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June 24, 2013 ? The clues that parents give toddlers about words can make a big difference in how deep their vocabularies are when they enter school, new research at the University of Chicago shows.
By using words to reference objects in the visual environment, parents can help young children learn new words, according to the research. It also explores the difficult-to-measure quality of non-verbal clues to word meaning during interactions between parents and children learning to speak. For example, saying, "There goes the zebra" while visiting the zoo helps a child learn the word "zebra" faster than saying, "Let's go to see the zebra."
Differences in the quality of parents' non-verbal clues to toddlers (what children can see when their parents are talking) explain about a quarter (22 percent) of the differences in those same children's vocabularies when they enter kindergarten, researchers found. The results are reported in the paper, "Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary three years later," published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Children's vocabularies vary greatly in size by the time they enter school," said lead author Erica Cartmill, a postdoctoral scholar at UChicago. "Because preschool vocabulary is a major predictor of subsequent school success, this variability must be taken seriously and its sources understood."
Scholars have found that the number of words youngsters hear greatly influences their vocabularies. Parents with higher socioeconomic status -- those with higher income and more education -- typically talk more to their children and accordingly boost their vocabularies, research has shown.
That advantage for higher-income families doesn't show up in the quality research, however.
"What was surprising in this study was that social economic status did not have an impact on quality. Parents of lower social economic status were just as likely to provide high-quality experiences for their children as were parents of higher status," said co-author Susan Goldin-Meadow, the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at UChicago.
Although scholars have amassed impressive evidence that the number of words children hear -- the quantity of their linguistic input -- has an impact on vocabulary development, measuring the quality of the verbal environment -- including non-verbal clues to word meaning -- has proved much more difficult.
To measure quality, the research team reviewed videotapes of everyday interactions between 50 primary caregivers, almost all mothers, and their children (14 to 18 months old). The mothers and children, from a range of social and economic backgrounds, were taped for 90-minute periods as they went about their days, playing and engaging in other activities.
The team then showed 40-second vignettes from these videotapes to 218 adults with the sound track muted. Based on the interaction between the child and parent, the adults were asked to guess what word the parent in each vignette used when a beep was sounded on the tape.
A beep might occur, for instance, in a parent's silenced speech for the word "book" as a child approaches a bookshelf or brings a book to the mother to start storytime. In this scenario, the word was easy to guess because the mother labeled objects as the child saw and experienced them. In other tapes, viewers were unable to guess the word that was beeped during the conversation, as there were few immediate clues to the meaning of the parent's words. Vignettes containing words that were easy to guess provided high-quality clues to word meaning.
Although there were no differences in the quality of the interactions based on parents' backgrounds, the team did find significant individual differences among the parents studied. Some parents provided non-verbal clues about words only 5 percent of the time, while others provided clues 38 percent of the time, the study found.
The study also found that the number of words parents used was not related to the quality of the verbal exchanges. "Early quantity and quality accounted for different aspects of the variance found in the later vocabulary outcome measure," the authors wrote. In other words, how much parents talk to their children (quantity), and how parents use words in relation to the non-verbal environment (quality) provided different kinds of input into early language development.
"However, parents who talk more are, by definition, offering their children more words, and the more words a child hears, the more likely it will be for that child to hear a particular word in a high-quality learning situation," they added. This suggests that higher-income families' vocabulary advantage comes from a greater quantity of input, which leads to a greater number of high-quality word-learning opportunities. DMaking effective use of non-verbal cues may be a good way for parents to get their children started on the road to language.
Joining Cartmill and Goldin-Meadow as authors were University of Pennsylvania scholars Lila Gleitman, professor emerita of psychology; John Trueswell, professor of psychology; Benjamin Armstrong, a research assistant; and Tamara Medina, assistant professor of psychology at Drexel University.
The work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Familiar political tools like petitions, fundraisers, mass letter-writing, call-in campaigns now have online equivalents. But what about protest tactics like street marches, picket lines, sit-ins, and occupations? Where is the room on the internet for civil disobedience?
In the offline United States, civil disobedience is widely respected as a valid form of political activism. It also has a widely recognized form. Indelible images of Rosa Parks, lunch counter sit-ins, and street marches from the 1950s and 60s civil rights era established what civil disobedience looked like. Civil disobedience looked like an embattled minority bravely standing up in face of clear injustice. It looked like people taking a stand with their bodies and their identities, and often getting arrested.
This pattern of public, performative defiance of injustice, followed by arrest, has become part of the recognized script for political activism in the United States. It's how we expect activism to happen: on the streets, in public, where everyone can see your face. Adhering to a recognized script is essential to political activism that is reliant on the attention of the media to be effective.
But today, civil disobedience often looks very different. Networked technologies mean our opportunities for effective political activism have increased exponentially. Where activists once put their physical bodies on the line to fight for their causes, online activists can engage in digitally-based acts of civl disobedience from their keyboards. There are three major lines along which digitally-based civil disobedience is developing: disruption, information distribution, and infrastructure. Each has its own particular challenges and benefits.
Disruption
Disruptive tactics like distributed denial of service (DDOS) actions and website defacements have a fairly long history in internet terms. Activists groups like the Electronic Disturbance Theater, the Strano Network, pro-Palestinian groups, and many others used DDOS and website defacements in their campaigns as early as the mid-1990s. These tactics aim to upset the status quo by disrupting the normal flow of information, thereby attracting attention to their cause and message.
Disruptive tactics are focused on the public: they aim to deliver their message to as many people as possible, either through exposing them to the disruption and dissent, recruiting them to take part, or both. To be effective, this type of civil disobedience needs to attract the attention of masses of people, typically through the mainstream media. If the media doesn't recognize or cover the actions as acts of protest, then the activist message will fall flat. (If an activist defaces a corporate website, and no one sees it, does it have political impact? Probably not.)
Information Distribution
Information distribution-based tactics are built around the acquisition and release of hidden or secret informatin. In the past three years, we've seen this kind of protest take the form of whistleblowing, information exfiltration, doxxing (posting the names and personal information of targets online), and crowd-sourced vigilante investigations. These tactics are used by groups like Wikileaks and Anonymous. The idea is to move information from states of low visibility to high visibility, putting injustices in the public eye when traditional law enforcement avenues seem to have failed.
Anonymous has been developing crowd-sourced vigilante investigations in the US and Canada with Steubenville, #JusticeforReteah, and other ops. "Human flesh search" message boards are already popular in China, giving netizens the chance to bring formerly untouchable corrupt officials to justice. The FindtheBostonBombers subreddit was a home-grown example of this kind of crowd-sourced vigilante investigation. The goal of this class of tactics is to empower people to take action by adding to the information landscape.
Whistleblowers and leakers rely on the cooperation of the mainstream media to publicize, contextualize, and analyze the information they release. However, this may become easier as more news organization recognize open paths for whistleblowers and leakers. Wikileaks' five media partners for the Cablegate documents, the New Yorker's Strongbox program, and the Guardian's extensive work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden are all examples of how cooperation between whistleblowers and news organizations is growing.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure-based activism involves the creation of alternate systems to replace those that have been compromised by state or corporate information-gathering schemes. In other words, if the government is snooping on the internet, activists build a tool to make it harder for them to see everything. Tor, Diaspora, and indenti.ca are some examples of these projects, as are the guerrilla VPNs and network connections that often spring up to serve embattled areas, provided by activists in other countries.
Similar to living off the grid, these projects provide people with options beyond the default. Open source or FLOSS software and Creative Commons use a similar tactic: when the system stops working, create a new system. The challenge is to bring these new systems into widespread use without allowing them to be compromised, either politically or technically. However, these new systems often have to fight network effects as they struggle to attract users away from dominant systems. Diaspora faced this issue with Facebook. Without being able to disrupt dominant systems, user migration is often slow and piecemeal, lacking the impact activists hope for.
Disruption, information distribution, and infrastructure tactics and strategies are often practiced by separate groups working independently on different issues. Sometimes disparate group interests will overlap, as when Anonymous launched the disruptive Operation Payback in support of Wikileaks during Cablegate, but there is little inter-group organization.
As the practice of civil disobedience develops online, those who favor different styles of activism but who are united in a common cause may begin organizing themselves into affinity group-style coalitions, building alliances for more effective activism. Effective digitally-based civil disobedience needs a diverse, integrated repertoire of contention to draw from. A disruptive action targeting Facebook could drive users towards alternate, more open, social networking services. A leak detailing government intelligence abuses could spur disruptive protests, consumer flight to uncompromised services, or further leaks.
On the street, activists at major events like political conventions or meetings of groups like the WTO or G8 often use a variety of tactics to provide support within affinity groups, and to make it harder for protest to be neutralized by law enforcement. Street marches are counter balanced by occupations and lock-ins. Posters and pamphlets will be augmented by street art, puppets, and ad hoc street theater. Jail solidarity actions are helped by speeches on the courthouse steps. Though one action may get shut down, others can still make an impact. Digital activists will want to emulate this coalition-building in online spaces too.
As digital activism develops, civil disobedience will continue to a be vital tool for expressing dissent. The internet could be the tomorrow's best zone for free speech and activism, a place where protesters can challenge structures of power that threaten human rights and freedoms. The future of digital civil disobedience will grow out of new online tactics, augmented by the internet's ability to bring people together across geographical boundaries.
Protest in the information age may not look exactly like Rosa Parks on that bus half a century ago. But it will still carry on our ongoing struggle to change the world for the better, and to bring justice to the oppressed.
Molly Sauter just finished her masters in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, and will soon be moving to Montreal to start her PhD in Communication Studies at McGill. She can be found tweeting @oddletters and blogging at oddletters.com
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's parliament paved the way on Monday for a jump in gasoline and diesel prices after months of delay that have undermined confidence in the government and the ability of Southeast Asia's biggest economy to continue growing rapidly.
The average 33 percent price rise will cut the government's costly fuel subsidies and could give support to the struggling rupiah after the central bank scrambled last week to prop up the currency as it was caught in an emerging market selloff.
After a 12-hour, often noisy session, parliament voted 65 percent in favor of a revised budget for the year, which includes cash compensation for the poor to help them cope with the higher fuel costs. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had demanded aid for the poor before he would sign off on higher prices.
The surge in fuel prices, which will boost inflation and in turn could spark labor union wage demands, is testing Yudhoyono's already uneasy ruling coalition of political parties, which are increasingly focused on next year's general and presidential elections.
Outside parliament police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators, among thousands holding protests in cities across the giant archipelago. There were scattered reports of violence.
"We reject the proposed cash handouts because it doesn't address the real issue of poverty. Instead, they're trying to be like Santa Claus before next year's general election," head of the largest labor union, Said Iqbal, told reporters.
About 20,000 security officials had been placed on alert in the capital, police said. Protests have marked previous attempts to raise fuel prices.
The president has to formally sign off on the measures. He had agonized for months over whether to lift the price of fuel and risk a public outcry. In the end, he thrust the problem on parliament's shoulders by making MPs first agree to come up with help for the poor.
The revised budget sets aside about 9 trillion rupiah ($910 million) in cash compensation for more than 15 million families, which will be paid over four months.
Under the government's proposal, ordinary gasoline would rise 44 percent and diesel by 22 percent. It is not clear when the price rise might take place, but Finance Minister Chatib Basri is due to hold a news conference on Tuesday.
REFORM TEST
Raising fuel prices has been seen as a key test of Yudhoyono's commitment to economic reform in the final 1-1/2 years of his term as prospects for rapid economic growth soften.
Fuel subsidies last year cost the former OPEC member some $20 billion and is putting pressure on the current account deficit. The finance ministry has said the price rises could save the state about $4 billion if they are implemented this month.
Rumors late last week that Jakarta was about to raise fuel prices helped lift the rupiah off its lowest level against the dollar in almost four years as the currency came under fire from investors cutting their emerging market exposure over uncertainty in the future of U.S. monetary policy.
The pressure on the rupiah and concerns of the inflationary impact of costlier fuel, prompted surprise increases in two of the central bank's key interest rates last week. It expects inflation to top 7 percent after fuel prices rise from the current level of around 5.5 percent.
The finance minister told MPs that if fuel subsidies were not cut, the budget deficit could reach close to 4 percent of GDP. The initial budget had put the deficit at just 1.6 percent.
Pointing to concerns that the momentum of reform was stalling, ratings agency Standard & Poor's early last month downgraded its outlook for Indonesia's sovereign credit to stable from positive.
The move was especially galling for the Indonesian government because at the same time S&P upgraded its rating for the neighboring Philippines.
While Indonesia's technocrats have been shouting for fuel prices to rise, the issue has become largely hostage to politics ahead of next year's elections.
One member of the ruling coalition and Indonesia's biggest Muslim party, PKS, had refused to back the government's position in what analysts said was a bid to turn attention for a scandal over a beef import scam and sexual impropriety that has embroiled the party's leadership and which threatens to wreck its chances in next year's election.
($1=9,882 rupiah)
(Writing by Jonathan Thatcher: Editing by Neil Fullick)
Contact: NCI Press Office ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov 301-496-6641 NIH/National Cancer Institute
Researchers have found that antibodies against the human papillomavirus (HPV) may help identify individuals who are at greatly increased risk of HPV-related cancer of the oropharynx, which is a portion of the throat that contains the tonsils.
In their study, at least 1 in 3 individuals with oropharyngeal cancer had antibodies to HPV, compared to fewer than 1 in 100 individuals without cancer. When present, these antibodies were detectable many years before the onset of disease. These findings raise the possibility that a blood test might one day be used to identify patients with this type of cancer.
The results of this study, carried out by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), were published online June 17, 2013, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Historically, the majority of oropharyngeal cancers could be explained by tobacco use and alcohol consumption rather than HPV infection. However, incidence of this malignancy is increasing in many parts of the world, especially in the United States and Europe, because of increased infection with HPV type 16 (HPV16). In the United States it is estimated that more than 60 percent of current cases of oropharyngeal cancer are due to HPV16. Persistent infection with HPV16 induces cellular changes that lead to cancer.
HPV E6 is one of the viral genes that contribute to tumor formation. Previous studies of patients with HPV-related oropharynx cancer found antibodies to E6 in their blood.
"Our study shows not only that the E6 antibodies are present prior to diagnosisbut that in many cases, the antibodies are there more than a decade before the cancer was clinically detectable, an important feature of a successful screening biomarker," said Aimee R. Kreimer, Ph.D., the lead Investigator from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI.
Kreimer and her colleagues tested samples from participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study, a long-term study of more than 500,000 healthy adults in 10 European countries. Participants gave a blood sample at the start of the study and have been followed since their initial contribution.
The researchers analyzed blood from 135 individuals who developed oropharyngeal cancer between one and 13 years later, and nearly 1,600 control individuals who did not develop cancer. The study found antibodies against the HPV16 E6 protein in 35 percent of the individuals with cancer, compared to less than 1 percent of the samples from the cancer-free individuals. The blood samples had been collected on average, six years before diagnosis, but the relationship was independent of the time between blood collection and diagnosis. Antibodies to HPV16 E6 protein were even found in blood samples collected more than 10 years before diagnosis.
The scientists also report that HPV16 E6 antibodies may be a biomarker for improved survival, consistent with previous reports. Patients in the study with oropharyngeal cancer who tested positive for HPV16 E6 antibodies prior to diagnosis were 70 percent more likely to be alive at the end of follow-up, compared to patients who tested negative.
"Although promising, these findings should be considered preliminary," said Paul Brennan, Ph.D., the lead investigator from IARC. "If the predictive capability of the HPV16 E6 antibody holds up in other studies, we may want to consider developing a screening tool based on this result."
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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.
Contact: NCI Press Office ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov 301-496-6641 NIH/National Cancer Institute
Researchers have found that antibodies against the human papillomavirus (HPV) may help identify individuals who are at greatly increased risk of HPV-related cancer of the oropharynx, which is a portion of the throat that contains the tonsils.
In their study, at least 1 in 3 individuals with oropharyngeal cancer had antibodies to HPV, compared to fewer than 1 in 100 individuals without cancer. When present, these antibodies were detectable many years before the onset of disease. These findings raise the possibility that a blood test might one day be used to identify patients with this type of cancer.
The results of this study, carried out by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), were published online June 17, 2013, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Historically, the majority of oropharyngeal cancers could be explained by tobacco use and alcohol consumption rather than HPV infection. However, incidence of this malignancy is increasing in many parts of the world, especially in the United States and Europe, because of increased infection with HPV type 16 (HPV16). In the United States it is estimated that more than 60 percent of current cases of oropharyngeal cancer are due to HPV16. Persistent infection with HPV16 induces cellular changes that lead to cancer.
HPV E6 is one of the viral genes that contribute to tumor formation. Previous studies of patients with HPV-related oropharynx cancer found antibodies to E6 in their blood.
"Our study shows not only that the E6 antibodies are present prior to diagnosisbut that in many cases, the antibodies are there more than a decade before the cancer was clinically detectable, an important feature of a successful screening biomarker," said Aimee R. Kreimer, Ph.D., the lead Investigator from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI.
Kreimer and her colleagues tested samples from participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study, a long-term study of more than 500,000 healthy adults in 10 European countries. Participants gave a blood sample at the start of the study and have been followed since their initial contribution.
The researchers analyzed blood from 135 individuals who developed oropharyngeal cancer between one and 13 years later, and nearly 1,600 control individuals who did not develop cancer. The study found antibodies against the HPV16 E6 protein in 35 percent of the individuals with cancer, compared to less than 1 percent of the samples from the cancer-free individuals. The blood samples had been collected on average, six years before diagnosis, but the relationship was independent of the time between blood collection and diagnosis. Antibodies to HPV16 E6 protein were even found in blood samples collected more than 10 years before diagnosis.
The scientists also report that HPV16 E6 antibodies may be a biomarker for improved survival, consistent with previous reports. Patients in the study with oropharyngeal cancer who tested positive for HPV16 E6 antibodies prior to diagnosis were 70 percent more likely to be alive at the end of follow-up, compared to patients who tested negative.
"Although promising, these findings should be considered preliminary," said Paul Brennan, Ph.D., the lead investigator from IARC. "If the predictive capability of the HPV16 E6 antibody holds up in other studies, we may want to consider developing a screening tool based on this result."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
About a month ago, our oldest child Jessica inquired as to the whereabouts of the family videos we took of our kids when they were younger. We looked around a bit and finally found them. We hadn't seen them in years. The Gotham Gal took all the tapes over to the local photo store and got them put onto a set of DVDs, one for us and one each for the three kids. Jessica took the extra step of uploading all of them to Dropbox and inviting all of us to the folder.
So we've been watching these videos a bunch in the past month. We've also had the pleasure of having all of our kids home since late May so it has been "family time" at home. It's a rare thing these days and it won't last so we are making the most of it.
When I watch the videos, particularly the ones where we took Jessica home from the hospital, I marvel at how young we were. We had no idea what we were doing.?
Fast forward to June 2013, twenty-two years later, and we've learned a lot about parenting. One of our kids is out of college, one is in college, and one is entering his senior year in high school. I feel older, but wiser. And our kids have themselves to thank for that. They have taught us how to be parents.
Parenting is one of life's great pleasures. It has made me a better person in many ways. I am more patient, accepting, and understanding than I was before kids entered our life.
So on Father's Day, I am thankful for the experience of being a parent and parenting. It's an incredible gift and I feel fortunate to have received it.
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PARMA, Italy (Reuters) - Giorgio Nava, an Italian chef based in South Africa, won the World Pasta Championship in the Italian city of Parma on Saturday with a low-cost recipe that he said suited Italy's deep economic crisis.
Nava, who has won awards for his work at the Cape Town restaurants '95 Keerom' and 'Carne SA', wooed the public and the jury with a simple plate of cavatelli - small pasta shells - broccoli and oregano flowers.
"Simplicity was the key. I presented a recipe that is very cheap but very tasty," Nava told Reuters after his victory.
"Others competed with expensive fish-based recipes but right now, given the economic situation in Italy, it did not seem right to come forward with extravagant dishes."
The pasta championship, which was held for the first time last year, took place at the Barilla Food Academy in Parma, considered Italy's food capital and best-known for Parmesan cheese and cured Parma ham.
Twenty-four carefully selected cooks, including Hong-Kong born John Leung, competed in the two-day championship.
Participants were given 40 minutes to complete their dish in the first round of the championship on Friday and only 30 minutes during the final on Saturday.
"My dish is something easy to make, anyone can cook it a home," said Nava. "After all, simple things are often the best."
Last year's award went to Japanese chef Yoshi Yamada.
(Additional reporting and writing by Lisa Jucca; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
ISTANBUL (AP) ? Turkish riot police on Sunday sprayed tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators who remained defiant after authorities evicted activists from an Istanbul park, making clear they are taking a hardline against attempts to rekindle protests that have shaken the country.
Bulldozers cleared all that was left of a two-week sit-in and police sealed off the area to keep demonstrators away from the spot that has become the focus of the strongest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his 10 years in office.
Protesters set up barricades and plumes of tear gas rose in Istanbul's streets on Sunday after Turkish riot police rousted the group who had vowed to stay in Gezi Park despite Erdogan's warnings to leave.
In Istanbul, police battled protesters in side streets off the park and beyond. In Ankara, the capital, police dispersed hundreds who tried to hold a memorial service for an activist who died of injuries sustained in a nearby police crackdown nearby on June 1.
In Saturday's raid at dusk, hundreds of white-helmeted riot police swept through the park and adjacent Taksim Square, firing canisters of the acrid, stinging gas. Thousands of peaceful protesters, choking on the fumes and stumbling among the tents, put up little physical resistance.
The protests began as an environmental sit-in to prevent a development project at Gezi Park, but have quickly spread to dozens of cities and spiraled into a broader expression of discontent about what many say is Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian decision-making. He vehemently denies the charge, pointing to the strong support base that helped him win third consecutive term with 50 percent of the vote in 2011.
As police cleared the square, many ran into nearby hotels for shelter. A stand-off developed at a luxury hotel on the edge of the park, where police opened up with water cannons against protesters and journalists outside before throwing tear gas at the entrance, filling the lobby with white smoke. At other hotels, plain-clothes policemen turned up outside, demanding the protesters come out.
Some protesters ran off into nearby streets, setting up makeshift barricades and running from water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.
As news of the raid broke, thousands of people from other parts of Istanbul gathered and were attempting to reach Taksim. Television showed footage of riot police firing tear gas on a highway and bridge across the Bosphorus to prevent protesters from heading to the area.
As the tear gas settled, bulldozers moved into the park, scooping up debris and loading it into trucks. Crews of workmen in fluorescent yellow vests and plain-clothes police went through the abandoned belongings, opening bags and searching their contents before tearing down the tents, food centers and library the protesters had set up in what had become a bustling tent city.
In Ankara, at least 3,000 people swarmed into John F. Kennedy street Saturday night, where opposition party legislators sat down at the front of the crowd facing the riot police ? not far from Parliament. In Izmir, thousands converged at a seafront square.
Near Gezi, ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals as police set up cordons and roadblocks around the park, preventing anyone from getting close.
Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest movements, said an untold number of people in the park had been injured ? some from rubber bullets.
"Let them keep the park, we don't care anymore. Let it all be theirs. This crackdown has to stop. The people are in a terrible state," he told The Associated Press by phone.
Taksim Solidarity, on its Web site, called the incursion "atrocious" and counted hundreds of injured ? which it called a provisional estimate ? as well as an undetermined number of arrests. Istanbul governor's office said at least 44 people were taken to hospitals for treatment. None of them were in serious condition, it said in a statement.
Huseyin Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, told NTV that the sit-in had to end.
"They had made their voice heard ... Our government could not have allowed such an occupation to go on until the end," he said.
It was a violent police raid on May 31 against a small sit-in in Gezi Park that sparked the initial outrage and spiraled into a much broader protest. While those in the park have now fled, it was unclear whether they would take their movement to other places, or try to return to the park at a later time.
The protests, which left at least four people dead and more than 5,000 injured, have dented Erdogan's international reputation and infuriated him with a previously unseen defiance to his rule.
Saturday's raid came less than two hours after Erdogan threatened protesters in a boisterous speech in Sincan, an Ankara suburb that is a stronghold of his party.
"I say this very clearly: either Taksim Square is cleared, or if it isn't cleared then the security forces of this country will know how to clear it," he told tens of thousands of supporters at a political rally.
A second pro-government rally is planned in Istanbul on Sunday.
According to the government's redevelopment plan for Taksim Square that caused the sit-in, the park would be replaced with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. Under initial plans, the construction would have housed a shopping mall, though that has since been amended to the possibility of an opera house, a theater and a museum with cafes.
On Friday, Erdogan offered to defer to a court ruling on the legality of the government's contested park redevelopment plan, and floated the possibility of a referendum on it.
___
Fraser reported from Ankara. Jamey Keaten in Ankara contributed to this report.
Since the introduction of the Micro Four Thirds systems, enthusiast shooters have been mounting legacy lenses to modern cameras for economic and artistic reasons alike. But, aside from the $6,950 Leica M there hasn't been a compact full-frame digital body that could take advantage of older lenses designed for use with 35mm film.
The Mitakon Lens Turbo ($198 direct) aims to change that. It features a wide-angle rear converter, which effectively widens the field of view of the camera's sensor by 0.726x. It almost completely negates the 1.5x crop factor that shooters who uses 35mm film lenses on APS-C bodies have become accustomed to. Because it concentrates the light from the lens into a smaller-than-normal image circle, it also effectively increases the amount of light hitting the sensor, giving the lens a larger effective aperture than it would normally have.
Design and Features The Lens Turbo is actually the second of its type to hit the market?the first was the Metabones Speed Booster?but it's the first one that we've been able to test. The Metabones version gives you a slightly wider field of view, and is available for Sony NEX and Fujifilm X mirrorless camera systems. Its magnification is 0.71x, but it's priced between $400 and $450, depending on which adapter you require. The Metabones is available for Alpha, Contarex, Contax C/Y, and Leica R lenses.
You'll need a Sony NEX camera like the excellent NEX-6 in order to take advantage of the Lens Turbo; Fujifilm and other mirrorless camera systems are not supported. We tested a version that is compatible with Nikon lenses, but you can opt for one in a Canon FD, Minolta MD/MC, or Pentax K mount if you choose. Mitakon has plans to release versions for M42, Leica R, Contax C/Y, and Sony/Minolta Alpha lenses in the future.?
The adapter's depth will vary a bit by mount, but each is machined to match the native camera system's flange distance (the distance between the lens mount and the image sensor) in order to allow proper focus to infinity. Expect it to add a couple inches to the front of your NEX. You mount it just as you would any other lens, and there is a tab on the front of the adapter itself to allow you to attach and detach the lens that you'd like to use. The adapter itself is metal and is quite sturdy?it locks securely onto the camera, and the wiggle that you sometimes get with cheap adapters is nowhere to be found.
Performance and Conclusions We tested the Nikon mount version of the adapter along with the Nikkor AI-s 28mm f/2.8 lens. This is regarded as one of Nikon's sharpest manual focus wide-angle optics, and it has an amazing close focus ability; it can hone in on a subject that's only 7 inches away from the image sensor. To understand just how sharp it could be on a native Nikon body we used Imatest to measures its performance on the 36-megapixel D800.
We use 1,800 lines per picture height as the cutoff for acceptable sharpness using a center-weighted metric; at f/2.8 the 28mm AI-s managed 2,341 lines. There was some barrel distortion, about 0.6 percent, and edge performance was a bit lacking?it drops to 1,569 lines in the outer edges of the frame, about 56 percent of what it was in the center area. Stopping down improved performance; at f/4 we got an average score of 2,724 lines with 1,734 at the edges. At f/5.6 it's impeccable, 3,012 average with edges managing 2,136 lines; the drop-off from center to edge improved to 61 percent here. Finally, at f/8, we saw an average score of 3,096 lines with edges at 2,472?the edges were 73 percent as sharp as the center.
Those are a lot of numbers. And since we tested the Lens Turbo adapter on a 16-megapixel NEX-5N, a direct score comparison to the 36-megapixel D800 isn't exactly fair. At f/2.8 the center-weighted score is only 1,534 lines. The center is actually quite sharp at 1,975 lines, but the edge resolution is a dismal 557 lines, about 28 percent that of the center. Stopping down to f/4 doesn't move the needle much, but we do see improvement at f/5.6. There the lens scores 1,717 lines overall, with 2,170 lines in the center and 590 lines at the edges. The drop-off percentage is about the same. The lens did better at f/8, notching an 1,827-line average with 2,153 lines at the center and 826 at the edges?the edge score is about 38 percent of that of the center.
What does all that mean? Basically, you're sacrificing some image quality at the center and mid-center of your image in order to gain the wider field of view. And you can forget about getting sharp corners. If corner-to-corner sharpness is what you're after, this adapter is simply not going to work for your needs. It's also not a good one for architectural work?the adapter introduces a noticeable amount of barrel distortion to your images. Our Nikkor test showed only 0.6 percent on the D800, but exhibited a noticeable 1.8 percent when paired with the Lens Turbo and the NEX-5N.
In terms of exposure, the Lens Turbo increases the effective f-stop of your lenses by about a two-thirds of a stop. An exposure at ISO 100 under identical lighting conditions required a 1/30-second exposure with the Nikon D800, but only required 1/50-second using the Lens Turbo adapter on the NEX-5N. We tested the adapter with a relatively slow f/2.8 lens, but if you pair it with an f/1.4 or an ultra-fast f/1.2 lens you'll be able to snap photos at higher shutter speeds in very little light.
The Mitakon Lens Turbo has a limited target market, but if you're the right type of photographer it's worth your money. If you're a NEX shooter who likes using legacy lenses, you'll now be able to get more out of older, manual focus glass. We tested with a Nikon lens, one that is actually compatible with modern full-frame digital cameras. But if you've got a stash of Canon FD or Minolta MD/MC lenses, you won't find any digital body that offers native support. And Pentax K shooters, who are still without a full-frame body, will be able to adapt legacy lenses and enjoy a full-frame experience. While the adapter clearly harms image quality, it doesn't do so to the point where the images are unusable. I was shooting outdoors on a bright day and had the option to stop the lens down as needed. Even at wider apertures I was able to get images out of the adapter that I'd be happy to print, and print large.
Bluetooth SIG listing shows new 7-inch Nexus tablet alongside spec details
After dropping by the FCC a couple of days ago, the ASUS K009 -- a new "Nexus"-branded tablet, according to FCC documents -- has appeared in a tiny photo at the Bluetooth SIG. It's rectangular and tablet-shaped, with a front-facing camera... and that's about all you can tell. Squint really hard and you might be able to make out the outline of the screen, which seems to indicate slightly less bezel than on the existing Nexus 7.
But it isn't all tiny, illegible pictures -- the Bluetooth SIG listing also contains an interesting paragraph about the new Nexus 7's internal specs.
I?m pleased to announce the release of a great new book on fatherhood by Pauline Books and Media in which I am honored to have contributed a chapter. Read more about Man to Man, Dad to Dad: Catholic Faith and Fatherhood below.
Click HERE or on the image below to read reviews by Dr. Scott Hahn, Matthew Kelly, Matt Frad and Fr. Larry Richards, to name a few!
About this Book:
The identity and purpose of fathers in contemporary society is more uncertain than ever before. Cultural shifts such as rising rates of divorce and single motherhood, conception through sperm donation and in-vitro fertilization, and the educational and professional advancements of women have confused traditional paternal roles and family unit structures. As a result, a perception has been created whereby fatherhood is undervalued?or altogether unnecessary. But this perception is misguided-especially for Catholic fathers who are vital to supporting the structure of the family unit: the ?domestic church.?
In this collection of faith-filled reflections by fourteen Catholic men, the value of a Catholic father?s identity and purpose is affirmed in the context of modern society. Acknowledging our workaholic tendencies and the constant struggle to strike a balance between family life and work life, fathers are provided with a realistic approach to making their relationships with God, their wives, and children more involved and fulfilling.
Blending personal anecdotes from Catholic fathers, models of fatherhood in Jesus? parables, Scriptural passages, references to other publications, and allusions to Church teachings and figures of authority, this guidebook helps Catholic dads find the path to living as faithful family men through three simple steps: pray, love, confess.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan
Introduction: Dads in Deed, by Brian Caulfield
1: The Prodigal Son Meets the Forgiving Father, by Mike Aquilina
2: St. Joseph: A Man?s Man, by Rick Sarkisian
3: Balancing Work and Home Life: Insights from the Experts, by Brian Caulfield
4: Five Steps for Disciplining Kids, by Ray Guarendi
5: Good Sports for Kids, by Gerald Korson
6: A Father?s Vital Presence, by Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
7: The Best Sex You Will Ever Have, by Jonathan Doyle
8: Theology of the Body for Fathers, by Damon C. Owens
9: Millennials, Morality, and New Evangelization, by Jason Godin
10: Superdad: More Than an Action Figure, by Bill Donaghy
11: You Can Keep Your Kids Catholic, by Patrick Madrid
12: Repairing a Broken Marriage, by Peter Kleponis
13: Breaking the Chains of Porn, by Mark Houck
Conclusion: Three Simple Steps, by Brian Caulfield
Get your copy today!?www.pauline.org/MantoMan
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Filed under Catholic Life, Evangelization, Male Spirituality
Tagged as Catholic, Male Spirituality, Marriage, Family, Family Life, Men, Truth, Bible, Apologetics, Holy Spirit, Holy Family, Catholic Teaching, Men's Conference, Catholic Marriage, Catholic Family Life
The more I read of Chris "GamerChris" Norwood's blog and the more I hear of his podcast, the more I appreciate his thoughtful take on boardgaming. ?Most recently, he?posted?an admission of his "secret shame" - a list of unplayed games. ?I recognized a number of games on his list, and was just about to chastise him for having neglected some particularly good ones ... and then I thought that perhaps I ought to see just how much glass there was in my own house before casting stones in his direction.
And, oh, my boardgame house is made of glass indeed. ?We just reorganized our utility room, where we keep the games that aren't played so frequently. ?So it was easy for me to take stock and see what games I've truly never played at all.
Gifts - games we've received but not actually cracked open and tried out
Sparta, a very recent birthday gift (really so recent as not to deserve being on this list)
Sushi Roll, a gift that our 12-year-old received one Christmas
007 Scene It?
James Ernst's Totally Renamed Spy Game
Mysteries - games whose origin I simply can not recall
Rivets, a 1977 Metagaming Concepts microgame
Operation Grenade, a 1981 SPI folio game
Sequence, which I'm really interested in playing now since it I found it on a Board Game Family Top Ten list from last year
Beans, a card game with beans - really, no idea where this came from
Tripoley, which might actually have been my wife's before we got married
Good intentions - purchased games that I thought surely I would have played by now
Cowboys, picked up during a Worthington Games sale because my sons had expressed an interest in Western-themed gaming
Battle of Nations: Encirclement at Leipzig, an SPI folio game that I bought from the adjacent table when I was selling stuff at a Northern Virginia Gamers (NoVaG) game day flea market
Here Come the Rebels, the second game in Avalon Hill's Great Campaigns of the Civil War series, the first of which (Stonewall Jackson's Way) is the best ACW game I've ever played
Tech Bubble, a Worthington Games push-your-luck title that I'm still curious about, but somehow not enough to have torn open the shrink-wrap yet
Role-playing games?- a genre that I keep thinking I'll get my sons involved in but never seem to have time to prepare for
Aces and Eights, that Western theme again;
Universe, picked up from a friend when I got a science-fiction RPG itch, along with...
Metamorphosis Alpha?and
Traveller;
Top Secret, which previously belonged to my little brother
Played others', but not my own?- games that I bought because I enjoyed playing other people's copies, then never got my own to the table
Viva Java
Axis and Allies: Pacific
Acquire
Kids games?- the theory being,?get something the kids will like so they will play
Name 5?
Square Shooters, a dice game where the faces of the dice represent playing cards
Sorry Revenge Card Game
Frag?- not exactly a kid's game, but a skirmish game that I bought for my teenager at a Congress of Gamers bring-and-buy
Zombie Dice
Miniatures rules?- the purpose of money being God's way of telling us that we need more miniatures. ?I'll point out here that I am not listing all the unpainted miniatures that I have. ?That would be just depressing. ?Besides, this is a boardgaming blog.
Spearhead, which I picked up when I was on a micro-armor kick
Horse Foot Guns, a Phil Barker gunpowder-era rules set that I downloaded after I'd seen the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot?and decided that I wanted to wargame the American War of Independence. ?
What was I thinking?- a category that speaks for itself (these being auction impulse buys)
Stock Market Guru, which I think I confused with Avalon Hill's?1970 title The Stock Market Game
30-second Mysteries, which I assumed my wife the mystery writer would like, along with ...
221B Baker Street
Game design research?- games I bought because they were relevant to something I was working on, not necessarily because I wanted to play them
Successors, the Avalon Hill game on the Wars of the Diadochi, the subject of my first major game design (which I have since shelved), along with ...
Alexander's Generals;
High Frontier, Phil Eklund's 2010 ridiculously realistic space exploration game that essentially stopped my work on "Gold on Mars" dead in its tracks, at least until I rethemed it
Sentimental purchases?- games I bought on eBay because I remembered liking them as a kid
Origins of World War II, which I played avidly as a teenager, then traded to a friend for?PanzerBlitz
Masterpiece, the Parker Brothers art auction game, which my family played frequently as I recall
Stock Market Game, published by Whitman, which I really liked playing in junior high school with friends
One other unplayed game I have is "Senet," a home-made wooden version of the ancient Egyptian game that I assembled when I was on an ancient boardgame kick. So there are 38 items on my list, almost as many as Chris's. ?It's interesting to realize how much of my unplayed collection was acquired on impulse or in pursuit of a temporary fascination with a particular genre or interest. ?Some of these might actually get to the table now that I've been reminded of them; others could show up in the WBC math trade if I get my act together.
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III throws a pass during team practice at Redskins Park, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III throws a pass during team practice at Redskins Park, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III talks to the media after NFL football team practice at Redskins Park, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III drops back for a pass during team practice at Redskins Park, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, left, stretches his leg with the assistance of a Redskins staff member during team practice at Redskins Park, Thursday, June 6, 2013, in Ashburn, Va. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) ? Quarterback Robert Griffin III says "without a doubt" that he expects to be fully recovered from knee surgery and in uniform when the Washington Redskins open training camp on July 25 in Richmond.
Griffin said Thursday he's confident because "it's a mindset" and because of how his surgically repaired right knee has progressed. The QB says "training camp's a month and a half away. That's why I say without a doubt."
He had knee surgery on Jan. 9 to repair the ACL and LCL he had torn during the playoff loss to Seattle three days earlier.
Coach Mike Shanahan says Griffin was initially projected to miss seven-to-nine months. That would mean Griffin wouldn't return before Aug. 9, the day after Washington opens its preseason schedule against Tennessee.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- At least six people are dead and several more injured after a gunman, who may not have been acting alone, went on a shooting spree through the streets of Santa Monica, the beachside town that connects the Pacific Ocean to Los Angeles.
One shooter, who then fled to Santa Monica College, was shot and killed by police. Authorities have also taken another suspect into custody.
The rampage started at 2036 Yorkshire Ave. in the eastern portion of Santa Monica, where fire officials responded to a call at 11:52 a.m. PT. A house was on fire when firefighters arrived. The first responders also noticed "shots fired," said Chief Scott Ferguson during a news conference.
Inside they found multiple victims, two of whom were dead.
From that point, police received reports of a carjacking and random shootings as the suspect or suspects moved westward down Pico Boulevard, a busy artery that connects Santa Monica to Los Angeles. One victim was shot near Pico and Cloverfield, two near Pico and 19th and yet another near 19th and Pearl, an intersection near the campus of Santa Monica College.
At that point, campus police exchanged gunfire with a single shooter, who was dressed in black and carrying what's believed to have been an AR-15, semiautomatic rifle, police said.
The suspect ran onto the school's campus, where he shot a woman who later died, before fleeing into the library.
Several witnesses said they saw a broad-shouldered man, approximately 6 feet tall, walking casually inside the building with the rifle at his side.
"I'm a huge gun advocate; I've been around guns all my life, I knew exactly what was happening," Brett Holzhauer, a 19-year-old student, told Yahoo News at the scene. "I ran to my stuff, packed it up as fast as I could and dove into a study room."
Police followed the suspect inside the building, where they fired upon and ultimately killed him. No police officers were injured.
Holzhauer said he hid in the study room for 35 minutes, until police arrived and evacuated the building.
"I saw hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the lobby of the library," Holzhauer said. "I saw shattered glass. I saw blood all down the stairs of the main entrance to the lobby, and as I was walking out I saw a dead body."
Ava Rezai, 20, hid inside a room in library after hearing shots. "I was just praying, just hoping that I could go home," Rezai told Yahoo News.
Three women were taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. According to Dr. Marshall Morgan, chief of emergency medicine, one died, another was in surgery and a third was in serious condition. Three other women went to UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica with minor injuries.
The rampage played out on a morning when President Obama was across town for a fundraiser.
Police officials described the gunman as a white male, 25 to 30 years old and wearing a bulletproof vest.
They have taken another person of interest into custody, according to Santa Monica Police spokeswoman Jacqueline Seabrooks at the news conference.
"We are not convinced 100 percent that the suspect who was killed operated in solo or a lone capacity," Seabrooks said.
Police were adamant that this was not a "campus shooting" but rather a series of shootings that ended up at a school. They have not determined the motive for the shootings, but Seabrooks said the incident on Yorkshire "appears not to be [random]."
The June 25 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the Seidio SURFACE Case for Samsung Galaxy S4. Crafted from a hard yet flexible material, the SURFACE Case provides an amazingly thin layer of protection without adding the excessive bulk of other cases. This case consists of interlocking top and bottom pieces that fit your Galaxy S4 snugly. Available in black, blue, red, purple, pink and white.
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Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
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Bluetooth SIG listing shows new 7-inch Nexus tablet alongside spec details
In this collection of faith-filled reflections by fourteen Catholic men, the value of a Catholic father?s identity and purpose is affirmed in the context of modern society. Acknowledging our workaholic tendencies and the constant struggle to strike a balance between family life and work life, fathers are provided with a realistic approach to making their relationships with God, their wives, and children more involved and fulfilling.