May 11 World Xtreme Wrestling event in Minneola, FL

May 11 World Xtreme Wrestling event in Minneola, FL

From Brian Slack:

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World Xtreme Wrestling will be at the Minneola Recreation Center in Minneola, FL on May 11th. Advertised: Nick Nero vs. Tony Torres. The winner of the match wrestles Bryan Maddox for the WXW Heavyweight championship later in the evening. Dalton Kelly vs. Puerto Rican Hound Dogg in a 4 corners steel chairs match. Kimberly Mercedes Martinez for the vacant WXW Women's championship. Vale Anoa'i is scheduled to be the guest referee. Tha NuYoRicanz defends the WXW Tag Team championships against The Prophesy. CJ O'Doyle defends the WXW TV championship against Noah Kekoa. The Highwaymen vs. Ace Radic & "Sweet" Johnny Velvet. Tickets are $12 adults and $3 children under 11. Doors open at 6:30 and bell time is at 7:30. For more information call (352)988-5499.

Source: http://www.gwhnews.com/2013/05/may-11-world-xtreme-wrestling-event-in.html

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First Observations of Short-lived Pear-shaped Atomic Nuclei

An anonymous reader sends this quote from a press release at CERN:
"An international team at the ISOLDE radioactive-beam facility at CERN has shown that some atomic nuclei can assume asymmetric, 'pear' shapes (abstract). The observations contradict some existing nuclear theories and will require others to be amended. ... Most nuclei have the shape of a rugby ball. While state-of-the-art theories are able to predict this behaviour, the same theories have predicted that for some particular combinations of protons and neutrons, nuclei can also assume asymmetric shapes, like a pear. In this case there is more mass at one end of the nucleus than the other."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/f052ZPtaeCo/story01.htm

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Do-it-yourself invisibility with 3-D printing

May 6, 2013 ? Seven years ago, Duke University engineers demonstrated the first working invisibility cloak in complex laboratory experiments. Now it appears creating a simple cloak has become a lot simpler.

"I would argue that essentially anyone who can spend a couple thousand dollars on a non-industry grade 3-D printer can literally make a plastic cloak overnight," said Yaroslav Urzhumov, assistant research professor in electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.

Three-dimensional printing, technically known as stereolithographic fabrication, has become increasingly popular, not only among industry, but for personal use. It involves a moving nozzle guided by a computer program laying down successive thin layers of a material -- usually a polymer plastic -- until a three-dimensional object is produced.

Urzhumov said that producing a cloak in this fashion is inexpensive and easy. He and his team made a small one at Duke which looks like a Frisbee? disc made out of Swiss cheese. Algorithms determined the location, size and shape of the holes to deflect microwave beams. The fabrication process takes from three to seven hours.

The results of Urzhumov's experiments were published online in the journal Optics Letters, and the team's research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant.

Just like the 2006 cloak, the newer version deflects microwave beams, but researchers feel confident that in the not-so-distant future, the cloak can work for higher wavelengths, including visible light.

"We believe this approach is a way towards optical cloaking, including visible and infrared," Urzhumov said. "And nanotechnology is available to make these cloaks from transparent polymers or glass. The properties of transparent polymers and glasses are not that different from what we have in our polymer at microwave frequencies."

The disk-like cloak has an open area in its center where the researchers placed an opaque object. When microwave beams were aimed at the object through the side of the disk, the cloak made it appear that the object was not there.

"The design of the cloak eliminates the 'shadow' that would be cast, and suppresses the scattering from the object that would be expected," said Urzhumov. "In effect, the bright, highly reflective object, like a metal cylinder, is made invisible. The microwaves are carefully guided by a thin dielectric shell and then re-radiated back into free space on the shadow side of the cloak."

Urzhumov said that theoretically, the technique can be used to create much larger devices.

"Computer simulations make me believe that it is possible to create a similar polymer-based cloaking layer as thin as one inch wrapped around a massive object several meters in diameter," he said. "I have run some simulations that seem to confirm this point."

Other members of the team included Duke's Nathan Landy and David R. Smith, as well as Tom Driscoll and Dimitri Basov at the University of California -- San Diego.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/bGtoxttWZtw/130506103313.htm

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California may have to move 3,000 inmates at risk for Valley fever

By Sharon Bernstein

LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2013 - As many as 3,000 prison inmates in central California deemed to be at risk from a potentially lethal lung disease may need to be moved to other regions under an order from a court-appointed federal overseer.

The directive, issued on Monday, marks the latest effort to stem cases of valley fever, or coccidioidomycosis, at two prisons where the disease was found to have contributed to the deaths of nearly three dozen inmates from 2006 to 2011.

But it could complicate court-ordered efforts to reduce overcrowding across California's prison system, the nation's largest.

The pneumonia-like illness, contracted by inhaling fungal spores that grow in the dry soils of the American Southwest, is not contagious. But the spores become airborne when soil is disturbed by wind, construction, farming and other activities.

Problems with the disease at two prisons in San Joaquin Valley, the state's agricultural heartland, were documented on Wednesday in court papers filed by J. Clark Kelso, appointed as a federal receiver for medical issues at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Previous attempts to reduce both the number of infections and the severity of cases were ineffective, Kelso's spokeswoman, Joyce Hayhoe, told Reuters.

After a report last year found that problems continued at Pleasant Valley State Prison and Avenal State Prison, Kelso asked correctional officials to stop transferring some inmates there who were considered to be at high risk, Hayhoe said.

Among those deemed to be at higher risk of contracting or dying from the disease were African-Americans, inmates of Filipino heritage, those with compromised immune systems and those who older than 55.

On Monday, Kelso went a step further, directing the state to cease housing inmates who fell into those categories at the two prisons in question, though he stopped short of explicitly ordering those inmates to be transferred out.

On Wednesday, he added diabetics to the list of high-risk inmates, court papers showed. He called the state's response so far "anemic."

'ENORMOUS UNDERTAKING'

Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman for the Corrections Department, acknowledged that the state has not stopped sending at-risk prisoners to the two facilities, nor have any been moved out. Kelso's directive to stop housing vulnerable prisoners in the region came "out of the blue," he said.

Callison said that immediately complying with the receiver's directive "would be an enormous undertaking."

Dr. John Galgiani, a valley fever expert hired by lawyers representing inmates, agreed with the federal receiver and prison officials that no outbreak of the disease had been declared in the San Joaquin Valley.

But in his own court filing, Galgiani said the persistence of the illness in the two prisons amounted to a "medical emergency."

Noting a recent report by Kelso's office, Galgiani said in a court declaration that the infection rate at Pleasant Valley State Prison was "1,000 times the rate for Californians generally." Valley fever was a contributing cause of death in 34 cases between 2006 and 2011 in the two institutions, he wrote.

Symptoms of valley fever include a cough, fever, chest pains and muscle aches that can last for many weeks or months. But fewer than half of infected individuals become sick, and only a small percentage become severely ill.

The disease can be fatal, but the mortality rate among infected patients is about 0.1 percent, said Galgiani, an infectious disease specialist who directs the University of Arizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence.

A recent study found that Valley fever was identified as an underlying or contributing cause to 3,089 U.S. deaths during an 18-year span, from 1990 to 2008.

Those most at risk for life-threatening complications from the illness include the elderly and people with compromised immune systems, Galgiani said.

An estimated 150,000 infections occur in the Southwest each year, the majority of them in Arizona. California accounts for nearly all the remaining cases.

(This story refiles to remove an extraneous word in the first paragraph)

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/california-may-move-3-000-inmates-risk-valley-005340767.html

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ECB weighs rate cut as eurozone economy struggles

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Economists say the European Central Bank could cut interest rates as soon as Thursday because of fears that the euro area's economy isn't recovering ? even though top bank officials themselves caution that a cut won't do much good.

Market expectations have risen in recent days of a reduction in the ECB's benchmark rate from its current record low of 0.75 percent when bank's 23-member governing council gathers to debate the issue in Bratislava, Slovakia.

The economy of the 17 European Union countries that use the euro certainly needs a boost. The ECB says the eurozone will shrink 0.5 percent for all of this year and unemployment is at 12.1 percent. Meanwhile, annual inflation is only 1.2 percent, well below the ECB's goal of just under 2 percent. That gives the ECB freedom to cut if it wants to.

The low inflation data make it "virtually impossible" that the ECB will fail to lower the refinancing rate Thursday, said Janet Henry, chief European economist at HSBC. Cuts done at the wrong time can worsen inflation, but it appears there is little risk of that for now.

At 0.75 percent, the ECB rate is still higher than at other major central banks. The Fed is at 0-0.25 percent, the Bank of Japan at 0-0.1 percent, and the Bank of England at 0.5 percent.

ECB president Mario Draghi said at his last news conference April 4 that bank officials "stand ready to act" if their forecast for a recovery later this year appears to not be coming true.

But economists caution a cut isn't a sure thing Thursday. Some say that the bank may wait until its June rate meeting, when it has new staff economic projections to justify any move.

The ECB's refinancing rate determines what banks pay the ECB for credit. This in turn influences a host of other short-term rates charged by banks to consumers and companies. So an ECB cut should, in normal times, make it cheaper for companies to borrow to expand and create jobs.

However there's a problem: Stimulus is not getting through to the places that need it most.

Whatever the decision on Thursday, Joerg Asmussen, the bank's chief of international relations, cautioned last week that the "pass-through" from any cut to the wider economy would be "limited."

Analyst Holger Schmieding at Berenberg Bank says that's one reason a cut "isn't a done deal" although he sees a 60 percent chance for a cut at either the May or June meeting.

"Everyone knows a rate cut won't make much of a difference," he said. "That's why we have it at 60-40 rather than saying it will definitely happen."

The ECB has pointed out that its current record low rates are not being passed on to businesses because banks are struggling with their own financial problems. This is especially the case in countries hardest hit by the eurozone's financial crisis such as Spain and Italy. There, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), the chief job-creators in the economy, are not getting affordable credit.

However, a rate cut might offer some help in other ways. It might lower the euro's exchange rate against other currencies. That could help exporters, whose goods become cheaper abroad. And a cut would also lower the cost of ECB emergency credit to the hardest-hit banks. That would take some pressure off their finances so that they could lend more.

The ECB has stayed away from a key tool to help stimulate an economy that is already used by the Fed, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England. Quantitative easing, or the purchase of securities with newly created money, pushes down longer-term interest rates and aims to increase the overall supply of money in the economy. Draghi has said such a step would be difficult for the multinational ECB, since each eurozone member country's debt market is different.

Analysts say the ECB needs to find another way to spur small-business lending. One way would be to encourage banks to bundle small business loans as securities and then to use them as collateral to obtain credit from the ECB. It's not clear whether anything along those lines will be announced Thursday.

Analyst Carsten Brzeski at ING thinks say the ECB may hold off cutting rates so it can first come up with ways to make sure lower borrowing costs are actually passed on. Draghi has indicated the bank is studying possible steps, and mentioned possible involvement by governments and outside agencies such as the European Investment Bank. The EIB already offers reduced interest loans to midsize companies through local banks.

Without such additional measures, a cut "would quickly go up in smoke and could even be regarded as an act of despair," Brzeski said. "It is hard to believe that the ECB would cut rates first and come up with a broader SME funding scheme later."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ecb-weighs-rate-cut-eurozone-economy-struggles-094739832.html

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Yelp Cuts Losses In Q1 To $4.8M, Sees Revenue Jump 68% To $46M And Record 102M Monthly Uniques On Web, 10M Mobile

Yelp, the local online business and restaurant guide that first launched in the U.S. in 2004 and now lives in 21 countries and 12 languages, and has more than 100 million monthly unique visitors as of January this year, launched in New Zealand this morning. On the heels of bringing its review data to Kiwis and continuing its international expansion, Yelp announced its first quarter earnings at market close today. In the fourth quarter, Yelp missed earnings expectations, with net revenue coming in at $41.2 million in Q4 of 2012, a 65 percent growth in new revenue from 2011, while it saw a net loss of $5.3 million, or $0.08 per share. Today, Yelp turned things around, as it announced net revenue jumped to $46.1 million in Q1, reflecting a 68 percent growth from Q1 2012, while cumulative reviews grew 42 percent year-over-year to more than 39 million, average unique visitors grew 43 percent y/y and local business accounts grew 63 percent. Wall Street’s consensus estimates were that Yelp would see $44.5 million in revenue for the quarter, and $1.5 million EBITDA. Yelp hurdled over the bar, in fact, seeing a net loss in the first quarter of 2013 of $4.8 million, or $0.08 per share. This means that while net losses only fell slightly from Q4 2012, it saw a more significant reduction in losses year-over year, $9.8 million, or $0.31 per share, over the first quarter of 2012. In addition, compared to Wall Street estimates, Yelp said that adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2013 was $3.2 million, in comparison with an adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately $1 million for the first quarter of 2012. In the quarterly earnings release today, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman trumped up Yelp’s milestones in the last quarter, namely its hitting a record 102 million unique users over the last quarter, while touching on its plans to improve on its mobile experience. Something that should be music to the ears of anyone with a smartphone. “We had a great start to the year and are excited about the large opportunity in front of us,” Stoppelman said. “This quarter we achieved many milestones including a record 102 million unique visitors on a monthly average basis, demonstrating the strength of our content and the trust we have earned from consumers. We provide valuable leads to local businesses because consumers turn to Yelp at the

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8f4mMTEeP_A/

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Use of laser light yields versatile manipulation of a quantum bit

May 1, 2013 ? By using light, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have manipulated the quantum state of a single atomic-sized defect in diamond -- the nitrogen-vacancy center -- in a method that not only allows for more unified control than conventional processes, but is more versatile, and opens up the possibility of exploring new solid-state quantum systems.

Their results are published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

"In contrast to conventional electronics, we developed an all-optical scheme for controlling individual quantum bits in semiconductors using pulses of light," said David Awschalom, director of UCSB's Center for Spintronics & Quantum Computation, professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering, and the Peter J. Clarke director of the California NanoSystems Institute. "This finding offers an intriguing opportunity for processing and communicating quantum information with photonic chips."

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is a defect in the atomic structure of a diamond where one carbon atom in the diamond lattice is replaced by a nitrogen atom, and an adjacent site in the lattice is vacant. The resulting electronic spin around the defect forms a quantum bit -- "qubit" -- which is the basic unit of a quantum computer. Current processes require this qubit be initialized into a well-defined energy state before interfacing with it. Unlike classical computers, where the basic unit of information, the bit, is either 0 or 1, qubits can be 0, 1, or any mathematical superposition of both, allowing for more complex operations.

"The initial problem we were trying to solve was to figure out a way that we could place our qubit into any possible superposition of its state in a single step," said the paper's first author, physics graduate student Christopher Yale. "It turns out that in addition to being able to do that just by adjusting the laser light interacting with our spin, we discovered that we could generate coherent rotations of that spin state and read out its state relative to any other state of our choosing using only optical processes."

The all-optical control allows for greater versatility in manipulating the NV center over disparate conventional methods that use microwave fields and exploit defect-specific properties. While the NV center in diamond is a promising qubit that has been studied extensively for the past decade, diamonds are challenging to engineer and grow. This all-optical methodology, say the researchers, may allow for the exploration of quantum systems in other materials that are more technologically mature. "Compared to how the NV center is usually studied, these techniques in some ways are more general and could potentially enable the study of unexplored quantum systems," said UCSB physics graduate student Bob Buckley.

Additionally, the all-optical method also has the potential to be more scalable, noted physics graduate student David Christle. "If you have an array of these qubits in order, and if you're applying conventional microwave fields, it becomes difficult to talk to one of them without talking to the others. In principle, with our technique in an idealized optical system, you would be able focus the light down onto a single qubit and only talk to it."

While practical quantum computers are still years and years away, the research opens up new paths toward their eventual creation. According to the group, these devices would be capable of performing certain sophisticated calculations and functions far more efficiently than today's computers can -- leading to advances in fields as diverse as encryption and quantum simulation.

UCSB electrical and computer engineering graduate student F. Joseph Heremans and postdoctoral researcher Lee Bassett also contributed to this study. Additional theoretical work and insight was provided by Guido Burkard, professor of physics at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. C. G. Yale, B. B. Buckley, D. J. Christle, G. Burkard, F. J. Heremans, L. C. Bassett, D. D. Awschalom. All-optical control of a solid-state spin using coherent dark states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1305920110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/sxm5-awfszI/130501145114.htm

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