Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain speaks to the board of The Federation of Young Republicans Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain speaks to the board of The Federation of Young Republicans Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain signs a car tag, bearing 9-9-9, a reference to his tax reform plan, after speaking to the board of The Federation of Young Republicans Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich greets a supporter at a kick-off party for the opening of the Newt2012 office in Manchester, N.H., Friday, Nov. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) ? Republican candidates prepared to challenge President Barack Obama on foreign policy, an issue they have given scant attention in recent weeks, as they gathered Saturday night for their second debate in four days.
Consumed by events on the home front, two contenders are fighting to mend damaged campaigns. Texas Gov. Rick Perry blundered in a debate Wednesday, when he couldn't remember one of the Cabinet departments he has proposed to abolish. Rival Herman Cain is battling sexual harassment allegations.
Their troubles leave Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, in a stronger position. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has also seen his fortunes improve, reflected in a CBS News poll released Friday that had him tied with Romney just behind Cain.
Also onstage: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. The volatile GOP field has seen contenders surge ahead in national polls only to fall behind.
Obama, too, was focusing on foreign policy. He left Friday on a nine-day Asia-Pacific tour and declared Saturday in Honolulu, "There is no region in the world that we consider more vital."
Cain, in an effort to steer the conversation away from the harassment allegations, played up his faith before the debate Saturday. He told a young Republicans meeting in Atlanta that God convinced him that he should run for president.
"I'm a man of faith ? I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I've ever done before in my life," Cain said. "And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. 'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"
Gingrich opened his campaign's South Carolina headquarters. The latest to benefit from party conservatives' quest for an alternative to Romney, Gingrich is rebuilding his campaign after his top aides quit in the spring and now has nine paid staffers in South Carolina.
Perry, an early leader in national polls, had been struggling to prove to supporters he could still win the nomination. Then he froze onstage Wednesday, when he drew a blank on the third federal agency he would kill as president.
"The third agency of government I would do away with ? the Education, the Commerce. And let's see. I can't. The third one, I can't," Perry said. "Oops."
He has spent the time since doing damage control with media interviews and a cameo on David Letterman's show, where he delivered a Top 10 list of excuses for his mistake. ("One was the nerves, two was the headache and three was, and three, uh, uh. Oops.")
When they have confronted foreign policy, Republicans have criticized Obama over his handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his support for NATO's intervention in Libya and his treatment of China's currency, among other issues.
CREATOR aims to lift European ICT innovation to a next levelPublic release date: 11-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tatu Koljonen Vice President, Information and Communication tatu.koljonen@vtt.fi 358-207-222-117 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
The well known European paradox refers to the perceived failure of European countries to translate scientific advances into marketable innovations. On strategic policy level, good actions are already in place to cope with this paradox. Nevertheless, it remains in practice difficult for companies to get into the global market with their ICT innovations.
This issue deserves particular attention since ICT technologies promise to command a greater share of economic activity. The size and effectiveness of investment in software-related R&D can determine economic performance and international competitiveness more broadly. Many firms beyond the traditional software sector embrace software development as a complement to their non-software products and use ICT as a proper mean to innovate.
To face this important evolution, several challenges need to be tackled. The much-discussed knowledge deficit in the ICT sector results in potential skills shortage and imposes companies and knowledge centers to focus on industrial knowledge development and avoid dispersion of capabilities.
ICT innovation efforts are taking place in a context of increasing complexity of services and products. Furthermore the delivery of software products on time, within budget and with an acceptable quality, is a remaining challenging.
Hence, the deployment of ICT innovations needs to be efficient and fast. The industry has come to a stage where few companies are able to play the innovation game alone. This calls for the creation of industrial alliances focused on innovation.
Determined to tackle these new challenges, Institut Telecom, Sirris and VTT today announce the birth of CREATOR, a European expert network that supports ICT innovations through its expertise hubs in various countries, starting with France, Belgium and Finland. CREATOR aims to support the ICT industry to enhance its innovation processes and to create international alliances to design and deploy innovations on the global market.
The three partners in CREATOR share the same strong vision and ambition to tackle the issues of speed-to-global-market and the intrinsic complexity of future ICT services and products. In addition to this shared vision, the partners have their own unique contribution in this partnership.
Institut Telecom is recognized as an international top research and education center for its strong involvement supporting industry large and small companies. It has a profound experience in go-to-market of ICT research via new incubators. Sirris is a leading player in the realization of industrial driven innovation and has a deep experience in the creation and delivery of new generations of ICT services. VTT is an international top research institute and is recognized for its experience in the setup and realization of shared industrial ICT research projects on an international scale.
###
QUOTES
"Our economy is moving towards an economy of alliance under the pressure of the innovation stream. CREATOR has been designed to support this evolution and Institut Telecom is proud to contribute to it."
(Philippe Letellier, Innovation Director at Institut Telecom)
"VTT has a long and successful tradition of partnerships with larger companies. VTT's main target in the CREATOR alliance concept is to instigate Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) to focus on growth and global markets. CREATOR provide SMEs with new means to offer a complete solution, faster time to market, a wider addressable market as well as a variety of business models to choose from."
(Tatu Koljonen, VP Strategic Research at VTT)
"For companies, software and ICT is a dominant differentiator to innovate their products. By this ICT becomes a key innovation axis for the future. Its societal impact goes beyond national borders and industrial sectors. CREATOR is the beginning of a profound collaboration between European key players to help companies creating value in this new area of globalized innovation."
(Jeroen Deleu, Director at Sirris)
About Sirris - http://www.sirris.be
Sirris, the collective centre of the Belgian technology industry, was founded in 1949 by Agoria, the Belgian Federation for the Technology Industry. More than 150 highly qualified engineers, scientists and technicians assist companies in implementing technological innovations by investigating new technologies, raising industry awareness of promising innovations, providing advice at all decision-making levels and offering support, from the initial concept to the operational solution. Its mission is to increase the sector's competitiveness through technology and innovation. Sirris has more than 2.400 member companies. Sirris develops expertise and acquires knowledge in-house, and at the same time keeps up to date with developments in other parts of the world.
About Institut Telecom - http://www.institut-telecom.fr
The Institut Telecom is a higher education and research establishment specializing in information and communication science and technology. The Institut Telecom group includes the Grandes Ecoles Telecom ParisTech, Telecom Bretagne, Telecom SudParis and Telecom Business School, as well as two subsidiary institutions: Telecom Lille I and Eurecom. These schools are home to around 5400 students, 650 lecturers and researchers and 950 doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers and visiting professors. As European leader in the field of telecommunications science, the Institut Telecom established a network of 7 affiliated schools in 2008. Committed to innovation, the Institut Telecom and its network of partners have been awarded Carnot 2 certification for the quality of their collaborative research. The Institut launches over 50 technology start-ups every year via its business incubators.
About VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland http://www.vtt.fi
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is a leading multitechnological applied research organization in Northern Europe. VTT creates new technology and science-based innovations in co-operation with domestic and foreign partners. VTT's turnover is EUR 290 million and its personnel totals 3,100.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
CREATOR aims to lift European ICT innovation to a next levelPublic release date: 11-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tatu Koljonen Vice President, Information and Communication tatu.koljonen@vtt.fi 358-207-222-117 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
The well known European paradox refers to the perceived failure of European countries to translate scientific advances into marketable innovations. On strategic policy level, good actions are already in place to cope with this paradox. Nevertheless, it remains in practice difficult for companies to get into the global market with their ICT innovations.
This issue deserves particular attention since ICT technologies promise to command a greater share of economic activity. The size and effectiveness of investment in software-related R&D can determine economic performance and international competitiveness more broadly. Many firms beyond the traditional software sector embrace software development as a complement to their non-software products and use ICT as a proper mean to innovate.
To face this important evolution, several challenges need to be tackled. The much-discussed knowledge deficit in the ICT sector results in potential skills shortage and imposes companies and knowledge centers to focus on industrial knowledge development and avoid dispersion of capabilities.
ICT innovation efforts are taking place in a context of increasing complexity of services and products. Furthermore the delivery of software products on time, within budget and with an acceptable quality, is a remaining challenging.
Hence, the deployment of ICT innovations needs to be efficient and fast. The industry has come to a stage where few companies are able to play the innovation game alone. This calls for the creation of industrial alliances focused on innovation.
Determined to tackle these new challenges, Institut Telecom, Sirris and VTT today announce the birth of CREATOR, a European expert network that supports ICT innovations through its expertise hubs in various countries, starting with France, Belgium and Finland. CREATOR aims to support the ICT industry to enhance its innovation processes and to create international alliances to design and deploy innovations on the global market.
The three partners in CREATOR share the same strong vision and ambition to tackle the issues of speed-to-global-market and the intrinsic complexity of future ICT services and products. In addition to this shared vision, the partners have their own unique contribution in this partnership.
Institut Telecom is recognized as an international top research and education center for its strong involvement supporting industry large and small companies. It has a profound experience in go-to-market of ICT research via new incubators. Sirris is a leading player in the realization of industrial driven innovation and has a deep experience in the creation and delivery of new generations of ICT services. VTT is an international top research institute and is recognized for its experience in the setup and realization of shared industrial ICT research projects on an international scale.
###
QUOTES
"Our economy is moving towards an economy of alliance under the pressure of the innovation stream. CREATOR has been designed to support this evolution and Institut Telecom is proud to contribute to it."
(Philippe Letellier, Innovation Director at Institut Telecom)
"VTT has a long and successful tradition of partnerships with larger companies. VTT's main target in the CREATOR alliance concept is to instigate Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) to focus on growth and global markets. CREATOR provide SMEs with new means to offer a complete solution, faster time to market, a wider addressable market as well as a variety of business models to choose from."
(Tatu Koljonen, VP Strategic Research at VTT)
"For companies, software and ICT is a dominant differentiator to innovate their products. By this ICT becomes a key innovation axis for the future. Its societal impact goes beyond national borders and industrial sectors. CREATOR is the beginning of a profound collaboration between European key players to help companies creating value in this new area of globalized innovation."
(Jeroen Deleu, Director at Sirris)
About Sirris - http://www.sirris.be
Sirris, the collective centre of the Belgian technology industry, was founded in 1949 by Agoria, the Belgian Federation for the Technology Industry. More than 150 highly qualified engineers, scientists and technicians assist companies in implementing technological innovations by investigating new technologies, raising industry awareness of promising innovations, providing advice at all decision-making levels and offering support, from the initial concept to the operational solution. Its mission is to increase the sector's competitiveness through technology and innovation. Sirris has more than 2.400 member companies. Sirris develops expertise and acquires knowledge in-house, and at the same time keeps up to date with developments in other parts of the world.
About Institut Telecom - http://www.institut-telecom.fr
The Institut Telecom is a higher education and research establishment specializing in information and communication science and technology. The Institut Telecom group includes the Grandes Ecoles Telecom ParisTech, Telecom Bretagne, Telecom SudParis and Telecom Business School, as well as two subsidiary institutions: Telecom Lille I and Eurecom. These schools are home to around 5400 students, 650 lecturers and researchers and 950 doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers and visiting professors. As European leader in the field of telecommunications science, the Institut Telecom established a network of 7 affiliated schools in 2008. Committed to innovation, the Institut Telecom and its network of partners have been awarded Carnot 2 certification for the quality of their collaborative research. The Institut launches over 50 technology start-ups every year via its business incubators.
About VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland http://www.vtt.fi
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is a leading multitechnological applied research organization in Northern Europe. VTT creates new technology and science-based innovations in co-operation with domestic and foreign partners. VTT's turnover is EUR 290 million and its personnel totals 3,100.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2011) ? Tiny temperature changes on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans provide an excellent way to forecast wildfires in South American rainforests, according to UC Irvine and other researchers funded by NASA.
"It enables us three to five months in advance to predict the severity of the fire season," said UCI assistant project scientist Yang Chen, lead author of a paper that will be published on Nov. 11, in the journal Science.
Wildfires, once rare in tropical forests, have become a major threat to humans and biodiversity across an "arc of deforestation" in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru due to clear-cutting and agricultural burns. The study's authors said the new findings could aid fire and public health officials, planners issuing burn permits, and broader efforts to stem climate change. Rainforests are vital carbon dioxide storage basins, and woodlands consumed by fire across the southern continent are responsible for about a quarter of the greenhouse gases released from forests globally.
"This work has very clear implications for conserving tropical forests," said co-author James Randerson, UCI Earth system science professor. "During the 21st century, there are expectations that drought may intensify, and forests may become even more vulnerable. Understanding in advance whether you're going to have an exceptionally bad year will become critically important for managing them."
The prediction method is similar to that for storms. Just as sea surface temperatures can be harbingers of powerful Atlantic hurricanes or El Nino conditions that influence rainfall in California and elsewhere on the Pacific Rim, they can be used to model drought-inducing atmospheric changes. Utilizing archival satellite data from NASA, Chen and fellow scientists painstakingly plotted a decade of water temperature variations and wildfire duration and intensity across central South America.
They found that temperature increases of as little as a quarter of a degree Celsius on the Atlantic and a single degree on the Pacific matched up with more deadly blazes across broad swaths of the Amazon over the next year.
"These changes are slight, but they trigger big effects in these tropical forest ecosystems," Chen said. Ocean temperatures affect atmospheric winds and clouds that can reduce or increase rainfall over the continent.
The scientists tested their theory by forecasting -- based on water temperature readings -- South America's 2010 fire season and then checking actual data afterward. Their accuracy was striking. Last year saw the biggest temperature increases on both oceans and, several months later, far drier conditions on land.
"We predicted a massive spike in fires in 2010, and it occurred," said Randerson, citing conflagrations across hundreds of miles. In one state, they had forecast worse fires than occurred, then learned later that officials there had sharply reduced clear-cutting the year before. Overall, while deforestation has declined in the past decade, wildfires have not because of prescribed farming burns that escape into nearby woods.
The scientists are compiling data for the 2012 fire season and plan to release their findings this winter for officials to use next year. The next step will be to see if the prediction method works for forests in Siberia, Indonesia and West Africa.
Other co-authors of the paper were Yufang Jin of UCI; George Collatz and Douglas Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; Ruth DeFries and Miriam Marlier of Columbia University; Prasad S. Kasibhatla of Duke University; and Louis Giglio of the University of Maryland.
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INDEPENDENCE, Mo (Reuters) ? A former Missouri minister pleaded guilty on Wednesday to second degree murder and accepted a life sentence in prison for killing a parishioner he later eulogized at a memorial service.
David Love, 51, was charged last year with killing insurance agent Randy Stone. Stone's family has said Love was having an affair with Stone's wife, Teresa Stone. She has been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the case.
Love entered the plea Wednesday as Randy Stone's relatives watched. The former minister was in tears during the court appearance, but made no comment, said Jean Peters Baker, prosecutor of Jackson County, Missouri.
"This gives finality to the family," Baker said. "The family got to see him accept responsibility."
Love also pleaded guilty to one count of armed criminal action, Baker said at a news conference. Stone's relatives hugged tearfully at the conference but had no comment.
Love was accused of shooting Stone, 42, outside his office on March 31, 2010. Love later quit as pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in Independence and moved to South Carolina, where he was arrested and charged about a year ago.
Stone was active at the church and Love gave his eulogy, asking "Why? Why him? Why now?," according to a report early this year in The Kansas City Star.
"Without answers, death seems so cold," Love said.
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy; Editing by David Bailey and Jerry Norton)
ThePointsGuy is an air travel mastermind. So he started a blog full of tips for getting the best flights at the best prices. And with Christmas lurking around the corner, he's here help you find a flight back home for as few pennies as possible.More »
Instead of featuring one artist today, we're going to feature eight in this Work at a Different Speed Mix. The 99% says:
When it's time to focus on your creative labors, you don't want to feel rushed. Wordless, immersive, and ambient, this latest 99% music mix - Work at a Different Speed - is about as un-hurried as you can get. Lilting electronic pulses, abstract synth tones, and acoustic solo instruments downshift your brain for productive focus.
And while all eight tracks share the quality of being unobtrusive, they differ tonally and thematically. You'll see what I mean when you experience the 50-minute mix for yourself. The whole thing is below, with the above video being just one of the tracks.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vRQ5QQ-6M2fU881AckvsNSzy8E_X8u-AAjMfTBUIe9GeuSwvEg03oVxXg-msQhsiInqBXVmGdOFjodeLmyqeyFIMdMokrn4E9SjoZlzhk=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 11-Nov-2011
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Instead of featuring one artist today, we're going to feature eight in this Work at a Different Speed Mix. The 99% says: