There is a lot I claim to know that I actually make up: How to pick up women; how you should have sex; how I should have sex. It?s all incoherent half-thoughts that I dribble onto internet paper and expect you take as gospel.
(Do not stop taking what I say as gospel.)
However, there is one aspect of life that I am well-versed in, where I can truly contribute to the conversation utilizing real, first-hand knowledge.
Two of my past three roommates were women. Each time it was a one-on-one situation, just me and a female. I wasn?t sexing them good on the reg (or ever) but I basically lived the life of a domesticated, cohabiting gentleman. I?ve been watching, observing and taking notes all along. Which is why, despite being single, I can present to you my guide to being the perfect boyfriend.
Always suggest Thai food: It?s Friday and instead of going to dinner you two want take out. But your girlfriend doesn?t know what she wants. Pizza or Chinese or maybe even that Lebanese spot down the road if we?re feeling adventurous. Here?s a hint. She wants Thai food. I know it. You know it. But she doesn?t want to feel like you two are in the always getting Thai food rut. Preempt the conversation.
?I think we should get Thai food.?
?Really, are you sure??
Nod authoritatively. ?Yea.?
No women is ever upset she ate Thai food.
Know she will always want better kitchen supplies: I own a $150 7? Japanese steel knife that I use for everything: Mincing garlic, butterflying flank steaks, dicing root vegetables. Every couple of months I get it professionally sharpened. I take better care of this knife than I do my dog. Last weekend, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond with my roommate.
?We don?t have any good knives.?
I looked at her.
?But a knife for like if I want to??
I have no idea how that sentence finished because I walked to another part of the store.
I can do that, but you need to know there is always more and there can always be better. Every women will vehemently deny what I just said, then spend Saturday at HomeGoods seeing what they have in stock. My advice here is common sense doesn?t matter.
We means me: Like in the aforementioned quote ?We don?t have any good knives.? I have a great knife. Also in this BB&B trip I was told ?We don?t have a potato masher.? I don?t have kids to make mashed potatoes for. I am an adult. When I want a potato I will bake it. You can?t take offense to this because it literally does not involve you?or anything that has ever happened in your life?in any fashion. Imagine she said ?I? and it?ll be so much easier to agree.
Champy!: Fun fact: A female has never been upset while drinking champagne. I don?t understand the concept (I drink bourbon whatever my mood), but you?ll never see a woman having some to get over exes or unwind after a bad day at the office. No, champagne (Champs, Champy, The Bubs, et al.) is only consumed while happy. So always keep a bottle on ice. When things get ugly, pour her and you a glass.
?What?s this?? (Wow, can you hear that accusatory tone? It?s not even real. I made it up.)
?We should celebrate. We?re lucky to have each other. That?s always worth a toast.?
Boom. Every argument ever can be ended.
Don?t fight reality: This isn?t a philosophical tome on your being in a relationship. No, it?s about not calling reality television stupid. Don?t say it?s sophomoric. You know how you love sports? Yea? And how you love those mic?d up, behind-the-scenes, 24/7 specials? Reality TV is that for all the things women love: Dating; being married to rich men; forcing your daughter to join a dance troupe; being Persian at a club. It?s the same shit. Watch with a newfound appreciation. Or bitch and continue to think NFL players forget they are on camera and dance after a sack because Britney?s on.
Always keep hummus and baby carrots in the fridge: ?Our reservations aren?t until nine. I know, I?m sorry. It was the earliest I could get.? As you feel that evil hunger stare, walk to your refrigerator and pull out some baby carrots and hummus. ?Here. We can snack on these.? Look how thoughtful?and health-conscious!?you are. But be careful. Don?t buy any hummus brand but Sabra. Women consider everything else inferior. It?s the Tampax of hummus.
Pretend you aren?t hungover:?You are probably going to drink. A lot. At night. And sometimes that will coincide with things your girlfriend wants to do. Ugh. But being hungover for these fun canal hikes she planned is literally an affront, like you were never interested to begin with. So just fake it. It?s hard to be chipper, so if you need to, overdose on Advil and Red Bull. Yea, your heart and liver may give out in the long-term, but don?t you want to keep your girlfriend through the weekend? Relationships are all about sacrifice.
Feb. 28, 2013 ? As cars get clever -- bristling with computer chips and networking capabilities -- an EU-funded project makes sure that your car's data stays safe and the networks are secure from hackers and tampering.
If you ever wanted proof that we live in a computerised, data-hungry and networked world, just disassemble your car. There is more gadgetry, electronics and microprocessing power on board an average car than most people would ever image. All over the vehicle sensors gather information on engine performance, wear and tear, oil quality and tyre pressure. They can detect the first signs of a skid or roll and activate emergency systems such as electronic stability control.
'To improve traffic safety and traffic flow, many companies and research organisations are investing a lot of effort into ground-breaking research to develop vehicle communication and networking systems,' explains Olaf Henniger from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. 'Europe is really forging ahead in car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure networking.'
Car-to-car (C2C) communication allows vehicles to 'talk' to each other to share information, perhaps about congestion on the roads or indicating their presence in fog or around blind corners. Car-to-infrastructure (C2I) communication lets vehicles connect with traffic lights, or other road infrastructure, which can help to optimise traffic flows, incident management and gather critical data about driving conditions.
But just as with any ICT system, this data and the on-board communication networks must be kept safe and secure. Data privacy extends to personal data captured by your car -- think what someone could discover about your driving skills and habits! Similarly, hackers could create havoc, and potential tragedy, if they gained control of a car's electronic systems.
The 'E-safety vehicle intrusion-protected applications' (EVITA) project was one of the earliest EU-funded research activities to really concentrate on the issue of in-vehicle-network security. 'We focused on the security of the communication networks within the car,' explains Mr Henniger, the project's coordinator, 'but we were always thinking about parallel C2I and C2C networks under development. EVITA's on-board network security would be a cornerstone for all the other vehicle-networking projects out there.'
Hard-wired security
There were many options for the EVITA partners to choose from. But after extensive evaluative studies and analysis of the security requirements, the team decided that the vehicle networks needed hard-wired cryptography. In other words, the scrambling and decoding of data would take place within a physical microchip -- called a 'hardware security module' (HSM) -- rather than via software.
One of the main benefits of using an HSM is its speed -- it can encrypt data packets almost instantaneously, whereas software often involves a slight lag phase. Any processing delay cannot be tolerated in a vehicle travelling at over 100 kilometres per hour (kmph) -- where even a 10th of a second interval could be the difference between life and death.
The EVITA team agreed on the specifications for the HSM, after looking at all the technology and protocols available and listening to the demands of the automobile industry. 'We investigated all the requirements and carried out a thorough risk analysis for all types of data transfer and connectivity within a vehicle. We specified the HSM to incorporate counter measures to reduce these risks,' says Mr Henniger.
'We realised that the automobile sector is very price sensitive, so we had to design our HSM with costs in mind,' Mr Henniger continues. 'We made sure that we did not over-specify the security requirements. We identified three levels of security: EVITA Lite, Medium and Full. The Lite version is used to transfer data from a small sensor to a central processing unit; this involves fairly innocuous data which people are unlikely to access and it does not need 'belt and braces' protection. At the other extreme EVITA Full offers the asymmetric cryptography, which is used whenever the car connects to outside networks to ensure the integrity and authenticity of messages.'
Industry implementation
At present, while C2C and C2I remain in the laboratory, cars still do not typically incorporate data security features. But EVITA has paved the way to help make sure that the information will stay secure once cars get connected.
The EVITA HSM was designed through the combined research and expertise of the car manufacturer BMW Group Research and Technology, automotive suppliers such as Bosch and Continental, security experts including Fraunhofer SIT and EURECOM, software experts such as Fujitsu, and the hardware experts, Escrypt and Infineon.
The EVITA HSM has already proved its worth during C2C tests within the large-scale European 'Preparing secure vehicle-to-X communication systems' (Preserve) project. The vehicles under test originally deployed software-based asymmetric cryptography, but this proved slow and problematic. Replacing the software with the HSM led to a dramatic rise in speed and performance.
Cheaper chips
Since the EVITA project finished, the Preserve project has adapted the HSM design to alternative microchip manufacturing techniques. It is now possible to incorporate the HSM into smaller, cheaper ASIC chips.
'Based on the EVITA specifications, security can be added at minimal cost to data transfers and communication within the car, and as it connects to the outside world,' Mr Henniger concludes. 'By integrating this security via a chip we have made it much less prone to attack and network hacking. As cars get clever and start to converse, I think drivers can rest easy. No-one is going to get hold of their data or suddenly start to take control of their car.'
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New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
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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.
New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
[ | 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.
New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps. Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome ? or transcriptome ? of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access journalGenome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the colony - transcriptionally speaking - leaving the queen with a somewhat restricted repertoire.
Studying primitively eusocial species - like these wasps - can tell us about how sociality evolves. Seirian Sumner and colleagues sequenced transcriptomes from the eusocial tropical paper wasps ? Polistes canadensis. All social species ultimately evolved from a solitary ancestor ? in this case a solitary wasp, who lays the eggs and feeds the brood. But how does this ancestral solitary phenotype split to produce specialised reproducers (queens) and brood carers (workers) when a species becomes social?
This paper gives a first insight into the secret lives of social insects. It shows that workers retain a highly active transcriptome, possibly expressing many of the ancestral genes that are required for our solitary wasp to be successful on her own. Conversely, queens appear to shut down a lot of their genes, presumably in order to be really good reproducers.
Long-standing analyses based on the fossil record holds ants and wasps in a clade known as Vespoidea, with bees as a sister group. The team reassess the relationships between the subfamilies of bees, wasps and ants and suggest that wasps are part of a separate clade from ants and bees, though further genome sequences and comparative data will help to resolve this controversy.
The dataset offers a first chance to analyse subfamily relationships across large numbers of genes, though further work is required before the term Vespoidia could be dropped, or reclassified. Sumner says: 'This finding would have important general implications for our understanding of eusociality as it would suggest that bees and ants shared an aculeate wasp-like ancestor, that ants are wingless wasps, and that bees are wasps that lost predacious behaviours.'
Their work suggests that novel genes play a much more important role in social behaviour than we previously thought.
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BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com
Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.
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FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, an Afghan solider, left, stands guard at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, an Afghan solider, left, stands guard at the scene of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 13, 2013 file photo, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaks during his last news conference as defense secretary. at the Pentagon. The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year, and officials said Tuesday that there was actually no change in the number of attacks on international troops from 2011 to 2012. In mid-December, Panetta said "violence is down," in 2012, and that Afghan forces "have gotten much better at providing security" in areas where they have taken the lead role. He said the Taliban can be expected to continue to attack, "but overall they are losing." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The American-led military coalition in Afghanistan backed off Tuesday from its claim that Taliban attacks dropped off in 2012, tacitly acknowledging a hole in its widely repeated argument that violence is easing and that the insurgency is in steep decline.
In response to Associated Press inquiries about its latest series of statistics on security in Afghanistan, the coalition command in Kabul said it had erred in reporting a 7 percent decline in attacks. In fact there was no decline at all, officials said.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is among the senior officials who had publicly repeated the assertion of an encouraging drop-off in Taliban attacks last year, was disturbed to learn of the error, said his spokesman, George Little.
"This particular set of metrics doesn't tell the full story of progress against the Taliban, of course, but it's unhelpful to have inaccurate information in our systems," Little said.
A coalition spokesman, Jamie Graybeal, attributed the miscounting to clerical errors and said the problem does not change officials' basic assessment of the war, which they say is on a positive track as American and allied forces withdraw.
The 7 percent figure had been included in a report posted on the website of the coalition, the International Security Assistance Force, on Jan. 22 as part of its monthly update on trends in security and violence. It was removed from the website recently without explanation. After the AP asked last week about the missing report, coalition officials said they were correcting the data and would re-publish the report. As of Tuesday afternoon it had not reappeared.
U.S. and allied officials have often cited declining violence as a sign that the Taliban have been degraded and that Afghan forces are in position to take the lead security role when the last U.S. combat troops leave Dec. 31, 2014.
In mid-December, Panetta said "violence is down" for 2012 and Afghan forces "have gotten much better at providing security" in areas where they have taken the lead. He said the Taliban could be expected to continue to attack, "but overall they are losing."
Little said Panetta was briefed only "very recently" on the erroneous data.
U.S. and alliance officials try to measure progress against the Taliban from a variety of angles. Those include, for example, indications that the Taliban have lost much of their influence in population centers.
"The fact that 80 percent of the violence has been taking place in areas where less than 20 percent of the Afghan population lives remains unchanged," Little said.
The Taliban have lost a good deal of territory since a 2010 surge of U.S. forces in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, and they failed to recover it during the past two fighting seasons. Even so, they are resilient, and they are expected to severely test Afghan forces as the U.S. and its coalition partners step further into the background this year and complete their combat mission next year.
Many people, including coalition officials, have cautioned against the heavy reliance on statistics in assessing war progress. Yet the figures often are highlighted when they fit the narrative being promoted by leaders in Washington and other allied capitals.
"It is disturbing that, after 10 years of war, no reliable count of trends in violence exist even in terms of deaths, the most visible form of violence and one that is only a small portion of the actual causes and patterns of violence in the war," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in February 2012.
Graybeal did not fully explain erroneous reporting of 2012 Taliban attacks by the International Security Assistance Force. It was not clear, for example, at what point the data errors began or who discovered them.
"During a quality control check, ISAF recently became aware that some data was incorrectly entered into the database that is used for tracking security-related incidents across Afghanistan," Graybeal said earlier.
He said an audit determined that portions of the data from unilateral Afghan military operations were "not properly reflected" in the trends ISAF had reported in its monthly updates.
"After including this unilateral ANSF (Afghan National Security Force) data into our database, we have determined that there was no change in the total number of EIAs (enemy initiated attacks) from 2011 to 2012," Graybeal said.
"This was a record-keeping error that we recognized and have now corrected," he added.
While ISAF routinely reports trends in Taliban attacks, it does not reveal exact numbers of attacks. Judging from its illustrative charts, however, it appears that there were more than 28,000 Taliban "enemy initiated" attacks in 2011.
The coalition defines enemy initiated attacks as those by small arms, mortars, rockets and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But it does not include IEDs that are found and cleared before they explode.
Trends in Taliban attacks are one yardstick used by ISAF to measure war progress. Others include the state of security in populated areas, the number of coalition and Afghan casualties, the level of economic activity, the degree to which civilians can move about freely and the performance of Afghan security forces.
Graybeal said that even though the number of 2012 Taliban attacks was unchanged from 2011, "our assessment of the fundamentals of campaign progress has not changed. The enemy is increasingly separated from the population, and the ANSF are currently in the lead for the vast majority of partnered operations."
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Follow Robert Burns on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Wal-Mart is putting special labels on some store-brand products to help shoppers quickly spot healthier items. Millions of schoolchildren are helping themselves to vegetables from salad bars in their lunchrooms, while kids' meals at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass of low-fat milk.
The changes put in place by the food industry are in response to the campaign against childhood obesity that Michelle Obama began waging three years ago. More changes are in store.
Influencing policy posed more of a challenge for the first lady, and not everyone welcomed her effort, criticizing it as a case of unwanted government intrusion.
Still, nutrition advocates and others give her credit for using her clout to help bring a range of interests to the table. They hope the increased awareness she has generated through speeches, her garden and her physical exploits will translate into further reductions in childhood obesity rates long after she leaves the White House.
About one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese, which puts them at increased risk for any number of life-threatening illnesses, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
While there is evidence of modest declines in childhood obesity rates in some parts of the country, the changes are due largely to steps taken before the first lady launched "Let's Move" in February 2010.
With the program entering its fourth year, Mrs. Obama heads out Wednesday on a two-day promotional tour with stops in Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri. She has been talking up the program on daytime and late-night TV shows, on the radio and in public service announcements with Big Bird. She also plans discussions next week on Google and Twitter.
"We're starting to see some shifts in the trend lines and the data where we're starting to show some improvement," the first lady told SiriusXM host B. Smith in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "We've been spending a lot of time educating and re-educating families and kids on how to eat, what to eat, how much exercise to get and how to do it in a way that doesn't completely disrupt someone's life."
Larry Soler, president and chief executive of the Partnership for a Healthier America, said Mrs. Obama has "been the leader in making the case for the time is now in childhood obesity and everyone has a role to play in overcoming the problem." The nonpartisan, nonprofit partnership was created as part of "Let's Move" to work with the private sector and to hold companies accountable for changes they promised to make.
Conservatives accused Mrs. Obama of going too far and dictating what people should ? and shouldn't ? eat after she played a major behind-the-scenes role in the passage in 2010 of a child nutrition law that required schools to make foods healthier. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, once brought cookies to a school and called the first lady's efforts a "nanny state run amok."
Other leaders in the effort, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have felt the backlash, too. Last fall, Bloomberg helped enact the nation's first rule barring restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands from selling soda and other high-calorie drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.
Despite the criticism, broad public support exists for some of the changes the first lady and the mayor are advocating, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
More than eight in 10 of those surveyed, 84 percent, support requiring more physical activity in schools, and 83 percent favor government providing people with nutritional guidelines and information about diet and exercise. Seventy percent favor having restaurants put calorie counts on menus, and 75 percent consider overweightness and obesity a serious problem in this country, according to the Nov. 21-Dec. 14 survey by telephone of 1,011 adults.
Food industry representatives say Mrs. Obama has influenced their own efforts.
Mary Sophos of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's largest food companies, including General Mills and Kellogg's, said an industry effort to label the fronts of food packages with nutritional content gained momentum after Mrs. Obama, a mother of two, attended one of their meetings in 2010 and encouraged them to do more.
"She's not trying to point fingers," Sophos said. "She's trying to get people to focus on solutions."
A move by the companies signaling willingness to work with Mrs. Obama appears to have paid off as the Obama administration eased off some of the fights it appeared ready to pick four years ago.
The Food and Drug Administration has stalled its push to mandate labeling on the front of food packages, saying it is monitoring the industry's own effort. A rule that would require calorie counts on menus has been delayed as the FDA tries to figure out whom to apply it to. Supermarkets, movie theaters and other retailers have been lobbying to be exempted.
The industry also appears to have successfully warded off a move by the Federal Trade Commission to put in place voluntary guidelines for advertising junk food to kids. Directed by Congress, the guidelines would have discouraged the marketing of certain foods that didn't meet government-devised nutritional requirements. The administration released draft guidelines in 2011 but didn't follow up after the industry said they went too far and angry House Republicans summoned an agency official to Capitol Hill to defend them.
Besides labeling its store brands, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, also pledged to cut sodium and added sugars by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, by 2015, and remove industrially produced trans fats.
Leslie Dach, an executive vice president, said sodium in packaged bread has been cut by 13 percent, and added sugar in refrigerated flavored milk, popular among kids, has been cut by more than 17 percent. He said Wal-Mart shoppers have told the company that eating healthier is important to them. Giving customers what they want is also good for business.
New York reported a 5.5 percent decline in obesity rates in kindergarteners through eighth-graders between the 2006-07 and 2010-11 school years, according a report last fall by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which studies health policy. In Philadelphia, the decline was 4.7 percent among students in grades K-12 between the 2006-07 and 2009-10 school years, the foundation said.
Declines also were reported in California and in Mississippi, where Mrs. Obama stops Wednesday.
In Philadelphia, an organization called the Food Trust has worked since 1992 to help corner stores offer fresh foods, connect schools with local farms, bring supermarkets to underserved areas and ensure that farmers' markets accept food stamps, according to Robert Wood Johnson.
New York City requires chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus. Licensed day care centers also must offer daily physical activity, limit the amount of time children spend in front of TV and computer screens, and set nutrition standards.
Both cities also made changes to improve the quality of foods and beverages available to students in public schools.
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Online:
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(Reuters) - For the first time in decades, the United States is making steady gains in the number of high school students earning diplomas, putting it on pace to reach a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020, according to a new analysis released Monday.
But the good news comes with a big asterisk: students with learning disabilities and limited fluency in English face long odds to finish high school, with graduation rates for those groups as low as 25 percent in some states, the analysis found. Minority students also continue to fall well behind their white peers, with about one-third of African-American students and 29 percent of Hispanic students dropping out before graduation.
The "Building a Grad Nation" report - which was co-authored by Robert Balfanz, a leading scholar of dropout rates at Johns Hopkins University - found strong improvements in graduation rates in a diverse collection of states including Tennessee, Louisiana, Alaska, California, Texas and New York. The national graduation rate jumped from 71.7 percent in 2001 to 78.2 percent in 2010, with the pace of improvement accelerating in the past few years.
"For the first time in 40 years, we have seen significant, sustained improvement," said John Bridgeland, a co-author of the study and the chief executive of Civic Enterprises, a public policy group in Washington, D.C.
Iowa, Vermont and Wisconsin lead the nation with graduation rates close to 90 percent, according to the report, which used data from 2010 and 2011. At the bottom of the heap: Nevada and New Mexico, where barely six in 10 high school freshmen can expect to earn a diploma within four years. Idaho, Kentucky and Oklahoma didn't use the same formula for calculating rates as other states and thus were not included in the report.
Those who have been successful in raising graduation rates credit a range of tactics:
* Launching new schools designed to train kids for booming career fields, so they can see a direct connection between math class and future earnings
* Offering flexible academic schedules and well-supervised online courses so students with jobs or babies can earn credits as their time permits
* Hiring counselors to review every student's transcript, identify missing credits and get as many as possible back on track
* Improving reading instruction and requiring kids who struggle with comprehension to give up some electives for intensive tutoring
* Sending emissaries door-to-door to hound chronic truants into returning to class
"Increasing the graduation rate has to be a purposeful exercise, something you're driven to do every day," said Terry Grier, superintendent of public schools in Houston, Texas, where the graduation rate has jumped from 64.3 percent to 78.5 percent since 2007. "More and more, you're seeing people across the country get it."
Yet the report's authors warn that the momentum could still stall.
POTENTIAL LIMITING FACTORS
Nearly every state will soon be rolling out curricula tied to the Common Core standards, which aim to bring more rigor to math and language arts instruction. Many will require students to pass exams tied to those higher standards to graduate, which could push lead to more failures and higher drop-out rates, the report suggests.
The authors also warn that some states, such as Kentucky, New Mexico and Florida, plan to grade high schools in large measure by student test scores and participation in advanced courses, with the graduation rate accounting for less than 20 percent of the school's grade. That could give principals an incentive to push out failing students and focus on high-achievers, rather than helping the stragglers work toward their diplomas.
Another concern: some states, such as Texas, do not count students as dropouts if they say they are leaving to be home-schooled or to transfer to a private school. The report notes that thousands of those students are significantly behind in credits and suggests that many may be dropping out without admitting it.
Perhaps the biggest threat to momentum, however, is the lagging performance of disadvantaged students, the report's authors said.
In Nevada, for instance, just 23 percent of students with disabilities, 29 percent of those with limited English skills and 43 percent of African-American students earned their diplomas in 2011.
Even generally high-performing states such Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Connecticut have strikingly poor records with some minority students. Minnesota has the biggest gaps: The graduation rate for African-American and Hispanic students hovered around 50 percent in 2011, compared to 84 percent for white students.
"We need to look at these disparities head on," said Brenda Cassellius, Minnesota's Education Commissioner.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, has proposed $640 million in new education funding, including an effort to better integrate schools in hopes of boosting performance for minority students, Cassellius said.
Elsewhere, state officials plan to bring down the dropout rate by fundamentally rethinking the way school works.
In Oregon, where the graduation rate was 68 percent in 2011, Chief Education Officer Rudy Crew aims to stop measuring student progress by credit hours and start focusing on how kids can demonstrate mastery of key concepts - whether or not they've sat through a full year of classes.
The state's graduation rate - and the poor performance of minority students - "is untenable, unsustainable, and frankly highly dangerous," weakening the economy by leaving so many students unprepared for college or career, Crew said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Simon in Boston; Editing by Eric Walsh)
Way back in October last year we first heard word that ASUS planned to bring the Padfone 2 to the UK in early 2013. It's now early 2013 and true to their word ASUS is indeed bringing the Padfone 2 to the UK on March 1 for £599.
For some it may seem an anti-climax given the recent unveiling of the Padfone Infinity at MWC. But, the Padfone 2 is still an impressive device packing a Snapdragon S4 Pro, 2GB of RAM, a 13MP camera and a HD Super IPS+ display. It isn't quite the powerhouse the new Padfone Infinity is, but the hardware specs are still impressive. And of course, the Padfone 2 will be around £200 cheaper than the Infinity.
Both white and black versions will be available, and several big name retailers will be picking it up including Amazon and Carphone Warehouse. The full press release can be found after the break.
Property is used as security collateral against most real estate loans.?Non-recourse real estate loans?are no exception. When you sign a note directly with your lender the note is a Primary Market note. In the event that you purchase a note from a lender that already had executed the original note, you are said to be working in the Secondary Market. Those familiar with the financial crisis of 2008, will understand that a huge part of the bubble-burst came from asset-backed securities sold in the secondary market. Many of such junk real estate notes were sold after the loans created were known to be extremely risky. The problem with such notes is that the lender could loan large amounts to someone incapable to pay and then transfer all liability to another individual or entity on the secondary market, without reaping the consequences of the loan?s eventual default. In essence, it was a way to make large of amount of money by writing extremely risky loans and then passing the risk on to others in the secondary market. Ultimately, the entire country, including the taxpayers, took the heat for such predatory lending.
Just because asset-backed securities received a bad rap, thanks to the financial crisis of 2008, it doesn?t mean that they?re evil or avoidable at all costs. It is, however, helpful to understand the potential areas of risk when heading headlong into investing in such products. With that in mind, here is some information on investing in real estate-backed notes with your real estate IRA.
When it comes to your self-directed IRA, it is important to note that you can invest in both primary and secondary note markets.
Senior Notes vs. Junior Notes
Unless your IRA is extremely well-funded, it is advisable that you only invest in Senior Notes. Here?s why. Junior Notes represent higher risk loans: second mortgages and/or home equity lines of credit. They?re loans that are ultimately more risky because they have second claim to the property behind the senior note and are more likely to go into default. Remember, your real estate IRA is sacred. We suggest only investing in high-grade, real estate-backed senior notes.
Ultimately, the risk of the note is not just based on whether it was Senior or Junior. It is based on other important factors as well, including:
Term of the loan. Is it a 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 year note??
Interest Rate. The percentage balance charged by the lender and paid by the borrower can have an affect on the riskiness of the payback.
Creditworthiness. While credit scores and other measure are highly subjective in nature, other objective measurements help determine a person?s ability to pay (like income etc.)
Loan-to-Value Ratio (LTV): Divide the balance of the loan by the market value of the property. This helps to measure the ultimate risk of the mortgage note. If you?re buying a note, the lower the better.
Using the aforementioned factors can help you gauge the riskiness of the note in which you invest with your self-directed IRA. When the customer?s credit score and LTV ratio are too low for a traditional bank or mortgage lender, someone with a home that wanted to borrow against it could go with a private investor for a higher interest rate. That?s where notes come into play. We will be discussing further how such mortgage notes can be structured and the best ways in which to invest in securitized obligations with your retirement account funds in later posts. Stay tuned.
Feb. 24, 2013 ? An international research group led by scientists from the University of Bristol, UK, and the University of Queensland, Australia, has demonstrated a quantum algorithm that performs a true calculation for the first time. Quantum algorithms could one day enable the design of new materials, pharmaceuticals or clean energy devices.
The team implemented the 'phase estimation algorithm' -- a central quantum algorithm which achieves an exponential speedup over all classical algorithms. It lies at the heart of quantum computing and is a key sub-routine of many other important quantum algorithms, such as Shor's factoring algorithm and quantum simulations.
Dr Xiao-Qi Zhou, who led the project, said: "Before our experiment, there had been several demonstrations of quantum algorithms, however, none of them implemented the quantum algorithm without knowing the answer in advance. This is because in the previous demonstrations the quantum circuits were simplified to make it more experimentally feasible. However, this simplification of circuits required knowledge of the answer in advance. Unlike previous demonstrations, we built a full quantum circuit to implement the phase estimation algorithm without any simplification. We don't need to know the answer in advance and it is the first time the answer is truly calculated by a quantum circuit with a quantum algorithm."
Professor Jeremy O'Brien, director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics at the University of Bristol said: "Implementing a full quantum algorithm without knowing the answer in advance is an important step towards practical quantum computing. It paves the way for important applications, including quantum simulations and quantum metrology in the near term, and factoring in the long term."
The research is published in Nature Photonics.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.
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Journal Reference:
Xiao-Qi Zhou, Pruet Kalasuwan, Timothy C. Ralph, Jeremy L. O'Brien. Calculating unknown eigenvalues with a quantum algorithm. Nature Photonics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2012.360
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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
In this photo of Saturday Feb. 9, 2013, a displaced woman works with others to construct a new straw hut at 'Hope' camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Nyahururu, in Kenya. The 624 people living at Hope Camp, a spot near the equator in a placed called Laikipia, is an illustration of one of the many lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its 2007 presidential election. Five years later _ and now only days before the country?s March 4 presidential election _ hundreds of refugees still have not returned home. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this photo of Saturday Feb. 9, 2013, a displaced woman works with others to construct a new straw hut at 'Hope' camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Nyahururu, in Kenya. The 624 people living at Hope Camp, a spot near the equator in a placed called Laikipia, is an illustration of one of the many lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its 2007 presidential election. Five years later _ and now only days before the country?s March 4 presidential election _ hundreds of refugees still have not returned home. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 photo, a displaced woman washes clothes at Mawingu camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Ol Kalou, in Kenya. Weeks of violence left more than 1,000 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee from their homes following a dispute over the December 2007 presidential vote and people are still afraid to go home and living in camps. Kenya holds another high-tension election next Monday without having fully solved the plight of hundreds of thousands of victims from the previous poll. Many say they are too traumatized to return to their homes even today, rights groups and refugee officials say. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this Saturday Feb. 9, 2013 photo, Damaris Wanjiku Mathu, 35,, stands outside her straw hut at 'Hope' camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Nyahururu, in Kenya. The 624 people living at Hope Camp, a spot near the equator in a placed called Laikipia, is an illustration of one of the many lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its 2007 presidential election. Five years later _ and now only days before the country?s March 4 presidential election _ hundreds of refugees still have not returned home. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this Saturday Feb. 9, 2013 photo, residents gather at sundown at 'Hope' camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Nyahururu, in Kenya. The 624 people living at Hope Camp, a spot near the equator in a placed called Laikipia, is an illustration of one of the many lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its 2007 presidential election. Five years later _ and now only days before the country?s March 4 presidential election _ hundreds of refugees still have not returned home. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
In this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 photo, Monica Waithera, 10, chops wood with a machete outside her makeshift tent at Mawingu camp for internally-displaced Kenyans from the Kikuyu tribe, near Ol Kalou, in Kenya. Weeks of violence killed more than 1,000 people and forced more than 600,000 people from their home after tribes turned against one another following a dispute over who won the December 20078 presidential vote. Kenya holds another high-tension election next Monday without having fully solved the plight of hundreds of thousands of victims from the previous poll. Many say they are too traumatized to return to their homes even today, rights groups and refugee officials say. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
GWA KUNGU, Kenya (AP) ? Alex Ndungu is the latest victim of the harsh mountain winds that blow through the rows of straw huts in Gwa Kungu, a village where those displaced by violence following Kenya's 2007 election remain even as the nation readies for another election.
Alex died of complications resulting from pneumonia and anemia. He was only 9 months old.
The 624 people living at Hope Camp, 230 kilometers (140 miles) north of Kenya's capital Nairobi, are a sad illustration of the lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its presidential election five years ago.
The attacks with knives, spears, machetes and firearms went on for weeks. More than 1,000 people died and more than 600,000 people fled their home after tribes turned against one another following a dispute over who won the December 2007 presidential vote.
Kenya holds another election on March 4 without having fully solved the plight of hundreds of thousands of victims from the previous poll, including those still awaiting financial restitution for their losses, and hundreds of people remain in squalid conditions in camps.
There are signs violence may again return this election season. The Kenya Red Cross says violence that killed more than 200 people and displaced nearly 120,000 across Kenya late last year had political overtones.
Nearly all the refugees at Hope Camp are from the Kikuyu tribe of President Mwai Kibaki. They were attacked following the flawed elections by the Kalenjin tribe, one among the many tribes that supported the opposition leader at the time, the current Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Eating a full meal a day or taking a bath is a luxury for the camp's residents, many of whom owned their own homes and prospered before the violence erupted five years ago.
Damaris Wanjiku Mathu, Alex's mother, said she believes he became sick because her hut has holes that let the rain water in, and the straw provides little insulation against the cold.
"And he was malnourished because we don't get enough food," she told a reporter. She and her husband earn a combined $3 a day working as laborers in the nearby farms, she said.
Election violence in Kenya is common and cyclical. David Mungua Maigwa, 53, a resident of Hope Camp, said he has been evicted from his homes multiple times ? in 1992, 1997 and 2007 ? all because of election violence.
The U.N. special expert on human rights and the internally displaced said in a report last year that the lack of accurate and efficient systems of registration and data collection resulted in a situation where many internally displaced people or IDPs, were not included in aid programs. The U.N. says more than 300,000 Kenyan IDPs were not registered with the government resettlement program, meaning they will not get any government assistance.
One of the top two contenders for president, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, is accused by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity for the 2007 violence. So is his vice presidential running mate, William Ruto.
Kenyatta is accused of orchestrating revenge attacks against Odinga supporters. Ruto is accused of orchestrating violence using warriors from his Kalenjin community ? which supported Odinga ? against members of the Kikuyu community. Since that election, Kenyatta and Ruto have formed an alliance against Odinga. The two shook hands and embraced during a prayer meeting in Nairobi on Sunday and pledged to concede defeat if they lose next week's election and to use the court to resolve disputes.
Many internal refugees fear they will be forgotten when the new administration takes over. They also fear they will no longer be on the radar to receive government assistance to rebuild their lives after their property was either burned or stolen, even though government has adopted laws to handle the IDP issues.
The coalition government that was created to end the previous post-election mayhem, and which gave Odinga the premiership and Kibaki the presidency, ends with this year's election. The government's resettlement program operation Rudi Nyumbani, or Go Back Home, was supposed to start in May 2008 and end one month later. Instead it has dragged on for years.
Margaret Wairimu Wanja, the leader of the residents association at Hope Camp, fears the next government will not be obligated to attend to the IDPs.
Food supplies in the camps have been intermittent and unreliable. Most refugees live in houses made of sticks and cloth sacks. Hundreds of people have died in the camps due respiratory related conditions and complications from infections due to a lack of medical care, said Michael Wainaina, a national official with the Association of Internally Displaced People.
Mathu, little Alex's mother, is not optimistic that the remaining displaced people here will get proper assistance. Alex died late last month. He won't be the last to perish in Hope Camp, she said.
"Many more will die because of these conditions," she said.
I had to duck out of the London Super Comic Convention due to being all sick and stuff. And Bleeding Cool proprietor William Christensen basically ordering me home. But here's a quick look. Odds are I won't be able to make it on on Sunday. So why not go in my place? Comics, creators, cosplay, publishers and panels aplenty...
New funding scheme for community groups in Waltham Forest
1:10pm Sunday 24th February 2013 in Waltham Forest By Daniel Binns
Community and voluntary organisations in Waltham Forest are being invited to apply for grants under a new scheme.
The People?s Health Trust is offering payouts of between ?5,000 and ?25,000 as part of its new Active Communities Funding Programme.
To be eligible to apply, groups must have an annual income of less than ?200,000 and must be based in Waltham Forest, with the cash earmarked for community projects lasting up to 18 months.
Waltham Forest is one of a number of boroughs in the UK chosen for the funding due to its high levels of deprivation.
Chair of the People?s Health Trust, Professor Jennie Popay, said: ?Through our new Active Communities Funding Programme, we?re looking to support projects in the most deprived neighbourhoods in Great Britain that encourage community activism.
"We?re interested in projects that are designed by local people that address issues relevant to them and benefit and improve their local community.
"We want to support local people to use their skills and knowledge to make their communities better places in which to grow, to live, to work and to age.?
The trust is funded by the HealthLives organisation via the Health Lottery.
Visit www.peopleshealthtrust.org.uk, email apply@peopleshealthtrust.org.uk or call 020 7697 4021 to apply and for more information.
The closing date for applications is 9am on Thursday April 11.
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Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
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