchises like "Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda," but he felt that the fact that Nintendo had to release a separate Xbox 360-style "Wii U Pro" controller showed that the company no longer knows how to appeal to many of the gamers would be willing to make a hefty investment into a new console.

And without a guaranteed audience of dedicated console gamers like Sony or Microsoft has, the company risks losing its already tenuous third-party support to make new games for the Wii U.

"It doesn't appear they're going to get long-lasting third party support," Pachter said. "The ones that did support are going to abandon it if it doesn't sell better," presumably once the PlayStation 4 or new Xbox can offer developers a larger customer base than the Wii U can.

Without that third-part support, Nintendo is left with its many "Mario" and "Zelda" franchises, which have certainly done enough to support the 3DS, but not necessarily an additional console ? and a pricier one at that.

"None of us can figure out why exactly we want one," Pachter said. "We don't need a home console that's like the 3DS, and that's just what the Wii U is."

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2b2178d2/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cingame0Csatoru0Eiwata0Estepping0Enintendo0Eamerica0Eceo0Efollowing0Eweak0Ewii0Eu0E6C9588738/story01.htm

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