Online Learning and Upheavals in Social Networks - Technology ...

Live and learn: Everybody went mobile in 2012 (or so it seemed), but the most groundbreaking movement on the Web may have been the rise of digital education.

For all the attention lavished on the Web?s growth on mobile devices this year, one of the most interesting Internet trends is still best experienced on a desktop computer: online education.

The rising cost of higher education (the average bachelor?s degree now costs more than $100,000), combined with increasing access to high-speed Internet service and a desire for more efficient and flexible learning methods, brought new prominence to websites offering free or low-priced courses in everything from programming to literature.

Free online code-learning startup Codecademy?s effort to teach novices to code snagged more than 400,000 participants for its weekly lessons in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Harvard and MIT joined forces to create edX, a $60 million nonprofit company that streams free college courses online, while nearly three dozen schools?including Stanford and Princeton?formed their own free online course site, Coursera, which has more than 1.5 million users so far.

Udacity, cofounded by Sebastian Thrun, a Google Fellow and former Stanford researcher, started out by offering a single Stanford artificial intelligence class online for free. It has since grown and now offers 19 different free courses, mostly geared toward computer science and math. And Duolingo, a free crowdsourced language-learning startup cocreated by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn, has about 300,000 users per week learning French, Spanish, English, Italian, German, and Portuguese.

Perhaps the most ambitious (and highly funded) online education offering unveiled in the last year was the Minerva Project, which raised $25 million from Benchmark Capital for its plan to offer a completely online college education for about $25,000 a year. We?ll have to wait to gauge the Minerva Project?s impact, though: it?s not starting classes until 2015.

Despite the initial wave of enthusiasm, it?s not yet clear whether many of these startups or universities will be able to form sustainable business models, or if online classes can really work well on a large scale (many of the students that sign up for classes don?t actually complete them).

Fortunately, because they operate on the Web, these education efforts are able to gather lots of data about how their students are learning?potentially useful for tweaking lessons and improving performance.

Another segment of the Web that experienced major changes in 2012 was social networking. More than eight years after it began in Mark Zuckerberg?s Harvard dorm room, Facebook crossed the billion-user milestone in October.

The leading social network also became a publicly traded company, albeit not a particularly successful one; the stock began trading on May 18 at $42; as of Wednesday, it had declined to $26.51. This move means that Facebook, which is constantly gathering more data about our lives, is now facing even greater pressure to find ways to profit from this information. Facebook bought the popular photo-sharing service Instagram in a bid to beef up its own photo-sharing offerings and capitalize on Instagram?s influence as a standalone app. Facebook set the acquisition price at $1 billion in April, but the stock and cash deal was worth about $715 million when it closed in August due to the drop in Facebook?s share price.

Pinterest, a social-curation site founded by Ben Silbermann that lets you ?pin? interesting items found online to virtual pinboards, emerged in 2012 as one of the most popular social networking sites. Though Pinterest launched back in 2010, it suddenly ascended early this year. In April, a report from Experian Marketing Services named it the third most popular social network behind Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, more and more of the Web was experienced on smartphones and tablets in 2012. The first time smartphones and tablets outsold personal computers?was 2011, and that trend continued in 2012. Mobile Internet usage has been rising quickly?it accounted for 13 percent of Web traffic in November?and it?s expected to grow more dramatically. According to IDC, the number of mobile users is expected to climb from 174 million this year to 265 million in 2016, with more of us accessing the Web with a mobile device than with a PC in 2015. So if you?re not already reading this story on a smartphone or tablet, chances are you will be soon.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508976/online-learning-and-upheavals-in-social-networks/

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Staphylococcus aureus: Why it just gets up your nose

Dec. 27, 2012 ? A collaboration between researchers at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Department of Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin has identified a mechanism by which the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) colonizes our nasal passages. The study, published December 28 in the open access journal PLOS Pathogens, shows for the first time that a protein located on the bacterial surface called clumping factor B (ClfB) has high affinity for the skin protein loricrin.

S. aureus is a major human pathogen, with the potential to cause severe invasive diseases. It is a major cause for concern in hospitals and healthcare facilities, where many infections are caused by strains resistant to commonly used antibiotics [MRSA]. Interestingly, S. aureus persistently colonizes about 20% of the human population by binding to skin-like cells within the nasal cavity. Being colonized predisposes an individual towards becoming infected so it is vital that we understand the mechanisms involved.

ClfB was previously shown to promote S. aureus colonization in a human nasal colonization volunteer study. This paper now identifies the mechanism by which ClfB facilitates S. aureus nasal colonization. Purified ClfB bound loricrin with high affinity and this interaction was shown to be crucial for successful colonization of the nose in a mouse model. A knockout mouse lacking loricrin in its skin cells allowed fewer bacterial cells to colonize its nasal passages than a normal mouse. When S. aureus strains that lacked ClfB were used nasal colonization could not be achieved at all. Finally it was shown that soluble loricrin could reduce binding of S. aureus to human nasal skin cells and that nasal administration of loricrin reduced S. aureus colonization of mice.

Rachel McLoughlin, the study's corresponding author and Lecturer at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin concludes, "Loricrin is a major determinant of S. aureus nasal colonization." This discovery therefore opens new avenues for developing therapeutic strategies to reduce the burden of nasal carriage and consequently infections with this bacterium. This is particularly important given the difficulties associated with treating MRSA infections.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.

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Journal Reference:

1. Mulcahy ME, Geoghegan JA, Monk IR, O'Keeffe KM, Walsh EJ, et al. Nasal Colonisation by Staphylococcus aureus Depends upon Clumping Factor B Binding to the Squamous Epithelial Cell Envelope Protein Loricrin. PLOS Pathog, 2012 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003092

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/QOrR-A2v5mo/121227173334.htm

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Will 'Fiscal Cliff' Accelerate Millionaire Deaths?

It may seem incredible to contemplate pulling the plug on grandma to save tax dollars. While we know that investors will sell stocks to avoid rising capital gains taxes, accelerating the death of a loved one seems at least a bit morbid?perhaps even evil. Will people really make life and death decisions based on taxes? Do we don our green eye shades when it comes to something this serious?

(Read More: Majority of Wealthy Support Taxing Themselves: Poll)

There is good evidence that there is some "elasticity" in the timing of important decisions about life and death.

It's well-known that people can delay death, for example, in order to live through significant dates?birthdays, holidays, anniversaries. In the first week of 2000, local New York City hospitals recorded an astonishing 50.8 percent more deaths than in the last week of 1999, according to the New York Times. Apparently, a significant number of people delayed their deaths in order to see the new millennium.

In the summer of 2004 something very strange happened in Australia. The birthrate plummeted sharply in June. Then on a single day in July more babies were born than on any other day in the prior thirty years of Australian history. July 1, 2004 was a very popular day to be born.

What caused this dip and surge in births? Seven weeks before July 1, the Australian government announced a change in the tax code that would give families a $3,000 baby-bonus starting on the first day in July. It appears that as many as 1,000 births were "moved" until after the baby bonus kicked-in, according to a 2009 study by Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne's Business School and Andrew Leigh of the Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences.

"We estimate that over 1,000 births were "moved" so as to ensure that their parents were eligible for the Baby Bonus, with about one quarter being moved by more than one week," Gans and Leigh write.

(Read More: America's Most Expensive Homes 2012)

According to the researchers, most of this temporal shift was due to changes in the timing of induction and cesarean section procedures. When they looked at an increase in the baby bonus that took effect two years later, on July 1, 2006, they found that the same pattern?births moving from June to July.

Now, some of this could be due to fudging the dates, so that births occurring just prior to the eligibility date were recorded as taking place afterward. But Gans and Leigh found evidence that babies really were held-in-uteri until they were eligible for the tax break. Babies born after the eligibility date, for example, had higher birth weights than those born earlier.

An earlier paper by Gans and Leigh looked into another natural experiment. In 1979, Australia abolished its federal inheritance taxes. Official records show that approximately 50 deaths were shifted from the week before the abolition to the week after.

"Although we cannot rule out the possibility that our results are driven by misreporting, our results imply that over the very short run, the death rate may be highly elastic with respect to the inheritance tax rate," Gans and Leigh write.

This isn't just something peculiar to Australia. Economists Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan studied how mortality rates in the United States were changed by falling estate taxes. They note that while the evidence of "death elasticity" is "not overwhelming," every $10,000 in available tax savings increases the chance of dying in the low-tax period by 1.6 percent. This is true both when taxes are falling, so that people are surviving longer to achieve the tax savings, and when they are rising, so that people are dying earlier, according to Kopczuk and Slemrod.

"Death elasticity" does not necessarily mean that greedy relatives are pulling the plug on the dying or forcing the sickly to extend their lives into a lower taxed period. According to a 2008 paper from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Doctor G. Stuart Mendenhall, while tax increases give potential heirs large economic incentives to limit care that would prolong life, distressed patients may "voluntarily trade prolongation of their life past the end [a low tax period] for large ?nancial implications for their kin.

"Whether these incentives are explicitly speci?ed in wills or communicated to their power of attorney over the dinner table, they are clearly present and affect the ability of all involved parties to make unbiased decisions," Mendenhall writes.

We had something of a natural experiment in death and taxes in 2010, when the estate tax was eliminated for one year. Many predicted that this would result in many fewer deaths at the end of 2009 and a surge in deaths prior to taxes rising in 2011.

(Read More: Forget the 'Fiscal Cliff,' Look at These Cliffs)

My own research hasn't uncovered any formal academic work on this period. Perhaps it is too recent. Or perhaps the setting of the exemption at $5 million made the sample size of those that could achieve significant tax savings by dying in 2010 rather than 2011 too small.

But based on past reactions to changes in taxes, it at least seems likely that some deaths that might otherwise have occurred shortly after January 1 will occur shortly before. Death may slip in ahead of the tax man for some with estates worth over $1 million.

(Correction: An earlier version of this post miscalculated the size of an estate that would be needed to achieve a $1.1 million savings through early death.)

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100341727

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Tinseltown Dirt

Tinseltown Dirt

Amy Poehler Tackles Jealousy [The Frisky] Demi Lovato Sings for Newtown Victims [HollyWire] Nelson Mandela Leaves Hospital [The Celebrity Cafe] Kelly Osbourne Rocks Bikini on Cosmo [The Blemish] Kate Winslet Secretly Ties the Knot [The Huffington Post] Janet Jackson Engaged [Radar Online] CNN Anchor Erin Burnett Off the Market [Bump Shack] David Gregory in Trouble ...

Tinseltown Dirt Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2012/12/tinseltown-dirt-8/

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Morning Advantage: The Business of Guns - Sarah Green - Harvard ...

by Sarah Green??|?? 6:00 AM December 27, 2012

The business community has been pretty quiet in the wake of the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook. But I have found some of the most interesting and compelling journalism in the aftermath to be focused on the firearms industry, itself, and how it is regulated (or isn't). Five I've found the most thought-provoking:

1. NPR's report on why the AR-15, the weapon used in the massacre, has become so popular. One explanation: as the number of gun enthusiasts wane, gun manufacturers are marketing more expensive (and more lethal) models to a shrinking pool of customers.

2. Drew Magary's profanity-laced screed on Gawker won't be for everyone, but he does raise the interesting question: in a country that hasn't hesitated to demonize Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Media, why does the gun control lobby get so angry at the NRA and almost never talk about the gun makers themselves?

3. Farhad Manjoo, Slate's technology writer, compares gun makers to other consumer products companies and unearths some of the technological advancements we have developed ? but are not using ? that could make guns safer.

4. Robert Cyran and Reynolds Holding in Reuters asking why, in a country that has mandatory car insurance, we don't have mandatory gun insurance?

5. Bloomberg's Henry Goldman looks at the research to try and figure out how much gun violence costs the US economy. One estimate put the damage in dollars at $174 billion in 2010 alone.

TUM TEE TUM

Finding Meaning at Work, Even When Your Job Is Dull (HBR)

Berkeley professors Morten T. Hansen (who is also at INSEAD) and Dacher Keltner make an important distinction: finding meaning at work is different from finding meaningful work. The latter is your curing-cancer-saving-polar-bears-type gig, while the former is about taking satisfaction in even the little things: learning opportunities, socializing with coworkers, even the status that comes from having a snazzy title. Turns out, these little things add up to a whole lot.

WADE IN THE WATER

A Devastating Flood in Silicon Valley No Longer Seems Unimaginable (Scientific American)

The battering that America's East Coast recently took from Superstorm Sandy has prompted some serious thought about what might happen to the billion-dollar companies in Silicon Valley if a superstorm were to hit California. The land where the headquarters of Facebook, Google, and Yahoo are located is a few feet below sea level, protected by levees that weren't designed to withstand powerful storms, Scientific American says. If sea levels were to rise, as expected, and a particularly bad storm surge were to hit San Francisco Bay, the valley and its economic activity would be jeopardized. Imagine flooded homes, ruined offices, and a foot of water on the highways. Some 257 tech companies could be at risk. ?by Andy O'Connell

BONUS BITS:

Bread and Butter

How to Be Extremely Productive (HBS Working Knowledge)
Six Reasons You Hire the Wrong People (Inc.)
How to Use Analogies to Introduce New Ideas (Sloan Management Review)

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2012/12/morning-advantage-the-business.html

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Business Team Leadership: Pull Them, Dont Push Them

This article is primarily directed toward people who work at home in a business that happens to involve teamwork in a network marketing environment.

I am often contacted by members of my business team with complaints regarding a lack of response or lack of action on the part of their affiliates. Their complaints typically go something likeI send out lots of emails to all of them and I very rarely get any response and it seems like very few of them are taking any action. What am I doing wrong?.

There are many types of internet-based home businesses where feedback and interaction are quite important and getting an affiliate or business team member to communicate with you is a definite objective. Its not at all surprising that this can be a challenge when you stop to think that what you are trying to do is initiate a dialog between two complete strangers who have never even seen each other.

In the case of network marketing it is of critical importance to build a sense of trust with your team members. Network marketing is very definitely a relationship business and each relationship typically starts out with two complete strangers sitting at their respective keyboards.

The team building aspect of network marketing is of vital importance to the success of each individual member and to the team as a whole. Two key elements of team building are trust and confidence and these factors play a very large role particularly for new team members.

With all that being said many people love the IDEA of making good money working at home in their own business and expect it to just happen chaumet replica but have no willingness to take any action or put forth any effort to make it happen.

Having been involved with team building and network marketing for some time gst chronograph watch I have come to adopt the following as my operating credoif you have the desire and are willing to put in the effort baume & mercier classima executives replica watches Ill pull you along so you can go faster down the road to success girard perregaux watch graham watches but if you dont want move on your own Im not going to waste my time trying to push you forward.

Its like working with a length of chainpulling it along works fine replica movado vivo watches but trying it push it forward only results in a pile of frustration.

You need to be able to distinguish between people that have a legitimate interest in developing a home based business and those lost souls that feel that they have just joined another chat group and only want to engage in an endless debate about the virtues of whatever business you are promoting chopard grand prix de monaco historique watches u-boat classico replica watches but never actually had any intention of establishing a businessyou will have to develop your own method of reading people like this (its mainly a sense of feelsort of a belly button thing).

You can help someone reach for successbut you cant reasonably expect to make them want to be successful. Its just another variation of that very old and tired clichethat you can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

Another way of looking at it is if you are trying to move people forward you pull them from in front (a leadership position) but if you have to push them it will be from behind (not a position of leadership).

Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at

Proven Work At Home Business

Source: http://www.smartask.com.au/76482/business-team-leadership-pull-them-dont-push-them

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Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Joins Arenacross 2013 - Motorcycle USA

Feld Motor Sports announced today that Rocky Mountain ATV/MC, a leader in providing off-road enthusiasts with the largest selection of off-road gear at the lowest prices, has signed a deal to serve as the official online powersports retailer for the 2013 AMSOIL Arenacross season. As an avid supporter of motor sports, Rocky Mountain ATV/MC is proud to join forces with AMSOIL Arenacross, which begins with two nights of action on January 4th and January 5th from Worcester, Mass., and the DCU Center.

The 2013 season will mark the first year that Rocky Mountain ATV/MC has supported AMSOIL Arenacross, which will feature an exciting new competition format. For over 28 years, Rocky Mountain ATV/MC has served off-road riders across the globe and its familiar logo will be a welcome presence trackside at all 10 rounds of the 2013 AMSOIL Arenacross season.

?Rocky Mountain ATV/MC is already a proud partner of Monster Energy Supercross, so we eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to bring more attention and exposure to the world of AMSOIL Arenacross and allow us to share our passion for all motorsports,? said Dan Thomas, CEO of Rocky Mountain ATV/MC.

Fans will be able to get a glimpse of current Rocky Mountain ATV/MC offerings at AMSOIL Arenacross through public announcements, television commercials during SPEED broadcasts, and trackside advertisements.

?We are pleased to bring Rocky Mountain ATV/MC on board with AMSOIL Arenacross for the first time,? said Todd Jendro, vice president of two-wheel operations, Feld Motor Sports. ?Rocky Mountain ATV/MC continues to serve as a leader in providing great service and a vast selection of gear, so we are thrilled to establish a new partnership with them for the 2013 season.?

Live timing and scoring from each round of the AMSOIL Arenacross season returns for the 2013 season! To follow the intense racing action live, log onto www.Arenacross.com. ?

For more information on the 2013 AMSOIL Arenacross season, log on to www.Arenacross.com. For all media requests, please contact Brandon Short brandon@nextlevelsportsinc.com or 949-365-5750.

Never miss out on the latest news! Follow the AMSOIL Arenacross on Facebook and Twitter! Log on to?http://www.facebook.com/AMAarenacross and?http://twitter.com/arenacross today!

About Feld Motor Sports?
Feld Motor Sports?, Inc. is the world leader in specialized arena and stadium-based motor sports entertainment. Feld Motor Sports, Inc. productions include Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam?, Monster Energy? Supercross, AMSOIL Arenacross, Monster Energy Cup, Nuclear Cowboyz?, and IHRA? Nitro Jam?. Feld Motor Sports, Inc. is a division of Feld Entertainment, the world?s largest producer of live family entertainment. For more information on Feld Entertainment, visit www.feldentertainment.com.

About AMSOIL?
AMSOIL? manufactures premium synthetic lubricants for all automotive, diesel and power sports applications. AMSOIL is formulated specifically for equipment life, maximum power and optimal all\-weather performance and have been tested and proven for over 40 years and billions of miles of service. For more information on AMSOIL, visit www.amsoil.com or www.amsoilracing.com.

About Rocky Mountain ATV/MC?
For over 28 years, Rocky Mountain ATV/MC has been the trusted source for off-road enthusiasts who demand high quality riding gear, low prices and unmatched customer service. Rocky Mountain ATV/MC doesn?t just satisfy their customer?s expectations, they exceed them with values you won?t find anywhere else like their frequent buyer program, fit guarantee apparel exchange, free 3-day shipping and price match guarantee. For more information, visit http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/.

Source: http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/508/15183/Motorcycle-Article/Rocky-Mountain-ATV-MC-Joins-Arenacross-2013.aspx

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