Tunisia union says govt shields militia after attack

TUNIS (AFP) - Tunisia's main trade union confederation, the UGTT, lashed out on Saturday at the Islamist-led government for failing to crack down on a militia for attacking their headquarters in December.

General Union of Tunisian Workers secretary general Houcine Abassi accused the government of lacking the "political will to recognise that the UGTT was attacked by the League for Protecting the Revolution (LPR)," a group said to support the government.

Several dozen alleged members of the LPR attacked union members on December 4 outside their Tunis headquarters as they gathered to mark the 60th anniversary of the assassination of their founder.

Government members of the commission of inquiry into the incident did not accept union claims that the LPR was trying to "use violence to pressure the UGTT into accepting the government's wishes."

A final report into the fighting, which had been due in January, has yet to be published.

Relations between the UGTT and Ennahda, the Islamist party that heads the government coalition, are already tense.

The UGTT, which has several hundred thousand members, and Ennahda, regularly trade accusations. Most recently the union accused Ennahda of trying to curtail the right to strike in the new constitution that is being drafted.

Ennahda believes the UGTT is partly responsible for rising tensions by ramping up strikes that knock out entire sectors of the economy. A general strike called by the UGTT after the February murder of anti-Islamist politician Chokri Belaid paralysed the country.

These disputes and the violence that accompanies them have made foreign investors skittish.

Source: http://www.modernghana.com/news/456984/1/tunisia-union-says-govt-shields-militia-after-atta.html

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401(k) Rollovers: IRA Plan Providers Mislead, Overwhelm Savers ...

Aggressive marketing of IRAs by plan providers ? often with misleading or false advise or promotional pitches ?? is costing individuals unnecessary fees and pushing them into unsuitable options when rolling over 401(k)s, according to a new government report.

Call-center representatives for financial firms often encourage rolling 401(k) savings into an IRA, ?even with only minimal knowledge of a caller?s financial situation,? said a investigation by the Government Accountability Office released Wednesday.

?Plan participants are often subject to biased information and aggressive marketing of IRAs when seeking assistance and information regarding what to do with their 401(k) plan savings? when they separate from their employer.

The opportunity for financial firms to sell participants their own retail investment products and services, such as IRAs, often results in steering? participants toward the purchase of products and services that ?do not serve the participants? best interests,? the GAO found.

Individual retirement accounts ? known as IRAs ? have become important retirement savings vehicles for many, including small business owners, independent contractors, and other workers not covered by an employer sponsored pension plan.

But 401(k) plan participants separating from their employers find it difficult to understand and compare all their distribution options.

Information participants currently receive is either too generic and without detail, leaving them without knowing key factors to make decisions about their savings. Often, consumers are left overwhelmed and confused, the GAO said.

The GAO hired undercover investigators to call 30 of the largest 401(k) providers to review how the firms market products to 401(k) account holders.

Eleven firms encouraged a rollover to an IRA; 12 raised doubts about the caller?s ability to roll over to a new employer?s plan; and 16 promoted IRAs for having more investment options.

Seven incorrectly said that there were no fees to open or maintain an IRA, according to the GAO. Moreover, 5 out of 10 large firms advertised free IRAs on their websites, but included fee information within hard-to-find documents.

Here?s an example from the GAO report:

For example, in response to a call from our investigator, a representative at a service provider?s call center said that IRAs differ from 401(k) plans because an IRA ?has no taxes.?

The representative did not explain what taxes he was referring to in his comment. Though IRA cash outs to not require up-front tax withholding the way 401(k) plan cash outs do, ultimately most IRA and 401(k) plan distributions will be taxed the same way at the end of the year.

Given many individuals? lack of basic financial literacy, such a statement could be misunderstood by some to mean that savings in a 401(k) plan are taxed but savings in an IRA are not. In fact, both IRAs and 401(k) plans offer a place to accumulate retirement savings tax ? free until distribution.

The GAO recommends that the U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service work to ensure that individuals receive ?complete and timely information, including enhanced disclosures, about the distribution options for their 401(k) plan savings? when separating from an employer.

In response, Labor and Treasury generally agreed with the findings and will explore ways to implement these recommendations.

The GAO said the Secretary of Labor should require plan service providers to disclose any financial interests they may have when assisting individuals with distribution options ?in a clear, consistent, and prominent manner.?

Source: http://ecreditdaily.com/2013/04/401k-rollovers-ira-plan-providers-mislead-overwhelm-savers-gao/

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Math Says That Senator Susan Collins May Be Next to Support Gay Marriage

Since senatorial announcements of newfound support for gay marriage have gotten dull, the hot new trend in politics is to try and predict which senator will be next to come out into the open on the issue. Some, like the Washington Post's Sean Sullivan, made predictions based on their guts. But if we learned anything during 2012, it's that data always trumps gut calls. So we looked at the data.

RELATED: Morning Vid: Ted Olson Defends Prop. 8 Ruling On Fox News

We had three theories of what state characteristic might serve as a predictor that its senator was about to change his or her mind. The first was how Obama fared in the state last November, that there might be correlation between how Obama did electorally and the order in which senators declared support on the issue. The second was household income, that senators' shifts correlated to socioeconomics. And, finally, that the correlation was between the density of same-sex couples in a state.

RELATED: New York Senate Punts Gay Marriage to Next Week

Obama's margin of victory

A quick description of methodology is in order. The blue line on each chart below (pegged to the left axis) indicates (using?data very helpfully compiled by the?Post) the number of days between a senator's announcement of support and the first senator to make such an announcement: Barbara Boxer, in June 2006. (This isn't quite true; Ron Wyden announced in 1996, but that threw off the curve.) So the flat part at the right of the blue curve is the recent spate of announcements. We included both interactive and static versions of the charts because we wanted to include a trend line ??that dashed red line in the second chart below. (For the truly curious, that line is a fifth-order polynomial.)

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And so: The relationship between announcements of support and how Obama fared in the state. What we're looking for is a dashed line that clearly descends over time.

RELATED: New Jersey Senate Passes Gay Marriage Bill

RELATED: Most Americans Glad Obama Endorsed Gay Marriage, Won't Change Their Vote

Data from Washington Post.

Verdict: Correlation.

It seems clear that how Obama fared in a state is a good indicator of when a senator is likely to announce support for same-sex marriage. Which isn't a surprise, of course. Politicians are very reactive to political support. And the more political support demonstrated for a candidate that supports same-sex marriage, the more likely another candidate would be to take the same position.

If this model is correct, the next five most-likely announcements would come from:

• 1. Susan Collins, Maine
• 2. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin
• 3. Dean Heller, Nevada
• 4. Chuck Grassley, Iowa
• 5. Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire

These are all Republican senators. Which isn't a big surprise; it makes sense that states that voted for Obama but have Republican senators would most likely be what's left. The four Democrats who still haven't endorsed ? Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia ? would be the 23rd, 25th, 38th, and 39th most likely to do so under this model.

Please note: If Heller or Grassley declares his support for gay marriage, send warm coats to Hell.

Household income

Data from Washington Post and the Census Bureau.

Verdict: No correlation.

The line here is probably too flat to use as a guide of who might be next to endorse the concept. So we can skip our predictions.

Density of same-sex couples

Data from Washington Post and the Census Bureau.

Verdict: Hard to tell.

There appears to be a loose correlation between the density of same-sex couples in a state (as a percentage of all households, calculated by the Census) and how rapidly a senator will declare his or her support. This may, then, be a good test case. If one of the following five senators is next to declare an evolution, we may be on to something.

• 1. Susan Collins, Maine
• 2. Dean Heller, Nevada
• 3. Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire
• 4. Marco Rubio, Florida
• 5. Jeff Flake, Arizona

Rubio and Flake are interesting cases. The former is going to be abnormally sensitive to tricky political situations, given his ambitions. The latter recently said he expected a pro-gay-marriage Republican presidential candidate in the future, though he likely didn't mean Rubio.

All of this data, of course, correlates to a bunch of other things, like urban density for example. Consider it more of a thought exercise than anything.

If you're curious, the Post's Sullivan made the following predictions, in order: Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; Susan Collins, Maine; Richard Burr, North Carolina; Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire; Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania. Somehow Dean Heller didn't make the cut, but otherwise not all that different than our list.

Meanwhile, Nate Silver of 538, the man who taught us all about the supremacy of data, did his own analysis of the data. Among his conclusions:

Some senators will continue to oppose it, either because it does not yet constitute a majority position in their states (like Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, they may say it should be decided at the state level), or because they oppose it on moral grounds, or because they are more concerned about a primary challenge than the general election.

Heitkamp announced her support today. Maybe there's something to this gut thing after all.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/math-says-senator-susan-collins-may-next-support-201618057.html

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Judge strikes restrictions on "morning-after" pill

By Jessica Dye

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age, while blasting top Obama administration officials for interfering with the process.

The ruling in a Brooklyn court is the latest step in the years-long legal saga over the pill known as "Plan B," which has sparked political controversy.

Currently, only women age 17 or older can obtain emergency contraception pills without a prescription. Point-of-sale restrictions require that all women present identification to a pharmacist before obtaining the drug.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman said the FDA's rejection of requests to remove age restrictions was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson declined to comment on the ruling, saying it was an ongoing legal matter.

The Center for Reproductive Rights and other groups had petitioned the FDA to strike down age and access limits, saying there was no scientific proof that girls younger than 17 could not safely use the drug without supervision.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, hailed the ruling. "Women all over the country will no longer face arbitrary delays and barriers just to get emergency contraception," she said.

The ruling is also likely to be well received by medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended last year that pediatricians write advance prescriptions for patients under 17.

But opponents of abortion decried the ruling and warned that the pill's widespread availability could spur criminal activity.

"When these are right out there with the bubble gum, they're going to be part of the date rape cocktail," said Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life.

Some pharmacists across the United States have refused to dispense emergency contraceptives because it violates their religious faith. Making the pills available over the counter removes the pharmacist's role in dispensing the drug, which Brauer welcomed.

POLITICAL CONTROVERSY

Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd's Plan B in 1999 became the first emergency contraceptive available for prescription use in the United States. The company also markets Plan B One-Step, a one-pill version of Plan B.

"Teva has received the Court's decision and we are currently reviewing it," said company spokeswoman Denise Bradley. "We have no additional comment at this time."

Emergency contraceptives generally sell for $10 to $80. Although they can work as long as 120 hours after unprotected sex, they are most effective in the first 24 hours.

Sanford Bernstein analysts estimate Teva's 2013 sales for Plan B at just $1.5 million, though, because of generic competition like Next Choice from Actavis Inc.

In 2005 the FDA declined to approve over-the-counter sales of the drug, overruling its panel of outside experts as well as its own scientists.

In December 2011 the FDA reversed that stance and moved to approve over-the-counter sales with no age limits. But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled it, ordering that girls under 17 could only get the pills with a prescription.

As a result of that policy, women well beyond their teens are often asked to present proof of age to show that they are old enough to purchase the pills without a prescription, Judge Korman said.

'QUESTION HER GOOD FAITH'

In his ruling on Friday, Korman said Sebelius' actions were clearly political.

"Nevertheless, even with eyes shut to the motivation for the secretary's decision, the reasons she provided are so unpersuasive as to call into question her good faith," he wrote.

Representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available to comment on the ruling.

One FDA veteran praised the decision, though.

"This has been a 10-year saga during which the FDA was not allowed to do its role properly, not allowed to make science-based decisions," said Susan Wood.

Wood resigned from the FDA as assistant commissioner for women's health in 2005 over its decision not to approve over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception. She is now director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health at George Washington University in Washington.

"This decision gives the FDA the chance to reclaim its ability to make decisions based on science, medicine and evidence," Wood said, "not politics."

(Reporting by Jessica Dye in New York; Additional reporting by Sharon Begley in New York, Stephanie Simon in Boston and Toni Clarke in Washington; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Martha Graybow, Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-strikes-restrictions-morning-pill-123759152.html

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Quantum tricks drive magnetic switching into the fast lane

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, and the University of Crete in Greece have found a new way to switch magnetism that is at least 1000 times faster than currently used in magnetic memory technologies. Magnetic switching is used to encode information in hard drives, magnetic random access memory and other computing devices. The discovery, reported in the April 4 issue of Nature, potentially opens the door to terahertz and faster memory speeds.

Ames Laboratory physicist Jigang Wang and his team used short laser pulses to create ultra-fast changes in the magnetic structure, within quadrillionths of a second (femtosecond), from anti-ferromagnetic to ferromagnetic ordering in colossal magnetoresistive materials, which are promising for use in next-generation memory and logic devices. Scientists, led by Ilias E. Perakis, at the University of Crete developed the theory to explain the observation.

"The challenge facing magnetic writing, reading, storing and computing is speed, and we showed that we can meet the challenge to make the magnetic switches think ultra-fast in the femtosecond range ? one quadrillionth of a second ? by using quantum 'tricks' with ultrashort laser pulses " said Wang, who is also an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University.

In current magnetic storage and magneto-optical recording technology, magnetic field or continuous laser light is used. For example, photo-excitation causes atoms in ferromagnetic materials to heat up and vibrate, and the vibration, with the help of a magnetic field, causes magnetic flips. The flips are part of the process used to encode information.

"But the speed of such thermal magnetic switching is limited by how long it takes to vibrate the atoms, and by how fast a magnetic field can reverse magnetic regions" said Wang. "And it is very difficult to exceed the gigahertz switching speed limit of today's magnetic writing/reading technology."

So, some scientists have turned their attention to colossal magnetoresistive (CMR) materials because they are highly responsive to the external magnetic fields used to write data into memory, but do not require heat to trigger magnetic switching.

"Colossal magnetoresistive materials are very appealing for use in technologies, but we still need to understand more about how they work," said Wang. "And, in particular, we must understand what happens during the very short periods of time when heating is not significant and the laser pulses are still interacting with magnetic moments in CMR materials. That means we must describe the process and control magnetism using quantum mechanics. We called this 'quantum femto-magnetism.'"

Wang's team specializes in using ultra-fast spectroscopy, which Wang likens to high-speed strobe photography, because both use an external pump of energy to trigger a quick snapshot that can be then re-played afterwards. In ultra-fast laser spectroscopy, a short pulse of laser light is used to excite a material and trigger a measurement all on the order of femtoseconds.

"In one CMR manganite material, the magnetic order is switched during the 100-femtosecond-long laser pulse. This means that switching occurs by manipulating spin and charge quantum mechanically," said Wang. "In the experiments, the second laser pulse 'saw' a huge photo-induced magnetization with an excitation threshold behavior developing immediately after the first pump pulse."

The fast switching speed and huge magnetization that Wang observed meet both requirements for applying CMR materials in ultra-fast, terahertz magnetic memory and logic devices.

"Our strategy is to use all-optical quantum methods to achieve magnetic switching and control magnetism. This lays the groundwork for seeking the ultimate switching speed and capabilities of CMR materials, a question that underlies the entire field of spin-electronics," said Wang. "And our hope is that this means someday we will be able to create devices that can read and write information faster than ever before, yet with less power consumed."

###

DOE/Ames Laboratory: http://www.external.ameslab.gov

Thanks to DOE/Ames Laboratory 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/127590/Quantum_tricks_drive_magnetic_switching_into_the_fast_lane

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Scholastic Snake Oil: Why Schools Can't Educate Them

Why Schools Can't Educate Them

From my most recent post, you could probably tell that I don't think poets are made in MFA programs--or, for that matter, in English classes. The classes, and to a lesser degree the programs, have their value and function, but attending and doing well in them will not turn you into the next Wordsworth or, Lord knows, Emily Dickinson.

What I said in the previous paragraph probably seems self-evident, perhaps even trite, to you. ?Almost any sane person--or, at least, almost anyone who isn't an academic "poet"-- would agree with it, whether or not he or she knew that Wallace Stevens went to law school and Shakespeare and Whitman didn't go to any college at all.

More and more people also seem to agree that our scientists aren't trained in science classes, any more than our politicians are the products of our civics classes. ?And the Internet is full of pages and threads in which lawyers, engineers, business people, and artists rant about how little they learned in the classes that were supposed to train them for their professions. ? And it almost goes without saying that "leadership", however one defines it, will never be learned in a class ostensibly devoted to it.

Oh--and most people who are fluent in a language that's not their first didn't become so conversant and literate in their French, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, Swahili, Mandarin or whatever-language classes.

So why is it that, while most people will frankly admit, or simply agree, with everything I've just said, they still insist on more and more schooling? ?Or, at least, they go along with those who tell us that if some schooling is good, more must be better and will turn us into more productive workers and better citizens?

You may have other answers, and I'd be interested to hear them. But I think one reason is that schools were never intended to educate; they were designed only to manage. ?Now that everyone who makes decisions on educational policy--and the teachers who work under them--have been shaped by this system, it's no wonder that it can't educate even if those who administer and teach wanted it to do so. ?(To be fair, many teachers and professors want that, but have no idea of how to accomplish it.)

If you get young people to sit for a prescribed period of time--until the bell rings, until it's time to go to the next class, or to some other activity--it doesn't really matter whether they're sitting with their hands folded in front of them and their eyes on the teacher, or in the back of the room sending each other pornographic videos with their "smart" phones. ?Whatever their behavior, they are dependent: ?they are infantilized. ?Even fairly dim ones learn how to say just enough of what teachers and adults expect them to say in order not to be punished, in order to pass a test, in order to get a good enough test score and GPA to increase their own ranking in the school and their school's ranking in whatever system is ranking them. ?They know enough to work just hard enough, when it's called for, to get whatever prizes they're trying to get.

A friend of mine who has a natural gift for learning languages tells me of how, after several years of studying Spanish, she was castigated in a beginning French class for working and learning too quickly. ?A classmate, who taught himself calculus when he was eleven years old, was forced to sit through years of math courses in which he learned nothing so he could get the requisite math credits for graduation. ?

And I think of my own creative writing "workshops", in which students were expected to bring a poem to class every week. ?Anyone who didn't wasn't "contributing" to the class; never mind if the budding young poet was working on something that needed time for revision, and if said budding young poet offered useful or at least interesting critiques of other students' work. ?In Ars Poetica, Horace advised poets to put their newly-written poems aside for ten years before showing them to anyone else. ?Can you imagine him in Iowa or Columbia?

In brief, schools as we know them tell teachers and students to fit their ideas, ambitions, styles of learning and anything else related to real education into boxes on a scheduling sheet. ?What can that teach a student but that not only having an idea, but actually carrying it to fruition, is less important than doing whatever he or she needs to do in order to move along? ?What does it tell a teacher who, instead of taking the time to help guide that student, or give a student who is struggling with a problem--whether an academic or life-based one--has to do whatever will raise those same kids' scores on a standardized test?

Schools can school, but they can't educate. ?That is why talk about "reforming" them--which usually involves throwing more money at them for "special" programs or administrative overhead--is naive or dishonest, depending on whose mouth or pen it comes from. ?Schools--at least the ones we have--are never going to educate people for their careers, for their work for their lives. ?

Source: http://scholasticsnakeoil.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-schools-cant-educate-them.html

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1-Minute Strategies: April '13 ? Business Management Daily: Free ...

Microsoft SkyDrive gives Win??dows 8 users the ability to access files from a PC wherever they may be. It?s as easy as enabling the Fetch feature and making sure the PC is turned on when you leave.

Stay abreast of the news on your industry to get a leg up on your career. Set aside time each day to read or get bits of reading done on your commute or during your downtime. ?

Network your way to knowing everyone you want, even at a large company. Don?t be afraid to ask for introductions and reach out to people on your own, and take advantage of meetings to get to know everyone who shows up.

Learn to master keyboard shortcuts with the help of KeyRocket. It takes 2 to 10 seconds longer to use your mouse instead of a keyboard shortcut. KeyRocket helps you learn those shortcuts for Google or Word by popping up the alternative shortcut every time you use your mouse.

Socialize with your co-workers without slacking off your workouts. Canadian company Ajax found its employees were gaining weight because of social activities planned around food, but things changed when they started planning physical challenges, healthier meals and wellness lessons.

Michigan State researchers have found that even a brief distraction is detrimental to your accuracy and productivity. Inter??rup??tions of 3 seconds doubled the error rate while performing a task, and disruptions of 4.5 seconds tripled it.?

An analysis of American em??ployees? expense reports finds Star??bucks is the most frequently expensed restaurant in the United States. American em????ployees expensed nearly 21,000 transactions at Starbucks followed by 12,420 transactions at McDonald?s and 8,627 trans?actions at Subway. ?

Schedule catch-up time into your post-vacation agenda so you can stay de-stressed as long as possible. Don?t book any appointments on your first day back and tell your co-workers not to come to you with anything that isn?t urgent. This way, you can cut through your email backlog and get a head start on other work before going back to your usual schedule. ?

Save your meetings. Discipline yourself to keep them focused, short and engaging so that you?ll accomplish what you need to and not waste time on anything unnecessary. ?

Bring others together. The best networkers are also connectors who bring people together. Want to join their elite ranks? Remem??ber these pointers: Share the spotlight, offer value, relax and be yourself.

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