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মঙ্গলবার, ১৮ জুন, ২০১৩

China pressured U.S. university to ask me to leave, dissident says

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese dissident who fled his home country to become a visiting scholar at New York University, accused the school on Sunday of asking him to leave because of "unrelenting pressure" from China.

NYU denied the claim, saying that it had said last year before the blind dissident arrived that his fellowship would last up to a year and end sometime this summer.

Chen sparked a diplomatic crisis between the United States and China after he fled house arrest last year and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. NYU helped Chen come to the United States after he expressed fears for his family's safety if they were to remain in China.

In a statement, Chen thanked NYU for its hospitality and "good support," but accused it of giving in to the Communist Party of China.

"In fact, as early as last August and September, the Chinese Communists had already begun to apply great, unrelenting pressure on New York University, so much so that after we had been in the United States just three to four months, NYU was already starting to discuss our departure with us," he wrote.

Chen, who has been blind from childhood and taught himself law, was a campaigner for farmers and disabled citizens. He exposed forced abortions in China before he was placed under house arrest in Shandon province.

He has continued to be critical of China's human rights record since his arrival in New York in May 2012 with his wife and two children.

Jerome Cohen, an NYU law professor and friend of Chen who helped broker his departure from China, told Reuters that "we should all base accusations on facts, not speculation and conspiracy theories unsupported by facts", when asked for a response to Chen's remarks.

TV INTERVIEW

Chen said he believed the Chinese government wanted "to make me so busy trying to earn a living that I don't have time for human rights advocacy, but this is not going to happen."

NYU pointed to a PBS television interview in May 2012 with Cohen, who had said Chen would be at NYU for a year at most while he adjusted to a new country.

Chen could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

John Beckman, an NYU spokesman, described Chen's claims as "both false and contradicted by the well-established facts."

"Mr. Chen's fellowship at NYU and its conclusion have had nothing to do with the Chinese government. All fellowships come to an end," Beckman said in a statement.

NYU said Chen had received offers from two other academic institutions. Fordham University Law School in New York said on Friday it was in talks with Chen.

The second offer is from the Witherspoon Institute, based in Princeton, New Jersey, Bob Fu, the president of Texas-based Christian advocacy group ChinaAid told Reuters. Chen has not yet made a decision, said Fu, whose group has campaigned for Chen.

The Witherspoon Institute is a think-tank that opposes same-sex marriage and abortion.

Beckman said NYU had started talking with the Chens about changes in living arrangements months ago. The school has provided them services that include housing, food, insurance and healthcare, English lessons and family support, he said.

NYU has been building a campus in Shanghai, and received final approval from China's education ministry to begin construction and student recruitment last autumn.

(This version of the story corrects to say Chen blind from childhood, not birth in paragraph 6)

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in New York and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Editing by Eric Walsh and Clarence Fernandez)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-pressured-nyu-him-leave-dissident-says-014313332.html

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সোমবার, ১৭ জুন, ২০১৩

Infections increase risk of mood disorders

Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
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Contact: Michael Eriksen Benr?s
benros@ncrr.dk
45-26-25-52-39
Aarhus University

New research shows that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder has been admitted to hospital with an infection prior to the diagnosis

New research shows that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder has been admitted to hospital with an infection prior to the diagnosis. The study is the largest of its kind to date to show a clear correlation between infection levels and the risk of developing mood disorders.

Anyone can suffer from an infection, for example in their stomach, urinary tract or skin. It would now appear that their distress does not necessarily end once the infection has been treated. A new PhD project shows that many people subsequently suffer from a mood disorder:

"Our study shows that the risk of developing a mood disorder increases by 62% for patients who have been admitted to hospital with an infection. In other words, it looks as though the immune system is somehow involved in the development of mood disorders," says Michael Eriksen Benrs, MD and PhD from Aarhus University and Psychiatric Centre Copenhagen.

He is behind the study together with researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen as well as The Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

Three million Danes included

The study is a register study, which has involved following more than 3 million Danes. Between 1977 and 2010, more than 91,000 of these people had hospital contact in connection with a mood disorder. It transpired that 32% of the patients had previously been admitted with an infectious disease, while 5% had been admitted with an autoimmune disease.

According to Michael Eriksen Benrs, the increased risk of mood disorders can be explained by the fact that infections affect the brain:

"Normally, the brain is protected by the so-called blood-brain barrier (BBB), but in the case of infections and inflammation, new research has shown that the brain can be affected on account of a more permeable BBB."

"We can see that the brain is affected, whichever type of infection or autoimmune disease it is. Therefore, it is naturally important that more research is conducted into the mechanisms which lie behind the connection between the immune system and mood disorders," says Michael Eriksen Benrs. He hopes that knowing more about this connection will help to prevent mood disorders and improve future treatment.

Facts

3.56 million Danes born between 1945 and 1996 were followed via the Danish patient registers.
Of these, 91,637 had hospital contact in connection with a mood disorder.
The study has been financed by the Stanley Medical Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA.
The findings have just been published in the prestigious international journal JAMA Psychiatry.

###

Further information

Michael Eriksen Benrs, MD and PhD
Aarhus University and the
University of Copenhagen
Tel.: +45 2625 5239
benros@ncrr.dk

[ | 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.

Infections increase risk of mood disorders

Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Michael Eriksen Benr?s
benros@ncrr.dk
45-26-25-52-39
Aarhus University

New research shows that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder has been admitted to hospital with an infection prior to the diagnosis

He is behind the study together with researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen as well as The Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

Three million Danes included

According to Michael Eriksen Benrs, the increased risk of mood disorders can be explained by the fact that infections affect the brain:

Facts

3.56 million Danes born between 1945 and 1996 were followed via the Danish patient registers.
Of these, 91,637 had hospital contact in connection with a mood disorder.
The study has been financed by the Stanley Medical Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA.
The findings have just been published in the prestigious international journal JAMA Psychiatry.

###

Further information

Michael Eriksen Benrs, MD and PhD
Aarhus University and the
University of Copenhagen
Tel.: +45 2625 5239
benros@ncrr.dk

[ | 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/2013-06/au-iir061713.php

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Residents anxious to return to Colorado fire zone

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ? With evacuees anxious to return, firefighters worked Sunday to dig up and extinguish hot spots to protect homes spared by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado's history.

The labor-intensive work is necessary because extremely dry grass and trees could quickly ignite if wind stirs up hot spots in the densely wooded Black Forest near Colorado Springs.

Firefighters did get some help from the weather as steady rain moved through the area Sunday afternoon. But that weather came with some lightning, which sparked a small grass fire near one home.

Nearly 500 homes have been burned by the 22-square-mile fire, which is 65 percent contained. Crews hope to have it fully under control by Thursday.

Even though the fire was no longer active enough on Sunday to produce a large smoke plume, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said it wasn't safe for people to return home until roads and downed power lines were repaired.

Additionally, the death of two unidentified people trying to flee the fire was still being investigated. Maketa said he was in no rush to have people return to an area that, at least for now, was still being considered a crime scene.

"I'm not going to compromise the evidence by allowing people in too soon," he said.

Some evacuees outside the burn area have been allowed back home. Those with property in the burn area have returned with escorts to check on their property or to pick up items, but Maketa said some were then refusing to leave once they were done. He urged fire victims to cooperate or risk being arrested.

Trudy Dawson, 59, was at work when the fire broke out Tuesday and quickly spread in record-breaking heat and strong winds. Her 25-year-old daughter, Jordan, who was on her way from Denver to visit, spotted the smoke, called her mother and went to the house.

With only 30 minutes to evacuate, she only had time to find a family cat and to open a corral gate so the horses could flee.

Jordan and two adult siblings went to the property the next day with a sheriff's escort and found the horses, unhurt, standing in their corral.

"It was just skeletons of vehicles and ash everywhere. It's haunting. It looks like it's right out of a horror movie," Jordan Dawson said.

It's unknown what sparked the blaze, but investigators believe it was human-caused and have asked for help from the state and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as they sift through the ash.

It's only a few miles away from the state's second most destructive wildfire, the Waldo Canyon Fire, which burned last summer.

The memory of that fire may have made residents especially appreciative of firefighters. About 1,000 people turned out to line the road and cheer firefighters as they returned from lines Saturday night, fire spokesman Brandon Hampton said.

Some of the aircraft used to fight the Black Forest Fire and other Front Range fires have been moved to fight a nearly 700-acre wildfire near Rifle Falls State Park in western Colorado. That fire erupted Friday from a smoldering lightning strike the day before, spokesman Pat Thrasher said. The residents of 12 homes were ordered to leave along with campers in the park as well as Rifle Mountain Park and the nearby White River National Forest.

Crews were closer to containing other wildfires that broke out around the same time as Black Forest. In Canon City, 50 miles to the southwest, a fire that destroyed 48 buildings at Royal Gorge Bridge & Park was 85 percent contained and the park's scenic railroad was running again. A lightning-sparked fire in Rocky Mountain National Park had burned nearly 500 acres and was 60 percent contained.

In New Mexico, crews were trying to protect homes in a historic mining town from a 35-square mile wildfire that had prompted 26 people to leave their homes.

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin contributed to this report from Denver.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/residents-anxious-return-colorado-fire-zone-211159765.html

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Report: UK spies hacked foreign diplomats

LONDON (AP) ? The Guardian newspaper said the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ repeatedly hacked into foreign diplomats' phones and emails when the U.K. hosted international conferences, even going so far as to set up a bugged Internet cafe in an effort to get an edge in high-stakes negotiations.

The news prompted an angry response from Russian officials concerned that their communications had been intercepted.

The report ? the latest in a series of revelations which have ignited a worldwide debate over the scope of Western intelligence gathering ? came just hours before Britain was due to open the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday, a meeting of the world's leading economies that include Russia. The allegation that the United Kingdom has previously used its position as host to spy on its allies and other attendees could make for awkward conversation as the delegates arrive for talks.

"The diplomatic fallout from this could be considerable," according to British academic Richard J. Aldrich, whose book "GCHQ" charts the agency's history.

Speaking at the G-8 summit, Prime Minister David Cameron declined to address the issue.

"We never comment on security or intelligence issues and I am not about to start now," he said. "I don't make comments on security or intelligence issues. That would be breaking something that no government has previously done."

GCHQ also declined to comment on the report.

Russian officials complained Monday about reports that their delegation had been snooped on in earlier summits.

"It's a scandal! The U.S. and British special services tapped (then President Dmitry) Medvedev's phone at the 2009 G-20 summit. The U.S. denies it, but we can't trust them," Alexei Pushkov, the Kremlin-connected chief of foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russian parliament, wrote on his Twitter feed Monday.

Sergei Devyatov, a spokesman for the Federal Protection Service that provides security for top Russian government officials, said in a statement carried by the Interfax news agency: "The Federal Protective Service is taking every necessary measure to provide the appropriate level of confidentiality of information for top-ranking officials of the country."

The Guardian cites more than half a dozen internal government documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as the basis for its reporting on GCHQ's intelligence operations, which it says involved, among other things, hacking into the South African foreign ministry's computer network and targeting the Turkish delegation at the 2009 G-20 summit in London.

Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for South Africa's foreign ministry, declined to comment on the report Monday when reached by telephone by AP. Monyela said on his Twitter feed that "the matter is receiving attention."

The source material ? whose authenticity could not immediately be determined ? appears to be a mixed bag. The Guardian describes one as "a PowerPoint slide," another as "a briefing paper" and others simply as "documents."

Some of the leaked material was posted to the Guardian's website with heavy redactions. A spokesman for the newspaper said the redactions were made at the newspaper's initiative, but declined to elaborate.

It wasn't completely clear how Snowden would have had access to the British intelligence documents, although in one article the Guardian mentions that source material was drawn from a top-secret internal network shared by GCHQ and the NSA. Aldrich said he wouldn't be surprised if the GCHQ material came from a shared network accessed by Snowden, explaining that the NSA and GCHQ collaborated so closely that in some areas the two agencies effectively operated as one.

One document cited by the Guardian ? but not posted to its website ? appeared to boast of GCHQ's tapping into smartphones. The Guardian quoted the document as saying that "capabilities against BlackBerry provided advance copies of G-20 briefings to ministers." It went on to say that "Diplomatic targets from all nations have an MO (a habit) of using smartphones," adding that spies "exploited this use at the G-20 meetings last year."

Another document cited ? but also not posted ? concerned GCHQ's use of a customized Internet cafe which was "able to extract key logging info, providing creds (credentials) for delegates, meaning we have sustained intelligence options against them even after conference has finished." No further details were given, but the reference to key logging suggested that computers at the cafe would have been pre-installed with malicious software designed to spy on key strokes, steal passwords and eavesdrop on emails.

Aldrich said that revelation stuck out as particularly ingenious.

"It's a bit 'Mission Impossible,'" he said.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, and Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-uk-spies-hacked-foreign-diplomats-075321600.html

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Heat, Spurs set for pivotal Game 5 of NBA Finals

SAN ANTONIO (AP) ? Tony Parker's hamstring, not Dwyane Wade's knee, is the current chief injury concern.

Manu Ginobili, not Chris Bosh, is mired in the slump of the moment.

Things change quickly at the NBA Finals, and with everything suddenly seeming right with the Miami Heat, it's up to the San Antonio Spurs to change them back Sunday night in Game 5.

"It is a must-win. We don't want to go back down there down a game with two games remaining at their house," Spurs star Tim Duncan said Saturday.

"Obviously, we lose this game, we're not giving up or anything, but we want to go back up with a chance to finish there. Huge pressure if we have to go back there and try to win two."

The Heat evened the series with a 109-93 victory Thursday night, setting up what's often the pivotal moment of the finals. Of the 27 times the series was tied at 2-2, the Game 5 winner went on to win 20 of them.

"I think that's what everyone would like, 2-2 in the finals for Game 5," LeBron James said. "We are excited about the opportunity. We have another opportunity to win on someone else's floor."

It's the same situation Miami was in two years ago, losing Game 5 in Dallas. But the Heat also had dropped the previous game, and James was struggling through a poor series by his standards.

Everything looks good for the Heat as they arrive at this stage now. James was dominant in Game 4 with 33 points and 11 rebounds, and Wade scored 32 points, not appearing to be bothered at all by a painful right knee that had limited his effectiveness in the postseason.

With Bosh breaking out with 20 points and 13 rebounds, everything that was a problem for the Heat a few days ago no longer looks to be the case. Instead, the obstacles look to be piling up for the Spurs.

"It's a part of the playoffs," Wade said. "There's always high moments. There's always low moments. There's moments when you have guys who are in a slump, et cetera. Guys who come out of it. Great story lines. It's all of it."

The teams returned to practice Saturday after taking a day off, and though Parker said his strained right hamstring was feeling better and he hoped to be close to 100 percent by the game, he later made that sound impossible.

"My hamstring can tear any time now," he said. "So if it was the regular season, I would be resting like 10 days. But now it's the NBA Finals. If it gets a tear, it's life."

Ginobili is averaging 7.5 points on 34.5 percent shooting in the series, making only three of his 16 3-point attempts. Parker said he's still confident in his longtime teammate, and coach Gregg Popovich said he wasn't worried about either player ? about all he did say on a day when he was a man of even fewer words than usual.

During his brief responses to eight questions, he added that he wasn't surprised by the Heat's lineup change in Game 4, but wouldn't say whether the Spurs would do anything different Sunday.

"I'd hate to be trite and say anything is possible. Your question demands my triteness," he answered.

The last three games have all been blowouts, a somewhat surprising result that wasn't so surprising to James. When their Big Three all play like they Thursday, the Heat can make even a good team like the Spurs look pretty bad.

"If we play our game, if we force turnovers, we rebound, execute offensively and don't turn the ball over, we can win against anybody," James said. "We're a confident bunch. But we're going against a great team that's going to make adjustments as well. And that's why it's a 2-2 series right now."

The Heat won only twice in San Antonio in their first 24 seasons, and now can win in back-to-back games, which would give the defending champions two chances to close out the Spurs back home. Game 6 is Tuesday night.

But the team that won 27 consecutive games during the regular season, the second-longest winning streak in NBA history, hasn't been able to win two in a row since taking the last four games of the second round and the opener of the Eastern Conference finals.

The Spurs haven't been any better at maintaining momentum, following their two victories in this series with turnover-filled losses by a combined 35 points, and Duncan said their focus has to be sharper.

"That's what it's all about right now, is that focus for a longer period of time. Taking care of the ball, understanding what you want to do and less defensive mistakes, and for whatever reason it seems like the team that's coming off a loss has done a better job of sustaining that for a longer period of time," Duncan said.

"I hope that's the case for us tomorrow, but we have to find a way to alleviate that, whether it's a win or a loss."

The Spurs have never lost a Game 5 in the NBA Finals, including victories in 2003 and '05 when the series were tied 2-2. Sunday's game could be the last time Duncan, Parker and Ginobili play at home in the finals, and they want go out a winner.

"This game is huge," Ginobili said. "We don't want to go to Miami knowing that we have to win both. Going there to win one of the two is a different situation. So Game 5, regardless of where you play, it's huge for you at 2-2. We've seen it too many times. We really want to win this one."

___

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heat-spurs-set-pivotal-game-5-nba-finals-224850385.html

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রবিবার, ১৬ জুন, ২০১৩

Software-Defined Networking Makes the Network Responsive to the ...

Bethany Mayer, SVP & GM at HP Networking, discussed trends in fabric, software defined networking, network behavior, and security with theCUBE co-hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante, live at HP Discover 2013.

?The business has continued to go very well, we?re at our 14th consecutive quarter of growth for HP Networking,? Mayer said. ?We?re shipping now a whole new line up of products,? including the newly released SDN controller.

Talking about SDN, Mayer said that ?there?s really about what it does from a benefits perspective from the business.? The network used to be the main issue when adding apps, going to the cloud, having a Big Data application, the problem was how to provision it in the time frame the business needs it to be.? It also helps a lot with automation. ?These are huge changes that need to happen anyways,? she added.

?The fabric discussion of old was about boxes, when in reality what you?re talking about is this connective tissue that goes between server storage seamlessly and that can deploy applications in a quick, connected manner, and than connected tissue can be everywhere,? it does not have to be a bunch of boxes put together, Mayer explained.

Asked about the savviness of customers when it comes to fabric, Mayer said??they ask you what your fabric is, what exactly is your fabric strategy and the discussion that we have is around virtualization of fabric. Our fabric strategy is a software fabric strategy, it is not core density strategy.?

HP has a SDN-enabled BYOD solution that provides access, control of where people can go, fingerprinting, Mayer said.??We also use our SDN security application to enable security all the way down to the switch board. It does what we were trying to do with security for years, dissolve a function like security into the fabric.?

Mayer said that Microsoft?s?Link is ?an application that is generally pretty hard on the network?, as people want to run video simultaneously, or share their desktop, from a networking perspective, you have to over-provision the network. ?With SDN, it goes away.? HP?s SDN controller integrates Link and frees resources. It handles encryption of data as well. ?You?ve now overutilized a network without adding more bandwidth.?

Asked about HP?s security involvement, Mayer said they didn?t have?any new announcements, ?we work very closely with our business unit, the idea is to utilize our controller as a platform for a lot of security applications, to be able to provide them across the network. Instead of a hardware box, it?s going to be more of a software platform,? she explained, adding that HP is the only company that explore that idea.

?A lot of attacks are low lying, they hang out for a while.? To deal with this issue, Mayer explained,?the fabric itself has to be secure. It has to be able to sense it, ?you?ve got to have a fabric that is secure in itself and wonderful analytics? and then dynamically modify the network to stop it.

?It really is all about the application,? Mayer said. ?Whether it is a business application or it?s going to the cloud, the network has to have the tools and respond. The only way to enable apps to be deployed quickly is to change the paradigm of that network, and that is what we do with SDN, the network can dynamically change its behavior? to respond as needed.

As far as HP Networking?s milestones for the next twelve months are concerned, shipping the SDN controller is the priority according to Mayer. ?After that it?s working with partners to create applications to offer our customers. There are some really great things that can be done now with our APIs,? therefore she forecast an explosion of these apps.

?OpenStack is one of the orchestration platforms that our SDN controller supports,? she stated. ?Our focus has been on OpenStack for the cloud and cloud orchestrations and our SDN controller? when it comes to APIs. The goal with SDN is to enable ?a network that does not require human intervention,? Mayer stated. You see it in storage, why not in network.?

Source: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/06/14/software-defined-networking-makes-the-network-responsive-to-the-business/

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Microsoft Office Mobile for iOS quietly launches in the US, requires Office 365 subscription

After rumor upon leak suggested Microsoft was cooking up a release of Office for iOS, you'd think its arrival would be celebrated with streamers and cake. Making a rather low-key entrance, the app is now available to those with a small-screen iOS device and an Office 365 subscription. You can create new Excel and Word files from scratch, or view and edit spreadsheets, docs and Powerpoint files stored on Microsoft's cloud services, or pinned to emails. Offline editing is also possible, as long as you've recently viewed or edited the file. You'll also be able to see any files you recently accessed at home if your computer is running Office 2013. You'll need an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 6.1 (there's no iPad version just yet), and the app is limited to the US at the moment, but head to the iTunes Store source link for the full feature list.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Check out our hands-on.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile, Apple, Microsoft