Alabama holds off Georgia 32-28, advances to Miami

Alabama running back Blake Sims (6) celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hyosub Shin) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; WXIA-TV OUT; WGCL-TV OUT

Alabama running back Blake Sims (6) celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hyosub Shin) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; WXIA-TV OUT; WGCL-TV OUT

Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron and Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, right, embrace before the start the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Alabama running back Eddie Lacy (42) gestures as he walks off the field after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Alabama offensive linesmen Barrett Jones, right, Arie Kouandjio (77) react after their 32-28 win over Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Georgia linebacker Alec Ogletree (9) runs back a blocked field goal for a touchdown during the second half of the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football?game against Alabama, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

ATLANTA (AP) ? Alabama got a hand on the ball, which wobbled into the arms of a Georgia receiver who wasn't supposed to catch it.

Before the Bulldogs could get off another play, the clock ran out.

The Crimson Tide is heading back to the national championship game.

By a mere 5 yards.

AJ McCarron threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper with 3:15 remaining and No. 2 Alabama barely held on at the end, beating No. 3 Georgia 32-28 in a Southeastern Conference title game for the ages Saturday.

"I'm ready to have a heart attack here," Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said.

As confetti fell from the Georgia Dome roof, the Bulldogs collapsed on the field, stunned they had come so close to knocking off the team that has won two of the last three national titles.

"We just ran out of time," Georgia coach Mark Richt moaned.

Alabama (12-1) will get a chance to make it three out of four when they face top-ranked Notre Dame for the BCS crown on Jan. 7 in Miami.

This time, Alabama will head to the big game with a championship already in its pocket ? unlike last year's squad, which didn't even make it to Atlanta, but got a do-over against SEC champion LSU in the national title game.

Even though the Tide left little doubt it was truly the best team in the country, routing the Tigers 21-0, there were plenty who thought Saban's team didn't deserve a rematch.

There will be no complaints when Alabama heads to South Florida for a dream matchup between two of college football's most storied programs. The Tide and Notre Dame have each won eight Associated Press national titles, more than any other school.

"This group has been fantastic," Saban said. "They were able to accomplish something of significance, and something that last year's team didn't accomplish, which is win the SEC championship."

What a game it was.

After an apparent game-clinching interception by Alabama was overturned on a video review, Georgia's Aaron Murray completed a 15-yard pass to Arthur Lynch, a 23-yarder to Tavarres King and a 26-yarder to Lynch, who was hauled down at the Alabama 8 as the clock continued to run.

The Bulldogs (11-2) were out of timeouts.

Instead of spiking the ball and gathering themselves, the Bulldog snapped the ball with 9 seconds to go. Murray attempted a pass into the corner but it was deflected at the line and ended in the arms of Chris Conley out in the right flats.

Surprised to get the ball, he slipped down at the 5.

Georgia couldn't get off another play.

Richt said the offense had the play it wanted at the end, but Alabama ruined it by tipping the pass. If it had fallen incomplete instead of going to Conley, who instinctively caught it, the Bulldogs likely would've had at least one more play, maybe two.

Instead, they were done.

"I told the guys I was disappointed, but I'm not disappointed in them," Richt said. "They're warriors. We had a chance at the end."

The consolation prize will likely be a spot in the Capital One Bowl, though the Bulldogs certainly looked like a team deserving of something better.

"Do I think we're worthy of a BCS bowl?" Richt said. "Yes I do."

The Bulldogs even got props from Saban.

"It would be a crying shame if Georgia doesn't get to go to a BCS bowl game," the Alabama coach said. "They played a tremendous game out there. That was a great football game, by both teams. It came right down to the last play."

In a back-and-forth second half that looked nothing like a game in the defensive-minded SEC, the Crimson Tide trailed 21-10 after Alec Ogletree returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown in the third quarter.

Alabama rallied behind a punishing run game, finishing with 350 yards on the ground, an SEC championship game record. Eddie Lacy ? the game's MVP ? rumbled for 181 yards on 20 carries, including two TDs. Freshman T.J. Yeldon added 153 yards on 25 carries, also scoring a TD.

After the game, Lacy hooked up with the guy he replaced in the Alabama backfield ? Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, now with the NFL's New Orleans Saints.

"He just told me congratulations and that I did a great job running and it was it was the best he's ever seen me run." Lacy said.

But the Tide won it through the air.

With Georgia stacking the line, McCarron fooled the Bulldogs with play action and delivered a perfectly thrown pass to Cooper, who beat Damian Swann in single coverage down the left side.

Georgia played like a champion until the clock ran out, though.

Using up their timeouts and forcing a punt, the Bulldogs got the ball back at their 15 with 1:08 remaining. Alabama broke into a celebration when a pass down the middle for Conley was deflected and Dee Milliner appeared to make a diving interception. But the replay showed the ball hit the ground, so Murray and the Georgia offense trotted back on the field for their last gasp.

And what a gasp it was.

Just not quite enough.

Todd Gurley led Georgia with 122 yards rushing, including a couple of TDs. Murray was 18 of 33 for 265 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

McCarron was 12 of 21 for 162 yards with an interception, just his third of the season.

After a defensive struggle in the first half, with Alabama kicking a field goal on the final play for a 10-7 lead, the last two quarters were nothing but run-and-gun.

The Bulldogs took the second-half kickoff and marched right down the field for the go-ahead touchdown. Gurley ran it seven times, capped by leg-churning, 3-yard drive up the middle to make it 14-10.

Alabama looked like it was about to answer, holding the ball for more than 5 1-2 minutes, before the drive stalled. Cade Foster came on for a 50-yard field-goal attempt, but his low kick was swatted down by Cornelius Washington. Ogletree scooped up the bouncing ball in stride and returned it 55 yards for a touchdown.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs led 21-10.

But the Tide wasn't about to go away that easy. Yeldon broke off a 31-yard run, Swann was called interference on a throw down the middle, and Yeldon powered in from the 10. He ran it again for the 2-point conversion, pulling Alabama to 21-18.

Georgia went three-and-out, and the ground assault resumed. Lacy barreled over right guard for 32 yards. Yeldon got it down to the 1. Lacy returned for the first snap of the fourth period, bulling over to put Alabama ahead 25-21.

The Tide's momentum lasted about 2 minutes.

Murray found King down the middle for a 45-yard completion and Gurley finished off the lightning-quick possession with a 10-yard touchdown run up the middle, putting Georgia back on top, 28-25.

But Alabama knows a thing or two about comebacks, having rebounded the last two years from regular-season losses.

Just three weeks ago, the Tide was upset at home by Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M.

Now, Bama is off to play for another title.

"It's just the never-give-up attitude," McCarron said. "You've got to keep fighting through it."

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-01-T25-SEC%20Championship/id-6c4345326687404481214028970b0882

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Inflammation may be a cause of plaque buildup in heart vessels

ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2012) ? Fifteen new genetic regions associated with coronary artery disease have been identified by a large, international consortium of scientists -- including researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine -- taking a significant step forward in understanding the root causes of this deadly disease. The new research brings the total number of validated genetic links with heart disease discovered through genome-wide association studies to 46.

Coronary artery disease is the process by which plaque builds up in the wall of heart vessels, eventually leading to chest pain and potentially lethal heart attacks. It is the leading cause of death worldwide.

The study, published online Dec. 2 in Nature Genetics, provides insights into the molecular pathways causing coronary artery disease, which is also known as coronary atherosclerosis.

"Perhaps the most interesting results of this study show that some people may be born with a predisposition to the development of coronary atherosclerosis because they have inherited mutations in some key genes related to inflammation," said Themistocles (Tim) Assimes, MD, PhD, a Stanford assistant professor of medicine and one of the study's lead authors. "There has been much debate as to whether inflammation seen in plaque buildup in heart vessels is a cause or a consequence of the plaques themselves. Our network analysis of the top approximately 240 genetic signals in this study seems to provide evidence that genetic defects in some pathways related to inflammation are a cause."

More than 170 researchers were involved in this massive meta-analysis combining genetic data from more than 190,000 research participants. Interestingly, about a quarter of the genetic regions associated with coronary disease or heart attack were also found to be strongly associated with cholesterol, especially high levels of the so-called bad cholesterol known as LDL. Another 10 percent were associated with high blood pressure. Both of these conditions are known risk factors for coronary artery disease.

"The signals that do not point to known risk factors may be pointing to novel mechanisms of disease," Assimes said. "It is imperative that we quickly gain a better understanding of how these regions are linked to heart disease, as such understanding will greatly facilitate the development of new drugs to prevent heart disease."

Genome-wide association studies, or GWAS, were first introduced in 2005 as a way of quickly scanning the entire genome to identify differences in the DNA code, or "polymporphisms," that predispose people to various common but genetically complex diseases. Results of these studies have shown that conditions such as heart disease involve the combined, subtle effects of far more polymorphisms than initially expected, requiring multiple massive meta-analyses such as this one to reliably uncover all of these genetic signals. The hope of scientists is that by working together in ongoing worldwide collaborations, the entire genetic contribution to the cause of heart disease will eventually be identified.

"Studies like this one help provide new pathways for scientists to investigate in more detail," said co-author Thomas Quertermous, MD, a Stanford professor of medicine. "The promise is in providing better insights into the pathophysiology of this disease."

This meta-analysis study built upon previous research published last year in Nature Genetics. In that study, investigators examined 2.5 million SNPs (genetic variants at specific locations on individual chromosomes) from 14 GWA studies, which led to the discovery of 13 new gene regions associated with heart disease. Investigators looked at data from the complete genetic profiles of more than 22,000 people of European descent with heart disease and more than 64,000 healthy people.

In the new study, scientists used all information from last year's study then added to it, reaching 41,513 patients with heart disease and 65,919 control patients. To genetically fingerprint a large number of subjects in a very cost-effective manner, the researchers used a specialized genetic chip that incorporated only the top signals from the original meta-analysis of the initial 14 GWA studies.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Tracie White.

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. Panos Deloukas et al. Large-scale association analysis identifies new risk loci for coronary artery disease. Nature Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2480

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/most_popular/~3/xP4f9Mbe5Nc/121202164436.htm

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As DC bickers over 'fiscal cliff,' markets rumble

11 hrs.

Patti Domm , CNBC.com

The economic damage from Super Storm Sandy will show up in November?s jobs report and elsewhere in the coming week, but the markets will stay fixated on Washington?s ?fiscal cliff? talks.

The cliff negotiations between the White House and Congressional Republicans seem to be going sideways with no progress on taxes or spending cuts, and markets have been somewhat patient so far with political posturing.

Stocks were higher on the week but ended mixed for the month of November, with the Dow down a half percent at 13,025; the S&P up 0.3 percent at 1416, and the Nasdaq up 1 percent at 3010, on the back of gains in some big tech names.?

?Sandy is beginning to influence the jobs data and many other sorts of data for the next couple of months ? just at a time when the market is uncertain about the fiscal cliff, and the lingering uncertainties about Europe and China and elsewhere,? said Ed Keon, portfolio manager at Quantitative Management Associates. ?Now we have these other uncertainties and the data is going to be less relevant than normal. We are just going to have to adjust.??

But Keon does not believe that makes for a negative market environment, and he also expects the fiscal cliff to be resolved. The cliff is the expiration of dozens of tax breaks and the onset of automatic spending cuts if Congress does not act.

?I have actually been a small net buyer over the past couple of weeks, not a huge buyer. I have been buying for some of my funds,? Keon said, adding he saw some good values when the market sold off in the days after the election.

NBC?Politics:?Geithner urges Republican leaders to offer ideas on averting fiscal cliff

Economists expect to see the impact of Sandy in Monday?s ISM manufacturing data, construction spending and car sales. Auto sales should see a positive impact, as tree damage and flooding destroyed many east coast vehicles. Other data have shown negative impacts, particularly jobless claims for the past three weeks. Chain-store sales for November were also affected, as was Friday?s report of personal spending.

Auto sales could surge above a 15 million annualized selling rate in November, up from 14.3 million on improvements in housing and pent-up demand, in addition to the Sandy replacement cars.

As for Friday?s jobs report, the consensus forecast among Wall Street economists is that 100,000 nonfarm payrolls were created in November and the unemployment rate stays unchanged at 7.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters. That is down from 171,000 payrolls in October.

But some economists believe the report could be much weaker. Barclays Capital economists expect just 50,000 jobs were created in November, and the unemployment rate crept up to 8 percent.

?From our point of view, this is only a Sandy effect. This is not a fiscal cliff issue,? said Barclays economist Michael Gapen. ?You had a very large rise in jobless claims two weeks after Sandy hit.? Gapen said that follows a pattern in claims seen after other major storms.

?In the month after landfall is where there?s the most distortion,? said Gapin. ?Claims, payrolls, retail sales, industrial production.?

Gapen said fourth-quarter GDP is now tracking at 1.8 percent, but his forecast is still for 2.5 percent. ?Somewhere in here we should see the low point, and we should start to tick higher,? he said of the fourth-quarter economic reports.

Gapen expects first-quarter GDP to grow by 1.5 percent, due to the impact of fiscal tightening and higher taxes. ?We expect an outcome on the fiscal cliff that?s not overly disruptive to either markets or the economy. We look for about $200 billion of the $650 billion in tightening to go into effect. That would take about 1 percent off of growth in the first quarter,? he said.

Keon said one reason he sees stocks as a good value is that he sees the economy gaining some traction. He pointed to the improvement in housing and the fact that household balance sheets have improved.

He is also not worried about the pending impact of tax changes on stocks. When the capital gains tax and dividend taxes were first cut, he said the benefit to stocks was only about two percent. He also noted that only about half of stocks are owned by taxable investors.

Both capital gains and dividend tax rates are 15 percent, and if tax breaks are left to expire the highest capital gains tax rate would revert to 23.8 percent and the highest dividend rate could be 43.4 percent. Those would be the levels on the highest income earners, when including the new 3.8 percent Affordable Care Act tax on the top income brackets.

?With a little bit of traction in the jobs market, a little bit of traction in the economy and a little bit of improvement in consumer confidence, we have a better chance in 2013 of seeing growth a little bit better than people were expecting, rather than worse,? he said.

Keon said the trend of companies paying special dividends is likely a positive though there?s not enough data on the trend to do quantitative analysis. ?In general, a focus on being creative in ways to reward shareholders is a good thing,? he said. Companies have been rushing to offer special dividends to shareholders ahead of year end and the expected higher dividend tax rates.

?Usually what happens is you get a boost from announcing the special dividend. But once the dividend is paid out you get a subsequent drop,? he said.

What to Watch:

Monday

• Monthly auto sales
  
• 10:00 a.m. ISM manufacturing
  
• 10:00 a.m. Construction spending

Wednesday

• 08:15 a.m. ADP employment (November)
  
• 08:30 a.m. Productivity and costs
  
• 10:00 a.m. ISM nonmanufacturing
  
• 10:00 a.m. Factory orders
  

Thursday

• 08:30 a.m. Weekly jobless claims
  

Friday

• 08:30 am Employment report
  
• 09:55 am Consumer sentiment

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/stormy-weather-markets-washington-bickers-1C7376578

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Syria rebels bombed as opposition open to peacekeepers

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian jets bombed rebel-held areas of Damascus on Saturday, residents said, as the opposition indicated it could accept an international peacekeeping force if President Bashar al-Assad is forced from power.

Warplanes attacked the Damascus suburbs of Kafar Souseh and Darraya, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked group. The air strikes follow intensified rebel activity in the capital, Assad's seat of power, as well as successful stormings of government military bases in recent weeks.

"Syrian regular forces are trying to control the areas surrounding the capital," the Observatory said. Bombings targeted a continuous arc of rebel presence in the capital's outer districts from the northeast to the southwest.

Activists reported clashes and air strikes in the provinces of Homs, Deir al-Zor, Idlib and in Aleppo, where they said 14 rebel fighters were killed during an assault on an army base in the town of Khanasser early on Saturday.

It is difficult to verify such reports due to government restrictions on media access to Syria.

Syria's Internet connections began working again on Saturday after a two-day blackout, the worst communications outage in the 20-month-old uprising against Assad in which 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee the country.

Opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Coalition might allow an international peacekeeping force into Syria if Assad and his allies leave power, coalition spokesman Walid al-Bunni said on Saturday.

Some opposition members have argued against international troops, saying their arrival could serve as a rallying call for Assad loyalists in an area near the Mediterranean where many of his minority Alawite sect live.

Assad, whose family has ruled autocratically for four decades, draws much of his support from the sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Most of the rebels are Sunni Muslims.

Bunni said the coalition was open to any proposal if Assad and his allies, including top officers in the military and security apparatus, were removed.

"If this is the first condition then we can start discussing everything. There will be no political process until the ruling family and all those who underpin the regime leave," he added.

Bunni, a physician who spent most of the period after Assad inherited power from his father in 2000 in jail as a political prisoner, was speaking at a news conference marking the conclusion of the first full meeting of the 60-member opposition coalition in Cairo.

"IRON AND BLOOD"

Britain, France and Gulf countries have recognized the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

Most foreign powers have condemned Assad, who has relied on his allies to stay afloat, especially regional powerhouse Iran. Russia, Syria's main arms supplier, and China have vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Assad and reject the idea of sanctioning his government.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western states on Saturday of trying to advance democracy abroad through "iron and blood."

"Advancing democracy through iron and blood just does not work, and this has been made clear in recent months - the past year-and-a-half," Lavrov said, according to state-run news agency Itar-Tass.

Russia repeated its opposition on Friday to NATO's potential deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey, which wants them because of fears of a spillover from the war in Syria.

Syrian state television quoted a ministry of information statement saying Damascus international airport was open on Saturday and that the road leading to it was safe.

Since Thursday, clashes have been reported near the Aqraba and Babilla districts on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus which lead to the airport, effectively closing the road and leading EgyptAir and Emirates to suspend flights.

U.S. web tracking firm Renesys said in a blog post that it could confirm "a largely complete restoration of the Syrian Internet."

Rights groups said the communications drop off was a precursor to a wider offensive by government forces in the capital. Syrian security sources and diplomats say the government intends to seal off central Damascus from the restive suburbs.

Authorities had attributed the Internet outage to a "terrorist" attack or a technical fault. On Saturday, state news agency SANA gave a third reason for the outage, which is said was now restored: "maintenance work."

Residents contacted by Reuters in the capital, the central city of Homs, and northern Aleppo said they had connectivity.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Cairo; editing by Jason Webb)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-jets-bomb-rebels-internet-down-third-day-113622908.html

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Psychiatrists OK vast changes to diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) ? For the first time in almost two decades the nation's psychiatrists are changing the guidebook they use to diagnose mental disorders. Among the most controversial proposed changes: Dropping certain familiar terms like Asperger's disorder and dyslexia and calling frequent, severe temper tantrums a mental illness.

The board of trustees for the American Psychiatric Association voted Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., on scores of revisions that have been in the works for several years. Details will come next May when the group's fifth diagnostic manual is published.

The trustees made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several task force groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

Board members were tightlipped about the update, but its impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide.

The manual "defines what constellations of symptoms health care professionals recognize as mental disorders and more importantly ... shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care," said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor who was not involved in the revision process.

The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

The guidebook's official title is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The new one is the fifth edition, known as the DSM-5. A 2000 edition made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

The manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders," Olfson said.

Expected changes include formally adopting a term for children and adults with autism ? "autism spectrum disorder," encompassing those with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, and those with mild forms including Asperger's. Asperger's patients often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on quirky subjects but lack social skills.

Some Asperger's families opposed the change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services. And some older Asperger's patients who embrace their quirkiness vowed to continue to use the label.

But experts say the change won't affect the special services available to this group.

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the recommended new diagnosis.

One reason for the recommended change is that in some states and some school systems, children and adults with Asperger's receive no services or fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Other proposed changes include:

?A new diagnosis ? disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, which critics argued would medicalize kids' normal temper tantrums. Supporters said it would address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings from feeling sad and depressed to unusually happy or energetic. Affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums. The new diagnosis would be given to children and adults who can't control their emotions and have frequent temper outbursts in inappropriate situations.

?Eliminating the term "dyslexia," a reading disorder that causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words. The term would be encompassed in a broader learning disorder category.

?Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender ? they dispute their normal biological anatomy. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

Online:

Diagnostic manual: http://www.dsm5.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-12-01-Mental%20Disorders/id-db3a1c059ec34b82ade78e5b6636e206

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Skeleton Key Announces Brightsource IT

St. Louis, MO, December 01, 2012 ?(PR.com)? Skeleton Key, an accomplished team of technology consultants who solve business problems, is pleased to announce the re-branding of their Information Technology division into sister-company, Brightsource IT.

Founded in 2004 with headquarters in St. Louis, Skeleton Key has maintained two successful divisions: Application Development and Information Technology. The Application Development side of the company builds custom-fit business tools and reporting dashboards that make critical information accessible and actionable. The Information Technology side of the company provides technology consulting, technical support and Managed IT Services to small and medium businesses.

Both Skeleton Key and Brightsource IT will continue to operate with the same ownership and management. Oliver Block will manage daily operations for Brightsource IT. Mark Richman will continue to manage Skeleton Key. The newly remodeled office is at the same location, 3260 Hampton Avenue, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO 63139. Likewise, the same reliable and growing staff will represent both companies.

?I look forward to making it easier for our customers to identify each of our core service offerings under a unique brand. Skeleton Key has always been about flexibility and customization, whereas Brightsource IT is about doing IT the right way and following best practices rigorously. I?m confident this re-branding of our IT offering will help our clients understand this difference and see how the two complement one another when services are provided by both divisions in concert,? said Mark Richman, President, Skeleton Key and Brightsource IT.

For more information about Brightsource IT, please visit: www.BrightsourceIT.com Brightsource IT?s main phone number is: (314) 561-6600.

Contact Information:
Skeleton Key & Brightsource IT
Nancy Rodriguez
314-353-4300
Contact via Email
www.SkeletonKey.com
Operations & Marketing

Click here to read the full story: Skeleton Key Announces Brightsource IT

Press Release Distributed by PR.com

Source: http://money.rambergmedia.com/skeleton-key-announces-brightsource-it/

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The beginning of everything: New paradigm shift for the infant universe

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State University. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe over 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes.

The research will be published on 11 December 2012 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

"We humans always have yearned to understand more about the origin and evolution of our universe," said Abhay Ashtekar, the senior author of the paper. "So it is an exciting time in our group right now, as we begin using our new paradigm to understand, in more detail, the dynamics that matter and geometry experienced during the earliest eras of the universe, including at the very beginning." Ashtekar is the Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics at Penn State and the director of the university's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Coauthors of the paper, along with Ashtekar, are postdoctoral fellows Ivan Agullo and William Nelson.

The new paradigm provides a conceptual and mathematical framework for describing the exotic "quantum-mechanical geometry of space-time" in the very early universe. The paradigm shows that, during this early era, the universe was compressed to such unimaginable densities that its behavior was ruled not by the classical physics of Einstein's general theory of relativity, but by an even more fundamental theory that also incorporates the strange dynamics of quantum mechanics. The density of matter was huge then -- 10⁹⁴ grams per cubic centimeter, as compared with the density of an atomic nucleus today, which is only 10¹⁴ grams.

In this bizarre quantum-mechanical environment -- where one can speak only of probabilities of events rather than certainties -- physical properties naturally would be vastly different from the way we experience them today. Among these differences, Ashtekar said, are the concept of "time," as well as the changing dynamics of various systems over time as they experience the fabric of quantum geometry itself.

No space observatories have been able to detect anything as long ago and far away as the very early eras of the universe described by the new paradigm. But a few observatories have come close. Cosmic background radiation has been detected in an era when the universe was only 380-thousand years old. By that time, after a period of rapid expansion called "inflation," the universe had burst out into a much-diluted version of its earlier super-compressed self. At the beginning of inflation, the density of the universe was a trillion times less than during its infancy, so quantum factors now are much less important in ruling the large-scale dynamics of matter and geometry.

Observations of the cosmic background radiation show that the universe had a predominantly uniform consistency after inflation, except for a light sprinkling of some regions that were more dense and others that were less dense. The standard inflationary paradigm for describing the early universe, which uses the classical-physics equations of Einstein, treats space-time as a smooth continuum. "The inflationary paradigm enjoys remarkable success in explaining the observed features of the cosmic background radiation. Yet this model is incomplete. It retains the idea that the universe burst forth from nothing in a Big Bang, which naturally results from the inability of the paradigm's general-relativity physics to describe extreme quantum-mechanical situations," Agullo said. "One needs a quantum theory of gravity, like loop quantum cosmology, to go beyond Einstein in order to capture the true physics near the origin of the universe."

Earlier work with loop quantum cosmology in Ashtekar's group had updated the concept of the Big Bang with the intriguing concept of a Big Bounce, which allows the possibility that our universe emerged not from nothing but from a super-compressed mass of matter that previously may have had a history of its own.

Even though the quantum-mechanical conditions at the beginning of the universe were vastly different from the classical-physics conditions after inflation, the new achievement by the Penn State physicists reveals a surprising connection between the two different paradigms that describe these eras. When scientists use the inflation paradigm together with Einstein's equations to model the evolution of the seed-like areas sprinkled throughout the cosmic background radiation, they find that the irregularities serve as seeds that evolve over time into the galaxy clusters and other large-scale structures that we see in the universe today. Amazingly, when the Penn State scientists used their new loop-quantum-origins paradigm with its quantum-cosmology equations, they found that fundamental fluctuations in the very nature of space at the moment of the Big Bounce evolve to become the seed-like structures seen in the cosmic microwave background.

"Our new work shows that the initial conditions at the very beginning of the universe naturally lead to the large-scale structure of the universe that we observe today," Ashtekar said. "In human terms, it is like taking a snapshot of a baby right at birth and then being able to project from it an accurate profile of how that person will be at age 100."

"This paper pushes back the genesis of the cosmic structure of our universe from the inflationary epoch all the way to the Big Bounce, covering some 11 orders of magnitude in the density of matter and the curvature of space-time," Nelson said. "We now have narrowed down the initial conditions that could exist at the Big Bounce, plus we find that the evolution of those initial conditions agrees with observations of the cosmic background radiation."

The team's results also identify a narrower range of parameters for which the new paradigm predicts novel effects, distinguishing it from standard inflation. Ashtekar said, "It is exciting that we soon may be able to test different predictions from these two theories against future discoveries with next-generation observational missions. Such experiments will help us to continue gaining a deeper understanding of the very, very early universe."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by Barbara K. Kennedy.

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. Ivan Agullo, Abhay Ashtekar, and William Nelson. Quantum gravity extension of the inflationary scenario. Physical Review Letters, December 11, 2012

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/KJ2HhYd9VXM/121129143452.htm

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