As an office of women, Big City Bride wants to share this event to benefit the Bright Pink Chicago non-profit organization.?Bright Pink focuses on fighting breast and ovarian cancer in young women. The organization is planning a fabulous Chicago event to fundraise for the cause! For the Chicago charity event they've chosen a Big City Bride favorite Chicago wedding venue, River East Art Center.?This Chicago wedding venue is located on the river with a raw, yet polished design and an open layout. Connected art galleries add to the unique ambiance of the space and can be rented if wanted.
The Tickled Pink for Bright Pink event at River East Art Center will take place on February 8th, 2013. Gather your friends and purchase your early bird tickets now for a night of food, drinks, and music. Early bird special pricing will be available until December 31st. Ask ?your girlfriends to forgo holiday presents and plan a special night out together for one of the great Chicago charities!
MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? At least 43 villagers and soldiers drowned in a southern Philippine town Tuesday when torrents of water dumped by a powerful typhoon cascaded down a mountain, engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck, officials said. The deaths raised the toll from one of the strongest storms to hit the country this year to at least 74.
Gov. Arturo Uy said rain from Typhoon Bopha accumulated atop a mountain and then burst down on Andap village in New Bataan town in hard-hit Compostela Valley province. The victims included villagers who had fled from their homes to a school and village hall, which were then swamped by the flash flood. An army truck carrying soldiers and villagers was washed away, according to Uy and army officials.
"They thought that they were already secure in a safe area, but they didn't know the torrents of water would go their way," Uy told DZBB radio.
He said the confirmed death toll in the town was likely to rise because several other bodies could not immediately be retrieved from floodwaters strewn with huge logs and debris.
Bopha slammed into Davao Oriental province region at dawn, its ferocious winds ripping roofs from homes and its 500-kilometer (310-mile) -wide rain band flooding low-lying farmland.
The storm, packing winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph), toppled trees, triggered landslides and sent flash floods surging across the region's mountains and valleys.
Two entire provinces lost power and more than 100 domestic flights were canceled. About 60,000 people fled to emergency shelters.
Twenty-three people drowned or were pinned by fallen trees or collapsed houses in Davao Oriental province's coastal town of Cateel, which had the most deaths after New Bataan, Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the ABS-CBN TV network, citing police reports.
Some towns in the province were so battered that no roofs remained on buildings, Malanyaon said.
The other deaths included three children who were buried by a wall of mud and boulders that plunged down a mountain in Marapat village, also in Compostela Valley. Their bodies were wrapped in blankets by their grieving relatives and placed on a stage in a basketball court.
"The only thing we could do was to save ourselves. It was too late for us to rescue them," said Valentin Pabilana, who survived the landslide.
In Davao Oriental, a poor agricultural and gold-mining province about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Manila, an elderly woman was killed when her house was struck by a falling tree, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.
The other victims either drowned or were hit by trees, he said, adding that the death toll was expected to rise.
While some 20 typhoons and storms normally lash the archipelago nation annually, the southern provinces battered by Bopha are unaccustomed to fierce typhoons, which normally hit the northern and central Philippines.
A rare storm last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless and traumatized, including in Cagayan de Oro city, where church bells pealed relentlessly on Tuesday to warn residents to scramble to safety as a major river started to swell.
Officials were taking no chances this year, and President Benigno Aquino III appealed on national TV on Monday for people in Bopha's path to move to safety and take storm warnings seriously.
In Compostela Valley, authorities halted mining operations and ordered villagers to evacuate to prevent a repeat of deadly losses from landslides and the collapse of mine tunnels in previous storms.
Bopha, a Cambodian word for flower or a girl, is the 16th weather disturbance to hit the Philippines this year. Forecasters say at least one more storm may strike the country before Christmas.
___
Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.
When it comes to professional footballers, problems of the heart are often to do with their latest tryst. But lately, they have taken a much more serious nature.
Last week, 27-year-old Mitchell Cole died of heart disease, a year after he was forced to retire from professional soccer in the UK because of a known heart condition. This follows a report last week that another British footballer, Radwan Hamed, who was only 17 when he had a heart attack on the pitch, will be suing his former club, Tottenham Hotspur, over the brain damage that he suffered as a result.
Why not screen all professional athletes for heart problems, as some cardiologists and sports scientists argue? A new study suggests that the costs of such a programme would be too high.
Yet screening has been standard practice in Italy since 1982. Every professional athlete there regularly has an electrocardiogram (ECG) to measure the electrical activity of their heart. Any unusual activity can signal a problem that may be exacerbated by intense exercise. If so, a cardiologist may recommend that an athlete end their career.
Domenico Corrado and his colleagues at the University of Padua in Italy say that the screening has reduced the annual incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) among Italian athletes by 89 per cent. The country now has one of the lowest rates of SCD in the world.
How much would a similar programme cost in the US? To find out, Sami Viskin, a cardiologist at Tel Aviv University, Israel, looked at the Italian screening data to establish how often athletes needed to be screened. He also estimated how many US athletes would need screening ? including high school and college athletes in view of the importance that sport has for many US students, for example, in providing access to scholarships.
Viskin concluded that mandatory screening of US athletes would cost a staggering $10 million per life saved. Over 20 years, such a programme could save nearly 5000 lives.
Balancing the cost
Gordon Tomaselli, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and spokesperson of the American Heart Association, says that cost is unreasonable. The World Health Organization's guidelines state that the total cost of diagnosing a condition should be economically balanced in relation to medical expenditure as a whole. "$10 million is very high," says Tomaselli.
The huge price tag is not the only problem with ECG screening, says Viskin ? in addition, the test results are open to a degree of interpretation. "Physicians know what to look for, but they don't know what to do when they see abnormalities," he says. "The risk of SCD is higher, but in absolute terms it's still very low."
Limited financial resources could be put to better use for athletes at risk of SCD, Viskin adds. "Putting defibrillators everywhere and training people in cardiopulmonary resuscitation would probably save more lives."
Journal reference: JAMA, doi.org/dfzdmp
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(Reuters) - Synacor Inc, partly owned by Intel Corp, said it partnered with Zynga Inc to allow pay TV and broadband providers offer social games to their customers.
Zynga shares rose about 3 percent to $2.30 in premarket trading, while Synacor shares were up about 5 percent at $6.60.
Synacor said certain pay-TV subscribers will get in-game currency each month as part of their subscription that can be redeemed for popular Zynga games such as Zynga Poker and FarmVille2.
The partnership comes days after Zynga revised its pact with Facebook Inc to lower its dependence on the social network.
Synacor, which debuted on the Nasdaq in February, offers authentication and management services to companies offering on-demand content, primarily cable and telecom service providers and consumer electronics brands.
(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Software company founder John McAfee said Monday he has fled from Belize using a bizarre ruse, adding yet another chapter in what threatens to become one of the biggest media fugitive frenzies since O.J. Simpson led police on a low-speed chase in 1994.
McAfee claimed in a blog posting he had evaded authorities by staging an elaborate distraction in neighboring Mexico.
In an email to The Associated Press, McAfee confirmed a posting to his website in which he described, in what appeared to be joking tones, how he mounted the ruse.
"My 'double,' carrying on (sic) a North Korean passport under my name, was detained in Mexico for pre-planned misbehavior," McAfee wrote in the posting, "but due to indifference on the part of authorities (he) was evicted from the jail and was unable to serve his intended purpose in our exit plan."
It was a turn typical of the bizarre saga of the eccentric anti-virus company founder wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of fellow American ex-pat Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death at the Belize island where they both had homes in early November.
Since then, McAfee has refused to turn himself in for questioning saying he fears Belizean police would kill him, and has titillated the media with phone calls, emails and blog posts detailing his life on the lam. It has all resulted in a rather undignified media scrum to get interviews with McAfee, complete with taunts.
Vice magazine, two of whose journalists are reportedly traveling with McAfee, posted a story on its website entitled "We Are with John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," along with a photos showing McAfee and VICE editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro.
Wired magazine later said on its website that location information embedded in the photo shows McAfee and the journalists were at Guatemala's Rio Dulce National Park, near the border with Belize, when the photo was taken.
A representative of the Faull family said Monday that the real issues ? the murder of an American who by all accounts was well-liked by his neighbors on Belize's Ambergris Caye ? are getting lost.
"The real issues are that a human life was violently taken, (and) authorities lack all the information ... we're beyond the danger of them being lost, it's become entertainment. This is tragic to the family," said Dan Keeney of Texas-based DPK Public Relations, who has issued statements on behalf of the Faull family.
A woman who answered the phone at an Orlando, Florida phone number listed for Vickie Faull confirmed she was a relative and said that Keeney spoke on behalf of the family, but had no further comment.
"Mr. McAfee is astute at media manipulation, and he's using those skills to great effect," said Keeney. "I would just caution the media not to let themselves be manipulated."
Keeney added in email that "we strongly urge journalists covering the McAfee story not to glorify the words and actions of this person who, by refusing to cooperate and tell police all he knows about the murder of Greg Faull, is harming the investigation of the murder."
"The family of Mr. Faull is concerned that journalists may be assisting Mr. McAfee either implicitly by helping him to create an elaborate fiction that undermines trust in authorities or explicitly in his efforts to escape."
Police in Belize have called McAfee a "person of interest" in the slaying of Faull and asked him to turn himself in for questioning. He has not been charged, however, and thus can travel at will.
Faull was shot to death in his home, a couple of houses down from the compound where McAfee kept several noisy dogs, armed guards and entertained a steady stream of young women brought in from the mainland. McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them, but denied killing Faull. Several of the dogs were poisoned shortly before Faull's killing.
For two weeks, McAfee refused to turn himself in and claimed to be hiding in plain sight, wearing disguises and watching as police raided his house. It was unclear, however, how much of what McAfee ? a confessed practical joker ? said and wrote was true.
McAfee did not describe the entire plan, nor did he say where exactly he was now. He noted only that "we are not in Belize, but not quite out of the woods yet."
In a previous interview with the AP, McAfee had said he had no plans to leave Belize.
"I'm not going to leave this country," he had told the AP. "I love this country, this is my home. I intend to fight the injustice that's here from here, I can't do much from outside, can I?"
In Monday's post, McAfee said he left Belize because he thought "Sam," the young Belizean woman who has accompanied him since he went on the lam, was in danger.
"I left Belize because of a series of events which led both Sam and I to believe that she was in danger of capture. She has been my go-between and my eyes and ears in the outside world. I decided to make the move. I will be returning to Belize after I have place (sic) Sam in a safe position. My fight is in Belize, and I can do little in exile."
Police sources in Belize said early Monday they believed he was still in the country. The sparsely populated border between the two countries is unguarded and unmarked in many places.
Rumors arose over the weekend that McAfee had been caught, but Belizean police quickly denied that.
Belize's prime minister, Dean Barrow, has expressed doubts about McAfee's mental state: "I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers."
McAfee, who is extremely polite and coherent in telephone conversations, brushes off such accusations, telling the AP "if people want to call that paranoia, they can do so if you wish, that will not concern me."
McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus program, has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the anti-virus software company that is named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.
He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as calling that claim "not very accurate at all." He has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and producing herbal medications.
McAfee has never said where he's hiding. But in his blog, he has claimed to have disguised himself as a grungy street peddler and a foul-mouthed German tourist.
GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Congolese soldiers took control of this strategic city of 1 million on Monday, but rebels staked out positions just 3 kilometers (1.6 miles) away as they waited for the government to respond to an afternoon deadline to start negotiations.
Crowds cheered the soldiers as they arrived at the town's main barracks in trucks, and some women rushed forward to kiss the troops. Their return comes two weeks after Goma fell to the rebels, who are widely believed to be backed by Rwanda.
But the M23 rebels remained in tactical positions in the hills nearby, saying they were waiting for the government to respond to their demands before deciding whether or not to try to retake the city.
The rebels claim to be fighting for the better implementation of a March 23, 2009, peace accord, which saw them integrated into the national army. Analysts say the real reason for the rebellion is Rwanda's desire to annex territory in the mineral-rich mountains at the border between the two countries.
After a nearly two-week occupation, the M23 rebels agreed to leave Goma over the weekend under intense international pressure, including fresh sanctions from the U.N. Security Council. Their commanders said they would retreat to 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside the city on the condition that Congo's government begins negotiations with them no later than 2 p.m. on Monday afternoon.
As the deadline expired, journalists saw a column of rebel fighters walking to elevated positions overlooking the city. Others were building a tent on a western hill. Some in groups of three took positions under trees along the road leading north from Goma.
"We gave Kinshasa a 48-hour deadline, and we are now waiting for these 48 hours to expire," rebel spokesman Col. Vianney Kazarama said by telephone as the deadline neared. "You should call Congo and ask them what they plan to do. They have not yet contacted us. And we are waiting to see what happens, before pronouncing ourselves."
Despite the rebels' retreat from Goma, which was a pre-requisite set by the Congolese government for negotiations, Congo's President Joseph Kabila has not yet made clear if the government will engage in talks. On Sunday, government spokesman Lambert Mende said the president would listen to M23's grievances and then give them an answer.
As the rebels' deadline neared Monday, Mende said he had nothing new to say on the matter. But later, in a government communique, Mende said Congo "congratulates itself on the departure of M23 from the city of Goma this weekend and is happy to confirm the enthusiasm with which the population of this town greeted (the security forces) who came to secure the city."
In recent weeks, the enormous, jungle-covered nation of Congo, whose capital is more than 1,000 miles away from this provincial eastern city, inched closer to war with its smaller, but more developed neighbor, Rwanda, which is accused of arming the M23 rebels, as well as sending soldiers across the border.
Congo's Interior Minister Richard Muyej, speaking to reporters in Goma, said that they are working hard to fill the power vacuum that was left by the rebels' departure. "We shall work very hard to re-establish the authority of the state as fast as possible," Muyej said.
Residents whose lives were upended two weeks ago when rebels invaded the town on Nov. 20 tried their best to go about their lives. Most shops had re-opened, despite uncertainty about the coming hours.
A woman selling secondhand clothes at the Virunga market said she had no choice but to work.
"We're not going to wait forever, are we?" said Anette Murkendiwa. "I need to feed my children."
___
Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press photographer Jerome Delay in Goma, Congo and Saleh Mwanamilongo in Kinshasa, Congo, also contributed to this report.
Physicists demonstrate crucial method for monitoring ultra short X-ray pulses
This press release is available in Spanish.
With their ultra short X-ray flashes, free-electron lasers offer the opportunity to film atoms in motion in complicated molecules and in the course of chemical reactions. However, for monitoring this motion, the arrival time and the temporal profile of the pulses which periodically illuminate the system, must be precisely known. An international team of scientists has now developed a measurement technique that provides complete temporal characterization of individual FEL (free-electron laser) pulses at DESY's soft-X-ray free-electron laser, named FLASH. The team, led by Adrian Cavalieri from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg, was able to measure the temporal profile of each X-ray pulse with femtosecond precision (a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second). The Ikerbasque Research Professor Andrey Kazansky from Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), as well as Nikolay Kabachnik from the Lomonosov State University in Moscow who is a regular visiting fellow at DIPC, were members of the team. The technique developed in this investigation can be implemented at any of the worlds X-ray free-electron lasers, ultimately allowing for most effective utilization of these sources. The results are published in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Photonics.
X-ray pulses delivered by free-electron lasers provide unique research opportunities, because the pulses are ultra-intense and ultra-short. At FELs trillions of X-ray photons are packed within a single burst or pulse which lasts for only several tens of femtoseconds, or even less. However, the precise arrival time and even the temporal profile of the FEL pulse can change dramatically from one pulse to the next. Therefore, to use the FEL to "film" ultrafast dynamical processes, the arrival time of each pulse must be measured to reorder the individual frames or snapshots captured with each individual FEL pulse.
Provided with accurate timing information, femtosecond FEL X-ray pulses are short enough to study atoms in motion, chemical reactions, and phase transitions in materials with time resolution on the femtosecond scale.
With simultaneous measurement of the FEL X-ray pulse profile, it will be possible to go even further, to explore processes that evolve within the X-ray exposure. On these timescales the motion of electrons and electronic state dynamics become significant. Electronic dynamics drive damage processes in biomolecules, which may destroy them before they can be recorded in a crystal clear image.
For their measurements, the team adapted a technique used in attosecond science called "photoelectron streaking" (an attosecond is a thousandth of a femtosecond). Andrey Kazansky, Ikerbasque research Professor at DIPC and UPV/EHU, explains that "the streaking technique permits recording temporal profiles of varying light signals by creating photoelectron bursts and measuring the energy distribution of these electrons". A photoelectron is the electron emitted from matter (gas, solid, liquids) as a consequence of the absorption of a high energy photon. In other words, is the electron that has been kicked out by a photon.
By taking advantage of the ultra-high intensities available at FELs the researchers were able to perform the streaking measurement on a single-shot basis at FLASH. For this, the X-ray flashes were shot through neon gas on their way to their target. Each X-ray pulse ejects a burst of photoelectrons from the noble gas and it turns out that the temporal profile of the photoelectron bursts is a replica of the FEL pulse that ejected them.
Then, a very intense electromagnetic field is used to accelerate or decelerate the photoelectrons, depending on the exact instant of their ejection. The strength of this effect is measured and combining all the information appropriately the temporal profile and arrival time of the individual X-ray pulses from FEL can be obtained with a precision of about 5 femtoseconds.
"Simultaneous measurement of the arrival time and pulse profile, independent of all other FEL parameters, is the key to this technique," explains Adrian Cavalieri, who is a professor at the University of Hamburg and a group leader in the Max Planck Research Department for Structural Dynamics (MPSD). Until now, no other measurement has provided this complete timing information yet it is exactly this information that will be crucial for future application of these extremely perspective X-ray light sources.
The FEL pulse characterization measurements presented by the team are made without affecting the FEL beam - only a negligible number of photons is lost for creating photoelectrons. Therefore, they can be applied in any experiment at almost any wavelength. In the immediate future, laser-driven streaking will be used to monitor and maintain the FEL pulse duration at FLASH to study a wide variety of atomic, molecular and solid-state systems. For further experiments, the researchers plan to use these high precision measurements as critical feedback for tailoring and manipulating the X-ray pulse profile.
###
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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.
Physicists demonstrate crucial method for monitoring ultra short X-ray pulses
This press release is available in Spanish.
With their ultra short X-ray flashes, free-electron lasers offer the opportunity to film atoms in motion in complicated molecules and in the course of chemical reactions. However, for monitoring this motion, the arrival time and the temporal profile of the pulses which periodically illuminate the system, must be precisely known. An international team of scientists has now developed a measurement technique that provides complete temporal characterization of individual FEL (free-electron laser) pulses at DESY's soft-X-ray free-electron laser, named FLASH. The team, led by Adrian Cavalieri from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg, was able to measure the temporal profile of each X-ray pulse with femtosecond precision (a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second). The Ikerbasque Research Professor Andrey Kazansky from Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), as well as Nikolay Kabachnik from the Lomonosov State University in Moscow who is a regular visiting fellow at DIPC, were members of the team. The technique developed in this investigation can be implemented at any of the worlds X-ray free-electron lasers, ultimately allowing for most effective utilization of these sources. The results are published in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Photonics.
X-ray pulses delivered by free-electron lasers provide unique research opportunities, because the pulses are ultra-intense and ultra-short. At FELs trillions of X-ray photons are packed within a single burst or pulse which lasts for only several tens of femtoseconds, or even less. However, the precise arrival time and even the temporal profile of the FEL pulse can change dramatically from one pulse to the next. Therefore, to use the FEL to "film" ultrafast dynamical processes, the arrival time of each pulse must be measured to reorder the individual frames or snapshots captured with each individual FEL pulse.
Provided with accurate timing information, femtosecond FEL X-ray pulses are short enough to study atoms in motion, chemical reactions, and phase transitions in materials with time resolution on the femtosecond scale.
With simultaneous measurement of the FEL X-ray pulse profile, it will be possible to go even further, to explore processes that evolve within the X-ray exposure. On these timescales the motion of electrons and electronic state dynamics become significant. Electronic dynamics drive damage processes in biomolecules, which may destroy them before they can be recorded in a crystal clear image.
For their measurements, the team adapted a technique used in attosecond science called "photoelectron streaking" (an attosecond is a thousandth of a femtosecond). Andrey Kazansky, Ikerbasque research Professor at DIPC and UPV/EHU, explains that "the streaking technique permits recording temporal profiles of varying light signals by creating photoelectron bursts and measuring the energy distribution of these electrons". A photoelectron is the electron emitted from matter (gas, solid, liquids) as a consequence of the absorption of a high energy photon. In other words, is the electron that has been kicked out by a photon.
By taking advantage of the ultra-high intensities available at FELs the researchers were able to perform the streaking measurement on a single-shot basis at FLASH. For this, the X-ray flashes were shot through neon gas on their way to their target. Each X-ray pulse ejects a burst of photoelectrons from the noble gas and it turns out that the temporal profile of the photoelectron bursts is a replica of the FEL pulse that ejected them.
Then, a very intense electromagnetic field is used to accelerate or decelerate the photoelectrons, depending on the exact instant of their ejection. The strength of this effect is measured and combining all the information appropriately the temporal profile and arrival time of the individual X-ray pulses from FEL can be obtained with a precision of about 5 femtoseconds.
"Simultaneous measurement of the arrival time and pulse profile, independent of all other FEL parameters, is the key to this technique," explains Adrian Cavalieri, who is a professor at the University of Hamburg and a group leader in the Max Planck Research Department for Structural Dynamics (MPSD). Until now, no other measurement has provided this complete timing information yet it is exactly this information that will be crucial for future application of these extremely perspective X-ray light sources.
The FEL pulse characterization measurements presented by the team are made without affecting the FEL beam - only a negligible number of photons is lost for creating photoelectrons. Therefore, they can be applied in any experiment at almost any wavelength. In the immediate future, laser-driven streaking will be used to monitor and maintain the FEL pulse duration at FLASH to study a wide variety of atomic, molecular and solid-state systems. For further experiments, the researchers plan to use these high precision measurements as critical feedback for tailoring and manipulating the X-ray pulse profile.
###
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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.