It's by no means a phone, so adjust your expectations accordingly. Samsung's Android-infused Galaxy NX camera, revealed last week at the company's London bonanza, has just reared its LTE-capable body at the FCC. Sporting model number EK-GN120, the portable mirrorless camera offers up no real surprises -- it has all the internal trimmings Samsung already officially announced, like WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and radios for WCDMA (850/1900MHz) and LTE (Band 5). Nothing in the filing pegs this as a US release, so the usual "(insert carrier)-friendly bands" won't apply here. In fact, its mix of radios clearly mark this Galaxy NX for a South Korean debut. Just when that'll be, we still don't know. It's currently slated for a vague summer release in the UK. On the plus side, this means you still have plenty of time to save up for what should be a hefty price tag.
Tropical?storm?Cosme?is strengthening off the coast of Mexico, and the U.S. National Hurricane Center says tropical storm Cosme will probably become a hurricane midday Tuesday.
By Associated Press / June 24, 2013
NOAA has projected the likely path of tropical storm Cosme as it continues up the coast of Mexico. The orange circle indicates the tropical storm's position at 2 p.m. on Monday. Black circles with an S indicate tropical storms, with wind speeds between 39-73 mph. Black circles with an H indicate hurricane-force winds, with speeds between 74-110 mph.
Courtesy of NOAA
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Tropical?Storm?Cosme?is strengthening in Pacific waters southwest of the Mexican mainland and forecasters say it's expected to become a hurricane within a day.
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The?storm's?maximum sustained winds Monday afternoon have risen to 60 mph (95 kph). The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says more strengthening is expected in the coming 48 hours with?Cosme?expected to become a hurricane sometime Tuesday.
Cosme?is centered about 335 miles (535 kilometers) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and is moving northwest at 14 mph (22 kph).
No coastal watches or warnings are in effect.
The hurricane center says ocean swells generated by the?storm?will begin affecting a swath of the Pacific coast from Manzanillo to Cabo Corrientes later Monday night with life-threatening surf and rip currents possible.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Automatic federal spending cuts that kicked in March 1 have seriously hurt city and local governments, hampering their ability to deliver essential services to citizens, Mayor Michael Nutter said Tuesday in a blunt message to Washington.
The federal sequester has transferred costs onto local governments, said Nutter, the immediate past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In Philadelphia, he said, deep cuts to a program that helps homeowners avert foreclosure will potentially result in more blight, while the school district is facing an existential budget crisis that has forced it to lay off 3,800 employees and eliminate sports, music, art and all after-school programs.
"This is not a sustainable model for cities. The federal government cannot balance its budget on the backs of cities and local governments," Nutter said.
The second-term Democrat spoke at a meeting of the State Budget Crisis Task Force at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The event was designed to bring attention to the eroding financial condition of state governments, but Nutter spoke on behalf of cities.
"We've already been to the fiscal cliff. We've made our cuts. We've cut back on services and we've raised people's taxes at the same time," Nutter said. "We're now trying to come back. Please don't stand in the way."
A top Treasury Department official said the federal government, after running trillion-dollar deficits as it tried to stabilize financial markets and stimulate the economy, has to begin getting its own fiscal house in order.
Having sent more than $280 billion to state and local governments between 2009 and 2012, largely to be spent on education, infrastructure and health care, "we need to begin pulling back the federal safety net," said Mary John Miller, Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, who was taking part in a panel discussion.
"As we see unemployment coming down, as we see the housing market beginning to recover, as we see the economy growing ... we see that we need to now turn our attention to reducing our federal deficits," she said.
Former President Bill Clinton was due to give the keynote address later Tuesday.
The nonpartisan State Budget Crisis Task Force ? led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch ? issued a report last year that said U.S. states are grappling with long-term budget problems that threaten their ability to pay for basic services such as law enforcement, local schools and transportation. The group cites rising Medicaid and pension costs, reduced federal aid and eroding tax revenues as a few of the challenges facing the states.
Addiction relapse might be thwarted by turning off brain triggerPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeffrey Norris jeff.norris@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study points to potential strategy for erasing memory of addiction
A new study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UC San Francisco offers encouraging findings that researchers hope may one day lead to a treatment option for people who suffer from alcohol abuse disorders and other addictions.
In the study, conducted in rats, the UCSF researchers were able to identify and deactivate a brain pathway linked to the memories that cause cravings for alcohol, thus preventing the animals from seeking alcohol and drinking it, the equivalent of relapse.
"One of the main causes of relapse is craving, triggered by the memory by certain cues - like going into a bar, or the smell or taste of alcohol," said lead author Segev Barak, PhD, at the time a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of co-senior author Dorit Ron, PhD, a Gallo Center investigator and UCSF professor of neurology.
"We learned that when rats were exposed to the smell or taste of alcohol there was a small window of opportunity to target the area of the brain that reconsolidates the memory of the craving for alcohol and to weaken or even erase the memory, and thus the craving" he said.
The study, also supervised by co-senior author Patricia H. Janak, a Gallo Center investigator and UCSF professor of neurology, will be published online on June 23, 2013 in Nature Neuroscience.
In the first phase of the study, rats had the choice to freely drink water or alcohol over the course of seven weeks, and during this time developed a high preference for alcohol. In the next phase, they had the opportunity to access alcohol for one hour a day, which they learned to do by pressing a lever. They were then put through a 10-day period of abstinence from alcohol.
Following this period, the animals were exposed for 5 minutes to just the smell and taste of alcohol, which cued them to remember how much they liked drinking it. The researchers then scanned the animals' brains, and identified the neural mechanism responsible for the reactivation of the memory of the alcohol - a molecular pathway mediated by an enzyme known as mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1).
They found that just a small drop of alcohol presented to the rats turned on the mTORC1 pathway specifically in a select region of the amygdala, a structure linked to emotional reactions and withdrawal from alcohol, and cortical regions involved in memory processing.
They further showed that once mTORC1 was activated, the alcohol-memory stabilized (reconsolidated) and the rats relapsed on the following days, meaning in this case, that they started again to push the lever to dispense more alcohol.
"The smell and taste of alcohol were such strong cues that we could target the memory specifically without impacting other memories, such as a craving for sugar," said Barak, who added that the Ron research group has been doing brain studies for many years and has never seen such a robust and specific activation in the brain.
In the next part of the study, the researchers set out to see if they could prevent the reconsolidation of the memory of alcohol by inhibiting mTORC1, thus preventing relapse. When mTORC1 was inactivated using a drug called rapamycin, administered immediately after the exposure to the cue (smell, taste), there was no relapse to alcohol-seeking the next day. Strikingly, drinking remained suppressed for up to 14 days, the end point of the study. These results suggest that rapamycin erased the memory of alcohol for a long period, said Ron.
The authors said the study is an important first step, but that more research is needed to determine how mTORC1 contributes to alcohol memory reconsolidation and whether turning off mTORC1 with rapamycin would prevent relapse for more than two weeks.
The authors also said it would be interesting to test if rapamycin, an FDA-approved drug currently used to prevent organ rejection after transplantation, or other mTORC1 inhibitors that are currently being developed in pharmaceutical companies, would prevent relapse in human alcoholics.
"One of the main problems in alcohol abuse disorders is relapse, and current treatment options are very limited." Barak said. "Even after detoxification and a period of rehabilitation, 70 to 80 percent of patients will relapse in the first several years. It is really thrilling that we were able to completely erase the memory of alcohol and prevent relapse in these animals. This could be a revolution in treatment approaches for addiction, in terms of erasing unwanted memories and thereby manipulating the brain triggers that are so problematic for people with addictions."
###
The other co-authors of the paper are Feng Liu, PhD, Sami Ben Hamida, PhD, Quinn V. Yowell BS, Jeremie Neasta, PhD, and Viktor Kharazia, PhD, all of the Gallo Center and UCSF Department of Neurology.
The study was supported by funds from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and funds from the State of California for Medical Research on Alcohol and Substance Abuse administered through UC San Francisco.
The UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center is one of the world's preeminent academic centers for the study of the biological basis of alcohol and substance use disorders. Gallo Center discoveries of potential molecular targets for the development of therapeutic medications are extended through preclinical and proof-of-concept clinical studies.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.
Addiction relapse might be thwarted by turning off brain triggerPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jeffrey Norris jeff.norris@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study points to potential strategy for erasing memory of addiction
A new study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UC San Francisco offers encouraging findings that researchers hope may one day lead to a treatment option for people who suffer from alcohol abuse disorders and other addictions.
In the study, conducted in rats, the UCSF researchers were able to identify and deactivate a brain pathway linked to the memories that cause cravings for alcohol, thus preventing the animals from seeking alcohol and drinking it, the equivalent of relapse.
"One of the main causes of relapse is craving, triggered by the memory by certain cues - like going into a bar, or the smell or taste of alcohol," said lead author Segev Barak, PhD, at the time a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of co-senior author Dorit Ron, PhD, a Gallo Center investigator and UCSF professor of neurology.
"We learned that when rats were exposed to the smell or taste of alcohol there was a small window of opportunity to target the area of the brain that reconsolidates the memory of the craving for alcohol and to weaken or even erase the memory, and thus the craving" he said.
The study, also supervised by co-senior author Patricia H. Janak, a Gallo Center investigator and UCSF professor of neurology, will be published online on June 23, 2013 in Nature Neuroscience.
In the first phase of the study, rats had the choice to freely drink water or alcohol over the course of seven weeks, and during this time developed a high preference for alcohol. In the next phase, they had the opportunity to access alcohol for one hour a day, which they learned to do by pressing a lever. They were then put through a 10-day period of abstinence from alcohol.
Following this period, the animals were exposed for 5 minutes to just the smell and taste of alcohol, which cued them to remember how much they liked drinking it. The researchers then scanned the animals' brains, and identified the neural mechanism responsible for the reactivation of the memory of the alcohol - a molecular pathway mediated by an enzyme known as mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1).
They found that just a small drop of alcohol presented to the rats turned on the mTORC1 pathway specifically in a select region of the amygdala, a structure linked to emotional reactions and withdrawal from alcohol, and cortical regions involved in memory processing.
They further showed that once mTORC1 was activated, the alcohol-memory stabilized (reconsolidated) and the rats relapsed on the following days, meaning in this case, that they started again to push the lever to dispense more alcohol.
"The smell and taste of alcohol were such strong cues that we could target the memory specifically without impacting other memories, such as a craving for sugar," said Barak, who added that the Ron research group has been doing brain studies for many years and has never seen such a robust and specific activation in the brain.
In the next part of the study, the researchers set out to see if they could prevent the reconsolidation of the memory of alcohol by inhibiting mTORC1, thus preventing relapse. When mTORC1 was inactivated using a drug called rapamycin, administered immediately after the exposure to the cue (smell, taste), there was no relapse to alcohol-seeking the next day. Strikingly, drinking remained suppressed for up to 14 days, the end point of the study. These results suggest that rapamycin erased the memory of alcohol for a long period, said Ron.
The authors said the study is an important first step, but that more research is needed to determine how mTORC1 contributes to alcohol memory reconsolidation and whether turning off mTORC1 with rapamycin would prevent relapse for more than two weeks.
The authors also said it would be interesting to test if rapamycin, an FDA-approved drug currently used to prevent organ rejection after transplantation, or other mTORC1 inhibitors that are currently being developed in pharmaceutical companies, would prevent relapse in human alcoholics.
"One of the main problems in alcohol abuse disorders is relapse, and current treatment options are very limited." Barak said. "Even after detoxification and a period of rehabilitation, 70 to 80 percent of patients will relapse in the first several years. It is really thrilling that we were able to completely erase the memory of alcohol and prevent relapse in these animals. This could be a revolution in treatment approaches for addiction, in terms of erasing unwanted memories and thereby manipulating the brain triggers that are so problematic for people with addictions."
###
The other co-authors of the paper are Feng Liu, PhD, Sami Ben Hamida, PhD, Quinn V. Yowell BS, Jeremie Neasta, PhD, and Viktor Kharazia, PhD, all of the Gallo Center and UCSF Department of Neurology.
The study was supported by funds from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and funds from the State of California for Medical Research on Alcohol and Substance Abuse administered through UC San Francisco.
The UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center is one of the world's preeminent academic centers for the study of the biological basis of alcohol and substance use disorders. Gallo Center discoveries of potential molecular targets for the development of therapeutic medications are extended through preclinical and proof-of-concept clinical studies.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
[ | 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.
International software company, Axe Finance, has described Nigeria as Africa?s leading IT innovative country in the banking sector with modern infrastructure and a robust customer base.
In a chat with Vanguard? at a workshop organised for financial institutions in Lagos, Senior Manager, Axe Finance, Mr. Dhafer Berrachid, however, stressed that there was need to continue to improve on the infrastructure for global competitiveness.
He said: ?Nigeria is a leading country in the banking sector in Africa. The banks are very mature in terms of IT equipment and there is a strong will to continue to improve the infrastructure and the process for the international market.?
Berrachid explained that the workshop was to present his company?s integrated solution, which according to him, supports financial institutions all over the world through an innovative approach by automating their credit and risk management processes.
The IT expert said: ?Basically, we are in Nigeria to present our company, our partners, our solution and to have a testimonial and return on experience of our current customers.
?We have a lot of banks looking at our solutions and we want to bring everybody together to exchange views and have live reactions about the solution.?
He further explained that the solution was designed to help financial institutions improve their revenues, streamline and automate their processes and enable them to better assess the risk and improve efficiency of their operations.
He said: ?Axe Credit Portal is the solution to more effectively manage your credit life cycle, to optimise firm-wide credit and risk processes and to enable better informed credit origination and risk management decisions.?
International software company, Axe Finance, has described Nigeria as Africa?s leading IT innovative country in the banking sector with modern infrastructure and a robust customer base.
Speaking at a workshop organised for financial institutions in Lagos, Senior Manager, Axe Finance, Mr. Dhafer Berrachid, however, stressed that there was need to continue to improve on the infrastructure for global competitiveness.
He said: ?Nigeria is a leading country in the banking sector in Africa. The banks are very mature in terms of IT equipment and there is a strong will to continue to improve the infrastructure and the process for the international market.?
Berrachid explained that the workshop was to present his company?s integrated solution, which according to him, supports financial institutions all over the world through an innovative approach by automating their credit and risk management processes.
The IT expert said: ?Basically, we are in Nigeria to present our company, our partners, our solution and to have a testimonial and return on experience of our current customers.
?We have a lot of banks looking at our solutions and we want to bring everybody together to exchange views and have live reactions about the solution.?
He further explained that the solution was designed to help financial institutions improve their revenues, streamline and automate their processes and enable them to better assess the risk and improve efficiency of their operations.
He said: ?Axe Credit Portalis the solution to more effectively manage your credit life cycle, to optimise firm-wide credit and risk processes and to enable better informed credit origination and risk management decisions.?
Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.
* U.S. official sees good case for extradition under treaty
* U.S. hacked Chinese mobile phone companies -report
* Snowden sought representation from rights lawyers -sources (Adds details, background)
By Steve Holland and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday it wants Hong Kong to extradite Edward Snowden and urged it to act quickly, paving the way for what could be a lengthy legal battle to prosecute the former National Security Agency contractor on espionage charges.
Legal sources say Snowden, who is believed to be hiding in Hong Kong, has sought legal representation from human rights lawyers since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance activities to news media.
"If Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law," a senior Obama administration official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told CBS News the United States had a "good case" to bring Snowden back to America to face trial and expected Hong Kong to comply with its extradition treaty.
"We have gone to the Hong Kong authorities seeking extradition of Snowden back to the United States," Donilon said.
He added that U.S. law enforcement officials were in a "conversation" with Hong Kong authorities about the issue.
A senior U.S. law enforcement source said extradition "can, of course, be a lengthy legal process" but expressed optimism that Snowden would be sent back to the United States.
The South China Morning Post reported that Snowden was not detained or in police protection - as reported elsewhere - and instead he was in a "safe place" somewhere in Hong Kong.
The paper also quoted Snowden offering new details about America's spy activities, including accusations of U.S. hacking of Chinese mobile phone companies and targeting China's top Tsinghua University.
"The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS (texting) data," Snowden was quoted by the newspaper as saying in a June 12 interview.
Documents previously leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies, including Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.
They also showed that the government had worked through the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gather so-called metadata - such as the time, duration and telephone numbers called - on all calls carried by service providers such as Verizon.
On Friday, the Guardian newspaper, citing documents shared by Snowden, said Britain's spy agency GCHQ had tapped fiber-optic cables that carry international phone and internet traffic and is sharing vast quantities of personal information with the NSA.
ESPIONAGE CHARGES
The United States charged Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, according to the June 14 criminal complaint made public on Friday.
The latter two offenses fall under the U.S. Espionage Act and carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
Scores of Americans have been sent back home from Hong Kong to face trial under the extradition treaty. But the process can take years, lawyers say, and Snowden's case could be particularly complex.
America's use of the Espionage Act against Snowden has fueled debate among legal experts about whether that could complicate his extradition, since the treaty includes an exception for political offenses and Hong Kong courts may choose to shield him from prosecution.
Snowden says he leaked the details of the classified U.S. surveillance to expose abusive and illegal programs that trampled on citizens' privacy rights.
President Barack Obama and his intelligence chiefs have vigorously defended the programs, saying they are regulated by law and that Congress was notified. They say the programs have been used to thwart militant plots and do not target Americans' personal lives.
Stephen Vladeck, a professor at American University's Washington College of Law who studies national security issues, said there is no clear definition of what constitutes a political offense under the treaty.
"My intuition says it'll be easier for Snowden to argue espionage is a political offense than (the U.S. charge of) theft of government property," Vladeck said.
Should he return to the United States, Snowden would face trial in a federal court in Virginia that has a long track record of hearing cases related to national security and also to cyber crime.
In the past 20 years, the U.S. government has racked up remarkable success rates in winning convictions or guilty pleas from people brought before the federal court in Virginia who were accused of espionage or terrorism. Because of its speed, the court is considered a "rocket docket." (Additional reporting by James Pomfret, Venus Wu and Grace Li in Hong Kong, Diane Bartz in Washington and Nate Raymond in New York.; Writing by Phil Stewart.; Editing by Eric Beech and Christopher Wilson)
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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