GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Despite the signing of a Congo peace accord on Sunday, this Central African country remains unsettled by signs of a return to war.
The peace agreement, signed in Ethiopia by 11 neighboring countries and backed by the United Nations, elicited much praise from African and other world leaders who said it points the way to stability in Congo.
But on the ground here in eastern Congo, there are signals that fighting may soon erupt between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels. The regional peace accord is helpful but it does not have specifics to immediately improve the tense security situation, said an expert on eastern Congo.
"I think it is a step in the right direction. But the agreement is more a statement of principles than a concrete action plan. It is lacking in details, such as what an oversight mechanism for its implementation would look like," Jason Stearns, a Congo specialist for the Rift Valley Institute, said to The Associated Press.
The agreement did not mention the much-awaited intervention forces that would come to reinforce the UN peacekeeping troops in eastern Congo, nor did it state how a drone force could patrol the border.
Another problem is that no conclusion has been reached in the negotiations between the M23 rebels and the Kinshasa government of President Joseph Kabila.
Instead the M23 rebels appear to be positioning themselves for a new attack. And the Congolese government is making alliances with other rebel militias. The result is that eastern Congo remains tense and unsettled.
Just over three months ago, on Nov. 20, the M23, who are allegedly backed by neighboring Rwanda, seized this strategic city of 1 million and threatened to take the rest of mineral-rich eastern Congo. Two weeks later, as a result of international pressure and the Congolese army's pledge to negotiate, the rebels withdrew from Goma. But now it appears the rebels are poised to strike again.
The rebels have reinforced their positions and are just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Goma airport. Rebel soldiers are visible along the road from Goma to Rutshuru, unbothered by the daily patrols of U. N. peacekeepers.
Little progress has been made in the negotiations between the rebels and the Kabila government that have been going on for two months in Kampala, Uganda, said Stanislas Baleke, an M23 official.
The M23's nearly one-year-old rebellion is led by fighters who defected from the Congolese army. They are from an earlier rebel group and complain that the Congo government did not properly implement a previous peace accord signed on March 23, 2009. The M23 take their name from the date of that accord.
Neither the rebels nor the Congolese government are willing to compromise on their demands. The rebels' insist that President Joseph Kabila must resign and be replaced by a transitional government that would run the country while new elections are organized, say experts following the talks.
"The M23 has political ambitions that Congo does not want to discuss. And the government wants the arrest of the top five M23 leaders, which is a completely unacceptable condition for the rebels. The talks will go nowhere," said Stearns, the author of "Dancing in the Glory of Monsters" and a Congo expert.
Last month several high-ranking M23 officers were called back from the Kampala negotiations to the rebels headquarter in Rutshuru, Congo, as the armed group is planning new operations, according to rebel sources.
When the M23 rebels seized Goma in November, the UN peacekeepers were harshly criticized because they failed to defend the city, the capital of North Kivu province. The U.N. has 17,000 troops in Congo, its largest mission in the world, but they do not have the authority to intervene to stop fighting, only to protect the civilian population.
Meanwhile, the Congolese army is enrolling new recruits throughout the country and has been forging new alliances with other militia forces in North Kivu province.
Since the creation of the M23 last year, many areas North Kivu have suffered from a security vacuum as the army has focused its forces on fighting the M23 and has ignored the several other militias operating in the area.
Aware that it cannot fight several fronts at once, and playing on the anti-Rwandan feelings of these militias, the army has forged alliances with them. The army has supplied the militias with weapons and ammunition, with the agreement they will fight alongside the regular forces, according to a Congolese colonel speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
"The M23's main problem is its lack of weapons and troops. So if the army can gather more men, they would have the upper hand," explained Congo analyst Stearns. "Militia proxys are a very crude tool for the Congolese army to use, but they are very efficient as well."
Armed by the Congolese army, the militias have started patrolling the muddy tracks running around the hills of Masisi, and are terrorizing the local population with impunity, according to residents. The undisciplined militias stir up ethnic rivalries, force children into their ranks and claim taxes, report residents.
"Our army is weak, they cannot protect us, and now they are letting the armed groups do their job. They have no discipline and they create trouble for us. They are drunk most of the time," said a Felicite, who would only give her first name because she feared reprisals.
North of Rutshuru, the M23's stronghold, the army is also using local militias to regain territory it had lost in recent months.
"The army sees us as cows. They push us ahead to regain territory and they come after us to settle in the areas we have retaken from our enemies," said Col. Moise Visika, the second-in-command of the Mai Mai Shetani, a local militia in the areas of Ishasha and Nyamilima.
The city of Goma remains vulnerable. Few government troops came back to Goma after the M23 rebels withdrew from the town, leaving the city susceptible to an M23 comeback despite the presence of U.N peacekeepers.
The result of all these factors is that, despite Sunday's peace agreement, eastern Congo remains threatened by a return to conflict, say experts.
"The overall situation is volatile and precarious," said Roger Meece, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, speaking to the Security Council on Friday. He said that eastern Congo "could break down at any time into large-scale conflict without much, if any, prior warning."
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has answered some of the outstanding questions about Pope Benedict XVI's future once he's retired, saying he'll be known as "emeritus pope," and continue to wear a white cassock.
The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Tuesday that Benedict himself made the decisions.
The pope's title and what he would wear has been a major question ever since Benedict stunned the world and announced he would resign on Thursday. While he will no longer wear his trademark red shoes, Benedict has taken a liking to a pair of hand-crafted brown loafers made for him by artisans in Leon, Mexico and presented to him during his 2012 visit. He will wear them in retirement.
Feb. 25, 2013 ? New research from the Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol shows that most babies who are slow to put on weight in the first nine months of life have caught up to within the normal range by the age of 13, but remain lighter and shorter than many of their peers. There are significant differences in the pattern of 'catch-up', depending on the infant's age when the slow weight gain occurs.
The findings, published February 25 in the journal Pediatrics, are based on data from 11,499 participants in Children of the 90s, and provide the most conclusive and reassuring evidence for parents to date that, with the right care, many infants who fail to put on weight quickly in the first nine months of life will catch up over time.
The study found that, of the 11,499 infants born at term, 507 were slow to put on weight before the age of eight weeks ('early group') and 480 were slow to gain weight between eight weeks and nine months ('late group'). Thirty children were common to both groups.
The infants in the early group recovered quickly and had almost caught up in weight by the age of two, whereas those in the later group gained weight slowly until the age of seven, then had a 'spurt' between seven and ten years, but remained considerably shorter and lighter than their peers and those in the early group at the age of 13. At that age, children in the later group were on average 5.5k lighter and almost 4cm shorter than their peers; those in the early group were on average 2.5k lighter and 3.25cm shorter than their peers.
Slow weight gain is often seen by parents and some healthcare professionals as a sign of underlying ill health and clinicians face a dilemma between taking steps to increase a child's energy intake and putting them at risk of obesity later in life by encouraging too rapid weight gain.
The study shows that there were very different patterns of recovery between the early and late groups, even when other factors like the mother's education, background, and her weight and height were taken into account, but that there was little difference between boys and girls.
Professor Alan Emond, Professor of Community Child Health in the University's School of Social and Community Medicine, said: "The reason the early group caught up more quickly may be because those infants had obvious feeding difficulties and were more readily identified at the eight-week check, resulting in early treatment leading to a more rapid recovery. However, as Children of the 90s is an observational study, there is limited information available about which infants received nutritional supplements or medical treatments.
"Those children who showed slow weight gain later in infancy took longer to recover, because of the longer period of slow growth and because their parents were smaller and lighter too.
"Overall, parents can be reassured that well babies showing slow weight gain in the first year do eventually recover to within the normal range, but at 13-years tend to be lighter and smaller than many of their peers.'
The findings highlight the importance of monitoring a baby's weight and height gain during the first few weeks and months, but not creating anxiety with parents of slow-growing babies who are well, as most of these babies will catch up to within the national average over time.
The message to health professionals is that, unless children require intervention due to ill health, their calorie intake should not be increased as this may predispose them to obesity later in life. Feeding habits in the second six months of life determine a child's future weight gain, so consuming too many calories in infancy can lead to weight problems later in life.
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Journal Reference:
Zia ud Din, Pauline Emmett, Colin Steer, and Alan Emond. Growth Outcomes of Weight Faltering in Infancy in ALSPAC. Pediatrics, February 25, 2013 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2012-0764
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) ? Military helicopters are searching for a vacationing French family of seven kidnapped in Cameroon, and security around the region is being increased amid tensions over France's role in western Africa.
Cameroonian President Paul Biya ordered tight security measures and urgent steps to free the hostages, who include four children. They were kidnapped by armed gunmen in the country's far north on Tuesday and whisked toward Nigeria. A ministry statement said the Cameroonian government is in contact with Nigerian and French authorities.
Officials suggested the involvement of Boko Haram, one of Nigeria's Islamic extremist sects.
Nigeria's borders were also put on red alert in the hunt for the kidnappers believed to be in the country or heading to the country, said Nigeria's comptroller general of immigration, Rilwan Musa.
"We have already sent alert messages across the northeast borders and all other borders of the nation," he said. "We have told our men to be on the alert. We have given the border posts all the supports they need to tackle them whether in the day or at night."
The kidnapping came as thousands of French troops are deeply involved in a military intervention against Islamic extremists who had taken control of a big part of the West African country of Mali.
French President Francois Hollande, speaking at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, called it an "odious act" and expressed particular horror that children were involved, according to his government spokeswoman.
Speaking in parliament Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: "We must do the utmost to free our hostages, but nothing would be worse than giving in."
Meanwhile, in France, spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre of the Paris prosecutors office, says it has opened a preliminary investigation into "kidnapping and sequestration by an organized group in relation with a terrorist organization" following the hostage-taking. France's counterterrorism agency DCRI is in charge of the probe, she said Wednesday.
France's BFM TV reported that a French helicopter had left a French military base in Tchad toward northern Cameroon, and two operatives with France's DGSE spy agency have traveled to the region. French military officials declined to comment to the Associated Press about that.
France said Wednesday that there was no proven link between the French operation in Mali and the Cameroon kidnapping. But, speaking on France-2 television, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: "These are groups who adhere to the same fundamentalism and who have the same methods, whether it is in Mali, in Somalia or in Nigeria, who want to create a lawless zone" stretching from the Atlantic across the southern edge of the Sahara to Sudan.
France's government warned French citizens to avoid travel in northern Cameroon after the kidnapping and urged anyone currently there to leave immediately.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot, in an online exchange with reporters Wednesday, said that in northern Cameroon, "There was never a security incident linked to terrorism; Nigerian terrorist groups had never carried out actions in this part of Cameroon."
A Cameroonian government official said military helicopters were being used in the search.
The French gas group GDF Suez identified the captives as an employee working in Yaounde, the Cameroon capital, and his family. French media say the children are between 5 and 12 years old.
Cameroon state television cited government sources in the locality as saying that the three adults have been separated from the four children.
The family was on tour at the Waza National Park in Cameroon's Far-North Region before it was abducted at gunpoint by five gunmen aboard motorbikes, according to paramilitary sources in the area.
A Cameroon government statement late Tuesday night said the hostages were abducted at Sabongari, seven kilometers (four miles) from Dabanga, which flanks Cameroon's frontier with Nigeria. The statement did not say whether the Cameroon government is in contact with the kidnappers.
___
Associated Press reporters Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Some final words from the late Mexican-American singer and TV star Jenni Rivera will be out this summer.
Atria Books announced Monday it's publishing a memoir by the multimillion-selling artist, who died in a plane crash in December at age 43. "Unbreakable," coming out simultaneously in English and Spanish, is scheduled for July and has been authorized by Rivera's family.
Rosie Rivera, the late singer's sister, said the family had decided to share Rivera's book with her fans so they could "enjoy her as we have."
"I miss my sister every moment, but on days that I want to feel her close, I open her book written in her own words, and feel her right next to me," Rosie Rivera said in a statement issued by Atria.
Atria vice president and senior editor Johanna Castillo said she had talked to Rivera about the impact she hoped her book's message would have on readers.
"This book is her legacy to all of her fans," Castillo said.
Rivera had worked on "Unbreakable" for several years and completed it before her death, Atria spokesman Paul Olsewski said. She had been in talks with Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, since 2011.
According to Atria, "Unbreakable" will provide "an intimate look into the heart and soul of this self-made woman, who ascended to the top of the charts against all odds, becoming a legend in a completely male dominated music category," grupero, a type of Mexican folk music.
A candid memoir would be in character for Rivera, a mother and grandmother of two known as the Diva de la Banda, or Diva of the Band, for her frank talk about her life. At the time of her death, she had been recently divorced from her third husband, former Major League Baseball player Esteban Loaiza.
Rivera, who was born in Los Angeles, launched her career by selling cassette tapes at flea markets. She went on to sell more than 15 million copies of her 12 major-label albums.
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2013-02-16 14:12:30 - New Energy research report from GlobalData is now available from Fast Market Research
American DG Energy, Inc. distributes, owns and operates clean, on-site energy systems that produce electricity, hot water, heat and cooling. It provides natural gas powered cogeneration systems that produce electricity from an internal combustion engine driving a generator. It deploys multiple systems to maximize energy savings, reliability and efficiency. Further it also provides turnkey installation of cogeneration systems and natural-gas engine driven chillers.
American DG Energy, Inc. (ADGE) - Alternative Energy - Deals and Alliances Profile provides you comprehensive data and trend analysis of the company's Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), partnerships and financings. The report provides detailed information on Mergers and Acquisitions, Equity/Debt Offerings, Private Equity, Venture Financing and Partnership transactions recorded by the company over a five year period. The
report offers detailed comparative data on the number of deals and their value categorized into deal types, sub-sector and regions.
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GlobalData derived the data presented in this report from proprietary in-house Alternative Energy eTrack deals database, and primary and secondary research.
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* Financial Deals - Analysis of the company's financial deals including M&A, Equity/Debt Offerings, Private Equity, Venture Financing and Partnerships.
* Deals by Year - Chart and table displaying information encompassing the number of deals and value reported by the company by year, for a five year period.
* Deals by Type - Chart and table depicting information including the number of deals and value reported by the company by type such as M&A, Equity/Debt Offering etc.
* Deals by Region - Chart and table presenting information on the number of deals and value reported by the company by region, which includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa and South and Central America.
* Deals by Sub-sector - Chart and table showing information on the number of deals and value reported by the company, by sub-sector.
* Major Deals - Information on the company's major financial deals. Each such deal has a brief summary, deal type, deal rationale; and deal financials and target Company?s (major public companies) key financial metrics and ratios.
* Business Description - A brief description of the company's operations.
* Key Employees - A list of the key executives of the company.
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Get detailed information on the company's financial deals that enable you to understand the company's expansion/divestiture and fund requirements
* The profile enables you to analyze the company's financial deals by region, by year, by business segments and by type, for a five year period.
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Access elaborate information on the company's recent financial deals that enable you to understand the key deals which have shaped the company
* Detailed information on major recent deals includes a summary of each deal, deal type, deal rationale, deal financials and Target Company's key financial metrics and ratios.
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* Key elements such as break up of deals into categories and information on detailed major deals are incorporated into the profile to assist your academic or business research needs.
Note*: Some sections may be missing if data is unavailable for the company.
Companies Mentioned in this Report: American DG Energy, Inc. (ADGE)
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The meteor that tore across the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk region early Friday led some suspicious Russians to conclude that it was a stealth military attack by either the U.S. or China, while others believed the end of the world was nigh, according to published reports.
The meteor triggered a shock wave that injured nearly 1,000 people, blew out windows and caused the roof of a zinc factory's warehouse to collapse.
Chinese rocket? In the video below, a voice can be heard saying, "What the hell? ... Something fell. Do you hear?" as soon as the blast took place, according to Foreign Policy. About a minute later, another speaker says, "It must have been a rocket or something," followed by another voice that announces: "It must have been the Chinese!"
A U.S. weapon test? In the political realm, Russian Liberal Democrat leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is known for his controversial statements, blamed the blast not on a meteor, but on the United States testing a new weapon.
?You?re like some primitive tribe. What meteorite?? he said, according to RT.com. ?When something falls ? it?s man-made. People are warmongers and provocateurs.?
Earlier this week, in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the foreign ministers of the countries that deal with Pyongyang. While ministers in South Korea, Japan and China took Kerry's call, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not pick up the phone. A spokesman later said Lavrov's schedule made it impossible for him to answer Kerry's call.
But the missed connection led Zhirinovsky to claim that Kerry's call was meant ?to warn Lavrov about the plot and that it may affect Russia,? according to RT.com.
Did air defense shoot it down? Russia's space agency Roskosmos confirmed the falling object was a meteor, but early reports in local media tried to explain the trail of the fireball by saying the meteor had been shot by the country's air defenses, according to RT.com.
The local newspaper Znak quoted a source in the military saying a missile blew the meteor to pieces at an altitude of about 12 miles, it said.
Another military source quoted by the Regnum news agency said the vapor condensation trail of the meteor proves it had been intercepted and shot, according to RT.com.
The region's Emergency Ministry, however, denied the reports.
Considering the Russians' superstitious nature, more theories are likely to crop up in the coming days. For now, conspiracies and eschatological fears continue to dominate.
Area resident Valya Kazakov told The Associated Press that the brilliant flare and sudden explosion caused older women in his neighborhood to fear that the world was ending.
Related:
Nuclear-like in its intensity, Russia meteor blast is largest since 1908
Friday, February 15th, 2013 By Mitchell Clark, B.Comm. for Profit Confidential
There is real growth in the U.S. economy, and it?s in the oil business. The boom that?s taking place right now in domestic oil and gas production is significant, and the whole industry is starting to see the benefits.
The one thing that we know about resource investing is that oil stocks won?t move unless the spot price is moving. That being said, I?ve got two companies to highlight for you?both companies are junior oil and gas producers with great forecasts. They are part of the next generation of growing oil and gas companies that are drilling and finding lots of oil in North Dakota and Montana.
One company with a strong financial forecast is Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. (NYSE/KOG), based out of Denver. The company has oil and gas reserves concentrated in two Rocky Mountain basins, known as the Williston Basin of North Dakota and Montana and the Green River Basin of Wyoming and Colorado.
According to the company, in its third quarter (ended September 30, 2012), total oil and gas sales grew to $112 million, for a gain of 280% over the comparable quarter. With about 95% of total production in crude, the company?s average sales volume during the third quarter grew 301% to 15,855 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). During the last two weeks of November 2012, the company?s net oil and gas sales averaged approximately 22,000 boepd. Fourth-quarter numbers should be announced on February 28.
Among the new generation of growing oil stocks, Kodiak is fairly expensive. The other growing producer is Northern Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE/NOG), which is a Minnesota company with oil and gas reserves also in North Dakota and Montana. (See ?U.S. Oil Gushing, Oil Stocks Getting Ready to Move.?)
Northern announced that 2012 fourth-quarter production should average 10,800 boepd, up 55% over the comparable quarter, but down four percent sequentially due to weather. Northern also reports its fourth-quarter numbers at the end of February, when management will have new guidance for the Street, as well.
Oil stocks aren?t moving right now because West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil is stuck below $100.00 a barrel. You can argue, however, that oil prices are actually holding up quite well, considering the new production coming to market. Big oil stocks are doing great right now, and so are big oil services companies. Junior oil stocks, like Kodiak and Northern, need the spot price to advance in order to get their share prices really moving.
On the whole, the U.S. is still producing a lot less oil than it used to. But the recent growth in production is undeniable, and it?s a real boom for a lot of smaller communities and the industrial economy. North Dakota, in particular, is experiencing a significant economic resurgence in oil-related employment.
Just like any production boom, oil stocks are cyclical in nature and they won?t move significantly without similar action in the spot price. Most forecasts for oil prices this year are flat, around the current spot price of oil, with a slight increase expected in global demand.
Most large-cap oil stocks are trading at or near their all-time highs, which is pretty impressive with oil under $100.00 a barrel and the glut in natural gas. U.S. oil production is a growth industry for the rest of this decade and a good sector career wise.
Junior oil stocks like Kodiak and Northern are getting increasing attention from investors. All these oil stocks need is a favorable spot price environment, and they will move on the stock market.
Former South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore is Exhibit A for those who think South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney should skip his third year of college football.
Lattimore might have been the top running back prospect in this year?s draft, before a gruesome knee injury in October made his draft stock freefall, and cost him many thousands of dollars.
But Lattimore told NFL.com?s Jeff Darlington he thought the NFL?s rule requiring players be three years removed from high school before they can enter the draft was a good one.
?I feel like it?s more of a maturity thing, as far as waiting three years,? Lattimore said. ?I feel like it?s fair, I really do. I feel like three years is the right thing to do.
?It?s a matter of maturing, getting stronger. If you leave after your second year, you?re 19 years old playing against 30 year olds.?
Lattimore said he was ?cool with the rule,? even if he might have been ready for such a leap himself after last season.
And he thinks Clowney accepts the rule as well, even though it keeps him out of a draft he might have been the top pick in.
?He?s a great player,? Lattimore said. ?He?s going to be the No. 1 pick overall. But he?s a guy that, he can?t sit out a year. That?s what kind of person he is. I mean, he?s not going to miss a year of football.?
Perhaps not, but he?s also not going to do much to elevate his draft stock either, which means it can only go down from here.
Math helps detect gang-related crime and better allocate police resourcesPublic release date: 14-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy karthika@siam.org 267-350-6383 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Philadelphia, PASocial groups in a population can lend important cues to law enforcement officials, consumer-based services and risk assessors. Social and geographical patterns that provide information about such communities or gangs have been a popular subject for mathematical modeling.
In a paper published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors use police department records about individuals' social and geographical information to determine gang memberships.
Data on social interactions is particularly hard to come by, but in combination with geographical data, it can determine locations of specific groups in the population, such as gangs. For instance, if an individual's geographic location at a set of times is known, social interactions may be inferred by detecting people present at the same place at the same time. In this manner, hotspots at major gang locations can be determined.
In this paper, data is used from LAPD field interview cards, which document stops by police officers of known or suspected gang members in the Hollenbeck area of Los Angeles. For each of the 748 gang members whose data is compiled, the average of all locations where they were stopped is determined, in addition to other individuals that may have been present at each stop. Due to the generally nonviolent nature of the stops, individuals stopped together are assumed to share a friendly or social connection.
A fully connected graph is constructed using this information with nodes that represent 748 individuals and an associated affinity matrix. An affinity matrix helps determine the similarity or likeness between two sets of objects or parameters. The matrix is a combination of social adjacency and an encoding function that depends on the average stop distances between individuals. In order to cluster the individuals, the authors use a technique called spectral clustering, a mathematical method used to identify groups of "similar behavior" in data. This identifies clusters in the graph based on the abovementioned social connections.
"One thing our study shows is that a clustering based purely on the locations where the people were stopped already provides clusters of over 50% purity, indicating the important role that geography plays," says lead author Yves van Gennip.
A greater amount of social data leads to improvements in clustering metrics. Since social data for such studies tends to be low, social information is extended past the current levels of sparsity by augmenting it with noise and available data on connections between members of the same gang. Such extensions of data can be particularly advantageous in tightly-controlled security settings, such as war zones. For instance, in the border regions of Afghanistan, taking into account familial, tribal and religious affiliations as well as social and economic concerns of individuals can help identify their support for insurgenciesactive or passive. While intelligence information from the ground can be meager in such areas, meetings of groups of individuals can be easily observed. These methods can also be used to establish social, and hence, group interactions through geosocial information available from social media sites.
"The type of analysis undertaken in the paper can have practice applications for local law enforcement," explained one of the authors, George Tita. "While it certainly will not provide clues as to the particular individual that committed a gang-motivated crime, it can provide investigators a starting point with respect to the particular gang that might have been involved in the attack. Thus, the results of our analysis can provide a way for local police to allocate their scarce resources more strategically."
Including both social and geographic distance in models of gang violence such as this is seen to provide more comprehensive analysis for example, in ecological models, even low levels of competition between gangs can produce sharp boundaries between gangs with a pattern of violence along borders. This "sociospatial" dimension can thus allow successful intervention to reduce gang violence. Targeted enforcement is seen not only to reduce crime in the area surrounding a gang, but also to diffuse through social networks, reducing violence among gang rivals.
"We are currently working on a much larger dataset that is similar to the one discussed in the paper," said Andrea Bertozzi, one of the authors. "The challenge is to develop algorithms that will use raw data from field interview cards from tens of thousands of people over several-years worth of events."
###
Source Article:
Community Detection Using Spectral Clustering on Sparse Geosocial Data
Yves van Gennip , Blake Hunter , Raymond Ahn , Peter Elliott , Kyle Luh , Megan Halvorson , Shannon Reid , Matthew Valasik , James Wo , George E. Tita , Andrea L. Bertozzi, and P. Jeffrey Brantingham
SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 73(1), 67 (Online publish date: 14 January 2013). The source article is available for free access at the link above until May 14, 2013.
About the authors:
Yves van Gennip, Blake Hunter and Andrea Bertozzi are professors at the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Peter Elliott is an undergraduate student in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. George Tita is a professor from the Department of Criminology's School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Megan Halvorson, Matthew Valasik, Shannon Reid and James Wo are students in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at UC-Irvine. Raymond Ahn is at California State University in Long Beach and Kyle Luh is at the Department of Physics at Yale University. Jeffrey Brantingham is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA.
About SIAM
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at www.siam.org.
[Reporters are free to use this text as long as they acknowledge SIAM]
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Math helps detect gang-related crime and better allocate police resourcesPublic release date: 14-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy karthika@siam.org 267-350-6383 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Philadelphia, PASocial groups in a population can lend important cues to law enforcement officials, consumer-based services and risk assessors. Social and geographical patterns that provide information about such communities or gangs have been a popular subject for mathematical modeling.
In a paper published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors use police department records about individuals' social and geographical information to determine gang memberships.
Data on social interactions is particularly hard to come by, but in combination with geographical data, it can determine locations of specific groups in the population, such as gangs. For instance, if an individual's geographic location at a set of times is known, social interactions may be inferred by detecting people present at the same place at the same time. In this manner, hotspots at major gang locations can be determined.
In this paper, data is used from LAPD field interview cards, which document stops by police officers of known or suspected gang members in the Hollenbeck area of Los Angeles. For each of the 748 gang members whose data is compiled, the average of all locations where they were stopped is determined, in addition to other individuals that may have been present at each stop. Due to the generally nonviolent nature of the stops, individuals stopped together are assumed to share a friendly or social connection.
A fully connected graph is constructed using this information with nodes that represent 748 individuals and an associated affinity matrix. An affinity matrix helps determine the similarity or likeness between two sets of objects or parameters. The matrix is a combination of social adjacency and an encoding function that depends on the average stop distances between individuals. In order to cluster the individuals, the authors use a technique called spectral clustering, a mathematical method used to identify groups of "similar behavior" in data. This identifies clusters in the graph based on the abovementioned social connections.
"One thing our study shows is that a clustering based purely on the locations where the people were stopped already provides clusters of over 50% purity, indicating the important role that geography plays," says lead author Yves van Gennip.
A greater amount of social data leads to improvements in clustering metrics. Since social data for such studies tends to be low, social information is extended past the current levels of sparsity by augmenting it with noise and available data on connections between members of the same gang. Such extensions of data can be particularly advantageous in tightly-controlled security settings, such as war zones. For instance, in the border regions of Afghanistan, taking into account familial, tribal and religious affiliations as well as social and economic concerns of individuals can help identify their support for insurgenciesactive or passive. While intelligence information from the ground can be meager in such areas, meetings of groups of individuals can be easily observed. These methods can also be used to establish social, and hence, group interactions through geosocial information available from social media sites.
"The type of analysis undertaken in the paper can have practice applications for local law enforcement," explained one of the authors, George Tita. "While it certainly will not provide clues as to the particular individual that committed a gang-motivated crime, it can provide investigators a starting point with respect to the particular gang that might have been involved in the attack. Thus, the results of our analysis can provide a way for local police to allocate their scarce resources more strategically."
Including both social and geographic distance in models of gang violence such as this is seen to provide more comprehensive analysis for example, in ecological models, even low levels of competition between gangs can produce sharp boundaries between gangs with a pattern of violence along borders. This "sociospatial" dimension can thus allow successful intervention to reduce gang violence. Targeted enforcement is seen not only to reduce crime in the area surrounding a gang, but also to diffuse through social networks, reducing violence among gang rivals.
"We are currently working on a much larger dataset that is similar to the one discussed in the paper," said Andrea Bertozzi, one of the authors. "The challenge is to develop algorithms that will use raw data from field interview cards from tens of thousands of people over several-years worth of events."
###
Source Article:
Community Detection Using Spectral Clustering on Sparse Geosocial Data
Yves van Gennip , Blake Hunter , Raymond Ahn , Peter Elliott , Kyle Luh , Megan Halvorson , Shannon Reid , Matthew Valasik , James Wo , George E. Tita , Andrea L. Bertozzi, and P. Jeffrey Brantingham
SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 73(1), 67 (Online publish date: 14 January 2013). The source article is available for free access at the link above until May 14, 2013.
About the authors:
Yves van Gennip, Blake Hunter and Andrea Bertozzi are professors at the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Peter Elliott is an undergraduate student in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. George Tita is a professor from the Department of Criminology's School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Megan Halvorson, Matthew Valasik, Shannon Reid and James Wo are students in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at UC-Irvine. Raymond Ahn is at California State University in Long Beach and Kyle Luh is at the Department of Physics at Yale University. Jeffrey Brantingham is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA.
About SIAM
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at www.siam.org.
[Reporters are free to use this text as long as they acknowledge SIAM]
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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.
Samsung May Not Do A Major Redesign On The Galaxy S IV
www.droiddog.com
Rumors are flying about the Samsung Galaxy S IV, or whatever Samsung chooses to name it. The latest rumors are from Korean journal DDaily, who says that it will be the first model to not face a major redesign. The changes from the original Galaxy S to the Galaxy S II were pretty dramatic, and the ch...
MANILA, Philippines ? University of Perpetual Help seized its second straight title after beating San Sebastian 25-19, 25-17, 25-16 in Game 3 of their best-of-three championship series in the NCAA Season 88 women?s volleyball tournament Wednesday morning at the Arena in San Juan.
Honey Royse Tubino led the way with 17 points with three blocks for the Lady Altas, who came back from a 0-1 series deficit.
Perpetual Help followed up its?21-25, 25-12, 28-26, 29-27 Game 2 win last Monday with an even better showing.
With their first two games going down-the-wire, the Lady Altas, who pounced on the Lady Stags poor reception with 13 service aces, turned to their solid net and floor defense before converting at the offensive end led by Tubino and April Sartin with relative ease.
Sartin backed up Tubino?s output with 15 points with three aces while San Sebastian?s rookie sensation Grethcel Soltones was held to just 15 points.
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Beyonce is hoping that her ultra-revealing documentary will someday provide inspiration for Blue Ivy, the year-old daughter she and husband Jay-Z have.
"I hope that she will see all of the beautiful times (and) all the tough times that led up to her being here," the singer said Tuesday night at the New York premiere of her upcoming HBO documentary, "Life is But a Dream."
She added: "I'm hoping that ... it can comfort her and inspire her in her life when she needs it."
The autobiographical film takes a no-holds-barred look at the entertainer. It stems from personal conversations the 31-year old singer made using the video camera on her computer over the past couple of years. It also includes home movies of the Grammy-winning singer and her two sisters.
In the film, Beyonce candidly discusses personal matters like her miscarriage, reports of faking her pregnancy, and firing her father as her manager.
She claims the process of talking into a camera to get all her thoughts out was therapeutic.
"I really grew so much," she says of the process. "This movie has really been my therapy. I've healed from so many wounds and I've been able to understand why some of the things I've been through, why I went through, so feel really proud, and hopefully I can inspire other people."
The singer has been private about her life in the past. But she felt the time was right to let people know how she felt.
"I felt that after 16 years of being a public singer, people didn't know who I was," she admitted. But then she added: "I will always keep certain things to myself because it's only natural."
Oprah Winfrey made a surprise visit to the premiere, and posed with Beyonce on the red carpet. Before going into the Ziegfeld Theatre, Winfrey, known for her tough, results-driven interview style, was asked if this was the kind of story she would have done on Beyonce.
She said Beyonce did a "much better job" of telling her own story. "I wouldn't have been in the bedroom and in the closet and in the car and on vacation," she said.
Beyonce acted as the film's executive producer and co-directed it with Ed Burke. He previously worked on some of her video projects. "Life is But a Dream" airs Saturday on HBO.
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Online:
http://www.hbo.com
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John Carucci covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at ? http://www.twitter.com/jcarucci_ap
With less than a week to go until we see what's next from HTC, the company's hype machine has kicked into high gear. Along with a countdown clock over on HTC.com, the manufacturer's displaying brief cuts of footage showing what seems to be the rumored HTC One -- formerly known by its codename "M7."
Fortunately YouTube user guarav2328 has managed to pull down and splice together all the various clips, and we've embedded the resulting footage after the break.
There're plenty of super-close-up shots of the device itself, along with generous helpings of lens flare. Among the parts we can clearly make out are the back panel with HTC's logo, the camera assembly, some kind of metal trim and an unusual curve around the back of the phone. All in all, it's a close (though not quite exact) match to the leaked press render that cropped up on Monday morning.
With its official Twitter and Facebook pages now emblazoned with references to next Tuesday's announcement events in London and New York, we suspect there may be a couple more HTC teasers ahead. That said, the manufacturer's not likely to give too much away before the big day.
We'll be live from both sides of the Atlantic next Tuesday morning to bring you full coverage HTC's new hotness. In the meantime, head past the break to see today's teaser clips.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) ? A South Korean soccer player who displayed a political banner at the London Olympics will get his bronze medal back, the IOC announced Tuesday.
Park Jong-woo was issued with just a warning for his actions after his team's 2-0 victory over Japan, the IOC executive board ruled. South Korea's Olympic committee will be warned and required to educate its athletes about competition rules.
Park must receive his medal "without fanfare or publicity," as a condition of the sanction, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said.
The IOC withheld Park's medal after the Aug. 10 match pending a disciplinary hearing, which was held Monday in Lausanne.
Park displayed a sign in national colors after the game in Cardiff, Wales, which was played amid sensitive diplomatic relations at home.
The slogan said "Dokdo is our territory" in Korean to support his country's sovereignty over islets also claimed by Japan.
IOC and FIFA rules prohibit on-field political statements, but South Korean officials argued Park had not planned a protest and merely picked up a banner thrown on the field by a fan.
"It was obvious he didn't make a political statement," IOC disciplinary panel chairman Thomas Bach told The Associated Press. "He was very fair with a Japan player who was sitting on the ground weeping after the match.
"You can see from this gesture he had nothing against Japanese people," Bach said.
FIFA previously banned Park for two World Cup qualifiers in its own investigation of the case. He will serve his suspension when South Korea hosts Qatar on March 26 and plays at Lebanon on June 4.
The 23-year-old midfielder was selected for the national team weeks after the Olympics and played in a World Cup qualifier against Iran in October.
FIFA also warned South Korea's soccer federation about future sanctions if the actions were repeated.
At Park's hearing Monday, South Korean Olympic officials accepted that team leaders "did not properly advise all of its players" about complying with game-time rules of conduct.
Hours before kickoff last August, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak traveled to the islets where his country stations a small contingent of police officers in a show of control. The presidential visit prompted Japan to recall its ambassador from Seoul.
___
AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson contributed to this report.
Namco's TANK! TANK! TANK! may have a great title, but it looks like its sales trajectory wasn't too far off from its name. The bizarre Wii U tank battle game is going free-to-play as of this week's eShop update -- at least in Europe -- dividing the game into three pieces based on game modes, each costing £1.59 (€1.99). Should you choose to not pay Namco's light toll, you can play each of the game's modes for free three times per day -- that toll raises to £7.99 (€9.99) apiece after February 28th, so you may want to act quickly. The new pricing and division of the game goes into effect this Thursday, when the EU's Wii U eShop updates.
On January 15, 2013, the exhibition entitled "Cao Yu, Pioneer of Modern Drama in China" will be opened in North Campus Research Complex. Cao Yu is the founding father of modern Chinese drama, often regarded as China's most important of the 20th century. The exhibition is as much a story of modern China as it is about Cao Yu himself because his life and career exemplify the dilemmas and difficulties faced by generations of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century. "Thunderstorm", Cao Yu's maiden work, and "The Savage Land", a film by Liang Zi based on the play by Cao Yu, will be screened at the U-M campus during the exhibition period, and Professor Siyuan Liu (Department of Theatre and Film, UBC) will give a presentation entitled, "From Aristotle to O'Neill: Western Influence on Cao Yu" at 4pm, February 8, 2013.
"Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig has spoken out regarding film critic Rex Reed's scathing comments aimed at Melissa McCarthy's weight. Feig, who directed the Oscar-nominated actress in the 2011 hit comedy, took to Twitter on Friday to slam Reed's venomous comments -- which included dubbing McCarthy "obnoxious," "tractor-sized" and a "female hippo."
There is real growth in the U.S. economy, and it?s in the oil business. The boom that?s taking place right now in domestic oil and gas production is significant, and the whole industry is starting to see the benefits.
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Public release date: 14-Feb-2013
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