The agreement settles allegations the company deliberately inflated drug prices by as much as 25 percent from 2001 to 2009.
One of the largest drug wholesalers in the U.S. will pay $151 million to 29 states and the District of Columbia to settle a lawsuit alleging the company inflated prices of hundreds of prescription drugs.
The lawsuit alleges that San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. caused state Medicaid programs to overpay millions of dollars in reimbursements, according to an Associated Press report on KRQE.com.
The agreement settles allegations the company deliberately inflated drug prices by as much as 25 percent from 2001 to 2009.
McKesson representative Kris Fortner said the claims against the company are without merit, but ?given the inherent uncertainty of litigation, we determined that this settlement was in the best interest of our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders.?
In addition to New Mexico, states covered in the settlement include Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. The District of Columbia also was covered.
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Betting with more amount of money is definitely an effective way to improve your winning odds. When you wager with more money, it certainly improves your slot machine odds. For example, if you are playing slot on a machine that comes with the betting rage of $1 to $5, then it is usually better to wager with $3 or more. Now, when it comes to the odds of winning a slot machine jackpot, it is certainly a bit harder than a standalone machine. We all know the concept of jackpot slot games, where multiple machines are linked together and players play the game all at once. For this reason, it eventually shoots up the competition between the players and lowers down the winning odds of every individual person.
With live report from all around the world, bookmakers are able to offer you thousands of live sport games, matches. In-running Sports Betting has become so popular. Soccer matches in famous leagues and tournaments like English Premier League, Champions League and etc are attracting millions of bettors every day.
Of course, know when to walk away when you are up, because of you dont you will ultimately give all your winnings back. You can practice your betting system, at home with computer casino games, or just by flipping a coin and betting on the outcome. Good luck!
Picture yourself the following situation: you are getting bored at a business meeting and you see a co-worker near you with his smartphone playing blackjack online. You watch him win a 20$ hand with real money on real bets. This could very well be the dream of the mobile Legal Online Gambling In The USA industry, a dream that a new white paper by research firm Juniper Research concludes has excellent chances of becoming a reality in the near future.
Gambling addictions only affect a small minority of the population whose compulsions should not affect the millions of responsible gamblers. Gambling addictions may increase because of the detached gambling environment on the Internet. The Internet provides a detached gambling atmosphere because there is no tangible representation of money, such as chips, being won or lost over the Internet. As a result, gamblers may lose track of how much money is being won or lost and may gamble beyond their means.
If a player is going for online poker, then he or she doesn?t have to waste time in reaching at a casino house. He or she can play the game right from his or her home or from any other place of his or her choice. This is the second most important reason for which experienced gamblers prefer online casinos.
The Madam Chairman of the Interactive Gaming Council, Sue Schneider, has predicted that over 500 companies running around 2,300 online gambling sites around the world will be facing extinction and will most likely be wiped out of the industry all together. The small number of companies that manage to live through this incredible crisis will have to live with a huge cut back on their revenue and figure out new ways of growing again. The idea of opening up in the Asian market has become a favored idea for many.
There is also a great possibility that players will lose their money with other casino games that do not involve slots as these require lots of practice, special skills and a good memory or a brain for math as it happens with blackjack. It is true that players will play the game they will play, but if every time you play a casino card game there is a big loss to justify, then wouldn
NEW DELHI (AP) ? Northern India's power grid crashed Monday, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to use backup generators and leaving 370 million people ? more than the population of the United States and Canada combined ? sweltering in the summer heat.
The blackout, one of the worst to hit India in a decade, highlighted the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become a regional economic power.
The country's northern grid crashed about 2:30 a.m. because it could no longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer, officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh said. However, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he was not sure exactly what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate it.
The grid feeds the nation's breadbasket in Punjab, the war-wracked region of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama's Himalayan headquarters in Dharmsala and the world's most populous state, the poverty stricken Uttar Pradesh.
By late morning, 60 percent of the power had been restored in the eight northern states affected by the outage and the rest was expected to be back on line by the afternoon, Shinde said. The grid was drawing power from the neighboring Eastern and Western grids as well as getting hydroelectric power from the neighboring mountain kingdom of Bhutan.
Without electricity, residents were roused from sleep when their fans and air conditioners stopped, and came out of their homes in New Delhi's sweltering heat as the entire city turned dark. Temperatures in the city were in the mid 30s (90s Fahrenheit) with 89 percent humidity. New Delhi's renowned Metro transit system, with 1.8 million daily riders, was forced to shut down for hours during the morning commute. Some trains across the northern region were stranded when their electric engines failed. Others were delayed by hours as they were hooked to diesel engines.
While the outage Monday was unique in its reach, its impact was softened by Indians' familiarity with almost daily power outages of varying duration. Hospitals and major businesses have generators that kick in when during power cuts, and upscale homes run on backup systems powered by truck batteries.
"This will obviously get worse," said Subhash Chawla, a 65-year-old retiree who took the Metro once power was restored. "Unless the Metro has a separate power supply, it will be chaos in the future."
The failure was the first time since 2001 that the northern grid had collapsed. But India's demand for electricity has soared since then as its economy has grown sharply. The outage was a reminder of the country's long road ahead in upgrading its infrastructure to meet its aspirations of being an economic superpower.
India's Central Electricity Authority reports power deficits of about 8 percent in recent months. But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census.
Transmission and distribution losses in some states are as much as 50 percent because of theft and connivance of employees in the power industry.
The power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off. Shivpal Singh Yadav, the power minister in the state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, said that while demand during peak hours hits 11,000 megawatts, the state can only provide 9,000 megawatts.
Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation chief Avnish Awasthi blamed the grid collapse on states drawing more than their allotted power to meet the summer demand,
Earlier this month, angry crowds blocked traffic and clashed with police after blackouts in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon that houses many high-rise apartment blocks and offices. With no power in some neighborhoods for more than 24 hours, people erected blockades that paralyzed traffic for several hours.
____
Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee contributed to this report from Lucknow, India.
Almost half of those killed in Syria since the outbreak of the anti-regime revolt in March 2011 have died since a failed UN-Arab League truce was due to come into force, a monitoring group said on Sunday.
"Some 45 percent of those killed in Syria have been killed since April 12," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Abdel Rahman said 9,098 people have been killed since the ceasefire brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan was supposed to begin.
"This month alone, 3,867 people have been killed -- 2,764 civilians, 1,000 regime troops and 103 defectors," he added, noting that he counted civilians who have taken up arms against the regime under the civilian category.
"It's just getting more and more violent," he said.
More than 20,000 people have been killed since the uprising broke out in mid-March last year, according to the watchdog's figures.
It is not possible to check casualty tolls independently in Syria. The United Nations has a troubled military observer mission in the country but has stopped giving figures for the overall estimated death toll.
FORT BRAGG, North Carolina ?? A Chinese-American soldier in Afghanistan was forced to crawl about 50 yards as punishment while his superiors yelled and hurled rocks at him hours before he took his own life, a fellow soldier testified on Friday in a court-martial hearing.
U.S. Army Private Danny Chen killed himself by a gunshot in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan last October.
One of his superiors, Sergeant Adam Holcomb, is standing trial in Fort Bragg on allegations his physical mistreatment and racial harassment pushed Chen to commit suicide.
Holcomb, 30, has pleaded not guilty and faces nearly 18 years of confinement and a dishonorable discharge if convicted on charges that include negligent homicide.
On Friday, Holcomb's defense lawyers called a dozen witnesses in an attempt to shift the focus from his conduct to what some described as Chen's shortcomings as a soldier.
The soldiers described harsh conditions at the remote combat outpost where stress ran high, politically incorrect nicknames were used and soldiers endured physical discipline when they failed to measure up.
A service member who served with Chen, Specialist Nicholas Sepeda, said Chen was not physically fit when he arrived in Afghanistan and their superiors frequently put him through "corrective training" involving push-ups, squats and other harsher measures.
He described the scene of Chen being forced to crawl to a guard tower while several non-commissioned officers threw rocks at him and yelled, "Incoming!"
"I didn't think it was right they were throwing rocks at him," Sepeda said.
On one occasion, Holcomb pulled Chen out of his bunk and dragged him across sharp rocks, lacerating his back, Sepeda said. Sepeda took photographs of the injuries.
"He was treated like dirt, wasn't he?" a military prosecutor asked Sepeda on cross-examination. "Yes he was," Sepeda replied.
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But Sepeda said non-commissioned officers at the outpost disciplined or "smoked" other solders, including himself.
Sepeda said he did not think Chen was targeted for harassment as much as he initially thought immediately after Chen's suicide.
Sergeant William Zade, another defense witness, said Chen often showed up late for guard duty and frequently fell asleep in the guard tower and could not be trusted to go out on patrols.
"Basic skills ? he was deficient in all of them," Zade said. "We had to prod him to learn."
Specialist Zachary Bolin, a medic assigned to the outpost, said anytime he saw Chen being disciplined, he thought there was a reason for it.
Bolin said he heard Chen referred to as "dragon lady."
Holcomb is accused of using racial slurs and failing to stop his subordinates from using similar offensive language.
"It was just a nickname," Bolin said. "It wasn't said with anger or disrespect."
Private First Class Timothy Carner described what he called bizarre behavior by Chen, including a time when Chen chose to sleep in a portable toilet.
"I asked him about it," Carner said. "He didn't feel like he deserved to sleep in a bed, so he went and slept in a port a-potty. I felt it was a very strange decision to make."
Holcomb's lawyers plan to call three more defense witness on Saturday, the fifth day of the trial.
Seven of Chen's other superiors from the Alaska-based 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, are also charged in the case and will be tried separately.
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I intend to share information about tips on research projects or write a scientific paper in paper form. The tips are simple, those are: First, define the formulation of the problem (research) on the field of science or engineering. Not a problem if the formulation of the problem is very complex or cannot be answered.
Second, identify a simple hypothesis test to gain a better understanding of the formulation of the problem. This process is the most severe and most important of the whole process. The reason is this process will probably spend more time to work and someone else may have been doing experiments, or even answer the problem.
Third, design one or more experiments. The resulting draft is supposed to be the best yet simple way to answer the problem formulation. The best approach to the problem faced is to make one or more hypotheses that are difficult to dispute. The important question at this stage is what is the worst possible outcome? Since you have invested a lot of time, make sure you have something to report.
Fourth, write the first draft of the paper is about to be made. Make sure you do a literature search sufficient to map out your contributions in the research-related research (related work). You can search the literature via the internet. You can also find information through write papers online.
Fifth, stop writing and do experiments. After conducting experiments, analyze the data. You will probably do some more experiments, several other experiments, or the measurements better. Once the data obtained, perform statistical analyzes and write the results section. Use pictures or curve to explain the experimental results, while the tables are very rarely used to describe something.
Sixth, wrote method. Writing a common structure used is as follow: the development of mathematics or modeling, a description of the subjects, experimental procedures, analytical measurement and statistical analysis procedures.
Seventh, go back to the beginning of the paper to make repairs or tuning the introduction. Check to be sure that all the experimental results to answer the question or formulating the problem in the introduction.
Eighth, write the discussion. This chapter aims to match the experimental results with the latest developments of science.
Ninth, explore the final reference to adding new information and paper ready to submit.
These ways spend a lot of time and thought. If you want a good paper without having to spend a lot of effort and time, you may decide to choose purchase research paper.
DETROIT (AP) ? Hyundai Motor Co. is recalling some Santa Fe SUVs and Sonata sedans because of problems with their air bags.
The Santa Fe recall involves nearly 200,000 vehicles in the 2007 to 2009 model years. Hyundai dealers will reprogram the front passenger air bag sensors so they will accurately detect when a small adult is seated.
Hyundai said it received complaints from some adults under 130 pounds whose air bags didn't deploy. No injuries have been reported. The air bags were originally programmed not to go off to protect children.
The company is also recalling 22,500 Sonata sedans from the 2012 and 2013 model years because their side air bags could go off without warning.
Hyundai said it has received 16 complaints about the Sonata's air bags, but no injuries have been reported.
The atlanta area immigration attorney wear numerous hats. They are active every day, meeting with clientele, going to court, and performing paperwork. Aside from these kind of nuts and mounting bolts descriptions of the attorneys? usage of time, there are many tasks they do which are based on their roles throughout immigration law. Altlanta ga immigration attorneys, experts in Immigration Legislations, deal everyday along with issues that profoundly customize the lives of many individuals living in or going to in the U.Utes., especially those nearby inside Atlanta. They help individuals find ways to live in the country, keep their families together, and continue to function. Atlanta immigration legal professionals work hard to help. Area Atlanta immigration legal professionals work in is employment-based visas. The U.S. federal government requires certain non-citizens on an employment visa to stay in the country. It might appear simple to someone who has never had to deal with it, however, many problems can happen. Atlanta immigration attorneys help find solutions to lost jobs and other reasons an employment visa may be taken away.
Family-based and marriage-based immigration law visas can be tricky with best. Atlanta immigration law attorneys can help individuals new to the You.S. navigate the particular immigration system to get their families together. Whether that means starting a new life as a married couple or bringing members of the family from your home country to call home with you, you may need assist to accomplish your goal. Those who are going to be involved in the health care industry in the U.Ersus., coming from another nation, may need help from The atlanta area immigration attorneys in getting medical visas. These people might be doctors, nurses, or any other health care professionals. On the other end in the spectrum, they may be ill or injured men and women from another region who want to get treatment in the United States. Atlanta immigration law attorneys can help these enter the U.S. medical system.
When it?s time for an immigrant to reach for U.S. citizenship, The atlanta area immigration attorneys are around to give counsel as well as advice. Citizenship is a tough process for many people. In fact, some Americans who may have heard about the Ough.S. citizenship test think that they would not be able to complete it if they had to. They are glad these folks were given automatic Ough.S. citizenship when they had been born here. But, the process is possible, if your applicant is prepared. Atlanta immigration attorneys can fix that and all aspects of becoming a citizen. Ultimately, when it comes time to make appearances in immigration the courtroom or to make attracts decisions by the process of law, Atlanta immigration attorneys are available to help. It doesn?t matter what the immigration difficulties you might have, they can be dealt with and dealt with when you?ve got proper legal representation.
For more information about immigration visit our website.
Besides the health risks caused by smoking, the acceptance of smoking in today?s society is declining day by day.
One of the reasons that smoking has become unacceptable in society is that when you smoke, not only affected your lungs and your life, but can have dramatic effects for the people around you because they are breathing the smoke second-hand and this causes serious health problems.
If you smoke, your whole family, including your children may be adversely affected by your smoking habit. When one of the parents smoke, especially pregnant women, those most affected are children, they are more likely to develop asthma, ear infections, bronchitis and many problems related to breathing. Currently no information available about how smoking affects health negatively.
It is absolutely unacceptable during pregnancy be near cigarette smoke and consume far more directly. When one of the parents smoke are more likely to initiate their children that bad habit.
It is therefore crucial to teach by example, not smoking now. Your children will thank you for all that energy that you have now to devote to them and yourself, and length of your life to be with your loved ones.
As people quit smoking, have better life expectancy. Smokers who stop before reaching fifty, remarkably reduce the risk of dying in the next 15 or 20 years. The benefits of quitting are gradual, but you can see the results from the day you decide to quit.
For example, twenty minutes after you stop smoking you will decrease blood pressure and your heart rate. High blood pressure and heart disease are just some of the terrible effects of smoking.
Real dangers
Half of all smokers who continue the bad habit will eventually die due to the effects of smoking. Each year, nearly four million people worldwide die from diseases related to the consumption of snuff.
Cancer, in conjunction with many other diseases such as emphysema, heart disease, aneurysms, stroke, and bronchitis are caused by smoking regularly. The damage caused by smoking are severe and can include anything from physical problems to problems of mental, social and financial.
Washington ? Rep. Jason Chaffetz has signed on to a new immigration bill that would help small business owners secure permanent resident status, part of his drive to reform the nation?s system of visas and green cards.
Chaffetz, R-Utah, is the lead Republican sponsor on a bill introduced Thursday by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, which has no bearing on undocumented immigrants and doesn?t boost the number of available green cards.
What their bill would do is allow entrepreneurs born overseas to sponsor themselves for employment-based green cards as long as they are highly educated and can prove that their business has employed at least five people for the past four years. Under current law, these green cards, providing permanent resident status, are only available to people sponsored by a company.
"They have to demonstrate they have a job, but what if they actually own the business?" Chaffetz said. "We think this will affect thousands of people every year."
Conyers, who brought the issue to Chaffetz, said: "Currently, our immigration system provides green cards to those who fill jobs in the American economy, but not to those who create jobs. This makes no sense."
Their proposal has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Small Business Association.
Chaffetz opposes calls for a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which he said has turned into "a buzzword for amnesty," but since his first campaign in 2008, has called for reforming the legal immigration system, which is plagued with long backlogs and strict quotas.
"If you can fix legal immigration, you can provide a legitimate pathway for people who are playing by the rules," he said.
"That should be our goal first and foremost."
Last November, the House overwhelmingly passed another bipartisan immigration bill led by Chaffetz that sought to make it easier for companies to recruit international talent from nations that regularly ran out of visas.
story continues below
That bill removes the per-country caps on skilled laborer visas, though it didn?t increase the number available. Essentially, it would allow the federal government to transfer unused visas from one country?s total to another nation that has used its allotment.
The Senate has yet to act on that legislation.
mcanham@sltrib.comTwitter: @mattcanham
Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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In case you are interested being in a trading agency, you are able to bounce into a trading discussion board and have becoming your own proving ground. Day trading investing could be a very complicated industry and will need possess a large amount of knowledge. For those who have a little know-how about trading, your understanding may not be really installing in comparison to the expertise in professionals.
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LONDON (AP) ? The Olympic torch began a festive valedictory lap around London on Thursday, taking in some of the sun-drenched capital's most famous landmarks on the second-to-last day of its trek across Britain.
The torch ? carried by athletes, charity workers and celebrities ? thrilled thousands of Londoners as it swept across Regent's Canal in Camden, through the city's newly renovated neo-gothic train station at St. Pancras and down the winding streets of the ancient City of London.
For many Londoners, it was their first glimpse of a golden beacon that has spent the past 68 days traveling up and down the country, from Loch Ness to Land's End, as well as going across the water to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Later Thursday, it will be carried past some of the city's most impressive landmarks, including the Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing St. and Buckingham Palace, where it will be greeted by Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.
The torch completes its 70-day, 8,000-mile (12,900-kilometer) journey on Friday, lighting the Olympic Stadium's cauldron in a ceremony marking the official start of the 2012 London Games. The identity of the final torchbearer is still a closely guarded secret.
Thursday's relay, which began in a burst of sunshine following months of awful weather, lifted London's spirits. In the north London neighborhood of Camden, many families with young children got up early to cheer as the torch kicked off its relay at the Victorian-era Roundhouse music hall around 6:50 a.m.
The good-natured crowd defied security guards' efforts to corral them behind barriers, mobbing Clive Woodward, the former English rugby star who was the first torchbearer of the day.
Others, like 19-year-old Anastasia Gribaldi, were surprised to see the torch after an all-night clubbing session.
"It was pretty cool to see it actually," said the teenage Goth, who sported black-and-purple hair. "It was like: 'Wow, it's the torch!' We weren't expecting it."
The torch later sped across London's River Thames with Paralympic champion Ade Adipitan, whose dreadlocks flapped in the wind as he propelled his wheelchair across the slender Millennium Bridge.
Londoners who have spent much of the past few weeks worrying about rain, Olympic security, and strikes appeared to lighten up.
In the south London borough of Lambeth, thick, flag-waving crowds chanted "We want the torch!" In nearby Wandsworth, 24-year-old John Lake ? a cancer survivor who has raised thousands of pounds (dollars) for the Brain Research Trust ? pumped his fist and waved the torch back and forth as he ran down the road with a mile-wide grin.
"Make some noise!" someone shouted as the crowd erupted into cheers.
The crowds thickened further as the torch made its way back across the Thames, with Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders ? who played Patsie and Edina in the British comedy "Absolutely Fabulous" ? taking the flame for a jaunty walk in London's wealthy Chelsea neighborhood.
Not everyone was caught up in the Olympic excitement.
"It was pretty convenient that it came through as I was getting my morning coffee," said Jack Tate, a 28-year-old retail worker in Camden. "Now I can say I've seen it. There's no need to watch any more of this Olympics rubbish for the next few weeks."
___
Paisley Dodds and Sheila Norman-Culp contributed to this report.
MADRID/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Spain paid the second highest yield on short-term debt since the birth of the euro at an auction on Tuesday, and EU officials said Greece had little hope of meeting the terms of its bailout, casting fresh doubt on its future in the euro zone.
Spain's increasingly desperate struggle to put its finances right has seen its borrowing costs soar to levels that are not manageable indefinitely, reflecting a growing belief that it will need a sovereign bailout the euro zone can barely afford.
It has become the recent focus for investors, but Greece - where the sovereign debt crisis began - remains a powder keg. If Athens were to default or exit the euro zone, the knock-on effects could push Spain and even Italy over the edge.
With inspectors from the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund returning to Greece to decide whether to keep it hooked up to a 130-billion-euro lifeline or let it go bust, three EU officials said they were likely to conclude Athens cannot repay what it owes, making a further debt restructuring necessary.
This time, the European Central Bank and euro zone governments would likely have to take a hit on some of the estimated 200 billion euros ($240 billion) of Greek government debt they own if Athens is to be put back on a sustainable footing.
But there is no willingness among member states or the ECB to take such dramatic action at this stage.
"Greece is hugely off track," one of the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The debt-sustainability analysis will be pretty terrible."
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Greece's economy could contract by more than 7 percent this year, pushing debt-cutting targets further out of reach, but he pledged to stay the course.
"There are certainly delays in this year's agreed program, and we must quickly catch up," Samaras told party colleagues. "Let's not kid ourselves, there is still big waste in the public sector, and it must stop."
Underlining the pressure on the euro zone, Moody's Investor Service lowered the outlook on the EU's temporary bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), after threatening the top-notch credit rating of three of its main backers, including Germany, earlier in the week.
The Spanish Treasury sold the 3 billion euros of three- and six-month bills it was aiming to, though yields climbed; the six-month paper jumped to 3.691 percent from 3.237 percent last month.
"The most important takeaway from this auction is that Spain was able to get all its debt out the door," said Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategies. "Still, in March, Spain was able to issue six-month debt at a yield of under 1 percent. Now it is paying 3.7 percent."
Spain had cushioned itself by securing well over half its annual debt needs in the first six months of the year when market conditions were more benign, but that advantage has evaporated as its funding needs for the rest of the year have grown.
On Friday, the government said it expected the economy to remain in recession well into next year, while the autonomous region of Valencia became the first to ask Madrid for aid to pay debt obligations it cannot meet. Others are expected to follow.
Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia, responsible for a fifth of the country's economic output, admitted it had financing needs to meet while its access to markets was shut, but had not decided yet whether to tap a state liquidity line.
BOND MARKET MESSAGE
On the secondary market, Spanish five-year government bond yields rose above 10-year yields for the first time since June 2001. Having to pay more to borrow shorter-term rather than longer-term is usually a sign that markets think the risk of a default or debt restructuring has increased.
"The spread between 5- and 10-years moved to negative today, which is a classic sign that the market thinks the current trends are unsustainable for Spain's fiscal dynamics," said Nick Stamenkovic, bond strategist at RIA Capital Markets.
The return investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year bonds is now at 7.6 percent, while the cost of insuring Spanish debt against default has also hit record highs.
Ten-year yields above 7 percent have proved to be a tipping point leading eventually to bailouts for other countries in the euro zone, though Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos insisted on Monday that Madrid would not need more aid.
The government has already asked for up to 100 billion euros to recapitalize the nation's banks, which have been battered by a four year economic downturn and a property crash.
The government has launched a fresh 65 billion euro package of tax rises and spending cuts designed to chip away at its debt mountain but it will also probably drive the economy deeper into recession.
The alarming spiral of Spain's debt costs has banished any hopes that a bailout of its banks, or a June EU summit that gave the euro zone's rescue funds a green light to intervene in the markets, has put the debt crisis into abeyance.
Spain and Italy have called for help to ward off market pressure. The ECB has cut interest rates but has shown marked reluctance to revive its bond-buying program, the only mechanism that could lower borrowing costs at a stroke.
De Guindos and Wolfgang Schaeuble, Spain and Germany's Finance Ministers, called on Tuesday for a quick implementation of the decisions of the last European Union summit, particularly setting up a banking union with a single European supervisor.
They also said after meeting in Berlin that Spain's funding costs did not reflect the fundamentals of its economy and the sustainability of its debt.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said further aid for Spain could take the form of an increase in Europe's rescue fund or action by the ECB.
"I hope it will not be necessary to intervene again," he told France 2 television. "If we have to intervene, it could be an increase in the firewalls ... or interventions by the central bank."
The euro zone as a whole is now subsiding into recession.
Business surveys on Tuesday showed the currency area's private sector shrank for a sixth month in July, with the downturn that began in the euro zone's high debt nations now becoming entrenched in Germany and France.
Moody's lowered the outlook on the EFSF's provisional(P)Aaa long-term rating to negative from stable, in a move it said followed from its decision earlier in the week to change the outlooks for Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to negative.
The ratings agency cited an increased chance that Greece could leave the euro zone when in lowered the outlook on all the fund's top-rated guarantors except Finland.
It also warned Germany and the other 'AAA'-rated countries that they might have to increase support for Spain and Italy.
($1 = 0.8275 euros)
(Additional reporting by Paul Day, Jan Strupczewski, Ilona Wissenbach, Annika Breidthardt, Manuel Ruiz, Dina Kyriakidou, Nicholas Vinocur, Marius Zaharia, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Ana da Costa; Writing by Mike Peacock; Editing by Anna Willard, Janet McBride, Will Waterman and Alex Richardson)
A former school official has died from an E. coli sickening that has affected 75 people, 14 of whom have been hospitalized.
Lowell Draffen, a 73-year-old former superintendent at several school districts in Ohio, was one of three people who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, as a result of the illness. Draffen and others had eaten food at a July 3 customer-appreciation picnic at Neff's Lawn Care in Germantown, Ohio. Eighteen cases have so far been confirmed as an E. coli 0157 infection.
Dayton Daily News reports that Draffen had retired from his last post as superintendent of Trotwood-Madison county only two yeas ago. A health commissioner handling the case, Jim Gross, told the paper that "Public Health will continue to examine all aspects of this food borne tragedy.?
The source of the outbreak is still unknown. The remaining two suffering from kidney failure -- a 4-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy -- remain in serious condition.
Campylobacter Enteritis
A common bacterial infection producing severe gastrointestinal upset that can hang around as long as two weeks. It's rarely fatal in healthy people.
<strong>The culprits: </strong>Improperly slaughtered or processed meat not thoroughly cooked, contaminated vegetables, milk or water. Pets can also shed the bacteria through their "business."
<strong>What it feels like: </strong>You'd pay closer attention to the flulike symptoms (fever, aches and pains) if you weren't running to the bathroom every 15 minutes of your life.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have: </strong>Plucked that mass-processed pack of pork chops out of the "manager's special" bin. Also, if you really need to be told, leave seagulls alone. They're neither friendly nor tasty and are known to harbor higher concentrations of the bacteria. Common sense and decent kitchen cleanliness should protect you from needless downfall.
<strong>Related: <a href="http://www.foodrepublic.com/2011/08/31/are-these-5-foods-trying-kill-you?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=food-poisoning" target="_hplink">Are These 5 Foods Trying To Kill You?</a></strong>
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartwebster/5829527553/" target="_hplink">StuartWebster</a></em>
Cholera
Contrary to what literature might have you believe, there will be no love in the time of cholera, only misery, woe and lots of diarrhea.
<strong>The culprits:</strong> Contaminated water and eating raw or undercooked seafood that was hanging out in that water.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> Being slowly dried in a dehydrator that looks surprisingly like your bathroom while your abdomen is squeezed by a giant godlike fist. You might just want to set up shop in there for a spell, the toxin in the cholera bacteria causes any water in your body to "release." Replenish as you might, it likely won't stay in there very long. Keep at it diligently, though, and you'll be fine in about a week.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Splashed around in a stagnant portion of the Meekong Delta for so long, or eaten those Mexican oysters with quite as much gusto.
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/philosophygeek/3964899327/" target="_hplink">philosophygeek</a></em>
E. Coli Enteritis
The black sheep of the food poisoning world, E. coli's the one with a strain that'll actually kill you regardless of treatment attempts. How subversive.
<strong>The culprits</strong>: Escherichia coli, or E. for short, has one incredibly powerful strain: O157:H7, although other related strains can cause infection as well. This bacterium is found in mass-processed ground beef and on vegetables that were improperly cleaned or handled by contaminated fingers.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> You've been stabbed in the colon, which would explain the crippling cramps and other things that might happen if one were actually stabbed in the colon, including blood. Not that there's a "better" food poisoning to get, but this is one you really want to avoid.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Eaten that rare burger of questionable origin while chugging raw milk in that crazy crowded public pool, all of which have been known to harbor the bacteria.
<strong>Related: <a href="http://www.foodrepublic.com/2011/06/06/update-new-e-coli-culprit-europe?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=food-poisoning" target="_hplink">Update: New E. Coli Culprit In Europe</a></strong>
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/khawkins04/5969315133/" target="_hplink">khawkins04</a></em>
Ciguatera (Fish Poisoning)
An incurable disease caused by eating fish contaminated by coral algae toxins. A real doozy, with an estimated 50,000 cases each year.
<strong>The culprits:</strong> Ciguatera is limited to fish of tropical origin. It's impossible to detect by seafood processors, and can't be killed by cooking or freezing. Live in fear of grouper, or continue on with your life with relatively minimal risk.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> At first, typical food poisoning symptoms may present, but the bigger problem with ciguatera is its severe and often irreversible neurological effects. These can include trouble sensing hot or cold, tingling "phantom limb" pain in the extremities and other symptoms that may be confused with anything from multiple sclerosis to heart failure.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have: </strong>Hit that fried "mystery tropical fish" eating contest at that Margaritaville in that tropical location with your buddies. To minimize your risk of catching this seriously unfun bug, make sure you know what your fish is and if possible, where it came from. Larger fish from shallower waters in a tropical environment are your worst bet.
<strong>Related: <a href="http://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/04/06/trouble-brewing-fda-and-sushi?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=food-poisoning" target="_hplink">Trouble Brewing For The FDA. And, Sushi.</a> </strong>
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alonsoinostrosa/4055075930/" target="_hplink">alonso_inostrosa</a></em>
Listeria
The range of listeria infection, or listeriosis, lands you somewhere between asymptomatic and dead and can occur from eating or drinking basically anything that was grown, raised or milked.
<strong>The culprits:</strong> Raw or improperly pasteurized dairy products, vegetables grown in contaminated soil (yup, it can live in soil), preserved and smoked meats (can be identified by a slippery or slimy film), canned and raw seafood and fresh fruit.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> A bad flu, although more serious complications like meningitis can occur in people with weakened immune systems, as well as in young children, pregnant women and the elderly.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Eaten all those root vegetables straight from the ground without washing them right after milking your cow. I mean a hippie farmer's life is great, unless your land is rife with listeria.
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/9229859@N02/2575380447/" target="_hplink">bucklava</a></em>
Staphylococcus
This is the picnic food poisoning everyone warns you about, especially you, dude who brought the mayo-choked potato salad (<a href="http://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/02/10/potato-salad-horseradish-recipe ?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=food-poisoning" target="_hplink">try this one instead</a>).
<strong>The culprits:</strong> The bacteria releases its toxins at the comfy incubator that is room temperature food, which gives staph food poisoning its signature cookout-ruining reputation. The worst part? Reheating contaminated food won't kill it off. Actually the worst part is the symptoms.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> Explosive, and not in a romantic feelings kind of way. Within an hour of ingesting contaminated food, both ends will be entirely occupied for up to a day. The good news is, once it's out, it's out and you can get right back to the picnic. Oh wait, it's over.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Microwaved that leftover potato salad thinking no bug could possibly survive the ordeal.
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/274140418/" target="_hplink">stu_spivack</a></em>
Salmonella
The bacteria that causes salmonellosis, or salmonella poisoning, has a serious reputation among poultry and their handlers, and BOY does it love hanging out on the stretches of counter you missed with the sanitizer.
<strong>The culprits:</strong> Although eggs, processed chicken parts and other raw meat are particularly good at spreading the bacteria, pet reptiles and rodents are also carriers. Wash everything any dead or live animal comes in contact with and maybe don't allow live animals in the kitchen while you're cooking, period.
<strong>What it feels like:</strong> Your small intestine betraying you entirely. Expect a week or so of your typical diarrhea, abdominal cramps and possibly a fever.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Attempted your own Japanese-style chicken breast sashimi or let Shelly the turtle roam around willy-nilly on the cutting board. Especially before slicing said chicken sashimi.
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vseehua/518875309/" target="_hplink">Casper Jen</a></em>
Shigellosis
Similar to salmonella but yet so very different is shigella, which attacks the large intestine rather than the small.
<strong>The culprit: </strong>You're going to love this -- human waste. While plenty of food-borne illness can be spread this way, particularly by catching a ride in food or water, many cases of shigellosis can be directly attributed to contact with... well, you know. It can also be resistant to antibiotics, so definitely practice safe sewage-wading.
<strong>What it feels like: </strong>Salmonella, only with more blood.
<strong>Maybe you shouldn't have:</strong> Taken on that blackout drunken dare to see what's really under that manhole by the creek, then gone straight to In-N Out. Just maybe. We live in a developed nation, you almost have to try to get this one. It's Darwinism, people.
<em>Photo via Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanreading/6141237661/" target="_hplink">Nathan Reading</a></em>
TORONTO?(BUSINESS WIRE)?AlertDriving, the global leader in web-based driver risk management solutions, is pleased to announce that it has established a long-term agreement with an international security company to provide a comprehensive global program to their fleet of more than 5,000 drivers in 13 countries. With this addition, AlertDriving further strengthens its leadership position in the?
Now that you've updated your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion it's time to start checking out some of the new features. iMessage now comes stock in Mountain Lion and makes it easier than ever to stay in contact with the people that matter most across your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and now, your Mac.
iMessage in OS X Mountain Lion lets you pick up conversations on your Mac right where you left off on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The best part is it's completely free and will work with anyone who has iMessage activated on their iOS or OS X devices.
Set up iMessage
If you signed into your iCloud account when you installed OS X Mountain Lion, you're probably already signed in and good to go so just skip this step. If you need to sign in manually, you can do so by following these steps:
First start by opening iMessage in your dock. The icon consists of blue and white chat bubbles.
If you have never signed into iMessage with an Apple ID you'll be prompted to do so upon first launch. Just type in your Apple ID credentials and submit them.
That's it. You're good to go to start using iMessage.
How to send an iMessage on your Mac
Open up iMessage in your dock. The icon consists of blue and white chat bubbles.
Click the new message button to the right of the search field.
Start typing the name of the person in your address book that you'd like to iMessage. You'll notice that some names have blue bubbles next to them and some won't. The ones that do are addresses that you can send iMessages to because they are either Apple ID's or phone numbers associated with an iPhone with iMessage enabled.
Once you've selected the person you'd like to send a message to, just type out your message and hit send. You're done!
How to add other IM accounts to iMessage
Now that iMessage is replacing iChat in Mac OS X, you may be wondering how to send instant messages without having to download another third party application. iMessage will give you the ability natively just like iChat did.
Open iMessage and from the top menu go to Messages and then Preferences.
Click on the Accounts tab along the top.
Now click on the plus sign in the accounts pain on the bottom left. You can choose from AIM, Jabber, Google Talk, and Yahoo. Select the IM account type you want to add and enter your credentials.
That's it. iMessage will now allow you to send and receive messages from your instant messenger services as well.
Enabling iMessage on your other Macs and iOS devices
To set up iMessage on other Macs in your house, just follow the same steps above. If you've got iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, you can also set them up to use iMessage as long as you're running iOS 5 or later. You can check out our guides for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well if you need help.
If you need more help setting up or using other features of iMessage, check out our other tutorials via the links below. If you have questions, our iMore forums are a great place to ask for help as well.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]LEARN HOW PROTECT INTERNET SITE MARKETING BUSINESS ONLINE LEGAL PROTECTION EBOOK ... Tags: services, secrets, online, learn, internet, business, marketing, networking. This entry was posted on Monday, ...
As we can observe, learning about Elder Law is something that is not so interesting for younger individuals - at least, for now - as this practically does not apply to them personally. And you might be thinking the same way. But the thing is, we should realize that we will age in time and that should be enough reason why it makes sense to have some knowledge about this area of the law - all of us, young and old. It can help us when we get old. Aside from that, we can also offer some help for seniors by imparting what we learn as early as today.In our attempt to learn about this thing, Elder Law Attorneys play an important role. They are legal professional who specialize in the area of law that focuses on representing, counseling, and assisting seniors or aged people in a variety of legal issues. Generally, they help seniors in addressing legal, medical, financial, social, and family issues, with emphasis on promoting the highest quality of life for them.Below are some specific issues that Elder Law Attorneys address: Estate and Gift Tax Planning - they provide this particular service with the purpose of assisting clients to adequately provide liquidity for their estates; provide for continuation of the business and to minimize gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes. Medicaid - seniors are also assisted whether they are qualified for Medicaid, a government medical program for certain people and families with low income. Retirement Benefits - this is one of the most important areas that senior individuals should be knowledgeable about and a lawyer who is expert in Elder Law can help to get the most benefits they can possibly get. Estate Planning and Probate - estate planning, by definition, is the process of anticipating and arranging for the disposal of an estate; probate means legal establishment of the validity of a will before a judicial authority.
Age Discrimination - a very common scenario you can see around particular in work where there is a high rate of layoffs based on age. Long Term Care Financing - this has something to do with preparation for possible future long-term care needs, which basically rely on 'self-insured' resources and the donated ones. An expert Elder Law attorney helps you understand the concepts behind such program and assist you along the way to make the most out of it. Insurance - attorneys can also help seniors to be able to enjoy insurance benefits; they assist them particularly when it comes to legalities and laws governing insurance policy benefits that are especially designed for seniors. By learning about Elder Law, it gives us an opportunity to become better prepared for the future. Remember, all of us get old and that is inevitable.
New model of disease contagion ranks US airports in terms of their spreading influence Public release date: 23-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Denise Brehm brehm@mit.edu 617-253-8069 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Airports in New York, Los Angeles and Honolulu are judged likeliest to play a significant role in the growth of a pandemic
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Public health crises of the past decade such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which spread to 37 countries and caused about 1,000 deaths, and the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that killed about 300,000 people worldwide have heightened awareness that new viruses or bacteria could spread quickly across the globe, aided by air travel.
While epidemiologists and scientists who study complex network systems such as contagion patterns and information spread in social networks are working to create mathematical models that describe the worldwide spread of disease, to date these models have focused on the final stages of epidemics, examining the locations that ultimately develop the highest infection rates.
But a new study by researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) shifts the focus to the first few days of an epidemic, determining how likely the 40 largest U.S. airports are to influence the spread of a contagious disease originating in their home cities. This new approach could help determine appropriate measures for containing infection in specific geographic areas and aid public health officials in making decisions about the distribution of vaccinations or treatments in the earliest days of contagion.
Unlike existing models, the new MIT model incorporates variations in travel patterns among individuals, the geographic locations of airports, the disparity in interactions among airports, and waiting times at individual airports to create a tool that could be used to predict where and how fast a disease might spread.
"Our work is the first to look at the spatial spreading of contagion processes at early times, and to propose a predictor for which 'nodes' in this case, airports will lead to more aggressive spatial spreading," says Ruben Juanes, the ARCO Associate Professor in Energy Studies in CEE. "The findings could form the basis for an initial evaluation of vaccine allocation strategies in the event of an outbreak, and could inform national security agencies of the most vulnerable pathways for biological attacks in a densely connected world."
A more realistic model
Juanes' studies of the flow of fluids through fracture networks in subsurface rock and the research of CEE's Marta Gonzlez, who uses cellphone data to model human mobility patterns and trace contagion processes in social networks, laid the basis for determining individual travel patterns among airports in the new study. Existing models typically assume a random, homogenous diffusion of travelers from one airport to the next.
However, people don't travel randomly; they tend to create patterns that can be replicated. Using Gonzlez's work on human mobility patterns, Juanes and his research group including graduate student Christos Nicolaides and research associate Luis Cueto-Felgueroso applied Monte Carlo simulations to determine the likelihood of any single traveler flying from one airport to another.
"The results from our model are very different from those of a conventional model that relies on the random diffusion of travelers [and] similar to the advective flow of fluids," says Nicolaides, first author of a paper by the four MIT researchers that was published in the journal PLoS ONE. "The advective transport process relies on distinctive properties of the substance that's moving, as opposed to diffusion, which assumes a random flow. If you include diffusion only in the model, the biggest airport hubs in terms of traffic would be the most influential spreaders of disease. But that's not accurate."
Outsize role for Honolulu
For example, a simplified model using random diffusion might say that half the travelers at the Honolulu airport will go to San Francisco and half to Anchorage, Alaska, taking the disease and spreading it to travelers at those airports, who would randomly travel and continue the contagion.
In fact, while the Honolulu airport gets only 30 percent as much air traffic as New York's Kennedy International Airport, the new model predicts that it is nearly as influential in terms of contagion, because of where it fits in the air transportation network: Its location in the Pacific Ocean and its many connections to distant, large and well-connected hubs gives it a ranking of third in terms of contagion-spreading influence.
Kennedy Airport is ranked first by the model, followed by airports in Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, Newark, Chicago (O'Hare) and Washington (Dulles). Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which is first in number of flights, ranks eighth in contagion influence. Boston's Logan International Airport ranks 15th.
"The study of spreading dynamics and human mobility, using tools of complex networks, can be applied to many different fields of study to improve predictive models," says Gonzlez, the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "It's a relatively new but very robust approach. The incorporation of statistical physics methods to develop predictive models will likely have far-reaching effects for modeling in many applications."
###
This work was supported by a Vergottis Graduate Fellowship and awards from the NEC Corporation Fund, the Solomon Buchsbaum Research Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy.
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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.
New model of disease contagion ranks US airports in terms of their spreading influence Public release date: 23-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Denise Brehm brehm@mit.edu 617-253-8069 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Airports in New York, Los Angeles and Honolulu are judged likeliest to play a significant role in the growth of a pandemic
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Public health crises of the past decade such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which spread to 37 countries and caused about 1,000 deaths, and the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that killed about 300,000 people worldwide have heightened awareness that new viruses or bacteria could spread quickly across the globe, aided by air travel.
While epidemiologists and scientists who study complex network systems such as contagion patterns and information spread in social networks are working to create mathematical models that describe the worldwide spread of disease, to date these models have focused on the final stages of epidemics, examining the locations that ultimately develop the highest infection rates.
But a new study by researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) shifts the focus to the first few days of an epidemic, determining how likely the 40 largest U.S. airports are to influence the spread of a contagious disease originating in their home cities. This new approach could help determine appropriate measures for containing infection in specific geographic areas and aid public health officials in making decisions about the distribution of vaccinations or treatments in the earliest days of contagion.
Unlike existing models, the new MIT model incorporates variations in travel patterns among individuals, the geographic locations of airports, the disparity in interactions among airports, and waiting times at individual airports to create a tool that could be used to predict where and how fast a disease might spread.
"Our work is the first to look at the spatial spreading of contagion processes at early times, and to propose a predictor for which 'nodes' in this case, airports will lead to more aggressive spatial spreading," says Ruben Juanes, the ARCO Associate Professor in Energy Studies in CEE. "The findings could form the basis for an initial evaluation of vaccine allocation strategies in the event of an outbreak, and could inform national security agencies of the most vulnerable pathways for biological attacks in a densely connected world."
A more realistic model
Juanes' studies of the flow of fluids through fracture networks in subsurface rock and the research of CEE's Marta Gonzlez, who uses cellphone data to model human mobility patterns and trace contagion processes in social networks, laid the basis for determining individual travel patterns among airports in the new study. Existing models typically assume a random, homogenous diffusion of travelers from one airport to the next.
However, people don't travel randomly; they tend to create patterns that can be replicated. Using Gonzlez's work on human mobility patterns, Juanes and his research group including graduate student Christos Nicolaides and research associate Luis Cueto-Felgueroso applied Monte Carlo simulations to determine the likelihood of any single traveler flying from one airport to another.
"The results from our model are very different from those of a conventional model that relies on the random diffusion of travelers [and] similar to the advective flow of fluids," says Nicolaides, first author of a paper by the four MIT researchers that was published in the journal PLoS ONE. "The advective transport process relies on distinctive properties of the substance that's moving, as opposed to diffusion, which assumes a random flow. If you include diffusion only in the model, the biggest airport hubs in terms of traffic would be the most influential spreaders of disease. But that's not accurate."
Outsize role for Honolulu
For example, a simplified model using random diffusion might say that half the travelers at the Honolulu airport will go to San Francisco and half to Anchorage, Alaska, taking the disease and spreading it to travelers at those airports, who would randomly travel and continue the contagion.
In fact, while the Honolulu airport gets only 30 percent as much air traffic as New York's Kennedy International Airport, the new model predicts that it is nearly as influential in terms of contagion, because of where it fits in the air transportation network: Its location in the Pacific Ocean and its many connections to distant, large and well-connected hubs gives it a ranking of third in terms of contagion-spreading influence.
Kennedy Airport is ranked first by the model, followed by airports in Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, Newark, Chicago (O'Hare) and Washington (Dulles). Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which is first in number of flights, ranks eighth in contagion influence. Boston's Logan International Airport ranks 15th.
"The study of spreading dynamics and human mobility, using tools of complex networks, can be applied to many different fields of study to improve predictive models," says Gonzlez, the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "It's a relatively new but very robust approach. The incorporation of statistical physics methods to develop predictive models will likely have far-reaching effects for modeling in many applications."
###
This work was supported by a Vergottis Graduate Fellowship and awards from the NEC Corporation Fund, the Solomon Buchsbaum Research Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy.
[ | 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.
TORONTO?(BUSINESS WIRE)?AlertDriving, the global leader in web-based driver risk management solutions, is pleased to announce that it has established a long-term agreement with an international security company to provide a comprehensive global program to their fleet of more than 5,000 drivers in 13 countries. With this addition, AlertDriving further strengthens its leadership position in the?
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Public release date: 23-Jul-2012
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