Serena Williams beats Sharapova in Sony Open final

Serena Williams holds the trophy after defeating Maria Sharapova, of Russia, in the final of the Sony Open tennis tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013, in Key Biscayne, Fla. Williams won 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Serena Williams holds the trophy after defeating Maria Sharapova, of Russia, in the final of the Sony Open tennis tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013, in Key Biscayne, Fla. Williams won 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Serena Williams celebrates after defeating Maria Sharapova, of Russia, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, in the final match of the Sony Open tennis tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013 in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Serena Williams celebrates after defeating Maria Sharapova, of Russia, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, during the final match of the Sony Open tennis tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Serena Williams, right, and Maria Sharapova, of Russia, pose with their trophies after the final match at the Sony Open tennis tournament, in Key Biscayne, Fla., Saturday, March 30, 2013. Williams won 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

Serena Williams serves to Maria Sharapova, of Russia, during the final match of the Sony Open tennis tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2013, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) ? Serena Williams broke the Key Biscayne women's record for most titles, and Maria Sharapova set a new standard for futility in finals.

Williams swept the final 10 games and earned her sixth championship in the event Saturday by rallying past Sharapova 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 at the Sony Open.

Sharapova completed a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open last year, but she's now 0-5 in Key Biscayne finals. After playing nearly flawless tennis for an hour, she began to miss with her serve, and Williams dominated rallies down the stretch.

Williams faltered only during the trophy ceremony.

"I felt good today," she told the crowd with the smile. "It's so good to be No. 6 now ? I mean, the six-time ? oh, gosh. Thank you."

Williams has won 11 consecutive matches against Sharapova, whose last victory in the rivalry came in 2004.

"Serena played a great match," Sharapova said. "I'm sure we'll be playing a few more times this year."

At 31, the No. 1-ranked Williams became the oldest female champion at Key Biscayne. She won the tournament for the first time since 2008 and surpassed Steffi Graf, a five-time champion.

Williams lives 2 hours up I-95 in Palm Beach Gardens and considers the tournament her home event.

On Sunday, 2009 champion Andy Murray will play first-time Key Biscayne finalist David Ferrer for the men's title.

The women's final began at high noon in sunny, mild weather, and the quality of play matched the conditions in the early going. The aggressive style of both finalists made for slam-bang points, and the occasional long rally had a near-capacity crowd gasping at the ferocity of the strokes.

Sharapova built her lead by keeping Williams on the defensive, and she kissed the line with a winner on consecutive points to break for a 3-2 advantage in the second set.

Then came the turnaround. Williams began to feast on Sharapova's tentative second serve and broke back at love, then took advantage of two double-faults by Sharapova to break again for a 5-3 lead.

Sharapova made 80 percent of her first serves early on but finished at 63. Williams converted all seven break-point chances and had a 35-13 advantage in winners.

"She definitely pushed me, and I definitely look forward to our next matches," Williams said. "It's going to be really fun for the fans and for us and for everyone."

Williams lost only 10 points in the final set and closed out the victory with a service winner, then was hopping, spinning, waving and grinning in jubilation as the crowd roared.

She became the first No. 1-seeded woman to win the title since she was champion nine years ago. She'll remain No. 1 and Sharapova No. 2 next week.

Sharapova also lost the final in 2005, '06, '11 and '12. Williams' other titles came in 2002, '03, '04, '07 and '08.

"It's tough to lose in the final stage, because you work so hard to get there," Sharapova said. "But the more I give myself this opportunity, the better chance I have of winning."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-30-TEN-Key-Biscayne/id-770ab98c84e5430da4329e25a5996f2b

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Teachers' gestures boost math learning

Mar. 29, 2013 ? Students perform better when their instructors use hand gestures -- a simple teaching tool that could yield benefits in higher-level math such as algebra.

A study published in Child Development, the top-ranked educational psychology journal, provides some of the strongest evidence yet that gesturing may have a unique effect on learning. Teachers in the United States tend to use gestures less than teachers in other countries.

"Gesturing can be a very beneficial tool that is completely free and easily employed in classrooms," said Kimberly Fenn, study co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University. "And I think it can have long-lasting effects."

Fenn and Ryan Duffy of MSU and Susan Cook of the University of Iowa conducted an experiment with 184 second-, third- and fourth-graders in Michigan elementary classrooms.

Half ofthe students were shown videos of an instructor teaching math problems using only speech. The others were shown videos of the instructor teaching the same problems using both speech and gestures.

The problem involved mathematical equivalence (i.e., 4+5+7=__+7), which is known to be critical to later algebraic learning. In the speech-only videos, the instructor simply explains the problem. In the other videos, the instructor uses two hand gestures while speaking, using different hands to refer to the two sides of the equation.

Students who learned from the gesture videos performed better on a test given immediately afterward than those who learned from the speech-only video.

Another test was given 24 hours later, and the gesture students actually showed improvement in their performance while the speech-only students did not.

While previous research has shown the benefits of gestures in a one-on-one tutoring-style environment, the new study is the first to test the role of gestures in equivalence learning in a regular classroom.

The study also is the first to show that gestures can help students transfer learning to new contexts -- such as transferring the knowledge learned in an addition-based equation to a multiplication-based equation.

Fenn noted that U.S. students lag behind those in many other Western countries in math and have a particularly hard time mastering equivalence problems in early grades.

"So if we can help them grasp this foundational knowledge earlier," she said, "it will help them as they learn algebra and higher levels of mathematics."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Michigan State University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Susan Wagner Cook, Ryan G. Duffy, Kimberly M. Fenn. Consolidation and Transfer of Learning After Observing Hand Gesture. Child Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12097

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/IO4pt2GHJqU/130329125105.htm

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The Tivoli PAL BT May Be The Best-Looking, Best-Sounding Bluetooth Speaker

Long before the advent of the Jawbone Jambox, there was a portable speaker that was decently rugged, had tremendous battery life and amazing sound, and that was the Tivoli PAL. The PAL boasted an audiophile peidgree and an auxiliary input that made it a good partner for early iPods, but the introduction of decent stereo Bluetooth streaming made it fall behind somewhat in convenience when the Jawbone and its ilk came around.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YZ15UXOb7xo/

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A Look Back: Utah mountain recreation in the early 1900s | The Salt ...

(Salt Lake Tribune Archives) Cache Cave in 1892.

Each Friday, The Salt Lake Tribune presents images from its archives and the archives of the Utah State Historical Society in a special series called A Look Back. Today, we are showcasing photos from the early 1900s of recreation in Utah?s scenic mountains.

Every gallery of the series is available at www.sltrib.com/topics/lookback.

Here are some of the previous installments:

Life on the Ute Reservation in early the 1900s

Women?s fashion in the 1960s

Dogs in Utah around 1900

Utah?s early cultural diversity

Utah artists from the late 1800s to the early 1900s

Presidential visits to Utah from the 1860s

story continues below

Hunting and fishing in the early 1900s

BYU, Utah football programs

Saloons, brewing companies in Utah around 1900

The centennial Days of ?47 parade in downtown Salt Lake City from July 1947

Women?s fashion from 1949-50

Construction of the Salt Lake Temple and SLC in the 1800s

Utah college life from the 1930s to 1960s

Old newspaper advertisements

People and events in Salt Lake City from the 1930s, ?40s and ?50s

Historical images of Sugar House

Next Page >

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56076629-78/bit-com-csp-html.html.csp

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Scientists propose revolutionary laser system to produce the next LHC

Friday, March 29, 2013

An international team of physicists has proposed a revolutionary laser system, inspired by the telecommunications technology, to produce the next generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The International Coherent Amplification Network (ICAN) sets out a new laser system composed of massive arrays of thousands of fibre lasers, for both fundamental research at laboratories such as CERN and more applied tasks such as proton therapy and nuclear transmutation.

The results of this study are published today in Nature Photonics.

Lasers can provide, in a very short time measured in femtoseconds, bursts of energy of great power counted in petawatts or a thousand times the power of all the power plants in the world.

Compact accelerators are also of great societal importance for applied tasks in medicine, such as a unique way to democratise proton therapy for cancer treatment, or the environment where it offers the prospect to reduce the lifetime of dangerous nuclear waste by, in some cases, from 100 thousand years to tens of years or even less.

However, there are two major hurdles that prevent the high-intensity laser from becoming a viable and widely used technology in the future. First, a high-intensity laser often only operates at a rate of one laser pulse per second, when for practical applications it would need to operate tens of thousands of times per second. The second is ultra-intense lasers are notorious for being very inefficient, producing output powers that are a fraction of a percent of the input power. As practical applications would require output powers in the range of tens of kilowatts to megawatts, it is economically not feasible to produce this power with such a poor efficiency.

To bridge this technology divide, the ICAN consortium, an EU-funded project initiated and coordinated by the ?cole polytechnique and composed of the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre, Jena and CERN, as well as 12 other prestigious laboratories around the world, aims to harness the efficiency, controllability, and high average power capability of fibre lasers to produce high energy, high repetition rate pulse sources.

The aim is to replace the conventional single monolithic rod amplifier that typically equips lasers with a network of fibre amplifiers and telecommunication components.

G?rard Mourou of ?cole polytechnique who leads the consortium says: "One important application demonstrated today has been the possibility to accelerate particles to high energy over very short distances measured in centimetres rather than kilometres as it is the case today with conventional technology. This feature is of paramount importance when we know that today high energy physics is limited by the prohibitive size of accelerators, of the size of tens of kilometres, and cost billions of euros. Reducing the size and cost by a large amount is of critical importance for the future of high energy physics."

Dr Bill Brocklesby from the ORC adds: "A typical CAN laser for high-energy physics may use thousands of fibres, each carrying a small amount of laser energy. It offers the advantage of relying on well tested telecommunication elements, such as fibre lasers and other components. The fibre laser offers an excellent efficiency due to laser diode pumping. It also provides a much larger surface cooling area and therefore makes possible high repetition rate operation.

"The most stringent difficulty is to phase the lasers within a fraction of a wavelength. This difficulty seemed insurmountable but a major roadblock has in fact been solved: preliminary proof of concept suggests that thousands of fibres can be controlled to provide a laser output powerful enough to accelerate electrons to energies of several GeV at 10 kHz repetition rate - an improvement of at least ten thousand times over today's state of the art lasers."

Such a combined fibre-laser system should provide the necessary power and efficiency that could make economical the production of a large flux of relativistic protons over millimetre lengths as opposed to a few hundred metres.

One important societal application of such a source is to transmute the waste products of nuclear reactors, which at present have half-lives of hundreds of thousands of years, into materials with much shorter lives, on the scale of tens of years, thus transforming dramatically the problem of nuclear waste management.

CAN technology could also find important applications in areas of medicine, such as proton therapy, where reliability and robustness of fibre technology could be decisive features.

###

University of Southampton: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/

Thanks to University of Southampton for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127518/Scientists_propose_revolutionary_laser_system_to_produce_the_next_LHC

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NWA construction sector rebound continues | Business, Political ...

Construction is the livelihood for several thousand local residents who are happier to see the building pace accelerate from what was deemed a decent 2012 by most.

The region?s four largest cities issued new construction permits valued at more than $35.783 million in February. Roughly 86% ? or $30.885 million ? of the total permit value was for new residential, which is single family or duplex construction.

A year ago, combined residential permits issued in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville totaled $21.661 million. Housing starts accelerated 21% from a year ago with 124 projects compared to 103 in February 2012.

The values rose by $9.2 million, or 29%, in the year-over-year period.

Brent Hanby, co-owner of Encore Flooring and Building Products in Springdale, relies heavily on the residential construction for his livelihood.

?I regularly survey title companies, movers and builders to try and gauge their assessment of the local market. Everyone I am talking with is busier these days, with the exception of a few restoration specialists who focus largely on insurance claim jobs from natural disasters. Business is not the crazy pace it was at the market peak but it?s steady with modest improvements these days,? Hanby said.

Builders across the four cities stayed active with Rausch Coleman, ARC Walker Brothers and Riggins Brothers actively building in multiple subdivisions.

Hanby said several spec builders are reporting multiple offers while the homes are still under construction.

The overall new inventory is still quite low at between 200 and 300 homes in the two counties. Hanby remembers well the frantic pace in late 2006 which led to more than 2,000 finished, but occupied homes.

?I doubt lenders or builders will ever let that happen again, it?s been a long recovery but we are encouraged by the growth our business has experienced in the past two years,? Hanby said.

When he opened the building supply business in 2011, he hired 14 employees. Hanby said he added three more this month to give the firm a total of 34.

?Our outside and inside sales are growing as people in general feel better about investing in their homes, especially now that values are going up.? he added.

Each of the four cities in this report show positive gains in residential permit values in February when compared to the prior-year period.

New Residential (February)
Bentonville: permits totaled $10.792 million, up 17.38%
Rogers: permits totaled $6.173 million, up 120.7%
Fayetteville: permits totaled $8.324 million, up 77%
Springdale: permits totaled $5.594 million, up 11.9%

COMMERCIAL RECAP
The new commercial construction pace remains soft, but is showing sparks of growth in Rogers thanks to the ongoing development by Hunt Ventures, a partnership between Johnelle Hunt and Tim Graham.

In western Rogers, commercial construction along Promenade Boulevard is active with three Hunt Venture projects under way at this time. Spokesman John George told The City Wire, that? two new retail projects will add 12,500 square feet of space which will be home to Bliss Cupcakes and Dickie?s Barbecue and two other businesses whose names will be released in the next week or so.

He said Party Place is occupying another building which will be roughly 10,000 square feet.

Across Interstate 540, and to the south of Hunt Towers, a 60,000 square foot office building is going up. George said two large Wal-Mart vendors have pre-leased space in the building, which leaves about 8,000 square feet for two other large tenants.

George said traffic at the Promenade Mall and Cabela?s has been strong and Hunt Ventures will also add another retail/office building along Pauline Whitaker Parkway, which is near the Neighborhood Market in the Pinnacle area.

New commercial projects remain sparse among most of the four cities, with the exception of owner-occupied projects. In Bentonville there were no new commercial permits issued in February. A year ago, the city issued one permit ($460,000) for a new McDonald?s to be built along Airport Road.

New Commercial (February)
Rogers: permits totaled $2.175 million, up 162%
Fayetteville: permits totaled $2.364 million, up 93.59%
Springdale: permits totaled $359,328, down 81%
Bentonville: permits totaled $0, down 100%

SKYLINE NOTES
The Skyline Report for the second half of 2012 was released this week and gives a comprehensive look at the commercial and multifamily markets in the two counties.

?Job growth and population growth are having similar effects on the commercial real estate market as on the multifamily market, said Kathy Deck, director for the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.

?Vacancy rates in the last half of 2012 decreased in all submarkets of commercial real estate except for the warehouse submarket, which rose to 20.2% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012 from the 19.9% reported at the end of the second quarter of 2012. That increase was due to an owner-occupied building that was put into the warehouse space market when the owner vacated it,? Deck added.

Every submarket of the Northwest Arkansas commercial real estate experienced positive net absorption of space. Only 136,425 square feet of new space was added to the market while 1,306,921 square feet of commercial space was absorbed, netting positive absorption of 1,170,496 square feet.

The largest gains in absorption came in the industrial submarket with 277,529 square feet and the office submarket with net positive absorption of 225,292 square feet. The warehouse and retail/warehouse submarkets had positive net absorption of 198,350 square feet and 121,292 square feet, respectively.

The office/warehouse submarket had positive net absorption of 120,801 square feet, the office/retail submarket had 115,142 square feet and the retail submarket had 106,353 square feet.

?While I cannot understate the progress we are making in the commercial real estate market, we will continue to see more projects developed as ?build-to-suit? rather than speculative building,? Deck said. ?And that is only prudent.?

All of the commercial submarkets had lower vacancy rates than in December 2011.

NWA Commercial Vacancy Rates (December 2012)
Retail: 11.4%, down from 13.1%
Office: 15.3%, down from 19.5%
Office Retail: 15.4% down from 18.8%
Office Warehouse: 16.9%, down from 21.3%
Warehouse: 20.2%, down from 21.2%

?Developers and builders are doing their homework and moving forward with well-reasoned projects that fill a particular need within our market,? said Kent Williamson, loan manager with Arvest Bank in Springdale. ?Everyone, including the banking industry, is taking a thoughtful approach to projects that contribute to the further economic prosperity of Northwest Arkansas.?

Source: http://www.thecitywire.com/node/27091

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Japan jobless rate up, prices, manufacturing fall

TOKYO (AP) ? Japan's jobless rate edged higher and industrial production fell slightly in February as consumer prices also fell, underscoring the fragility of the recovery of the world's third-largest economy.

The government data released Friday showed the main consumer price index fell 0.3 percent from a year earlier as deflation continued to defy the combined efforts of the government and central bank to move toward a 2 percent inflation target. However the CPI was up 0.1 percent from January's figure.

Unemployment rose to 4.3 percent from 4.2 percent the month before, while industrial production slipped by 0.1 percent in the first decline in three months. The unemployment rate for those below the age of 35 is significantly higher, at over 6 percent.

Japan's central bank governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, said Thursday that he believed the economy was improving after years of stagnation and would enter a moderate recovery by midyear. But he acknowledged high uncertainty because of the global economy.

Kuroda has pledged to work with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government in achieving the 2 percent inflation target set in January, preferably within two years, and ending years of growth-inhibiting deflation.

After taking power late last year, Abe's administration embarked on an aggressive stimulus program of government spending, monetary easing and planned reforms aimed at improving Japan's competitiveness. Revised figures show Japan's economy likely emerged from a recession late last year, but other data has been mixed.

The government's strategy will depend on getting consumers, whose spending accounts for the lion's share of economic activity, to spend more, and that in turn will hinge on encouraging companies to raise wages and increasing higher. Many companies huge cash reserves after having shed debt from the collapse of the economic bubble over 20 years ago but are wary of increasing investment given the existing weak demand and the aging and shrinking of the Japanese population.

Friday's data, coupled with signs of weakening retail sales, show the scale of the challenge in restoring consumer confidence.

By boosting inflation, Japan's planners hope to persuade consumers to spend more now in anticipation of price increases in the future. That could prove a daunting challenge given a drop in real wages over the past two decades and the weak job market, said Susumu Takahashi, head of the Japan Research Institute and a member of a government economic advisory council.

To achieve the inflation target the government must change expectations, he said.

"The only way is for the deflationary way of thinking to change. Without that it will be very hard," he said.

Speaking to lawmakers about the central bank's semiannual report, Kuroda said prices are unlikely to rise for the next few months but after that Japan would see some progress toward its inflation target as the economy moved toward a "moderate recovery path."

The central bank asset purchases and other strategies adopted so far have not been sufficient to reach the inflation target, he said, reiterating his intention to manage market expectations and "make clear that we have adopted the uncompromising stance that we will do whatever is necessary to overcome deflation."

Kuroda was appointed to succeed former BOJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa when he stepped down on March 19, three weeks before his term expired. The parliament is expected to approve his appointment to the five-year term, which is due to begin April 8.

The central bank is due to hold its first regular policy meeting under Kuroda April 3-4, though it may wait until later in the month to embark on any significant moves, such as a boosting its purchases of government bonds to help increase the amount of money available in the economy and encourage more investment by the private sector.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-jobless-rate-prices-manufacturing-fall-005246909--finance.html

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Cypriots anxious as banks reopen with limits

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Anxious Cypriots patiently waited in long lines to get at their accounts on Thursday after banks opened for the first time in nearly two weeks, following an international bailout to save the country's financial system.

Fearing a run on its banks, the tiny Mediterranean country has imposed daily withdrawal limits of 300 euros ($384) for individuals and 5,000 euros for businesses ? the first so-called capital controls that any country has applied in the eurozone's 14-year history.

Financial strains are building on families and businesses, and the recession in Cyprus is likely to deepen. The mood outside banks was calmer than feared. Many people said the withdrawal limits were probably necessary to keep a bad situation from spiraling out of control.

Flower shop owner Christos Papamichael was among some 30 people waiting patiently for bank doors to open at noon Thursday. "Everything has been paralyzed ... No one thinks of buying flowers," he said.

Banks had been shut in Cyprus since March 16 to prevent people from draining their accounts as politicians scrambled to save the country's stricken financial sector. ATM machines were working, but with a limit on daily withdrawals.

An initial plan to seize up to 10 percent of all Cypriot deposits caused an international uproar and was scrapped. But in order to secure 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in loans from other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund, Cyprus agreed Monday to wind down its second-largest bank and seize billions from accounts holding more than the insured limit of 100,000 euros.

European financial markets, which have been on edge for weeks, rose slightly on Thursday. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares rose 0.4 percent, while Germany's DAX index rose 0.1 percent.

Government and bank officials had feared that up to 10 percent of the country's deposits could be siphoned off when banks opened Thursday ? but that did not appear to happen. Guards from private security firms reinforced police outside some ATMs and banks in the capital, Nicosia. No problems controlling crowds were reported.

The limits on withdrawals and other capital controls are expected to be relaxed gradually. Analysts say it's anyone's guess how people and businesses will react once that happens.

Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said that, according to central bank estimates, the controls would be fully lifted in a month. Some analysts say it could last longer.

President Nicos Anastasiades expressed in a statement his "warm gratitude and deep appreciation towards the Cypriot people for the maturity and spirit of responsibility they have shown at a critical time for the stability of the Cypriot economy."

However, many Cypriots were left frustrated and confused by the closures and controls and concerned about the effect on their businesses and livelihoods.

"No matter how much information there was, things were changing all the time," said Costas Kyprianides, a grocery supplier in Nicosia.

For years, the banking sector has been the lifeblood of the Cypriot economy, attracting money from across Europe ? and especially Russia ? thanks to high interest rates and loose regulation. The country's deposits ballooned to more than seven times its economic output. But Cypriot banks ran into trouble after taking massive losses on Greek government bonds.

Now, the country's second-largest bank, Laiki, is to be split up, with its healthy assets being absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus. Savers with more 100,000 euros ($129,000) in either Bank of Cyprus and Laiki will face big losses. At Laiki, those could reach as much as 80 percent of amounts above the 100,000 insured limit; those at Bank of Cyprus are expected to be much lower.

As part of the country's capital controls, no checks can be cashed, although they can be deposited. Anyone leaving the country, whether Cypriot or a visitor, can only take up to 1,000 euros ($1,290) with them in cash.

The country's general accounting office said pensions and other social security payments, together with salaries for government employees, will be in bank accounts next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Many Cypriots struggled Thursday to understand what exactly they could and couldn't do with their money. Television talk shows addressed viewers' queries, which ranged from how they would pay college tuition for children studying abroad to how to handle check payments.

People also wondered whether they would be able to access their salaries, many of which were due this week.

Some analysts are concerned that, if kept in place long, Cyprus's measures will go against the fundamental principle of the single currency: Free and easy movement of money around the euro's 17 members.

In a statement Thursday, The European Commission said "the free movement of capital should be reinstated as soon as possible".

Not every account in Laiki and Bank of Cyprus will be hit with big losses. Deposits held by the central government, local authorities such as municipalities, universities and development projects being co-funded by the European Union will not face a so-called haircut.

Government welfare and pension fund accounts in Laiki will be treated in the same way as those in the Bank of Cyprus, "thereby ensuring most of the deposits," said Constantinos Petrides, undersecretary to the president.

Some individuals and businesses had moved their money out of Cyprus well before the banks closed their doors last week.

According to ECB figures, deposits in Cyprus' banks slipped 2.2 percent last month, to 46.36 billion euros ($59.36 billion), the lowest figure since May 2010 and down from a peak of 50.5 billion euros ($64.67 billion) in May 2012. The figure excludes deposits from other banks and the central government.

"I anticipated, not this to happen, but I anticipated issues last year, when Greece had a question of whether it will remain in euro and the consequences of that," said Athos Angelides, who runs a business importing and distributing hair salon products. "So luckily we transferred money in the middle of last year over to the UK."

The stock market, which has been closed since March 15, stayed shut. It will remain closed on Friday and Monday, when most of Europe is closed for the Easter celebrations. Cyprus follows the Orthodox calendar and does not celebrate Easter until May this year.

____

Elena Becatoros in Nicosia and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cypriots-anxious-banks-reopen-limits-205528049--finance.html

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Barbara Walters Retirement: Coming in 2014?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/barbara-walters-retirement-coming-in-2014/

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Climate Change Endgame In Sight? (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Franchise quarterback, anyone?

AP

When he agreed to a three-year, $6 million deal with the Ravens, one of the first things Michael Huff did was text Ed Reed.

But at the same time, he doesn?t need to spend too much time trying to be Ed Reed.

?It means a lot,? Huff said, via Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun. ?He?s one of the greatest, if not the greatest free safety to ever play the game. I just told him that I?ll carry on his legacy, carry on the tradition of great safeties in Baltimore. I?m definitely going to go out there and hold up my end.

?For me to come in here, I don?t really feel like I?m following his footsteps. I?m more kind of starting my own legacy and going in here to help the defense and help us win.?

There are two important reasons not to invite comparisons. One, Reed?s a former NFL defensive player of the year who?s likely to end up in the Hall of Fame when he?s finished.

But as importantly, Reed wasn?t Reed any more on the field last season, which is why they were willing to let him go become a Texan.

The Ravens weren?t going to get into a bidding war for a guy who?s turning 35 this season, allowing Houston to pay him a three-year, $15 million deal for intangibles.

So they found a player who is nearly five years younger, $9 million cheaper, and for the moment, perhaps a better fit.

Huff?s in Baltimore to play safety, but was forced into playing corner last year in Oakland. While he?s not someone you want on an island playing coverage, he can still cover ground, and that?s something the Ravens need in the middle of their new defense.

?He?s just a tremendous player, a tremendous guy,? Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. ?He fits us really well both football-wise and technique-wise, the type of person he is, the type of family man he is.

?He?s going to enable us to keep doing the things on defense that we have been doing and even build on those things. He has done it all because he?s smart, he?s tough and he knows how to play the game.?

So while the Ravens might not have the same kind of name recognition they once had on defense, they might be better. For roughly the same $41 million the Browns spent to lure outside linebacker Paul Kruger away, the Ravens have restocked by signing pass-rusher Elvis Dumervil, lineman Chris Canty and Marcus Spears and Huff, which gives them a better opportunity to live up to the reputation the old guys created.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/03/29/teams-could-be-lining-up-for-crack-at-romo-in-2014/related/

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How diabetes drug delays aging in worms

Mar. 28, 2013 ? A widely prescribed type 2 diabetes drug slows down the aging process by mimicking the effects of dieting, according to a study published today using worms to investigate how the drug works.

Following a calorie-restricted diet has been shown to improve health in later life and extend lifespan in a number of animals, ranging from the simple worm to rhesus monkeys. The type 2 diabetes drug metformin has been found to have similar effects in animals but until now it was not clear exactly how the drug delays the aging process.

Researchers supported by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council looked at the effects of metformin on C. elegans worms that were grown in the presence of E. coli bacteria, a relationship similar to that which humans have with the 'healthy' bacteria in our gut. They found that the worms treated with metformin lived longer only when the E. coli strain they were cultured with was sensitive to the drug.

Dr Filipe Cabreiro from the Institute of Healthy aging at UCL, who led the research, explains: "Overall, treatment with metformin adds up to 6 days of life for the worm which is equivalent to around a third of its normal lifespan. It seems to work by altering metabolism in the bacteria that live in the worm, which in turn limits the nutrients that are available to the worm host and has a similar effect to restricting the diet."

Bacteria living in the gut have an important role in helping the host organism to digest and extract nutrition from food. Defects in gut bacteria have been linked to metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer. It has also been suggested that gut bacteria may have an impact on the aging process, but this is the first study to suggest a mechanism for how this works.

The team used strains of E. coli with defects in genes that are linked to metabolism and tweaked the levels of nutrients available to tease out which metabolic pathways might be affected by the drug. They found that treatment with metformin disrupted the bacteria's ability to metabolise folate, a type of B-vitamin, and methionine, one of the building blocks of proteins. This limits the nutrients that are available to the worm and mimics the effects of dietary restriction to enable the worms to live longer.

However, when they added an excess of sugar to the diet, the team found that the life-extending effects of metformin were cancelled out. As the drug is used as a treatment for diabetes caused by elevated glucose levels in the blood, this finding is particular relevant for understanding how the drug works in people.

Professor David Gems, who directed the study, said: "We don't know from this study whether metformin has any effect on human aging. The more interesting finding is the suggestion that drugs that alter bacteria in the gut could give us a new way of treating or preventing metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes."

Metformin is currently one of the most widely prescribed drugs and the findings should help to inform how it is used in patients.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wellcome Trust, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Filipe Cabreiro, Catherine Au, Kit-Yi Leung, Nuria Vergara-Irigaray, Helena?M. Cochem?, Tahereh Noori, David Weinkove, Eugene Schuster, Nicholas?D.E. Greene, David Gems. Metformin Retards Aging in C.?elegans by Altering Microbial Folate and Methionine Metabolism. Cell, 2013; 153 (1): 228 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.02.035

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/tv-92dVqdys/130328125106.htm

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Certain breast cancers have a trait that could be attacked by new therapies

Mar. 27, 2013 ? More than 100 women per day die from breast cancer in the United States. The odds of developing breast cancer increase for women taking hormone replacement therapy to avoid the effects of menopause. New research by University of Missouri scientist Salman Hyder may lead to treatments for breast cancers associated with taking these synthetic hormones. Hyder, along with an international team, found that hormone-therapy-related breast cancer cells have a physical feature that could be attacked by cancer therapies.

"We identified a specific cell membrane protein that blocks cell death in breast cancer cells and allows these cells to grow in response to hormone replacement therapy," said Hyder. "Others have observed an over-abundance of these proteins in a population of breast cancer cells which may explain increased risk of breast cancer in women who consume hormone replacement therapy. Therapies could be developed that would block the activity of these cell membrane proteins, which would make cancer cells more likely to die. The membrane protein is known as PGRMC1."

The proteins identified by Hyder and his colleagues were affected by progestin, one of the hormones given to women to stave off the effects of menopause. Progestin is a synthetic chemical which mimics the hormone progesterone. In hormone replacement therapy, doctors prescribe progestin along with synthetic replicas of the hormone, estrogen.

"Every progestin type that we have tested has negative effects," said Hyder. "A growing body of evidence suggests women should be wary before taking progestin. However, if women take only synthetic estrogens, such as estradiol, it leads to a higher risk of uterine cancer. Hence, the two must be taken together, but even then they seem to still increase cancer risks in post-menopausal women."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Hans Neubauer, Xiangyan Ruan, Helen Schneck, Harald Seeger, Michael A. Cahill, Yayun Liang, Benfor Mafuvadze, Salman M. Hyder, Tanja Fehm, Alfred O. Mueck. Overexpression of progesterone receptor membrane component 1. Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society, 2012; : 1 DOI: 10.1097/gme.0b013e3182755c97

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/SHkVesu6mas/130327163258.htm

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Researchers find novel way plants pass traits to next generation

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

New research explains how certain traits can pass down from one generation to the next ? at least in plants ? without following the accepted rules of genetics.

Scientists have shown that an enzyme in corn responsible for reading information from DNA can prompt unexpected changes in gene activity ? an example of epigenetics.

Epigenetics refers to modifications in the genome that don't directly affect DNA sequences. Though some evidence has suggested that epigenetic changes can bypass DNA's influence to carry on from one generation to the next, this is the first study to show that this epigenetic heritability can be subject to selective breeding.

Researchers bred 10 generations of corn and found that one particular gene's activity persisted from one generation to the next whether the enzyme was functioning or not ? meaning typical genetic behavior was not required for the gene's trait to come through.

And that, the scientists determined, was because the enzyme targets a tiny piece of DNA ? previously thought of as "junk DNA" ? that had jumped from one area of the genome to another, giving that little fragment power to unexpectedly turn on the gene.

The gene in question affects pigmentation in the corn plant. As a result of these experiments, the researchers were able to change yellow kernel corn to a blue kernel variety by compromising the activity of the enzyme in each male parent.

"This is the first example where somebody has been able to take an epigenetic source of variation and, through selective breeding, move it from an inactive state to an active state," said Jay Hollick, associate professor of molecular genetics at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study. "The gene changes its expression in an epigenetic fashion and it doesn't follow standard inheritance behaviors. Those two factors alone have pretty profound implications not only for breeding but also for evolution."

The study appears online in the journal The Plant Cell.

Plant breeders tend to expect to generate desired traits according to what is known as Mendelian principles of inheritance: Offspring receive one copy of genes from each parental plant, and the characteristics of the alleles, or alternative forms of genes, help predict which traits will show up in the next plant generation.

However, epigenetic variations that change the predictability of gene behavior have complicated those expectations.

"The breeding community searches for novel traits that will have commercial interest and they really don't care what the basis is as long as they can capture it and breed it. Epigenetic heritability throws a kink in the expectations, but our findings also provide an opportunity ? if they recognize the variation they're looking for is the result of epigenetics, they could use that to their advantage," said Hollick, also an investigator in Ohio State's centers for RNA Biology and Applied Plant Sciences.

"Just by knowing that this allele behaves in this epigenetic fashion, I can breed plants that either have full coloration or no coloration or anything in between, because I am manipulating epigenetic variation and not genetic variation. And color, of course, is only one trait that could be affected."

With a longtime specialization in the molecular basis for unexpected gene activity in plants, Hollick had zeroed in on an enzyme called RNA polymerase IV (Pol IV). Multiple types of RNA polymerases are responsible for setting gene expression in motion in all cells, and Pol IV is an enigmatic RNA polymerase that is known in plants to produce small RNA molecules.

Pol IV has puzzled scientists because despite its strong conservation in all plants, it appears to have no discernible impact on the development of Arabidopsis, a common model organism in plant biology. For example, when it is deleted from these plants, they show no signs of distress.

In corn, however, Hollick's lab had discovered previously that the absence of Pol IV creates clear problems in the plants, such as growing seeds in the tassel.

Hollick and colleagues observed that plants deficient in Pol IV also showed pigmentation in kernels of ears expected not to make any color at all ? meaning they were expected to be yellow.

"Since we knew the misplaced tassel-seed trait was due to misexpression of a gene, we hypothesized that this pigment trait might be due to a pigment regulator being expressed in a tissue where it normally is never expressed. Molecular analysis showed that that was in fact the case," Hollick said.

The researchers selected dark kernels and light kernels from multiple generations of plants and crossed the plants derived form these different kernel classes to create additional new generations of corn.

"We found that the ears developed from those plants had even more darkly colored kernels and fewer lightly colored kernels. We could segregate the extreme types and cross them together and get this continued intensification of the pigmentation over many generations," he said. "We generated more progeny that had increasing amounts of pigment. This is taking a gene that is genetically null, that doesn't have any function in this part of the plant, and turning it from a complete null to a completely dominant form that produces full coloration.

"Essentially we were breeding a novel trait, but not by selecting for any particular gene. We were just continually altering the epigenetic status of one of the two parental genomes every time."

This led the scientists to question why the affected alleles of the pigmentation gene would behave in this way. An investigation of the affected alleles revealed the nearby presence of a transposon, or transposable element: a tiny piece of DNA that has leapt from one area of the genome to another.

Because the sequence of some small RNA fragments that come from Pol IV's activity are identical to the sequence of these transposons, the finding made sense to the scientists.

"Now that we know that Pol IV is involved in regulating transposons, it's not surprising that genes that are near transposons are now regulated by Pol IV," Hollick said.

###

Ohio State University: http://researchnews.osu.edu

Thanks to Ohio State University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127473/Researchers_find_novel_way_plants_pass_traits_to_next_generation

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Spring Weather Outlook and Current Lake Levels in North Texas

The latest Spring outlook is not very favorable for Texas.? We are looking at above average temperatures and below average precipitation.? This is holding in line with how the past year has played out across Texas.? The extreme northeastern sections of North Texas might fare better with average precipitation expected.

NORTH TEXAS LAKE LEVELS

Many lakes continue to run very low.? Below is a look at how far down lakes are compared to conservation level.? When looking at all reservoirs as a whole, the percentage full is 78%.

We do have some rain in the forecast this weekend and also for Monday and Tuesday of next week.? The Monday and Tuesday rainfall has the potential to provide more rain than the weekend chances.? But stay tuned to CBS 11 for the very latest on the forecast.

Source: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/03/27/spring-weather-outlook-and-current-lake-levels-in-north-texas/

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Arizona gun proponents launch free gun program

Former Tucson, Ariz. mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky poses with a shotgun at Black Weapons Armory in Tucson, Thursday, March 28, 2013. The weapon is similar to those to be given away as part of a privately funded program he is launching to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Former Tucson, Ariz. mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky poses with a shotgun at Black Weapons Armory in Tucson, Thursday, March 28, 2013. The weapon is similar to those to be given away as part of a privately funded program he is launching to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Cindy Fayala, right, a resident of Pueblo Gardens, and her friend Willie Blake, who lives in a nearby community Western Hills II, talks about their concern about a new program former mayoral candidate Sean McClusky is launching to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals, Thursday, March 28, 2013, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Cindy Fayala, a resident of Pueblo Gardens, right, and her friend, Willie Blake, who lives in a nearby community Western Hills II, walk through Pueblo Gardens Thursday, March 28, 2013 in Tucson, Ariz. They are concerned about a new program launched by former mayoral candidate Sean McClusky to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Black Weapons Armory store owner Tommy Rompel, left, shows former mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky, a shotgun at the Tucson, Ariz. store on Thursday, March 28, 2013. The weapon is similar to those to be given away as part of a privately funded program he is launching to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Residents of Pueblo Gardens walk past a sign for the Tucson, Ariz. development, Thursday, March 28, 2013. Former mayoral candidate Sean McClusky is launching a new program to provide residents in crime-prone areas with free shotguns so they can defend themselves against criminals. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) ? A campaign promising free shotguns for people to protect themselves in Tucson's most troubled neighborhoods has divided some residents in a community still reeling from a shooting rampage in 2011that killed six people, left a congresswoman and several others wounded, and made the city a symbol of gun violence in America.

The Armed Citizen Project is part of a national campaign to give shotguns to single women and homeowners in the nation's crime-ridden neighborhoods, an effort that comes amid a national debate on gun control after mass shootings in Arizona, Colorado and Connecticut.

While towns in Idaho, Utah, Virginia and Pennsylvania have debated ordinances recommending gun ownership, the gun giveaway effort appears to be the first of its kind.

"If you are not willing to protect the citizens of Tucson, someone is going to do it, why not me? Why not have armed citizens protecting themselves," said Shaun McClusky, a real estate agent who plans to start handing out shotguns by May.

Arizona gun proponents have donated about $12,500 to fund the gun giveaway and McClusky, a former mayoral and city council candidate, hopes to collect enough to eventually arm entire neighborhoods.

Participants will receive training on how to properly use, handle and store their weapon, as well as trigger locks. It costs about $400 per participant for the weapon and training.

Tucson police officials declined to discuss the gun program or public safety concerns, but statistics published by the department show violent crime was at a 13-year low in 2010, with 3,332 incidents. That compares with 5,116 violent crimes ? including homicides, sexual assaults, and robberies ? in 1997. Tucson averages about 50 homicides a year.

"Just like any other city in Arizona and in the nation we have our issues, but it is not crime-ridden," said Vice Mayor Regina Romero. "I would never say you have to carry a gun or you have to be afraid for your life."

Research has produced inconclusive results on whether defensive gun use lowers crime. Some research suggests guns result in more suicides and accidental deaths, while other studies have shown criminals are wary of gun owners.

"People don't want to confront an armed person at home," said Garen J. Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. "But, separately, there is solid evidence that in communities with higher rates of gun ownership, burglary rates are up, not down, and that's because guns are hot loot."

Wintemute said it's likely the risk of violence in the home participating in the gun giveaway will go up.

But those behind the program argue shotguns are affordable, easy to use and don't require precise aim when shooting, making them the perfect home protection weapon. The goal is to arm hundreds of people in Tucson, Houston, New York, Chicago, Detroit and at least 10 other cities by the end of the year.

"It is our hypothesis that criminals have no desire to die in your hallway. We want to use that fear," said Kyle Coplen, 29, the project's founder and a University of Houston graduate student.

Tucson became a symbol of American's gun violence in 2011 when a mentally ill man opened fire at a political meet-and-greet hosted by then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a Tucson-area supermarket. Giffords, who is still recovering from her critical wounds, has in recent months become a champion of universal background gun checks and other gun restrictions denounced by Second Amendment proponents.

Moved by Giffords advocacy, the Tucson City Council recently approved a measure requiring universal background checks at gun shows held on city property. City officials said the gun giveaway program appears to be legal, so they have no recourse to shut it down.

One of the neighborhoods targeted by the program is Pueblo Gardens, an ethnically diverse, blue-collar neighborhood in southern Tucson where residents say occasional shootings, drug busts and car thefts are not uncommon.

The no-frills landscape is dotted with pickup trucks, palm trees, window bars, cacti, chain fences and toy-littered lawns. Many residents own guns, if only because of the handful of sex offenders who call the area home. More than 90 percent of the humble, single-story homes are occupied by renters.

Pueblo Gardens could benefit from a public safety campaign, but some residents say they are appalled anyone would think the answer is more guns.

"We could take that $400 per shotgun and give it to these people so they could go buy groceries, pay rent, pay their utility bills, something useful," said neighborhood association president Cindy Fayala. "Vigilantism is not the answer."

McClusky argued that like signs posted in yards advertising alarm systems, signs that warn the homeowners have guns would get the message across, he said.

"I'd like to prevent them from becoming a victim," he said.

At least 13 single women in Houston have already benefited from the program.

Tiffany Braggs, 44, said she had never owned or fired a gun before she signed up for The Armed Citizen Project in Houston after her condominium management board warned residents of growing crime.

"I feel a little bit more secure knowing that I can defend my home and my children," said Braggs, who now plans to buy a handgun to keep in her purse.

Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Wash., said he expects to see more gun giveaways as President Barack Obama and other leaders call for gun restrictions.

"All this is happening because it's a pushback," he said. "If others weren't screaming for more control you wouldn't see all the sales for guns and ammunition."

___

For more information about the national gun giveaway program, visit http://www.armedcitizenproject.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-29-Free%20Shotguns/id-83a68473bf8448f09b71009ef0847320

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S.Africa imports no Iranian crude again in February

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa did not import any crude oil from Iran for a ninth consecutive month in February, data showed on Thursday, as Pretoria steers clear of the shipments because of sanctions.

South Africa used to import a quarter of its crude from Iran but has come under Western pressure to reduce the purchases as part of sanctions aimed at halting Tehran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In May last year, imports from Iran stood at 285,524 tonnes but since June, Africa's biggest economy has replaced the shipments with crude from other suppliers.

Saudi Arabia was again the major supplier in February with shipments of 719,330 tonnes, data from the South African Revenue Service showed. Other crude imports were from Angola, Nigeria, Russia, Yemen, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, with shipments totalling 1.75 million tonnes.

While the United States extended South Africa's exemption from financial sanctions in December due to the Iranian cuts, Pretoria is still hampered by European Union sanctions that prevent insurance companies from underwriting Iranian shipments.

The EU has not granted any waivers, even though South Africa has been lobbying Brussels because it has to pay more to source crude from countries other than Iran.

Also, some of the South African refineries are designed to treat Iranian-type crude only and require modifications to accept other products.

Refiners in South Africa include Shell, BP, Total, Chevron, petrochemicals group Sasol, and Engen, which is majority-owned by Malaysian state oil group Petronas .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africa-imports-no-iranian-crude-again-february-150858494--sector.html

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Obama names Julia Pierson as Secret Service director (Washington Post)

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FOSS Patents: Apple alleges $85 million error in court's damages ...

On March 1, Judge Lucy Koh vacated approximately $450 million of Apple's $1.05 billion damages award in its first Samsung lawsuit in the Northern District of California. This doesn't mean that the $450?million amount is gone forever: any vacated parts of the award would have to be redetermined by a new jury, which could theoretically even arrive at a higher number given that the first jury granted Apple only about 40% of what the court allowed it to present as a damages claim, and Samsung argues that the new jury would also have to re-evaluate the underlying liability issues (Apple disagrees).

I just saw a couple of filings by Apple, in the context of what the next procedural steps should be (Apple wants the vacated damages to be redetermined ASAP while Samsung wants a stay pending an appeal of the merits that Apple believes would be premature). Interestingly, Apple claims to have found an error on Judge Koh's part to the tune of $85?million (approximately 19% of the total vacated amount): she thought the jury had granted, on the basis of an impermissible legal theory presented by Apple at its own peril, $40,494,356 for the Galaxy S?II?AT&T and $44,792,974 for the Infuse?4G, but Apple points out that Samsung's own admissions concerning the dates of first sale of these products as well as certain exhibits consistent with those admissions prove that the relevant theory -- disgorgement of profits for design patent infringement -- was permissible. Therefore, the number of products for which the damages award can stand would go up from 14 to 16, while the number of products for which a new determination is needed would go down from 14 to 12. The affirmed damages award would increase from $600?million to $685?million, almost two thirds of the $1.05?billion verdict.

Apple is right that a joint pretrial conference statement the parties stipulated to in July?2012 contradicts Judge Koh's belief that Apple had based its damages claims with respect to those products on an "aggressive notice date for all of the patents". Having checked on the facts (based on the publicly-filed documents Apple's motion references) I believe Apple's theory is correct with respect to both products, but it's slightly more complicated for the Infuse?4G than for the the Galaxy S?II?AT&T. Here's my summary of the facts and issues:

• The court agreed with Samsung's lawyers that the underlying logic of most of the jury's product-related damages awards was identifiable by means of reverse engineering. For many products the numbers the juries arrived at clearly showed that a disgorgement of infringer's profits had been awarded. The verdict form didn't say so explicitly, but mathematically it was clear.

• Such a disgorgement is only permissible if at least one design patent was infringed (it's impermissible for infringement of utility patents) and (which is not specific to design patents but to all patent damages under 35 U.S.C. ? 287(a)) if the infringer had "actual or constructive notice of the patent" (as Judge Koh described the requirement in her damages order).

• Design patent infringements were identified with respect to the Infuse?4G and Galaxy S?II?AT&T. But Judge Koh held that Apple's damages expert, Terry Musika, gave the jury incorrect information regarding the notice dates for various patents. Only for the rubber-banding '381 patent Judge Koh agreed that Apple had put Samsung on notice in August?2010 (more than eight months before filing suit) in a presentation that specifically mentioned it. For all other patents, Judge Koh determined that the notice date was only when Apple actually sued over them. For some of the patents the jury found infringed that would be the date on which the original complaint was filed (April?15, 2011); for some others, which Apple asserted only when it amended its complaint, it would be the date of the amendment (June?16, 2011).

• This means that the jury, if it relied upon Apple's claimed notice dates that preceded Judge Koh's most conservative assumptions, may have awarded infringer's profits with respect to an impermissibly long period (too long in terms of starting too early). Since the jury awarded just one amount per product, Judge Koh felt that she couldn't make the necessary adjustments to subtract any disgorgement relating to the impermissible part of the total damages period, and therefore ordered a new trial on damages for products where this plays a role.

• The problem I just outlined can, of course, affect only products released before the relevant notice dates. If Apple's claimed notice dates were overly aggressive but even the most conservative notice date -- when a patent was asserted in court -- predates the release date, it doesn't matter. In connection with certain products, Judge Koh's damages order also recognized this fact.

• Apple argues that this also applies to the Galaxy S?II?AT&T and the Infuse?4G. Apple points to a July?6, 2012 joint pretrial conference statement, paragraph?24 of which states the dates on which Samsung (one or more of three legal entities) "first sold the [relevant] products in the United States", and the stipulation says that sales of the Infuse?4G began on May?15, 2011, and sales of the Galaxy S?II began on October?2, 2011. There are some documents in the evidentiary record that show the first sales of the Galaxy?S?II?AT&T in the third quarter of 2011, which is earlier than October?2, 2011 but still after Judge Koh's most conservative notice dates, so for the purposes of Apple's motion it doesn't matter whether the stipulation or the evidentiary record are right because Apple's theory of an error on Judge Koh's part works either way for the Galaxy?S?II?AT&T. For the Infuse?4G the same record states that the first sale occurred "in the second quarter of 2011", which doesn't contradict the stipulation that sales began on May?16, 2011, which was in the second quarter of 2011.

• For the S?II it's really simple because its sales began after the relevant notice date. This really looks like an oversight on Judge Koh's part.

• For the Infuse?4G, however, the stipulated date of first shipment is between the date of the original complaint and the date of the amendment. In a footnote one of Apple's latest filings argues that the later date (the one of the amendment) "is not relevant" because the S?II was found to infringe the D'677 design patent, which Apple asserted in the original complaint, and it doesn't matter that the D'305 patent was additionally asserted in the amended complaint (and also found infringed by this product according to the jury): "Once Apple could recover Samsung's profits for infringement of the D'677 patent, notice and infringement of the D'305 patent by the same two products does not change the amount of the award under 35 U.S.C. ? 289."

  Apple correctly points to the fact that a disgorgement of infringer's profits is not apportioned: it's an all-or-nothing deal. Also, which Apple's motion does not say, Samsung's own reverse-engineering of the jury award does not identify any correlation between the disgorgement award and the number of design patents deemed infringed. So I would agree with Apple that what Judge Koh considered to be an aggressive notice date doesn't matter with respect to the Galaxy?S?II?AT&T. It's a fact that the jury, if it relied on Apple's representations as it apparently did, assumed a notice date for one of the infringed design patents that predated the shipment of the product as well as what Judge Koh thought was the accurate notice date, but irrelevant both under the law and based on how the jury actually calculated damages -- and let's not forget that the jury award gets some deference anyway.

Apple now seeks the court's permission to bring a motion for reconsideration, but the request to bring such a motion is, for the time being, conditional: only if Samsung's request for a partial final judgment was granted, Apple would want the Galaxy S?II?AT&T and the Infuse?4G to be removed from the list of products for which the court ordered a new trial on damages. I believe Apple would want Judge Koh to correct this error in any event, but it raises this issue now to pre-empt the partial final judgment requested by Samsung.

Apple's conditional motion cites Civil Local Rule 7-9(b)(3). The related rule of the Northern District of California allows a motion for reconsideration in the event of "[a] manifest failure by the Court to consider material facts or dispositive legal arguments which were presented to the Court before such interlocutory order".

Presumably no one will be unhappier to find out about this apparent error in the March?1 damages order than Judge Koh herself. But just like the jury and everyone else involved with this dispute, she's only human. In such a complex case judges and juries -- and also the parties and their lawyers -- can err on some minor detail that proves outcome-determinative in some way.

Fortunately for Judge Koh, she erred only in a way that prejudiced Apple. If she had erroneously vacated $85?million to Samsung's detriment, there would be a lot more noise -- and conspiracy theories -- about it.

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Source: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/apple-alleges-85-million-error-in.html

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