Thursday, April 11, 2013

Sony Xperia ZL review: a giant phone in a surprisingly compact frame

Sony Xperia ZL review: a giant phone in a surprisingly compact frame

Sony took a rather unusual path with its flagship smartphone for 2013: it designed the hardware twice. The Xperia Z is ostensibly the star of the show with its glass body and waterproofing, but it's launching alongside the Xperia ZL, an equally brawny, yet plainer sibling. On a spec sheet, there's no apparent reason for the ZL to exist when its features almost perfectly match those of the slimmer and more stylish Z.

Still, it's precisely that emphasis on function over form that might just win the day. Sony bills the ZL as the most compact 5-inch smartphone on the market, which could win over folks who see large-screened phones as unwieldy. But is it enough to challenge conventional thinking on big phones, especially in light of fiercer competition? And is there anything special lurking underneath the ZL's reworked hood? Read on and we'll let you know whether the second device in Sony's dual-phone strategy is strong enough to outshine the Z -- and, more importantly, its rivals.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/iwcFAiutYAo/

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T-Mobile USA will offer free iPhone 5 to iPhone users switching from another carrier

T-Mobile USA will offer free iPhone 5 to iPhone users switching from another carrier

T-Mobile USA is offering an iPhone 5 for free on activation when you switch from another carrier and trade in your current iPhone 4 or 4S. The offer is available through Father?s Day, June 16, and customers who take advantage of this deal will receive a $120 credit that can be put towards things like monthly payments, outstanding bills, or accessories. T-Mobile hopes that users looking at this offer will see the total value that T-Mobile wants to provide:

?Our message to iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 customers is simple: bring in your device and trade up to iPhone 5 on T-Mobile,? said Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer for T-Mobile. ?We?re making it incredibly attractive to buy an iPhone 5 by pairing an un-beatable upfront price and trade-in offer with Simple Choice, the most hassle-free and affordable rate plan in wireless.?

The main barrier for users who want to take advantage of this offer would be the early termination fee from their current carrier. An ETF can be expensive, though if the customer has had their phone for awhile, it?s possible that the fee has decreased significantly. T-Mobile is likely hoping that customers will see this deal as a way to offset some of the costs. The offer continues T-Mobile?s aggressive push to stand out from the other major U.S. carriers and remain competitive. For those wanting to take advantage of the offer, remember that the iPhone goes on sale on T-Mobile starting this Friday, April 12.

If you have an iPhone 4 or 4S on another carrier, does this offer tempt you? Were you considering a switch anyway? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: T-Mobile USA

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/cLj9mCuSdWg/story01.htm

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Obama hosts GOP senators for dinner on budget day

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is hosting Republican senators at the White House, with the budget, guns and immigration up for dinner table debate.

Their dinner comes hours after Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion budget proposal. His aides said other issues were up for discussion, including the gun bill up for debate Thursday.

Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson compiled the invitations to the White House's Old Family Dining Room, at Obama's request. Among those on the list are Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Arkansas' John Boozman, Maine's Susan Collins, Idaho's Mike Crapo, Wyoming's Michael Enzi, Nebraska's Deb Fischer, Utah's Orrin Hatch, Kansas' Pat Roberts, Florida's Marco Rubio, South Dakota's John Thune and Mississippi's Roger Wicker.

Obama had a similar dinner last month with other Republican senators at a hotel near the White House.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hosts-gop-senators-dinner-budget-day-223912543--politics.html

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Data storage: Shingled tracks stack up

Apr. 10, 2013 ? Simply changing the pattern by which data is recorded may lead to increased hard drive capacities.

Modern hard drive technology is reaching its limits. Engineers have increased data-storage capacities by reducing the widths of the narrow tracks of magnetic material that record data inside a hard drive. Narrowing these tracks has required a concordant reduction in the size of the magnetic write head -- the device used to create them. However, it is physically difficult to reduce the size of write heads any further. Kim Keng Teo and co-workers at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute, Singapore, and the Niigata Institute of Technology, Japan, have recently performed an analysis that highlights the promise of an alternative approach, which may sidestep this problem completely.

In a conventional hard drive, a write head stores data by applying a magnetic field to a series of parallel, non-overlapping tracks. Halving the width of the track effectively doubles the data-storage capacity, but also requires the size of the write head to be halved. The head therefore produces less magnetic field than is needed to enable stable data storage. This is because the small magnetic grains that are characteristic of modern hard drive media need to be thermally stable at room temperature.

Shingled magnetic recording represents a step towards solving this problem as it allows for narrower track widths without smaller write heads. Rather than writing to non-overlapping tracks, the approach overlaps tracks just as shingles on a roof overlap (see image). Tracks are written in a so-called 'raster' pattern, with new data written to one side only of the last-written track.

Teo and co-workers analyzed the scaling behavior of this approach by using both numerical analysis and experimental verification. Their results showed that the size of the data track is not limited by the size of the write head, as in conventional hard drives. Instead, the track size is limited by the size of the magnetic read head, and by the 'erase bandwidth', which represents the portion of the track edge that is affected by adjacent tracks.

"This is a paradigm shift for the industry," says Teo. "A relatively small difference in the way that writing occurs calls for a completely new approach to head design." Teo expects the shingled approach to be a useful stop-gap measure prior to the arrival of more advanced, next-generation technologies in the next decade or so that will apply more radical modifications to the hard drive such as the use of heat to assist the write head.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Data Storage Institute.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Kim Keng Teo, Moulay Rachid Elidrissi, Kheong Sann Chan, Yasushi Kanai. Analysis and design of shingled magnetic recording systems. Journal of Applied Physics, 2012; 111 (7): 07B716 DOI: 10.1063/1.3679383

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/k5ruVCxXZOM/130410114113.htm

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

'Pain & Gain' Pumps Up Sneak Peek Week: Tune In Tonight!

Mark Wahlberg and Michael Bay will present an exclusive clip from the action comedy, only on MTV at 11 p.m. ET.
By Brett White


Mark Wahlberg in "Pain and Gain"
Photo: Paramount Pictures

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705218/pain-gain-mark-wahlberg-sneak-peek-week.jhtml

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Serbia rejects EU-brokered Kosovo deal

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ? Serbia rejected on Monday a European Union-brokered deal for reconciliation with its former province of Kosovo ? a defiant move that could jeopardize the Balkan country's EU membership aspirations and fuel tensions in the region.

The EU had given Serbia until Tuesday to say whether it would relinquish its effective control over northern Kosovo in exchange for the start of membership negotiations.

Even before the rejection, a top leader had said the plan is unacceptable because it does not give more autonomy to minority ethnic Serbs in Kosovo who together with Serbia reject Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

"The Serbian government cannot accept the proposed principles ... because they do not guarantee full security, survival and protection of human rights for the Serbs in Kosovo," Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said. "Such an agreement could not be implemented and would not lead to a lasting and sustainable solution."

Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, said after the eighth round of talks between Serbian and Kosovo officials last week in Brussels that she wanted a response from both sides and that the bloc's mediation was over.

Despite warnings that there will be no more EU-sponsored mediation, Vucic and the government called for more talks with the rival ethnic Albanians leaders of Kosovo.

"If there is a negative answer from (the EU), that would be bad news for Serbia, Kosovo and the EU," Vucic said. "If that happens, we would have to start thinking of what to do next.

"We don't want Serbia isolated from the world, but we have to protect our interests. It is highly important that we reach an agreement."

In a statement issued after Serbia's rejection, Ashton called on Belgrade "to make a last effort to reach an agreement, for the benefit of their people." But while she made no mention of formally extending the negotiation process, she said she hoped to lead "the discussion in the EU over the next few days in support of a real step forward by both Serbia and Kosovo towards their European future."

The rejection of the proposal could severely hamper Serbia's EU membership aspirations ? which would include millions of dollars of promised accession funds. The rejection also could lead to more tensions in the Balkans, which are still reeling from the bloody wars of the 1990s when Serbia tried to prevent the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation by force.

Kosovo's government said it was "disappointed with Serbia's refusal" but remained hopeful a deal could still be reached.

"The proposals made by the EU... would have marked the beginning of closure in a historic conflict in the region," a Kosovo government statement said.

While some 90 countries ? including the United States and most EU nations ? have recognized Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, it has been rejected by Serbia and ally Russia.

The most contentious issue in the talks was the status of northern Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs dominate the population and refuse to accept the authority of the ethnic Albanian-controlled government in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

Germany has made giving up control of Kosovo's north the key condition for the start of Serbia's EU accession negotiations.

The stumbling block in the talks was a Serbian demand that ethnic Serbs, who represent about 10 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, have their own judiciary and police force. But Kosovo officials have rejected that, saying it would be tantamount to a division of Kosovo into two separate entities.

In Serbia, there are increasing calls among nationalists that Serbia should turn to its ally Russia instead of becoming an EU member. There also are suggestions from hardliners that Serbia should use force to reoccupy Kosovo, which it surrendered after a three-month NATO bombing campaign that pushed out its troops in 1999.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist turned moderate, said a military solution is out of the question.

"I'm hearing some 'heroes' who were never brave who are giving us lessons on how we should stroll into Pristina," he said. "They should not tell us what our decisions should be."

Several hundred far-right supporters demonstrated in front of the government headquarters in Belgrade during the Cabinet session, demanding that no deal is signed with the EU and Kosovo's leaders.

___

Associated Press writer Jovana Gec contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/serbia-rejects-eu-brokered-kosovo-deal-155216716.html

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2 children feared dead at NC construction site

By Andrew Rafferty and John Newland, NBC News

Two children were feared dead Monday after becoming trapped underneath dirt at a residential construction site near Charlotte, N.C., on Sunday, officials said.

An initial attempt to rescue the children, who are trapped below ground, was unsuccessful, according to emergency responders.

The East Lincoln, N.C., Volunteer Fire Department said efforts had "moved into the recovery phase."

Authorities did not say how the children became trapped, but neighbors told NBC affiliate WCNC that the site was a basement ?under construction and that a wall collapsed, trapping the kids.

Charlotte firefighters, police, a structural engineer and rescuers from surrounding counties are all aiding in the effort.

WCNC reported the two children are a 6-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. Their father was with them and made the initial call to 911 around 6 p.m. ET

This story was originally published on

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a737187/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C0A70C176461940E20Echildren0Efeared0Edead0Eat0Enc0Econstruction0Esite0Dlite/story01.htm

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Hair loss myths and real solution | Mexico Health Insurance

Hair loss is one of those problems that don?t have a significant impact on health in general but can trigger significant issues in the psychological domain. You have certainly seen those men going off depressed because they?ve started losing hair. And it?s clear why since in our society image and looks are often more important than personality and skills. A lot of men use different solutions for stopping hair loss because they feel that they will be interpreted otherwise if people start noticing their bald spots and receding hairline. But is this problem really that serious and what can actually be done about it?

Hair loss myths Hair loss isn?t a sign of crucial or harmful processes in your body even though many people really tend to believe that. No, your hair isn?t falling off because of poor nutrition, hygiene or other common reasons that are stated as the root of the problem. An average person gets the necessary nutrition and hygiene for hair through normal regimen and everyday cleaning routine. If there would be a problem with vitamins or minerals that supplement and hair shampoo producers love to put in their every product, believe us you would notice it way earlier than through hair loss. A shortage of a particular vital element would lead to very significant effects and health problems to the extent that hair loss would be the mildest of them all. In most men hair loss occurs due to the abundance of a particular androgen that gets accumulated through the life of the person.

Hair loss buy nature The fact of losing haitr is perfectly normal, tis process involves different changes in the body often associated with the process of aging. But in some men this hormonal change can take place at an earlier stage of their lives that?s why they experience hair loss earlier. It?s not a disease or any pathological health condition ? it?s only a natural change in hormonal balance that occurs in most people sooner or later. That?s why it is wrong to regard hair loss as an omen for worse things to come as it?s only hair getting thinner on your scalp.

?

Are there effective hair loss remedies? Most of the remedies are stated to be based on vitamins and minerals that will stimulate hair growth but apart from improving the actual quality of your hair. But as stated previously hair loss in men occurs mainly due to the hormonal change so the only really effective measure would be preventing the build up of certain hormones that are known to affect hair follicles. There?s only one medication that is known to be effective from this point of view ? propecia ? and it?s actually the only oral medication that is approved by the FDA for treating hair loss in men.

Propecia hair growth pills are known to be beneficial for treating certain Prostate problems as well due to its hormone regulating properties so it?s a drug with numerous benefits. That?s why if you are really worried about seeing your hair getting thinner make sure to discuss the use of Propecia with your doctor.

Source: http://www.nmfbihop.com/hair-loss-myths-and-real-solution

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Lilly Pulitzer, fashion designer known for floral prints, dies

News

10 hours ago

Image: Designer Lilly Pulitzer.

AP, file

Designer Lilly Pulitzer is pictured in this April 2004 image. She passed away Sunday at the age of 81.

Lilly Pulitzer, a Palm Beach socialite turned designer whose tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s and later a fashion classic, died Sunday. She was 81.

Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, got her start in fashion by spilling orange juice on her clothes. A rich housewife with time to spare and a husband who owned orange groves, she opened a juice stand in 1959, and asked her seamstress to make dresses in colorful prints that would camouflage fruit stains.

The dresses hung on a pipe behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. The company's dresses, developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor, soon caught on.

"Lilly has been a true inspiration to us and we will miss her," according to a statement on the Lilly Pulitzer brand Facebook page. "In the days and weeks ahead we will celebrate all that Lilly meant to us. Lilly was a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world."

Her death was confirmed by Gale Schiffman of Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services in West Palm Beach. She did not know Pulitzer's cause of death.

Image: Designer Lilly Pulitzer prepares a model

Getty Images

Designer Lilly Pulitzer prepares a model backstage at the Lilly Pulitzer Couture Spring 2005 fashion show in September 2004 in New York City.

Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, even wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread, and matriarch Rose Kennedy and one of her teenage granddaughters were once reported to have bought nearly identical versions together.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange ? the colors of a Florida vacation.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Pulitzer told the The Associated Press in March 2009.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004.

"We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style," she said.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

But changing taste brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc.; Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business but continued reviewing new prints from Florida.

"When Lilly started the business back in the '60s, she targeted a young customer because she was young," the company's president, Jim Bradbeer, told the AP in 2003. "What we have done is target the daughter and granddaughter of that original customer."

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010.

Image: Lilly Pulitzer

AP

In this March 1965 file photo, Palm Beach fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer, wears her own design and creation of the Lilly shift.

Pulitzer herself retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although remained a consultant for the brand.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize. They divorced in 1969. Her second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

"I don't know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day," she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. "I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There's no explaining the fun I had."

Pulitzer, who was known for hosting parties barefoot at her Palm Beach home, also published two guides to entertaining.

"That's what life is all about: Let's have a party. Let's have it tonight," she said.

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a6f7401/l/0L0Stoday0N0Cstyle0Clilly0Epulitzer0Efashion0Edesigner0Eknown0Efloral0Eprints0Edies0E1B9252290A/story01.htm

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Monday, April 8, 2013

Organic semi-conductors could revolutionize electronics

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Organic semi-conductors could revolutionise electronics in various areas. Nowadays, components put out such high performances that they are used in small devices like mobile phones. With larger devices, however, the organic components heat up in such an uncontrollable manner that they break down or conduct electricity in an irregular way. Physicists of the TU Dresden (Dresden University of Technology) and mathematicians of the WIAS have collaborated to analyse the typical feedback effects and they describe them for organic semi-conductors in the Physical Review Letters.

When mobile phone displays continued to become larger, at first you had to look directly at the front of the device in order to be able to see anything -- normal LEDs only emitted light in one direction. A modern Smartphone using a display with organic LEDs does not have that problem. Light is emitted in all directions, and everything can be seen even from a diagonal point of view. There are now even large-scale organic LEDs, allowing for entirely new forms of room lighting. But when the flow of electricity becomes too strong, sudden non-homogeneities appear in the intensity of light, the surface appears spotty. Another field of application is solar energy: With organic solar cells, foils can be produced that generate small amounts of electricity, e.g. to take with you as "energy to go."

In terms of organic components, the long-known Arrhenius law applies: Electric conductivity increases more strongly the higher the temperature gets, so the electricity going through the components increases as well, heating up the material. Thus a feedback loop is created, in which the components continue to be heated up even further -- experiments usually end with the component being blown. So far, these effects have only been known with non-organic semi-conductors. Components that react so strongly to temperatures that feedback can result are called thermistors. Thermistors are used especially in performance electronics. Today, organic semi-conductors can also reach self-heating levels.

The principle has actually been known for quite some time, but nobody ever noticed that is also applies to organic electronics. Dr Thomas Koprucki of the WIAS explains: "We noticed that organic semi-conductors should after all be predestined for electro-thermal feedback effects. Nobody saw this before. We were able to point our colleagues in Dresden in the right direction as to what to focus on for the measurements."

The experiments had already shown that the currents increase enormously during the self-heating process. But if the calculations were correct, there had to be a point at which the voltage would decrease despite the energy increase -- completely against all intuition. That would mean that there are two entirely different, stable levels of energy that overlap in a very small voltage area -- where they can tip over from one level to the other. Sent on the right track by these model predictions, the physicists at the TU Dresden were able to adapt their experiments in a way that they could actually measure that exact effect for organic semi-conductors.

In this case, the processes in the component were measured for the carbon compound C60 between two points. In order to detect the effect in its entirety, they had to not only show a decrease in the voltage, but also the switch between the two stable levels of energy strength. Based on the model calculation it was clear from the start that non-destructive proof could only be obtained if the component were cooled and protected by a pre-resistance. This allowed the physicists to actually record the bi-stability of the component. With the two switching voltages, the strength of the electric current switched by a factor of 10.

Axel Fischer from the Institute for Applied Photophysics (IAPP) at the TU Dresden explains: "We used the carbon compound C60 for our measurements because it is very stable in its temperature. Therefore we can see the Arrhenius law in its purest form. Aside from that, C60 layers can have strong currents even with low voltages so the typical thermistor effects can be proven in a rather simple way."

Using that broader understanding of self-heating in organic semi-conductors, researchers can now further develop organic components in a way that they can reduce the disruptive effects, e.g. by way of a geometric construction of the heat deflection and the electronic contacts. That way there can be large-surface illumination foils in the future that will be able to emit light in a very smooth and steady manner.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB), via AlphaGalileo.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. A. Fischer, P. Pahner, B. L?ssem, K. Leo, R. Scholz, T. Koprucki, K. G?rtner, A. Glitzky. Self-Heating, Bistability, and Thermal Switching in Organic Semiconductors. Physical Review Letters, 2013; 110 (12) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.126601

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/_eL8wyNWZeg/130408084853.htm

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Italian govt speeds state payments to vendors

MILAN (AP) ? The Italian government has approved a decree to pay 40 billion euros ($52 billion) owed by government entities to private businesses over the next 12 months to help relaunch Italy's stagnant economy.

Premier Mario Monti acknowledged Saturday after his caretaker government adopted the decree that overdue payments had become "a bad habit" that put a heavy burden on business owners.

State entities on an average pay their bills six months after services are rendered and some 90 days after the official due date, which Monti said put Italy behind Spain, Portugal and Greece.

Delayed government payments are a major factor behind liquidity shortages faced by many small and medium-sized Italian companies. Reduced turnover in the recession means many businesses, in turn, are having trouble keeping up with even small debts.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-govt-speeds-state-payments-vendors-160007775--finance.html

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'Mountain Man' Troy Knapp: Real survivalist or run-of-the-mill burglar? (+video)

Troy James Knapp, who evaded capture for seven years in the vast southern Utah wilderness, told arresting deputies, 'Good job, you got me,' before regaling them with outlaw tales.

By Patrik Jonsson,?Staff writer / April 6, 2013

Detectives arrest fugitive Troy James Knapp in the mountains of central Utah. Authorities captured the elusive survivalist suspected of burglarizing Utah cabins and leaving some covered with threats and bullet holes ? ending a saga that began years ago.

Emery County Sheriff's Office/AP

Enlarge

For years, Troy Knapp was a figure in the mist, a figment floating across the rugged backcountry of southern Utah with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a grim set of the jaw. What he needed, he took, often from shuttered mountain cabins.

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For years, his name wasn?t known, until authorities matched a partial fingerprint from a cabin window to a California man who disappeared in 2002 after running afoul of authorities in the Golden State. But before then, motion-trigger cameras had caught several snapshots of the elusive, mysterious and possibly dangerous ?mountain man,? sparking widespread debate about his identity.

On Tuesday, Knapp?s nearly seven year walkabout ended after a tip brought local law enforcement to his tracks, which they followed to a cabin where they could hear someone chopping wood. After a brief shootout, Knapp dropped his rifle and said, reportedly with a smile, ?Good job, you got me.?

Knapp has been charged with a string of burglaries across several counties, and he will also face attempted murder charges for his decision to shoot at a law enforcement helicopter, which also traded fire with Knapp. No one was hurt.

To many in the area, Knapp had become a menace, even terroristic. In a January 27 court filing, authorities claimed he had begun to leave threatening notes, including one that said, ?Hey Sheriff ? Gonna put you in the ground!?

Sometimes he left cabins spotless, other times he wrecked them. Meanwhile, theories blossomed about his identity: Was he one of the ?lost boys,? members booted from a polygamous sect in the area, who also, like Knapp, have an affinity for coffee and alcohol pilfered from the cabins?

Finally, as Knapp himself reportedly is regaling deputies with stories about his adventures, a more poignant question has emerged: Was Knapp a true ?mountain man? who felt justified in using others? property because they were intruders on ?the mountain.? Or was he a lightweight cat burglar, incapable of real bootstrap survival. Either way, Knapp never hurt anyone. He told a couple of hikers who later tipped off police, ?Not to worry, I won?t shoot you.?

Similar questions arose after the capture of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, who had lived in close proximity to the North Carolina town of Murphy for years, surviving most likely with the help of locals.

Mr. Rudolph, experts said, stayed in a ?comfort zone? at the edge of society. ?I don?t believe he was a good survivalist,? Kevin Reeve, director of the Tom Brown Tracking School, said in 2003, at the time of Rudolph?s arrest.

Knapp didn?t seem to have the same need for human proximity. In fact, his motive seems to come down to a credo he gave police: ?I don?t hate people. I just don?t like them.?

But his exploits haven?t impressed everyone.

?Troy James Knapp ? is so far from being a true mountain man it isn?t even funny,? writes Michael Gist Burson in a letter to the editor of the Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah. ?Real mountain men, like Jedediah Strong Smith, didn?t break into others? cabins in order to survive in the wilderness. For punishment, Knapp should be put into the wilderness with nothing. We?ll see if he really has what it takes to be a true mountain man.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Fk02Gx0uNF0/Mountain-Man-Troy-Knapp-Real-survivalist-or-run-of-the-mill-burglar-video

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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Everything You Need Before 'Mad Men' - Business Insider

Season 6 of 'Mad Men' premieres on Sunday, and many of us need a refresher course on key plot points.?

From one character's psychedelic adventures to another's dramatic suicide, there's a lot to remember.

We've got you covered with this catch-up slideshow.

Tune in on AMC at 9/8 central.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-before-mad-men-2013-4

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US General, Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker, In Charge Of Horn Of Africa Fired

Posted on: 11:18 am, April 5, 2013, by Staff Writer, updated on: 11:19am, April 5, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC ? Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, was fired March 28, according to a Washington Defense official.

The command is headquartered in Djibouti and runs U.S. military operations in East Africa, including some counterterrorism operations.

Baker, a two-star general, is appealing the firing, which was ordered by his boss, Gen. Carter Ham, the commanding general of all U.S. military operations across Africa.

He was relieved of his duty for loss of confidence, three Defense officials told CNN.

It?s the second embarrassing dismissal of a high ranking officer involved in the U.S. military hierarchy in Africa in five months.

Gen. William ?Kip? Ward, the first four-star general to command U.S. military operations in Africa, was demoted for excessive spending from duty at U.S. Africa Command (Africom).

He lost one star and retired a lieutenant general.

Ward used his rank to shuttle his wife on shopping sprees, enjoyed a lavish beachfront trip and once accepted a Defense contractor?s gift of going backstage to meet actor Denzel Washington.

By Barbara Starr ? CNN Pentagon Correspondent

The-CNN-Wire? & ? 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

Source: http://fox2now.com/2013/04/05/us-general-maj-gen-ralph-baker-in-charge-of-horn-of-africa-fired/

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Reuters: Media exec Peter Chernin bid $500 million for Hulu

Since the sun came up today it must mean that Hulu is up for sale, again. The latest extension to the sale rumors for the video streaming site is one from Reuters citing anonymous sources that indicates Peter Chernin, a former News Corp exec and Hulu board member has submitted a $500 million bid. There's no word on how big a stake he'd be interested in taking, but that's significantly lower than the reported $1.9 - $4 billion bids received from Dish and Google when the site was up for sale back in 2011. Of cours,e any sale price may vary on whether or not the acquisition come content included, but either way, we'd expect a few more possibilites to pop up before something (or nothing, like last time) happens. Of course, Peter Chernin was one of the folks pushing for a shorter theater to home release window and more TV on the Xbox, both of which have come to fruition in one form or another -- maybe he can make a deal happen.

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Comments

Source: Reuters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/05/reuters-media-exec-peter-chernin-bid-500-million-for-hulu/

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Saturday, April 6, 2013

Two Major Air Pollutants Increase in China

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Levels of two major air pollutants ? nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter that is between 2.5 and 10 micrometers, called PM 10 ? surged early in 2013, a report said.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/world/asia/two-major-air-pollutants-increase-in-china.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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What Social Media Channels Should You Use with Your Online ...

"social media channels"More companies than ever are turning to social media to connect with customers and increase sales. There is no doubt that social networking has become a powerful marketing tool for building brand awareness and generating new business. Over nine million businesses are using Facebook. Approximately 50 percent of customers who use this social network claim that they are likely to buy products from a company they ?like? on Facebook.

With so many social media channels available to business owners, what?s the best option?

Facebook

About 42 percent of online business owners are active on Facebook. This social network gives you the opportunity to connect with your prospects and grow your business. With over 850 million users, Facebook is the largest social media channel out there. Users can join networks organized by city, region, school, and workplace. Business owners have access to an innovative platform that allows them to promote events and company information to prospective clients.

This social media site has seen the mistakes of former top social networks like My Space. As a result, it is constantly adding new features to keep users engaged. You can create a page for your business, share industry news, and keep people informed about your products and services.

Twitter

Founded in 2004, this micro blogging platform has quickly become a way of life for millions of users. Twitter is all about following people that you wish you knew. As a business owner, you can use this social network to contact other experts in your industry and share the latest news about your company. If someone follows you, you can follow him back. Therefore, it is easier to gain loyal fans, but they won?t be as targeted as they are on Facebook.

With instant access to news stories and friend updates, Twitter is one of the most popular social media channels. The typical user tweets from an iPhone rather than a computer. If your website is optimized for mobile devices, sharing your latest posts on Twitter will help you expand your reach. In a matter of seconds, you will know exactly what your audience is interested in.

LinkedIn

A typical LinkedIn profile is pretty much like an online resume. This social network is an excellent resource for people looking to network with industry leaders and other professionals. You can use LinkedIn to build business connections, find potential employees, post jobs, and gather information about people before you do business with them.

Other popular social media channels include Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram, Tumblr, and FourSquare. Each of these networks has pros and cons. Find out where your customers spend their time online, interact with them, and give your business a human face.

Image credit: emptyglass

Source: http://dsm-publishing.com/what-social-media-channels-should-you-use-with-your-online-business/

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House group finalizing immigration bill

(AP) ? A group of Republicans and Democrats in the House is finalizing a sweeping immigration bill that offers work permits and the eventual prospect of citizenship to millions of people living illegally in the United States, aides say. That path to citizenship, however, is likely to take at least 15 years for many, longer than envisioned by Senate immigration negotiators or by President Barack Obama.

The secretive House effort, which also aims to further tighten the border against foreigners crossing illegally into the U.S. and crack down on employers who hire them, has been overshadowed by the bipartisan negotiations in the Senate, which is expected to act first on immigration legislation. But it's an important indication that a number of lawmakers, including Republicans, in the conservative-dominated House want to have a say in crafting a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration law.

"We have legislative language that we'll be ready to go forward on, not concepts but actual language," Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, a leader of the group, said this week on "Capital Tonight," a program on cable news channel YNN in Central Texas.

Without revealing details, Carter said the bill should be ready to be released in the next week or two and would address worker visas and the status of the 11 million immigrants who either arrived in the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas.

"We will have a very, very comprehensive bill that will do a great job in addressing these issues and others," he said.

The Senate bill also is expected to be released as early as next week.

According to two House aides with knowledge of the talks, the House bill will offer a couple of possible solutions for those here illegally. Those brought to the country as young children would be able to seek citizenship relatively quickly. People working in agriculture would also get a particular path toward legalization, a distinction also made in the Senate bill.

The millions of other people here illegally would be able ? after paying fines and back taxes and getting a criminal background check ? to get a basic work permit, which would be renewable. After 10 years, they could get a green card. Under current law, green card holders can petition for citizenship after five years ? three if they're married to a U.S. citizen ? and that would likely apply to green card holders under the House bill, too.

That's a longer path to citizenship for most than the process expected from the Senate bill, which envisions a 10-year path to a green card but then only a three year wait for citizenship. Legislation drafted by the White House, which Obama has said he'll offer if the congressional process stalls, also has a 13-year path to citizenship.

The House bill would offer another option, too, the aides said. Current law requires people here illegally to return to their home countries for as long as 10 years before they can try to enter the U.S. legally. The House bill would likely allow people who came forward and acknowledged being present illegally to return to their home countries and try to come back legally, but without being subject to the lengthy waits. This could be an option for those with prospects of getting visas under existing law, such as family or employment ties.

House members are reviewing an agreement between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO on a new low-skilled worker visa that will be part of the Senate bill, to see if it might fit in their legislation, too.

One House aide said the House bill is similar to the Senate version in requiring that a series of border security requirements be met before allowing immigrants to begin moving toward legal permanent residence. A largely voluntary electronic system that employers can use to verify the legal status of their workers, called E-Verify, would be made mandatory.

The House bill would place a strong emphasis on the importance of upholding the law, an aspect pushed by Republicans in the group, and illegal immigrants could be required to go through a legal proceeding to highlight that they broke the law, aides said.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because there had been no public announcement.

Overall, the aim is to satisfy House Republicans who insist that immigrants here illegally not get a special path to citizenship ahead of anyone attempting the process legally ? while also meeting the concerns of Democrats who want to ensure that citizenship ultimately is widely available.

"The good news is that the Democratic bottom line and the Republican bottom line have a lot of overlap," Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., another member of the group, wrote in an opinion piece in the Orange County (Calif.) Register recently. "There is a lot of room between not preventing citizenship and not giving newly legalized immigrants a special path to citizenship. I think we will be able to find the sweet spot where neither side will be overjoyed, but each side will be satisfied."

The House group, which has a core of four Republicans and four Democrats, has been meeting off and on for years but members have kept the talks quiet, much more so than their Senate counterparts. Even now as they near a public unveiling and have briefed House leaders in both parties, lawmakers involved will say little about their deliberations. Carter said that was because "we didn't want outside influences pulling on the committee group."

Other group members on the Democratic side include Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Xavier Becerra of California and John Yarmuth of Kentucky. On the Republican side, they're Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Sam Johnson of Texas and Raul Labrador of Idaho.

___

Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-05-Immigration/id-e48737fa53d4416286feb2b7ae38f405

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Discovering Scholarship on the Open Web - Digital Humanities Now

Online publications that aggregate content from a wide variety of sources have become increasingly valuable to readers and publishers. The academy, however, is still unsure how to efficiently identify, collect, survey, evaluate, and redistribute the valuable scholarly writing published both formally and informally on the open web. Fortunately, some scholarly communities are developing methods to draw attention to upcoming work in their fields.

This report outlines the current state of the aggregation, curation, evaluation, and distribution of scholarship on the open web. We describe the primary types of websites where open collections of scholarly work can be found, specifically repositories, aggregators, curated content, and forums for post-publication review. We suggest an eight-point rubric for analyzing similar sources of web-published scholarship. Finally, we offer an annotated bibliography of outlets for scholarly communication on the open web.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Aggregating and Curating Scholarly Content on the Web
  3. Conclusion: Moving toward a Rubric
  4. Appendices

I. Introduction

In the third decade of the web, scholars have become used to ? even if they have not entirely embraced ? accessing scholarly writing online. Formally published original research appears in open access journals, or through institutional subscriptions to individual journals or databases such as JSTOR or EBSCO. At the same time, research centers and individual scholars are sharing the equally important and much more timely ?gray literature? of grant reports, research notes, writing of various lengths, presentations, and pre-print and open access versions of their publications through their own web presence, on privately-held social networking sites like academia.edu, figshare.com, or researchblogging.org. Increasingly, they offer, or are required, to place published works in their own institutional repository. The burden of discovering new work, both formally published and gray literature shared in these ways, however, falls to the researcher who must monitor the field by assembling and aggregating their own web sources of information from repositories, blogs, and Twitter.

Academics, along with other research and writing professionals working with large amounts of information, want to tame the firehose of information. In fact, everyone from individual readers to media giants and academic communities seek methods to identify, evaluate, collect, and highlight the information desired without getting overwhelmed or sidetracked.

Online publications that aggregate a large number of sources of information have become increasingly valuable to readers and publishers. Sites with an additional layer of editorial oversight ? from human editors or algorithms ? that curate the aggregated content are even more valuable to readers than simple aggregation. This white paper reviews the state of aggregated and curated scholarly content on the open web.

To some degree every reader is his or her own aggregator and curator by selecting the sources they read regularly and the links that they follow. The more committed create personalized aggregation feeds through various subscription methods, from email digests to Twitter lists and RSS. A ?reader? or bookmark program like Instapaper or Pocket (formerly Read It Later) can make it easier to see everything within the same interface and quickly determine what is new. Web services to help users stay abreast of their own social network have appear regularly in the past few years, such as Flipboard, Summify, paper.li, and Tweeted Times, that publish newsletters and magazines based on user criteria. Joining the free filter services like news.me are subscriptions like Percolate or proprietary software such as Fever. But many individuals still rely on the old-fashioned method of going directly to web pages on a regular basis ? hourly to weekly ? for information, work, or pleasure.

Media entities such as the Daily Beast and Huffington Post made their name by reliably providing their readers with content that had the most buzz. Techmeme, Technorati, and MetaFilter have been successful by aggregating information, creating methodologies to curate the content, and attracting, even amassing, attention from a large number of readers. The aggregation and curation of online content is an extension of the traditional activities of the media, and so they have led the way in developing technological methods and workflow to do so.

Scholars have the skills required to curate content. Central to graduate training in every discipline is the ability to identify and survey a vast amount of information, evaluate its usefulness, and highlight the most important components. Unfortunately, academic organizations and non-profits have not been able to replicate the reach or success of media entities because the technical means are proprietary, and/or the necessary editorial staff is difficult to sustain. The importance of communicating research and advancements in the field to academics, policy makers, and the public is great, and necessitates an improved system.

As a whole the academy is still unsure how to navigate, identify, survey, evaluate, and highlight the large amount of scholarly writing, research, and publications available on the open web. Fortunately, some scholarly communities are developing methods to direct attention to new and valuable work and conversations in their field. This report outlines the current state of the aggregation, curation, evaluation, and distribution of scholarship on the open web. We describe the primary types of websites where open collections of scholarly work can be found, specifically repositories, aggregators, curated content, and forums for post-publication review. We suggest an eight-point rubric for analyzing similar sources of web-published scholarship. Finally, we offer an annotated bibliography of outlets for scholarly communication on the open web.

Return to Table of Contents


II. Aggregating and Curating Scholarly Content on the Web

Collections of scholarship on the open web fall into one or more of the following genres: the traditional journal reproduced online, repositories of articles or data, collections of aggregated content for the reader to peruse; curated content influenced by editors, and post-publication review sites meant to evaluate research.

Scholarly content on the open web is most likely to be found in a repository or post-publication review site. The sciences and social sciences in particular have embraced these formats, with the humanities lagging behind in every category. In all fields, the greatest need is for the creation of reproducible, efficient, and effective aggregation and curation methods.

Repositories

Repositories offer scholars a central location to find and deposit their work. The best examples of repositories of scholarly content are the very active and established arXiv.org and Social Science Research Network (SSRN) which attract pre-publication papers, working papers, and gray literature such as conference papers. For readers seeking new work in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, and an array of the social sciences, arXiv.org and SSRN are the first place to look, rather than printed journals.

Not surprisingly, given that arXiv.org and SSRN?have replaced printed journals as the source for new work, both sites were initiated and developed in the 1990s outside of professional organizations (in fact, SSRN is a privately-held corporation). Currently most scholarly organizations publish newsletters and journals that require a paid subscription rather than developing their own open access repositories or curating topical content found elsewhere on the web. Scholarly organizations may begin to follow the lead of the American Folklore Society, however, which has initiated Open Folklore to make new work and making previously published content available and accessible at no charge.

In the quantitative sciences and social sciences, then, sharing pre-publication material in open repositories is common, and there are established locations for uncovering new work. In the life and biomedical sciences, however, formal publication remains the priority. The open access journals of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) have become an important outlet for these fields for this reason, because these journals are not limited in the number of articles they publish and so are able to bring more research to light at a faster rate than print journals. (They do, however, charge article-publishing fees in order to release as open access.) PLoS also has initiated the PLoS One journal as a hybrid respository-journal because it provides a basic and fast review of the integrity of the content to ensure quick publication. PLoS One requires the readers to determine the significance of a piece, and includes an online forum to encourage discussion of the content. The humanities and liberal arts lack an equivalent repository for pre-print materials, gray literature, or broad disciplinary journals for quick and open publication.

Successful repositories rely on users to validate their existence through the provision of content and interest in accessing the content. When acknowledged and accepted by disciplinary communities, as they are in the sciences and social sciences, they are extremely useful. They do not, however, provide context for understanding, and only minimal evaluation of the content available from metrics such as views and download history, or user ratings. Ultimately, the user of a repository must rely on their own searching and evaluation skills to determines the value of the repository and the content.

Collections of Aggregated Content

There are fewer examples of informal scholarly communities who have organized group efforts to identify and aggregate new work. The best of these is Science Seeker, which aggregates and categorizes work from hundreds of blogs. Readers can visit the main page to see all recent posts, sort by category, or subscribe to topics of interest in order to stay on top of the most recent writing on science blogs. For the digital humanities community, 2cultures.net?syndicates blog posts from 100 different sources, with no obvious editorial hand or commentary from the single organizer Craig Bellamy; it is simple republishing by linking.

Curated Content

Many successful publications on the general web aggregate and curate information through a heavy editorial hand, with Daily Beast and Huffington Post leading general news category. The Browser has joined Arts & Letters Daily as a source of high-quality long-form writing through reliance on multiple editors. Recently the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis began to link to a curated selection of art news around the world from their home page. The Walker considers their web presence to be a publication and staffs it accordingly, and may prove to be the model for museum websites in the coming years. The few examples of sites that curate scholarly material from the open web are discussed below.

Two general web publications, Techmeme and Technorati and all their affiliated sites, have had success using algorithmic methods of filtering as a form of curation. Techmeme uses algorithms to gather and prioritize news stories from around the web, with categorization and publishing overseen by human editors. Technorati provides a ranking of ?authority? for blogs in topical categories through algorithms based on crowdsourcing: the number of links to the site, and the number of times it is referenced by other sites. Like Techmeme, Technorati is produced by a private company, employs editors, and is supported through ad revenue. The reliance on paid development and editorial staff by these two successful sites suggests the two biggest challenges to recreating these methods in the non-profit, academic environment: lack of time and money.

Some individual scholars have taken it upon themselves to curate and distribute information relevant to their field. Jay Rosen of New York University, for example, broadcasts news and commentary on developments in journalism and the media industry to more than 110,000 followers on Twitter and readers of his blog,?PressThink, and Tumblr page. Rosen?s audience is not surprising for a field like media studies, with its contemporary focus and interaction with current events. It is a major effort, however. Even Rosen, who personally monitors more than 1,000 blogs and Twitter feeds, including a number of aggregation and curation sites, does not have a simple method to stay on top of all this information; he intentionally and repeatedly visits his sources of information, rather than pulling it into one single platform to monitor, review, link, draft, and publish.

There are three notable and recent experiments in the curation of scholarly material coming from disparate groups and fields: PLoS Hubs, Cl?o?s?Radar, and RR-CHNM?s Digital Humanities Now. PLoS Hubs are topically-focused sites on Biodiversity and Clinical Trials that are prepared by several expert editors. Each Hub reproduces articles from across PLoS journals along with additional content and linked data to provide more complete context in which to understand a topic, such as biodiversity. The French organization Cl?o, host of the Hypotheses blogging platform and Open Edition press among other projects, has been experimenting with the Radar project in which eight editors survey their respective fields and provide links to the most important information. Finally, RR-CHNM has been running Digital Humanities Now for more than two years, and in its third iteration has moved towards a greater reliance on editorial evaluation of aggregated information, while continuing to experiment with crowdsourcing content and selection.

Although there are different disciplinary values for the projects that curate scholarly content, behind each of these curated projects are human editors with their own methodologies for surveying large amounts of information, identifying connections, assessing quality, and selecting content for publication.

Post-publication Review and Community Discussion

Finally, there are very active sites for post-publication peer review. For the biomedical sciences, Faculty of 1000 (F1000) is a subscription-based digital-only publication that provides post-publication peer review. Vetted scientists called ?Faculty Members? review, rank, and draw attention to most interesting articles in their research areas. Economists can look to the open access EconJournalWatch, a post-publication review site, for original analysis, rather than highlights, of previously published content. For legal studies, the open access JotWell provides a similar service: reviews of recently published journal articles meant to help readers stay on top of their field and aware of developments in the broader discipline. Once again, the sciences and social sciences lead the way in the number and success of post-publication review sites.

Whether a site functions as a repository, aggregator of content, curated collection, or post-publication review site, there are a variety of ways to acquire content. Most often a repository requires direct submission from a user or active oversight from an administrator. Sites that aggregate content, like Science Seeker or 2cultures.net, have passive submission through feeds and social media. Curated sites, such as?Cl?o?s Radars and Digital Humanities Now may rely on passive submission, but have active editors. The post-publication review sites are completely dependent on authors providing the reviews.

The editorial oversight on these sites ranges as well. There may be a monarchical single editor, like Jay Rosen, an oligarchy of multiple editors with specific areas of oversight, like F1000, an active democracy of readers directly winnowing out the content they want to see by ranking articles in PLoS journals, or a passive democracy of readers supplying metrics such as the download and citation numbers visible in SSRN. No matter the type of editorial oversight, the criteria for which scholarly content gets published on curated sites are not that different from criteria for traditional publication: quality of ideas and relevance to a field.

The methods used to determine the quality and relevance of scholarship may differ, however. The most traditional option is editorial oversight by content experts. The web makes two additional types of criteria possible: metrics based on use of key words, length, or citations; and metrics based on reader interaction through views, downloads, user rankings, or number of comments, citations, and social media.

For the moment, the reproduction of quality information is dependent on the critical eye, and time, of dedicated and knowledgeable editors. The challenge is to automate as much as possible the filtering out of non-essential information, to make the editors? jobs easier, and to increase opportunities for crowd-sourcing the identification and evaluation of quality scholarship.

Return to Table of Contents


III. Conclusion: Moving toward a Rubric

There are a handful of notable projects that aggregate and curate scholarship on the open web. The sciences and quantitative fields are the most established in this landscape. arXiv.org is the best example of community-organized and supported repository. Science Seeker shows that there are a great number of scholars that will independently provide insight and results from their research, and that aggregating scholarly work makes communication easier within, and across fields. The audience for post-publication peer review is so great that it even can be lucrative, as F1000 proves.

In each of these cases, it is informal communities of scholars, or privately-held companies, that provide the foundational work of identifying and cultivating the scholarly work on the web. Scholarly societies for the most part have not taken the lead in creating open repositories for new research or gray literature, or to aggregate and/or curate content from their members.

Clearly, scholarly communities will do the work required to gather and share knowledge with each other. What is needed is a thorough evaluation of the extent to which these projects have impacted scholarly communication and met the needs of their respective communities.

In addition, a free, replicable, efficient, and effective method to automate the aggregation and curation of scholarly content is needed. A customizable tool for the algorithmic methods of discovery and evaluation, along with a place for internal or crowd-sourced editorial conversation, will be necessary for any group that wishes to collect, select, and publish scholarly content from the web. It is these needs that will inform the creation of the forthcoming PressForward suite of plugins for the WordPress publishing platform.

Based on our extensive examination of sites and services (please see the Appendices), we offer the following rubric for analyzing new and existing outlets for scholarly communication on the open web.

Rubric for Scholarly Communication Outlets on the Open Web

  1. Function of Site
    • Repository of content
    • Aggregated content
    • Curated content
    • Community discussion
    • Traditional journal
  2. Type of Content
    • Original content
    • Previously published content
    • Post-publication commentary and discussion
  3. How Content Submitted
    • Solicited and developed by editors
    • Direct submission by user
    • Passive submission through feeds/social media
  4. Who Controls Content
    • Monarchy: Single Editor
    • Oligarchy: Multiple Editors
    • Democracy: Readers
  5. How Published Content Is Determined
    • Editorial oversight
    • Algorithm
    • Active reader participation
    • Passive social media
  6. How Content is Selected for Review
    • Traditional editorial criteria of identifiable quality
    • Amount of interaction (comments, citations, links, alt-metrics, etc.)
  7. How Distributed/Consumed
    • Static website
    • Twitter feed
    • RSS feed
    • Email notifications
  8. Business and Sustainability Model
    • Advertisements
    • Membership or reader-supported
    • Author-supported
    • In-kind labor
    • Paid staff

Return to Table of Contents


IV. Appendices

Appendix A: Sites Reviewed

  1. MetaFilter
  2. TechMeme
  3. Technorati
  4. Microsoft?s Academic Search
  5. PLoS One, Blogs, Hubs
  6. Scientific Reports
  7. arXiv.org
  8. viXra.org
  9. dspace.org
  10. SSRN
  11. Research Papers in Economics
  12. Philpapers
  13. Phygg (no longer active)
  14. Open Folklore
  15. Journalists Resource
  16. Merlot
  17. Jotwell
  18. Faculty of 1000
  19. Econ Journal Watch
  20. Third Reviewer
  21. Polymath Blog
  22. Journalists on Twitter
  23. Science Seeker
  24. Science Blogs
  25. ScienceBlogs
  26. Scientopia
  27. PressThink
  28. Marginal Revolution
  29. The Volokh Conspiracy
  30. Cliopatria
  31. BLDGBLOG
  32. MediaCommons
  33. The Art of Theory
  34. academicblogs.org
  35. hypotheses.org
  36. Scholarly Exchange
  37. The Conversation
  38. Nature Precedings
  39. science.io
  40. up2date
  41. 2cultures
  42. Immanent Frame
  43. Peer Evaluation
  44. Sympose
  45. Mathoverflow
  46. Arts and Letters Daily
  47. The Browser
  48. Poynter Institute
  49. Walker Art Center
  50. Nieman Labs
  51. Digital Humanities Now
  52. academia.edu
  53. figshare.com
  54. researchblogging.org

Return to Table of Contents


Appendix B: Tools and Services Examined

The following tools are used for aggregation, curation, and creation of scholarly content on the web. Their services may complement, or be integrated into, the PressForward suite of plugins for the WordPress publishing platform.

  1. Anthologize
  2. Scholastica
  3. Digress.it
  4. Annotum
  5. Postrank
  6. Feedrank
  7. Percolate
  8. suu.sh
  9. StrawberryJ.am (no longer active)
  10. paper.li
  11. Flipboard
  12. TweetedTimes
  13. Yahoo pipes
  14. Summify
  15. Bottlenose
  16. Scalar
  17. Fever
  18. Storify
  19. ThoughtMesh
  20. news.me
  21. Scoop.it
  22. Zementa

Return to Table of Contents


Appendix C: Scholarly Communication Outlets on the Open Web

Repositories

  1. arXiv.org?is a non-profit, online repository for papers in the sciences, particularly physics, math, computer science, and quantitative fields. The site allows registered users to submit articles of original research that are pre-print, works in progress, completed, or already published. Articles may be revised and resubmitted multiple times by the author. Before submitting articles, registered users must be endorsed by existing members/authors. This is not a peer review process, but a way to ensure that the author will submit appropriate content. The article abstracts and author information are viewable on the site and the entire document is available for download in PDF, PostScript, DVI, or as Source files. The author?s submission email is viewable by registered users. arXiv.org is a non-profit organization housed in the Cornell University library system and also partially funded by the library. In order to meet their budget of approximately $600,000, arXiv.org has requested financial support from the most frequent user institutions.
  2. MERLOT?is a digital repository for teaching resources in multiple disciplines. There are a wide variety of materials available, including tutorials, collections, learning objects, assignments, case studies, and textbooks. A portion of the material is peer reviewed by site members through a process overseen by the editorial board. Registered members can interact with the site by contributing comments or new materials, creating a personal collection, or providing peer review upon assignment from the editors. The materials are posted as finished products; revisions are not grouped. There is a star system for ranking, both for peer reviewers and member comments. MERLOT is sustained by the University of California system, other partners in higher education and philanthropy.
  3. Nature Precedings?is an open access repository for pre-publication research in the sciences and medicine. Manuscripts, posters, and presentations may be submitted in Word, Powerpoint, or PDF formats and then are approved by editors for availability on the site, although they are not peer-reviewed. Site members provide feedback on the works by commenting on the papers or showing their support by ?voting.? The archive is meant to provide permanent site to locate, archive, and share preliminary findings, discussion, and establishing priority. ?Nature Precedings is run by Nature Publishing Group (NPG). Nature Publishing Group is a trading name of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, and Nature America Inc., a wholly-owned US subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.?
  4. PhilPapers?is an independent repository and filter site for academic philosophy. Visitors can browse recent journal issues, directly view open access publications, or browse through curated and categorized materials. In addition to locating papers, site members who are ?professional authors? (either PhD or already published in an academic journal) can submit papers to the repository, which are made available without peer review. Site members also can comment on individual papers, participate in larger discussions in a categorized forum, or create their own library. All site visitors see suggested related materials and can export citations to reference managers. PhilPapers is based in the UK, and edited by two academics working under an advisory board of six members. The project has in-house developers, and makes its software available as xPapers. Philpapers is sponsored by the Institute of Philosophy School of Advanced Studies, University of London; the UK?s Joint Information Systems Committee (Information Environment Programme); and the Centre for Consciousness, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. It is endorsed by The International Association for Computing and Philosophy.
  5. Research Papers in Economics?(RePEc)?is a repository of working papers, journal articles, software, and an index for publications and personnel in the economics field. Institutions and individuals can contribute full-text, abstracts, or links to the database. The database includes an index of published literature, so not all the material in the database is full-text or available for download in PDF format. Access to the information is free to all visitors. The database is accessible through a number of different websites. All the sites pull from the same database, but not all information is available on all databases. IDEAS, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, and EconPapers hosted by the Swedish Business School at Orebro University provide access to the complete database. RePEc is staffed by volunteer ?editors? and grew out of the ?NetEc group, which received support for its WoPEc project between 1996-1999 by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, as part of its Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib).? It is unclear how it is financially sustained at present.
  6. science.I/O?is a [beta-version] repository for academic work in the computer science and information systems fields. The repository consists of material pulled from arXiv.org, the table of contents from journals and conferences, and submitted by registered users. The content includes conference and journal abstracts, as well as full-text documents. Registered users can submit materials. The materials can be sorted by date or recommendation. There also is an application to build a personalized research feed. The project was founded and developed by a single creator.
  7. The Social Science Research Network (SSRN)?is a digital repository for abstracts and articles in the social sciences. Visitors can read the latest abstracts provided by journals, publishers, and institutions t the Abstracts Database. Visitors also can read the full text of pre-prints or working papers that individual registered users submitted to the eLibrary. The full text materials are available as PDF downloads. Authors may revise and resubmit later versions of the same paper, and the version history is visible. In addition, the Research Paper Series are topic-based collections by institutes or centers. The Institution Series is specifically for collections provided by institution. SSRN provides article and category-level metrics for downloads, citations, and submissions. SSRN is produced by Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc. (SSEP), an independent, private corporation. They seem to have some revenue from advertising, although it is not clear how they fund the repository.
  8. viXra.org?is a repository for e-prints of scientific writing. It allows any viewer to download the materials via PDF. viXra.org currently accepts submissions via email. viXra.org was created to directly compete with arXiv.org because of a disagreement over arXiv.org?s requirement for papers and authors to be endorsed. viXra.org is run by volunteers with donated server space.

Aggregation Projects

  1. Muckrack.com?is an aggregation site that collects Twitter posts from journalists. The tweets are presented chronologically, or visitors can browse by news organization, hashtag, topics, or author. The most used and trending hashtags also are visible, as are the latest links included in the tweets. Contextualization, further details about a news event, and informative or administrative content are available on the blog posts. The site is produced by a for-profit company called SawHorse Workshop, which produces a number of websites based on Twitter.
  2. ScienceBlogging Aggregated?is a filter blog, or aggregator, of science blogging and writing. Science Blogging Aggregated gathers the content from science publishers around the web through RSS feeds to develop a homepage with the most current information, organized by source. Science Blogging Aggregated also publishes a printed annual anthology of writing from science blogs, called Open Laboratory. Science Blogging Aggregated is a forerunner of ScienceSeeker.
  3. ScienceBlogs is a meta blog of science writing. The site sponsors the sites of more than 80 bloggers to provide content. The featured posts have selected text and a link from the main page. Also provided are direct links to their curated collection of science blogs and RSS feeds. ScienceBlogs is run by a private company and partially funded through advertising.
  4. ScienceSeeker?is a filter blog for science blogs that is curated and organized by topic. The titles and links for new posts from member blogs are constantly appearing on ScienceSeeker, categorized by topic, and identified by author. The blogs found on ScienceSeeker either are submitted by the blog authors, other readers, or found by the editors. Human editors categorize the content of each blog. ScienceSeeker is run by the editors without any financial support.

Curation Projects

  1. The Conversation?is an Australia-based publisher of original writing that provides academic perspectives on current events, politics, science, and society for a broad audience. Academic authors with detailed credentials provide the content, and trained journalists provide editorial oversight for a consistent writing style across the site. The content is updated twice daily. The academic authors are not paid for their writing, but it is a way for them to prove their public engagement and social impact, which is a required part of their promotion dossier. The Conversation is sponsored through a collaboration of research universities, private companies, and the Australian government.
  2. Journalist?s Resource?produces and aggregates scholarly resources for professional and student journalists and educators. The website provides links to peer-reviewed policy studies. It also provides reference articles on learning and teaching journalism. All of the materials on the site are curated by the project staff and are attributed to an author. Accompanying links to original studies are an abstract of the research findings and teaching notes. Reference and educational materials are viewable on the site, and these also have an identified author. Material on the site is tagged by topic. Site visitors can comment on the site, but so far is does not seem to be a site for conversation. The project is produced by twelve institutions, and run by the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. It is funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the James L. Knight foundation.
  3. MetaFilter?is a community-run filter blog that provides summaries and links to interesting materials around the web. Visitors can read the summaries, follow the links, and read the commentary by community members. Community members can post, link, and comment on site materials. The content is organized by date. The MetaFilter community is restricted to those who purchase an account and meet the expectations of membership. The community has explicit explanations about standards of conduct. There is a $5 charge to initiate an account. The ability to post is delayed for a few days after registration. Only after providing a few comments is a member allowed to make a post on the main page. MetaFilter is supported by revenue from ads and user registrations.
  4. Phygg.com was an experimental filter website that aggregated and highlighted the papers promoted by visitors to arXiv.org. Viewers read a paper and voted up to move the paper to the main page, or down to move the paper lower on the list. The intended purpose was that visitors to phygg.com could identify the papers considered most valuable to the other readers of arXiv.org. Phygg used a web application named ?Pligg? to aggregate the materials. It was produced by a single programmer, which resulted in unreliable site maintenance.
  5. PLoS Biodiversity Hub?is a digital project that aggregates and supplements articles from PLoS journals within the theme of biodiversity. Curators select content from PLoS materials, and add value to the articles by providing relevant, supplementary, and publicly available data such as taxonomy, species images, and maps. Site users are able to comment on materials, or share them using social media. PLoS is a non-profit organization supported by philanthropic sources, and revenue from publications fees (APC), advertising, sponsorship, and membership.
  6. Techmeme?is a news aggregator focused on the tech industry. Techmeme does not produce original content, but provides links to original content produced by other sources. Techmeme consists of one single page that highlights the most relevant headlines, along with the opening lines, of articles from around the web. The original byline and source appear above the headline, and the viewer follows a link to the original story, or links to other publications covering the same story. The most recent headlines are featured in a sidebar. The site is continuously updated. Software algorithms automatically gather news stories from around the web. Human editors then group and curate the stories according to importance or topic. In July 2010 Techmeme reported 260,000 readers and three million hits per month. The site is run by a private company that employs its editors and is supported by advertising revenue.
  7. Technorati?is an aggregator and filter of information from blogs around the web. Technorati functions as a ranker, search engine, and directory for the blogosphere. The site also feature original content from member writers. The home page includes summaries, links, and images for a few featured stories written for Technorati. The category tabs at the top link to original content written for Technorati. Below the fold is information pulled from other sources, including a constantly updated list of top blogs, top tags, and the first few lines of linked blog posts. Technorati provides a ranking of ?authority? for blogs through crowdsourcing algorithms: it is determined by the number of links to the site, and the number of times it is referenced by other sites. The authority ranking is in the context of topical categories. The authority, credentials, and sources of its own writers is less clear. Technorati is produced by a private company and employs editors and writers. It is partially supported through ad revenue.

Post-publication Review and Community Discussion

  1. Econ Journal Watch?is an online publication that consists of post-publication peer review of articles in economics journals. The reviews are specifically to offer critical reviews rather than highlight important work. Editors referee, and outside reviewers peer review the reviews as well as original essays about the field. The journal is published in editions, available for viewing online and in PDF. Registered users can ?talk balk? to articles in the journal by writing a comment, and authors of the reviewed materials are given a forum to respond. The journal uses the web application ?Journal Talk,? developed specifically for visitor comments. Econ Journal Watch is published by the American Institute for Economic Research and edited by academic economists from George Mason University, the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Montana State University.
  2. Faculty of 1000 (F1000)?is a digital-only publication, available by subscription, which provides post-publication peer review in the sciences and medicine. Vetted scientists called ?Faculty Members? review and draw attention to most interesting articles in their research areas. These reviews are meant to help specialists can stay on top of their field, and help non-specialists quickly identify what is most valuable in related fields. Articles are ranked by the Faculty Member reviewer, and a ranking system for journals is coming soon. F1000 also provides two open access services: a repository for posters, and a journal providing reviews, or ?reports? on the trends in research. Faculty Members are selected by nomination, and Junior Faculty Members are sponsored by seniors. F1000 is based in the UK, and is supported through subscription rates tailored to the means of the country in which an institution is based: free for low-income; lower-middle income countries can be sponsored by active Faculty Members. Faculty members do not pay, and authors without an institutional subscription are invited to comment on an evaluation of their article. F1000 is part of the Science Navigation Group, ?a group of independent companies that publish and develop information services for the professional biomedical community and the consumer market.?
  3. Jotwell?is a website that offers post-publication peer review of legal publishing. The site is divided into topical sections, each with two Section Editors, who oversee ten or more Contributing Editors. Each Contributing Editor provides at least one essay of post-publication peer review that highlights a scholarly work they think deserves attention. Section Editors also approve unsolicited essays for publication. The essays are 500-100 words that summarize and reflect upon the importance of the article under discussion. Site visitors can comment on the essay. All materials are published on the site using WordPress. The project is sponsored and hosted by the University of Miami School of Law.
  4. The?polymath blog?is a communal project dedicated to solving complicated mathematical problems through collective efforts (called polymath projects. Visitors use commenting tools, a wiki, research threads, and discussion threads to advance the work. Visitors can identify comments that are ?useful? or ?needs work? in order to solve the problem. Commenting and the Wiki are open to anyone, which makes it a target of spam. The polymath blog uses WordPress and is run by volunteer moderators.
  5. ThirdReviewer (site currently down)?is a site for post-publication peer review, or ?journal club,? for the fields of microbiology, neuroscience, and immunology. ThirdReviewer aggregates abstracts from nearly a dozen major journals, so that comments on the work within the field appear in one venue. ThirdReviewer allows anonymous commenting, and visitors can either ?agree? or ?disagree? with the comments. ThirdReviewer runs on WordPress and is maintained by one individual who oversees the Neuroscience section, with two others overseeing the Microbiology section. It was active in 2010, but seems to be less active in 2011. They are currently working to incorporate PubMed publications as well.

Options for Traditional Publication on the Open Web

  1. BioMed Central?is a digital publisher of peer-reviewed open access science and medicine journals. It began as a free and open publisher, but since its purchase by Springer Science+Business Media, now requires an article processing charge (APC) of $1685 standard, or $550 up to $2570 depending on the journal. BioMed justifies the APC for maintaining and developing open accessibility, tools, and design. A few journals require a subscription access because they ?add value to raw data? by commissioning reviews. BioMed journals function like traditional journals in that they have editors, blind peer review, and accept submissions continuously.
  2. OpenEdition?is the portal site for the three main programs of The Centre for Open Electronic Publishing (Cl?o) that support open source publishing for the humanities and social sciences. Revues.org is the platform is for journals, Hypotheses is the platform for blogs, or ?research notebooks,? and Calenda is a centralized calendar for the humanities and social sciences. Journals apply to the Centre for their hosting support. The Centre provides training for the editors of their published journals and blogs. The Centre also provides support to subscribing libraries.
  3. The Public Knowledge Project?is an educational center that develops open source software to support the publishing of open access scholarly materials on the internet. These include: Open Journal Systems, Open Conference Systems, Open Harvester Systems, and Open Monograph Press. Open Journal Systems is a locally-installed program that allows editors to manage a journal?s content, submissions, access, indexing, and reading tools. Open Conference System is a locally-installed program that allows editors to create conference websites, collect submissions, allow editing, post conference proceedings, post data sets, register participants, and host online discussions. Open Monograph Press is a locally-installed program to manage the editorial workflow for monographs. The Public Knowledge Project is a partnership of three institutions in Canada and the United States: University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Stanford University. Their work is funded by Canadian and American government programs, private organizations, and private foundations.
  4. Public Library of Science?is a non-profit publisher of open access journals in the sciences. The journals have open submission policies, but the editors oversee the content and peer review process. The articles are available as HTML, PDF, or by reprint when purchased. They are published as final documents, rather than continuously revised documents. PLoS journals provide article metrics, related articles, and commenting and rating functions. PLoS runs on the TOPAZ platform. PLoS relies less on philanthropic support and more on our revenue from publication fees, advertising, sponsorship and membership programs. PLoS charges a publication fee to support the expenses of publication including peer review, journal production, online hosting and archiving. Institutional members are granted discounts on publishing charges, and those from developing countries are not charged. For everyone else, the fees range from $1350-2900.
  5. Scholarly Exchange?is a not-for-profit corporation that provides hosting and support for scholarly journals using the Open Journal Systems platform. Scholarly Exchange provides free hosting, a user-ready installation of Open Journal Systems, and support for the first year of a journal?s publication. Journals are able to choose their domain, language, and customize their editorial process. Each journal can determine its own content, copyright, and revenue policies. The costs of the first year are covered by Scholarly Exchange. After the first year, a charge of $750 annual fee covers the cost of Scholarly Exchange?s services. Journals also can choose to collect revenue through Google Ads, or pay extra to keep the journal ad-free.

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Source: http://digitalhumanitiesnow.org/2013/04/editors-choice-discovering-scholarship-on-the-open-web-communities-and-methods/

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