Beer-pouring robot programmed to anticipate human actions

Public release date: 28-May-2013
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Contact: Syl Kacapyr
vpk6@cornell.edu
607-255-7701
Cornell University

ITHACA, N.Y. A robot in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab has learned to foresee human action in order to step in and offer a helping hand, or more accurately, roll in and offer a helping claw.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaa_wEkCvG0

Understanding when and where to pour a beer or knowing when to offer assistance opening a refrigerator door can be difficult for a robot because of the many variables it encounters while assessing the situation. A team from Cornell has created a solution.

Gazing intently with a Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera and using a database of 3D videos, the Cornell robot identifies the activities it sees, considers what uses are possible with the objects in the scene and determines how those uses fit with the activities. It then generates a set of possible continuations into the future such as eating, drinking, cleaning, putting away and finally chooses the most probable. As the action continues, the robot constantly updates and refines its predictions.

"We extract the general principles of how people behave," said Ashutosh Saxena, Cornell professor of computer science and co-author of a new study tied to the research. "Drinking coffee is a big activity, but there are several parts to it." The robot builds a "vocabulary" of such small parts that it can put together in various ways to recognize a variety of big activities, he explained.

Saxena will join Cornell graduate student Hema S. Koppula as they present their research at the International Conference of Machine Learning, June 18-21 in Atlanta, and the Robotics: Science and Systems conference June 24-28 in Berlin, Germany.

In tests, the robot made correct predictions 82 percent of the time when looking one second into the future, 71 percent correct for three seconds and 57 percent correct for 10 seconds.

"Even though humans are predictable, they are only predictable part of the time," Saxena said. "The future would be to figure out how the robot plans its action. Right now we are almost hard-coding the responses, but there should be a way for the robot to learn how to respond."

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The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office, the Alfred E. Sloan Foundation and Microsoft.

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

Public release date: 28-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Syl Kacapyr
vpk6@cornell.edu
607-255-7701
Cornell University

ITHACA, N.Y. A robot in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab has learned to foresee human action in order to step in and offer a helping hand, or more accurately, roll in and offer a helping claw.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaa_wEkCvG0

Understanding when and where to pour a beer or knowing when to offer assistance opening a refrigerator door can be difficult for a robot because of the many variables it encounters while assessing the situation. A team from Cornell has created a solution.

Gazing intently with a Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera and using a database of 3D videos, the Cornell robot identifies the activities it sees, considers what uses are possible with the objects in the scene and determines how those uses fit with the activities. It then generates a set of possible continuations into the future such as eating, drinking, cleaning, putting away and finally chooses the most probable. As the action continues, the robot constantly updates and refines its predictions.

"We extract the general principles of how people behave," said Ashutosh Saxena, Cornell professor of computer science and co-author of a new study tied to the research. "Drinking coffee is a big activity, but there are several parts to it." The robot builds a "vocabulary" of such small parts that it can put together in various ways to recognize a variety of big activities, he explained.

Saxena will join Cornell graduate student Hema S. Koppula as they present their research at the International Conference of Machine Learning, June 18-21 in Atlanta, and the Robotics: Science and Systems conference June 24-28 in Berlin, Germany.

In tests, the robot made correct predictions 82 percent of the time when looking one second into the future, 71 percent correct for three seconds and 57 percent correct for 10 seconds.

"Even though humans are predictable, they are only predictable part of the time," Saxena said. "The future would be to figure out how the robot plans its action. Right now we are almost hard-coding the responses, but there should be a way for the robot to learn how to respond."

###

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office, the Alfred E. Sloan Foundation and Microsoft.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/cu-brp052813.php

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Models from big molecules captured in a flash

May 28, 2013 ? To learn how biological molecules like proteins function, scientists must first understand their structures. Almost as important is understanding how the structures change, as molecules in the native state do their jobs.

Existing methods for solving structure largely depend on crystallized molecules, and the shapes of more than 80,000 proteins in a static state have been solved this way. The majority of the two million proteins in the human body can't be crystallized, however. For most of them, even their low-resolution structures are still unknown.

Their chance to shine may have come at last, thanks to new techniques developed by Peter Zwart and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), working with collaborators from Arizona State University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The new method promises a more informative look at large biological molecules in their native, more fluid state.

The researchers describe their results in two recent papers in Foundations of Crystallography and in Physical Review Letters.

Diffraction before destruction

A key factor in new ways of looking at biomolecules is the data created by free-electron lasers (FELs) such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, whose powerful x?ray pulses are measured in quadrillionths of a second. These pulses are faster than a molecule can rotate, and the experimental data reflects the state of the molecule frozen in time.

"It's a technique called 'diffract before destroy,' because the data is collected before the particle literally blows apart," says Zwart, a member of the Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, and the science lead for the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source. "FELs have shown they can derive structures from single particles, each hit with a single pulse, but there are major challenges to this approach."

Instead of single particles, Zwart and his colleagues include many particles in each shot. When analyzed by computer programs, the data from the different diffraction patterns can be combined to provide detailed insights into the structures the molecules adopt in solution.

The technique is called fluctuation x-ray scattering (fXS), and Zwart and his colleagues have shown that data obtained this way with free-electron lasers can yield low-resolution shapes of biomolecules in close to their natural state, with much greater confidence than is currently possible with less powerful synchrotron light sources.

"Our algorithm starts with a trial model and modifies it by randomly adding or subtracting volume until the shape of the model achieves the optimum fit with the data," Zwart says. This trial-and-error optimization technique, tested on known configurations at the LCLS, can resolve the shapes of individual macromolecules with fXS data alone.

It's not only the structures of molecules taken one at a time that can be solved this way. Zwart and his former postdoc Gang Chen, working with Dongsheng Li of PNNL, have shown that data from mixtures of different kinds of molecules can be untangled to provide clues on the structure of the individual components, forming a basis for understanding the dynamic behavior of large biological molecules working together in solution.

By understanding their structural changes, Zwart and his colleagues are developing fluctuation x-ray scattering as an indispensable tool for determining how mixtures of different proteins behave independently or in concert.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/2eil1Tk6t1U/130528100236.htm

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Rockets hit south Beirut after Hezbollah vows Syria victory

By Dominic Evans

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two rockets hit a Shi'ite Muslim district of Beirut on Sunday, driving home the risk of spillover from Syria's civil war, after the head of Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah said it would keep fighting on the Syrian government's side until victory.

It was the first attack to apparently target Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital since the outbreak of the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria, which has sharply heightened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions.

The United States and Russia have proposed an international peace conference to douse a civil war that has killed more than 80,000 people, driven 1.5 million Syrians as refugees abroad and raised the specter of sectarian bloodshed in the wider region.

Syria's government will "in principle" attend the talks tentatively set for June in Geneva and believes it will be an opportunity to resolve the crisis, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday.

But in an apparent rebuff of Western calls for President Bashar al-Assad to cede power as part of any deal on transition, Moualem said: "No power on earth can decide on the future of Syria. Only the Syrian people have the right to do so."

The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers, striving to refloat a plan for a political transition in Syria, were due to meet in Paris on Monday to work out the details.

Whether the exiled Syrian civilian opposition will take part in the envisaged peace talks - and be able to negotiate effectively, given their internal divisions and shaky rapport with rebels inside Syria - remains in doubt.

The United States has been prodding Assad's opponents to unite before the conference. But the Islamist-dominated coalition has been hamstrung by power struggles during talks going on in Istanbul aimed at broadening its representation and electing a cohesive leadership.

The talks stalled on Sunday in a factional dispute over proposals to dilute Qatar's influence on rebel forces, with Saudi Arabia angling to play a greater role now that Iranian-backed Hezbollah was openly fighting for Assad.

Some observers have viewed the commitment by Hezbollah to Assad's cause as indicating the Lebanese movement does not see the United States weighing in against it. Asked whether the militia's role might alter Washington's reluctance to arm the rebels, a spokesman for President Barack Obama said on Sunday:

"The calculus that the president is making is something that is regularly reviewed and updated ... Our involvement and our assistance to the opposition there has steadily increased."

European Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss British and French calls for them to ease an arms embargo in order to help the rebels obtain weapons. Some other EU states oppose the move, at least until after any peace talks.

CONFLICT AFFLICTING LEBANON

Syria's conflagration has polarized Lebanon, a country of four million, in whose 15-year civil war to 1990 Syria was a major player and where Syrian troops remained until 2005.

Lebanese Sunni Muslims support the mainly Sunni insurgency against Assad, and Shi'ite Hezbollah stands by the president, whose minority Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.

In Sunday's attack, one rocket landed in a car sales yard next to a busy road junction in south Beirut's Chiah neighborhood, and the other struck an apartment several hundred meters away, wounding five people, residents said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Brigadier Selim Idris, head of Syria's Western-backed rebel military command, told Al-Arabiya Television that his forces had not carried out the attack.

He urged rebels to keep their conflict inside Syria.

But another Syrian rebel, Ammar al-Wawi, told Lebanon's LBC Television the attack was a warning to authorities in Beirut to restrain Hezbollah. "In coming days we will do more than this. This is a warning to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to keep Hezbollah's hands off Syria," he said.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had declared on Saturday night that his thousands of fighters were committed to the conflict against what he called radical Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria, whatever the cost.

"We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position," he said in a televised speech on Saturday evening. "We will be the ones who bring victory."

Though numbering only in the thousands compared to the tens of thousands of troops and many more irregular Syrian militiamen that Assad can draw on, Hezbollah's fighters, seasoned in urban warfare against Israel as recently as 2006, are a potent force.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned the violent spillover into Lebanon. "The war in Syria must not become the war in Lebanon," he told reporters in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Until recently, Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah had not sent guerrillas to fight alongside Assad's forces.

Syrian government forces reinforced by Hezbollah launched an onslaught last week on Qusair, a rebel-controlled town close to the Lebanese border that rebels have used as a crucial supply corridor for weapons coming into the country.

For Assad, taking Qusair would help keep Damascus, the capital, connected to the Alawite coastal heartland and also hinder links between the rebel-held north and south of Syria.

Lebanese authorities, haunted by Lebanon's own civil war and torn by the same kind of sectarian rifts as Syria, have pursued a policy of "dissociation" from the Syrian turmoil.

But Hezbollah is arguably a stronger force than Beirut's government, which has been unable to stem the flow into Syria of Sunni gunmen who support the rebels or of Hezbollah fighters who back Assad. It has also struggled to absorb nearly half a million refugees coming the other way to escape the fighting.

At least 25 people have been killed in Tripoli in the north of Lebanon over the last week in Sunni-Alawite street fighting triggered in part by the battle for Qusair across the frontier.

In Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, residents said three rockets landed on Sunday close to the mainly Shi'ite border town of Hermel, without causing injuries. Rebels have targeted Hermel from inside Syria several times in recent weeks.

Nasrallah's speech was condemned by former prime minister Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni who said that Hezbollah, set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation forces in south Lebanon, had abandoned anti-Israeli "resistance" in favor of sectarian conflict in Syria.

"The resistance is ending by your hand and your will," Hariri said in a statement. "The resistance announced its political and military suicide in Qusair."

Hariri is backed by Saudi Arabia, which along with other Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab monarchies has strongly supported the uprising against the Iranian-backed Assad.

The extent to which Hezbollah's support for Assad has alienated Sunni Arabs who admired its battles against Israel was demonstrated on Sunday when the foreign minister of Sunni-ruled Bahrain used unusually strong language to call Nasrallah a "terrorist" and said it was a "religious duty" to stop him.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Istanbul, Laila Bassam and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Ahmed Rasheed and Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad and John Irish in Abu Dhabi; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Will Waterman and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-rockets-hit-hezbollah-held-district-beirut-residents-045444191.html

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U.S. urges garment buyers to stay engaged with Bangladesh

By Ruma Paul and Serajul Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) - International garment buyers, particularly those in the United States, have a crucial role to play in ensuring the safety of Bangladesh's garment workers, a senior government official said on Monday.

A series of deadly incidents at factories in Bangladesh, including the collapse of a building housing garment factories last month that killed 1,130 people, has focused global attention on safety in the industry.

"On the labor issue, absolutely, buyers have a critical role and they must be engaged," U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy R. Sherman told a news conference in the Bangladeshi capital.

Western retailers and brands are struggling to assess safety risks at thousands of Bangladesh garment factories after the April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in a Dhaka suburb.

Their task is made tougher by a lack of robust safety rules, a severe shortage of trained building inspectors and equipment needed to make proper safety assessments, and widespread concern about corruption.

Sherman said foreign companies should not give up on Bangladesh.

"We are encouraging international investors not to turn their back on Bangladesh, because the solution is reform, not withdrawal," she said.

"Ultimately, success will depend on the will and commitment of industry, government, civil society, and every day Bangladeshis to come together to change the culture of workplace safety and worker rights in Bangladesh," she added.

She said the United States was working with U.S. companies that source garments from factories in Bangladesh to secure their support for better safety inspections.

The United States was also funding labor and civil society organizations to promote respect for rights at work, including freedom to join a trade union, she said.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza was the world's deadliest industrial disaster since the Bhopal gas leak accident in India in 1984.

In November last year, 112 workers, most of them women, were killed in a fire at a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-urges-garment-buyers-stay-engaged-bangladesh-125313325.html

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T.J. Grant earns lightweight title shot with TKO of Gray Maynard at UFC 160

The next lightweight contender had a chance to make himself known at UFC 160. T.J. Grant earned the spot with dismantling of Gray Maynard on Saturday night.

Grant absorbed a few early shots from Maynard, and then landed a right hand that shook Maynard. He had no time to recover, as Grant continued to swarm with punches and knees. Maynard went down, worked his way back to his feet and then was taken back down again. Finally, the bout was stopped at 2:07 in the first round.

Both Maynard and Grant knew going into the bout that the winner was expected to get the next UFC lightweight title shot. After such an impressive performance, he should get it, but he made sure to ask for it in his post-fight interview.

"I want to fight [UFC lightweight champ] Benson Henderson for the title. I wanna be the champ. I wanna beat the champ," Grant said.

He's on a five-fight win streak. Before Maynard, he took out Matt Wiman with a first-round TKO in January.

Henderson fully expects to fight Grant. He tweeted:

Wowser!!! TJ Grant it is...#UFC160

? Benson Henderson (@BensonHenderson) May 26, 2013

With the display Grant put on at UFC 160, Henderson isn't the only one looking forward to that fight.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/t-j-grant-earns-lightweight-title-shot-tko-032254038.html

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Call on Sally Draper for more 'Mad Men' truth

TV

Kurt Schlosser TODAY

7 hours ago

Sally Draper finally said to her dad, Don, what all of us have been thinking for six seasons of "Mad Men." It came at the tail end of last Sunday's episode -- an episode already jammed with noteworthy scenes and dialogue.

After being left alone with her two little brothers in Don and Megan's apartment, Sally confronts a burglar during the night. The older black woman convinces Sally that she is her "grandmother," that she raised Don and that he invited her to his home. Sally is skeptical, but the lady still gets away with robbing the place.

"She said she knew you," Sally says to her father on the phone a day later. "I asked her everything I know and she had an answer for everything. Then I realized I don?t know anything about you."

AMC

Welcome to the club, Sally. No one on the show really knows anything about Don. But what we do know is that Sally Draper's transition into her teen years is a welcome step for the character played by Kiernan Shipka.

Half the time we can't even remember the names of Sally's two brothers or whether they are the same kids every week, but Sally is a mainstay, and how she copes with her fractured family going forward could prove interesting.

Jordin Althaus / AMC

Another phone call gone wrong: "Grandma Ida" calls off the police after Sally and Bobby Draper find her in their dad's apartment.

Will Sally become a hippie flower child of the 1970s, protesting the remaining years of the Vietnam War? Is there any hope that she can have any kind of meaningful relationship with her mother, Betty? Will she dig deeper into her father's secrets, and if so, how will Don react?

The phone call at the end of the May 19 episode was a great juxtaposition to the call Don took at the start of the episode from his latest mistress, Sylvia. That call ended with Don whipping his phone into the office cocktail cart. The call from Sally ended with Don stunned silent by his daughter.

"We really wanted to show that Sally Draper doesn't know anything about her father," show creator Matthew Weiner says in a behind-the-scenes video from AMC. "These children are not being parented at all. That phone call at the end was really supposed to codify the episode as this big mystery being answered, but not being answered at all."

For now, let's hope Sally keeps talking. Soon or later it won't render Don speechless -- or at least semi-mute as he's been all season -- and fans of "Mad Men" could be witness to a meaningful dialogue.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/sally-draper-finds-her-calling-delivering-truth-mad-men-6C10023334

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Writing Excuses 8.21: What the Avengers did Right ? Writing Excuses

We here at Writing Excuses enjoyed Marvel?s The Avengers. This isn?t a movie review, though. This is a discussion of what the movie did right from a writer?s standpoint. The things we focus on?

• Dialog and character voice
• Balanced handling of an ensemble of main characters
• Scenes that serve more than one function
• Pacing

Obviously there will be some spoilers here. The film is available for rental now, so you might consider watching it again with this podcast and these points in mind. And generally speaking, it?s a good exercise for writers to look at?movies (or books, or comics, or whatever)?that they enjoy, and then attempt to identify the reasons those things were enjoyable.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, narrated by David Colacci.

Writing Prompt: Take an ensemble cast, and have them fighting each other as a prelude to fighting what needs to be fought. Alternatively? ?Hulk smash.?

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.?Visit?http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse?for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible? Free Trial Details
* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener? Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete?terms?and?policy?applicable to Audible memberships.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 26th, 2013 at 8:56 am and is filed under Characters, Dialog, Pacing, Scenes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/05/26/writing-excuses-8-21-what-the-avengers-did-right/

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Oprah On Prescription Drugs: Americans 'Take Pills Like Candy' (VIDEO)

Americans don't shy away from taking pills. According to IMS Health, an estimated 16 million people in the United States use painkillers, 5 million take sleep aids and 18 million rely on some form of antidepressants. In this week's "Super Soul Sunday," Oprah and a panel of dynamic thought leaders tackle the issue of pill-popping in this country -- is it a necessity or has it become gratuitous?

For Oprah, the pill-popping statistics raise a deep philosophical question. "Do these numbers point to a collective hole in the soul of our country?" she asks her panel in the video. Reverend Ed Bacon of the All Saints Episcopal Church addresses the issue of taking pills with a personal admission that he himself takes sleep aids and pain medicine.

"For me, it is an OK thing to do if it's going to help me enter life. If it helps me avoid life, that's a different matter," Rev. Bacon says, drawing a distinct line. "If I am avoiding life, then there is a hole in my soul, yes."

Oprah returns to the current statistics on pills. "But I'm looking at the number of 40 million U.S. adults who are plagued with some kind of anxiety disorder," she says. "I mean, people take pills like candy."

Rev. Bacon understands that characterization. "As a pastor, I hear about this all the time. So, I really do understand the overuse of anti-anxiety drugs," he says. "[But], before we go there, I simply want to lay down a foundation of respect for people who do have a chemical imbalance, because I would hate for somebody who's watching to think that we're dissing them and discounting them."

Oprah and her guests continue their discussion on pills and explore additional topics of gun violence, celebrity obsession and terrorism on "Super Soul Sunday," airing Sunday, May 26, at 11 a.m. ET on OWN.

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/25/oprah-super-soul-sunday-prescription-drugs_n_3328546.html

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Obama transforms mission as military struggles to remake itself

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

In two major speeches, President Obama sent strong signals this week about what he envisions for the military in a post-Sept. 11 era, a new path which can be described in a word: downsized.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama congratulates a graduate as another one celebrates at the United States Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., Friday, May 24, 2013.

The president said the United States?will have stricter limits on drone attacks overseas and telegraphed a new emphasis on fighting terrorism, based more on focusing on targeted, isolated threats and less on an over-arching projection of force.

Just as the government?s mission is changing, so is that of the U.S. military.

Both are shrinking in scale.

During Obama?s four and a half years in White House, military spending has declined and the military active duty force has shrunk by about 29,000. American soldiers and Marines are no longer engaged in combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan their presence will soon dwindle to a residual force.? ?A perpetual war -- through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments -- will prove self-defeating,? the president said in a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington.

This weekend some who died in those conflicts will be commemorated at Arlington National Cemetery and other cemeteries across the nation.

While saying that ?our nation is still threatened by terrorists,? Obama contended that ?we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.?

As Obama has shown by his aversion to any involvement in the Syrian civil war and by his tightly calibrated ?lead from behind? strategy to support the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya, he?s determined to not be the president that leads America into another traditional ground combat war.

Saying America has reached a "crossroads," President Obama laid out clearer, more narrow guidelines for deadly drone strikes. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

In his speech Thursday he warned that ?putting boots on the ground? in Syria or elsewhere would lead to ?more U.S. deaths, more Black Hawks down? and an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily escalate into new wars.?

Obama?s risk aversion contrasts with a leading Democrat of the Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright. In 1993 Albright, then the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, urged intervention in the Balkans war, challenging the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and Vietnam War veteran) Gen. Colin Powell: ''What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?''

Obama reminds Americans of the costs of war ? especially measured in the things that military outlays might have purchased -- lamenting that the dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan limited ?our ability to nation-build here at home. ?

He cautioned Thursday that ?unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don?t need to fight?.?

Yet in some ways, while some of the threats to the nation are new, the U.S. military in the Obama era remains much as it was in the Bush or Clinton eras. In an era of lone-wolf terrorists and suicidal jihadists, the United States is still equipped for an old-style war against nation-states on sea or on land.

Even with the sequester cutting about 8 percent in available funds for the Pentagon this year, military outlays will amount to about 18 percent of all federal outlays.

According to the London-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the U.S. defense budget ?still equals that of the next 14 nations combined.?

While he is looking forward to an era when American soldiers won?t be in combat, Obama still committed to expensive investments in weapons and hardware.

In his speech to the class of 2013 at the Naval Academy Friday, Obama promised ?a shipbuilding plan that puts us on track to achieve a 300-ship fleet? over the next 30 years, ?with capabilities that exceed the power of the next dozen navies combined.??

In his commencement address at the United States Naval Academy, President Obama touched upon the growing military sexual assault cases, telling graduates, "We have to be determined to stop these crimes. They've got no place in the greatest military on earth."

And then there?s the cost of the hardware purchased over the past ten years.

One telling example of maintenance cost was supplied at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Appropriations Committee?s subcommittee on defense.

The MRAP is a heavy Army vehicle developed in a crash program in 2007 to help prevent the deaths and mayhem caused by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Each MRAP costs up to $1 million.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno told the Senate subcommittee that ?we have 21,000 MRAPs today in our inventory,? but only 4,000 will be deployed with active Army units. Another 4,000 will be held reserve ?in case we need them for other contingencies.? That leaves an excess of 13,000 vehicles.

?We can't afford to sustain 21,000 MRAPs because it would be in addition to all the other equipment that we have to sustain,? Odierno told the senators. ?We think by keeping 8,000 of them, we can fund that, we can sustain that.?

At the same time as taxpayers pay for maintaining MRAPS and building ships, Obama presides over the military health care and retirement system, one of the largest social welfare organizations in the world.

As long ago as 2008, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned Congress that ?health care is eating us alive. Our health care budget in 2001 was $19 billion; our request this year is for almost $43 billion.? And Gates noted in that testimony that in a few years, nearly two-thirds of Pentagon health care expenditures would be for military retirees, not for the active or reserve force.

The cost pressure comes not just from health care: the Congressional Budget Office recently reported that spending for military retirement pay and survivors? annuities will rise by more than 30 percent over the next decade ? even though the number of military retirees and their survivors will remain flat over that period. Most of the growth will occur because benefits are adjusted for inflation.

Even without ?perpetual war,? there will be long-term costs to maintaining a large military.

This story was originally published on Sat May 25, 2013 10:42 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2c690f81/l/0Lnbcpolitics0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A50C250C184714590Eobama0Etransforms0Emission0Eas0Emilitary0Estruggles0Eto0Eremake0Eitself0Dlite/story01.htm

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Android 4.3 leaks, shows only minor changes to Jelly Bean

(Reuters) - A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Northern California on Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter of the quake was 6 miles northwest of the town of Greenville, and near the smaller community of Canyondam, the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Allen Shephard, a hunting and fishing guide at Quail Lodge at Lake Almanor in Canyondam, said the quake knocked him "right off the couch and onto the floor." The floor of the lodge was littered with broken dishware, and cabinets were in disarray, said Shephard, 62. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/android-4-3-leaks-shows-only-minor-changes-173537437.html

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Kendrick Lamar Digs Up 'Hidden Messages' In 'Vibe' Video

MTV News gets K.Dot himself to dish on the clip for 'Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe.'
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Sway Calloway

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1707999/kendrick-lamar-bitch-dont-kill-my-vibe-video-message.jhtml

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How To Start And Make Money With Your Own Ezines Or Newsletter ...

ezine or newsletter is the online business that you can fully automate and make money on autopilot. There are many online buinesses but publishing your own ezine or newsletter is one of the best profitable online business.Publishing your own ezine or newsletter involves only three steps!i.e.create contents on your selected topic,basic set up i.e website and
autoresponder etc. and promtion

Here, step by step I explain you how you can set up your own profitable newsletter and how you can make money over again & again with it.

First, Choose the topic for your ezine or newsletter. The topic can be anything like tips for affiliate marketing etc.or any ?how to? Information. You can start ezine about anything. Start ezine or newsletter about what bcbg outlet you know.Here is 3 basic steps to start your own newsletter and make money with newsletter.

1) Write 5 to 6 articles based on the subject. 2) Create squeeze page 3) Plug in your content in autoresponder that?s all !! yes the starting ezine or newsletter as easy as you read these lines.

You can make money with your own ezine in many ways. But the primary purpose of any ezine or newsletter is to build list. List is an asset for any internet business owner. and having big list gives you advantages over to your competetors.

Now, How to build your list with your own ezine? bcbg canada and how to make money with your ezine? Once you set up your web site and plug in your prewriiten contents in autoresponder all you need is to PROMOTE your ezine.Yes many people forget this crutial step.

People assume that ezines publishing is autopilot business, at some extent it is true but no matter what type of business you run ; to become successful and to make money you must promote it carefully and continuously.

Once you setup your website and autoresponder with your prewritten contents, autoresponders do send all your articles tips etc to your subscribers automatically. But you need to build your subscriber base by promoting your ezine. After basic set up you need to do only thing and that is promotion. Promote it, Build list and make money again and again.

With your ezines you can make money by promoting related products or services by placing your affiliate links , you can sell advertising space in your ezine and most imporatantly you can participite in joint veture offers.

Say if you are building list with your ezine and after some months or say after one year you have list of over 10000 subscribers. Now, say you are participating in joint venture or promoting new product.You inform your subscriber bcbg montreal with a single email about the new product you are promoting and only 1% (i.e 100 people) of people purchase the product or service you are promoting, you will make 100 X $20 = $ 2000 with a single email!!

Generally, the conversion rates are higher with your own list.It can be anywhere 3 % to 6 % If you don?t want to write contents for your ezine you can use articles from article directories as long as you don?t change the autors resource box.you can also offer report or ebook to people to make them your subscriber.

That is the power of having your own list. And to build list nothing is better than starting your own ezine. Don?t expect result fast. Make the content carefully for your newsletter and promote it for long term benefits.
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Source: http://www.worldbridgermedia.com/mediaethics/?p=46028

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Call to halt golf resort plans

Environment minister Alex Attwood on the site of the proposed Bushmills Dunes golf course with junior international Owen Crooks

24 May 2013

Unesco has called for a halt to the development of a controversial ?100 million golf resort on Northern Ireland's North Coast.

Even though work on Bushmills Dunes is due to begin this autumn near the famous Giant's Causeway after a failed legal challenge by the National Trust, a new report has recommended the scheme should not be allowed.

It claimed: "Given the scale and location of the proposed golf resort development, it is recommended that it should not be permitted as its proposed scale and location in order to avoid adverse impact on the landscape setting and important views of the property, which are part of the property's Outstanding Universal Value."

The National Trust said it would not be appealing against the High Court decision which gave the all-clear for work to start on the 18-hole championship course, 120-bedroom hotel and spa, as well as 70 lodges. It could mean up to 360 jobs.

Instead, Northern Ireland director Heather Thompson said it would be actively seeking ways to influence changes to the Planning Bill going through the Northern Ireland Assembly which she believes should give full protection to World Heritage Sites. She said: "Protecting our only World Heritage Site and other special landscapes in Northern Ireland can only be served by fixing our broken planning system."

Before February's High Court judicial review ruling in Belfast which rejected the National Trust's attempt to stop the development at Runkerry, Co Antrim, a mile-and-a-half from the Causeway, Northern Ireland environment minister Alex Attwood invited Unesco to inspect the site. The report by an expert from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will be presented next month to the World Heritage Committee.

Ms Thompson said: "Minister Attwood made a commitment that his department would listen to the views of Unesco, so we call on the minister to guarantee the protection of our World Heritage Site and other special places in the new Planning Bill which is currently making its way through the Assembly."

Mr Attwood said he was committed to protecting Northern Ireland's heritage. He said: "It is no less around the Giant's Causeway - that is why the Runkerry application was subject to exhaustive, detailed, lengthy and proper interrogation.

"My judgment and decision was subject to legal scrutiny. A judicial review was heard in the High Court. The judgment of the court was issued earlier this year. My decision was upheld by the court which rejected all 21 grounds of challenge made to my decision by the National Trust.

"The planning decision therefore stands. It is lawful. I made the right decision measured against all planning requirements and against the high level of protection for the World Heritage Site given obligations under the Unesco convention."

Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/call-to-halt-golf-resort-plans-29292269.html

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Cause of infantile amnesia revealed: New neuron formation could increase capacity for new learning, at expense of old memories

May 24, 2013 ? New research presented today shows that formation of new neurons in the hippocampus -- a brain region known for its importance in learning and remembering -- could cause forgetting of old memories by causing a reorganization of existing brain circuits. Drs. Paul Frankland and Sheena Josselyn, both from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, argue this reorganization could have the positive effect of clearing old memories, reducing interference and thereby increasing capacity for new learning.

These results were presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience -- Association Canadienne des Neurosciences (CAN-ACN).

Researchers have long known of the phenomenon of infantile amnesia: This refers to the absence of long-term memory of events occurring within the first 2-3 years of life, and little long-term memories for events occurring until about 7 years of age. Studies have shown that though young children can remember events in the short term, these memories do not persist. This new study by Frankland and Josselyn shows that this amnesia is associated with high levels of new neuron production -- a process called neurogenesis -- in the hippocampus, and that more permanent memory formation is associated with a reduction in neurogenesis.

Dr. Frankland and Dr. Josselyn's approach was to look at retention of memories in young mice in which they suppressed the usual high levels of neurogenesis in the hippocampus (thereby replicating the circuit stability normally observed in adult mice), but also in older mice in which they stimulated increased neurogenesis (thereby replicating the conditions normally seen in younger mice). Dr. Frankland was able to show a causal relationship between a reduction in neurogenesis and increased remembering, and the converse, decreased remembering when neurogenesis increased.

Dr. Frankland concludes: " Why infantile amnesia exists has long been a mystery. We think our new studies begin to explain why we have no memories from our earliest years."

This research was supported by funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the "Chase an Idea in Paediatric Neuroscience" grant from The Centre for Brain & Behaviour at the Hospital for Sick Children.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Canadian Association for Neuroscience, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/3NFPgrSWT64/130524104634.htm

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(Enjoy Live)!! WatcH Northampton vs Leicester Live stream ...

Hello Rugby world welcome to watch live online on your pc Premiership Match in HDQ. Premiership Match today?s match will defeat Northampton vs Leicester . Watch Northampton vs Leicester today?s Premiership Match exciting on your pc now. I know you are searching for a comfortable HDQ link to watch live Northampton vs Leicester on your pc or laptop. That?s why you can get our live Rugby HDQ quality link. Turn your PC into a complete digital sports stream center. Join now and watch live Northampton vs Leicester match within couple a minutes! No hardware to install. No hacking or signal stealing. 100% legal.

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Al Franken Resists Impulse to Slug Reporter (Powerlineblog)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/308116821?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Perfect skin: More touchy-feely robots

May 24, 2013 ? Robots could become a lot more 'sensitive' thanks to new artificial skins and sensor technologies developed by European scientists. Leading to better robotic platforms that could one day be used in industry, hospitals and even at home.

The new capabilities, and a production system for building touch-sensitivity into different robots, will improve the way robots work in unconstrained settings, as well as their ability to communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans.

The EU-funded project 'Skin-based technologies and capabilities for safe, autonomous and interactive robots' (ROBOSKIN) developed new sensor technologies and management systems which give robots an artificial sense of touch -- until now an elusive quality in robotics.

According to the partners behind the research from Italy, Switzerland and the UK, it was important to create cognitive mechanisms that use tactile feedback (the sense of 'touch' or 'feel') and behaviour to make sure human-robot interaction is safe and effective for the envisaged future applications.

The artificial skin is modelled largely on real skin, which has a tiny network of nerves that sense or feel changes like hot/cold or rough/smooth. In this case, the electronic sensors collect this so-called 'tactile data' and process it using application software which has been front-loaded to include some basic robot behaviours which can be added to over time.

'Here, we opted for programming through demonstration and robot-assisted play so the robots learn as they go along by feeling, doing and interacting,' explains project coordinator Professor Giorgio Cannata of Genoa University, Italy.

'We had to generate a degree of awareness in the robots to help them react to tactile events and physical contact with the outside world,' he adds.

Kaspar the friendly robot

But robot cognition is extremely complex, so ROBOSKIN started with modest ambitions in lab tests by classifying types or degrees of touch. They created a geometric mapping using continuous contact between the test robot and the environment to build a 'body representation' -- parameters by which data can be assimilated by the robot into behaviour.

Outside the lab, on the other hand, ROBOSKIN sensor patches were applied to common touch points (feet, cheeks, arms) located on the University of Hertfordshire's KASPAR robot, a humanoid robot designed to help autistic children communicate better.

'With our sensors, the robot could sense or detect contact and the data collected formed an important part of the contact classification we did -- the distinction between, for example, wanted and unwanted touch,' explains Prof. Cannata.

ROBOSKIN scientists explored various technologies, from the more basic capacitive sensors in today's sensing technologies, to higher-performing transducers found in piezoelectric materials, and flexible organic semiconductors.

'We'll see more and more piezoelectric materials -- which can act like sensors because they react to changes brought on by contact with an outside force -- in the near future,' predicts Prof. Cannata. But sensors using organic semiconductors will be the future game-changer, he suggests, as you will be able to print the chips on different organic materials like fake skin or bendable materials, and they will eventually be much cheaper to make, once scaled up.

Promoting the prototypes

The ROBOSKIN funded project ended last summer but the researchers are actively promoting the findings through scientific channels, including papers in 'IEEE Xplore' and 'Science Direct', as well as calls for interest in sharing their prototypes with non-commercial research projects.

Tactile sensors are not new by any means, stresses Prof. Cannata, but ROBOSKIN has succeeded in developing a production system for building tactile sensing into different robots. These unique methods solve the decades-old problem of adding more sensory perception to robots.

'We are still at the pre-commercial demonstrator stage, but the latest version of our tactile sensors clearly have wider potential in industry as factories seek safe, cost-efficient ways of using robots in closer contact with human workers,' explains the coordinator.

Patents have been filed for parts of the team's work, but they stress that prototypes remain available for scientific research work. ROBOSKIN technology has already been integrated into iCub, the Italian Institute of Technology's open robotics platform.

'The key was to ensure that our basic technologies would be compatible across different robotic platforms that may evolve in this fast-moving field,' notes Prof. Cannata. 'And this is what we have achieved.'

The ROBOSKIN project received EUR 3.5 million (of total EUR 4.7 million project budget) in research funding under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/JSAIKViUjc8/130524134317.htm

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Detroit Red Wings Top Chicago Blackhawks 2-0, Take 3-1 Series Lead

DETROIT ? Jakub Kindl scored on a power play in the second period, Daniel Cleary had an empty-net goal and Jimmy Howard made 27 saves to help the Detroit Red Wings hold on for a 2-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday night, putting the NHL's best team during the regular season on the brink of elimination.

After losing Game 1, the seventh-seeded Red Wings have surged into control of the second round series by handing Chicago its first three-game losing streak of the year.

Game 5 is Saturday night in Chicago.

The Blackhawks desperately need captain Jonathan Toews to score and lead after he extended his goal drought in a composure-crumbling performance.

Toews was called for three penalties in the second and could've gone to the box a fourth time in the period for slashing Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg while an official stood between them.

The Red Wings took advantage of the second power play Toews gave them when Kindl sent a low shot to the near corner from the top of the left circle.

Chicago had killed its first 30 penalties of the playoffs and matched the 2001 St. Louis Blues' feat of playing eight postseason games without giving up a power-play goal, the longest such streak since 1988.

The Blackhawks had a power play with 4:45 left in the game when Kindl was called for hooking, but they couldn't tie the game.

Corey Crawford had in a strong performance in goal for Chicago after giving up seven goals in the previous two games.

Howard was just a little bit better, earning his first shutout of this postseason and the second of his career in the playoffs.

Kindl scored his first goal of his first postseason, keeping up a trend that has helped the rapidly improving Red Wings pull within a win of their first trip to the Western Conference finals since 2009 when they got past Chicago and went on to lose Game 7 in a Stanley Cup finals rematch against Pittsburgh.

Detroit's young players ? six of which hadn't been in the playoffs before this year ? have been contributing to help out stars Pavel Datsyuk and Zetterberg.

Red Wings rookie Brendan Smith scored the winner in Game 2 at Chicago to even the series. First-year player Damien Brunner and Gustav Nyquist, who was pointless in his first four postseason games last year, had goals in overtimes against second-seeded Anaheim in the first round.

Chicago's 25-year-old captain, Toews, should seemingly be in the prime of his career, but he is in a slump against a team that appears to be getting to him physical and mentally. Toews was called for three penalties in the first 11 minutes of the first time in his career, according to STATS.

He has gone 10 postseason games without a goal ? dating to last year's playoffs ? in what is the longest scoring skid for a former Conn Smythe winner since Claude Lemieux went 20 games without a goal from 2000 through 2009, according to STATS.

NOTES: Detroit D Danny DeKeyser, who broke his right thumb in the first round and was ruled out for the playoffs, said he is holding out hope that he can come back if his teammates can advance. ... Since winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, Chicago has lost in the first round twice and is a loss away from a second-round exit.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/red-wings-blackhawks-nhl-playoffs-game-4_n_3329523.html

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Seeing Double: Errors In Stem-Cell Cloning Paper Raise Doubts

Biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov stands outside the monkey enclosure at his lab in Oregon. He says the mistakes in his recent paper were caused by the rush to publish quickly.

Richard Clement/Reuters /Landov

Biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov stands outside the monkey enclosure at his lab in Oregon. He says the mistakes in his recent paper were caused by the rush to publish quickly.

Richard Clement/Reuters /Landov

This feels a bit like deja vu.

Scientists report a major breakthrough in human stem-cell research. And then just a week later, the findings come under fire.

Biologists at Oregon Health & Science University said May 15 that they had cloned human embryos from a person's skin cell.

Researchers have been trying to do this for more than a decade. Many scientists in the field were heralding the announcement as discovery of the Holy Grail because now they could make personalized stem cells for treating an array of diseases.

But several images in the paper aren't quite right, a commenter said Wednesday on the website PubPeer.

Specifically, three pairs of photos are duplicated and then labeled as different results. There are also some questions about data demonstrating that the scientists had created stem cells.

The lead author on the study, Shoukhrat Mitalipov, staunchly defended his findings Thursday to the journal Nature. "The results are real, the cell lines are real, everything is real," he said.

Mitalipov claims the problems in the paper were innocent mistakes made because he rushed to publish the findings in the journal Cell.

Right now, the editorial team at Cell supports the study and Mitalipov's claims.

"Based on our own initial in-house assessment of issues raised ... it seems that there were some minor errors made by the authors when preparing the figures for initial submission," Cell's editor Emilie Marcus said on Facebook. "While we are continuing discussions with the authors, we do not believe these errors impact the scientific findings of the paper in any way."

The journal reviewed and accepted the paper four days after receiving it. The paper was then published online 12 days later. Typically, this process takes at least two months and can even last years.

With such a fast turnaround time, some scientists are being careful not to jump to conclusions. "I expect the errors above were also due to the rush to publish." Robin Lovell Badge, at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London, told Nature. "The authors should be given a chance to answer and correct mistakes,"

But others think the team should have been more diligent, especially given the past problems in the field.

Back in 2005 and 2004, South Korean veterinarian Hwang Woo-suk published two papers claiming to have cloned human embryos. By early 2006, a committee in Seoul concluded that Hwang fabricated the data in both studies and the journal Science retracted both papers.

"The four-day review process was obviously inadequate," Arnold Kriegstein, of the University of California, San Francisco, told Nature, referring to Mitalipov's study. "It's a degree of sloppiness that you wouldn't expect in a paper that was going to have this high profile. One worries if there is more than meets the eye and whether there are other issues with the work that are not as apparent."

Scientists will know soon enough. It's rather straightforward to confirm Mitalipov's results. If the embryos were indeed created by putting the nucleus of a skin cell into a donor egg, the stem cells will have the exact genetic fingerprint of the skin plus a tiny bit of DNA left over from the egg (specifically, its mitochondria).

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/23/186246916/seeing-double-errors-in-stem-cell-cloning-paper-raise-doubts?ft=1&f=1007

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How Online Learning Enriches the Teaching and Learning Experience

[This post is part of a series from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, The Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University on the online learning experience.]

by Ilana Turetsky, EdD

The upcoming summer semester will mark my fourth semester teaching online courses at Azrieli Graduate School. I have found the experience to be enriching, broadening, and stimulating. While some may envision online teaching as a direct transfer from the live classroom to the virtual setting, I perceive online teaching as a categorically different enterprise. Allow me to share three brief thoughts on my experiences teaching online, highlighting some of the unique features that I believe online learning affords.

1. Student processing of information

Student processing of material learned in my online courses is, in certain ways, far richer than in a traditional face-to-face course. This is due to a simple reason: students are asked to generate some kind of product on every topic they learn.

The driving force behind constantly asking students to produce is twofold:

(a) Accountability: In a live setting, a student?s physical presence indicates some minimal form of engagement with the? course and thus serves as a basic form of accountability. By contrast, the lack of a physical presence in an online course necessitates creation of accountability in other ways. I can assign an array of rich and stimulating resources to explore. However, without asking students to do something with that material, I have no way of ascertaining whether students even looked at the material, let alone engaged richly with the ideas therein.

(b) Promoting active learning: My preparation for each online learning module, that is, weekly learning unit, involves a two-step process: (1) ?What is the most important content that I want students to master this week?? Once I identify my primary learning goals, I consider (2) ?What learning experiences can I create to help my students master that material?? More often than not, this step of crafting active, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences requires far more time, creativity, and effort on my part than the preparation of the actual content. Though in theory this focus on the process of learning should be no different in a traditional course, I find the online course setting to be more promotive of this two-step preparation process. Perhaps this is because the online context lends itself less naturally to the traditional lecture format or because presenting a written explanation of each week?s module forces the instructor to carefully and sharply think through all elements of that week?s learning process.

2. Student-Teacher interaction

Rarely in my live classes do I have the opportunity to hear from every single student on critical elements of every single lesson. In my online courses, because lessons are structured in such a way that each student submits weekly assignments on primary elements of that particular module, I have the opportunity to hear from and engage with each individual student. As a result, I get to know my students better and also engage with them one-on-one on a weekly basis, a frequency of direct interaction that would be impossible to achieve in a live course setting.

3. Feedback loop

Each weekly module in every single one of my online courses ends the same way, with a ?One Minute Paper?. This One Minute Paper asks students to reflect on the most important thing that they learned that week and also on any unanswered questions they still have. I have found this brief assignment to be an invaluable tool in helping me understand how every single student experienced that week?s learning and also in creating a concrete, structured venue for students to voice their questions, even if the questions aren?t pressing enough that the student would have taken the initiative to email me. In this context, I respond to each student about the major or minor questions that are lingering in their minds in reaction to that week?s material. Furthermore, through this forum, I have received very valuable feedback that has driven subsequent adjustments to my courses. At this point, I can?t imagine conducting a class without the use of this assessment tool. My experiences with the One Minute Paper in my online course would likely lead me to incorporate this tool into any course that I would teach, traditional or online.

Conclusion

Though traditional and online courses both involve students, instructors, and course material to be learned, the learning process that occurs in each setting often looks very different. Through teaching in an online context, a setting that was not initially the most natural for me, I have been forced to think critically about the most basic components of effective teaching and how to implement those elements in the online context. While every model has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and while the success of the model will inevitably be a function of how it is used, I believe that online learning has the potential to promote incredibly rich student learning, an increased degree of student-teacher interaction, and unique systems for feedback loops that empower both teacher and student with valuable information.

Ilana Turetsky, EdD is an instructor in Jewish Education at Yeshiva University?s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration.

Source: http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-online-learning-enriches-the-teaching-and-learning-experience/

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Mailbox: Still Beautiful, Still Clever, Now on the iPad

Lots of nifty new iPhone apps are instantly greeted by enthusiastic throngs of users, but when an e-mail app called Mailbox debuted in February, being excited over its arrival became a particular obsession in iPhone nation. Its creators put prospective users into a reservation queue that?grew enormous, helping to reduce the strain on its servers while also stoking demand even further.

I wasn?t startled by the rapturous reception: Mailbox is a beautifully-designed piece of software with clever tools intended to help you grind your inbox down to zero. But I didn?t use it all that much myself: I do 95% of my e-mail on my iPad, not my iPhone.

And now I can, without forgoing Mailbox. The app, which was acquired by cloud-storage superstar Dropbox in March, is arriving on the App Store today in a version that brings all the iPhone edition?s goodness to the iPad?s larger screen. I was briefed on the news by Mailbox cofounder Gentry Underwood and have been living with the new version for a few days.

As before, Mailbox works only with Gmail (for now), supports multiple accounts and lets you see them all combined into one inbox. Four gestures let you wrangle messages right from the inbox list with a quick flick of your finger:

• Swipe a message a little to the right, and it gets archived;
• Swipe it further to the right, and it?s deleted;
• Swipe it a little to the left, and you can postpone dealing with it by telling Mailbox to put it back at the top of your inbox at a certain point in the future, such as Later Today, Tomorrow, Next Week or a date you specify;
• Swipe it further to the right, you can add it to a list ? Mailbox?s version of standard e-mail folders.

And other than standard stuff like the ability to compose new messages and reply to incoming ones, that?s almost all the features Mailbox has. But the ones it does have work great and look great; this is one of the most attractive, finely-polished, every-pixel-in-its-place apps I?ve ever seen on the iPad, just as it was on the iPhone.

Oh, there?s also one feature you?ll find if you scroll to the end of your inbox, where it hides almost like an Easter egg: the ability to archive everything in your inbox (or every message you?ve read) with one tap. You shouldn?t use this nuclear option with abandon, but if your inbox gets so full that weeding out messages individually becomes an impossibility, it?s far better to eradicate everything than to let it fester.

You don?t have to be a hardcore e-mail wizard to find that there?s stuff missing in Mailbox that you wish it had. The app only lets you set one signature even if you have multiple accounts, for instance, and doesn?t let you specify a ?Send as? address (very valuable if you use a Gmail account in conjunction with a work account). It doesn?t have Gmail?s Priority Inbox intelligent mail-sorting feature, or anything comparable to it.

Most notably, Mailbox can?t search the mail you?ve got stored on Gmail?s servers ? only the recent subset which is actually on your iPad at the moment. I asked Underwood about that, and he said that his team is working on server-side search, but will only roll it out when it?s working as smoothly as the rest the app.

Underwood also said that the team is toying with ways that the app could be integrated with its new owner Dropbox?s service. There are certainly some obvious ones, such as using Dropbox storage as a more elegant and efficient alternative to attachments.

I?m not quite ready to definitively proclaim Mailbox as the iPad?s best e-mail client; I think that some people will miss features in Google?s Gmail app or Apple?s own Mail too much to switch to this more minimalist piece of software. But the things that Mailbox does, it does marvelously well ? and if you feel like you?re suffocating under the weight of the messages in your inbox, you owe it to yourself to give its approach a try.

And you should be able to do so without waiting in line. In April, Mailbox finished giving accounts to the people on its waitilist and started letting new folks in, no reservation required. Underwood told me that he thinks the service will be able to handle any sudden mad rush of iPad users without resorting to putting the the virtual velvet rope back up.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mailbox-still-beautiful-still-clever-now-ipad-120015640.html

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