GOP bill would limit damages under Wis. lemon law

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Two Republican lawmakers are looking to dethrone Wisconsin's Lemon Law King.

Rep. Bill Kramer, of Waukesha, and Sen. Jerry Petrowski, of Marathon, have crafted a bill that would relax Wisconsin's vehicle lemon law by erasing mandatory consumer damage awards, shrinking the window for filing a lawsuit and giving manufacturers more time to deliver a replacement vehicle or refund.

At the center of it all is attorney Vince Megna, who touts himself as the Lemon Law King. Megna has been feuding with the GOP since Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill in 2011 limiting attorney fees after Megna collected more than $150,000 in an auto-repair dispute. He's posted satirical and sometimes profane videos blasting Walker and mounted a failed campaign this spring to unseat conservative-leaning Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack.

Megna won a huge lemon law judgment against Mercedes-Benz USA LLC last year stemming from a 2005 lawsuit. Megna accused the company of refusing to grant his client a refund for a defective $56,000 sedan.

The company argued Megna's client never supplied all the information it needed to provide the refund within the lemon law's 30-day window in an effort to set up the lawsuit. The case bounced around Wisconsin courts for years. The state Supreme Court in May 2012 ultimately sided with Megna, who went on to collect $618,000 in damages, interest and attorney fees. Megna said he's still seeking about $300,000 in additional fees from the company.

Kramer and Petrowski didn't mention Megna by name in a memo they sent to legislators seeking co-sponsors. But they specifically cited the Mercedes-Benz case as an example of attorneys abusing loopholes in the lemon law. A coalition of state and national automaker associations, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, is backing them up.

"The law places unreasonable and unworkable requirements on vehicle manufacturers that allow lawyers like self-proclaimed 'Lemon Law King' Vince Megna to win outsized awards that have no nexus to fairness or the underlying goals of the law," the coalition said in an email to legislators asking them to sign onto the bill.

Megna said Kramer and Petrowski's bill would "gut" the lemon law but wouldn't stop him. He promised to continue filing lawsuits in federal court, saying it's easier to win lemon law cases there.

"The lemon law is not a partisan thing," he said. "It helps everybody. To gut it like this because of me is just ridiculous. But I'll make more money. If it's about money, I'll file twice as many lawsuits."

Wisconsin's lemon law, regarded as one of the toughest in the country, allows consumers to demand a manufacturer for a new car or a refund if the manufacturer fails to repair a defect covered by warranty in four tries. The manufacturer has 30 days to deliver the refund or the car after the consumer hands over the title to the old car.

Consumers also can bring civil lawsuits under the law. If they win, a judge must award them twice the amount of any monetary losses, along with costs and attorney fees.

Under the Republicans' bill, judges and juries would be allowed to issue damage awards, costs and attorney fees as they see fit. Damages would be capped at the consumer's actual losses, however.

A manufacturer would have 45 days instead of 30 to deliver a replacement vehicle; if the manufacturer can't deliver one by the 45th day, the consumer would get a refund. Commercial vehicle manufacturers would have 120 days. Consumers would have 30 days to hand over any information a manufacturer wants or lose their right to sue. Consumers also would have to file any lawsuits within two years of first receiving the vehicle; currently they have six years.

Kramer and Petrowski stressed in their sponsorship memo consumers could still get a new car or a refund and could still sue if they don't get either in a timely fashion.

"Bottom line, the bill preserves our strong consumer protections but eliminates any incentives for legal tricks," Petrowski said in an email statement to The Associated Press. Kramer didn't return messages left at his Capitol office.

A spokeswoman said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Burlington, supports the measure and would like to see the full Assembly vote on it yet this spring. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Fitzgerald hasn't reviewed the bill yet.

Megna said the auto manufacturers he tangles with are corporate giants and should be able to handle the lemon law's requirements. And he pledged to keep filing lawsuits under federal consumer protection laws.

"They think they're hurting me and other lawyers," he said, "but they're not."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-bill-limit-damages-under-162835470.html

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How High Speed Traders Use Microwaves to Make Money

The days of traders shouting orders on the New York Stock Exchange's floor may soon be over. A new breed of investing, known as High Frequency Trading, has taken hold of the equities market?one that relies on computerization and automation to exploit momentary price changes for an investor's financial gain. And where latency is the primary measure of success, calculated in milliseconds, fiber might not even be fast enough. But that's where the microwave radios come in.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/C8dWuxUpihk/how-high-speed-traders-use-microwaves-to-make-money-486353476

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'Going negative' pays for nanotubes

May 3, 2013 ? A Rice University laboratory's cagey strategy turns negatively charged carbon nanotubes into liquid crystals that could enhance the creation of fibers and films.

The latest step toward making macro materials out of microscopic nanotubes depends on cage-like crown ethers that capture potassium cations. Negatively charged carbon nanotubes associate with potassium cations to maintain their electrical neutrality. In effect, the ethers help strip these cations from the surface of the nanotubes, resulting into a net charge that helps counterbalance the electrical van der Waals attraction that normally turns carbon nanotubes into an unusable clump.

The process by Rice chemist Angel Mart?, his students and colleagues was revealed in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

Carbon nanotubes have long been thought of as a potential basis for ultrastrong, highly conductive fibers -- a premise borne out in recent work by Rice professor and co-author Matteo Pasquali -- and preparing them has depended on the use of a "superacid," chlorosulfonic acid, that gives the nanotubes a positive charge and makes them repel each other in a solution.

Mart? and first authors Chengmin Jiang and Avishek Saha, both graduate students at Rice, decided to look at producing nanotube solutions from another angle. "We saw in the literature there was a way to do the opposite and give the surface of the nanotubes negative charges," Mart? said. It involved infusing single-walled carbon nanotubes with alkali metals, in this case, potassium, and turning them into a kind of salt known as a polyelectrolyte. Mixing them into an organic solvent, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), forced the negatively charged nanotubes to shed some potassium ions and repel each other, but in concentrations too low for extruding into fibers and films.

That took the addition of ether molecules known as 18-crown-6 for their crown-like atomic arrangements. The crowns have a particular appetite for potassium; they strip the remaining ions from the nanotube walls and sequester them. The tubes' repulsive qualities become greater and allow for more nanotubes in a solution before van der Waals forces them to coagulate.

At critical mass, nanotubes suspended in solution run out of room and form a liquid crystal, Mart? said. "They align when they get so crowded in the solution that they cannot pack any closer in a randomly aligned state," he said. "Electrostatic repulsions prevent van der Waals interactions from taking over, so nanotubes don't have another choice but to align themselves, forming liquid crystals."

Liquid crystalline nanotubes are essential to the production of strong, conductive fiber, like the fiber achieved with superacid suspensions. But Mart? said going negative means nanotubes can be more easily functionalized -- that is, chemically altered for specific uses.

"The negative charges on the surface of the nanotubes allow chemical reactions that you cannot do with superacids," Mart? said. "You may, for example, be able to functionalize the surface of the carbon nanotubes at the same time you're making fiber. You might be able to crosslink nanotubes to make a stronger fiber while extruding it.

"We feel we're bringing a new player to the field of carbon nanotechnology, especially for making macroscopic materials," he said.

Co-authors of the paper are Rice graduate students Changsheng Xiang and Colin Young James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. Pasquali is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of chemistry. Mart? is an assistant professor of chemistry and bioengineering.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by Mike Williams.

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. Chengmin Jiang, Avishek Saha, Changsheng Xiang, Colin C. Young, James M. Tour, Matteo Pasquali, Angel A. Mart. Increased Solubility, Liquid-Crystalline Phase, and Selective Functionalization of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Polyelectrolyte Dispersions. ACS Nano, 2013; : 130416090924009 DOI: 10.1021/nn4011544

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/~3/03BAx5HAItY/130503114718.htm

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Taking sides in Syria is hard choice for Israel

By Dan Williams

LOD, Israel (Reuters) - The dilemma Israel faces in trying to formulate a strategy on Syria two years into its civil war is symbolized by a case being heard in a small courtroom near Tel Aviv.

The state is prosecuting an Arab Israeli who briefly joined the rebel forces fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Arrested after his return to Israel, Hikmat Massarwa, a 29-year-old baker, is accused of unlawful military training, having contacts with foreign agents and traveling to a hostile state.

The trial hinges on the unanswered question of who, if anyone, Israel favors in the war and if the rebels will turn out to be friends or enemies.

The prosecutor in Lod is trying to depict Massarwa as having aligned himself with foes of Israel, but Judge Avraham Yaakov is struggling for clarity. "There's no legal guidance regarding the rebel groups fighting in Syria," he told a recent hearing.

Matters were simpler during the decades of unchallenged Assad family rule.

Technically Israeli is at war with its northern neighbor. It captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East War, built settlements and annexed the land. But belligerence was rare and the borderland has remained largely quiet for decades.

Assad's Syria is part of the so-called Axis of Resistance along with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, both arch enemies of the Jewish state. But Syria itself avoided open conflict.

Israel was slow to welcome the uprising against Assad when it broke out in March 2011. Though some leaders now call for his overthrow, planners fret about what might follow.

"The question for us is no longer whether it is good or not if Assad stays in power, but how do we control our interests in this divided, murky situation which could last for decades," said Ofer Shelah of the Yesh Atid party, which is part of the government coalition.

The dilemma has grown more acute since Islamist fighters linked to al-Qaeda assumed a prominent role in the rebels' battle plans.

Israelis believe one in 10 of the rebels is a jihadi who might turn his gun on them once Assad is gone. They also worry that Hezbollah guerrillas allied to Assad could get hold of his chemical arsenal and other advanced weaponry.

So Israel has acted with restraint on Syria - shooting at its troops across the occupied Golan Heights only when hit by stray fire and playing down an Israeli airstrike on a suspected Hezbollah-bound convoy in January.

Officials say Israel has also been cool to Western proposals to increase aid to the Syrian rebels to help them match Assad's superior armed forces.

One Israeli official told Reuters that he responds to any suggestions of a foreign military role with the question: "Do you really know on whose behalf you'll be intervening?"

MIXED MESSAGES

But with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presiding over a new, right-leaning coalition and the Israeli military stretched by keeping vigil over several fronts - including Islamist-ruled Egypt - the message has been far from uniform.

Netanyahu may have contributed to this by framing Iran and its nuclear program as Israel's overriding regional concern, bolstering the case for removing Tehran's ally Assad.

When an Israeli intelligence analyst said last week that Assad's forces had used chemical weapons, both the Netanyahu government and its foreign allies were blindsided, according to officials.

Washington confirmed the Israeli assessment, thus posing a problem for U.S. President Barack Obama, who had said use of chemical arms would be a "red line".

Israel's deputy foreign minister urged U.S. action in Syria - a call slapped down by more senior figures.

Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, said it was not making any policy recommendations to Obama on Syria.

"We think this issue is very complex," he told Reuters.

Several officials said Israel would be unlikely to attack Syria unilaterally unless it had evidence that chemical weapons had been handed over to Hezbollah.

Lacking enough of the specialized ground troops that would be needed for a search-and-destroy sweep of chemical weapons, Israel would probably have to rely on aerial bombing.

The Netanyhau government might even acquiesce if the rebels acquire the chemical weapons, on the assumption that the insurgents were mainstream Syrians keen to rebuild their country and loath to invite catastrophic war with Israel.

"If the jihadis get the chemical weapons, that's very bad, but there's still the hope that these people lack the hard-core military wherewithal, and required technical support in Syria, that would be required to use them," one Israeli official said.

Indeed, Israeli planners are debating to what extent the radical Sunni Islamists fighting Assad could eventually constitute a direct threat to Israel.

The chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, sounded the alarm last month by saying the "Global Jihad" - meaning al Qaeda and its affiliates - wielded the most clout on the Syrian-held side of the Golan Heights.

Other Israeli authorities are more optimistic. The Mossad intelligence agency estimates that Syria's entrenched secularism will dilute enmity to Israel, according to one official.

"The Islamists there aren't all Salafists, and the Salafists aren't all al Qaeda, by any means," the official said.

"We may not make peace, but I think we might find some kind of dialogue, if only for the sake of mutual deterrence."

Israel has given no indication that it already has contacts with Syria's opposition. But it has coordinated closely on security with Jordan, a supporter of some rebel factions.

Back in Judge Yaakov's courtroom, the fate of Massarwa, who faces a maximum of 15 years in jail if convicted, rests on whether the state can prove there is danger to Israel from the Free Syrian Army unit he stayed with for a week in March.

Massarwa's lawyer, Helal Jaber, hopes the logic of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" will win clemency for his client, who went to Syria via Turkey in search of a missing brother who had separately joined the rebels.

"The greatest democracies in the world, including the United States, are supporting the opposition to Assad," Jaber said. "So how can Israel fault someone for doing the same?"

(Additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taking-sides-syria-hard-choice-israel-112808311.html

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Breaking: 3 more suspects in Boston Marathon bombings case taken into custody

An undated photo of Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Times Square in New York (via??

Authorities have arrested three additional suspects in connection to the Boston Marathon bombings, the Boston Police Department confirmed to Yahoo News. Two of the suspects are Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, both Kazakh nationals who attended school with bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

One of their attorneys, Robert Stahl, said his clients will appear in federal court at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and that both plan to plead "not guilty."

The U.S. attorney's office identified the third suspect as Robel Phillipos, a U.S. citizen from Cambridge, Mass.

According to a statement issued by the U.S. attorney's office, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, both 19, are being charged with "conspiracy to obstruct justice" for allegedly getting rid of a laptop computer and a backpack belonging to Tsarnaev. Phillipos, also 19, was charged with lying to federal investigators during the bombing investigation.

According to federal court documents, all three were classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and saw him after the bombings. When the FBI released photos of the bombing suspects on April 18, Phillipos texted Kadyrbayev to say that one of the suspects looked like Tsarnaev. According to the filing, Kadyrbayev saw the photo and then texted Tsarnaev to tell him the same thing.

"LOL," Tsarnaev replied, according to the filing. The suspected bomber told his friend to "come to my room and take whatever you want."

Tazhayakov told investigators that upon seeing those texts, he believed he would never see Tsarnaev alive again.

Later that night, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, who shared an apartment off campus, met Phillipos at Tsarnaev's dorm room, where they spied a backpack containing fireworks that were "opened and emptied of powder" and other possible bomb-making components, according to court filings. Kadyrbayev allegedly told officials he knew at that moment that Tsarnaev was involved in the bombings, but instead of alerting police, he decided to remove the backpack and Tsarnaev's laptop from the dorm to help his friend "avoid trouble."

The three stayed up all night watching bombing coverage, and amid reports that Tsarnaev was on the run, they threw the backpack and laptop in a trash bin near the apartment Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov shared in New Bedford, according to the court filings.

Federal investigators interviewed Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev on April 19, and on April 20, they were detained on civil immigration violations. They have been in federal custody since then. The two appeared in immigration court Wednesday morning. Court filings suggest the two came clean early on about their efforts to conceal evidence related to Tsarnaev's alleged role in the bombings.

But federal officials have charged Phillipos with repeatedly lying to investigators about his role?insisting again and again that he didn't remember going to Tsarnaev's dorm room or removing possible evidence. But during his fourth interview on April 26, Phillipos allegedly admitted he had lied to federal agents and signed a confession detailing his role in the cover-up.

On April 26, federal investigators found Tzarnaev's backpack at a nearby landfill, according to court documents. But it's unclear if the his laptop has been recovered.

If convicted, the three could each face as much as $250,000 in fines. Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev also face a maximum sentence of five years in prison apiece, while Phillipos faces as much as eight years in prison. Stahl and Harlan Protass, the other criminal defense attorney tapped to represent Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev on the new federal charges (it's unclear who's representing Phillipos), are expected to make a statement after Wednesday's hearing.

Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old college student, is charged with killing three and injuring more than 200 in the two bombs last month. He is in custody at a federal prison medical facility at Fort Devens, 40 miles outside of Boston, where he is being treated for injuries incurred in a shootout with police before his arrest. His older brother and suspected co-bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed while fleeing arrest.

In a statement, the Police Department said there was no threat to public safety at this time.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/breaking-boston-police-three-boston-marathon-bombing-suspects-151027478.html

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Press Release: Carnegie Mellon Selected David A. Dzombak To ...

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Contact: Chriss Swaney / 412-268-5776 / swaney@andrew.cmu.edu

PITTSBURGH?Carnegie Mellon University has named David A. Dzombak to head its Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), effective Aug. 1. He succeeds James H. Garrett, Jr., who in December 2012 was named dean of CMU?s top-ranked College of Engineering. CEE acting head Irving Oppenheim will continue to lead the department until Dzombak assumes his duties.

?I?m pleased and honored to be named head of such a dynamic and pioneering department, and look forward to working with CEE?s talented and innovative faculty, staff and students on bringing new solutions to global infrastructure challenges through education and research,? said Dzombak, the Walter J. Blenko, Sr. University Professor at CMU.

Since Nov. 1, 2012, Dzombak has been serving as interim vice provost of Sponsored Programs at CMU, and will be helping with the transition to the soon-to-be-announced permanent appointee for that position. His experience with sponsored programs and research compliance will be helpful in forging new collaborative relationships between the College of Engineering and these important administrative units.

?Professor Dzombak is an internationally recognized expert in environmental engineering, and his experience in both professional and public service will be an asset as he joins the college leadership team as the new department head of Civil and Environmental Engineering,? said Garrett, the Thomas Lord Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. ?His reputation for high quality research, passion for teaching undergrads and graduates, commitment to professional service and collegiality make him an excellent choice for this position.?

An accomplished researcher and educator, Dzombak is in his 25th year as a member of the CEE faculty, starting as an assistant professor in 1989 and advancing through the academic ranks to full professor. In 2010, Dzombak was elected a University Professor, the highest academic distinction a faculty member can achieve at CMU. He served as associate dean for Graduate and Faculty Affairs in the College of Engineering from 2006-2010. Since 2007, he also has served as faculty director of the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research. He was Faculty Senate Chair for the 2006-2007 academic year and the College of Engineering Faculty Chair for the 2002-2003 school year.

He has published more than 100 articles in leading environmental engineering and science journals, book chapters, newspaper and magazine articles, op-ed pieces and three books. He is a registered professional engineer in Pennsylvania and a board certified environmental engineer by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. He has a wide range of consulting experience with both public and private organizations.

Dzombak currently is a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board, and chair of the board of directors of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Foundation. He?s been a member of various EPA Science Advisory Board committees since 2002, and a member or chair of several National Research Council committees since 2000. He has served on editorial boards for three journals, and as a member or chair of numerous other professional societies, state and local committees. He has served in various advisory roles for Saint Vincent College since 1990, and was elected to its board of directors in 2012.

A recipient of numerous honors and awards, Dzombak was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008. He is a fellow of the Water Environment Federation and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Dzombak holds a bachelor?s degree in mathematics from Saint Vincent College (1980), bachelor?s (1980) and master?s (1981) degrees in civil engineering from CMU, and a Ph.D. (1986) in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is married to Carolyn Menard and they have three grown children.????
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??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ###

An accomplished researcher and educator, David Dzombak (pictured above) is in his 25th year as a member of the CEE faculty, starting as an assistant professor in 1989 and advancing through the academic ranks to full professor. In 2010, Dzombak was elected a University Professor, the highest academic distinction a faculty member can achieve at CMU. ?????

Source: http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/may/may1_daviddzombak.html

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Allergan delays drug that would rival Regeneron's Eylea

By Esha Dey and Ransdell Pierson

(Reuters) - Allergan Inc said approval of its Darpin eye drug could be delayed up to two years, providing a new boost to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc whose successful treatment Eylea stands to gain from a lack of new competition.

Shares of Allergan, which makes wrinkle treatment Botox, were down nearly 12 percent after the company said mid-stage trial results of Darpin did not warrant an immediate move into far larger late-stage trials. Regeneron shares were up more than 11 percent.

If eventually approved, Darpin would also compete with Roche Holding AG's Lucentis to treat age-related macular degeneration - the most common form of blindness in the elderly.

Adnan Butt, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Darpin's delay was "great news" for Regeneron. He noted that Wall Street had feared the Allergan drug might have a superior clinical profile to Eylea.

"This gives Eylea even more time to become entrenched as the drug to beat," Butt said. He estimates that each year of Darpin delay will translate into about $15 to $20 upside for Regeneron shares, now trading at about $240.

Eylea, which was approved in November 2011, had sales last year of $838 million. Regeneron says it expects 2013 Eylea sales of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. Company officials would not comment on the setback for Allergan's drug.

Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott said on a conference call that a mid-stage trial of Darpin showed some product differentiation over Lucentis, but did not support directly moving to late-stage development.

The company now plans to perform additional mid-stage trials to assess Darpin, which will delay its potential approval by one to two years.

"There was a rush to ascribe a lot of value to Darpin and our view is that this is still very much an unproven asset with limited data," Piper Jaffray analyst David Amsellem said.

"The earliest it could get to market now is likely 2019," Amsellem said. "If you couple that with the setback of the hair loss product, the late-stage pipeline for Allergan right now is really quite thin."

A mid-stage trial of Allergan's hair loss treatment Bimatoprost Scalp also failed to provide sufficient efficacy to proceed to a late-stage study, further weighing on company shares.

ROOM TO GROW

Regeneron in the past two years has vaulted seemingly out of nowhere to become one of the world's biggest biotechnology companies, thanks largely to Eylea.

The company has repeatedly raised its sales forecasts for the drug, which is injected into the eye, as it steadily steals market share from Lucentis.

Some specialty pharmacies also use Roche's Avastin cancer drug, which has the same active ingredient as Lucentis but is far less expensive, by divvying it up into smaller portions for treating macular degeneration.

Roche has said that dividing Avastin through a procedure not closely monitored by health regulators, called compounding, could compromise its sterility.

Regeneron Chief Executive Leonard Schleifer, in a recent interview, said sales of Eylea could jump sharply if potential rivals stumble, or if U.S. regulators clamp down on the compounding of Avastin for eye use.

Moreover, he said some analysts believe Eylea sales could swell if it is approved for a new indication called diabetic macular edema now in late-stage trials. Eylea is also being tested for branch retinal vein occlusion, a related eye condition.

"So Eylea is a growth story unto itself, with lots of room to still grow," Schleifer said.

Allergan on Wednesday also posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong sales of Botox.

Net income for the first quarter fell to $12.5 million, or 4 cents per share, due to a loss of $259 million from discontinued operations. Profit was $229.8 million, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, Allergan earned 98 cents per share. Analysts were expecting 96 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Global company sales rose 8 percent to $1.46 billion, above Wall Street's average estimate of $1.44 billion.

Sales of Botox, which is also approved for treating migraine headaches, overactive bladder and underarm sweating, rose 15 percent to $457.9 million.

Allergan said it now expects 2013 adjusted earnings of $4.70 to $4.76 per share, compared to its prior outlook of $4.75 to $4.83 a share.

The company forecast a second-quarter profit of $1.18 to $1.20 per share, below analysts' average estimate of $1.22 a share. The new forecasts reflect the impact of its MAP Pharmaceuticals acquisition earlier this year.

Allergan shares were down $14.70 at $98.86 on the New York Stock Exchange, while Regeneron shares were up $25.53 at $240.67.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore and Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Sreejiraj Eluvangal and Carol Bishopric)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/allergan-delays-drug-rival-regenerons-eylea-185323020.html

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NIST issues major revision of core computer security guide: SP 800-53

Public release date: 1-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Evelyn Brown
evelyn.brown@nist.gov
301-975-5661
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the fourth revision of the government's foundational computer security guide, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal information Systems and Organizations. Better known to the federal computer security and contractor community as "SP (Special Publication) 800-53," this fourth revision is the most comprehensive update to the security controls catalog since the document's inception in 2005.

"This update was motivated by the expanding threats we all face," explained Project Leader and NIST Fellow Ron Ross, "These include the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks and the fact that we are being challenged more frequently and more persistently."

State-of-the-practice security controls and control enhancements have been integrated into the new revision to address the evolving technology and threat space. Examples include issues particular to mobile and cloud computing; insider threats; applications security; supply chain risks; advanced persistent threat; and trustworthiness, assurance, and resilience of information systems. The revision also features eight new families of privacy controls that are based on the internationally accepted Fair Information Practice Principles.

SP 800-53, Revision 4 also takes a more holistic approach to information security and risk management. The publication calls for maintaining "cybersecurity hygiene"the routine best practices that help reduce information security risksbut also appeals for hardening those systems by applying state-of-the-practice architecture and engineering principles to minimize the impacts of cyber attacks and other threats.

"This 'Build It Right' strategy, coupled with security controls for continuous monitoring, provide organizations with near real-time information that leaders can use to make ongoing risk-based decisions to protect their critical missions and business functions," said Ross.

To provide organizations with greater flexibility and agility in building information security programs, the baseline set of security controls can be tailored for specific needs according to the organization's missions, environments of operation, and technologies used. Specific lists of controls and implementation guidance, or overlays, focus on a variety of missions, including space operations, military tactical operations and health care applications. Overlays also support specific technologies such as cloud computing and mobile devices.

"This specialization approach to security control selection is important as the number of threat-driven controls and control enhancements increases and organizations develop specific risk management strategies," Ross said.

###

The new revision of SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal information Systems and Organizations, was developed by NIST, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community and the Committee on National Security Systems as part of the Joint Task Force, which was formed in 2009. It can be obtained at http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-53r4.

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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.

Public release date: 1-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Evelyn Brown
evelyn.brown@nist.gov
301-975-5661
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the fourth revision of the government's foundational computer security guide, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal information Systems and Organizations. Better known to the federal computer security and contractor community as "SP (Special Publication) 800-53," this fourth revision is the most comprehensive update to the security controls catalog since the document's inception in 2005.

"This update was motivated by the expanding threats we all face," explained Project Leader and NIST Fellow Ron Ross, "These include the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks and the fact that we are being challenged more frequently and more persistently."

State-of-the-practice security controls and control enhancements have been integrated into the new revision to address the evolving technology and threat space. Examples include issues particular to mobile and cloud computing; insider threats; applications security; supply chain risks; advanced persistent threat; and trustworthiness, assurance, and resilience of information systems. The revision also features eight new families of privacy controls that are based on the internationally accepted Fair Information Practice Principles.

SP 800-53, Revision 4 also takes a more holistic approach to information security and risk management. The publication calls for maintaining "cybersecurity hygiene"the routine best practices that help reduce information security risksbut also appeals for hardening those systems by applying state-of-the-practice architecture and engineering principles to minimize the impacts of cyber attacks and other threats.

"This 'Build It Right' strategy, coupled with security controls for continuous monitoring, provide organizations with near real-time information that leaders can use to make ongoing risk-based decisions to protect their critical missions and business functions," said Ross.

To provide organizations with greater flexibility and agility in building information security programs, the baseline set of security controls can be tailored for specific needs according to the organization's missions, environments of operation, and technologies used. Specific lists of controls and implementation guidance, or overlays, focus on a variety of missions, including space operations, military tactical operations and health care applications. Overlays also support specific technologies such as cloud computing and mobile devices.

"This specialization approach to security control selection is important as the number of threat-driven controls and control enhancements increases and organizations develop specific risk management strategies," Ross said.

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The new revision of SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal information Systems and Organizations, was developed by NIST, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community and the Committee on National Security Systems as part of the Joint Task Force, which was formed in 2009. It can be obtained at http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-53r4.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/nios-nim050113.php

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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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Story Source:

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.

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

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