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If you had any doubts, it?s now official: President Obama has blacks to thank for his reelection. It turns out that record levels of black voter turnout propelled Obama to victory in 2012. So much so that if blacks had voted at 2004 levels, we?d all be saluting a President Romney right now.

We think Obama has a few million thank you cards to sign.

That?s according to a new Associated Press-Brookings Institution analysis on 2012 election data that contains a few gems that both parties would be wise to examine.

RECOMMENDED: Election 2012: 12 reasons Obama won and Romney lost

Among the surprises: Latinos aren?t as lucrative, votes-wise, as they appear to be ? yet. And Democrats, who appeared to have cemented their role in 2012 as the minority party, shouldn?t get too comfortable.

Here are four lessons the 2012 election post-mortem taught us about the minority vote:

BLACK VOTERS CAN TURN OUT

Voter ID laws. High unemployment among blacks. Low rates of registration. Lack of transportation and access to polling stations.

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These were all supposed to keep blacks away from the polls last year, but they didn?t.

Not only did black voters turn out, their turnout levels surpassed that of whites and most minority groups, including Latinos and Asians, in last year?s elections.

Though we don?t have exact data on the 2012 election turnout breakdown just yet, 2008 turnout data represented the smallest gap on record between whites (66.1 percent turnout) and blacks (65.2 percent turnout). According to the AP-Brookings analysis, 2 million to 5 million fewer whites voted in 2012 than in 2008, erasing that narrow lead.

LATINOS STILL LAG

The same headlines that warned of plummeting black voter turnout in 2012 also trumpeted the so-called Latin sensation, which was supposed to see record levels of Latinos turn out at the polls.

They did, but not at the levels black voters turned out.

Consider this: While blacks make up about 13 percent of the population and 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of the total 2012 votes cast, thereby ?outperforming? their share.

By contrast, Latinos make up 17 percent of the population but just 11 percent of eligible voters and 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast, somewhat underperforming for their share.

In fact, Latinos probably won?t surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, according to the AP-Brookings analysis.

Why the lower Latino rates?

Latinos may be growing fast, but they?re still a fairly young cohort, with more than one-third of Latinos (almost 35 percent) younger than the voting age of 18.

What?s more, many Latinos are not yet US citizens and therefore ineligible to vote. Nearly two-thirds of legal Mexican immigrants are not US citizens, according to a Pew Center analysis ? and that?s not even counting illegal and undocumented immigrants.

BUT THEIR DAY IS COMING

A proposed immigration bill in the Senate could see nearly 11 million immigrants currently here illegally become eligible for US citizenship ? and voting ? in as little as 13 years (the bill proposes a 13-year path to citizenship).

If that bill, or some iteration of it, passes, the total share of Latino voters may leap to 16 percent of the electorate by 2026. Under that same scenario, the share of eligible white voters could shrink to less than 64 percent, as the growing minority population edges out white population shares, according to the AP-Brookings report.

?The 2008 election was the first year when the minority vote was important to electing a U.S. president. By 2024, their vote will be essential to victory," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution said in the report. ?Democrats will be looking at a landslide going into 2028 if the new Hispanic voters continue to favor Democrats.?

BUT DEMOCRATS SHOULDN?T REST TOO EASY

Whatever you heard about the GOP?s minority problem, the rainbow coalition is not a sure bet for Democrats in 2016 or for future elections.

In fact, 2012 may have been an exceptional year. That?s because Romney was an exceptionally poor candidate for motivating white voters, let alone minorities, to the polls. And Obama was an exceptionally strong candidate for motivating minorities. That?s a scenario Democrats may not be able to replicate again soon.

?The 2012 turnout ? suggests ? there is an 'Obama effect' where people were motivated to support Barack Obama,? Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, told the AP. ?But it also means that black turnout may not always be higher, if future races aren't as salient.?

Or, as GOP consultant Whit Ayres told the AP, ?It remains to be seen how successful Democrats are if you don't have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket.?

What?s more, the GOP is well aware of its ?minority problem? and working overtime to reverse it, starting with comprehensive immigration reform legislation that could make Latinos and Asians more receptive to the GOP in coming elections.

RECOMMENDED: Election 2012: 12 reasons Obama won and Romney lost

Related stories

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/black-voter-turnout-dems-cant-obama-effect-granted-200923567.html

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BOX SCORE

NEW YORK ? Ryan Howard started the day on the bench, but he ended it as a big difference-maker in the Phillies? 5-1 win over the New York Mets on Sunday afternoon.

Howard?s two-run, pinch-hit double in the top of the seventh snapped a 1-1 tie and helped give Cole Hamels his first win of the season.

The Phillies swept the three-game series by a combined score of 18-5. They are 12-14 heading into Monday?s off day.

Starting pitching report
Hamels (1-3) had an unusual start. His stuff was good enough to produce eight strikeouts in six innings, but he matched a career-high with six walks. Hamels has now walked 17 batters in 37 2/3 innings over six starts. He did not walk his 17th batter until his 12th start last season.

Despite the walks, Hamels got important outs when he needed them. He struck out the opposing pitcher, Jonathon Niese, to end the fourth with the bases loaded.

Niese suffered the loss. He was charged with three runs, only two of which were earned.

Bullpen report
Antonio Bastardo, Mike Adams and Jonathan Papelbon combined on three scoreless innings for the Phillies.

Scott Atchison gave up run-scoring hits to Howard and Chase Utley in the seventh.

At the plate
Howard did not start against the lefty Niese. Howard is 1 for 15 with seven strikeouts lifetime against Niese. But Howard came off the bench and made a huge contribution with a two-run, pinch-hit double in the top of the seventh. Howard?s double came with two outs and broke a 1-1 tie. Chase Utley then singled Howard home.

The three-run rally started with a two-out pinch-hit single by Laynce Nix, who is 7 for 13 as a pinch-hitter this season. Nix was given life in the at-bat when catcher John Buck was charged with a two-out error after dropping a foul pop up near the Phillies? dugout. Jimmy Rollins followed with a single on a nine-pitch at-bat to keep the inning going and set the table for Howard.

Phillies pinch-hitters are 13 for 44 with 13 RBIs this season.

Howard is hitting .351 (13 for 37) with three doubles, two homers and 11 RBIs in his last 10 games.

In the field
Buck?s error on Nix? foul pop in the seventh was a huge break that the Phils were able to cash in on.

Mets? third baseman David Wright made an error in the first inning, ending a 77-game errorless streak.

Ruiz returns
Carlos Ruiz was back in the lineup after serving a 25-game suspension (see story). He had a double.

Up next
The Phils are off on Monday. They open a two-game interleague series in Cleveland on Tuesday night.

Pitching matchups:
Tuesday night ? RH Roy Halladay (2-2, 5.08) vs. RH Zach McAllister (1-3, 3.50)

Wednesday night ? LH Cliff Lee (2-1, 3.03) pitches for the Phillies. The Indians have not named a starter.

Source: http://www.csnphilly.com/baseball-philadelphia-phillies/instant-replay-phillies-5-mets-1

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Unattributed

Neal Mohan, Google's VP of display.

Google has finally fixed one of advertising's worst-kept secrets: That advertisers frequently pay for web ads that have never been seen by consumers.

Up to 10% of all ads appear in positions that make it unlikely they were seen by human eyes, Google noted in a blog post on Friday. Those ads are often referred to as being "below the fold," meaning they appear so far down a web page that a user would have to scroll down to encounter them ? which most users never do. However, advertisers get charged for such ads simply because the ad impression was served, even though it may never have been seen by the target user.

Google's solution is a system called ActiveView, which will rate ads for actual viewability. It's just been endorsed by the Media Ratings Council ? meaning it becomes an industry standard of sorts. AdExchanger reports:

"Viewability is the first critical building block ? no other metric matters, from a brand's perspective, if the ad wasn't seen by an actual human being," said Neal Mohan, Google's VP of display, in an interview with AdExchanger. "Anything that we build on top of that, such as brand lift, as we announced with our Google Consumer Surveys product, follows from that first step of knowing if an ad has been viewed."

To give you an idea of just how many ads are served in positions where users are unlikely to see them, take a look at these two charts that Google's DoubleClick unit produced.

Up to 10% of ads are clicked on by users who have seen them for less than 1 second, suggesting that the clicks were accidental:

CTR = click through rate. BTF = below-the-fold.

The longer an ad is actually displayed to users, the higher the click-through rate:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-10-of-web-ads-are-never-seen-2013-4

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Including failed terror plots in US terrorism databases would make the US terror-threat picture more complete and provide important information for law enforcement, researchers suggest.

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

Failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad enters guilty pleas in a court appearance in New York in 2010. Shahzad pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted terrorism transcending national borders.

Jane Rosenburg/REUTERS

Enlarge

The terrorism threat facing the United States may be vastly understated, as well as inaccurately characterized, because so many ?failed? terror plots are excluded from the nation?s terror attack databases, new terrorism research suggests.

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Despite a sharp decline in terrorist attacks since the 1970s, there still were 207 terrorist attacks recorded inside the United States in the decade after 9/11 ? about 20 per year on average, according to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) maintained at the University of Maryland, widely regarded as the nation?s most complete tally.

But what if those totals were, say, 50 percent higher? A researcher at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., recently tallied 109 failed terrorist plots between 2001 and 2012, only a few of which were included in the GTD?s national terror ?attack? totals.

Yet those failed plots are perhaps just as important in their own way as plots that became actual attacks, some terrorism researchers say. Placing failed plots alongside successful attacks would make the US terror-threat picture more complete, highlight trends in terrorist targeting and methods, and possibly reveal a different ? or even bigger ? threat, they say.

?One finding from my research is that the terror threat within the US is higher than most Americans realize,? says Erik Dahl, an assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, whose research has identified 227 failed domestic and international terror plots of all kinds (Islamic jihadist, right-wing extremist and others) against the US dating back to 1987 ? the vast majority excluded from national ?attack? tallies.

In his post-9/11 analysis, Dr. Dahl found that of the 109 failed attacks, 76 were inspired by radical Islamist beliefs. But the fact that the rest of the terror flops ? 30 percent ? were not inspired by radical Islam ?might surprise some people and shows the importance of the domestic extremist threat, including right-wing militias, anti-government groups,? Dahl says.

Understanding exactly why terror plots fizzled before they could be carried out ? and how far they proceeded before being stopped ? is vital if lawmakers and investigators are to accurately calibrate the scope of the threat, the law enforcement techniques that work best, and terrorist groups? adaptation and targeting patterns, he says.

Yet at present, only successful ?attacks? or attack attempts that at least make it ?out the door? are included in the GTD, according to criteria on its website. Cases where terrorists dropped their plot, or where law enforcement made arrests long before any action could be taken, are usually not included.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/qb9-IBlofMQ/Terrorism-in-America-Is-US-missing-a-chance-to-learn-from-failed-plots

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For MMA fans the thought of professional wrestling is beyond comparison with the real sport of the UFC. ?Yet, if you want to see pro wrestling in MMA, you need only look to Chael Sonnen.

?Anderson Silva you absolutely suck.? ? Chael Sonnen post-fight Octagon interview at UFC 136.

In my opinion, the best start to a promo in UFC History with GSP?s admonishment of Matt Hughes: ?I?m not impressed by your performance,? coming in second. Sonnen liberally uses old school pro wrestling microphone techniques to add a unique spin to get his point across.

While we may scoff at Sonnen?s antics, his brash, trash-talk has grabbed himself headlines and main events. ?How is it that Sonnen was on the short list of fighters sought to replace an injured Dan Henderson at UFC 151? ?At that time, Sonnen was competing in the Middleweight division. ?He was chosen (after Lyoto Machida) because the UFC knew he was reliable to sell the fight.

When Jones passed on taking the match with Sonnen, UFC 151 was off and Jones and Greg Jackson took the brunt of the blame for the cancellation. ?Sonnen took to social media to call out Jones and rail on the champ. ?Seeing this as an opportunity, the UFC put Jones and Sonnen together as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter. ?Hoping for the social media beef to continue on television, the adversaries actually became friends on the show. ?As a result, the ratings did not do as well as expected. Thus, no momentum was gained from the show to the fight. ?Yet, Sonnen has picked up the banter for UFC 159.

Sonnen has done the media rounds from The Jim Rome Show to ESPN. He?s bragged, he?s boasted, he claims to be making?$10 million?in the Jon Jones fight. ?Is it because of the delivery that no one seems to challenge Sonnen on his proclamations?

He?s helped promote this fight despite receiving little assistance from the champion. ?But then again, does the one man sound-bite need a partner?

Sonnen?s unabashed mouth has paid dividends for his career. ?He will eventually become a full-time talking head for the UFC?and will be the best at doing that job. ?He looks the part on the set of UFC Tonight of television anchorman. ?He?s composed, articulate and even if he doesn?t know what he?s talking about, it sounds like he does.

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While there have been claims that Sonnen may use inferences of race in promoting himself to subtly remind people that he is white and his opponent is not, it is hard to verify the truth or falsity of the claim. ?Old school pro wrestling is known for racial insensitivities (YouTube any wrestling promotion in the 1970s-80s?90s?) and you will find the divide between good and bad may be based just on that. ?We?re not saying this may be the cause for the inferences of race, but its a possibility. ?But, the defense or the accusations of race baiting are set aside here. The purpose is to address the promotion ability of Sonnen.

In the end, will Sonnen sell pay per views as he claims he will? ?Let?s take a look from when he first had the chance to get an extended amount of time in front of a microphone ? his fight at UFC 117 with Anderson Silva.

UFC 117: Sonnen-Silva I ? 600,000 PPV Buys

UFC 136: ?Sonnen-Stann ? 225,000 PPV Buys

UFC 148: ?Sonnen-Silva II ? 925,000 PPV Buys

This does not include Sonnen?s fight with Michael Bisping at UFC on Fox 2 in January 2012. ?Still, Sonnen sold UFC 117 almost all by himself. ?He put the heat on Silva and almost pulled off the upset. I suggest watching the documentary ?Like Water? to see that fight from Silva?s perspective. ?Silva did assist in providing some heat to the rematch at 148. ?Yet, Sonnen was still the center of attention.

However, UFC 136 seemed like an anomaly. ??It marked the return of Sonnen from suspension. ?It was headlined by Maynard-Edgar and Aldo-Florian yet only received 225,000 buys. UFC 159 should do well because of Sonnen?s constant sell for the fight and Jones? ability to fight.

Do people tire of Sonnen?s gimmick? ?Yes. ?Will people stop watching him because of it? ?Probably not. ?Sonnen?s tactics in promoting fights are questionable but one thing is certain, he makes his presence known and tries his best to make you take notice.

Source: http://mmapayout.com/2013/04/the-pr-of-chael-sonnen/

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Come October, when you go to the ATM each morning to take out your daily stack of $100 bills (and really, who doesn't do this?), don't be alarmed if you don't recognize the crazy pieces of paper that come flying out.

Those will be the Fed's new $100 bills ? a project Uncle Sam has been chipping away at since 2003.

The new Benjamins were originally scheduled for circulation starting in February 2011, but the agency was forced to postpone due to problems including "unwanted creases" reports the Los Angeles Times.

Well, it was worth the wait. The new currency is loaded with high-tech features that will make it "easier for the public to authenticate, but more difficult for counterfeiters to replicate," says the Fed. And though the bill costs slightly more to produce than our current $100 note, it should save money in the long run ? $100s are more frequently counterfeited than any other U.S. currency outside the United States. North Korea in particular is known for producing incredibly high-quality counterfeit $100s known as "supernotes," which are almost impossible to detect as fakes. This new bill should make "supernotes" extremely difficult to produce.

And don't worry about turning in the stack of old $100s under your bed. The billions of notes already in circulation will remain legal, but starting October 8, they will be destroyed and replaced when they pass through the Fed. In the interest of preventing confusion at the cash machine, here's a quick look at the new $100:

New security features include:
1. A blue, three-dimensional security ribbon that's woven ? not printed ? into the note's fabric.
2. Another security strip to the left of Ben's face. It's only visible when held up to the light.
3. A faint image of Ben's face in the black space on the right, which can be seen on both sides of the bill.
4. Alternating images of bells and the number 100 that change as the viewing angle is tilted.
5. A liberty bell inside an ink well that changes from copper to green when tilted.
6. A large "100" on the front that also changes color when tilted.
7. An even larger "100" vertically positioned on the back to help those with visual impairments identify the currency.
8. Raised "intaglio" printing throughout the bill to give the note its "distinctive texture."
9. Microprinting reading "The United States of America" on Ben's collar, "USA 100" on the watermark, and "ONE HUNDRED USA" along the golden quill.

Check out NewMoney.Gov for more info.

More from The Fiscal Times:

This story was originally published by ?The Fiscal Times.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/9-security-features-in-new-100-bill-2013-4

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Marcella Butler has joined Think Finance as Chief Human Resources Officer. Butler joins Think Finance from Google where she worked in a variety of directorate-level roles across corporate development, finance and people operations.

PRESS RELEASE

Think Finance, a company that develops online financial products that bridge the gap between payday loans and credit cards, today announced it has named Marcella Butler as its Chief Human Resources Officer.

Ms. Butler joins Think Finance from Google, where she spent five years in a variety of directorate-level roles across corporate development, finance and people operations. Prior to that, Ms. Butler was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer for Pershing Square Capital Management and Chief Administration Officer for Sanford Bernstein, LLC. She has also held positions with Egon Zehner International, McKinsey & Company and Morgan Stanley & Co, Inc.
?We?re delighted to welcome Marcella to Think Finance,? said Think Finance Global Chief Executive Officer Ken Rees. ?Her impressive background and expertise will help us navigate the challenges of rapid growth and create a truly great place to work for all our employees.?
?I?m excited to work with the talented individuals at Think Finance,? said Ms. Butler. ?The Think Finance team is vibrant and growing with the business, and together, we will continue to lever the unique aspects of Think Finance?s culture as we build a great place to work and grow.?
Ms. Butler graduated with highest distinction from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead scholar and holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University?s Kennedy School of Government.
About Think Finance
Think Finance develops online financial products that bridge the gap between payday loans and credit cards. Using our technology and analytics platform, Think Finance and the lenders we work with have provided over $3.5 billion in credit to 1.5 million consumers in the U.S. and abroad and have saved customers over $1 billion compared to payday loans. Think Finance is privately held and is backed by some of Silicon Valley?s most respected venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures. The company was recently named No. 2 on Forbes? America?s Most Promising Companies list. Learn more at?www.ThinkFinance.com.

Source: http://www.pehub.com/198600/butler-joins-think-finance/

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. economic growth accelerated to an annual rate of 2.5 percent from January through March, buoyed by the strongest consumer spending in more than two years. Government spending fell, though, and tax increases and federal budget cuts could slow growth later this year.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy rebounded from an anemic 0.4 percent annual growth rate in the October-December quarter. Much of the gain reflected a jump in consumer spending, which rose at an annual rate of 3.2 percent. That was the biggest such jump since the end of 2010.

Growth was also helped by businesses, which responded to the greater demand by rebuilding their stockpiles. And home construction rose further.

But government spending fell at a 4.1 percent rate, led by another deep cut in defense spending. The decline kept last quarter's increase in economic growth below expectations of a 3 percent rate or more.

Many economists say they think growth as measured by the gross domestic product is slowing in the April-June quarter to an annual rate of just 2 percent. Most foresee growth remaining around that subpar level for the rest of the year.

GDP is the broadest gauge of the economy's health. It measures the total output of goods and services produced in the United States, from haircuts and hamburgers to airplanes and automobiles.

Across-the-board government spending cuts, which began taking effect March 1, have forced federal agencies to furlough workers, reduced spending on public projects and made businesses more nervous about investing and hiring.

Consumers' take-home pay has also fallen because President Barack Obama and Congress allowed a Social Security tax cut to expire. A person earning $50,000 a year has about $1,000 less to spend this year. A household with two high-paid workers has up to $4,500 less. Consumers' take-home pay is crucial to the economy because their spending drives roughly 70 percent of growth.

Americans appeared to shrug off the tax increase at the start of the year. They spent more in January and February, helped by a stronger job market. In part, that's why growth is expected to be solid in the first quarter.

But hiring slowed sharply in March. And consumers spent less at retail businesses, a sign that many were starting to feel the tax increase. Economists expect spending to stay weak in the second quarter as consumers adjust to their smaller paychecks.

Ben Herzon, an economist at Macroeconomics Advisers, said the tax increases could shave roughly 1 percentage point from growth this year. He also expects the government spending cuts to reduce growth by about 0.6 percentage point.

The drop in government spending cut growth in the January-March quarter by 0.8 percentage point. Three-fourths of that decline came from defense spending.

Income growth slowed sharply after a big surge in the final three months of 2012. The fourth-quarter gain had reflected a rush to pay dividends and make bonus payments before higher tax rates took effect on Jan. 1. Incomes were also held back in the first three months by the increase in Social Security taxes.

The big jump in consumer spending, along with slower income growth, meant that the saving rate fell to 2.6 percent of after-tax income in the first quarter. That was down from 4.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

The first-quarter growth figures will be revised twice more based on more complete data.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-26-Economy-GDP/id-afd6e0dceb494d2895dc69aa24fd41e4

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IN THE NEWS: Administration believes chemical weapons used in Syria ? Boston bomb suspects planned NYC attack ? Bush feted at presidential library opening ? Exemptions for Hill staffers on insurance exchanges? ? Bill Clinton joins Twitter ? for real

THE TAKE

Obama Looking for Reasons to Delay Response on Syria

It would seem to add up to certain U.S. military action: On Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the United States now believes ?the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin."

That finding appears to be a direct violation of the ?red line? and ?game-changer? for action that President Obama has set.

In truth, the same game is still going on, and the administration appears to be equivocating over a response while all the ?facts? are established. ?We want to continue to investigate above and beyond those intelligence estimates,? a senior administration official told reporters on Thursday afternoon, in order to gain ?a definitive judgment for whether a red line has been crossed.?

Some of the usual U.S. hawks called for immediate action, and even Obama ally Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., issued a statement indicating the administration?s credibility was at stake on the matter.

The administration remains very leery of getting directly involved in Syria, but the question is, at what cost? Read more

Michael Hirsh
mhirsh@nationaljournal.com?

TOP NEWS

HAGEL, WHITE HOUSE FIND SOME EVIDENCE OF SYRIAN CHEMICAL-WEAPON USE. In a letter to lawmakers on Thursday, the Obama administration said it had seen some evidence that government forces have used the deadly chemical sarin in the Syrian civil war, Bloomberg reports. But the assessment is ?not sufficient? to take action, the letter reads. In Abu Dhabi, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made similar statements. Intelligence officials have determined in the last 24 hours, ?with varying degrees of confidence,? that Syria has used small amounts of chemical weapons. In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry clarified, saying there was evidence of ?two instances? of chemical weapon use. Read more

TSARNAEV TOLD AUTHORITIES: NEW YORK CITY WAS NEXT TARGET. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told authorities that he and his brother planned to use their remaining explosives in New York City, the Associated Press reports. The answers came during the 16 hours of interrogation before Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights, after which he stopped responding. Officials were able to question the suspect without reading him his rights under an immediate public-safety exemption.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports the CIA pushed to have Dzhokhar?s older brother and second suspect, Tamerlan, placed on a U.S. counterterrorism watch list more than a year before the attacks. Read more

FIVE LIVING PRESIDENTS ATTEND GEORGE W. BUSH CENTER DEDICATION. President Obama and the four living former presidents came together in Dallas today for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University. Bush closed his remarks by saying, ?It was the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave and as noble as the United States.? Read more

SENATE WEIGHING END TO AIR-TRAFFIC CONTROLLER FURLOUGHS. Senate leaders are negotiating a potential solution to flight delays caused by furloughs of air-traffic controllers, Reuters reports. A measure could be attached to pending legislation on Internet sales taxes, and could come up for a vote as early as today. Possible solutions involve authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration to transfer money within its budget to fully fund the salaries of the air-traffic controllers. Read more

HOUSE, SENATE LEADERS NEGOTIATING WITH WHITE HOUSE OVER INSURANCE EXCHANGE EXEMPTIONS. Congressional leaders from both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and administration officials are engaged in discussions on the possibility of exempting members and their staffs from the health insurance exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, Politico reports. Lawmakers are concerned that the Hill will experience a ?brain drain? if the government does not subsidize staffers? insurance premiums. According to a source, ?Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.? Read more

@ChadPegram: Reid spox: There are not now..nor will there ever be any discussions about exempting members of Congress (from the Affordable Care Act).

HOUSE JUDICIARY CHAIR: COMMITTEE WILL TAKE ?STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH? TO IMMIGRATION REFORM. The House is set to tackle immigration reform, but it will take a piecemeal approach rather than the comprehensive one favored by the Senate ?Gang of Eight,? The Hill reports. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Thursday that Republicans would introduce two pieces of legislation this week -- one that would establish an employment-verification system and another to create a guest-worker program for agriculture. Read more

National Journal?s Shane Goldmacher reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., believes the immigration bill needs more than 60 votes to get traction in the House.

AT FUNDRAISER, OBAMA VOWS TO KEEP REACHING ACROSS AISLE. Speaking to a group of Democratic donors Wednesday night, President Obama pledged to continue reaching out to Republican lawmakers, despite criticism he has weathered from some Democrats who think he is too acquiescent, The New York Times reports. ?Occasionally I may make some of you angry because I?m going to reach out to Republicans, and I?m going to keep on doing it,? he said. ?Even if some of you think I?m a sap, I?m going to keep on doing it because that?s what I think the country needs.? The fundraiser was held for 60 donors who paid between $10,000 and $32,400 to attend. Read more

BILL CLINTON JOINS TWITTER FOR REAL, GETS LESSON FROM COLBERT. Former President Clinton, appearing on Comedy Central?s Colbert Report via video on Wednesday, joined Twitter, adopting the handle @BillClinton. Clinton selected the moniker over the one host Stephen Colbert had chosen for him during Clinton?s trip to the show earlier this month, @PrezBillyJeff. Clinton received a tutorial from Colbert during Wednesday?s show. Read more

TOMORROW

GDP TO BE RELEASED. First-quarter gross domestic product figures will be released by the Commerce Department Friday morning. Economists are forecasting growth of about 3 percent. The Washington Post?s Neil Irwin writes that while the report is expected to be strong, ?beware its weak underbelly.? Read more

OBAMA TO ADDRESS PLANNED PARENTHOOD, HOST KING OF JORDAN. On Friday, the president will address the Planned Parenthood gala. He will also host King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House.

APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE TO HOLD FDA BUDGET HEARING. A House Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the budget for the Food and Drug Administration. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg will be a witness, among others. Read more

QUOTABLE

"He's by far the best qualified man, but no. I really don't. I think it's a great country, there are a lot of great families, and it's not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we've had enough Bushes." ? Former first lady Barbara Bush, on whether she wants her son, Jeb Bush, to run for president in 2016. (NBC?s Today)

BEDTIME READING

INSIDE THE KILLING OF ANWAR AL-AWLAKI. ?At the White House, President Obama was faced with a decision?not of morality or legality, but of timing. He had already sentenced Anwar al-Awlaki to death without trial,? writes Jeremy Scahill for The Nation. The United States had tracked the ?radical cleric? to a house in Jawf, Yemen. But officials knew there were children in the house, possibly including Awlaki?s son. ? ?Bring it to me and let me decide in the reality of the moment rather than in the abstract,? Obama told his advisers, according to author Daniel Klaidman.... ?In this one instance,? an Obama confidant told Klaidman, ?the president considered relaxing some of his collateral requirements.? ? Ultimately, the U.S. did go forward with an attack on the home, and Awlaki?s son was there. Both died in the attack. Scahill takes readers behind the scenes of the lead-up to -- and fallout from -- the attack, which rankled legal activists and sparked a public debate about U.S. drone strike policy. Read more

PLAY OF THE DAY

LOOKING BACK AT BUSH, LOOKING FORWARD TO MARS. In anticipation of the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, late-night hosts have been dusting off jokes from the previous decade. David Letterman spent most of his monologue on Bush, showing the audience a highlight reel of physical Bush gags. He also examined recent polling that suggests the American public misses the 43rd president and showed an illustration of what Dick Cheney?s library might look like. This week, photos of NASA?s Mars rover?s track marks on the red planet took the Internet by storm. On Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert found the craft?s suggestive pattern to be a triumph around which Americans can unite. Watch it here

TODAY?S CHART

THE ONE CHART THAT COULD SEVER OBAMA?S COALITION. What could dissolve the powerful electoral coalition that powered both of President Obama?s victories? The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll points to the greatest risk: continuing economic dissatisfaction. Read more

TOP TWEETS

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-looking-reasons-delay-response-syria-160930111--politics.html
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A big step up in Kodak's scanner line in both price and capability from the Editors' Choice Kodak i2600 that I reviewed in late 2011, the Kodak i2900 rotary scanner offers a slightly faster rated speed, at 60 pages per minute (ppm) and 120 images per minute (ipm) with one image on each side of the page; a letter-size flatbed to supplement the automatic document feeder (ADF); and a book scan feature, with the flatbed platen right at the edge of the scan bed. The result is an impressively capable scanner suitable for a large workgroup or office with relatively heavy-duty scan needs.

At a quick glance, the i2900 looks more like a mono laser printer than a scanner. Black, with gray and silver highlights, it has the right proportions for a laser, at 9.4 by 17.0 by 14.6 inches (HWD) with the front input tray closed, and it weights a substantial 35 pounds. The resemblance is also enhanced by the output bin molded into the top and the 250-sheet input tray that pivots down in front to add another roughly 6 inches to the depth.

Even the front-panel LCD and control buttons add to the laser-printer look, at least until you turn the scanner on and read the LCD, which happens to be one of the scanner's nicer touches. The LCD is backlit so it's easy to read. It also has room for three rows of 18 characters, which lets it show descriptive profile names when you scroll through the choices with the front panel buttons.

Descriptive names are a big improvement on the more typical arbitrary numbers from 1 to 9. They make it far easier to take advantage of one-button scanning, because it's easier to find the right profile before you press the Scan button. The only quibble I have with the feature is that Kodak's software limits you to the usual maximum of 9 profiles. That's a reasonable limit when you identify profiles by number. With descriptive text, however, you should have the option to define more.

More Basics and Setup
Another departure from the laser-printer look is the flatbed hidden underneath the output tray. Lifting the lid reveals a letter-size platen with the edge of the glass right at the front edge of the platform. The flatbed not only lets you scan originals that you don't want to risk damaging with the ADF, it lets you position open books with the spine at the edge of the platen, the facing page hanging over the side, and the page you want to scan flat against the glass, so you can get a good-quality scan without risking damage to the book.

Not so incidentally, if you need a larger than letter-size flatbed, Kodak says it will soon offer an optional A3-size (11.69 by 17 inch) flatbed accessory. (The price hasn't been determined at this writing.) Although the accessory flatbed will connect directly to your computer by USB cable, it won't operate unless you also have the i2900 or another supported scanner also installed on that computer.

Setting up the i2900 is absolutely standard for a document scanner. Simply install the software from the supplied disc and then connect the scanner by USB cable. As is typical for scanners in this price range, Kodak doesn't supply any application software, like a separate document management or optical character recognition program, on the grounds that most offices will likely already have the software they need. However the scanner comes with Twain, ISIS, and WIA drivers, and at least one of them will work with virtually any Windows program that includes a scan command.

Kodak also supplies two scan utilities, which will be familiar to anyone who has used the i2600. The one I used for all of my tests installs along with the drivers. The other is on a separate disc. Choosing between the two depends on which one fits your particular scan needs, with the disc sleeve offering some information that can help you choose between them.

Performance
Kodak rates the i2900 at 60 ppm and 120 ipm in both black and white and color modes at both 200 and 300 pixels per inch (ppi). And although it wasn't quite that fast in my tests, it was fast enough for speed to count as a strong point.

For my tests, I used the default settings for documents of 200 ppi and black and white mode. Using our standard 25-sheet test document, the i2900 came in at 42.9 ppm for simplex scanning to a PDF image file, and just a touch slower, at 41.7 ppm, or 83.3 ipm, for duplex scans. That makes it a bit faster in both cases than the Editors' Choice Xerox DocuMate 5445, at 38.5 ppm and 75 ipm, but a bit slower than the Editors' ChoiceXerox DocuMate 5460, at 46.9 ppm and 92.3 ipm.

Keep in mind that as with the Xerox scanners the total time for the scan includes a few seconds of overhead, both between giving the scan command and the scan actually starting, and between the scan finishing and the file being written to disk. Subtract that extra time, and the scan speed in ppm is much closer to the rated speed. More significantly, if you scan documents with more pages, the overhead works out to less time per page, so the overall speed in ppm will be faster.

Very much on the plus side, the Kodak scanner adds less time for optical character recognition (OCR) than the Xerox scanners. Scanning our standard test document to a searchable PDF file, which is generally the more useful format for document management applications, the i2900 took just 1 minute 9 seconds, making it a touch faster than either Xerox scanner.

The i2900 also handled our OCR tests reasonably well, reading both our Times New Roman and Arial test pages at sizes as small as 10 points without a mistake.

Other Issues
The only real complaint I have about the i2900 is the same one I had with the i2600, which is that too many options in the driver aren't self explanatory. The example I gave for the i2600 was the option for skipping blank pages, which will let you scan both one- and two-sided documents without having to change settings and without winding up with blank pages when you scan a one-sided original.

In the version of software that came with the i2600, the option was labeled Blank Image, which I called unnecessarily obscure when I reviewed the scanner. In the version that comes with the i2900, it's been changed to Blank Image Detection, which is a little better, I suppose, but still not as clear as Skip Blank Pages would be. The good news is that once you get familiar with the driver choices, the options let you control just about anything you need to.

As should be obvious, the Kodak i2900 is a highly capable beast. It delivers fast speed, good OCR accuracy, and the potential for heavy-duty scanning, with a 250-sheet ADF tray and a maximum 10,000 page-per-day duty cycle. Its natural home is in a large workgroup or office, but no matter what size office you're in, if you need relatively heavy-duty ADF-based document scanning, letter-size flatbed scanning, and book scanning, the Kodak i2900 can do it all and do all of it well.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/9S4BqM6I3iM/0,2817,2418165,00.asp

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Advertisement: Preregister now for the Medicine 2.0 Congress

Original Paper

A Data Encryption Solution for Mobile Health Apps in Cooperation Environments

Bruno M Silva¹, BSC, MSc; Joel JPC Rodrigues¹, BSC, MSc, PhD; F?bio Canelo¹, BSC, Msc Candidate; Ivo C Lopes¹, BSC, MSc; Liang Zhou², BSC, MSc, PhD

¹Instituto de Telecomunica??es, University of Beira Interior, Covilh?, Portugal
²Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China

Corresponding Author:
Joel JPC Rodrigues, BSC, MSc, PhD

Instituto de Telecomunica??es, University of Beira Interior
Rua Marques D'Avila e Bolama
Covilh?, 6201-001
Portugal
Phone: 351 275242081
Fax: 351 275319891
Email:

ABSTRACT

Background: Mobile Health (mHealth) proposes health care delivering anytime and anywhere. It aims to answer several emerging problems in health services, including the increasing number of chronic diseases, high costs on national health services, and the need to provide direct access to health services, regardless of time and place. mHealth systems include the use of mobile devices and apps that interact with patients and caretakers. However, mobile devices present several constraints, such as processor, energy, and storage resource limitations. The constant mobility and often-required Internet connectivity also exposes and compromises the privacy and confidentiality of health information.
Objective: This paper presents a proposal, construction, performance evaluation, and validation of a data encryption solution for mobile health apps (DE4MHA), considering a novel and early-proposed cooperation strategy. The goal was to present a robust solution based on encryption algorithms that guarantee the best confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of users health information. In this paper, we presented, explained, evaluated the performance, and discussed the cooperation mechanisms and the proposed encryption solution for mHealth apps.
Methods: First, we designed and deployed the DE4MHA. Then two studies were performed: (1) study and comparison of symmetric and asymmetric encryption/decryption algorithms in an mHealth app under a cooperation environment, and (2) performance evaluation of the DE4MHA. Its performance was evaluated through a prototype using an mHealth app for obesity prevention and cares, called SapoFit. We then conducted an evaluation study of the mHealth app with cooperation mechanisms and the DE4MHA using real users and a real cooperation scenario. In 5 days, 5 different groups of 7 students selected randomly agreed to use and experiment the SapoFit app using the 7 devices available for trials.
Results: There were 35 users of SapoFit that participated in this study. The performance evaluation of the app was done using 7 real mobile devices in 5 different days. The results showed that confidentiality and protection of the users? health information was guaranteed and SapoFit users were able to use the mHealth app with satisfactory quality. Results also showed that the app with the DE4MHA presented nearly the same results as the app without the DE4MHA. The performance evaluation results considered the probability that a request was successfully answered as a function of the number of uncooperative nodes in the network. The service delivery probability decreased with the increase of uncooperative mobile nodes. Using DE4MHA, it was observed that performance presented a slightly worse result. The service average was also slightly worse but practically insignificantly different than with DE4MHA, being considered negligible.
Conclusions: This paper proposed a data encryption solution for mobile health apps, called DE4MHA. The data encryption algorithm DE4MHA with cooperation mechanisms in mobile health allow users to safely obtain health information with the data being carried securely. These security mechanisms did not deteriorate the overall network performance and the app, maintaining similar performance levels as without the encryption. More importantly, it offers a robust and reliable increase of privacy, confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of their health information. Although it was experimented on a specific mHealth app, SapoFit, both DE4MHA and the cooperation strategy can be deployed in other mHealth apps.

(J Med Internet Res 2013;15(4):e66)
doi:10.2196/jmir.2498

KEYWORDS

mobile health; mHealth; mobile computing; eHealth; cooperation; encryption; security

In the last decade, health telematics, also known as electronic health (eHealth), have offered patients major improvements in their lives by providing more accessible and affordable health care solutions [1,2]. This is particularly true for patients that live in remote rural areas, travel constantly, are physically incapacitated, elderly, or chronically ill. Telemedicine assumes the use of medical information, also known as electronic health records (EHRs), exchanged via electronic communications improving the patients? health status [3]. The rapid evolution of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures enables and provides rapid access to patient data. The Web 2.0 concept and the emerging Web 3.0 offer opportunities to health care professionals never seen before [4,5]. Now, physicians can perform many tasks through these modern technologies, such as (1) sharing medical videos, photos, and presentations (via YouTube, Flickr, and Slideshare, respectively), (2) use blogs to post medical cases and images, (3) share hospital management information, (4) use social networking to share medical ideas and tasks, and (5) use RSS feeds to keep track of alerts on specific medical interests.

With the advent of mobile communications using smart mobile devices that support 3G and 4G mobile networks for data transport, mobile computing has been the main attraction of research and business communities, thus offering innumerous opportunities to create efficient mobile health solutions. Mobile health (mHealth) is the new edge on health care innovations. It delivers health care anywhere and anytime, surpassing geographical, temporal, and even organizational barriers [6,7]. Laxminarayan and Istepanian defined mobile health for the first time in 2000, as ?unwired e-med? [8]. In 2003, the term ?mHealth? was defined as the ?emerging mobile communications and network technologies for health care systems? [9]. Laxminarayan et al, in 2006, presented a comprehensive study on the impact of mobility on the existing eHealth commercial telemedical systems. They also presented other relevant computing and information technologies that will influence and offer the basis for the next generation of mHealth services [10]. Furthermore, this study served as the basis for future studies on mHealth technologies and services [11]. Several research topics related to health have gathered important findings and contributions using mHealth, such as cardiology [12,13], diabetes [14-16], obesity [17-20], and smoking cessation [21]. More specifically, mHealth apps were applied to health monitoring, disease prevention and detection, basic diagnosis, and in more advanced services. mHealth services are also becoming popular in developing countries where health care facilities are frequently remote and inaccessible [2,22].

Mobile devices and wireless communications present several challenging characteristics and constraints, such as battery and storage capacity, broadcasting constraints, signal interferences, disconnections, noises, limited bandwidths, and network delays. In this sense, cooperation-based approaches are presented as a solution to solve such limitations, focusing on increasing network connectivity, communication rates, and reliability.

In this paper, we present a data encryption solution for mHealth apps (DE4MHA) in cooperative environments guaranteeing data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. This novel and early-proposed cooperation strategy [23] for mHealth apps focuses on forwarding and retrieving data to and from nodes that have no direct connection to an mHealth service. In this way, devices without Internet connectivity can use mHealth apps without problems. This cooperation approach presents a reputation-based strategy where a Web service manages the access control and the cooperation among nodes along with their reputation. It considers the following three main components: a node control message, a requester control message, and a cooperative Web service (CWS). Both control messages are used to manage a local cooperation between two or more nodes. The CWS includes a reputation table for all the nodes and decides which nodes can have access to the requested services. The cooperation strategy and the DE4MHA was deployed and evaluated in an mHealth app for obesity prevention and control, called SapoFit [24-26]. To the best of our knowledge, there are no cooperative solutions thus far for mHealth services and apps considering this network scenario with constant network disconnection. DE4MHA uses symmetric and asymmetric encryption and decryption techniques. We used the Rivest, Shamir, Adleman (RSA) algorithm [27] for asymmetric encryption/decryption to ensure key exchange confidentiality, and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) [28] algorithm for symmetric encryption/decryption for data confidentiality. To ensure data integrity, we have created a message digest that creates a hash of transmitted data. For data authenticity, we used a digital signature. We encrypted the hash message with the RSA private key. To secure the communication with the SapoFit Web service (WS), we used the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol.

In this paper we report two studies that were performed to design and construct the DE4MHA algorithms: (1) a direct evaluation and comparison of several encryption algorithms, and (2) a series of trials evolving 35 people and 7 different mobile devices with SapoFit. The first study revealed what algorithms performed best in an mHealth app in cooperation environments. Overall, this study evaluated the performance of the DE4MHA over the cooperation mechanisms for mHealth apps. The second study revealed that real users experimenting on the SapoFit app trusted DE4MHA. More relevant, this study concluded that the performance of the app used was not affected by the inclusion of DE4MHA.

Overview

This study used an existing mHealth app, called SapoFit, to deploy, evaluate, and validate the proposed solution. This app uses a cooperation strategy that addresses two related limitations to mHealth apps with service-oriented architectures, namely the network infrastructure and Internet connectivity dependency. It follows a reputation-based approach as an incentive method for cooperation, which includes a Web service to manage all the network cooperation. It is responsible for verifying the cooperation status of neighbor nodes and to provide relay nodes the required data in order to perform a full data request.

Cooperation Strategy for mHealth Apps

The cooperation strategy for mHealth apps with service oriented architectures (SOAs) is based on the following two mobile modules and one remote module, respectively: (1) the node control message, (2) the requester control message, and (3) the CWS.

The mobile nodes control messages aim to provide an awareness of the relay node status, that is, if the node is willing to cooperate and in what conditions. It contains the established node unique identifier, the battery state, the Internet connectivity status, and the cooperation status (ie, if it is cooperative or not).

The requester control message is sent by the initial requester node first (the mobile device with mHealth app requesting health data), and it comprises the following five main components: (1) the requester ID, the node unique identifier, (2) the service request, that is, what the node is specifically requesting (eg, the login token or its health profile), (3) the neighbors list, (4) the reputation list, and (5) the achieved cooperation time (ACT).

The CWS is responsible for performing a fair access control to data. Thus, according to the received reputation information, the Web service holds the final reputation list in order to decide if a requester node should have access to the mHealth app Web service or not. The reputation list contains all registered network nodes with their identifier and their corresponding reputation value.

Figure 1 presents a user scenario of the mHealth cooperation approach. User A has network connectivity and cooperates. User B has network connectivity and does not cooperate. The status value is according to the battery status. Then, the status value will suffer a negative impact according to the battery status. Users C and D do not have network connectivity. User C queries User A for cooperation and receives a positive response and all the requested data. User D queries User B for cooperation and receives a negative response. Then, User D requests data from User C that answers this request, getting positive status by cooperating.

SapoFit App

SapoFit is a weight control mobile app that allows users to keep track of weight in a healthier and more practical way. SapoFit allows users to control their weight, body mass index (BMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), sports activity, and the possibility to follow food plans based on their needed calories. In this mHealth app, all the users must be registered in a Web service. Figure 2 presents screenshots of three main activities of the SapoFit app: Login, Plans, and User Profile.

Cooperating nodes have a better reputation, and have priority over selfish nodes to access the mHealth app services.

Data Encryption Algorithm for Mobile Health Apps (DE4MHA)

The process begins with a mobile node (a person using SapoFit) trying to access the SapoFit Web Service that contains the user profile, weight measures, fitness, and diet indications.

A SapoFit user (mobile requester node) without network connectivity and therefore without access to the SapoFit WS obtains the required health information through cooperation. Another SapoFit user with network connectivity (mobile requested node) will forward the requested health information from the SapoFit Web service. Both the requested and requester nodes will create a pair of RSA keys and send public keys to both the requested and requester node through Bluetooth. After the public key exchange, the requested node creates an AES session key.

The next step is the creation of the digest message and its encryption using the private key. The Message Digest 5 (MD5) algorithm was used to create a 128-bit hash. For data authenticity, we used a digital signature. A digital signature is created for the message containing requested health information. This digital signature allows any node to verify that the message is the original one. By decrypting the digital signature with the public key, the original digest message is obtained. The receiver node then creates a new hash of the received message and compares it to the decrypted digest message to guarantee authenticity. The digital signature is then added to the message. When the message containing the session key is received, if its integrity and authenticity is verified, the requester node then sends an acknowledgement (ack) to the requested node. This method guaranties safe communication between nodes; if the integrity and authenticity is not verified, the communication between nodes is ended.

A mobile node with network connectivity will access the cooperative WS to obtain the required health information. To secure all communication with the WS the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) over the HTTP (also known as HTTPS) is used. Therefore, it grants confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of all retrieved health data from the Web service.

Two studies were performed: (1) a study evaluating which symmetric and asymmetric algorithm present the best performance in SapoFit in cooperation environment, and (2) a series of trials involving 35 people and 7 different mobile devices with SapoFit. This study evaluated the performance of the DE4MHA over the cooperation mechanisms.

Source: http://www.jmir.org/2013/4/e66/

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In a session that should have been?all about the Benjamins, Wall Street?s recently reliable money making machine suddenly ground to a halt. On an otherwise desultory day for the Dow (^DJI), Microsoft (MSFT) did gain 3.79%, as a?bunch of German jocks proved far more proficient with PowerPoint?that a?couple of Harvard economists just did with Excel.
?
Mr. Softie, of course, instituted dividends years ago; a penny for its thoughts as?an utterly unloved?Apple Inc. (AAPL) (Steve Jobs of Bill Gates: ?He just shamelessly ripped off other people?s ideas?) apes it by becoming a dividend play. And a day after Twitter?s hacked bluebird temporary grounded stocks,?Red Robin?(RRGB) rose 2.92% on an analyst upgrade?and Boeing (BA) hit a half-decade high. Pity?none of us can fly at the moment.
?
The single busiest day of earnings season has arrived with Amazon (AMZN), AstraZeneca (AZN), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Coca-Cola (KO), ConocoPhillips?(COP),?Exxon Mobil?(XOM),?Gazprom?(PINK: OGZPY),?JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Starbucks (SBUX), and United Parcel Service?(UPS) all due to report results.
?
Air Products?(APD): Shares are now Neutral from Overweight at Atlantic Equities.
?
Buckeye Technologies?(BKI): RBC Capital reduces its recommendation to Sector Perform from Outperform.
?
Cullen/Frost Bankers?(CFR): FBC Capital cuts the company to Underperform from Perform, trimming its target price by $2 to $56 in the process. First quarter results were weaker than expected amid NIM (Net Interest Margin) pressure.
?
First Solar?(FSLR): Yesterday?s top S&P 500?(^GSPC) stock is today lowered to Underperform from Market Perform at Raymond James.
?
Hatteras Financial?(HTS): The residential Real Estate Investment Trust gets moved to Market Perform from Outperform by Keefe Bruyette.
?
Interface?(TILE): Raymond James takes TILE to Market Perform from Outperform.
?
Intuit?(INTU): The TurboTax owner is downgraded by both Citigroup (Neutral from Buy) and JPMorgan (Neutral from Overweight.)
?
McGraw-Hill?(NYSE:MHP): Jefferies reduces the Standard & Poor?s ratings agency owner to Hold from Buy.
?
Mellanox Technologies?(MLNX): Shares are moved to Neutral from Buy at Mizuho, which notes a troubling lack of catalysts and uncertain visibility regarding large deals.
?
Noranda Aluminum?(NOR): NOR is now Neutral from Buy at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
?
SEI Investments?(SEIC): Keefe Bruyette cuts the asset management company to Market Perform from Outperform.
?
TC Pipelines?(TCP): TCP gets taken to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
?
T. Rowe Price Group?(TROW): Shares are now Market Perform from Outperform with Wells Fargo.
?
Valley National?(VLY): Keefe Bruyette reduces the regional bank to Underperform from Market Perform.
?
VMware?(VMW): The tech stock is taken to Underperform from Market Perform by Sanford Bernstein, one of several downgrades this morning.
?
Western Digital?(WDC): Brokerage boutique Craig-Hallum downgrades WDC to Hold from Buy.

(See also: New Stock Coverage: Sink Your Teeth Into Diamondback Energy and Stock Upgrades: Yesterday?s Mutiny Provides Bounty for P&G Shareholders.)

No positions in stocks mentioned.

The information on this website solely reflects the analysis of or opinion about the performance of securities and financial markets by the writers whose articles appear on the site. The views expressed by the writers are not necessarily the views of Minyanville Media, Inc. or members of its management. Nothing contained on the website is intended to constitute a recommendation or advice addressed to an individual investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security, or to take any action with respect to the prospective movement of the securities markets or to solicit the purchase or sale of any security. Any investment decisions must be made by the reader either individually or in consultation with his or her investment professional. Minyanville writers and staff may trade or hold positions in securities that are discussed in articles appearing on the website. Writers of articles are required to disclose whether they have a position in any stock or fund discussed in an article, but are not permitted to disclose the size or direction of the position. Nothing on this website is intended to solicit business of any kind for a writer's business or fund. Minyanville management and staff as well as contributing writers will not respond to emails or other communications requesting investment advice.

Source: http://www.minyanville.com/trading-and-investing/stocks/articles/Stock-Downgrades253A-McGraw-Hill-Has-Mountain/4/25/2013/id/49472

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Einstein's gravity theory passes toughest test yet

Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
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Contact: Dave Finley
dfinley@nrao.edu
575-835-7302
National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Neutron star-white dwarf pair provides unique cosmic laboratory for studying nature of gravity

A strange stellar pair nearly 7,000 light-years from Earth has provided physicists with a unique cosmic laboratory for studying the nature of gravity. The extremely strong gravity of a massive neutron star in orbit with a companion white dwarf star puts competing theories of gravity to a test more stringent than any available before.

Once again, Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, published in 1915, comes out on top.

At some point, however, scientists expect Einstein's model to be invalid under extreme conditions. General Relativity, for example, is incompatible with quantum theory. Physicists hope to find an alternate description of gravity that would eliminate that incompatibility.

A newly-discovered pulsar -- a spinning neutron star with twice the mass of the Sun -- and its white-dwarf companion, orbiting each other once every two and a half hours, has put gravitational theories to the most extreme test yet. Observations of the system, dubbed PSR J0348+0432, produced results consistent with the predictions of General Relativity.

The tightly-orbiting pair was discovered with the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), and subsequently studied in visible light with the Apache Point telescope in New Mexico, the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands. Extensive radio observations with the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico and the Effelsberg telescope in Germany yielded vital data on subtle changes in the pair's orbit.

In such a system, the orbits decay and gravitational waves are emitted, carrying energy from the system. By very precisely measuring the time of arrival of the pulsar's radio pulses over a long period of time, astronomers can determine the rate of decay and the amount of gravitational radiation emitted. The large mass of the neutron star in PSR J0348+0432, the closeness of its orbit with its companion, and the fact that the companion white dwarf is compact but not another neutron star, all make the system an unprecedented opportunity for testing alternative theories of gravity.

Under the extreme conditions of this system, some scientists thought that the equations of General Relativity might not accurately predict the amount of gravitational radiation emitted, and thus change the rate of orbital decay. Competing gravitational theories, they thought, might prove more accurate in this system.

"We thought this system might be extreme enough to show a breakdown in General Relativity, but instead, Einstein's predictions held up quite well," said Paulo Freire, of the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Germany.

That's good news, the scientists say, for researchers hoping to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves with advanced instruments. Researchers using such instruments hope to detect the gravitational waves emitted as such dense pairs as neutron stars and black holes spiral inward toward violent collisions.

Gravitational waves are extremely difficult to detect and even with the best instruments, physicists expect they will need to know the characteristics of the waves they seek, which will be buried in "noise" from their detectors. Knowing the characteristics of the waves they seek will allow them to extract the signal they seek from that noise.

"Our results indicate that the filtering techniques planned for these advanced instruments remain valid," said Ryan Lynch, of McGill University.

Freire and Lynch worked with a large international team of researchers. They reported their results in the journal Science.

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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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