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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
ScienceDaily: Child Development News
HBT: Torre-ball lifts USA over Canada in WBC
Four sacrifice bunt attempts in one game.
I?d be pretty disgusted if it were the Marlins trying such a thing to beat the Mets in mid-August. But, no, that?s what Team USA did on Sunday on its way to topping Canada 9-4.
Technically, it will go into the books at three sacrifice bunt attempts, since Shane Victorino merely fouled back his one attempt before later striking out in the seventh. The first two were successful, the second especially so. The first, coming in the second, was put down by Adam Jones with two on and none out. No runs followed, though. Ben Zobrist?s bunt in the fourth resulted in a Taylor Green error, scoring a run and opening the door for a two-run inning.
The last bunt was a huge flop, with Zobrist popping one up for the first out in the eighth. Fortunately, Jones bailed the team out afterwards, delivering a two-run double to put Team USA on top for good.
So, yes, everything worked out in the end. Even though Joe Torre?s team tried to give away four outs. Even though Giancarlo Stanton, the country?s (and maybe the world?s) best power hitter, sat out in favor of Shane Victorino. Even though Torre was more worried about making sure everyone got into the game than trying to win it.
And that last part may be the biggest problem of all. Joe Torre works for Major League Baseball. He made commitments to teams in return for acquiring the services of players. While the managers of Japan and the Dominican Republic are doing the best they can, within the WBC?s pitcher usage rules, to win their games, Torre is going above and beyond; making sure everyone gets a turn, not using a reliever after he?s already warmed up once and not letting any of his true relievers pitch more than an inning.
Of course, Torre isn?t exactly a tactical genius even when he doesn?t have to deal with such limitations. Witness today?s eighth-inning gem to intentionally walk light-hitting left-hander Pete Orr in a 5-4 game?to load the bases for a left-handed-hitting pinch-hitter. Given that it meant a walk could force in a run, I doubt it improved the U.S.?s chances of staying ahead in the eighth.?What it definitely did do is guarantee that Joey Votto would bat in the ninth, with Justin Morneau due up fourth, something that might have made a big difference had the U.S. offense not finally found itself and, absent any sac bunt attempts, piled on four runs in the top of the inning.
At age 73, this is probably Torre?s last time in a dugout. He was pretty close to a Hall of Famer as a player and he?s certainly going in as a manager after all of his success with the Yankees. And deservedly so. It?d be a nice victory lap for him if Team USA could somehow win the World Baseball Classic in its third try. Torre, though, needs to back off a bit, because he?s really hurting the cause right now.
Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/03/10/overcoming-torre-is-team-usas-biggest-win-yet/related/
Monday, March 11, 2013
Time spin-off highlights risks facing magazines
FILE - This Nov. 19, 2008 file photo shows President Barack Obama featured in a special issue of Time Magazine on a New York newsstand. Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday March 6, 2013 said that it will spin off the magazine unit behind Time, Sports Illustrated and People into a separate, publicly traded company by the end of the year. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - This Nov. 19, 2008 file photo shows President Barack Obama featured in a special issue of Time Magazine on a New York newsstand. Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday March 6, 2013 said that it will spin off the magazine unit behind Time, Sports Illustrated and People into a separate, publicly traded company by the end of the year. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? From Sports Illustrated to People to its namesake magazine, Time Inc., was always an innovator. But now when the troubled magazine industry is facing its greatest challenge, the company Henry Luce founded is struggling to find its way in a digital world.
Time Warner Inc.'s decision to shed its Time Inc. magazine unit last week underscores the challenges facing an industry that remains wedded to glossy paper even as the use of tablet computers, e-readers and smartphones explodes.
Although the new devices might seem to present an array of opportunity for Time Inc.'s 95 magazine titles, many publishers have found the digital transition troublesome. Digital editions of magazines represented just 2.4 percent of all U.S. circulation in the last half of 2012, or about 7.9 million copies, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
Although that number more than doubled from a year earlier, it's hardly gangbusters growth, considering that the number of tablets in the U.S. also more than doubled last year to 64.8 million, according to research firm IHS.
The fact that so few tablet owners are buying magazines on their devices is a concern because both ad and circulation revenue from print editions have fallen more than 20 percent since their peak near the middle of the last decade. And, according to forecasts, there's no recovery in sight.
"We have to get much better at capturing those (digital) readers," said Mary Berner, president of The Association of Magazine Media.
Before publishers can accomplish that, they need to address a number of problems, experts say. First, the range of free content on the Web has given some readers the impression that it's not necessary to pay for the digital versions of magazine stories. Also, there's no industry standard for pricing. Publishers aren't in agreement over whether to include free access to digital copies as part of a print subscription.
There are technical challenges, too. It's been difficult for magazine makers to create compelling digital editions that fit every screen size and resolution.
Berner acknowledges that customer confusion is part of what's preventing the magazine industry from selling more digital copies. She is working with industry players like Time Inc., Hearst Corp., Conde Nast and Meredith Corp. to standardize both the format of magazines and the way they are sold.
"There used to be a couple ways you used to be able to get a magazine: you could subscribe or buy it at the newsstand. Now there's 25 ways. Joe Average consumer just isn't that clear on it yet," she said. "The confusing part is hurting."
Advertisers are making matters worse. The ad industry has been slow to warm to the notion that they still need to pay top dollar to advertise in the tablet editions of magazines, even though much cheaper website ads are just a finger-swipe away.
But many magazines still command significant premiums. A full-page ad in Elle magazine, for instance, costs $155,680 to reach the readers of 1.1 million copies, or about $141 for every 1,000, according to a rate card that the magazine posted online.
Compare that to a 30-second ad during this year's Super Bowl, which ?at most? cost $37 per 1,000 TV households, or $4 million to reach 108 million TV sets, according to CBS. A typical website ad costs in the single-digit dollars per 1,000 viewers, although pricing varies by ad size and other features.
Magazine insiders say the price of their ad space is worth it because ads reach a targeted, engaged audience that actually wants to see the commercial come-ons. Even so, advertisers bristle at the idea that tablet editions command the same price premium as print pages.
"The costs per thousand are out of whack," said George Janson, director of print for GroupM, a subsidiary of advertising agency giant WPP, whose clients include Ikea, Mars Inc., Marriott and Xerox. "The advertising challenge is there haven't been a lot of metrics. There's very little accountability. That's starting to change now at the advertisers' insistence."
The magazine industry's slim but growing digital subscriber base could help convince advertisers of the value of magazines. Research firm eMarketer predicts that while print magazine ad revenue will remain flat at about $15.1 billion from 2011 to 2016, digital magazine ad revenue will grow from $2.7 billion to $4.1 billion over the same period.
"Tablets have reinvigorated magazine ad revenues," said eMarketer spokesman Clark Fredricksen.
But even as overall magazine advertising revenue grows, it's not expanding nearly as fast as U.S. ad spending as a whole. The predicted turnaround won't return the industry to pre-recession levels ?and it may come too late for Time Warner Inc.
Revenue at its Time Inc. unit slipped to $3.4 billion in 2012, about 38 percent below its peak in 2004. Operating profit declined to $420 million, down by more than half of the $934 million posted eight years earlier.
Analysts say spinning off the magazines into a separate, publicly traded company reduces Time Warner's risk. On Friday, two days after Time Warner announced the spin-off, its shares hit a 52-week high of $57.85.
Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Capital Markets, said the spin-off frees Time Warner from the uncertainty of the magazine industry's digital transition.
"It has the potential to save money, increase revenue per ad, improve measurement, and increase distribution," he wrote in a research note, "but it also competes with a growing number of free online publications and there may be few ad slots in the new medium."
In other words, it's better for parent Time Warner to separate itself now.
Reed Phillips, the CEO of media company advisory firm DeSilva + Phillips, said that for the parent company, there is too much risk involved if the magazines stay.
"Will you come out on the other end as large and as profitable as the current company? There's a lot of concern," he said. "Because of the volatility, that's why Time Warner wants to spin off Time Inc."
Meanwhile, magazine publishers are carefully parsing consumer behavior data to learn how they might make digital magazines more attractive to readers and advertisers. They want to know which ads attract consumers and how long readers engage with an ad. They are trying to learn how people read magazines (So far, it's still front to back). It's still not clear whether such data is valuable to advertisers and worth paying more.
"This is a fairly early stage business," said Liz Schimel, the chief digital officer at Meredith Corp., which was in talks to combine with Time Inc. before talks were called off. "We're still in lots of conversations about models and features and metrics."
Magazines don't have a lot of time to figure the digital transition out. TV and digital ad spending is growing quickly, and there are more ways than ever to track down consumers and get a company's message in front of them.
"It's not just print and TV and radio," said Brenda White, a senior vice president in charge of publishing industry ad spending at Starcom USA, a subsidiary of ad agency giant Publicis Groupe, whose clients include Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. "There are all these different digital channels: mobile, tablets, social. Publishing companies have had to evolve their business models to keep up."
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University research discovers hard truths of U.S. budget crisis
(Reuters) - Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Carol Greider used to have eight to 10 young researchers working in her university laboratory, but with U.S. government funds for scientific research shrinking in recent years, she's gone down to four.
Sequestration, Washington's name for $85 billion in federal spending cuts this year, promises to cut even deeper into Greider's team at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She's decided she cannot afford to hire "a promising young researcher" she wanted to add to her staff for the next academic year.
"I'm not sure in the current climate we have for research funding that I would have received funding to be able to do the work that led to the Nobel Prize," Greider said at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) event last month, adding that her early work on enzymes and cell biology was well outside the mainstream. The NIH has been funding her research for the past 23 years.
Federally funded, university research has long been a major engine of scientific advancement, spurring innovations from cancer treatments to the seeds of technology companies like Google.
But now some of the largest U.S. research universities fear that spending cuts under sequestration could lead to layoffs, curtail scientific discovery and leave a generation with less access to careers in science, school officials said.
The across-the-board budget cuts, to be carried out by September 30, come on top of years of reductions in federal spending on research that have already had an impact on universities' scientific exploration, officials from eight top research universities told Reuters.
"These cuts threaten to undermine our ability to carry on the basic research that leads us to new frontiers of knowledge and boosts American competitiveness," Harvard University President Drew Faust told Reuters in a statement.
A report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a lobbying group, said sequestration would leave the United States $511 billion behind in research and development investment, compared with expected growth in spending on research in China.
CUTS, AND MORE CUTS
About three-fifths, or $40.8 billion, of all university research funding in Fiscal Year 2011 came from the federal government, according to a recent National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics survey. Money from states, localities, foundations, individuals, companies and other sources make up the rest of university research budgets.
Sequestration comes amid a backdrop of diminishing federal funding for university research. NIH appropriations in Fiscal Year 2012 were below those of 2003 when adjusted for inflation, according to an analysis of NIH data by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Universities have already seen their funding reduced this year.
Mary Lidstrom, the Vice Provost for Research at the University of Washington in Seattle, said NIH began trimming grant funding research by about 10 percent across the board earlier in the academic year. The university received $609 million from NIH the previous fiscal year.
The restrictions are affecting graduate student admissions for the fall, with the school likely to accept fewer students, Lidstrom said. Further funding cuts could mean fewer paid internships for undergraduates.
Under sequestration, NIH will reduce its budget by $1.5 billion, or 5 percent, according to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget. The National Science Foundation (NSF) stands to lose $290 million.
That could disrupt ongoing projects with multi-year grants, head off future scientific breakthroughs and lower the number of graduates admitted to research programs, school officials said.
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Vice President of Research Steve Forrest said a 5 percent cut would mean a loss of $40 million for the school. A Yale University spokesman said the school stood to lose $28 million.
"There (are) going to be a lot of research jobs at risk. That will hit young researchers disproportionately hard," said Forrest, adding that the effects are long-term and hard to recover from since researchers are unlikely to return because of "the extremely competitive environment across the globe."
FUTURE CONSEQUENCES FOR DISCOVERY
Universities get federal research grants through a competitive, project-specific application process, with the money funding everything from lab materials to technicians to graduate students. Grants can be as small as a few thousand dollars for projects lasting a few months to as much as tens of millions of dollars for work lasting a decade or more.
For example, in fiscal year 2011, University of Michigan received $10.9 million from NIH to study aging and University of Wisconsin received $13.6 million for primate research.
With less federal funding, universities will have to find money from other sources or scale back projects. Forrest warned of a scenario in which universities would have to use their reserve funds to finance programs as long as they can to see ongoing experiments through to completion. "Then eventually we'll have to start cutting workforce," he said.
Underpinning the staffing worries is a broader concern about scientific progress: cuts could mean the loss of research or the researcher with the ability to do the work.
NIH has said sequestration means it will likely reduce funding for existing grants and it expects to make fewer new awards in fiscal year 2013, beginning this fall. NSF said it will absorb the cuts by awarding approximately 1,000 fewer grants in fiscal year 2013, though it will not cut existing standard grants. Exactly which grants might suffer is unclear.
(Reporting by Peter Rudegeair and Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Jennifer Merritt, Mary Milliken and Leslie Gevirtz)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/university-research-discovers-hard-truths-u-budget-crisis-130348092.html
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Sunday, March 10, 2013
Afghan women join special forces despite threats
The Afghan Army is training women to join its special forces. They are playing a key role in night raids, essential in the pursuit of Taliban commanders. NBC's Mandy Clark reports.
By Mandy Clark, Correspondent, NBC News
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Severely outgunned, the battle was going badly. It seemed like certain defeat. Then, from out of the crowd stepped a young girl of around 14. She grabbed the pole from the fallen flag-bearer, held it up, and called out to her brothers-in-arms to fight to the death.
Though she was shot dead, her rallying cry was seen as the turning point of the 1880 Battle of Maiwand; a triumph for the Afghans, and a devastating loss for British forces during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Her name was Malalai, Afghanistan?s Joan of Arc.?
?If you go back into history, before we only had one female soldier named Malalai, but now I have a lot of Malalais in my Special Forces,? said Colonel Jalauddin Yaftaly, who heads the elite units.?There are more than 1,000 women in the Afghan Army ? and about two dozen have made it into Special Forces.?
In a country where equality is still a huge unresolved?issue, on the battlefield women are making huge strides.?
Col. Yaftaly said he saw a need for women in the Special Forces to help conduct night raids.?In 2011, he got permission to recruit women and has built up the female force to roughly 25, but says he needs more.?Even their male colleagues say their work is essential.?
NBC News
Female members of Afghan special forces in training.
?We do face death threats?
Night raids are considered the most dangerous: Commandos enter the homes of suspected insurgents under the cover of darkness.
The military says these missions are key in capturing Taliban commanders, but they are deeply controversial because it is considered culturally offensive for male troops to search female Afghans in their homes. Now, when possible, it?s women searching women.?
?Our duty is to go inside the houses, search the women and children, make them calm and get them out of danger,? said new 21-year-old recruit Zakia Halakim.?
Halakim was part of the Afghan police force when she was approached to try out for the Special Forces by Col. Yaftaly, who seeks the top women in the Afghan forces.
?My family supports me, they never told me not to do it,? she said. ?They know it is important for Afghanistan.???
On the firing range, Halakim is practicing with two female colleagues. Sporting dark sunglasses, a helmet and scarves wrapped round their faces, their identities are hidden. They have to be. Working alongside men has made them special targets.?
The women are paid the same as the men when they are on an operation. Right now, their role is limited to night raids.?
?We do face death threats because our work is outside of our culture but this is an important job,? said Halakim.?
Hoping for change
?As far as the culture in this country, no it?s not acceptable in this country at all,? said Mahbouba Seraj, an?executive board member at the Afghan Women?s Network. ?It goes against every single grain of belief of an Afghan man.??
But Seraj believes these women might be able to change the way society thinks.?
?The most important thing is whether these women are going to do their jobs and really be effective ... are they really going to be saving lives of those women in the villages? If that is the outcome, then the whole view will change,? she said.?
In a training operation, the female Special Forces sweep the rooms for Afghan women. There could be hidden dangers, such as female suicide bombers. Their male colleagues say they are glad to have them.?
?We need our sisters as much as we need our brothers to join the army, police and Special Forces -- according to their interest -- and that will help us a lot,? said Agha Sharin Noori, an Afghan Special Forces soldier.
Brigadier General Mohammadzai Khatool is the only woman general in Afghanistan. During the Soviet occupation, she was a paratrooper with over 600 jumps -- but when the Taliban took over she was forced to leave the military and stay at home.
In 2002, after the fall of the Taliban, she was promoted to general. She believes women are an essential part of the military. ?
?Men and women are like two wings of the one bird. Working together, both are trying to defend their country and their people,? she said.?
Seraj agrees. ?These women are amongst the bravest in Afghanistan," she said. "I appreciate the first steps that they are taking so much. I wish I could be alive and be around to see them become generals in this country.?
Related:
Blast rocks Kabul during visit by Defense Secretary Hagel
Chuck Hagel in Afghanistan: 'We're still at war'
Ultimate taboo: Actress takes on rape in Afghanistan
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Spiritual craft: Meet the pope's shoemaker
Carlo Angerer / NBC News
Adriano Stefanelli has been making shoes for decades, but it wasn't until
By Carlo Angerer, Producer, NBC News
NOVARA, Italy -- When the white smoke will mark the election of a new pope later this month, Adriano Stefanelli will stand at the ready with nails, leather and his hammer by his side.
Stefanelli, 64, is the pope?s shoemaker, commissioned by the Vatican, and he said he will work day and night to manufacture the next pope?s new custom-made shoes as quickly as possible.
?All I need to know is the shoe size and what color the new pope wants,? he said during an interview with NBC News in his small corner store in Novara, in northern Italy. ?I hope to finish the shoes in about 10 days.?
Normally the process takes about a month, with Stefanelli working on the special shoes during his free time. He makes a living by selling his line of shoes exclusively in his small shop, which his father founded in 1954 and where Stefanelli has been working since he was 14. The handmade shoes are only gifted to a small circle of special people picked by Stefanelli himself, a group that has included U.S. presidents.?
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Carlo Angerer / NBC News
Stefanelli created the flashy red shoes Pope Benedict XVI wore during most public audiences in the Vatican and on foreign trips. That garnered Benedict the title ?Accessorizer of the Year? by Esquire Magazine in 2007.
Rumors abounded that the pope wore Prada. When the Italian fashion behemoth didn?t deny the rumors, the Vatican publicly announced that Stefanelli was the creator of the red shoes.
Stefanelli proudly showed us a letter from Benedict?s secretary, Georg G?nswein, requesting a new pair of shoes for the pope.?Stefanelli?doesn't charge the Vatican for the papal shoes; he?calls?the shoes a "regalo,"?Italian for gift, and said, ?I?m not doing this for business purposes; I want to show the quality of Italian craftsmanship.?
And others have been impressed, as well. When President George W. Bush saw the pope?s red shoes during his U.S. visit in 2008, he immediately requested a pair in black. Stefanelli also sent shoes to the Obamas, receiving a thank you letter from the White House.
Carlo Angerer / NBC News
Stefanelli's decision to deliver shoes to the pope was prompted by Pope John Paul II?s illness.
?I began to think, 'What can I do to ease his pain?'? he said. ?And the answer was that I can make shoes, so let?s make shoes. I started and made the first pair, they fit the pope well, and I continued until now.?
Stefanelli said he?s looking forward to making the next pope?s shoes, not only to show his craftsmanship, but also because it is a spiritual matter for this Catholic shoemaker.
?When you are working for the Holy Father, you try and do your best,? he said. ?Spirituality is there because you are working for someone not only important but also charismatic and that has strength for the faithful ? that has deep meaning.?
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