EU in antitrust probe of Apple, e-book publishers (AP)

BRUSSELS ? The European Union's antitrust watchdog is probing whether Apple helped five major publishing houses illegally raise prices for e-books when it launched its iPad tablet and iBookstore in 2010.

The probe, announced Tuesday by the European Commission, offers a glimpse into the fierce fight for shares of the growing e-book market, especially as Apple has tried to take on Amazon and its Kindle e-book reader. It also highlights the struggle for profits between retailers and publishers, as more and more readers download books electronically.

In particular, the Commission is investigating a significant shift in the way the price of e-books is determined that occurred in 2010, just as Cupertino, California-based Apple introduced the iPad and its own online bookshop, iBookstore.

Apple was the first retailer that allowed publishers to move to so-called agency agreements, which let publishers set the price that online bookshops sell e-books to consumers. Until then, publishers were able to set the wholesale price of e-books, while retailers decided what price to sell them on to readers.

"The Commission has concerns that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices," the regulator said in a statement.

Giving publishers the power to set retail prices could effectively restrict competition between online bookshops, since it takes away individual retailers' powers to set lower prices. Since Apple's deal with the publishers, several other online retailers have also shifted to the agency model, possibly in an attempt to secure the rights to sell popular e-books.

The EU investigation targets publishers Hachette Livre, a unit of France's Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp.; CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster; Penguin, which is owned by U.K. publishing house Pearson Group; and Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan.

The Commission stressed the probe was in its early stages and did not mean the companies actually broke EU competition law. It follows a similar investigation by Britain's Office of Fair Trading and a class action lawsuit against the same five publishers and Apple filed this summer in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The U.K. agency on Tuesday closed its own probe, since the Commission has taken over the case, but said it was cooperating closely with the EU investigation. It said its investigation was triggered by several complaints, without naming any names.

Apple representative Bethan Lloyd said the company would decline to comment at this time.

Pearson said the fact that the Commission has opened a probe did not prejudge its outcome. "Pearson does not believe it has breached any laws, and will continue to fully and openly cooperate with the Commission," it said.

Holtzbrinck echoed that statement, saying it found the Commission's case "without reason."

HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster said they are cooperating with the investigation, while Hachette Livre declined to comment.

The e-book market has been dominated by Amazon.com Inc. and its Kindle reader, with both Apple and Barnes & Noble's Nook reader fighting to break in.

In a summary of its complaint, the U.S. law firm Hagens Berman, which filed the U.S. class-action suit, claims that "Apple believed that it needed to neutralize the Kindle when it entered the e-book market with its own e-reader, the iPad, and feared that one day the Kindle might challenge the iPad by digitally distributing other media like music and movies."

The lawsuit also alleges that, following Apple's deals, Amazon was forced to abandon its discount pricing model and move to the agency model.

___

Robert Barr in London, Hillel Italie in New York, Elaine Ganley in Paris, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111206/ap_on_hi_te/eu_ebooks_antitrust_probe

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Researchers evaluate rice as a source of fetal arsenic exposure

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2011) ? A study just published by a Dartmouth team of scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) advances our understanding of the sources of human exposure to arsenic and focuses attention on the potential for consuming harmful levels of arsenic via rice.

Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment and in elevated concentrations it can be harmful to human health. Common in groundwater, the World Health Organization set guideline limits for Arsenic levels in drinking water (currently 10 micrograms per liter). Concerns about arsenic exposure are now extending beyond water to rice, as underscored in the new PNAS publication. Rice is susceptible to arsenic contamination due to its ability to extract arsenic from the environment into the rice plant.

"Arsenic exposure during pregnancy is a public health concern due to potential health risks to the fetus," says Margaret Karagas, professor of community and family medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and senior author of the paper.

Karagas, director of the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Center at Dartmouth, and her colleagues have been active in the area of arsenic and human health for over 15 years, including work linking arsenic and bladder cancer and other conditions. She notes that research elsewhere has related arsenic at very high levels to infant mortality, reduced birth weight, hampered immune function, and increased mortality from lung cancer later in life.

"The study presented in the PNAS paper is based upon a sample of 229 pregnant New Hampshire women whose urine was tested for arsenic concentration," says Diane Gilbert-Diamond '98, a postdoctoral fellow and co-lead author on the paper. The women in the study were divided into two groups based on whether or not they had eaten rice in the two days before urine collection. The tap water in their homes also was tested for arsenic concentration.

"This enabled our team to separate the potential for exposure to arsenic from drinking water from that of rice," says Gilbert-Diamond. The urinary arsenic analyses were performed at the University of Arizona by co-author Professor A. Jay Gandolfi and colleagues and water testing was performed at Dartmouth's Trace Element Analysis Facility by co-author Brian Jackson, PhD.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consume an average of a half-cup of rice per day, but this varies by ethnic group. Asian Americans, for example, consume an average of more than two cups per day.

Urinary arsenic concentrations for the 73 study subjects who ate rice showed a median of 5.27 micrograms per liter, while the median for the 156 non-rice eaters showed 3.38 micrograms per liter, a statistically significant difference between the two groups.

The authors conclude that their findings highlight the need to monitor arsenic in food, noting that China already has statutory limits on arsenic content in rice (0.15 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per kilogram of food) but the U.S. and the E.U. do not. Rice concentrations vary widely throughout the world and between species and growing conditions. Karagas emphasizes, "While this study reveals the potential for exposure to arsenic from rice, much additional research is needed before we can determine if there are actual health impacts from this source of exposure." Tracy Punshon, research assistant professor of biological sciences and co-author says, "Rice is a nutritious food source worldwide. Ultimately any health risks, if found, would then need to be weighed against the obvious nutritional benefits of rice consumption."

The authors also conclude that the results of the study reinforce the concern that private well water in New Hampshire is a potential source of arsenic exposure. In this study, over 10 percent of the women consumed water containing arsenic concentrations currently above the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for public water systems.

"We strongly recommend that all homeowners who use a private well have their water tested regularly for arsenic," says Kathryn Cottingham, co-lead author and professor of biological sciences. "Although health risks of rice consumption are not yet clear, the risks posed by contaminated water are well established."

The work was supported by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), both of which support the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Center at Dartmouth. Funding also was provided by NIEHS's Superfund Research Program to Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program.

"The NIEHS and EPA programs supporting this research seek not only to advance the science in which we are engaged but, at the same time, be relevant to society," says Dartmouth Provost Carol Folt, the Dartmouth Professor of Biological Sciences, associate director of the center and a co-author of the PNAS paper. "Our results are highly consistent with both goals, and the team effort needed to successfully implement such work is a hallmark of Dartmouth's research programs."

Other co-authors on the study reported by PNAS include Joann Gruber, a member of Dartmouth's Class of 2011; Emily Baker, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology; and Vicki Sayarath, MPH, RD, research translation and community engagement coordinator for the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Center.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Dartmouth College. The original article was written by Joseph Blumberg.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Diane Gilbert-Diamond, Kathryn L. Cottingham, Joann F. Gruber, Tracy Punshon, Vicki Sayarath, A. Jay Gandolfi, Emily R. Baker, Brian P. Jackson, Carol L. Folt, Margaret R. Karagas. Rice consumption contributes to arsenic exposure in US women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1109127108

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

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

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205165901.htm

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Japan's 'nuclear gypsies' face radioactive peril at power plants

Reporting from Namie, Japan?

Kazuo Okawa's luckless career as a "nuclear gypsy" began one night at a poker game.

The year was 1992, and jobs were scarce in this farming town in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. An unemployed Okawa gambled and drank a lot.

He was dealing cards when a stranger made him an offer: manage a crew of unskilled workers at the nearby plant. "Just gather a team of young guys and show up at the front gate; I'll tell you what to do," instructed the man, who Okawa later learned was a recruiter for a local job subcontracting firm.

Okawa didn't know the first thing about nuclear power, but he figured, what could go wrong?

He became what's known in Japan as a "jumper" or "nuclear gypsy" for the way he moved among various nuclear plants. But the nickname that Okawa disliked most was burakumin, a derisive label for those who worked the thankless jobs he and others performed.

Such unskilled contractors exist at the bottom rung of the nation's employment ladder, subjecting themselves to perilous doses of radioactivity.

Solicited from day labor sites across the country, many contractors are told little of the task ahead.

"The recruiters call out their windows that they have two days of work; it's not unlike the way migrant farm workers are hired in the U.S.," said Kim Kearfott, a nuclear engineer and radiation health expert at the University of Michigan.

"Many are given their training en route to the plant. They're told: 'Oh, by the way, we're going to Fukushima. If you don't like it, you can get off the truck right now.' There's no such thing as informed consent, like you would have in a human medical experiment," she said.

After an earthquake-triggered tsunami deluged the Fukushima plant in March, a disaster that cascaded into reactor core meltdowns, activists are calling for better government regulation of what they call the nuclear industry's dirtiest secret.

For decades, they say, atomic plants have maintained a two-tiered workforce: one made up of highly paid and well-trained utility employees, and another of contractors with less training and fewer health benefits.

Last year, 88% of the 83,000 workers at the nation's 18 commercial nuclear power plants were contract workers, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a government regulator.

A study by the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a Tokyo-based watchdog group, found that contractors last year accounted for 96% of the harmful radiation absorbed by workers at the nation's nuclear power plants. Temporary workers at the Fukushima plant in 2010 also faced radiation levels 16 times higher than did employees of the plant's owner-operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., because contractors are called in for the most dangerous work, according to the government's industrial safety agency.

"This job is a death sentence, performed by workers who aren't being given information about the dangers they face," said Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute and author of the book "The Lie of Nuclear Power."

Okawa, who was off work from the plant the day of the tsunami, immediately quit the job and the "suicidal work" he performed there: mopping up leaks of radioactive water, wiping down "hot" equipment and filling drums with contaminated nuclear waste.

He described an unofficial pecking order at most nuclear plants among contractors, with the greenest workers often assigned the most dangerous jobs until they got enough experience to question the work or a newer worker came along.

"In the beginning, you get a little training; they show you how to use your tools," said Okawa, 56. "But then you're left to work with radiation you can't see, smell or taste. If you think about it, you imagine it might be killing you. But you don't want to think about it."

Okawa, a small man with powerfully built hands, said contractors knew they faced layoff once they reached exposure limits, so many switched off dosimeters and other radiation measuring devices.

"Guys needed the work, so they cut corners," he said. "The plant bosses knew it but looked the other way."

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/pjOyTztzcOc/la-fg-japan-nuclear-gypsies-20111204,0,6661765.story

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Human Genome Untangled in 3-D [Video]

News | Health

A technique for mapping our DNA in three dimensions emerged from an undergraduate's musings

By Katherine Harmon ?| December 2, 2011

AN ELEGANT MESS: A new essay explains the inspiration and concepts behind some of the recent efforts to map the human genome in three dimensions. Image: Miriam Huntley/Rob Scharein/Erez Lieberman Aiden

Erez Lieberman Aiden was an undergraduate at Princeton University in 2000 when scientists announced with great fanfare that they had sequenced the first human genome, yielding a trove of information about what happens inside every human cell. But Aiden wondered what it would be like to see what was happening inside a human cell. How does this gigantic genome?which would stretch 2 meters if you unwound it from its 5-micron-wide coil in the nucleus?actually go about its work?

To get to the bottom of this central question, he parlayed his mathematics major into applied math and health sciences and technology Ph.D. work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Harvard University, where he is currently a Harvard Fellow. Today in the journal Science, he explains the fruit of this work: a technique for mapping the genome that has already shed light on the human genome in all its 3-D glory. The essay won this year?s GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists.

The mapping technique that Aiden and his colleagues have come up with bridges a crucial gap in knowledge?between what goes on at the smallest levels of genetics (the double helix of DNA and the base pairs) and the largest levels (the way DNA is gathered up into the 23 chromosomes that contain much of the human genome). The intermediate level, on the order of thousands or millions of base pairs, has remained murky.

As the genome is so closely wound, base pairs in one end can be close to others at another end in ways that are not obvious merely by knowing the sequence of base pairs. Borrowing from work that was started in the 1990s, Aiden and others have been able to figure out which base pairs have wound up next to one another. From there, they can begin to reconstruct the genome?in three dimensions.

Untangled code
Even as the multi-dimensional mapping techniques remain in their early stages, their importance in basic biological research is becoming ever more apparent. "The three-dimensional genome is a powerful thing to know," Aiden says. "A central mystery of biology is the question of how different cells perform different functions?despite the fact that they share the same genome." How does a liver cell, for example, "know" to perform its liver duties when it contains the same genome as a cell in the eye? As Aiden and others reconstruct the trail of letters into a three-dimensional entity, they have begun to see that "the way the genome is folded determines which genes were on and off," he says.

One hypothesis that Aiden and his colleagues are pursuing is that the configuration of genetic information within any given cell has been arranged in essence like a newspaper. All the information is contained inside, but certain headlines have been chosen for the proverbial front page. So a liver cell's genome would have made the most important and relevant information the most accessible, whereas a cell in the cornea would be folded differently.

Through their research over the past few years, Aiden and his colleagues have discovered that at the level of a megabase?1 million base pairs?the human genome has wrapped itself into a structure known as a fractal globule. Although the spherical globule might look like a mess, the researcher discovered that by analyzing proximity data it is in fact an elegantly organized structure, which can be unfurled without getting tangled.

?

? ??
"Though it may sound abstract," Aiden wrote in his new Science essay, "the fractal globule is easy to explain to graduate students because it closely resembles the only food we can afford: Ramen." Uncooked, 30 meters of noodles fit neatly into a small package, woven together without being tangled.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=70d5225f461013fab663d5858a51c4a5

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Two out of three medical students do not know when to wash their hands

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) ? Only 21 percent of surveyed medical students could identify five true and two false indications of when and when not to wash their hands in the clinical setting, according to a study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC -- the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

Three researchers from the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hospital Epidemiology at Hannover Medical School in Hannover, Germany collected surveys from 85 medical students in their third year of study during a lecture class that all students must pass before bedside training and contact with patients commences. Students were given seven scenarios, of which five ("before contact to a patient," "before preparation of intravenous fluids," "after removal of gloves," "after contact to the patient's bed," and "after contact to vomit") were correct hand hygiene (HH) indications. Only 33 percent of the students correctly identified all five true indications, and only 21 percent correctly identified all true and false indications.

Additionally, the students expected that their own HH compliance would be "good" while that of nurses would be lower, despite other published data that show a significantly higher rate of HH compliance among nursing students than among medical students. The surveyed students further believed that HH compliance rates would be inversely proportional to the level of training and career attainment of the physician, which confirms a previously discovered bias among medical students that is of particular concern, as these higher-level physicians are often the ones training the medical students at the bedside.

"There is no doubt that we need to improve the overall attitude toward the use of alcohol-based hand rub in hospitals," conclude the authors. "To achieve this goal, the adequate behavior of so-called 'role models' is of particular importance."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Elsevier, via AlphaGalileo.

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Journal Reference:

1. K. Graf and I.F. Chaberny, R.-P. Vonberg. Beliefs about hand hygiene: A survey in medical students in their first clinical year. American Journal of Infection Control, Volume 39, Issue 10 (December 2011)

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

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

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111201105445.htm

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Michael Buble steals Rihanna thunder on U.S. album chart (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Michael Buble's album "Christmas" topped the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, against stiff competition from new releases by Nickelback, Rihanna, Daughtry and Mary J. Blige.

Buble's "Christmas" was released in late October ahead of the holiday season. But it saw a rise in sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, outselling "Here And Now," the seventh studio album by fellow Canadians Nickelback, by a mere 419 units to reach No. 1, with Nickelback at No. 2.

Buble's resurgence to the top spot from last week's No. 2 position may be replicated by other releases from earlier this year, ahead of Wednesday's Grammy nominations concert.

"With the Grammy nominations concert airing live tonight, there should be renewed interest in some of the top releases from earlier this year, as well as current and upcoming new recordings, taking us through December," said Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.

Despite Rihanna's album topping the iTunes chart even before its release last week, "Talk That Talk" debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, while the album's first single, "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris, dropped to No. 2 in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Last week's chart topper Drake fell to No. 4 with "Take Care," while Mary J. Blige's "My Life II: The Journey Continues, Act I" entered at No. 5, while Justin Bieber's "Under The Mistletoe" fell to No. 6 despite a gain in sales from last week.

Adele's "21" dropped to No. 7, the first the time album has dropped out of the top 5 since it entered 40 weeks ago. The rest of the top 10 are rounded out by Daughtry's new release, "Break the Spell," at No. 8, Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" at No. 9 and Coldplay's "Mylo Xyloto" at No. 10.

LMFAO's "Sexy And I Know It" edged out Rihanna for the top spot on the Hot 100 singles chart, while Bruno Mars's "It Will Rain" from the "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" soundtrack held steady at No. 3 as the film broke the $500 million worldwide box office benchmark earlier this week.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111130/music_nm/us_charts_michaelbuble

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Enter; Darkmatter

Hello all,
I'm not actually new here, I just haven't been active in a long time. I pretty muched faded away from text based roleplaying of any form in favour of working on a novel and my studies. I am making my triumphant return, however, and I couldn't think of a better place than right here. Happily my return coincided with a reformation of sorts here.

I have experience on many other roleplaying sites including several of my own which are alas, no longer active. I would consider my self an advanced writer and I mostly enjoy to read sci-fi but prefer writing high fantasy and alternative fantasy. Other than just fiction I thoroughly enjoy writing in general. I atually write a weekly article in my local newspaper.

My activities and interests other than literature include hurling, gaelic football, rugby, basketball, music, history, gaming and physics.
Hoping to get going here again ASAP.

Thank you for your time and attention. Peace
DarkMatter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/PQI_-xGniqU/viewtopic.php

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