For the love of Joffrey! Stars dish on 'Thrones'

By Anna Chan, TODAY

Forget young love. On HBO's "Game of Thrones," there are just "tactical relationships," Sophie Turner, who plays long-suffering Sansa Stark, told The Clicker at the show's season three premiere in Seattle.

Helen Sloan / HBO

Margaery (Natalie Dormer) gets to know her king, Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), a bit better on season three of "Game of Thrones."

One of those strategic pairings is that of boy-king Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell. In the season two finale, the little tyrant on the Iron Throne broke his engagement to poor Sansa and made Margaery his new betrothed to bring Houses Tyrell and Baratheon -- Lannister, really -- together.?

"(Sansa's) free of being betrothed to (Joffrey), but she's still a prisoner of his," Turner told us of the upcoming season. "It was kind of better when she was betrothed to him and she kind of had a purpose and she knew her means of escape. ... Now, she's not going to become queen, so she's just a prisoner."

As "just a prisoner," that means Joffrey may have even less reason to tone down the beatings and other public humiliations for his former betrothed.?

Not that things are going to be great for Joffrey's new queen-to-be, either. Sure, he seemed to be a bit enchanted by her in season two, but nice guy he is not.

"She's in for a nasty shock!" Natalie Dormer, who plays Margaery, told us of her character. "She has not a clue what she's getting herself into. (She's learning the) really hard way. ... The audience might know Joffrey very well after two seasons, but Margaery doesn't know him at all."

The actress wouldn't reveal if Margaery will suffer the same abuse as Sansa, but explained why she'll stick around regardless of what she might go through.

"(Margaery's) ultimate goal is to be queen," Dormer said of the character, who was previously married to the now deceased King Renley. "She wants her son to be on the Iron Throne. When people ask who's going to get on the Iron Throne, Margaery's answer is, 'My son.' That's what she's aiming for. That's what the Tyrells are aiming for. Their way to power and control of Westeros is through heritage, their offspring."

But unlike Sansa, Margaery will have loved ones close by to help her navigate the power-hungry and sometimes cruel Lannisters.

"The Tyrells are a very close family, very loyal," Dormer said, and they'll all show up at court to figure out how to best play the game of thrones against the Lannisters. "We're trying to be politically savvy, but we're trying to not do it in a way that gets our hands too dirty because we want to have the moral high ground, whereas the Lannisters are right down there in the dirt with all their tricks!"

Leading House Tyrell will be Margaery's grandmother, Lady Olenna Redwyne (Diana Rigg), better known as the Queen of Thorns for her wit and sharp tongue. (Think "Downton Abbey's" Dowager Countess in Westeros.) According to Dormer, Olenna is going to prove to be quite the foe for Lena Headey's Queen Cersei.

"The Queen of Thorns is going to outmaneuver Cersei, and if you watch season three, you'll see her do it!" Dormer teased. "We had so much fun shooting these scenes!"

Season three of "Game of Thrones" premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.

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Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/03/26/17476599-game-of-thrones-star-margaerys-in-for-a-nasty-shock-in-season-3?lite

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The South: A near-solid block against 'Obamacare'

ATLANTA (AP) ? As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation's poorest and unhealthiest states.

"Not in South Carolina," Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."

Widening Medicaid insurance rolls, a joint federal-state program for low-income Americans, is an anchor of the law Obama signed in 2010. But states get to decide whether to take the deal, and from Virginia to Texas ? a region encompassing the old Confederacy and Civil War border states ? Florida's Rick Scott is the only Republican governor to endorse expansion, and he faces opposition from his GOP colleagues in the legislature. Tennessee's Bill Haslam, the Deep South's last governor to take a side, added his name to the opposition on Wednesday.

Haley offers the common explanation, saying expansion will "bust our budgets." But the policy reality is more complicated. The hospital industry and other advocacy groups continue to tell GOP governors that expansion would be a good arrangement, and there are signs that some Republicans are trying to find ways to expand insurance coverage under the law.

Haslam told Tennessee lawmakers that he'd rather use any new money to subsidize private insurance. That's actually the approach of another anchor of Obama's law: insurance exchanges where Americans can buy private policies with premium subsidies from taxpayers.

Yet for now, governors' rejection of Medicaid expansion will leave large swaths of Americans without coverage because they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid as it exists but not enough to get the subsidies to buy insurance in the exchanges. Many public health studies show that the same population suffers from higher-than-average rates of obesity, smoking and diabetes ? variables that yield bad health outcomes and expensive hospital care.

"Many of the citizens who would benefit the most from this live in the reddest of states with the most intense opposition," said Drew Altman, president of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

So why are these states holding out? The short-term calculus seems heavily influenced by politics.

Haley, Haslam, Nathan Deal of Georgia and Robert Bentley of Alabama face re-election next year. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is up for re-election in 2015. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is term-limited at home but may seek the presidency in 2016. While they all govern GOP-leaning states, they still must safeguard their support among Republican voters who dislike large-scale federal initiatives in general and distrust Obama in particular. Florida's Scott, the South's GOP exception on expansion, faces a different dynamic. He won just 49 percent of the vote in 2010 and must face an electorate that twice supported Obama.

A South Carolina legislator put it bluntly earlier this year. State Rep. Kris Crawford told a business journal that he supports expansion, but said electoral math is the trump card. "It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party," he said.

Whit Ayers, a leading Republican pollster, was more measured, but offered the same bottom line. "This law remains toxic among Republican primary voters," he told The Associated Press.

At the Tennessee Hospital Association, president Craig Becker has spent months trying to break through that barrier as he travels to civic and business groups across Tennessee. "It's really hard for some of them to separate something that has the name 'Obamacare' on it from what's going to be best for the state," he said, explaining that personality driven politics are easier to understand than the complicated way that the U.S. pays for health care.

Medicaid is financed mostly by Congress, though states have to put in their own money to qualify for the cash from Washington. The federal amount is determined by a state's per-capita income, with poorer states getting more help. On average in 2012, the feds paid 57 cents of every Medicaid dollar. It was 74 cents in Mississippi, 71 in Kentucky, 70 in Arkansas and South Carolina, 68 in Alabama. Those numbers would be even higher counting bonuses from Obama's 2009 stimulus bill.

Obama's law mandated that states open Medicaid to everyone with household income up to 138 percent of the federal poverty rate ? $15,420 a year for an individual or $31,812 for a family of four. The federal government would cover all costs of new Medicaid patients from 2014 to 2016 and pick up most of the price tag after that, requiring states to pay up to 10 percent. The existing Medicaid population would continue under the old formula. In its ruling on the law, the Supreme Court left the details alone, but declared that states could choose whether to expand.

Hospital and physician lobbying groups around the country have endorsed a bigger Medicaid program. Becker said he explains on his road show that the Obama law paired Medicaid growth with cuts to payments to hospitals for treating the uninsured. Just as they do with Medicaid insurance, states already must contribute their own money in order to get federal help with those so-called "uncompensated care" payments.

The idea was instead of paying hospitals directly, states and Congress could spend that money on Medicaid and have those new beneficiaries ? who now drive costs with preventable hospital admissions and expensive emergency room visits ? use the primary care system. But the Supreme Court ruling creates a scenario where hospitals can lose existing revenue with getting the replacement cash Congress intended, all while still having to treat the uninsured patients who can't get coverage.

Becker said that explanation has gotten local chambers of commerce across Tennessee to endorse expansion. "These are rock-ribbed Republicans," he said. "But they all scratch their heads and say, 'Well, if that's the case, then of course we do this.'"

In Louisiana, Jindal's health care agency quietly released an analysis saying the changes could actually save money over time. But the Republican Governors Association chairman is steadfast in his opposition. In Georgia, Deal answers pressure from his state's hospital association with skepticism about projected "uncompensated care" savings and Congress' pledge to finance 90 percent of the new Medicaid costs.

Altman, the Kaiser foundation leader, predicted that opposition will wane over time.

Arkansas Republicans, who oppose Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's call for expansion, have floated the same idea as Haslam: pushing would-be Medicaid recipients into the insurance exchanges. Jindal, using his RGA post, has pushed the Obama administration to give states more "flexibility" in how to run Medicaid.

Deal convinced Georgia lawmakers this year to let an appointed state board set a hospital industry tax to generate some of the state money that supports Medicaid. That fee ? which 49 states use in some way ? is the same tool that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is using to cover her state's Medicaid expansion. Georgia Democrats and some hospital executives have quietly mused that Deal is leaving himself an option to widen Medicaid in his expected term.

"These guys are looking for ways to do this while still saying they are against 'Obamacare,'" Altman said. "As time goes by, we'll see this law acquire a more bipartisan complexion."

-----

Follow Barrow on Twitter (at)BillBarrowAP.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-near-solid-block-against-obamacare-191744666.html

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NYC Kids Show Review: Piggy Nation the Musical! | The Mama ...

by Senior Reviewer Maytal Wichman

Having good manners is something I am constantly working on with my kids, especially when we?re in public. It?s an ongoing thing that I try to be aware of, while at the same time not noticing that I myself might be lacking in the manners department. I recently attended a performance of Piggy Nation and though I was happy to see a show that can insipre kids to be more mindful of their behavior, I was also relieved to see that sometimes being rude and obnoxious is just, well, a part of our natural behavior. (Read more after the jump)

Piggy Nation is about a little pig named Sammy who is on summer vacation and decides to accompany his father at his job as a cop on Piggy Patrol. Part of his job is to give tickets for piggy behavior. What?s piggy behavior? A rude attitude and thoughtless behavior. For example, cutting in line or talking loudly on your cell phone at a restaurant. Throughout the show Sammy and his dad meet various animals and give tickets to those who display piggy behavior. In the end (not to give away the ending, but there?s no real cliff-hanger here) they all admit they were piggies and apologize to one another.

Before the show, I had a chance to speak with Richard Rosser, who is the creative mind behind Piggy Nation ? he wrote the book and lyrics. The idea for Piggy Nation started after he was watching someone cut off his mother-in-law at a parking lot. He created the concept of a ?piggy ticket? and went on to write an award-winning children?s book called ?Piggy Nation, A Day at Work with Dad?. Together with composer Alec Wells, they adapted the book into a musical. ?We?re all piggies?, Rosser says. ?We?re all flawed. The fun thing is to be able to laugh about our behavior and know we?ll be doing it later in the day?.

He has a point. Admitting it is being able to at least be aware of our behavior. And while the characters in the show were not aware of their piggy behavior, it was very obvious and crystal-clear to the young children watching it. While the show?s concept is very ?educational?, the execution of it is hardly preachy; everything is tongue-in-cheek and amusing. The dialogue is clever and witty with some cute laugh-out-loud puns. The 8-person cast often runs up and down the isles which is fun and the music is an eclectic mix of rap, rock, blues, etc.

The theater is pretty small so you can get a good view of the show no matter where you sit. You can also bring snacks to eat while watching the show.

The show is suitable for kids ages 3 and up and is an hour and 15 minutes long.

Where: The Snapple Theater Center
210 West 50th Street (between Broadway & 8th Ave.)
New York, NY

When: Piggy Nation is performed Saturdays at 11am & 5pm; Sundays at noon.

How Much: $30-44 standard admission; $125 premium seating (plus fees)

To purchase tickets:
By phone: (212) 921-7862. You can order online here.
Box Office hours: M-Sat: 10am-6 or 8pm; Sun: 11am-7:30pm

All photos courtesy of Piggy Nation the Musical.

I was not compensated for this post. I received tickets to the show.

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Senior Reviewer Maytal Wichman is the owner of Mama?s Bites and has also written for The Huffington Post. She has been living in New York City for twelve years and holds a Bachelor?s Degree in English Literature as well as a Law Degree, but blogging is her true passion. Maytal is a stay-at-home mom to three kids (ages 6, 4 and a baby) and loves finding great products that make her family?s life easier.

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Look out squirrels: Leopards are new backyard wildlife

Friday, March 29, 2013

A new study led by WCS-India scientist Vidya Athreaya finds that certain landscapes of western India completely devoid of wilderness and with high human populations are crawling with a different kind of backyard wildlife: leopards.

The study found as many as five adult large carnivores, including leopards and striped hyenas, per 100 square kilometers (38 square miles), a density never before reported in a human-dominated landscape.

The study, called "Big Cats in Our Backyards," appeared in the March 6 edition of the journal PLoS One. Authors include: Vidya Athreya and Ullas Karanth of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore; Morten Odden of Hedmark University College; John D. C. Linnell of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research; and Jagdish Krishnaswamy of Asoka Trust for Research of Ecology in the Environment.

Using camera traps, the authors founds that leopards often ranged close to houses at night though remained largely undetected by the public. Despite this close proximity between leopards and people, there are few instances of attacks in this region. The authors also photographed rusty spotted cat, small Indian civet, Indian fox, jungle cat, jackal, mongoose ? and a variety of people from the local communities. The research took place in western Maharashtra, India.

"Human attacks by leopards were rare despite a potentially volatile situation considering that the leopard has been involved in serious conflict, including human deaths in adjoining areas," said big cat expert Ullas Karanth of WCS. "The results of our work push the frontiers of our understanding of the adaptability of both humans and wildlife to each other's presence."

The authors say that the findings show that conservationists must look outside of protected areas for a more holistic approach to safeguarding wildlife in a variety of landscapes.

###

Wildlife Conservation Society: http://www.wcs.org

Thanks to Wildlife Conservation Society for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127521/Look_out_squirrels__Leopards_are_new_backyard_wildlife

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Curry's big night sends Duke past Spartans 71-61

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Mike Krzyzewski already holds the NCAA record for most wins by a coach.

Thanks to Seth Curry's big scoring night, Krzyzewski could finish the weekend by tying one of John Wooden's records.

Curry scored 29 points, tied the school record for most 3-pointers in an NCAA tournament game and led the Duke Blue Devils past Michigan State 71-61, putting Krzyzewski within one win of his 12th Final Four appearance. All Duke has to do is beat top-seeded Louisville in the NCAA tournament's Midwest Regional final ? something it already has done.

"We were fortunate to win that game. They've been playing the best basketball in the country," Krzyzewski said, referring to Duke's 76-71 victory Nov. 24. "I love their two guards. I think they're great kids and they're dynamic. But they're deep. They're a deep team. We can't turn the ball over against them."

Duke (30-5) can create its own set of problems as the Spartans found out Friday night.

Curry knocked down six of his first seven 3s before missing his final two to tie a school record that had been attained six other times, most recently by Jason Williams on March 22, 2001, against UCLA. He had plenty of help, too. Rasheed Sulaimon scored 16 points, making 12 of 14 from the free-throw line, also tying a school record for free throws made in a tourney game. Mason Plumlee added 14 points and seven rebounds in the return to his home state.

And if Krzyzewski earns career win No. 958 on Sunday against top-seeded Louisville, he will break a second-place tie with North Carolina's Dean Smith and move into a tie with Wooden for most Final Four appearances by a head coach in NCAA history.

Krzyzewski isn't the only one chasing a milestone.

A win would also move Louisville coach Rick Pitino into a tie for fourth all-time with Roy Williams and he is trying to get the Cardinals back to the Final Four for the second straight year.

Clearly, Louisville (32-5) has a few advantages. The game in Indianapolis will be played about 100 miles from campus and another heavily-partisan Cardinals crowd is expected at Lucas Oil Stadium.

But Louisville will face a team that was ranked No. 1 earlier this season and in the same venue it lost as the top seeded team in the Midwest Region just four years ago to Michigan State. Plus, they'll be facing a Duke team that is clicking on all cylinders.

"If a team's game plan is to just to be tough or physical with us, that's not going to win," Plumlee said.

The Spartans (27-9) learned that lesson the hard way.

They focused, as usual, on dominating the middle.

Instead, Curry's 3-point barrage loosened things up, and forced Michigan State to play catch-up most of the second half.

His sixth 3 of the night broke a 38-38 tie early in the second half, sending Duke on a 9-0 run. The Blue Devils never trailed again.

"Honestly, I was just trying to help my shot. I got a few to go early," Curry said. "I feel like every time I take a shot, it's going to go down and nothing felt different tonight."

The Spartans were led by Keith Appling, who scored 16 points despite playing with a brace over his injured right shoulder. Adreian Payne added 14 points and 10 rebounds, but it wasn't nearly enough against Curry & Co.

Coach Tom Izzo was hoping that his only son's prediction, that Duke would beat Michigan State in the regional semis, would be wrong. Instead, the younger Izzo got it right.

"They're a good team, they played well, Curry hurt us, no question about it," Izzo said. "We didn't quit, we hung in there. I thought we played poorly for us, but the better team won tonight."

The game was billed as an entertaining contest between two of college basketball's most successful coaches ? and it lived up to the hype.

The first half was played to a near draw with four ties and eight lead changes.

Michigan State grabbed an 18-17 lead on Derrick Nix's tip-in with 9:52 left in the first half, but Curry then scored nine points in an 11-2 run for the Blue Devils. He was fouled by Travis Trice while attempting a 3-pointer and made all three free throws to make it 28-20 with 4:59 remaining.

Back came the Spartans, who clamped down on defense and closed to 32-31 at halftime.

But Curry's early second-half scoring spree was all the Blue Devils needed. Michigan State pulled within seven with 1:32 to go, but couldn't get any closer after trailing by as much as 13 in the second half.

"We knew we would have to play at that level. They're a little more athletic than we are," Krzyzewski said. "We had to try to match that and tonight we were able to do that. I'm glad it's not a seven-game series because I'm not sure we'd be able to continue to do it. But tonight we were able to do it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/currys-big-night-sends-duke-past-spartans-71-073643245--spt.html

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Early DiCaprio, Pitt audition tapes up for auction

By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor

Actors: They're so cute when they're young. And, as their audition tapes often prove -- super-talented. Now, some audition tapes featuring actors before they were uber-famous are going up on the auction block, and Darren Julien and Martin Nolan of Julien's Auction House joined TODAY's Matt Lauer Monday to share some extremely rare footage.

"We've never sold anything like this, so it's hard to say" how much the tapes will go for, said Julien, though bidding estimates are currently in the very reasonable range of $2,000-4,000.?

The tapes are not very high quality, but showcase some actors in the earliest years of their careers and shine a revealing light on just which actors went up for which roles, parts they weren't always right for. One of the tapes features a 15-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio in 1990 trying out for a TV series based on "The Outsiders," instead, the role went to "Mad Men's" Jay R. Ferguson.

TODAY

Also up for purchase: Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr. and Keanu Reeves all trying out for 1991's "Backdraft" (the role went to William Baldwin), Gwyneth Paltrow and Helen Hunt trying out for the role Laura Dern ultimately won in 1993's "Jurassic Park" and Nicole Kidman giving it her all while auditioning for 1991's "Shattered" (a role that went to Greta Scacchi). Plus many more.

TODAY

The tapes came from a casting director who wished to remain unnamed, but who had taken the footage over the past 30 years. All in all there are 12 lots of videos, with 54 auditions in all, and they hit the block from April 5-6.?

It's no surprise that many of these actors went on to fame and fortune, but as Nolan noted, "You have to start somewhere."

More in TODAY Entertainment:

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Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/03/29/17516063-rare-audition-tapes-for-leonardo-dicaprio-brad-pitt-go-on-auction-block?lite

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Paying the Costs of Iraq, for Decades to Come (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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

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Women's new place in combat: A Yahoo! chat

By Martyn Herman LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Whether by design, necessity, self-interest or because of all three, nurturing youngsters has become fashionable for England's elite with no expense spared in the hunt for the new Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard. The length and breadth of the country, scouts from top clubs are hoovering up promising footballers barely old enough to tie their bootlaces in a bid to unearth the 30 million pounds ($45.40 million) treasures of the future. ...

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Dana-Farber Scientists find potential loophole in pancreatic cancer defenses

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists and colleagues have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells' growth and spread are fueled by an unusual metabolic pathway that someday might be blocked with targeted drugs to control the deadly cancer.

Cancer cells are known to "rewire" their metabolic circuits differently from normal cells to provide energy for cancerous growth. A study published today in Naturereveals that pancreatic tumor cells are dependent on an amino acid, glutamine, which they utilize via a molecular pathway that has no apparent backup system.

"Pancreatic cancer cells have painted themselves into a metabolic bottleneck," said Dana-Farber's Alec Kimmelman, MD, PhD, co-senior author of the publication with Lewis Cantley, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medical College. Their research showed "that if you suppress any enzyme in that pathway, the cancer cells cannot effectively compensate and they can no longer grow," Kimmelman said.

Moreover, the investigators said, this novel glutamine pathway in pancreatic tumors does not appear to be important for normal cells, suggesting that inhibitor drugs could block cancer cells' growth without harming healthy tissues and organs.

"We don't have a drug to do this in humans," Kimmelman said, "but we are working on inhibitors of enzymes in the glutamine pathway."

The research showed that the cancer gene KRAS, which is the "signature" genetic mutation occurring in pancreatic cancer, directs the metabolic rewiring that creates the tumors' dependence on the glutamine pathway. KRAS, Kimmelman explained, changes the expression of key enzymes that maintain this pathway.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal and treatment-resistant of all cancers, with a dismal survival rate, and scientists have been searching for any vulnerability that could be exploited. One of the newer strategies in cancer research is studying the metabolic differences between cancer cells and normal cells with the goal of depriving tumors of their fuel.

In order to grow, cells must prevent the accumulation of damaging oxygen "free radicals," and they do so by maintaining a chemical "redox balance." The researchers found that when they blocked any of several enzyme reactions in the glutamine pathway, it undermined redox balance and suppressed the growth of human pancreatic cancer cells transplanted to mice.

If drugs can be developed to shut down the glutamine pathway, Kimmelman suggested, they might make pancreatic tumors more susceptible to standard treatments, such as radiation and chemotherapy, that cause free radicals to accumulate in cancer cells.

###

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: http://www.dfci.harvard.edu

Thanks to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 23 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127494/Dana_Farber_Scientists_find_potential_loophole_in_pancreatic_cancer_defenses

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Beleaguered Hollande to reach out to nation on TV

By Catherine Bremer

PARIS (Reuters) - With his approval ratings and most of his economic pledges in tatters, French President Francois Hollande will try to convince a disillusioned nation on television on Thursday to keep faith in him to restore the economy to health.

Hollande will be grilled in a 45-minute interview on France 2 television, his first such appearance in several months, in a studio whose backdrop and lighting have been prepared by his media team to create a somber mood.

The careful stage-managing risked being spoiled, however, by news hours before the interview that French actress Julie Gayet had filed a legal complaint for breach of privacy over rumors on the Internet alleging a liaison with the president.

The prosecutor's office told Reuters that Gayet, 40, filed a complaint against "persons unknown" on March 18 over the rumors, which have been circulating for some weeks.

A lawyer for Gayet did not respond to phone calls and Hollande's office declined to comment.

Ten months into his term, the Socialist is battling to keep the public behind him. He has irked left-wingers with pro-market measures to foster growth, angered business leaders with high taxes and failed to stem a rise in unemployment to 10.6 percent.

His ratings have slid faster than those of any other French president to as low as 22 percent as he has backtracked on growth and deficit targets. Few believe he can meet a promise to bring down the unemployment rate by the end of the year.

The TV interview is part of a public relations push, including a two-day, hand-shaking tour by Hollande in southeast France this month. The trip backfired when hecklers asked what had become of campaign pledges and one was carted off by police.

Hollande's top promise to his left-wing base, a 75 percent income tax on millionaires, has been crushed by the Constitutional Court.

Analysts say he would do well to spell out how the bleak economic outlook is forcing him to deviate from his election manifesto with sweeping spending cuts and higher taxes.

"Hollande's problem is that he talks all the time, but we don't hear him," political commentator Alain Duhamel told RTL radio. "If he comes out and really explains what he is doing ... then he could change the climate, little by little."

He needs, among other things, to prepare the nation for a pension reform to curb a growing deficit in the system, despite having opposed a 2010 move to lift the retirement age to 62.

The left-wing Liberation daily's front page bellowed: "L'Oral de Rattrapage" ("Oral Resit"), suggesting the interview would be Hollande's second chance to pass a flunked examination.

The weekly Le Point said his challenge "is not to master communication but to show that he can govern".

VEERING OFF COURSE

Data this week showed households' purchasing power fell in late 2012 for the first time since 1984 and that jobless claims rose for a 22nd straight month in February to reach the highest level since June 1997, amid a stream of industrial layoffs.

National statistics institute INSEE sees unemployment rising to 11 percent by mid-year, making Hollande's insistence that he can reverse the trend by year-end sound increasingly hollow.

With consumer spending stifled and company investment choked, the economy is set for a flat year, and Hollande is stuck between adding to an already ambitious plan of public spending cuts or hiking taxes to fix the public deficit.

In a sign of how far things are veering off course, Hollande has ordered billions of euros in extra cuts at government ministries and pushed a key deficit target back by a year.

"Francois Hollande was not elected to lead the French people down an endless path of austerity," Socialist Party lawmaker Pascal Cherki grumbled in parliament this week.

Despite economic gloom being foremost in voters' minds, the news of Gayet's complaint could not have landed at a worst time as it threw a spotlight on chatter thus far confined to Twitter and blog sites. French media quoted Gayet's lawyer as saying the rumors of a romantic relationship were baseless.

Hollande, 58, has already suffered media speculation over the state of his relationship with first lady Valerie Trierweiler after a tweet she sent last year hinted at tensions over his former partner, Socialist politician Segolene Royal.

Hollande and Trierweiler first met in the late 1980s when Trierweiler was working as a magazine journalist and Hollande was with Royal. The pair are unmarried but have been in a committed relationship for several years.

A survey by pollster CSA published on Thursday found that just 22 percent of respondents rated Hollande as a "good" president and 51 percent rated him as "bad". An LH2 poll gave him a 27 percent approval rating and found 81 percent of people were unhappy with his efforts on unemployment.

(Additional reporting by Chine Labbe, Elizabeth Pineau and Ingrid Melander, edited by Richard Meares)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beleaguered-hollande-reach-nation-tv-182215074--business.html

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Answer to mystery of Pluto's moons could depend on 2015 flyby

Pluto and its moon Charon act like a double-planet system with wreath of other, smaller moons. NASA's New Horizons mission could help explain how those moons got there.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / March 25, 2013

This photo by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the five moons in their orbits around Pluto.

Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/AP

Enlarge

New research by two astronomers has the potential to make the current NASA mission to Pluto and beyond more than just a first close-up glimpse of the distant, demoted planet. It could help scientists understand how planets form around other stars.

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The reason: While Pluto's companion, Charon, is widely considered a moon, its orbital relationship to Pluto is identical to that of stars in a binary-star system. Indeed, some astronomers hold that Charon is not a moon, but part of a binary dwarf-planet system, with Pluto as the senior partner.

With at least four other small moons orbiting beyond Charon, the Pluto system could be a unique laboratory for scientists.

"Not only could we try to understand the outer part of the solar system, we could actually have an idea of how planets form around binary stars and actually test it real life," says Scott Kenyon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who performed the analysis along with University of Utah's Benjamin Bromley.

Charon is thought to have formed from a collision between Pluto and another object, Dr. Kenyon explains. To try to determine how the smaller outer moons might have formed thereafter, the researchers used computer simulations. Did the outer moons form from the debris of the collision? Or did they take shape long afterward from the primordial disk of dust, rock, and ice that Pluto-Charon captured from its general neighborhood?

The simulations suggest that both scenarios are possible, but that each would yield moons with different compositions. NASA's New Horizons mission could help prove if either scenario is right. New Horizons is now half way to Pluto and is expected to reach the dwarf planet in 2015.

The results of the calculations by Kenyon and Dr. Bromley have been submitted for publication and have been posted on an astrophysics website in hopes that the New Horizons science team can work in observations that would test these competing ideas into the mission's science plan during the Pluto flyby.

Over the years, the known size of the Pluto system has expanded. Pluto itself was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. It took another 48 years to pick out Charon. In 2005, astronomers discovered Nix and Hydra. And between July 2011 and July 2012, researchers detected another two moons ? P4 and P5. (A recent nonbinding poll to name the two moons suggested Vulcan and Cerberus.)

Assuming a giant impact formed Charon, the raw material for the other moons could have come from debris that formed a disk outside Charon's orbit.

For moons to form in this way, there would have needed to be enough debris, and it would have needed to be orbiting Pluto and Charon at a distance relatively undisturbed by their gravity ? so clumping could occur. "If you can't get material out past the orbit of P5 [the closest known moon to Pluto and Charon], then you're doomed," Kenyon says, because gravity from Pluto-Charon would sweep the material into those two objects.

But simulations of the impact scenario suggested that material did pass the orbit of P5 and that this scenario was the most efficient means of producing moons, Kenyon says. The collision yields more than enough debris to make moons with the masses astronomers think the system's moons have. Moreover, in the simulations, the innermost moon tends to settle into an orbit at a distance comparable to P5.?

But the approach that focuses on the primordial disk of dust and ice can also form moons, simulations found. At some point after the giant collision, the Pluto-Charon system could have drawn in a ring of dust and ice from material in the vicinity ? material that was part of the solar system's original inventory of dust, gas, and ice.

"You just gradually accumulate stuff over millions and millions of years, and that coagulates into the satellites," Kenyon says.

But simulations found that the masses of the moons formed in this scenario are at the lowest end of the range of mass estimates astronomers have calculated for the moons in the Pluto-Charon system. And those less-massive moons would appear in orbits much farther from Pluto-Charon than the existing moons.

Either way, if both scenarios start out with the same amount of mass in the debris disks, the same number of satellites will form, but their composition will be different.

If the satellites are formed from the collision debris, their composition will look much like Charon's. Charon is less dense than Pluto, consisting of a roughly 50-50 mix of ice (mostly water ice) and rock with a very icy surface. This allows it to reflect a relatively larger amount of sunlight from its surface than would a more mixed surface composition.

If the satellites formed via gradual accretion of primordial ice and rock well after a giant impact, Kenyon adds, the satellites would be darker and with a higher proportion of rock to ice.

In that way, they would look more like typical objects in the Kuiper Belt ? the broad expanse of rocky and icy objects left over from solar system's construction phase some 4.6 billion years ago. The belt's inner edge is about 2.8 billion miles from the sun, just beyond Neptune's orbit. The outer edge is thought to lie about 4.7 billion miles from the sun.

Pluto, which orbits the sun at an average distance of 3.7 billion miles, is the second largest known dwarf planet. The solar system's largest, most massive dwarf planet is Eris, which orbits the sun at an average distance of 6.3 billion miles.

Based on the simulations, New Horizons could find perhaps five to 10 more moons in the Pluto-Charon system, Kenyon says. They would be small, perhaps ranging from 1,000 feet to a mile or two across, and outside the orbit of Hydra. And there would be enough material for a tenuous disk of particles whose size are measured in inches.

New Horizons can begin its observations of the Pluto-Charon system about 70 days before its closest encounter and for some days after.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/FmuskSbrWAI/Answer-to-mystery-of-Pluto-s-moons-could-depend-on-2015-flyby

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Your Minifig Magic Could Get a Lego: The Movie Cameo

You're never going to be a movie star, but with a little luck, maybe your Lego bricks can be. Thanks to a new contest for the upcoming blockbuster, Lego: The Movie, you've got a shot at your own 15-30 seconds of vicarious stardom. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/zzymUNwKWNI/your-minifig-magic-could-get-a-lego-the-movie-cameo

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Zynga Snags Analyst to Be VP of Finance - Mike Isaac - Social ...

After a string of high-level departures in 2012, it looks like Zynga is firming up its executive ranks.

The gaming company looks to have snapped up Atul Bagga, an analyst formerly of Lazard Capital Markets, to be the new VP of finance at Zynga, according to a recent change in Bagga?s LinkedIn profile.

Bagga will report to Mark Vranesh, who was appointed Zynga?s chief financial officer back in November of 2012, when former CFO Mike Gupta left to join Twitter. (Gupta became CFO at Twitter shortly thereafter.)

Bagga seems a pretty natural fit at Zynga. He covered video games and Internet companies during his time at Lazard, and has been working as an analyst covering games, media and the digital space for close to 20 years. He has also got a finance background, with stints spent at ThinkEquity and brokerage firm Smith New Court (now a part of Merrill Lynch).

Bagga is a graduate of UC Berkeley?s Haas School of Business, and also holds advanced degrees from the University of Bombay and the National Institute of Technology in Allahabad, India.

Zynga confirmed to AllThingsD that Bagga joined the company.

The hire is one in a string of important appointments for Zynga, which continues to re-staff key positions after its series of executive defections at the end of 2012 and beginning of this year. In a high-level restructuring at the end of 2012, David Ko slid into the COO position while Barry Cottle became Zynga?s chief revenue officer. The company continues to trumpet its heavy focus on mobile going forward, attempting to diversify its game offerings outside of the Facebook platform.

It?s worth noting that apparently not all the departures have been stymied quite yet. Zynga CIO Debra Chrapaty announced Monday she would be leaving the gaming company to become CEO of Nirvanix, an enterprise cloud storage company.

Shares of Zynga were up 1.5 percent after regular trading on Monday afternoon at $3.46 per share.

Source: http://allthingsd.com/20130325/zynga-snags-analyst-to-be-vp-of-finance/

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Icahn opens door to Blackstone tie-up on Dell bid

By Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim

(Reuters) - Two of the most prominent U.S. investors could upset Michael Dell's $24.4 billion buyout bid for Dell Inc, after billionaire Carl Icahn opened the door to an alliance with Blackstone Group to wrest control of the computer maker from its founder.

Icahn said on Monday he has started preliminary talks with Blackstone. Both sides have made bids that could be superior to the offer on the table from Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.

The backroom negotiations show how what started as Michael Dell and Silver Lake's plan to take the PC maker private could turn into a months-long process.

Icahn has proposed paying $15 per share for 58 percent of Dell. Blackstone has indicated it can pay more than $14.25 per share. The Silver Lake group offered $13.65 per share for all of Dell.

Dell and Silver Lake declined comment. Blackstone did not respond to requests for comment.

Icahn, who owns a $1 billion stake in Dell, said both his and Blackstone's offers give the company's largest investors what they wanted most - the ability to retain publicly traded shares of Dell.

Southeastern Asset Management, Dell's largest independent shareholder and one of the most vocal opponents of the Silver Lake plan, said it was pleased about that prospect, as well as the higher offers.

Another investor, Bill Nygren, co-manager of the Oakmark Fund, added, "Given the wide range of estimated values for Dell shares, if all else is nearly equal, we believe a proposal is superior if it allows investors who want to remain invested in Dell the opportunity to do so."

The outcome of the auction would determine the future of Dell, which was regarded as a model of innovation as recently as the early 2000s but has struggled to make up for declining market share of the global PC market.

A source earlier said that Dell had slashed its internal forecast for fiscal 2013 operating profit to about $3 billion - down sharply from the $3.7 billion it had predicted previously.

Dell's shares closed up 2.6 percent to $14.51 on Monday, indicating investors expect a deal to be done at a price higher than the Silver Lake bid. Earlier in the session they touched $14.64, the stock's highest level in 10 months.

"We continue to believe a higher bid than the current $13.65 per share offer will likely be offered but, based on our assumptions, a $15 per share bid may be a threshold," Wells Fargo Securities analyst Maynard Um said in a note.

"We believe a higher Silver Lake/Dell bid might still be a more attractive and strategic option, assuming information regarding the public stub and financial services sale is accurate," he said.

Late on Sunday, two sources close to the matter said that the Silver Lake group had no plans yet to increase or amend its offer until Dell's special committee comes out with a ruling on the rival proposals.

DOES DELL STAY?

As part of his deal with the special committee of Dell's board that is running the auction process, Michael Dell has to explore the possibility of working with third parties on alternative offers. On Monday, Dell said he had reaffirmed that commitment.

Still, Michael Dell is very concerned that Blackstone's offer would dismantle the PC maker he founded in 1984, two people close to Michael Dell said. The founder is worried that the buyout firm's plans would be inconsistent with his strategy to reinvest in the company, the sources said.

Michael Dell is planning to meet with Blackstone to discuss the private equity firm's bid, two other sources familiar with the situation said.

Blackstone made no mention of asset sales in its preliminary offer. But people familiar with the matter have told Reuters that Blackstone has considered a potential sale of Dell's financial services business as part of its turnaround plan.

Michael Dell's role also remains unclear in a Blackstone-led deal. The buyout firm has already made an unsuccessful push to recruit Oracle Corp President Mark Hurd to run Dell if it takes over the company, one source familiar with the situation said last week. {ID:nL1N0CD0MI]

A number of issues remain to be addressed, a separate person familiar with the matter said on Monday of Michael Dell. Among them, what Michael Dell would do if a buyer wanted to sell a business and he did not, the source said.

Potential buyers are likely to want to sit down with Michael Dell to discuss his plans for a privately held Dell Inc in more detail, the source said, adding that Blackstone had not done so yet.

Switching bidding allegiances could preserve an affiliation with the company for Michael Dell, who founded the technology giant at the age of 19 with just $1,000.

Under the Silver Lake plan, he planned to contribute his roughly 16 percent share of Dell's equity to the deal, along with cash from his investment firm MSD Capital, and remain CEO of the company. Silver Lake is putting up $1.4 billion.

(Additional reporting by Nadia Damouni and Jessica Toonkel in New York and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Andrew Hay)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dells-board-evaluates-rival-bids-source-004054117--sector.html

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GOP's Medicaid 'No' Becomes 'Let's Make A Deal'

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Given the choice of whether to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care law, many Republican governors and lawmakers initially responded with an emphatic "no."

Now they are increasingly hedging their objections.

A new "no, but ..." approach is spreading among GOP states in which officials are still publicly condemning the Democratic president's Medicaid expansion yet floating alternatives that could provide health coverage to millions of low-income adults while potentially tapping into billions of federal dollars that are to start flowing in 2014.

The Medicaid health care program for poor, which is jointly funded by the federal and state governments, already covers about one in five people in the U.S. Expanding it was the way Obama envisioned covering many more low-income workers who don't have insurance. The new Republican alternatives being proposed in states generally would go part of the way, but cover fewer people than Obama's plan, guarantee less financial help or rely more on private insurers.

But so far, many of the Republican ideas are still more wistful than substantive. It's uncertain whether they will actually pass. And even if they do, there's no guarantee Obama's administration will allow states to deviate too greatly from the parameters of the Affordable Care Act while still reaping its lucrative funding. Yet a recent signal from federal officials that Arkansas might be able to use Medicaid money to buy private insurance policies has encouraged Republicans to try alternatives.

The GOP proposals could lead to another health care showdown between the White House and states, leaving millions of Americans who lack insurance waiting longer for resolution. Officials in about 30 states that are home to more than 25 million uninsured residents remain either defiant or undecided about implementing Obama's Medicaid expansion, according to an Associated Press survey.

Supporters of the Medicaid expansion have built coalitions of hospitals, businesses groups, religious leaders and advocates for the poor to try to persuade reluctant Republicans of the economic and moral merits of Obama's health care plan. But some Republicans believe the pressure ultimately will fall on Obama to accept their alternatives if he wants to avoid a patchwork system for his signature accomplishment.

"If the Obama administration is serious about innovative ways to bring down the cost of health care, it's going to cooperate with conservative ideas rather than continue down its one-size-fits-all, far-left-wing ideological path," said Missouri Rep. Jay Barnes, a Republican from Jefferson City.

A House committee led by Barnes already has defeated Obama's version of Medicaid expansion. It is to hear public testimony Monday on his "market-based Medicaid" alternative that would award health care contracts to competing private insurers and provide cash incentives to patients who hold down their health-care costs. His proposal would contain costs by covering fewer children than Medicaid now does and adding fewer adults than Obama's plan envisions.

Committees in Florida's Republican-led Legislature also have rejected a Medicaid expansion for roughly 1 million of the state's poorest residents, even though it is backed by GOP Gov. Rick Scott. Now Republican Sen. Joe Negron is pursuing an alternative that would use federal funds to provide vouchers for low-income residents to buy private policies. Negron said he still doesn't believe expanding Medicaid is the right decision, but he wants to help Florida residents get health coverage.

"We don't want to do it the Washington way. We want to do it the Florida way," Negron said.

Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich also has been in discussions with the Obama administration about providing subsidized insurance instead of full Medicaid coverage for more adults. Republican governors in Texas, Nebraska and Indiana want the federal government to award Medicaid money as block grants to states.

"It's a two-step for many of these Republican governors. When they look at the numbers they want to do it, but they want to distance themselves from Obamacare at the same time," said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that analyzes health care policies.

That might be fine with the Obama administration.

"There actually is quite a bit of flexibility on how they can approach this, and the federal government has indicated they want to get to `yes' " said Joan Alker, co-executive director of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families in Washington, D.C.

As originally enacted, the Affordable Care Act required states to expand Medicaid to adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, about $32,500 annually for a family of four. A Supreme Court decision last summer made the expansion optional for states but kept in place a powerful financial incentive. The federal government will fully fund the expansion for the first three years, with the states' share gradually increasing to 10 percent by 2020.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in December that getting full funding will still require a full expansion. Yet some Republicans in Missouri, South Dakota and elsewhere claim to see room for compromise.

LaTonya Jenkins, a 51-year-old laid off teacher's aide who lives in temporary housing for the homeless in Kansas City, recently enrolled in Medicaid but could lose coverage if her part-time job pushes her income over Missouri's strict eligibility limits. She recently traveled to Missouri Capitol to urge lawmakers to expand Medicaid.

"If they don't, and they cut it out, then what are we to do? We'll be lost," said a tearful Jenkins, who has diabetes and cares for her grandson. "I'll be sicker than ever and back in the hospital."

___

Associated Press writer Kelli Kennedy contributed to this report from Miami.

___

Follow David A. Lieb at: http://www.twitter.com/DavidALieb

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/24/gop-medicaid_n_2944788.html

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Kerry urges Iraq to stop arms flow to Syria on Baghdad visit

Jason Reed / Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, March 24, 2013.

By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters

Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday and said he told Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of his concern about Iranian flights over Iraq carrying arms to Syria.

Washington believes such flights and overland transfers take place nearly every day and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to crush a two-year-old revolt against his rule, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kerry said he had told Maliki the Iranian flights through Iraqi airspace were "problematic".

"Anything that supports President Assad is problematic," Kerry told reporters. "I made it very clear to the prime minister that the overflights from Iran ... are in fact helping to sustain President Assad and his regime."

Speaking before the meeting, the U.S. official said the Iraqi government had inspected only two flights since last July and that Kerry would argue Iraq did not deserve a role in talks about neighboring Syria's future unless it tried to stop the suspected arms flow.

Iraqi officials denied allowing the transfer of weapons from Iran to Syria through Iraqi airspace. Abbas al-Bayati, a member of the Security and Defence parliamentary committee, said: "We have done our duty by randomly inspecting a number of Iranian flights and we did not find any leaked or smuggled weapons."

"If the U.S. is keen to push us to do more they have to give us the information that they have relating to this," he said.

More than a decade after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq still struggles with insurgents, sectarian friction and political feuds among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions who share power in the government of Shi'ite premier Maliki.

Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda and invigorated by the war next door in Syria - where Sunni rebels are battling Assad, an ally of Shi'ite Iran - are regaining ground in Iraq and have stepped up attacks on Shi'ite targets in recent months in an attempt to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation.

Kerry held talks with representatives of all three communities, including Osama al-Nujaifi, the Sunni speaker of parliament.

He also spoke by telephone to Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdish region, whose regional government is pressing ahead with plans to build an oil pipeline to Turkey that Washington fears could lead to the break-up of Iraq.

According to reporters at a picture-taking session at the start of Kerry's talks with Maliki, the U.S. diplomat appeared to joke that Hillary Clinton, his predecessor, had said Iraq would do whatever Washington asked.

"The Secretary told me that you're going to do everything that I say," Kerry said, according to the reporters.

"We won't do it," Maliki, also joking, replied, the reporters said.

SUICIDE BLASTS

In his talks with Maliki, Kerry also asked the Iraqi prime minister and his cabinet to reconsider a decision to postpone local elections in two Sunni-majority provinces, Anbar and Nineveh, the U.S. official said.

The Iraqi cabinet last week postponed the votes, which were due on April 20, for up to six months because of threats to electoral workers and violence there - a step Washington believes will only increase tensions.

While violence has fallen from the height of the sectarian slaughter that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007, insurgents have carried out at least one major attack a month since U.S. forces left. Bombings and killings still happen daily, often aimed at Shi'ite areas and local security forces.

More than a dozen car bombs and suicide blasts tore through Shi'ite Muslim districts in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and other areas on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people on the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam.

Further complicating security, thousands of Sunni protesters have rallied in Anbar against Maliki, whose Shi'ite-led government they accuse of marginalizing their minority sect since the fall of Sunni strongman Saddam.

Additional reporting by Suadad al-Salhy

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/29ee35d0/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C240C17440A7260Ekerry0Eurges0Eiraq0Eto0Estop0Earms0Eflow0Eto0Esyria0Eon0Ebaghdad0Evisit0Dlite/story01.htm

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Nottingham-Australia collaboration on environmental conservation of the future

Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Emma Rayner
emma.rayner@nottingham.ac.uk
44-011-595-15793
University of Nottingham

The national parks, nature reserves and wetlands of the semi-arid wheatbelt of Western Australia with their rich diversity of flora and fauna are the backdrop for new research to improve the management of natural resources in the 21st century.

The project will combine the latest ideas in computer science at The University of Nottingham with the pioneering ambitions of forward-thinking Australian environmental planners.

Researchers from the University's Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute are working with the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) to create new software tools and processes to create a new environmental planning framework called Value-Plan.

Specifically, the goal of the research project is to acquire accurate information on the values people like farmers, industry professionals and conservationists attach to a wide variety of biological assets in Australia and incorporate this into a new environmental planning approach.

The new survey tools and intelligent data software to be researched and developed will inform decision-making at government level in the field of sustainable development and environmental policy planning. It is hoped the approach will ultimately be adopted by government and non-government organisations alike, and could be applicable to a diverse range of management applications, including town planning and natural resource management.

The system will be trialled over the next two years in two conservation areas of Western Australia, and initial work has already begun at the Lake Warden Natural Diversity Recovery Catchment near Esperance.

Dr Christian Wagner, computer scientist from the University's Horizon Institute, has just returned from a research trip to Western Australia. He said:

"This project has the potential to inform policy making in environmental conservation all over the world. For example, decisions ranging from town-planning to the construction of new power plants and transport infrastructure generally require consultation with a wide variety of groups, including local and regional stakeholders as well as incorporating information from various sources including surveys, impact studies and sensor measurements.

"Being able to aggregate these different information sources in a coherent way to enable informed decision making is vital both in order for the decisions to be appropriate to the specific context as well as to maintain due transparency in the decision process. We need to solve the problem of how to maximise the use of available conservation funds and human resources through combining innovative data collection and analysis techniques to accurately reflect the quantitative data available as well as the subjective views of stakeholders."

Dr Michael Smith, from the Western Australian Dept of Environment and Conservation added; "We hope that our work will allow nature conservation managers to better understand and account for the actual values that humans derive from our natural environment. This is important because good management should be driven by the values that are important to people, it gives local stakeholders ownership of the process and helps to create transparency for people to understand why and how conservation is occurring. This important project will also contribute to a collaborative venture the department has with the Future Farm Industries Cooperative Research Centre."

The research will delve into cutting edge computer science with four main goals:

• The design of new survey methods that capture stakeholder views on the human values of different biological assets. Stakeholders include local conservation and industry groups, professional scientists and natural resource managers. It will accommodate uncertainty in stakeholder opinions by providing for example an 'interval on a scale' rating option.
• The integration of the survey tools in an online website based in part on existing software components developed by Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute.
• Researchers will develop algorithms to aggregate the (often) existing quantitative data with collected qualitative stakeholder input. As part of this, initial aggregation across multiple stakeholder opinions and multiple sources of quantitative information will be investigated and suitable tools will be developed. An overall, interpretable model of the value-based model will be designed to support policy design and data-driven decision-making.
• The new computer-based framework will be used and evaluated in the two conservation areas managed by DEC. The results will be made available specifically to global stakeholders (e.g. policy makers) in particular in the UK as well as published at international conferences, science fairs and journals.

###

---

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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: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Emma Rayner
emma.rayner@nottingham.ac.uk
44-011-595-15793
University of Nottingham

The national parks, nature reserves and wetlands of the semi-arid wheatbelt of Western Australia with their rich diversity of flora and fauna are the backdrop for new research to improve the management of natural resources in the 21st century.

The project will combine the latest ideas in computer science at The University of Nottingham with the pioneering ambitions of forward-thinking Australian environmental planners.

Researchers from the University's Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute are working with the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) to create new software tools and processes to create a new environmental planning framework called Value-Plan.

Specifically, the goal of the research project is to acquire accurate information on the values people like farmers, industry professionals and conservationists attach to a wide variety of biological assets in Australia and incorporate this into a new environmental planning approach.

The new survey tools and intelligent data software to be researched and developed will inform decision-making at government level in the field of sustainable development and environmental policy planning. It is hoped the approach will ultimately be adopted by government and non-government organisations alike, and could be applicable to a diverse range of management applications, including town planning and natural resource management.

The system will be trialled over the next two years in two conservation areas of Western Australia, and initial work has already begun at the Lake Warden Natural Diversity Recovery Catchment near Esperance.

Dr Christian Wagner, computer scientist from the University's Horizon Institute, has just returned from a research trip to Western Australia. He said:

"This project has the potential to inform policy making in environmental conservation all over the world. For example, decisions ranging from town-planning to the construction of new power plants and transport infrastructure generally require consultation with a wide variety of groups, including local and regional stakeholders as well as incorporating information from various sources including surveys, impact studies and sensor measurements.

"Being able to aggregate these different information sources in a coherent way to enable informed decision making is vital both in order for the decisions to be appropriate to the specific context as well as to maintain due transparency in the decision process. We need to solve the problem of how to maximise the use of available conservation funds and human resources through combining innovative data collection and analysis techniques to accurately reflect the quantitative data available as well as the subjective views of stakeholders."

Dr Michael Smith, from the Western Australian Dept of Environment and Conservation added; "We hope that our work will allow nature conservation managers to better understand and account for the actual values that humans derive from our natural environment. This is important because good management should be driven by the values that are important to people, it gives local stakeholders ownership of the process and helps to create transparency for people to understand why and how conservation is occurring. This important project will also contribute to a collaborative venture the department has with the Future Farm Industries Cooperative Research Centre."

The research will delve into cutting edge computer science with four main goals:

• The design of new survey methods that capture stakeholder views on the human values of different biological assets. Stakeholders include local conservation and industry groups, professional scientists and natural resource managers. It will accommodate uncertainty in stakeholder opinions by providing for example an 'interval on a scale' rating option.
• The integration of the survey tools in an online website based in part on existing software components developed by Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute.
• Researchers will develop algorithms to aggregate the (often) existing quantitative data with collected qualitative stakeholder input. As part of this, initial aggregation across multiple stakeholder opinions and multiple sources of quantitative information will be investigated and suitable tools will be developed. An overall, interpretable model of the value-based model will be designed to support policy design and data-driven decision-making.
• The new computer-based framework will be used and evaluated in the two conservation areas managed by DEC. The results will be made available specifically to global stakeholders (e.g. policy makers) in particular in the UK as well as published at international conferences, science fairs and journals.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uon-nco032513.php

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