Sunday, March 31, 2013

NASA Spacecraft Snaps New Photo of Potential 'Comet of the Century'

A NASA spacecraft scanning for the most powerful explosions in the universe has captured a photo of Comet ISON, an icy wanderer that could potentially dazzle stargazers when it swings close to the sun later this year.

NASA's Swift satellite, which is typically used to track intense gamma-ray bursts from distant stars, photographed Comet ISON on Jan. 30, with the space agency unveiling the photo today (March 29). By tracking the comet over the last two months, Swift has allowed astronomers to learn new details about how large the comet is and how fast it is spewing out gas and dust.

"Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period," said Lead Investigator Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer with University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) who helped obtain the new image.

Some astronomers have predicted that ISON could be the "Comet of the Century" when it makes its closest approach to the sun in late November. But a recent analysis found that the comet is not brightening as expected, and may have a ways to go to meet such expectations.

Comet ISON was first discovered in September 2012 by Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) located near Kislovodsk. The comet's official designation is Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). [See more photos of Comet ISON]

Swift's Comet ISON view

Bodewits and his university colleagues teamed up with the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to capture new views of Comet ISON using the Swift spacecraft. The satellite's Jan. 30 photo shows the comet as a bright, fuzzy white ball. At the time, Comet ISON was about 375 million miles (670 million kilometers) from Earth and 460 million miles (740 million km) from the sun.

"Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet's water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Swift's observations revealed that Comet ISON is currently shedding about 112,000 pounds (51,000 kilograms) of dust and about 130 pounds (60 kg) of water every minute, an odd mismatch for such an anticipated comet.

All comets are made of dust and frozen gases that mix together to form a sort of "dirty snowball" in space, NASA officials explained. Water ice in comets typically stays frozen until the comet approaches within three times the Earth's distance to the sun, at which time the water ice heats up and changes directly into gas (a process called sublimation), creating jets of material that can brighten the comet.

"The mismatch we detect between the amount of dust and water produced tells us that ISON's water sublimation is not yet powering its jets because the comet is still too far from the sun," Bodewits said. "Other more volatile materials, such as carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide ice, evaporate at greater distances and are now fueling ISON's activity."

Currently, Comet ISON is about 5,000 times fainter than the dimmest object the human eye can see.

NASA's Comet ISON campaign

NASA's Swift spacecraft is one of several satellites and probes to observe Comet ISON as it passes through the inner solar system. The space agency has formed the Comet ISON Observing Campaign (CIOC) to make the most of the comet's visit.

On Oct. 1, the comet will pass within 6.7 million miles (10.8 million km) of Mars, and may be spotted by orbiters around the Red Planet. [Comet ISON's Path Through Solar System (Video)]

"During this close encounter, Comet ISON may be observable to NASA and ESA spacecraft now working at Mars," said Michael Kelley, a UMCP astronomer and also a Swift and CIOC team member. "Personally, I'm hoping we'll see a dramatic postcard image taken by NASA's latest Mars explorer, the Curiosity rover."

On Nov. 28 ? 58 days after swing close by Mars ? Comet ISON will make its closest approach to the sun, flying within 730,000 miles (1.2 million km) of the star's surface during the encounter. Several sun-watching observatories will be tracking the comet at that time, and ISON may even become visible in the daytime sky to observers who block the sun's light with their hand, NASA officials said.

The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 26, coming with 39.9 million miles (64.2 million km) of the planet as a late Christmas present.

But whether Comet ISON will live up to its celestial hype or fizzle out in a whimper still remains to be seen, astronomers warned. The comet must still survive the approach into the inner solar system, as well as its close encounter with the sun.

"It looks promising, but that's all we can say for sure now," Matthew Knight, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory said. "Past comets have failed to live up to expectations once they reached the inner solar system, and only observations over the next few months will improve our knowledge of how ISON will perform."

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of Comet ISON or any other celestial object, and you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please send images and comments, including location information, to Managing Editor Tariq Malik at?spacephotos@space.com.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him?@tariqjmalik?and?Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebook?and?Google+.?Original article on?SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-spacecraft-snaps-photo-potential-comet-century-112400946.html

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Landslide on Puget Sound part of a geological pattern. Is it over?

The massive landslide on Whidbey Island near Seattle this week is part of a larger complex of slides on Puget Sound islands going back thousands of years. It may not be over yet.

By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / March 29, 2013

University of Washington geologist Terry Swanson surveys the damage from a landslide on Whidbey Island, Wash. The slide severely damaged one home and isolated or threatened more than 30 on the island, about 50 miles north of Seattle in Puget Sound.

Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times/AP

Enlarge

The massive landslide on Whidbey Island about 50 miles north of Seattle may have happened in seconds, but its history is measured in geological time, so it may not be over yet.

Skip to next paragraph Brad Knickerbocker

Staff writer and editor

Brad Knickerbocker is a staff writer and editor based in Ashland, Oregon.

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It?s a small portion of a much larger landslide complex about a mile and a half long that may date back as far as 11,000 years, according to Washington State geologists, and it?s still moving, however slightly.

For now, the evaluation and recovery effort is focusing on assessing damages ? particularly to the homes that residents have not been allowed to return to.

No one was killed or injured in the slide, which occurred at about 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.

But it did move one beachside home ? now deemed uninhabitable ? some 200 feet off its foundation, Eric Brooks, deputy director for emergency management at Island County (which includes nine islands in Puget Sound), told the Seattle Times. It also took out 300 to 400 feet of a road leading to the beach, leaving 17 homes unreachable and without power because the slide also took out the utility poles.

The slide displaced some 200,000 cubic yards of earth, or approximately 40,000 dump truck loads, state officials said. Twenty properties on a scenic island hillside were damaged by the slide, with some suffering structural damage and others losing portions of their yards, reports the Associated Press.

The landslide into Puget Sound lifted the beach as much as 30 feet above the previous shoreline, state geologists said in a preliminary report Thursday.

"It looks like a giant shovel pulled the hill down to the water," Central Whidbey Fire Chief Ed Hartin told Reuters. "We heard a lot of rumbling and snapping of trees."

The homes in the Ledgewood Beach area are a mix of year-round and vacation properties that sit high on a bluff overlooking the waters of Puget Sound.

A local home owned by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer did not appear to be immediately threatened, Chief Hartin said.

At a community meeting Thursday evening in Coupeville, Whidbey Island?s country seat, residents wanted to know when they can get back into their homes. They're also worried about looters. The sheriff's office plans extra patrols.

While the ground continued to move Thursday, the geologists said the land will slowly try to stabilize itself.

"The chance of another catastrophic movement is low, but possible," their report said.

The area "still has a bit of slippage here and there," Terry Clark of the county?s emergency management department told the AP. "It can be a handful of dirt to a barrel-full. It's still an active event."

"It's probably one of the largest ones we've seen in Washington State, much less along the coast," Mr. Clark said of the landslide. "We're used to little slides here and there, but this happens to be way beyond what our expectations were."

As usual with such natural disasters, the Whidbey Island landslide may raise questions about where residential and commercial structures and facilities should be built.

?It?s taken a while to soak it in to realize that life changes in five minutes,? Whidbey resident Nancy Skullerud told KING5 News in Seattle. ?Mother Nature always wins.?

The Pacific Northwest can be soggy, but rainfall appears not to have been a cause of the Whidbey Island slide.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/VFjhLMSviRA/Landslide-on-Puget-Sound-part-of-a-geological-pattern.-Is-it-over

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Cornyn denounces Rep. Don Young's use of racial epithet (Washington Post)

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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Timeline: The long path to a Dell buyout

By Poornima Gupta and Greg Roumeliotis

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dell Inc founder Michael Dell's efforts to take the PC company private began last summer with an idea pitched by its top institutional shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management.

Here is a timeline of the discussions as disclosed on Friday in Dell's preliminary proxy statement:

June 15, 2012 -- Southeastern Asset Management, which owns 146.5 million shares or about 8.4 percent of Dell, contacts CEO Michael Dell to suggest "a going private transaction" and expresses the fund's interest in participating in it.

July 17 -- Michael Dell meets a representative of private equity firm Silver Lake Partners at a conference and they set up discussions in August. In these talks, Silver Lake suggests to Dell's founder he should take the company private.

August 11, 13 -- Michael Dell meets with a representative of another private equity firm, identified in the proxy only as "Sponsor A," to ask what it thought of such a transaction. Sources told Reuters Sponsor A is private equity firm KKR & Co LP. KKR declined to comment.

August 14 -- Michael Dell informs board member and lead independent director Alex Mandl that he is exploring a buyout but says he has made no decision.

August 17 -- The board has a teleconference during which Michael Dell briefs them on the take-private idea and discussions surrounding it. The board decides to consider a potential transaction and other strategic alternatives.

August 20 -- The board forms a special committee consisting of Mandl, former co-director of Goldman Sachs' Americas equity research unit Laura Conigliaro, Marathon Oil Chief Financial Officer Janet Clark and consulting firm Duberstein Group CEO Kenneth Duberstein. Mandl is subsequently appointed chairman of the special committee.

August 21 -- Dell reports weak second fiscal quarter results. Revenue of $14.5 billion was about $300 million less than what management had expected. The company lowers fiscal 2013 outlook.

August 24 to 29 -- Mandl holds discussions with investment bankers JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc to select a financial advisor. JPMorgan is retained.

September 14 -- JPMorgan tells the special committee it has identified other financial sponsors as potential buyers but notes that Silver Lake and KKR are best placed as each could complete a transaction with significant committed equity.

October 23 -- Silver Lake and KKR submit preliminary proposals to acquire Dell. Silver Lake's purchase price is between $11.22 and $12.16 per share, and KKR's purchase price is between $12 and $13 per share. Both assume Michael Dell would participate in the deal. KKR also assumes Southeastern would participate.

October 27 - The special committee discusses with Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden potential strategic alternatives such as returning capital to shareholders through a leveraged recapitalization, accelerating the company's current plan, a transformative acquisition and separating certain businesses.

November 2 -- JPMorgan informs Silver Lake and KKR the special committee is not happy with the price ranges.

November 12 -- Dell hires Boston Consulting Group to review strategic alternatives.

Dec 3 -- KKR withdraws from the process, mainly because it is not comfortable with the risks associated with Dell.

December 4 -- Silver Lake submits an updated proposal to acquire Dell for $12.70 per share.

December 7 -- Mandl invites another firm, identified in the proxy only as "Sponsor B," to consider making a proposal. A source told Reuters Sponsor B is private equity firm TPG Capital LP. TPG did not respond to a request for comment.

December 10 -- Mandl informs Silver Lake its offer price is too low. Silver Lake seeks permission to involve Microsoft Corp, from which it intended to seek financing.

December 14-16 -- The company enters into confidentiality agreements with debt financing sources of Silver Lake: RBC Capital Markets, Credit Suisse Securities, Barclays Capital, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

December 17 -- Michael Dell meets with senior representatives of TPG to discuss a potential proposal.

December 23 -- TPG informs it is withdrawing from the process, primarily due to "risks and uncertainties in the PC business."

January 16, 2013 -- Silver Lake submits another proposal to acquire Dell for $12.90 per share.

January 19 -- Mandl tells Michael Dell the special committee is willing to support a transaction at a price of $13.75 per share. Michael Dell then discusses it with Silver Lake, which later proposes a price of $13.25 per share.

January 20 -- Silver Lake informs Dell it is willing to increase its offer price to $13.50 per share.

January 24 -- Silver Lake increases its offer to $13.60 per share.

January 24 -- A party identified as "Strategic Party A" expresses interest in purchasing Dell's financial business for about $3.5 billion to $4 billion. Blackstone Group LP also expresses interest in exploring a transaction. It could not be confirmed whether Strategic Party A IS General Electric Co, which sources previously said had been approached by Blackstone. GE has previously declined comment.

January 29 -- Southeastern informs special committee it would oppose any deal in the range of $14 or $15 per share that did not provide existing large stockholders with an opportunity to participate.

Michael Dell and Silver Lake say they are not interested in pursuing a deal in which any public stockholders would retain an interest.

February 3 -- Silver Lake submits a revised proposal, offering $13.60 per share if the company continues paying its regular dividend, or $13.75 per share if the company stops paying dividends.

February 4 -- Silver Lake ups its offer to $13.65 per share, with the Dell allowed to carry on paying its regular dividend.

Special committee recommends accepting Silver Lake's proposal.

February 5 -- A deal with Silver Lake is announced and a 45-day period starts to uncover other offers. Dell contacts 67 parties, including 19 strategic parties, 18 financial sponsors and 30 others such as sovereign wealth funds. Unsolicited inquiries are also received from four parties, including two strategic and two financial sponsors.

March 5 -- Activist investor Carl Icahn sends a letter to Dell's board stating he is a substantial holder of shares. Icahn later reveals he has $1 billion worth of Dell shares.

March 21 -- Dell advisor Evercore receives an indication of interest from Strategic Party A for a proposed acquisition of Dell's finance business.

March 22 -- Blackstone and Icahn Enterprises send proposals to the special committee. Blackstone, which teamed up with Francisco and Insight Venture partners, offers in excess of $14.25 per share for the whole company, while Icahn offers about $15 per share for 58 percent. Under both proposals, Dell would remain a public company.

March 25 -- Dell releases 274-page preliminary proxy statement on its buyout negotiations.

Sources: Dell's proxy statement, Reuters

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta in San Francisco and Greg Roumeliotis in New York)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/timeline-long-path-dell-buyout-014513138--sector.html

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Arizona Child Injury: TV Tip-Over Can Cause Death | Personal Injury ...

By Breyer Law Offices on March 29, 2013 -

As Arizona child injury attorneys, we know that unstable furniture can topple over and hurt children. One of the most common types of injury is from television sets since nearly every family owns one. According to Safe Kids USA, one child dies every three weeks in the US from a TV tipping over, and nearly 13,000 more are injured. There is a huge increase in this kind of accident, and because of this, we would like to bring attention to the risk and give parents some tips on how to protect their kids from the same type of tragedy.

The Statistics

Here are some statistics about television tip-overs that parents should know:

  • According to the report, young children under the age of 5 are at the greatest risk of injury from televisions tipping over.
  • Head injuries and serious injuries requiring hospitalization are most common for the younger children.
  • Every 45 minutes, a child is injured from a television tipping over.
  • Most parents do not secure televisions to the wall.

Our Tips to Keep Your Child Safer

While there is no way to prevent all accidents, there are a few things you can do to make your child and your home a little safer. You can also ask friends and family to do the same things in their homes, especially if your children will be visiting them.

  • Secure all furniture that can topple, including televisions, armoires, dressers, and mirrors to the wall.
  • Crawl around on the floor at the height of your child and pull on all furniture and other items. If you can make them wiggle, your child can too. Secure them immediately.
  • Do not place heavy, unsecured objects on top of furniture.
  • Remove all cords, ropes or items that the child can pull on, causing something to fall down.

Contact an Arizona Personal Injury Attorney

The Husband and Wife Law Team at Breyer Law Offices has children of their own. We work hard to represent families who are grieving the loss or injury of a child because of a preventable accident. Contact us today to discuss the facts about your case.

Source: http://www.breyerlaw.com/blog/childrens-injuries/arizona-child-injury-tv-tip-over-death/

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Helena Christensen on Kim Kardashian Weight Critics: Disgusting! Despicable!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/helena-christensen-on-kim-kardashian-weight-critics-disgusting-d/

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News in Brief: Termites, not fairies, cause plant circles in African deserts

Underground insect engineers create water traps, allowing rings of green grasses in the sand

Underground insect engineers create water traps, allowing rings of green grasses in the sand

By Susan Milius

Web edition: March 28, 2013

Enlarge

Natural rings of perennial grasses manage to survive in parched terrain of NamibRand, Namibia, thanks to a termite that creates areas of moisture within the sand.

Credit: N. J?rgens

The Namib Desert?s version of crop circles turns out to be the handiwork of sand-dwelling termites.

These ?fairy rings? of perennial grass species dot arid, sandy sweeps from Angola to South Africa and have inspired ecological and mythological speculation about their origins. After 40 trips to study the water distribution and life around the fairy rings, Norbert J?rgens of the University of Hamburg in Germany concludes that the sand termite (Psammotermes allocerus) is the hidden force behind them.

Among the hundreds of species that thrive in these rings, the sand termite is the only one found throughout the range, he reports in the March 29 Science.

Termites unintentionally engineer these marvels by eating the roots of grasses, creating a bald patch that becomes the ring?s center. The subsurface depths of that patch stay moister than neighboring areas, where plants draw the water out of the soil. The circles? bull?s eye favors not only the moisture-loving termites, but also a belt around its edge of perennial grasses and many other species that couldn?t survive baked sand.

As ecosystem engineers, J?rgens says, the sand termite rivals the beaver.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349261/title/News_in_Brief_Termites_not_fairies_cause_plant_circles_in_African_deserts

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Self Improvement Tips That You Should Check Out | MySpareTime.net

If you are trying to grow as a person, you need to learn as much as you can and then apply it to your life. Liking yourself comes first. If you use the following advice to better yourself, then the rest of your life will get better too.

You must understand that a divide exists between where you currently are, and the place you would like to go. You have to realize this difference before you can actually get to your destination. By living in denial of these facts, you will sabotage your efforts of reaching your true potential.

Define something specific you want to change about yourself, and change that. Sitting and thinking about the life you want will not get you that life. Identify your goals and take the necessary actions to make it happen.

Not only is getting organized an achievement in itself, but it will help you to meet other goals faster. If you break your goals down to their smallest components, you will find that it is easier to achieve smaller tasks quickly. Write down your progresses in a planner or journal about your goals.

TIP! Being dramatic or overreacting will only cause more stress. It?s best to train yourself to cope with your daily stress, and it begins with analyzing every situation where you tend to feel strained.

Avoid making a personal development goal that is unnecessarily complicated, or not well defined. Make sure that your goals are very specific. When you have specific goals set, you will find that you get results.

Researchers are exploring how we use a dimension of our personalities termed sexual capital. It does not refer to using sexuality in a manipulative way. Instead, it is simply a method of recognizing and making the most of your potential to be charming. Some people are unable to socialize well, but being able to can be extremely beneficial.

Give yourself a boost of confidence by reciting all the things you like about yourself. Make a list of all the good things about you, and put it on a postcard. Put this list up on a wall, or carry it with you. You might even consider recording the mantra in your own voice, so that you can play it back at any time. What?s the point?

Keep in mind the well-known saying that you can?t please everybody all of the time. Your main concern should be yourself. This doesn?t mean that you should only think of yourself, especially if it hurts others, but you often have to put yourself first or no one else will. If you engage in actions and activities that are in line with your morals and beliefs, you will feel good about the personal development path that you are on.

TIP! Compliment other people. Doing the opposite and taking the initiative to be kind to others helps you to be kind to yourself too.

To grow in your own development, you must first acknowledge areas in which you are weak. When you accept that you are but a tiny speck in the scope of our universe, you can begin to realize that there is much to learn if you hope to advance. A humble attitude puts you in the right mindset to learn new things and develop as a human being.

Stress can greatly interfere with your mood. When the human mind is preoccupied with a state of stress, damage can be caused to both physical and mental aspects of the body. Eliminating stress is essential for thinking clearly and achieving goals. Schedule a time every day where you can relax, be alone, and empty your thoughts. This time of rejuvenation can help you feel better about yourself, and give you more peace at heart.

Self improvement comes from the decisions that you make when you choose not to miss an opportunity. Make decisions based on your own knowledge and what you can learn from your research. Decisions that succeed create good instincts. You can even learn a lot from making mistakes because you then know what not to do. Think of your bad decisions as possibilities you have eliminated.

You need to know that you deserve the best when you are embarking on a journey of personal development. You should do your best because your best is what you deserve. Your ending will sure to be free of regret when you can look back and see that you gave it your all.

TIP! Be nice to your body to better your personal development. When you body is letting you know that you need food or a drink, you need to listen! Your body will be healthier and happier if you listen and follow these guidelines.

By taking all of the knowledge you?ve just learned from this article into account, you should now have a good understanding of what you should do next to achieve your personal development goals. Be sure to keep an eye out for any new information you can add to these tips so that you can continue to grow as a person.

Read the following article, you might find it very interesting!
5 Tips For Getting Your Exboyfriend Or Exgirlfriend Back

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Source: http://mysparetime.net/self-improvement-tips-that-you-should-check-out/

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We'll Never Achieve STEM Goals Without Computer Science ...

Published by EducationNews.org ????Everyone in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.? ? Steve Jobs, founder of Apple

Back in the day, the high-tech innovation that rocked my world was a self-correcting typewriter.? Mere keystrokes replaced the black-ink ribbon with a white-out tape so I could erase mistakes by typing.? Absolute bliss for someone living a writing-intensive life.

Today, super-sophisticated computers and electronics are everywhere.? Literally.? Devices are in everyone?s hands (to an annoying extent), implanted in people?s bodies, and managing all manner of data-heavy work like traffic, government databases, massive communications systems, and more.

Electronic technology has become the lifeblood of all developed economies.? Even nature-bound work ? landscape gardeners, wedding florists and farmers ? use computers for billing, research, ordering supplies, advertising their wares.

Ubiquitous.? Critical to everyone?s daily life.

So you would think that America?s K-12 education system would be frantically preparing students for all manner of computer skills, from software engineers to hardware experts.? But how many schools do you know that routinely offer computer science in their curriculum, to most students?

For years now, the business community has been pushing educators to get more students into STEM fields ? without great success.? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.? The remarkable dearth of qualified employees in these areas means that even during the recent recession, thousands of jobs went begging for lack of trained applicants.

But in last December?s?presentation?to the Massachusetts? Governor?s STEM Council, an industry group, the MASS Tech Hub, made the point that the foundational problem is the lack of computer science.? ?Computing is both the biggest job sector of STEM today?andhas the largest future growth expectations.? ..? Tech isn?t just an industry or a job function, it?s part of nearly every aspect of our economy.?? No STEM job gets done without computer science.

Massachusetts, btw, has perhaps the best trained technology workforce in the country.? Its tech sector produces nearly 20 percent of their Gross Domestic Product.? But they are scrambling for workers.

Between 2010-2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the current 900,000 software engineering jobs to grow by 30 percent.? The 300,000 computer and information systems managerial jobs will grow 18 percent.? Database administrators, 31 percent.? And that?s not even counting the civil engineers or biochemists and biophysicisists.

Hey, it?s not even considering the Information Technology (IT) person that virtually every organization now needs on staff or available for hire.

Ask any business who needs software engineers if they can find workers.? Mighty slim pickings.? Anecdotally, my data pals report that their new hires are largely self-taught.? Schools are very little help with this problem.

So an industry group has resorted to selling computer science via celebrity gods.? Check out the aptly-named video?What Most Schools Don?t Teach?on code.org.? Super-celebrities like Bill Gates and Facebook?s Mark Zuckerberg, a basketball and a rap star talk about feeling like superstars when they first could make miracles happen on their computer screen.? Anyone, they assert, can read, do math, and program.? Coding is not the exclusive province of nerds and geniuses.? And even if you don?t enter a STEM field, the skills will support any field you choose.

Oh, and the not-so-subtle underlying message is that you too can be obscenely wealthy, famous, and work in cool places with live bands, pools and free lunch.

It quotes the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple:? ?Everyone in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.?

Now that I agree with.

So if computer science is a necessary skill, right up there with reading and writing, why isn?t it pervasive in schools?

For the most comprehensive answer,?see?Running on Empty?? The Failure to Teach K?12 Computer Science in the Digital Age.? It says, for example, that even as ?we move toward an ever-more computing-intensive, ? most states treat high school computer science courses as simply an elective and not part of a student?s core education.?

Our system is greatly hampered by the fact that ?government policies underpinning the K?12 education system are deeply confused, conflicted, or inadequate to teach engaging computer science as an academic subject.?

Only 9 states allow computer science to count towards math or science requirements.

If anything, since NCLB?s demand that all kids perform proficiently, according to state standards, computer science has gotten increasingly pushed out of the school day, at best into elective courses ? that displace music and art ? or after-school clubs.

There?s no room for computer science in the conventional 6, 7-period secondary-school day, with its curriculum rooted in the 19th century.

Although, Russia, India and Israel, among others, found ways of embedding it in their schools, K-12.

America?s reputation as the nation of innovators is receding.? The K-12 system needs a re-boot, and not just more tinkering around the edges.

Thoughts on a partial solution next week.

Julia Steiny?is a freelance columnist whose work also regularly appears at?GoLocalProv.com?and?GoLocalWorcester.com. She is the founding director of the Youth Restoration Project, a restorative-practices initiative, currently building a demonstration project in Central Falls, Rhode Island. She consults for schools and government initiatives, including regular work for The Providence Plan for whom she analyzes data.For more detail, see juliasteiny.com or contact her at?juliasteiny@gmail.com?or c/o GoLocalProv, 44 Weybosset Street, Providence, RI 02903.

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Source: http://juliasteiny.com/2013/03/29/well-never-achieve-stem-goals-without-computer-science/

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Why So Many Americans Put Off Medical Care, Medicaid Expansion ...

Bulletin Today | Politics Print

Hidalgo is a county in southern Texas just across the Rio Grande from Mexico. It?s also home to the highest prevalence of U.S. adults ? about 40 percent of the population? delaying necessary medical care because of cost, according to data in the March 28 New England Journal of Medicine.

The research letter in the March 28 issue of the journal found this number to vary significantly across the country and to be lower in places with less restrictive eligibility criteria for Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income citizens.

Authors found that people with incomes between 67 percent and 127 percent of the federal poverty line, which is $23,550 for a family of four, had up to a 16 percent chance of delaying care. The odds went up to 42 percent for those with lower incomes.

Medicaid-counties-500-copy

Illustration Courtesy of The New England Journal of Medicine ?2013

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The findings come at a time when states are deciding whether to pursue the Affordable Care Act?s Medicaid expansion, which would extend eligibility to adults with incomes at or below 133 percent of the poverty level.

Norfolk, Mass., with a 6.5 percent prevalence of adults delaying care, was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Hidalgo, researchers said. Massachusetts? adoption of state health reforms since 1990, including Medicaid expansions, and the state?s history of investing in health care were likely reasons, said one of the authors, Dr. Cheryl Clarke from Brigham and Women?s Hospital in Boston.

?We were surprised by the depth of variation between states,? she said. ?It?s important these trends continue to be monitored.?

The study?s authors looked at county-level data of about 289,000 adults to determine the relationship between Medicaid eligibility and adults delaying care. They also took into account the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics at hand.

Researchers found that the counties with residents most vulnerable to delaying care were also likely to have more Hispanic residents and high rates of chronic diseases commonly associated with low-income communities. Texas and Florida were among the states with the highest prevalence.

But Clarke said the study shows that it is possible to develop health infrastructure ? through Medicaid, community clinics and more primary care doctors ? to combat an issue that might be taking a toll on the country?s health. And she said federal investments are moving in that direction.

?This seems to be a strategy that is feasible,? she said. ?We?ll see how that plays out over time.?

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Also of Interest

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See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

?

Source: http://blog.aarp.org/2013/03/28/why-so-many-americans-put-off-medical-care-medicaid-expansion-aca/

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Friday, March 29, 2013

More than White House tours: Sequester hurts nationwide

Forget the cancellation of White House tours.

We asked Yahoo News readers to tell us how the deep automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester are affecting their lives right now. And readers responded.

"We are cutting our spending and living more frugally because it looks like an $800 per month pay cut will be heading our way," wrote James Ferguson of Aberdeen, Md., whose wife works for the Department of Defense and faces furlough.

The sequester went into effect on March 1 after Congress and President Barack Obama failed to reach a major deficit-reduction deal. Some $85 billion in cuts were triggered, to be spread evenly across domestic and defense spending.

Obama has warned that the sequester could imperil the nation's slow economic recovery. Some conservative lawmakers have welcomed the cuts, saying it's a needed down payment on the type of cuts necessary to reducing the federal deficit.

A few respondents who emailed us or submitted entries through the Yahoo! Contributor Network said the impact of the cuts are far overblown. But the majority of those who reached out to Yahoo News were worried about furloughs for themselves or their spouses.

Readers also shared other concerns. Cassandra Friederichs told us that she and her husband, both veterans, are preparing for tuition assistance cuts; several readers looking for work explained how they are bracing for cuts in unemployment assistance; federal sales executive Carol Smouse said her office phones have stopped ringing as clients avoid their business; and one active-duty National Guardsman expressed outrage over facing a furlough because he also works as a civilian. Several respondents voiced concern about families with a disabled relative who may find their assistance cut.

Here are excerpts from some of the many submissions we received. Please note that some respondents requested their names be redacted due to concerns about their employment or military status:

Husband prepares to find part-time work for furlough day

Since 2006, my husband, Mac, has worked for the Department of Defense ...

Wendy Lunko and her husband, MacWith the sequester, however, he has already been told that everyone in his division will participate in furloughs. Of course, since everything in the government is related to politics, the furloughs will be one day each week, through the rest of the fiscal year, rather than allowing employees to opt for a 22-consecutive-day furlough, which would allow them to receive short-term unemployment. ...

I am very thankful I work full-time, as it means that while we still need to tweak our budget a bit, we will still have additional income. Mac is also exploring options for a part-time job, but until he is told exactly what day will be his furlough day, he cannot do too much. While I admire his work ethic and his willingness to take on a second job, I know that it will mean I'll get to spend less time with him. ...

I generally think we need less government spending, yet the sequester makes no real sense to me. I think the cuts are rather politically motivated, and are overly dramatic to attract attention, like ending the White House tours.

?Wendy Lunko, Pennsylvania

Diabetic woman faces April reduction in unemployment benefits

Last week, I received a notification from the unemployment office that due to the sequestration cuts, "the federal government has directed us to reduce your EUC payments by 10.7% beginning that first week in April. We (state) have no control over these cuts in benefits and no ability to waive or reduce the level of cuts."

The 10.7% reduction may not seem like a lot to you, but [it] is to me. After my employer of 12 years closed their doors, I have been actively looking every day for the last 8 months for a job to no avail. After rent & utilities, I can barely manage to put food on my table. Not a good diet when you are a diabetic. I have cut down on my expenses. I've already sold my car, cut off my home phone, switched to basic cable TV/Internet, switched to a prepaid cellphone plan. I can no longer afford to pay for (COBRA) health insurance. Without health insurance, I can no longer afford to buy the diabetic testing supplies or medications recommended for controling this pre-existing condition.

?Connie Miller, New York

Sequester is not a big deal

Way overblown. Their budget is less but they still have same or more money to spend versus last year just the budget was reduced for this year. Any qualified business manager could handle this. ... They need to reduce spending. Politics.

?Bob

Camp Lejeune, N.C., local worries about community

I believe the sequester will affect my personal income. I work at Johnston Community College in Smithfield, N.C. We had a budget meeting soon after the sequestration took effect, and I asked our comptroller if the college would be affected by those budget cuts.

Stephen Link at Johnston Community CollegeThe answer: "Not likely in this budget year." Of course, "certainly not" would have been more preferable.

Since we are in close proximity to Camp Lejeune (in Jacksonville) and even closer to Seymour Johnson [Air Force Base] (in Goldsboro), we will be seeing effects of spending cutbacks through areas other than a paycheck.

Am I really worried for myself? No. Am I worried about the overall effect that this can have on our local economy? Certainly. My belief is that these troubles will touch all employees of local, state, and federal governments. The net result will extend the recession, cause higher crime, and possibly launch us back into an economic depression like this generation has never seen.

?Stephen Link, North Carolina

Border Patrol agent faces furlough and end of overtime

I am a Border Patrol Agent and very soon my fellow Agents and I will be facing massive cuts. Beginning April 7th, we will no longer be able to work overtime as well as facing one furlough day each pay period (every two weeks). The overtime is a necessity in order for Agents to maintain border security during shift changes as well as other things that may happen during a shift which may include tracking groups and filling out paperwork. We also work in very extreme conditions. During the summer, temperatures can reach up to 125 degrees while we work shifts up to ten hours. We also track groups through the mountains and desert never knowing what can be waiting for us. When April 7th comes, we will be losing approximately 40% of our annual income. Agents who came from all over the country to work in the southwest will now be unable to pay for their homes, student loans, etc. It seems like this is a joke to our government while they try to play the blame game. There are a lot of hard working agents out there who have sacrificed a lot in order to help secure our borders.

?Border Patrol agent, El Centro, Calif.

No White House tour and a cut to unemployment benefits

Congress' decision to let $85 billion in across-the-board, indiscriminate spending cuts directly impact my family's well-being in Chicago.

My daughter, an eighth-grader, was supposed to take the class trip to Washington, D.C., this summer. Because of the sequester, she and her classmates won't see the White House. The financial cuts prompted the White House to cancel tours.

My husband, who has been unemployed or non-scheduled from his job at the Illinois Department of Employment Security for the past six months, will be hit with a 10-percent cut to his benefits. That's almost $200 less from his already very slim unemployment check. If he does not get his IDES job back soon, our family would be cut off from the medical and dental insurance benefits and we'll be forced to sign up for a more expensive plan under COBRA.

President Barack Obama's decisions?instead of improving the lives of middle-class families?hurt their well-being at their core. I am not sure that a Republican president would have done a better job getting our nation to balance its finances; unfortunately, at present, we do not have an alternative.

?Irene Lankin-Duffy, Chicago, Ill.

Department of Defense employee faces furlough after 30 years of service

I will be furloughed one day a week for 22 weeks. I have been a federal employee for over 30 years. It saddens me that Washington could not resolve and compromise to avoid sequester cuts. I don?t wear a suit to work or work in D.C. Many of my civilian counterparts provide many hours of work away from home to support National Defense.

Several of my co-workers responded when asked to go to Japan and help after the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. How are our dedication and many years of loyal service repaid? ...

[Update: This reader shared a DOD email update with Yahoo News informing employees that furlough notices have been delayed for ?approximately 2 weeks? to allow the department to analyze the impact of ?continuing resolution legislation on the Department?s resources.?]

?Federal employee, Hampton Roads, Va.

Active-duty National Guardsman faces furlough in civilian-military gray area

This is my twelfth scheduled workday in a row, so this weekend is a little more eagerly awaited than most. What had not been eagerly awaited was my furlough letter, advising me that in 30 days, I will be subject to 22 mandatory days off for the remainder of this fiscal year?effectively a 20% cut in pay. ... I haven?t told you who my employer is yet, have I? It?s the U.S. Air Force. ...

Long story short, I have military skill training qualifications and uniform, but a DoD civilian paycheck. Then, one weekend a month and two weeks a year, I show up at the same base, in my same uniform, in my same work area and get paid by the Air Force according to my military rank for my reserve duties. ...

I?m not exceptionally concerned whose fault the sequester is. I?m concerned that because I live in the gray area of military and civilian status, that I can still be sent to war, but I can?t get a full week?s paycheck because of the sequester.

?Technical sergeant, U.S. Air Force, Nevada National Guard motor vehicle operator, Reno, Nev.

Sequester doesn't go far enough

It's become a comically regular occurrence for members of both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government to make dire predictions of catastrophic shutdowns every time significant cuts to the federal budget are mentioned.

The most recent of these cuts (and one of the few to actually get through the legislative process) is the by now well-known sequestration measure. ...

For those who say these cuts are unsustainable, I respond by pointing out that neither is having a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 100 percent. For those who say it's a step in the right direction, I say it's not even that. The deficit in 2023 will still be greater than it is now, even if the sequester cuts manage to stay in place. Sure, these cuts are better than none, but they're really just a fraction of a drop in the bucket.

?Ryan Hurley, Cincinnati, Ohio

Mylinda Elliott

Louisiana woman worries about the disabled and her paycheck

I live in Lake Charles, La., where I work for a nonprofit that helps families that have a member with a disability. Although I have not been directly affected by the sequestration yet, we are all holding our breath. Many of the programs that help our families are supported by funds we are being told will be cut.

If we lose funding, it will be funding for wages?more specifically my wages. ...

In the past year, I have worked with several families with a member with a disability to get Social Security. The cuts to the Social Security Administration may not cut their check, but will curtail the hours an office will be open, and close some offices. This will make it harder on families. It will take longer for me to be able to assist them. I will be able to reach fewer families.

?Mylinda Elliott, Lake Charles, La.

Maryland man?s wife faces furloughs totaling $800/month

We are cutting our spending and living more frugally because it looks like an $800 per month pay cut will be heading our way. The government is forcing my wife to take one day off per week, totaling four days per month, which comes to approximately $800 a month of lost income for our family. I am a full-time real estate agent; that is 100 percent commissioned salary. My wife's income was our steady, reliable income until the sequester. I am currently searching for part-time employment on top of my full-time position to supplement the income cut. ...

I also have often thought of the local businesses and restaurants that thrive off of the 30,000-plus APG employees who eat lunch every day in these establishments, and who shop and buy groceries and gas all around the proving ground. All of these businesses will be affected as well. Across the board, within the DoD, everybody will be taking off at least one day a week. This will ripple across the local economy.

What can be done to help or fix this situation? How about we start these budget cuts from the top down?

?James Ferguson, Aberdeen, Md.

Federal sales executive says phones have stopped ringing

Working in sales, your job is on the line every time you fail to meet quota, 3 months in a row of failing to achieve it means you will be put "on notice" and will be required to bring in enough sales to meet quotas, or be terminated. Now that the sequester is going into effect, our Federal customers do not want to meet with us. The dozens of emails we would get every day have stopped coming, our phones are not ringing, and we are not selling. ...

Because of my job uncertainty, I kept my current car and had the transmission replaced, rather than buy a new car. I would have rather bought a new car, mine is now 10 years old, but I was too afraid to take on a car payment when I could end up out of work at any time. My coworkers are all making similar decisions. We are nervous and unwilling to take on financial obligations when our future is so uncertain.

I know we all wonder what we will do.

?Carol Smouse

Military couple prepares for tuition assistance cuts

I am relying on the Tuition Assistance that used to be offered to the military to finish school a little earlier than planned so that I can find a job and help my daughter grow up in a middle-class home. My fiance and I are both denied the right to have that Tuition Assistance that we were both PROMISED upon signing our contracts to serve our countries. ...

I am not angry that they are making cuts because that is what needs to be done, but I am angry at where they are deciding to make those cuts. Why does Obama get paid what he does? Why do the Congressmen, that keep delaying things and making these budgets go past [their deadlines], get paid [as much as] they do? If my fiance were to do the things that Congress does, he would be FIRED!

?Cassandra Friederichs

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/stories-sequester-yahoo-news-readers-respond-151156262--politics.html

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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Building Better Body Armor With Nanofoams

Nanotechnology... the next big thing.

I'll get my coat

It sure does make for annoying headlines; but 'nanotechnology' is sort of a concept that is doomed by nature to be spread vacuously thin across all sorts of things, both incremental advances and more remarkable stuff.

There probably a material in existence whose bulk properties don't derive from its structure at a fine scale, so the entire history of fields like metallurgy is 'nanotechnology' in a weak sense. On the other hand, though, most of that history, even to the present for economically viable bulk production, is largely messing around with heating and cooling parameters, and throwing various trace impurities into the mix, and then hoping really hard that the right nanoscale structures self-assemble.

The real problem is deciding where to draw the line between 'yeah, it's "nanotech" in the vacuous sense that all materials engineering is' and 'actually "nanotech" in some sense that makes it worthy of the title'...

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/oTNxuR7Soco/story01.htm

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SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification launches

SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification launches [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy
karthika@siam.org
267-350-6383
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

The newest journal from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification (JUQ), launched today with its first seven papers publishing online to Volume 1.

Offered jointly by SIAM and the American Statistical Association, the journal publishes research articles presenting significant mathematical, statistical, algorithmic, and application advances in uncertainty quantification, and is dedicated to nurturing synergistic interactions between these and related areas.

Under the leadership of Senior Editor Max Gunzburger, Editors-in-Chief James Berger and Donald Estep and more than 35 others comprising the editorial board, the journal will feature continuous electronic publication at SIAM Journals Online with complimentary access in 2013.

If the first few research articles are any indicationcovering the analysis and quantification of uncertainty in areas as far-reaching as finance, disaster preparedness and porous media flows the journal promises great depth and breadth of coverage in uncertainty quantification research.

Below is an overview of some of the interesting topics you will read about in JUQ's maiden volume:

In a paper titled "Mean Exit Times and the Multilevel Monte Carlo Method" Desmond Higham, Xuerong Mao, Mikolaj Roj, Qingshuo Song, and George Yin propose a method to reduce the computational complexity of a simple and widely used algorithm, Euler/Monte Carlo simulation for a mean exit time. The multilevel algorithm proposed in the paper improves the expected computational complexity by an order of magnitude, in terms of required accuracy. The analysis is illustrated with numerical results.

In "Variance Components and Generalized Sobol' Indices," author Art Owen describes Sobol' indices, which are used to determine and quantify the importance of variables used in modeling and simulation. Computer simulations are so pervasive in engineering applications that the performance of anything from an airplane to a power dam is usually investigated computationally, in addition to laboratory experiments. Such simulated models depend on several input variables that describe product dimensions and composition, manufacturing processes, and so on and so forth. Sobol' indices have been developed to quantify the importance of such variables. Owen's article introduces readers to generalized Sobol' indices, relates them to well-known ideas in experimental design, and compares methods to estimate them.

In the paper, "Formulating Natural Hazard Policies under Uncertainty," Jerome and Seth Stein present a general stochastic model to minimize expected damage from natural disasters. Uncertainty issues are important in the assessment of risks posed by natural hazards and in developing strategies to alleviate their consequences. Using the 2011 earthquake in Japan as an example, the authors describe a model that estimates the balance between the costs and benefits of mitigation, and can help answer questions regarding the kinds of strategies to employ against such rare events, and whether to rebuild defenses in their aftermath. The model selects an optimum strategy by minimizing the expected present value of damage, the costs of mitigation, and risk premium, which reflects the variance of the hazard. Such a model can help shape natural hazard policy in a variety of situations.

"A Nonstationary Space-Time Gaussian Process Model for Partially Converged Simulations" by Victor Picheny and David Ginsbourger proposes fitting a Gaussian process model to partially converged simulation data for computational efficiency. A solution for alleviating computational costs in numerically-expensive experiments involves using partially converged simulations instead of exact solutions. Computational time is gained at the expense of precision in the response. In this work, Gaussian processes are used to approximate the simulator response in the joint space of design parameters and computational time. When applied to a computational fluid dynamics test case, the method shows significant improvement in prediction compared to a classical kriging model.

In a paper titled "Reduced Basis Methods for Parameterized Partial Differential Equations with Stochastic Influences Using the Karhunen-Love Expansion," authors Bernard Haasdonk, Karsten Urban, and Bernhard Wieland consider parametric partial differential equations (PPDEs) with stochastic influences that are used to model various problems in science and engineering. PPDEs are particularly useful in the case of measurements that are uncertain or unknown, such as, in porous media flows, financial models, and inverse problems. Many of these problems also depend on deterministic parameters in addition to uncertainties; hence the use of parameterized PDEs. This paper explores situations where the PPDE has to be evaluated under different scenarios for various instances of the deterministic parameter as well as the stochastic influences.

In the paper, "A Practical Method to Estimate Information Content in the Context of 4D-Var Data Assimilation," K. Singh, A. Sandu, M. Jardak, K. W. Bowman, and M. Lee use computationally feasible approaches to assess the information content of observations in the context of a data assimilation framework. Data assimilation can help improve estimates of a physical system's state by dynamically combining imperfect model results with sparse and noisy observations of reality. However, since not all observations used in data assimilation are equally valuable, it is important to characterize the usefulness of different data points in order to analyze the effectiveness of the assimilation system. Using a four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) data assimilation framework, the authors use metrics from information theory to assess the information content of observations: specifically, by quantifying the contribution of these observations to decreasing uncertainty in the system state.

In "A Posteriori Estimates for Backward SDEs," Christian Bender and Jessica Steiner propose a method for approximation of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). BSDEs, which have traditionally had applications in stochastic control, have recently been found to be of great value in mathematical finance. Motivated by these applications, many numerical algorithms have been developed for BSDEs in recent years. However, solving BSDEs is a very challenging task. The paper proposes an approximation to the solution of a BSDE, precomputed by some numerical algorithm.

###

Access the full text of the abovementioned research articles at http://epubs.siam.org/journal/SJUQA3.

Authors are encouraged to submit their uncertainty quantification work for consideration for publication at http://juq.siam.org.

Information on the Editorial Policy, review procedures, and members of the board, is available here.

About SIAM

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at http://www.siam.org.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification launches [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy
karthika@siam.org
267-350-6383
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

The newest journal from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification (JUQ), launched today with its first seven papers publishing online to Volume 1.

Offered jointly by SIAM and the American Statistical Association, the journal publishes research articles presenting significant mathematical, statistical, algorithmic, and application advances in uncertainty quantification, and is dedicated to nurturing synergistic interactions between these and related areas.

Under the leadership of Senior Editor Max Gunzburger, Editors-in-Chief James Berger and Donald Estep and more than 35 others comprising the editorial board, the journal will feature continuous electronic publication at SIAM Journals Online with complimentary access in 2013.

If the first few research articles are any indicationcovering the analysis and quantification of uncertainty in areas as far-reaching as finance, disaster preparedness and porous media flows the journal promises great depth and breadth of coverage in uncertainty quantification research.

Below is an overview of some of the interesting topics you will read about in JUQ's maiden volume:

In a paper titled "Mean Exit Times and the Multilevel Monte Carlo Method" Desmond Higham, Xuerong Mao, Mikolaj Roj, Qingshuo Song, and George Yin propose a method to reduce the computational complexity of a simple and widely used algorithm, Euler/Monte Carlo simulation for a mean exit time. The multilevel algorithm proposed in the paper improves the expected computational complexity by an order of magnitude, in terms of required accuracy. The analysis is illustrated with numerical results.

In "Variance Components and Generalized Sobol' Indices," author Art Owen describes Sobol' indices, which are used to determine and quantify the importance of variables used in modeling and simulation. Computer simulations are so pervasive in engineering applications that the performance of anything from an airplane to a power dam is usually investigated computationally, in addition to laboratory experiments. Such simulated models depend on several input variables that describe product dimensions and composition, manufacturing processes, and so on and so forth. Sobol' indices have been developed to quantify the importance of such variables. Owen's article introduces readers to generalized Sobol' indices, relates them to well-known ideas in experimental design, and compares methods to estimate them.

In the paper, "Formulating Natural Hazard Policies under Uncertainty," Jerome and Seth Stein present a general stochastic model to minimize expected damage from natural disasters. Uncertainty issues are important in the assessment of risks posed by natural hazards and in developing strategies to alleviate their consequences. Using the 2011 earthquake in Japan as an example, the authors describe a model that estimates the balance between the costs and benefits of mitigation, and can help answer questions regarding the kinds of strategies to employ against such rare events, and whether to rebuild defenses in their aftermath. The model selects an optimum strategy by minimizing the expected present value of damage, the costs of mitigation, and risk premium, which reflects the variance of the hazard. Such a model can help shape natural hazard policy in a variety of situations.

"A Nonstationary Space-Time Gaussian Process Model for Partially Converged Simulations" by Victor Picheny and David Ginsbourger proposes fitting a Gaussian process model to partially converged simulation data for computational efficiency. A solution for alleviating computational costs in numerically-expensive experiments involves using partially converged simulations instead of exact solutions. Computational time is gained at the expense of precision in the response. In this work, Gaussian processes are used to approximate the simulator response in the joint space of design parameters and computational time. When applied to a computational fluid dynamics test case, the method shows significant improvement in prediction compared to a classical kriging model.

In a paper titled "Reduced Basis Methods for Parameterized Partial Differential Equations with Stochastic Influences Using the Karhunen-Love Expansion," authors Bernard Haasdonk, Karsten Urban, and Bernhard Wieland consider parametric partial differential equations (PPDEs) with stochastic influences that are used to model various problems in science and engineering. PPDEs are particularly useful in the case of measurements that are uncertain or unknown, such as, in porous media flows, financial models, and inverse problems. Many of these problems also depend on deterministic parameters in addition to uncertainties; hence the use of parameterized PDEs. This paper explores situations where the PPDE has to be evaluated under different scenarios for various instances of the deterministic parameter as well as the stochastic influences.

In the paper, "A Practical Method to Estimate Information Content in the Context of 4D-Var Data Assimilation," K. Singh, A. Sandu, M. Jardak, K. W. Bowman, and M. Lee use computationally feasible approaches to assess the information content of observations in the context of a data assimilation framework. Data assimilation can help improve estimates of a physical system's state by dynamically combining imperfect model results with sparse and noisy observations of reality. However, since not all observations used in data assimilation are equally valuable, it is important to characterize the usefulness of different data points in order to analyze the effectiveness of the assimilation system. Using a four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) data assimilation framework, the authors use metrics from information theory to assess the information content of observations: specifically, by quantifying the contribution of these observations to decreasing uncertainty in the system state.

In "A Posteriori Estimates for Backward SDEs," Christian Bender and Jessica Steiner propose a method for approximation of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). BSDEs, which have traditionally had applications in stochastic control, have recently been found to be of great value in mathematical finance. Motivated by these applications, many numerical algorithms have been developed for BSDEs in recent years. However, solving BSDEs is a very challenging task. The paper proposes an approximation to the solution of a BSDE, precomputed by some numerical algorithm.

###

Access the full text of the abovementioned research articles at http://epubs.siam.org/journal/SJUQA3.

Authors are encouraged to submit their uncertainty quantification work for consideration for publication at http://juq.siam.org.

Information on the Editorial Policy, review procedures, and members of the board, is available here.

About SIAM

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at http://www.siam.org.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/sfia-sjo032713.php

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Private food markets gradually see the light of day in Cuba

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

Men unload vegetables from a truck for wholesale at a market before dawn in Havana on Feb. 14. Communist-run Cuba is gradually dismantling its monopoly on the purchase and sale of food in favor of private vendors, as part of efforts to reform the Soviet-style economy. With the country importing around 60 percent of its food and private farmers outperforming state farms on a fraction of the land, the government is systematically deregulating the sector, leasing fallow land to would-be farmers and encouraging private transportation and sales.

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

A man sits in a car loaded with carrots at a wholesale market on the outskirts of Havana on March 26.

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

A man arranges vegetables for sale on a tricycle in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba, around 149 miles east of Havana on March 10.

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

A woman holds money to pay a farmer in the village of Sagua La Grande in central Cuba, around 149 miles east of Havana on March 2.

By Marc Frank, Reuters

Cubans are building private food distribution networks from the farm through to retail outlets as communist authorities gradually dismantle the state's monopoly on the purchase and sale of agricultural products.

The country's first wholesale produce market is up and running on the outskirts of Havana and across the island farmers report they are selling more of their goods directly to customers, ranging from hotels to individual vendors.

Those involved say the change is speeding the flow of food to market, helping end longstanding inefficiencies that often left crops to rot in fields and putting more money in the pockets of producers. Continue reading.

Enrique De La Osa / Reuters

Tomatoes are displayed for sale at a private wholesale market in Havana on March 26.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

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Is the T-Mobile iPhone a Good Deal?

Is the T-Mobile iPhone a Good Deal?
The iPhone is now available on all major U.S. carriers. But is T-Mobile?s unique pricing plan worth it?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/GXAh_6sfSFY/

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