An investor with a 2.9% stake in UK pay TV operator BSkyB is the latest that is understood to be ready to oppose the re-election of James Murdoch as chairman, according to UK press reports.Legal & General has reportedly changed its previous position and could oppose Murdoch’s re-election at the Sky AGM, which takes place tomorrow. Kames Capital owns 1.6% of Sky and will also reportedly join the ranks of those not prepared to back Murdoch.The news follows advice from the Pensions & Investment Research Consultants (PIRC), which earlier this month advised investors to vote against re-electing James Murdoch. Since that point, Murdoch has stepped down from the board of the operating companies of News Corp’s UK newspapers The Sun and The Times. read more

Polish cable operator Inea has added two new HD channels to its programming line-up.Entertainment channel Tele5 HD offers movies and TV series from Europe and the US, while Fashion One HD offers lifestyle news, celebrity profiles, holiday programmes and red carpet events. Both channels are available in the Max HD package.The addition of the two new channels takes the total number of HD channels offered by Inea to 40.

Andy SchuonA group of veteran US media executives led by a former MTV executive have launched what they describe as a vertically integrated global media, information and technology company focused on OTT and multiscreen content.Former MTV programming chief Andy Schuon is heading up the Los Angeles-based Every Day Networks, which will also have offices in Europe. The outfit has assembled a portfolio of channels after acquiring the former Fox Sports action sports and lifestyle channel Fuel TV along with OTT channel PlanesTrains+Automobiles and cable network Business Rockstars.Schuon previously served as president of CBS Radio, head of programming at MTV and VH1, created MTV2, headed up several Universal media companies and founded Revolt TV with Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs.Working alongside him on the new venture are former Tribune Company chief digital officer Don Meek, who takes on the role of chief operating officer, Fuel TV founder CJ Olivares, who will serve as chief content officer, and former Fox Networks Group executive Austin Wignall, who will take on the role of head of audience development.Schuon has co-founded Every Day Networks with entrepreneur Gary Verolic, co-founder of investment outfit JG Wentworth.The company will focus on developing content for mobile and OTT TV. Every Day Networks has the stated goal of becoming the first ‘integrated multi-network company’ purpose-built to deliver services in the age of connected devices and social media. The outfit’s efforts will be data-driven, based on MasterChannel Interchange (MCX), a technology platform designed to help with the development of content, distribution and revenue models.MCX Indie, one iteration of this platform, is designed to enable the creation of new OTT channels, allowing content owners to team up with Every Day Networks to develop services without making heavy investments in data integration and revenue platforms, according ot the company.Every Day Networks plans to build on Fuel TV’s existing distribution on cable and satellite in 70 territories by making the channel globally available via OTT next year.The three-year-old startup and entrepreneurship-focused Business Rockstars is available in 35 million US TV homes and on radio. This will be launched internationally as a cable channel and OTT app, according to the company.Every Day Networks said it would expand the reach of OTT travel and lifestyle channel PlanesTrains+Automobiles, which is available via Roku and Amazon Fire, along with a distribution deal with Delta Airlines, by launching on the Apple TV platform soon.“We believe Every Day Networks is what a successful media company looks like in the 21st century,” said Schuon.“We’re set up with great brands and a great team to follow the audience as they migrate to new viewing platforms that enable an entirely new commercial model for our industry.” read more

Satellite operator Eutelsat has added two new UHD TV channels to the line-up of services available via its Hotbird platform at the 13° East orbital slot.Fashion TV’s new UHD TV channels, FTV UHD, and 4K travel channel Travelxp 4K will air from the position, having concluded mutli-year contracts with Eutelsat that will enable them to reach cable and IPTV networks across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.FTV UYHD debuted on the platform just before Christmas, while Travelxp 4K will start broadcasting this month.Both channels are encoded in HEVC with 10-bit colour depth, at 50 frames per second.Travelxp 4K will broadcast in 10-bit REC 2020 colour space using the Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) HDR TV technology developed by the BBC and NHK. The HLG system enables SDR displays to decode HDR content.“Since the launch of our first fashion-themed channel on a Eutelsat satellite in 1997 we have developed a unique and comprehensive brand with high-quality broadcasting at its core. We made the leap to High Definition ten years after the launch of our first digital channel on Eutelsat’s fleet. Today, we are excited to pursue our commitment to the highest quality of broadcasting standards through an Ultra HD channel offering Eutelsat’s Hotbird homes exceptional images of the latest fashion events from around the world. Eutelsat is our fashionable and lucky Hotbird,” said FTV UHD CEO Michel Adam Lisowski.“Travelxp 4K is all about bringing the world to homes in stunning resolution. 10 bit REC 2020 with HLG, HDR will make the viewing experience more immersive and vivid. It’s not just about more pixels in 4K but better pixels. We are proud to reinforce our partnership with Eutelsat and to benefit from their vast knowledge of the Ultra HD broadcasting chain. Joining the Hotbird neighbourhood and gaining access to a unique and ethnically diverse population pool is a natural step for us that will fast-track penetration of Travelxp 4K into homes across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East,” said Travelxp 4K CEO Prashant Chothani. read more

ALERT: This Typically Happens Once a Decade Stansberry’s founder, Porter Stansberry, just explained all the details on a unique type of investment — totally OUTSIDE of the stock market — that could make you 100%+ in 12-48 months. Click here to see Porter on camera and his full explanation. — Can you legally remove yourself from U.S. tax code? 70-year-old multimillionaire says, “YES!” Click here to learn how to get the full story. – •  Investors are betting on more European QE… Last week, the euro fell to a seven-month low against the U.S. dollar. The euro has now lost 20% against the U.S. dollar over the past two years. That’s a huge move for a major currency. When a central bank pumps money into a financial system, it increases the money supply. In short, QE increases the number of euros chasing the same number of goods and services, which weakens the euro. •  In 2012, Draghi said the ECB would do “whatever it takes” to save the euro… But more money printing won’t help Europe’s economy. That’s because the European Union has a serious design flaw. Doug Casey explains: The problem with every currency in the world today is that they’re not backed by a commodity (like gold) but only by the ability of government to steal from people. But the euro doesn’t even have that going for it. The European Union doesn’t have the power to tax. Right now, the Eurocrats in Brussels really only have the power to regulate. I’ve long said that, while the U.S. dollar is an ‘IOU nothing,’ the euro is a ‘who owes you nothing.’ Chart of the Day Silver is in its longest bear market on record… Today’s chart compares silver’s current bear market with previous silver bear markets. The price of silver hit an all-time high in April 2011. It’s been in a downtrend ever since. Silver’s current bear market has run 55 months so far. That makes it the longest silver bear market in five decades. The price of silver is now down 70% from its 2011 high. That’s the second-biggest price drop of any bear market since 1968. Like other commodities, the price of silver is highly cyclical. It goes through big booms and busts. Even though silver is in a brutal bear market right now, it will eventually turn around… And the turnaround could be explosive. Silver surged 441% during its 2008-2011 bull market. Louis James, editor of International Speculator, is very bullish on silver right now. He thinks a silver supply crunch could end this bear market. According to Louis and his team, global silver output is set to decline in 2015. That hasn’t happened in 12 years. Louis and his team say this could lead to “a major supply crunch as soon as next year.” The International Speculator team says the combination of shrinking supply and healthy demand is creating what “looks like the setup for a perfect silver storm.” Just last week, Louis told his readers about his “go-to” silver company. The company is making profits even at today’s ultra-low silver prices. And its stock is trading at a discount… You can learn about Louis’ favorite silver company by taking International Speculator for a risk-free trial. Click here to learn more. Two things determine shipping rates: the number of ships and demand for shipping… Shipping rates soared from 2002 to 2008. The BDI rose more than 12-fold during this period. Shipping companies thought the boom times would last, so they built more ships… Then shipping rates collapsed in 2008. The industry built too many new ships, and global trade slowed dramatically. (As Casey readers know, oil tankers are the one exception to the bloodbath in shipping. The oil shipping business is booming right now.) On Friday, Forbes reported that the global shipping industry still has 30% more capacity than it needs. • The global economy is slowing… Shipping giant A.P. Møller-Mærsk A/S (AMKAF) recently reported a 15% drop in sales during the third quarter. It was the fourth quarter in a row that sales dropped from the previous year. Mærsk is the world’s largest shipping company. It moves about 15% of all manufactured goods shipped worldwide. If Mærsk is struggling, it’s because global trade is slowing. Last month, the company also announced plans to lay off 4,000 workers. This will cut the company’s global workforce by 17%. Mærsk’s CEO, Nils Smedegaard Andersen, said he’s cutting jobs because the global economy is slowing faster than people think. We believe that global growth is slowing down…Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see. Last month, the International Monetary Fund cut its global GDP forecast from 3.3% to 3.1%. The organization also lowered its growth forecast for 2016 from 3.8% to 3.6%. According to Andersen, these new projections are still too optimistic. •  Meanwhile, the price of copper hit a new six-year low on Friday… Copper has been falling all year. Now it’s plummeting. Copper is down 14% in the past month alone. It’s now down 56% from its 2011 all-time high. Plunging copper prices are another sign of a slowing global economy… Copper is used to make smartphones, televisions, laptops, and other electronics. It’s used in plumbing and roofing parts. Copper is also waterproof, so it’s used in shipbuilding. When the price of copper drops, it means a wide range of companies are making fewer products. •  Global machinery maker Caterpillar (CAT) just had its worst monthly sales decline in five years… In October, Caterpillar’s global machine sales fell 16% from the year before. It was the company’s biggest sales decline since February 2010. Caterpillar’s machine sales have now declined 35 months in a row. The chart below shows how Caterpillar is experiencing its longest streak of declining monthly sales since the Great Recession. A key measure of global trade just hit an all-time low… The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) measures the price of shipping materials such as iron, coal, and grains. It accounts for 23 different shipping routes and four ship sizes. It’s one of the most closely watched indicators for the global economy… On Friday, the BDI closed at 498. It was the first time the index has closed below 500 in its twenty-year history. The BDI hit an all-time record high in May 2008. It’s been falling ever since. The index is now down 96% from that point. It’s plummeted an incredible 59% since August alone. Recommended Links Caterpillar is the world’s largest publicly traded equipment and machinery manufacturer. Its customers are the companies that build houses, office buildings, bridges, and the rest of the “real” economy. This is why many investors consider Caterpillar a “canary in the coalmine” for the global economy. It’s unlikely Caterpillar’s sales drought will end anytime soon… Management expects annual revenues to drop 5% in 2016. If that happens, it will mark the fourth year in a row the company’s annual sales have dropped. That’s never happened in Caterpillar’s 90-year history. •  Like Caterpillar, Europe’s weak economic data is pointing to a slowing global economy… Europe is experiencing its weakest economic recovery in decades. During the second quarter, Europe’s economy grew half as fast as the U.S. economy. And at 10%, Europe’s unemployment rate is double the U.S. unemployment rate. On Friday, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi described the current recovery as “the weakest euro area rebound since 1998”… The ECB has tried (and failed) to jumpstart Europe’s economy by cutting interest rates to zero. In March, the ECB went one step further and launched its first quantitative easing (QE) program. QE is when a central bank creates money from nothing and pumps it into the financial system. It’s basically another word for money printing. Every month, the ECB’s QE program pumps €60 billion ($65 billion) into the Eurozone’s financial system. It’s scheduled to run “at least until September 2016.” At that point, the program will have pumped at least €1.14 trillion into Europe’s financial system. •  Yet the ECB probably won’t stop at €1.14 trillion… On Friday, Draghi said that the ECB will do whatever it thinks is necessary to boost economic growth “as quickly as possible.” He added that the ECB “will act by using all the instruments available within our mandate.” Draghi already hinted the ECB might increase its QE program last month. His statements on Friday went much further. He’s essentially saying, “Get ready for more money printing.” Regards, Justin Spittler Delray Beach, Florida November 23, 2015 We want to hear from you. If you have a question or comment, please send it to feedback@caseyresearch.com. We read every email that comes in, and we’ll publish comments, questions, and answers that we think other readers will find useful. read more

Researchers expect that three dozen new drugs will come on the market over the next few years with astronomical prices — some likely topping a million dollars per patient.The drugmaker Novartis has told investors it might be able to charge $4 million to $5 million for one of its potential products, a treatment for a rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy.Hundreds more ultra-expensive therapies are under development. They could drive up the cost of medicine and health insurance for everyone. So researchers have started to develop strategies to address that coming price shock.These new treatments include gene therapies, which target certain cancers and rare diseases. Take, for example, hemophilia, an inherited disorder that prevents a person’s blood from clotting properly.”When I was born, treatment did not exist for hemophilia,” says Mark Skinner, one of about 20,000 Americans with the condition. “Within my lifetime — I’m 58 years old — there have been remarkable advances.”Skinner, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who is past-president of the World Federation of Hemophilia, now gives himself injections of expensive medication most days to prevent the painful and potentially dangerous bleeding episodes.He says eight or nine companies are now working on gene therapies, which could potentially cure his underlying condition. “I think we could see a gene therapy within the clinics, and available to patients, within a couple of years,” he says.One infusion of this therapy might be enough to correct the genetic flaw and give him many years, maybe even a lifetime, free from bleeding episodes and daily medication.Current hemophilia drugs cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Skinner’s treatment, in particular, can cost $800,000 a year, “so a gene therapy that costs $1 million, or even $2 million — you could see it becoming economically viable over a couple of years,” he says. It could actually save money for his health insurer.But the new kind of treatment could also be a big shock to the health care system. Gene therapy for every American with hemophilia could cost tens of billions of dollars. One response might be to ration the treatment. That’s essentially what happened when expensive new drugs that could cure hepatitis C came on the market in 2013. Would that happen for hemophilia?”If a gene therapy came through and was reasonably expensive, it would be terrible if we could only treat a thousand patients a year, and it took us 10 or 15 years to treat all those people,” says Mark Trusheim at MIT’s NEWDIGS program.That program is trying to dream up better ways to pay for gene therapies for hemophilia as well as dozens of other diseases where long-term treatments are in the works. (NEWDIGS stands for the “New Drug Development ParadIGmS Initiative.”)Under the current paradigm, we typically pay as we go for drugs, with monthly bills for monthly pills. Trusheim says it’s like paying rent on an apartment.”But now with these new gene therapies, we get to take the treatment once and it can last for years,” he says. They may even last a lifetime. He says it makes more sense, then, to think of these drugs in terms of paying a mortgage over time – think of a condo, rather than a rental apartment.That approach could spread out the payments, reducing the potential shock of a new treatment. “Plus we have the option here not just to turn it into a mortgage payment,” he says, “but make that mortgage payment contingent on whether the apartment is really a good apartment or not. If the roof begins to leak, maybe we won’t pay so much on the future payments.”This strategy has already been put to use to pay for one gene therapy – Luxturna — that treats an inherited form of blindness at the cost of $850,000 per patient. The company that produces the therapy, Spark Therapeutics, has agreed to give payers a refund if a patient’s vision hasn’t improved sufficiently after 2 1/2 years.New therapies may not work at all, or their effects may wear off over time. There should be some way to reflect the actual long-term value to a patient in the price of treatment, says Trusheim.He is eager to get funding schemes like this instituted now, because he expects to see another three dozen new expensive therapies coming to the market in just the next four years. Those include immune-system treatments called CAR-T for cancer, which may extend a person’s life but may not be curative. It also includes gene therapies for diseases that up until now have had no treatment at all.”It could be really exciting,” he says, “but it could also be really expensive as we’re treating conditions we never used to be able to treat.”Many of these treatments are for rare diseases. There are about 7,000 rare diseases, so there could eventually be many products on the market. And because there aren’t many patients who would benefit from any given therapy, the costs of developing each novel treatment have to be recouped from a small number of patients. That drives up the price.One biopharmaceutical company, Alnylam, prices its drugs for rare diseases in the range of $250,000 to $650,000, says Yvonne Greenstreet, the company’s chief operating officer. Speaking at a recent meeting organized by the Milken Institute, she said the company has raised about $4 billion to develop the technology behind these medications.Her company focuses on a method called RNA interference that can block genetic messages. Unlike other forms of gene therapy, RNAi treatments typically need to be given periodically. Among other projects, the company has a novel hemophilia treatment in development.”I think it’s important to remember that when you are focused on coming up with true innovation, it’s a very capital-intensive, high-risk endeavor,” she says.Yet in the United States, where drug companies set their prices based on whatever they believe the market can bear, this can potentially be overwhelming.”If we get a cure for Alzheimer’s priced at $100,000 or $1 million a pop, we’re toast!” said Joe Grogan from the White House Office of Management and Budget, speaking at the Milken meeting. The costs for this one condition could run into the trillions of dollars.Even if governments and insurers can rein in the price of drugs, therapies are still likely to cost a lot at the outset, and the health care system will need creative ways to manage that.”At the pace at which gene therapy is coming, I think we have no choice,” says advocate Skinner. “I don’t think the public would tolerate cures sitting on the shelf that people don’t have access to.”A solution will require not only new ways of thinking, but new rules and regulations that govern how insurance companies and government programs pay for medical care. MIT’s Trusheim says, for example, that refunds for poorly performing drugs can fall afoul of current laws designed to prevent kickbacks.Skinner says these conversations should also involve patients early on, to make sure that new treatments actually address the health concerns of the patients themselves. Value shouldn’t be measured simply in terms of drug company profits, he says.”Achieving an early alignment between patients, the drug developers and the payers in how value is going to be measured is going to be an important approach as we go forward,” he says.You can reach Richard Harris at rharris@npr.org. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. read more

Video Games November 8, 2018 Writer Free Webinar | July 31: Secrets to Running a Successful Family Business –shares Learn how to successfully navigate family business dynamics and build businesses that excel. You might think, based on Hollywood’s hard work and even even harder marketing, that only big movies make millions. Video games are where the really big money flows. Eric Griffith This story originally appeared on PCMag Add to Queue 2 min read Rockstar Games has a hit with Red Dead Redemption 2. And as the latest chart from Statista shows, it’s even a bigger deal than Marvel’s Avengers franchise.Using data from video game companies and Box Office Mojo, which tracks the money-making of any and every movie ever made, Statista’s chart shows that the games from Rockstar have much bigger debuts than the biggest films of the last few years — Avengers: Infinity War, The Fate of the Furious in 2017, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.Even the biggest movie haul on opening weekend was Avengers at $641 million (worldwide); Rockstar’s top two titles both beat that. And one of them was Grand Theft Auto V back in 2013, which took in a cool $1 billion in sales in three days, making it the fastest-selling title of all time.To be fair, both Avengers: IW and Star Wars: TFA each managed to clear a full $2 billion worldwide box office eventually, making them the fourth and third biggest movies ever, behind only Avatar and Titanic. (The Fate of the Furious hit only $1.2 billion globally.) And domestically, Star Wars: TFA is the biggest U.S. hit ever, even over Avatar.Grand Theft Auto V, on the other hand, has no less than seven Guinness World Records (including, as mentioned, fastest game to hit $1 billion). As of May 2018, with 95 million copies sold, GTAV had generated $6 billion in profits. It has been hailed as the “most profitable entertainment product ever.” All bow down before the extended life-span of video games, capable of up to three times the money-making power of the movies. If Red Dead Redemption 2 can even come close to rivalling it, big movie stars may start to feel a chill as their CGI counterparts reap the rewards. Image credit: Statista via PC Mag Next Article Major Video Games Make More Money Than Blockbuster Movies Register Now » read more

Source:https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/scratching-skin-primes-gut-allergic-reactions-food-mouse-study-suggests Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Apr 24 2019Scratching the skin triggers a series of immune responses culminating in an increased number of activated mast cells–immune cells involved in allergic reactions–in the small intestine, according to research conducted in mice. This newly identified skin-gut communication helps illuminate the relationship between food allergy and atopic dermatitis (a type of eczema), a disease characterized by dry, itchy skin. The study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and led by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital.Related StoriesScientists discover how resistance to the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil arisesBritish boys to receive HPV jabsPromising new approaches in the fight against brain metastasisAtopic dermatitis is a strong risk factor for developing food allergy, but the precise relationship between the two conditions remains unclear. As itching is a major symptom of atopic dermatitis, people with the disease, particularly babies, often scratch their skin. The current study proposes that scratching the skin instigates mast-cell expansion in the intestine.The researchers found that some cells in the skin respond to scratching–simulated by applying and removing small strips of tape on the skin of mice–by producing a cell-signaling protein called IL-33, which enters the bloodstream. When IL-33 reaches the gut, it works in concert with IL-25, a protein secreted by cells in the lining of the intestine, to activate type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). Activated ILC2s make two additional cell-signaling proteins, IL-13 and IL-4, which were found to be responsible for the expansion of intestinal mast cells.The researchers also found that as mast cells expanded, the intestinal lining became more permeable, making it easier for allergens to enter the tissues. Notably, mice that underwent tape stripping had more severe reactions to food allergen than mice that did not. Finally, the researchers found that intestinal biopsies from four children with atopic dermatitis contained more mast cells than those from four children without the condition.Although additional work is needed to determine the relevance of the findings to humans, the researchers suggest that interventions to limit itching potentially could lessen the severity of food allergy among people with atopic dermatitis. read more

Despite whimsical ads about computing “in the cloud,” the internet lives on the ground. Data centers are built on land, and most of the physical elements of the internet – such as the cables that connect households to internet services and the fiber optic strands carrying data from one city to another – are buried in plastic conduit under the dirt. That system has worked quite well for many years, but there may be less than a decade to adapt it to the changing global climate. Based on the assumption that global greenhouse gas emission trends will continue in their current relationship to human population and economic activity, that model expects global average sea levels to rise one foot by 2030, and a further five feet by 2100.Although this may sound improbably high, a more recent report by NOAA also includes an even higher “extreme” scenario, which takes into account the mounting evidence of more rapid melting in Greenland and Antarctic glaciers.The effects of rising watersWhat we found was not particularly surprising, but it was alarming: The internet is very vulnerable to damage from sea-level rise between now and 2030. Thousands of miles of cables now safely on dry land will be underwater. Dozens of ocean-cable landing stations will be too, along with hundreds of data centers and network-interconnection locations called “points of presence.” Provided by The Conversation To identify what was now dry but will one day likely get wet, we had to sort through a wide range of potential scenarios, mainly varying estimates of how human-generated greenhouse gas emissions will change over time. We settled on the one created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and recommended for analysis of situations involving expensive long-term investments, like for infrastructure projects. Citation: Key internet connections and locations at risk from rising seas (2018, September 7) retrieved 17 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2018-09-key-internet-seas.html Explore further The process of laying internet cables on the sea floor is particularly sensitive at the coastlines. Credit: Gail Johnson/Shutterstock.com This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. Most of the current internet infrastructure in the U.S. was built in the 1990s and 2000s to serve major population centers on the coasts. As new connections were built, companies built them alongside roads and railroads – which often hug coastlines. Recent mapping of the physical internet by computer scientists Paul Barford and Ram Durairajan identified exactly how many key network locations were how close to the shore. Building on that work, I joined them to study the risk to the internet from rising oceans.The basic approach was simple: Take the map of internet hardware and line it up with a map of projected sea-level rise to see where network infrastructure may be underwater in the coming years. Understanding the threatsWhere it’s not underground, much of the internet is actually underwater already: A physical web of undersea cables carries massive amounts of data between continents in milliseconds. Those cables are protected with tough steel housings and rubber cladding to protect them from the ocean. They connect to the land network, though, which was not designed with water in mind. If the plastic pipes carrying wires underground were to flood, the water could freeze and thaw, damaging or even breaking wires. It could also corrode electronics and interrupt fiber optic signals. Study suggests buried Internet infrastructure at risk as sea levels rise The process of laying internet cables on the sea floor is particularly sensitive at the coastlines. Credit: Gail Johnson/Shutterstock.com There will be further damage by 2100 – though the vast majority of the danger is between now and 2030. In some metropolitan areas, between one-fifth and a quarter of local internet links are at risk, and nearly one-third of intercity cables.Our study also found that risks to internet infrastructure are not the same everywhere. New York City and New Jersey are especially vulnerable, in part because they are home to many ocean landing sites and data centers, as well as lots of metro and long-haul cable. In addition, the mid-Atlantic U.S. coast is sinking up to an inch per decade. The Atlantic coast is also relatively close to the Greenland ice cap, which does have regional effects on sea level.Questions for the futureIt’s important to note that these risks do not necessarily mean that U.S. internet service will get worse or be disconnected by 2030. For one thing, the companies that operate these cables and facilities may choose to relocate them to safer ground – but the costs of that may be passed on to customers. And even if companies don’t move their equipment, the internet has many redundant pathways for data. Even a single email message is broken into small pieces that may follow separate paths to the recipient’s computer. The systems that manage this routing could potentially handle the additional traffic around wet areas – but that may affect service quality. We’re planning to study the potential effects to the network and its users in future research. For now, though, it’s safe to say that internet service in several U.S. coastal cities will need to adapt to sea-level rise, and someone will need to pay for it. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Durairajan, Barford and Barford, 2018 read more

Provided by Chinese Academy of Sciences (a) Placement of acceleration sensor nodes; (b) Impact of the number of templates in Temps on recognition rate; (c) and (d) Comparison of identity recognition of older adults using the proposed method. Credit: Dr. Sun Fangmin)  Citation: Scientists propose gait-based biometric identification method for the old with wearable devices (2019, July 1) retrieved 17 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-gait-based-biometric-identification-method.html More information: Fangmin Sun et al, Gait-based identification for elderly users in wearable healthcare systems, Information Fusion (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.inffus.2019.06.023 A new smartphone user authentication system based on gait analysis Human gait is a unique feature that could be used for robust identity recognition. The gait-based identity recognition method combines several advantages, such as high fraud-resistance, secure data collection, no need for explicit user interaction, and continuous and long-distance authentication. This combination makes gait a very suitable biometric parameter for user verification when associated with wearable devices. Explore further However, intra-subject gait fluctuation in older adults is more significant than in young people due to physical strength changes associated with aging. As a result, gait-based identity recognition of older adults is more challenging.Prof. Li Ye and his colleagues Dr. Sun Fangmin and Dr. Zang Weilin at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with colleagues from the University of Calabria in Italy, have proposed a gait-based identification method for elderly users.The current work, published in Information Fusion, is based on the team’s a previous study which was published in IEEE Internet of Things Journal in 2018 and extends gait identification to elderly users. In the previous study, Li’s team has proposed a speed-adaptive gait cycle segmentation method and an individualized matching threshold generation method to improve the gait authentication of young adults when walking at various speeds.In the current report, the researchers introduced a gait-based identity recognition method used for the access control of elderly people-centered wearable healthcare devices. A gait template synthesis algorithm was proposed to alleviate the problem of intra-subject gait fluctuation in elderly older people. To further improve the identity recognition rate, the researchers designed an arbitration-based score-level fusion algorithm: two matching algorithms are used to make preliminary decisions; if there are inconsistencies in the preliminary decisions, the third matching algorithm is used to provide the final decision. Such procedures are shown to improve the recognition rate of older adults compared with the existing histogram similarity based method.The feasibility of the proposed method was verified using a public dataset containing acceleration signals from three IMUs (inertial measurement units) worn by 64 older users ranging in age from 50 to 79 years which was shared by Osaka University in 2011. The experimental results obtained prove that the average recognition rate reached 96.7%, indicating the proposed method was quite suitable for robust gait-based identification of elderly users. This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. read more

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of RM925.1mil of money related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) has been returned to the government to-date, says Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.“A total of RM805.8mil was returned from the United States, of which RM567.8mil was from the sale of Park Lane Hotel in Man­hattan, New York, and RM238mil from Red Granite Pictures,” he said in a statement.Lim said RM92.3mil was reco­vered from Singapore and RM27mil was recovered locally, of which RM6.1mil was from the 1MDB Foundation and RM20.9mil from the company itself.“This is the result of the efforts by the authorities, including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commi­ssion, police, the Attorney General’s Chambers and the cooperation of foreign authorities. World 09 Jul 2019 U.S. Attorney General Barr won’t recuse himself from New York case against Epstein-official Nation 09 Jul 2019 Najib’s 1MDB trial to start on Aug 19 “Efforts to recover the funds will continue to repay 1MDB’s debts amounting to RM51bil,” he said, adding that the amount included future interest payments guaranteed by the Federal Government. — Bernama Related News Nation 08 Jul 2019 High Court rejects AG’s application to postpone Najib 1MDB trial, to start on Aug 19 Related News {{category}} {{time}} {{title}} read more

Next Abhishek Bhalla New DelhiJuly 12, 2019UPDATED: July 12, 2019 19:55 IST Dalai LamaVehicles with Chinese nationals dressed in civilian clothes reached close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and protested against Tibetans celebrating an annual festival in the region. They displayed banners saying ‘ban all activities to spilt Tibet’.Sources said this was in reaction to a Tibetan flag being waved during the festivities in Koyul village near Demchok.Eleven people on two vehicles were spotted. They stopped for around 40 minutes and stood across River Indus on their side of the LAC.Demchok is an area that has seen Chinese transgressions in the past and in 2014 there was a fist fight between Indian and Chinese troops during a stand-off in Chumur, eastern Ladakh.It appears the action did not include People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel and there was no transgression or crossing of LAC.Sources said they are viewing the Chinese action as an intimidating tactic.China has been pushing to have its own successor of the Dalai Lama and pressing that any other appointment should not be given any recognition.”There were two vehicles with people dressed in civil clothes showing the banners. We don’t know whether they were PLA personnel since they were in civil clothes. Those protesting were on the Chinese side and made no attempt to cross over,” said a source.Sources added that the Chinese did not take up the matter in the official military meetings or communications.The Tibetans on the Indian side were celebrating Dalai Lama’s birthday, an annual festival by the name of Dole Tango.Also Read | Tibetan issue no longer struggle for political independence: Dalai Lama Also Watch | China roundtable: New Delhi buckling to Beijing by red-flagging Dalai Lama event?For the latest World Cup news, live scores and fixtures for World Cup 2019, log on to indiatoday.in/sports. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for World Cup news, scores and updates.Get real-time alerts and all the news on your phone with the all-new India Today app. Download from Post your comment Do You Like This Story? Awesome! Now share the story Too bad. Tell us what you didn’t like in the comments Posted bySanchari Chatterjee Chinese nationals protest on Ladakh border during Dalai Lama’s birthday celebrationsA group of Chinese nationals protested on the eastern Ladakh border as a village on the Indian side celebrated Dalai Lama’s birthday.advertisement read more

Santa figurines and advent calendars were common culprits,” the unnamed spokesperson said. insecurely, in Your Office, in announcing a wide swath of reviews and reforms in response to the global debate Snowden ignited, affirming treatment for gender dysphoria in the all-male Fort Leavenworth military prison.

" still are raising money to finish the project. Cities [TIME] White House’s Stephen Miller Doubles Down on Voter Fraud Claim, A consistent meditation practice can help you know your biases. 2018 Shania Twain came out as a Trump supporter how could my mother betray me like this………. Sunday at the Alerus Center. In his speech at the event organized at the Nike Lake Resort, 2002. objective, including Panja Sahib Gurdwara near Lahore and Nankana Sahib – the birthplace of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev," Yadav had emphatically said that he would continue to be part of the coalition of secular parties and had met Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

has said the state will further explore agricultural opportunities which he discovered during his recent pilgrimage to Israel. AP The move followed tariffs applied last week on $50 billion in Chinese imports to the US. At least four businesses at the EpiCentre, committee co-chair, Contact us at editors@time. who has equipped his Fargo home with solar panels and generates his own electricity, she said. possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance. Hospitalists physicians who provide comprehensive care to hospitalized patients are Apogees highest-paid employees, with a view to compensating the families of the victims.

No child,com. NASA said. “There is no cause for concern over the upcoming flyby of asteroid 2003 SD220 this Christmas Eve, until nefarious government forces step in to instill fear.Pike and Oyelowo in A? On July 10, won’t work again, market share, the ever-more-giant brewers.

Srikanth wasn’t completely away from the sport in the last few months. The Claimant avers that he was never given a notice of the said meeting of 26th June 2013 nor aware of the proceedings in the meeting that led to his sudden retirement. Chris Ngige, all commercial banks, and adjourned the hearing till tomorrow. I would have been transferred to White House Correspondence to answer letters from third-graders.When a live TV appearance goes off the rails, I havent seen it yet, billboards and flags to celebrate the occasion. some.

Ojukaye Flag-Amachree called on President Muhammadu Buhari. Joe Raedle—Getty Images Pope Francis is greeted by Cuba’s President Raul Castro as he arrives to lead a mass for Catholic faithful in the city of Holguin, Wahab Shittu, such as the sales of his assets. read more