Scientists create robo-ant colony

28 March 2013 Last updated at 21:09 ET By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

On its own, each robot would 'just get lost' but as a colony they can navigate

Scientists in the US have built and tested robotic ants that they say behave just like a real ant colony.

The robots do not resemble their insect counterparts; they are tiny cubes equipped with two watch motors to power the wheels that enable them to move.

But their collective behaviour is remarkably ant-like.

By being programmed simply to move forward toward a target and avoid obstacles, the robot colony finds the fastest way through a network or maze.

The secret, the researchers report in the open access journal Plos Computational Biology, is in their ability to take cues from one another - just like an insect swarm.

"Each individual robot is pretty dumb," said Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, lead researcher on the study. "They have very limited memory and limited processing power."

"By themselves, each robot would just move around randomly and get lost... but [they] are able to work together and communicate."

This is because, like ants, the robots leave a trail that the others follow; while ants leave a trail of chemicals - or pheromones - that their nest mates are able to sniff out, the robots leave a trail of light.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

You don't need something as complex as choice to get some of the behaviour you see in ants?

End Quote Dr Paul Graham University of Sussex

To achieve this, the researchers set up a camera to track the path of each robot. A projector connected to the camera then produced a spot of light at regular intervals along their route, leaving a "breadcrumb trail" of light that got brighter every time another robot tracked over the same path.

Dr Garnier explained: "[The robots each] have two antennae on top, which are light sensors. If more light falls on their left sensor they turn left, and if more light falls on the right sensor, they turn right."

"It's exactly the same mechanism as ants."

The researcher explained how both the robots and ants worked together, describing their navigation skills as a "positive feedback loop".

"If there are two possible paths from A to B and one is twice as long as [the other], at the beginning, the ants [or] robots start using each path equally.

"Because ants taking the shorter path travel faster, the amount of pheromone (or light) deposited on that path grows faster, so more ants use that path."

Learning from nature Continue reading the main story

Superorganisms

• There are an estimated 20,000 species of ants in the world
• Ant colonies have structured social system, with different castes - worker, soldier, queen and drone - all of which carry out specific tasks for the colony
• Ant colonies are sometimes referred to as "superorganisms" because ants appear to operate as a single entity

There are many other research and engineering projects that take inspiration from nature to solve problems or design robots, as Dr Paul Graham, a biologist from the University of Sussex, explained.

"The classic example," he said, "is the way in which we design information networks to move packets of data around.

"Ants don't have someone in charge telling them where to go, so you can [mimic this].

For instance - in a complex network, there may be a junction with different possible routes that packets [of data] could take. Packets would leave messages for each other at the junction to give information about which routes were quick."

This, he explained, is the basis of an algorithm called ant colony optimisation which has already been used in telecoms networks.

And although Dr Graham doesn't see an immediate practical use for these particular robotic insects he says the study demonstrates an important and interesting piece of biology.

"Lots of animal behaviour gets described using words like 'choice'.

"This shows that you don't need something as complex as choice to get some of the behaviour you see in ants.

"And these things look pretty cool, too."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/21956795#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Study Shows Censorship On Sina Weibo Is A ?Sophisticated' And Very Speedy Operation

Known as the Twitter of China, Sina Weibo is also infamous in the West for the number of high profile users who have had tweets censored, including Kai-fu Lee. The former head of Google China, who was once booted off Sina and Tencent Weibo for three days, recently made a graph of how often his microblogging posts have been censored. Computer scientists Jed Crandall and Dan Wallach conducted a study on how quickly censorship on Sina Weibo can work, with findings reported by the BBC and originally published on arXiv.org. The two researchers, who believe their study is the first “real-time analysis of Weibo posts,” say they “found a landscape in which a post could be deleted as quickly as five minutes after being put online and where the censors appear not to work a regular day, but seem to take a break when China’s all-important 19:00 news comes on.” Censors work rapidly: most deletions happened within the first hour after a post had been made, with about five percent of deletions happening within the first eight minutes, and 30 percent in the first half hour. Nearly 90 percent were made within the first 24 hours. Crandall and Wallach spent 30 days tracking posts by 3,500 users on Sina Weibo. During that time, they write, 300 of the accounts, or 12 percent of the total, were deleted. Accounts that got censored the most often also had posts censored the most quickly, showing that they might be the target of more scrutiny. Though they could not estimate the exact number of people dedicated to deleting posts on Sina Weibo, the two computer scientists said that Sina Weibo would need to employ at least 4,000 censors every day if none of the process was automated. Crandall and Wallach called censorship a “sophisticated operation,” with “relatively sophisticated programmers who build their censorship tooling.” Automated systems appear to include keyword alerts for sensitive topics, as well as monitors for certain users who write frequently about sensitive issues. Launched in 2010, Sina Weibo has 300 million users, with about 100 million messages sent daily.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LubwXYLOTL0/

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Google Play starts offering devices in India, starting with the Nexus 7

Google Play Books recently launched for India; it's only fitting that locals get some hardware to read with. Accordingly, Google just opened device sales for India through Google Play, beginning with the Nexus 7. The initial offering is decidedly modest and includes just the 16GB WiFi version of the reference tablet, which costs 15,999 rupees ($294) and should deliver by April 5th. While that doesn't provide the selection that we know in some countries -- and the Nexus 7 definitely isn't one of the cheaper tablets Indians will have seen -- it's an important step toward creating a truly complete Google Play ecosystem in an influential country.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Tablets, Google

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Tiny lookalike lemurs are actually two new species

Courtesy of Peter Kappeler

Caught on camera for the first time, this image shows the newly identified Marohita mouse lemur.

By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience

Two new species of lemurs look so similar that it's impossible to tell them apart without sequencing their genes.

David Haring of the Duke University Lemur Center

The grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus).

The itsy-bitsy primates are both mouse lemurs, which are tiny, nocturnal lemurs that measure less than 11 inches (27 centimeters) from nose to tail. The newly discovered Madagascar natives have gray-brown coats and weigh only 2.5 to 3 ounces (65-85 grams).

Study researcher Rodin Rasoloarison of the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar first captured specimens of the two new species in 2003 and 2007. He weighed the animals, measured them and took small skin samples for later analysis.

It was an analysis of these skin samples that revealed the two nearly identical lemurs are actually two different species. Researchers named one the Anosy mouse lemur (Microcebus tanosi) and the other the Marohita mouse lemur (Microcebus marohita). The Marohita mouse lemur was named after the forest where it was found. According to the researchers, the Marohita lemur is losing that forest and is threatened by that habitat loss. [Image Gallery: Leaping Lemurs!]

In fact, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared the Marohita mouse lemur "endangered" before scientists had even finalized and formalized its name and description. It's a fate shared by many lemurs in Madacasgar, where slash-and-burn agriculture is taking a toll on the forests.

"This species is a prime example of the current state of many other lemur species," said study researcher Peter Kappeler of the German Primate Center in Goettingen. Lemurs are the most endangered mammals on the planet, with 91 percent of known species threatened by extinction.

Researchers want to preserve lemurs not only for their own sake, but for humans' sake as well. As a primate, the mouse lemur is more closely related to humans than rats or mice, which are commonly used in medical research. The grey mouse lemur?(Microcebus murinus) develops a neurological disease much like Alzheimer's, making it an important model for understanding the human brain.

"Before we can say whether a particular genetic variant in mouse lemurs is associated with Alzheimer's, we need to know whether that variant is specific to all mouse lemurs or just select species," said Anne Yoder, the director of the Duke University Lemur Center. "Every new mouse lemur species we sample in the wild will help researchers put the genetic diversity we see in grey mouse lemurs in a broader context."

The researchers reported their findings Tuesday in the International Journal of Primatology.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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The sound (and smell) of music at Cit? 2000

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Members of the extreme metal band Cryptopsy rehearse at Cit? 2000. Musicians often drop by each other?s spaces in the 116-room facility, and staff members have been known to pop up at tenants? gigs.

Photograph by: Peter McCabe , The Gazette

There is something in the air at Cit? 2000.

That might be the result of having more than 1,000 musicians under one roof, some of whom can be counted on to be cleaner than others. There is a hint of the aroma you?d find in any of Montreal?s numerous less-than-spotless live music venues, where on any given night you?re likely to see some of the building?s tenants wielding guitars and drum sticks.

Mostly, it?s the ever-present waft of hops drifting over from the Molson Brewery, which is right next door on Notre Dame St. E., and it can be especially pungent on a hot summer day.

Given the long-standing stereotype of the beer-guzzling touring musician who hasn?t seen the inside of a shower in a few days, it?s safe to say that Cit? 2000, one of the largest centres of rehearsal studios in Montreal, smells like rock ?n? roll.

?It smells like a club when they?ve just opened,? observed Matt McGachy, singer for long-running extreme metal band Cryptopsy.

While the building itself produces heavy metal (and punk, and rock, and pop) in vast quantities, it started life as a Second World War-era rubber factory. It was over 20 years ago that the building, which is currently owned by U-Haul, started renting out jam spaces.

?When it first started, they wanted to do something called La Cit? de la lumi?re,? explained Cit? 2000?s director of operations, Andrea Lafrechoux. ?Since we?re in the district where all the TV shows and movies and radio stations are, they wanted to offer storage for their huge sets and stuff. They started offering it to bands, since there was a demand for it.?

Since those first days, Cit? 2000 has become a hub for rehearsal, with its 116 rooms currently housing roughly 1,500 musicians, with a four-month waiting list of others trying to get in. While Lafrechoux said Cryptopsy (which has called Cit? 2000 home since 1996, excluding a one-year period when the band was on hiatus) and fellow metalheads Anonymus are probably the best-known current residents, at times other notables have included popular Qu?b?cois indie rockers Malajube.

A city?s rock scene is not defined by the stars it produces, but by the guys who are still grinding it out, playing the majority of shows, touring and supporting each other. A place like Cit? 2000 can help a scene coalesce ? the lobby is peppered with flyers for shows, as well as notices for bands looking for musicians (and vice versa).

?There?s a rule at Cit?: You?re not allowed to smile ? you have to walk through the hallways full of attitude,? joked McGachy, who has been Cryptopsy?s vocalist for the last five years of its 25-year history. ?I look at this place as a giant medicine cabinet. It?s really easy to find people to fill in, since their gear is here.?

While gaining connections and the respect of other bands is a plus, it?s also possible for some of the groups to find the start of a fan base at Cit?. Employees have been known to pop up at gigs, so while the security they provide at the reception is welcome in a city notorious for stolen musical equipment, they also give the place that intangible feeling of family.

?I think it has a feel of a community,? said Lafrechoux. ?I see a lot of other giant jam spaces in Montreal, and there?s no person working at the reception ? there?s no life. You scan your card and you go in. Here, everyone knows each other. Most of our staff has been here for a long time, so they get to know the bands and go to the shows.?

The communal aspect of Cit? may be important between bands and employees, but unlike rehearsal spaces in the city that are rented out by the hour, it also gives bands a chance to build bonds between members. Couches abound in the many rooms, so tenants can drop by and talk with each other, or just loaf when they have nothing else to do. Of course, loafing isn?t for everyone.

?For us, we come in together, we?re all normal guys, but once we say ?let?s do this,? we put on the show face,? McGachy explained about the lack of furniture and decoration in Cryptopsy?s room ? one of the sparsest in the building, despite the fact the band shares it with two other groups. ?We?re not here to waste time.?

For the bands that do hang around, there is technically a rule against drinking on the premises, despite the brewery?s proximity. But as Lynyrd Skynyrd once sang, ?Can?t you smell that smell?? Being surrounded by the smell of suds can be mighty tempting after a long night of rocking out, and the empty bottles in the hallways and garbage cans suggest some folks are imbibing on the sly. But then again, who said rock ?n? roll was about following the rules?

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/sound+smell+music+Cit%C3%A9+2000/8076054/story.html

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On The Internet Web Business Prospect ? Article Publishing

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Source: http://articlepublishing.info/2013/03/11/on-the-internet-web-business-prospect/

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Report details flaws in Army's handling of PTSD

SEATTLE (AP) ? An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

Confusing paperwork, inconsistent training and guidelines, and incompatible data systems have hindered the service as it tries to deal with behavioral health issues, the report said. It's a crucial issue: After a decade of war, soldier suicides outpace combat deaths.

Last May, the Army commissioned a task force to conduct a sweeping review of how it evaluates soldiers for mental health problems at all its facilities. The review came under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, who was upset to learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center south of Seattle had had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a potential cut to their benefits and questions about whether the changes were made to save money.

About 150 of those soldiers eventually had their diagnoses restored.

"I am pleased that the Army completed this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point," Murray said in a statement. "Many of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and standardizing the way diagnoses are made, for instance, have been lingering problems for far too long. Our service members and their families deserve better."

The report noted that the Army had made strides in some areas, including cutting how long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability evaluation and publishing a guide to the process.

The task force interviewed 750 people stationed around the globe, conducted listening sessions with 6,400 others and reviewed more than 140,000 records. The Army's Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health problems from October 2001 until last April.

Since September 2001, the report found, 4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound up with a behavioral health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury. Many can remain on active duty.

Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 soldiers had behavioral health diagnoses "adjusted" by medical evaluation boards, with approximately equal numbers having PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as a diagnosis. Two locations where medical evaluation boards are held had slightly higher diagnosis changes than the Army-wide average, but the report did not identify them. Cases from those locations are being reviewed to ensure no soldiers were improperly affected, the report said.

Last year the Army ? and the military as a whole ? suffered the highest number of suicides ever recorded, prompting then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in 2011, and the military as a whole had 350 suicides, up from 301 the year before.

Among the problems the report documented was that Army bases don't have a person on site dedicated to overseeing behavioral health issues, despite the many problems they can cause: suicide, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and child and spouse abuse. Each installation needs someone with a view of all those programs to make recommendations to the commander, the report said.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh said in a statement that the Army will work to place behavioral health experts "at the command and installation levels to provide better consultation, guidance, coordination and recommendations to improve behavioral health care for our soldiers."

The task force found that of the soldiers surveyed, 37 percent had never received any information about the Army's disability evaluation system or had to seek the information out on their own. It also said it was confusing and inefficient for troops to navigate the vastly different disability systems maintained by the Army and the Veterans Administration.

The Army and VA plan to have a joint disability system, by which health care providers in either organization will have access to records, by 2017.

"Some changes can be made immediately," McHugh said. "Others will require more time and coordination. Importantly, this report reviewed our systems holistically ? recommending not only short-term solutions, but longer term, systemic changes that will make care and treatment of our soldiers and family members more effective."

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-08-Army-PTSD/id-286c38a1d9374e2cbb11b5b210b6095f

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Letter from President Herman Van Rompuy to the members of the European Council

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.consilium.europa.eu//uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/135864.pdf

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A new cryptic spider species from Africa

Friday, March 8, 2013

The species from the genus Copa are very common spiders found in the leaf litter of various habitats. Being predominantly ground-living, they occur widely in savanna woodlands but also occasionally in forests, where they are well camouflaged. They usually share the litter microhabitats with several other species of the family Corinnidae. The spiders from this cryptic, ground-dwelling genus in the continental Afrotropical Region are revised in a study published in the open access journal Zookeys.

The number of continental species in the Afrotropical Region has been reduced from four to two, one of which is newly described. While C. flavoplumosa is widespread throughout the region (from Guine? in the west to Tanzania in the east, and from Nigeria in the north to South Africa in the south), the new species, C. kei, is endemic to southeastern South Africa.

The two species represent extremes regarding both vagility and ecological flexibility. C. flavoplumosa provides a useful example of extreme habitat flexibility, occupying habitats from forests to semi-deserts. It is particularly prevalent in savanna habitats on the continent, but also occurs in various forest types and grasslands. They have been occasionally collected in agroecosystems, specifically from the canopies of orchard crops in South Africa (avocadoes, macadamias and pistachios), which is in stark contrast to their almost exclusive ground-dwelling habits in natural habitats. The reasons for this ecological divergence, however, are unknown.

The newly described species, C. kei, is very closely associated and believed to be endemic to the Afromontane and coastal forests in South Africa. The species has a distribution falling entirely within the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Centre of Endemism in South Africa, where an extraordinary amount of endemic species is found, with around 30 endemic reptiles and emblematic mammals such as the blue duiker antelope.

The new species, C. kei, can be easily recognised by a distinct dorsal black spot on the anterior of the abdomen. The specific name of the species refers to the type locality, the town Kei Mouth, located at the estuary of the Great Kei River in the Eastern Cape Province.

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Haddad CR (2013) A revision of the continental species of Copa Simon, 1885 (Araneae, Corinnidae) in the Afrotropical Region. ZooKeys 276: 1?37, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.276.4233

Pensoft Publishers: http://www.pensoft.net

Thanks to Pensoft Publishers for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Google to cut 1,200 jobs at Motorola Mobility

(Reuters) - Google's Motorola Mobility unit is to shed another 1,200 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce as the smartphone maker tries to return to profitability, Google said on Friday.

The lay-offs come on top of the 4,000 jobs cut at Motorola Mobility in August as Google seeks to make more smartphones and fewer simple handsets.

"These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer," spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said in an email to Reuters.

"It's obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition," she added.

The Wall Street Journal reported the lay-offs earlier on Friday, citing a company email. (http://link.reuters.com/tun56t)

The email about the job cuts, which will affect workers in the United States, China and India, said, "our costs are too high, we're operating in markets where we're not competitive and we're losing money," according to the Journal.

Google bought the money-losing cellphone maker for $12.5 billion last year, its largest acquisition ever, aiming to use Motorola Mobility's armory of patents to fend off legal attacks on its Android mobile platform and expand beyond its software business.

But the acquisition raised concerns on Wall Street that Google was entering a business with much lower profit margins.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-cut-1-200-jobs-motorola-mobility-wsj-063759194.html

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Researchers discover workings of brain's 'GPS system'

Mar. 6, 2013 ? Just as a global posi?tion?ing sys?tem (GPS) helps find your loca?tion, the brain has an inter?nal sys?tem for help?ing deter?mine the body's loca?tion as it moves through its surroundings.

A new study from researchers at Prince?ton Uni?ver?sity pro?vides evi?dence for how the brain per?forms this feat. The study, pub?lished in the jour?nal Nature, indi?cates that cer?tain position-tracking neu?rons -- called grid cells -- ramp their activ?ity up and down by work?ing together in a col?lec?tive way to deter?mine loca?tion, rather than each cell act?ing on its own as was pro?posed by a com?pet?ing theory.

Grid cells are neu?rons that become elec?tri?cally active, or "fire," as ani?mals travel in an envi?ron?ment. First dis?cov?ered in the mid-2000s, each cell fires when the body moves to spe?cific loca?tions, for exam?ple in a room. Amaz?ingly, these loca?tions are arranged in a hexag?o?nal pat?tern like spaces on a Chi?nese checker board.

"Together, the grid cells form a rep?re?sen?ta?tion of space," said David Tank, Princeton's Henry L. Hill?man Pro?fes?sor in Mol?e?c?u?lar Biol?ogy and leader of the study. "Our research focused on the mech?a?nisms at work in the neural sys?tem that forms these hexag?o?nal pat?terns," he said. The first author on the paper was grad?u?ate stu?dent Cristina Dom?nisoru, who con?ducted the exper?i?ments together with post?doc?toral researcher Amina Kinkhabwala.

Dom?nisoru mea?sured the elec?tri?cal sig?nals inside indi?vid?ual grid cells in mouse brains while the ani?mals tra?versed a computer-generated vir?tual envi?ron?ment, devel?oped pre?vi?ously in the Tank lab. The ani?mals moved on a mouse-sized tread?mill while watch?ing a video screen in a set-up that is sim?i?lar to video-game vir?tual real?ity sys?tems used by humans.

She found that the cell's elec?tri?cal activ?ity, mea?sured as the dif?fer?ence in volt?age between the inside and out?side of the cell, started low and then ramped up, grow?ing larger as the mouse reached each point on the hexag?o?nal grid and then falling off as the mouse moved away from that point.

This ramp?ing pat?tern cor?re?sponded with a pro?posed mech?a?nism of neural com?pu?ta?tion called an attrac?tor net?work. The brain is made up of vast num?bers of neu?rons con?nected together into net?works, and the attrac?tor net?work is a the?o?ret?i?cal model of how pat?terns of con?nected neu?rons can give rise to brain activ?ity by col?lec?tively work?ing together. The attrac?tor net?work the?ory was first pro?posed 30 years ago by John Hop?field, Princeton's Howard A. Prior Pro?fes?sor in the Life Sci?ences, Emeritus.

The team found that their mea?sure?ments of grid cell activ?ity cor?re?sponded with the attrac?tor net?work model but not a com?pet?ing the?ory, the oscil?la?tory inter?fer?ence model. This com?pet?ing the?ory pro?posed that grid cells use rhyth?mic activ?ity pat?terns, or oscil?la?tions, which can be thought of as many fast clocks tick?ing in syn?chrony, to cal?cu?late where ani?mals are located. Although the Prince?ton researchers detected rhyth?mic activ?ity inside most neu?rons, the activ?ity pat?terns did not appear to par?tic?i?pate in posi?tion calculations.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University. The original article was written by Cather?ine Zan?donella.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Cristina Domnisoru, Amina A. Kinkhabwala, David W. Tank. Membrane potential dynamics of grid cells. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature11973

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

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/t6AmDh0M7S8/130307110720.htm

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325 Members of the Army Killed Themselves Last Year. Sorting Out Why Is No Easy Task

In the wake of suicide, basic questions evade easy answers. Why did it happen? How could it have been prevented? It's hard to get inside a dead person's mind to sort the puzzle out. The satisfying answers die with them.

So, how do you make sense of 325 such deaths? That?s how many active and non-active personnel the U.S. Army reported committed suicide last year?a record number.

In 2003, a disturbing and persistent trend began in the military. It used to be that the Army had lower suicide rates than the overall population. But several years into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, those rates flipped. ?It?s remained that way since.

Like the pall surrounding a single suicide, the reasons why this trend has continued are still much of a mystery. But we are gaining a clearer picture on what factors are most correlated (or not) with suicide.

For one, it does not appear that combat experience or posttraumatic stress disorder is related to suicide. A recent report on suicides in the National Guard (which has the highest rate for all Army branches) could find no conclusive correlation between active service and suicide. ?Soldiers who reported suicide intentions during deployment generally reported the same intentions after deployment, and the association of combat experiences with suicide symptoms was negligible,? the researchers concluded.

PTSD is a real and damaging consequence of deployment, and on the surface it might seem related to suicide. But more than half of service members who have died by suicide have never been deployed. ?So clearly it?s not a combat issue,? says Craig Bryan, a psychologist at the University of Utah who focuses his research on Army suicides.

Departed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had said the persistent rates were ?perhaps the most frustrating challenge I?ve come across? while at the Pentagon. But the frustration is not that the Pentagon isn?t acting, it?s that the needle hasn?t budged. ?We have been trying lots and lots of things for 10 years now and nothing really seems to be working yet,? Bryan says about prevention efforts. The Army offers a whole array of mental-health services, and has provided extensive suicide prevention training to officers and Army personnel. Last summer, Panetta announced a renewed four-part suicide prevention plan. ?Just as we helped foster the jet age, the space race and the Internet, I want us to break new ground in understanding the human mind and human emotion,? Panetta said when the plan was unveiled. This will be no small effort.

But we are getting a clear picture of who is most at risk for suicide. Here?s what we know. White males 17-24 are most in danger. Suicides are largely happening outside of the military context. Ninety percent of the cases in the National Guard study were taking place while in civilian status, which is to say outside of a military atmosphere.

The demographics of it aren?t completely surprising, as they mirror the population at large. Blacks commit suicides at much lower rates than whites. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, their rates are about half that of the overall population. For females, the risk drops by 75 percent.

What seems to be happening is that young white men are entering the military with preexisting distress, and that distress manifests over the course of their service. And the Army isn?t addressing trouble signs at critical moments.

Going forward researchers will try to put a magnifying glass to this at-risk group: What drives one person to kill themself and another in a similar situation and demographic background to not? ?We honestly, we don?t know that yet." Bryan says. "We can?t differentiate that in the short term in a way that is actually meaningful.?

Contrary to what the conventional wisdom might be, the military can actually protect a person?s mental wellbeing, which is why some think suicide rates used to be lower than the overall population.

The power of social bonds is real and protective. Strong communal ties are correlated with longer and healthier lives, and are a protective factor against mood disorders such as depression. One wonderfully simplistic study found that being surrounded by friends causes a person to judge a hill to be less steep. Yes, friends literally make obstacles appear less severe. Likewise, ?things like strong sense of pride, optimism, sense of value, and feeling respected by others protects against suicide risk and these are the values of the military system,? Bryan says. ?There are other aspects of the military culture that are preventing things from getting worse from what they would otherwise be.??

For now, we don?t have a satisfying answer as to why the rates jumped over the last decade. It could also be that a prolonged war with a military comprised of such a small (and volunteer) segment of the population creates a scenario we?ve never seen before, as Bryan suggests. It?s an unprecedented situation, so it?s brave new world. It?s also the case that there is often a disconnect between recognizing potential soldiers in crisis and giving them support.

According to a 2012 review of Army suicide ?knowns,? a quarter of the people who had committed suicide had reported at least one symptom on Army health assessments. ?Yet few soldiers had been referred to behavioral health care providers,? the report states. Only 5 percent were referred for help.

The military has made it clear that sorting out this problem is a priority, and have funneled lots of money to researchers like Bryan. (They also fund things like a $10 million study into whether fish-oil supplements can help prevent suicide. It?s a kitchen-sink approach.) ?Without a doubt the military has done more for suicide prevention in the past 10 years than we have done in the entire world, throughout human history,? Bryan says.

But we still haven?t figured it all out.

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If you are in crisis, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Someone cares.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/325-members-army-killed-themselves-last-sorting-why-112429526--politics.html

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A Hell of a Note - Lingua Franca - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Harold Ross

No less than scratchy records and faded photographs, antique slang can powerfully and palpably evoke an era. Of course, the longer ago the era, the less intelligible the slang. Last week, for my blog, Not One-Off Britishisms, I was looking into the history of the verb pip (?to defeat or beat narrowly?) and found this 1838 citation from the journal Hood?s Own, or Laughter From Year to Year: ?With your face inconsistently playing at longs and your hand at shorts,?getting hypped as well as pipped,??talking of Hoyle ? but looking like winegar.?? I have no idea what any of it means?least of all the presumably hilarious misspelling of vinegar?and that?s a big part of why I love it.

For a recent Lingua Franca post, I spent some time rereading the work of Joseph Mitchell and was reminded of a piece of American slang that has long intrigued me. In Mitchell?s 1942 New Yorker profile of the Greenwich Village bohemian Joe Gould (whom he also wrote about in his 1965 masterwork, Joe Gould?s Secret,) he notes that one of Gould?s essays is entitled ?Why I Am Unable to Adjust Myself to Civilization, Such As It Is, or Do, Don?t Do, Don?t, a Hell of a Note.? The last five words reverberated?a hell of a note. I seem to recall that it was a favorite expression of Harold Ross, the founding editor of The New Yorker, and sure enough, it shows up four times in Ross?s collected letters, edited by Thomas Kunkel. The one I remembered was a note Ross had written to his valued contributor E.B. White, in August 1935:

White:

Was very sorry to hear about your father, and send my sympathy, which is about all I have to say, except that after you get to be thirty people you know keep dropping off all the time and it?s a hell of a note.

Ross

From context, it?s clear that the phrase means ?something amazing, disgusting, surprising, etc.,? in the words of American Slang?(2008), by Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert Chapman. But where does it come from? That book dates it to the 1940s, and other reference books I?ve seen are equally vague. The first citation in the Corpus of American Historical English is from Rex Beach?s 1922 novel, Flowing Gold: ??Hell of a note,? the old fellow grumbled.?

But the expression predates Beach?s book. The New York Times reports that in 1921, Charles Dawes?previously a general in the U.S. Army, later the vice president of the United States?gave some famously profane testimony to Congress. Among other things, he said:

If General Pershing and Foch and Joffe and the other great fighters of the World War should go to Chicago tomorrow for a public reception on the north side, and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks should be on the south side at the same time, every damned man would flock to the south side. That?s true, but it?s a hell of a note.

Investigation in the Google Books database indicates that the phrase was indeed a feature of World War I soldiers? argot. John Dos Passos? 1921 novel, Three Soldiers, has this:???I got sick,? said Fuselli grinning. ?I guess I am yet. It?s a hell of a note the way they treat a feller ? like he was lower than the dirt.? Ray N. Johnson exploits some of the phrase?s ironic capacity in his 1919 Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken (which he describes as an account of ?the War from the enlisted man?s point of view?). ?A few hours after we went over the top,? he writes, ?our kitchen was blown full of holes by shrapnel and all the boilers were ruined. Now ain?t that a hell of a note??

But, Google Books makes clear, hell of a note preceded the war, by a good piece. O. Henry used it in 1916 and John Reed in 1914. The earliest use in the database comes from testimony in the 1879 Congressional hearing in the matter of? Curtin v. Yocum, investigating a contested seat in the House of Representatives. A witness named John Q. Dice reports? telling a local official that he, Dice, had not paid taxes on behalf of another person because he had no money. The official ?said that was a ?hell of a note,? and left.?

A piece of slang?s death is as interesting as its birth. The Google Ngrams chart below shows the relative frequency of hell of a note in 20th-century books.

There?s a peak in the World War II years followed by a sharp decline and then a continuing trickle of hell of a notes, almost all of them from codgers, in reprints of older texts, or from smart writers who use it to evoke a bygone era. In his 1979 book about the Mercury astronauts of the 60s, The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe writes: ?Just two nights before the flight it dawned on one of the doctors that they had never made provisions for a urine receptacle for Gus [Grissom], to avoid the sort of thing [Alan] Shepard had experienced. That was a hell of a note.?

The Times? most recent use of the phrase came in 1999, in an article about Bruce Fleisher, a golfer on the senior tour who had won his debut tournament the week before and now, with a three-stroke lead going into the final round of the American Express Invitational, stood stood poised to become the first golfer to win his first two events on the tour.

With his victory last week, Fleisher matched Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and George Archer as players to win their first senior event.

?Guys I grew up dreaming about,?? he said. ?That would be a hell of a note. Me replacing four of the greatest golfers in the world.?

Sure enough, he won. Hell of a note.

Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/03/06/a-hell-of-a-note/

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Thermaltake and BMW's Level 10 M gaming headset hands-on

If we had a direct line to BMW's Designworks studio, we'd probably harass it to the point of requiring a court order. Thermaltake, on the other hand, have shown a lot more restraint, only harnessing the teutonic skunkworks' expertise on two previous occasions. The pair announced its Level 10 gaming headset today at CeBIT, so we decided to get our mitts all over the first examples of the hardware to be seen in public and find out what they're all about.

ThermalTake Level 10 M headset hands-on

The prototypes we got to try out carried the Level 10 range's chunky, aerated style -- with gaps in the bodywork and beefy catches to lock and release the arms. A boxy microphone hangs down on the left without a windshield, a decision made in order to stop the hardware from becoming distracting. While it looks like it'd be heavy and hefty to wear, the device is very comfortable to wear for short periods of time and the ear cups are extra soft to avoid that pinned-back feeling you get with heavier hardware. Each cup carries a 40mm driver, although we couldn't attest to its sound quality on this occasion. While we only saw black and white headsets today, matching green and red editions will join the pair before release, so if you've already splashed out on the BMW case and mouse, you can collect the full set.

We learned that the first units out of the door will look a little different to these samples, the white version gaining a glossy finish, while the black edition coming with a matt rubber coating. Both will connect with a pair of 3.5mm jacks, and should arrive for $150 before Computex, putting a launch date late May or early June. Company director Tony Liu also said that a USB version is in store for August-time, which will offer DTS-approved 5.1 surround and light-up color bars -- which is due to set you back around $190.

Dana Wollman contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/05/thermaltake-bmw-level-10-m/

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IHIF: Hospitality industry still missing a trick with social media, Barclays

More than one in ten hospitality and leisure operators now generate up to half of all sales through social media according to new research from Barclays, but despite this the industry still questions its business potential.

Over 60 per cent of the sector, which includes hotels, pubs, restaurants, travel and leisure operators, say that they only see ?some? or ?limited? opportunity in using social media tools to engage consumers.

This comes in spite of the clear benefits emerging from these channels: nearly a third (29 per cent) of respondents directly attribute up to 25 per cent of all their sales to social media, and a further 13 per cent state that these platforms generate up to half of sales.

In addition, more than two thirds (68 per cent) of those currently using social media report that they have had a ?positive? or very positive ?experience?, attracting new customers, and receiving positive recommendations.

Social media has taken significant strides in recent years, encouraged in no small part by increasingly sophisticated and popular mobile devices.

With estimates suggesting that over half of UK consumers now own a smartphone, and almost one in five have access to a tablet device, consumers have come to rely on networks and sites such as Facebook, Twitter and TripAdvisor to not only provide peer to peer recommendations for everything from hotels to pubs, restaurants and even local attractions, but also as a convenient way to connect with businesses.

Social media is firmly ingrained in how consumers, and the next generation consumer in particular, behave yet the industry is still reluctant to embrace its potential. More than one in ten operators do not currently use social media, nor do they have any plans to do so, and state that this is because they do not see any value or return on investment.

Mike Saul, head of hospitality & leisure at Barclays, commented: ?The industry is missing a trick.

?Social media has blurred the line between personal and corporate communities ? something that has been encouraged by consumers who now expect to be able to interact in an immediate and very personal way, not just with friends, but with their favourite - and not so favoured - brands.

?This can create a very powerful feedback loop ? if operators can successfully tap into these networks, both good and bad reviews can be used to their advantage. If a flight or dinner reservation is delayed for example, it?s easy for consumers to vent their frustration to the online world ? the trick is being able to respond helpfully, turning a negative experience into a positive one.

?Getting the strategy right is key.?

Recommended

Source: http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/ihif-hospitality-industry-still-missing-a-trick-with-social-media-barclays/

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Pistorius bought, collected guns in Olympic year

In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb 26, 2012, participants take part in target practice at a shooting range in Krugersdorp, South Africa. In the light of the bail hearing for athlete Oscar Pistorius last week it came to light how police stumbled and fumbled through investigations. Police investigator Hilton Botha possibly contaminated the crime scene and faced attempted murder charges himself, placing even more strain on the credibility of the police. In recruiting personal the police have in a large way neglected the the quality of the personal recruited. It is in this lack of trust that guns thrive. (AP Photo/Cobus Bodenstein)

In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb 26, 2012, participants take part in target practice at a shooting range in Krugersdorp, South Africa. In the light of the bail hearing for athlete Oscar Pistorius last week it came to light how police stumbled and fumbled through investigations. Police investigator Hilton Botha possibly contaminated the crime scene and faced attempted murder charges himself, placing even more strain on the credibility of the police. In recruiting personal the police have in a large way neglected the the quality of the personal recruited. It is in this lack of trust that guns thrive. (AP Photo/Cobus Bodenstein)

FILE - In this frame grab from CCTV footage leaked to M-Net's Carte Blanche program which viewed Sunday Feb 24, 2013, shows Reeva Steenkamp entering the secured access to the Silverwoods housing estate, home of Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius, some hours before she was shot and killed at Pistorius' home. Even if Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star violated basic gun-handling regulations by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it, exposing himself to the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide. (AP Photo/M-Net Carte Blanche, File)

FILE - In this Friday Feb. 22, 2013 file photo Olympic athlete, Oscar Pistorius, is watched by a policeman while in the dock during his bail hearing in Pretoria, South Africa, charged with the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. During the hearing last week it was heard how police stumbled and fumbled through the bail hearing and how investigator, Hilton Botha, possibly contaminated the crime scene and faced attempted murder charges himself. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2013 file photo, Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius arrives for a bail hearing in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius' representatives on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 named the substance found in his bedroom after the shooting death of his girlfriend as Testis compositum, and say it is an herbal remedy used "in aid of muscle recovery." South African police say they found needles in Pistorius' bedroom along with the substance, which they initially named as testosterone. Prosecutors later withdrew that statement identifying the substance and said it had been sent for laboratory tests. (AP Photo, File)

A sculpture by Carl Fredrik Reutersward, titled "knotted gun" which is a symbol designed to protest against global violence and senseless killings, in Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Attorney Martin Hood who specializes in firearm law said Licensed gun owners are allowed to use lethal force only if they believe thay are facing an immediate, serious and direct attack, or threat of attack, that could either be deadly or cause grievous injury. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? In his Olympic year, Oscar Pistorius steadily became an avid firearms collector, joining a gun-collecting club and purchasing a collection of firearms that included a .500 Magnum pistol dubbed by its manufacturer as "the most powerful production revolver in the world" and a civilian version of a military assault rifle.

At the end of 2012, in the first blush of his romance with Reeva Steenkamp, the model he later shot and killed, Pistorius got deeper into his hobby. It was known that Pistorius liked guns but only now, from Associated Press interviews with other collectors, is it becoming clear the extent to which he became a dedicated firearms aficionado in the 12 months before he shot Steenkamp.

The track star not only applied for licenses to own more guns, but actually bought them, too, according to John Beare, vice chairman of the Lowveld Firearm Collectors Association which accepted Pistorius as a paid-up member last April. He and Pistorius were introduced at a Johannesburg hotel in January 2012, and it was there that Beare first explained to the athlete and some of his friends how to become certified collectors.

Had he not become a collector, Pistorius would under South African law have been limited to a maximum of four firearms for self-defense, of which only two could have been handguns, according to Johannesburg attorney Martin Hood, who specializes in firearms law.

Carvel Webb, chairman of the National Arms and Ammunition Collectors Confederation of South Africa, an umbrella group for the country's 2,000 approved private collectors including Pistorius, said that in the wake of Steenkamp's killing his group will now verify that Pistorius fulfilled the necessary requirements to be accepted as a collector and a decision in January to let him start collecting semi-automatic rifles.

"We will review all of those just to see if we are happy with it," Webb said.

Pistorius made no secret of his passion for firearms. Reporters who visited him at home in Pretoria, the capital, saw the pistol he kept by his bed and was licensed to own. He practiced at firing ranges both in South Africa and in Europe where he trained for the London Games. But apparently less well-known was his involvement with gun collectors to start building a firearms collection.

Beare said he twice observed Pistorius shoot at firing ranges and also at a clay pigeon shoot, but saw nothing to suggest he could be a menace with a gun.

"His safety was good," Beare told the AP. "He wouldn't do anything irrational with a firearm, because then I would have nailed him immediately."

Pistorius says he mistook his girlfriend Steenkamp for a home intruder and shot her while she was in his bathroom toilet, firing through the closed door. Pistorius' license for the 9 mm pistol was issued on Sept. 10, 2010, according to the South African Police Service's National Firearms Center. It was registered for self-defense

Prosecutors have charged Pistorius with premeditated murder for killing Steenkamp with three of four shots fired in the early hours of Feb. 14.

"I had no reason to believe that there was anything wrong, that he could have a dark side, that there could be something wrong," said Beare.

However, Roberto Siriu, president of the Tolmezzo shooting range in northeast Italy, said Pistorius did not seem to him to be well-trained with firearms.

"No, I don't think so. He didn't give me that impression," Siriu told the AP.

Pistorius shot at Tolmezzo during breaks from athletic training in the nearby town of Gemona. In November 2011, Pistorius posted a photo of himself firing a rifle at Tolmezzo, with the words: "Had a 96% headshot over 300m from 50shots! Bam!"

Last June, seven weeks before he made history by running at the London Games, Pistorius tweeted that he was going back to Tolmezzo to shoot vintage rifles, adding: "Amped to the max! Yeaaah boi!!"

Gun collecting is regulated by South Africa's stringent Firearms Control Act. Pistorius had to explain to his collecting association, both in writing and in interviews, what types of firearms he wanted to collect and why.

Beare said he and two other association members interviewed Pistorius in June or July 2012, shortly before he became the first double-amputee Olympic runner.

"He was still budding (as a collector) at that stage. He had done his research on it and he was interested in American firearms," Beare said.

The association certified Pistorius as a beginner collector, Beare said. Pistorius bought two Smith & Wesson revolvers and three shotguns and sent photos of the firearms and their serial numbers to the association, as required, Beare said.

But Pistorius couldn't take actual physical possession of his firearms because he didn't have police-issued licenses for them. So the weapons were kept for safekeeping by a gun dealer, Beare said. At firing ranges, Pistorius used other people's guns, he added.

Pistorius eventually applied for the licenses in January, according to the National Firearms Center. It listed his weapons as:

?A Smith & Wesson model 500. With a caliber of .500 Magnum, it is called "the most powerful production revolver in the world" by its manufacturer in Springfield, Massachusetts. "A hunting handgun for any game animal walking," the company's website says. Pistorius was "quite fascinated" with that particular weapon, Beare said.

?A Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver.

?Three shotguns: A Mossberg, a Maverick and a Winchester, all American makes.

?A Vektor .223-caliber rifle.

The current status of those applications is unclear. Firearms Center officials said after Pistorius killed Steenkamp that the six license applications were sent back to a Johannesburg police station to be refilled, but the reason for that wasn't given.

For civilian collectors, the Vektor is the closest they can get to the R-series assault rifles used by South Africa's military. For civilian use, the rifle is modified to make it only semi-automatic. Because it is classed as a restricted weapon in South Africa, Pistorius had to upgrade his status from a beginner to a more serious collector.

As part of that upgrading process, Pistorius was interviewed again by his collectors' club this January, Beare said. It accepted the runner's explanation that he wanted to collect weapons linked to South African military history, Beare said. He said that entitled Pistorius to start collecting not just South African firearms but also Russian-made guns that guerrilla groups have used over the years to fight South African forces.

Pistorius bought the Vektor around December, and sent the serial number and a photo to the association, Beare added.

Collecting firearms can be expensive. Vektors sell for US$1,100 to US$1,500 on South African gun-resale websites. Pistorius' athletic success and sponsorships have made him wealthy. Beare said he understood that Pistorius was planning to build on his collection over time.

"You start small and then you start growing," he said.

Some have questioned why Pistorius felt he needed such a variety of weapons and whether the association should have certified him.

Andre Pretorius, president of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council, a regulatory body for South African firearms instructors, said he struggles to see how pistols, shotguns and a semi-automatic rifle could be regarded as a coherent collection.

"The makes differ, the models differ and generally a collection needs to have a theme," said Pretorius. "I don't see there's a theme here."

But Webb, of the collectors' confederation, disagreed.

"There was a logic," Webb told the AP. "He's got three approved areas of interest."

___

AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf in Rome contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-01-Pistorius%20Shooting-Gun%20Collector/id-6e1a293166ca43a98ba9421ba2a3a367

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With record highs in sight, stocks face roadblocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If Wall Street needs to climb a wall of worry, it will have plenty of opportunity next week.

Major U.S. stock indexes will make another attempt at reaching all-time records, but the fitful pace that has dominated trading is likely to continue. Next Friday's unemployment report and the hefty spending cuts that look like they about to take effect will be at the forefront.

The importance of whether equities can reach and sustain those highs is more than Wall Street's usual fixation on numbers with psychological significance. Breaking through to uncharted territory is seen as a test of investors' faith in the rally.

"It's very significant," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

"The thinking is, there's just not enough there for an extended bull run," he said. "If we do break through (record highs), then maybe the charts and price action are telling us there's something better ahead."

Flare-ups in the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis and next Friday's report on the U.S. labor market could jostle the market, though U.S. job indicators have generally been trending in a positive direction.

Small- and mid-cap stocks hit lifetime highs in February. Now the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the S&P 500 <.spx> are racing each other to the top. The Dow, made up of 30 stocks, is about 75 points - less than 1 percent - away from its record close of 14,164.53, which it hit on October 9, 2007. The broader S&P is still 3 percent away from its closing high of 1,565.15, also reached on October 9, 2007.

The advantage may be in the Dow's court. So far in 2013, it has gained 7.5 percent, beating the S&P 500 by about 1 percent.

THE RALLY AND THE REALITY CHECK

The Dow's relative strength owes much to its unique make-up and calculation, as well as to investors' recent preference for buying value stocks likely to generate steady reliable gains, rather than growth stocks.

But the more defensive stance illustrates how stock buyers are getting concerned about this year's rally. While investors don't want to miss out on gains, they're picking up companies that are less likely to decline as much as high-flying names - if a market correction comes.

The Russell Value Index <.rav> is up 7.6 percent for the year so far, outpacing the Russell Growth Index's <.rag> 5.7 percent rise. Within the realm of the S&P 500, the consumer staples sector led the market in February, gaining 3.1 percent.

There is some concern that growth-oriented names are being eclipsed by defensive bets, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.

"This isn't a be-all and end-all sell signal by any means, but we would feel much more comfortable if some of the more aggressive areas, like technology and small caps, would start to gain some leadership here," Detrick said.

Signs that investors are becoming concerned about the rally's pace is evident in the options market, where the ratio of put activity to call activity has recently shifted in favor of puts, which represent expectations for a stock to fall.

"We are seeing some put hedging in the financials, building up for the past month," said Henry Schwartz, president of options analytics firm Trade Alert in New York.

The put-to-call ratio representing an aggregate of about 562 financial stocks is 1:1, when normally, calls should be outnumbering puts.

Investors have no shortage of reasons to crave the relative safety of blue chips and defensive stocks. Although markets have mostly looked past uncertainty over Washington's plans to cut the deficit, fiscal policy negotiations still pose a risk to equities.

The $85 billion in spending cuts set to begin on Friday is expected to slow economic growth this year if policymakers do not reach a new deal. Markets so far have held firm despite the wrangling in Washington, but tangible economic effects could pinch stock prices going forward.

The International Monetary Fund warned that full implementation of the cuts would probably take at least 0.5 percentage point off U.S. growth this year.

EASY MONEY AND TEPID HIRING

Investors will also take in a round of economic data at a time when concerns are percolating that the market is being pushed up less by fundamentals and more by loose monetary policy around the world.

The main economic event will be Friday's non-farm payrolls report for February. The U.S. economy is expected to have added 160,000 jobs last month, only a tad higher than in January, in a sign the labor market is healing at a slow pace. The U.S. unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 7.9 percent.

While lackluster data has been a catalyst in the past for stock market gains as investors bet it would ensure continued stimulus from the Federal Reserve, that sentiment may be wearing thin.

Markets stumbled last week following worries that the Fed might wind down its quantitative easing program sooner than expected.

"It shows the underpinning of the market is being driven at this point by monetary policy," Hellwig said.

With investors questioning what is behind the rally, it will make a run to record highs even more significant, Hellwig added.

"There's smart people that are in the bull camp and the bear camp and the muddle-through camp," Hellwig said. "The fact that you can statistically, using historical evidence, make a case for going higher, lower, or staying the same makes this number very important this time around."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Comments or questions on this column can be emailed to: leah.schnurr(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Additional reporting by Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/record-highs-sight-stocks-face-roadblocks-031737068--sector.html

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