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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Plastic film is the future of 3-D on-the-go

Apr. 2, 2013 ? Mobile device users will soon be able to view brilliant 3D content with the naked eye with a nano-engineered screen protector that turns ordinary mobile screens into 3D displays. The unique plastic film can also potentially be used as next generation security tokens employed by banks and corporations.

Temasek Polytechnic (TP) and A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering's (IMRE) new nano-engineered screen protector that turns the ordinary screens of handheld devices into 3D displays will be marketed by start-up, Nanoveu Pte Ltd. The unique plastic film can also potentially be used as next generation security tokens employed by banks and corporations.

Ditch the 3D glasses. Thanks to a simple plastic filter, mobile device users can now view unprecedented, distortion-free, brilliant 3D content with the naked eye. This latest innovation from TP and IMRE is the first ever glasses-free 3D accessory that can display content in both portrait and landscape mode, and measures less than 0.1 mm in thickness.

"The filter is essentially a piece of plastic film with about half a million perfectly shaped lenses engineered onto its surface using IMRE's proprietary nanoimprinting technology," said Dr Jaslyn Law, the IMRE scientist who worked with TP on the nanoimprinting R&D since 2010 to enhance the film's smoothness, clarity and transparency compared to other films in the market.

?To complement the filter, the team developed applications for two software platforms, Apple iOS and Android, which allow users to play 3D content through its filter, in both landscape and portrait formats. The applications also allow 2D pictures taken using mobile devices to be converted into 3D. The team will be releasing a software development kit that enables game developers to convert their existing games into 3D versions.

The team is also exploring using the same technology for security access tokens to decode PIN numbers sent online as an inexpensive and portable alternative to rival bulkier and more expensive battery-operated security tokens, similar to those used by Singapore banks today.

?"The team's expertise in both hardware and software development in 3D technology has enabled high quality 3D to be readily available to consumers," said Mr Frank Chan, the TP scientist who led the overall NRF-funded project. "We have taken age old lenticular lens technology that has been around for the last hundred years, modernised it and patented it using nanotechnology." Lenticular lens technology creates a transparent film that retains the brilliance of 3D visuals and effects, which does away with the need for stronger back lighting and saves on battery consumption in mobile devices.

?? The two-year project was initially funded under a National Research Foundation (NRF) Translational R&D Grant in Dec 2010 to look at optimising the control of the nanostructures and integrating its effects with the complementary software applications. The team has since shifted its focus towards commercialisation with support from Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), A*STAR's technology transfer arm and a one-stop resource that brings together home-grown technology, funding, collaboration and networks to assist A*STAR spin-offs and start-ups.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/ynma2NDytgc/130402090718.htm

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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Connecticut reaches deal on tough gun laws, 3 months after Newtown

Connecticut lawmakers reached a deal, announced in both houses today, that will give Connecticut some of the strictest gun and ammunition regulations in the nation.

By Susan Haigh,?Associated Press / April 1, 2013

William Sherlach, husband of slain Sandy Hook school psychologist Mary Sherlach, is one of a group of family members of the Newtown victims asking lawmakers to ban all high-capacity magazines at the Capital in Hartford today. Others pictured, from left behind Mr. Sherlach: Jennifer Hensel, Jackie and Mark Barden, Nelba Marquez-Greene, and Nicole Hockley.

Mara Lavitt / New Haven Register / AP

Enlarge

Connecticut lawmakers announced a deal Monday on what they called some of the toughest gun laws in the country. The new laws, proposed after the December mass shooting in the state, include a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre that left 20 children and six educators dead.

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The proposal includes new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it.

The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation's first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new "ammunition eligibility certificate," imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state's assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned.

The newly banned weapons could no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut, and those legally owned already would have to be registered with the state, just like the high-capacity magazines.

"No gun owner will lose their gun," said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., a Norwalk Republican. "No gun owner will lose their magazines."

The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures.

The shooting Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School reignited the gun debate in the country and led to calls for increased gun control legislation on the federal and state levels. While some other states, including neighboring New York, have strengthened their gun laws, momentum has stalled in Congress, whose members were urged by President Barack Obama last week not to forget the shooting and to capitalize on the best chance in years to stem gun violence.

Connecticut should be seen as an example for lawmakers elsewhere, said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat.

"In Connecticut, we've broken the mold," he said. "Democrats and Republicans were able to come to an agreement on a strong, comprehensive bill. That is a message that should resound in 49 other states and in Washington, D.C. And the message is: We can get it done here and they should get it done in their respective states and nationally in Congress."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/d7hqZuKFk6g/Connecticut-reaches-deal-on-tough-gun-laws-3-months-after-Newtown

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Obama proposes $100M for brain mapping project

President Barack Obama speaks about the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, in the East Room at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama listens as National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis S. Collins speaks about the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, in the East Room at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama leaves the stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, after he spoke about the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama announces the BRIAN, Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies proposal, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, East Room of the White House in Washington. The president is asking Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a new project to map the human brain in hopes of eventually finding cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed an effort to map the brain's activity in unprecedented detail, as a step toward finding better ways to treat such conditions as Alzheimer's, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injuries.

He asked Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a project that will explore details of the brain, which contains 100 billion cells and trillions of connections.

That's a relatively small investment for the federal government ? less than a fifth of what NASA spends every year just to study the sun ? but it's too early to determine how Congress will react.

Obama said the so-called BRAIN Initiative could create jobs, and told scientists gathered in the White House's East Room that the research has the potential to improve the lives of billions of people worldwide.

"As humans we can identify galaxies light-years away," Obama said. "We can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears."

Scientists unconnected to the project praised the idea.

BRAIN stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. The idea, which Obama first proposed in his State of the Union address, would require the development of new technology that can record the electrical activity of individual cells and complex neural circuits in the brain "at the speed of thought," the White House said.

Obama wants the initial $100 million investment to support research at the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. He also wants private companies, universities and philanthropists to partner with the federal agencies in support of the research. And he wants a study of the ethical, legal and societal implications of the research.

The goals of the work are unclear at this point. A working group at NIH, co-chaired by Cornelia "Cori" Bargmann of The Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University, would work on defining the goals and develop a multi-year plan to achieve them that included cost estimates.

The $100 million request is "a pretty good start for getting this project off the ground," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health told reporters in a conference call. While the ultimate goal applies to the human brain, some work will be done in simpler systems of the brains of animals like worms, flies and mice, he said.

Collins said new understandings about how the brain works may also provide leads for developing better computers.

Brain scientists unconnected with the project were enthusiastic.

"This is spectacular," said David Fitzpatrick, scientific director and CEO of the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience in Jupiter, Fla., which focuses on studying neural circuits and structures.

While current brain-scanning technologies can reveal the average activity of large populations of brain cells, the new project is aimed at tracking activity down to the individual cell and the tiny details of cell connections, he said. It's "an entirely different scale," he said, and one that can pay off someday in treatments for a long list of neurological and psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, Parkinson's, depression, epilepsy and autism.

"Ultimately, you can't fix it if you don't know how it works," he said. "We need this fundamental understanding of neuronal circuits, their structure, their function and their development in order to make progress on these disorders."

"This investment in fundamental brain science is going to pay off immensely in the future," Fitzpatrick said.

Richard Frackowiak, a co-director of Europe's Human Brain Project, which is funded by the European Commission, said he was delighted by the announcement.

"From our point of view as scientists we can only applaud and say we will collaborate as much as possible," he said. "The opportunities for a massive worldwide collaborative effort to solve the problem of neurodegeneration and psychiatric disease will ... really become absolutely feasible," he said. "We need that."

___

Ritter reported from New York.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-02-Obama-Human%20Brain/id-3860d8bc458141b8b94545337485107c

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Sentencing Law and Policy: "Legal Punishment as Civil Ritual ...

? Clerical error in processing sentencing order proves deadly in Colorado | Main

April 2, 2013

"Legal Punishment as Civil Ritual: Making Cultural Sense of Harsh Punishment"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by SpearIt available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This work examines mass incarceration through a ritual studies perspective, paying explicit attention to the religious underpinnings. Conventional analyses of criminal punishment focus on the purpose of punishment in relation to legal or moral norms, or attempt to provide a general theory of punishment.? The goals of this work are different, and instead try to understand the cultural aspects of punishment that have helped make the United States a global leader in imprisonment and execution.? It links the boom in incarceration to social ruptures of the 1950s and 1960s and posits the United States? world leader status as having more to do with culture than crime.

This approach has been largely overlooked by legal scholars, yet ritual studies enhance understanding of law and legal institutions. A ritual perspective illuminates the religious history of criminal justice, challenges traditional dogmas that hold punishment as a rational response to crime, and explains why some people must suffer so that others may feel secure.

April 2, 2013 at 10:24 AM | Permalink

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Heh, my screen reader pronounces the author's name as "Spirit", I had to check that this wasn't some elaborate but late joke.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Apr 2, 2013 11:23:55 AM

Monday, April 1, 2013

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Source: http://fallface.com/blog/view/8014/arts-and-entertainment-on-line-casino-gambling-write-up-group-website-page-108

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Diggins leads Notre Dame past Kansas, 93-63

Kansas forward Chelsea Gardner (15) passes the ball to Kansas guard Angel Goodrich, left, as Notre Dame forward Ariel Braker (44) pressures during the first half a regional semi-final of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday, March31, 2013, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Jason Hirschfeld)

Kansas forward Chelsea Gardner (15) tries to fend off Notre Dame forward Natalie Achonwa (11) during the first half a regional semi-final of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday, March31, 2013, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Jason Hirschfeld)

Kansas forward Carolyn Davis, left, and Notre Dame forward Ariel Braker (44) battle for a rebound during the first half of a regional semi-final of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday March 31, 2013, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw reacts during the first half of a regional semi-final of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday March 31, 2013, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson directs her team during the first half of a regional semi-final of the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) ? Skylar Diggins was already having such a great day, her coach figured she might as well make it historic.

The Notre Dame point guard scored 22 of her 27 points by halftime Sunday and became the school's career scoring leader, leading the top-seeded Fighting Irish to a 93-63 victory against Kansas in the semifinals of the Norfolk Regional.

Coach Muffet McGraw had forgotten all about Diggins' pursuit of the school scoring mark until the game was well in hand. When she asked, she was told the senior was just two points away from passing assistant coach Beth Cunningham.

"I told her, 'You're coming out in 30 seconds. You might as well get one more,'" McGraw said she told Diggins.

Moments later, with 7:48 to play, the lefthander in her trademark white headband swished a 12-foot jumper.

"Coach told me to score two more. I didn't really know why, but I was like, 'OK,'" Diggins said.

It was that kind of the day for Diggins, who heard talk beforehand that the Norfolk Regional was full of great point guards, and quickly showed she might not have a peer, especially at this time of year with the stakes so high.

"We play in games that are so much like Sweet 16 or Elite Eight kind of caliber games in our conference," she said. "That helps all of us."

So does having a leader that makes it all look so easy. Diggins added nine assists and three steals, scored nine straight during a 16-2 first-half run that put the Irish (34-1) ahead to stay, and six more to cap a 10-2 run into halftime.

"She's what everyone says," Kansas point guard Angel Goodrich, who finished with seven points and 13 assists, said. "She's the whole package. She can create for herself and she can create for her teammates."

The victory was the 29th in a row for Notre Dame, and left the Irish one victory shy of a third consecutive trip to the Final Four. They have lost in the title game each of the last two years.

Carolyn Davis led the upstart Jayhawks (20-14) with 25 points on 11-for-17 shooting, but the second No. 12 seed ever to get this far in the women's tournament since the seeding format began in 1994 didn't stick around long.

Notre Dame led 40-27 at halftime and started the second half with a 22-9 run.

"We definitely let them play comfortable and confident," Jayhawks coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "I was disappointed our defensive effort wasn't better."

Goodrich's head-to-head duel with Diggins never materialized. When Goodrich, like Diggins a senior, finally scored with 5:48 left in the first half, Diggins already had 16 points and her team was about to make another run before halftime.

It came in the final 4:30 of the half, a 10-2 burst capped by two 3-pointers by Diggins.

"When she starts hitting the 3, you're in trouble," McGraw said.

Natalie Achonwa added 17 points and 10 rebounds for Notre Dame, Jewell Loyd scored 15 and Kayla McBride 13 as the Fighting Irish shot 54.4 percent from the field, making 37 of 69 attempts.

Monica Engelman added 10 points for Kansas, but on just 4 of 16 shooting.

The Irish trailed 15-11 when Loyd made a 3-pointer with 14:37 to go and then Diggins took over. She hit a 16-footer, a 17-footer, a 3-pointer and then had a steal and layup, making it 23-15. After Davis' stickback for the Jayhawks, Ariel Braker scored inside and Diggins did, too, posting up Goodrich.

The 16-2 run gave the Fighting Irish a 27-17 lead, and the spread stayed about the same until late in the half when Diggins hit a 3-pointer, then followed a turnover with another 3 from the right side.

___

Follow Hank on twitter at: http://twitter.com/hankkurzjr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-31-BKW-NCAA-Kansas-Notre-Dame/id-06e3a6e91bb54b648251cf29a5f9170e

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Killing of Texas district attorney, wife, seen as targeted

By Marice Richter

DALLAS (Reuters) - The killing of a Texas district attorney and his wife, in the same county where an assistant prosecutor was shot dead outside a courthouse in January, does not appear to be random, a local official said on Sunday.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the town of Forney, Texas, on Saturday, two months after Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down.

"In my view it appears that it was not random. It was a targeted attack," Forney Mayor Darren Rozell told CNN.

"We're obviously sad and shocked but there's some outrage too," said Rozell.

He did not elaborate on a possible motive for the double murder, but neither he nor Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes ruled out a link between the killings.

Hasse was shot and killed the same day the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement saying the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group.

"It's unnerving to the law enforcement community, it's unnerving to the community at large," Byrnes told a news conference. "And that's why we're striving to assure the community that we are still providing public safety and will be able to do that."

Byrnes' office reported the shooting deaths late on Saturday.

Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood said the last known contact with either of the McLellands was about 7 p.m. on Friday.

Wood described McLelland as a friend as well as a colleague. He said he and McLelland had spoken regularly about Hasse and the investigation.

"I can't fathom someone doing this," Wood said. "It is completely senseless, and completely out of the blue. Perhaps it is retaliation, but we won't know that until someone is caught."

Numerous state and federal officials, including the FBI and Texas Rangers, are involved in the investigation, Byrnes said. He said it was too early to discuss whether there were any suspects.

McLelland, a 23-year U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, had five children including a son who is an officer with the Dallas police department, according to a biography on the county website.

Authorities have made no arrests in Hasse's killing. McLelland had vowed to bring his killer to justice.

Earlier this month, the Hasse slaying case took a new turn when the Kaufman police chief said the FBI was looking for any link between Hasse's death and the March 19 shooting death of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements.

Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, a Colorado prison parolee suspected of killing Clements, died in a shootout with police in Decatur, Texas, on March 21. Ebel was a member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew and had a swastika tattoo, prison records indicate.

Judge Wood said Kaufman County investigators had found no link between the shooting death of Clements and the killing of Hasse, however. "No connection was found to the Colorado shooting," he said.

(Reporting by Marice Richter in Dallas; additional reporting by Jon Nielsen in Waxahachie, Texas, and Corrie MacLaggan in Austin, Texas; writing by Tom Brown; editing by Jackie Frank and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-county-district-attorney-wife-found-dead-032732367.html

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