After death of Tata Motors' MD Karl Slym, Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Indian operations

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The chairman's address to Tata Motors employees on the first day of April is a 26-year-old tradition. Never before has the setting for it been so hopeful and yet so anxious. Hopeful because five years after the disappointing Nano launch, the company finally has two new carsBolt, a premium hatchback, and Zest, a compact sedanto go to the market with.

Chairman Cyrus Mistry even went to the extent of calling the upcoming launches of these cars (and some trucks) an "inflexion point" for the Rs 1,89,000 crore ($34.7 billion) company.

Anxious because Tata Motors has to navigate this inflexion point without a CEO. Seventy five days after former Tata Motors MD Karl Slym's sudden demise, no internal candidate is in contention, nor is an external candidate in sight.

Chairman Mistry, though, is now playing a hands-on role. He has reorganised the Tata Motors' leadership unitpreviously, 12 managers reporting to Slyminto a five-member team reporting to him. The five are engineering and research president Tim Leverton, commercial vehicles ED R Pisharody, passenger vehicles president Ranjit Yadav, director-quality Satish Borwankar and CFO C Ramakrishnan.

Mistry also pulled in Stefan Berger, earlier with Jaguar Land Rover and now Tata Sons, to be part of all meetings with the Tata Motors leadership. Berger, part of the chairman's office and in charge of strategy, is playing an executive role in the committee, even as the search for an MD intensifies, say company officials.

Mistry has had two review meetings since February.

"Cyrus is very business driven, has sharper, shorter meetings, and has the appetite to think out of the box," says an executive who is part of the leadership team, on the condition of anonymity. In response to queries on the personnel reorganisation and succession planning, a company spokesperson said: "Certain organisational alignments were made in terms of reporting hierarchy of those previously reporting in to the MD, to enable seamless continuity of operational processes."

Implementer CEO

Highly-placed sources say Egon Zehnder has been given the mandate to search for Slym's successor. "Tata Motors' experience with two former expat CEOsCarl-Peter Forster and Slymdid not end well," says the CEO of another Mumbai-based search firm, not wanting to be named. "The company has decided to look at experienced Indians, someone who fits the business and culture of Tata Motors."

Much of the speculation has centred around two contenders: V Sumantran, the former vice-chairman of Ashok Leyland, and Wilfried Aulbur, the former MD of Mercedes India and current managing partner of Roland Berger Consultancy. Sumantran, 54, resigned from Ashok Leyland last month, triggering speculation that he may be headed towards Tata Motors, though more likely as an advisor than as a CEO candidate. "I do not want to respond to speculation," Sumantran told ET.

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After death of Tata Motors' MD Karl Slym, Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Indian operations

Brentwood arrest linked to Stovall slaying

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The U.S. Attorneys Office confirmed Wednesday that a man arrested in Brentwood on Tuesday was wanted by the FBI in connection with the 2009 killing of a Columbia man.

Rickey Eugene Big Rick Davis Jr., 33, of 802 Armstrong Lane, Columbia, was taken into custody Tuesday morning near the Macys department store at Cool Springs Galleria mall.

Brentwood Assistant Chief Tommy Walsh said the FBI had alerted BPD that Davis was going to be in the area that morning. Walsh said his officers were prepared to intercept Davis at Moores Lane but soon discovered his vehicle at the mall.

We took him into custody without any incident, fortunately, Walsh said.

A federal indictment naming Davis and three other men accused of killing Relland Stovall was unsealed Tuesday afternoon.

Davis, Deterines Cortae Weeda Cathey, 24, of Columbia, Avery Donte C-Mo Harwell, 25, of Mt. Pleasant, and Edward Christopher Big Newt Claude are alleged members of the Kitchen Crips gang whose members and associates engaged in narcotics trafficking and acts of violence, which operated principally in the Mount Pleasant and Columbia areas of Maury County, Tennessee, according to the indictment.

Harwell remains in state custody on other charges, David Boling of the U.S. Attorneys Office said. He also said another arrest was expected within the next 24 hours, but he did not specify which man was sought.

Columbia Police said Wednesday they are actively searching for Cathey, who is considered to be potentially violent and possibly armed.

According to the indictment, the four men were involved in a drive-by shooting on April 5, 2009, to avenge the shooting of a Kitchen Crips gang member earlier on that same date. A stray bullet struck Relland Stovall in the head while he was standing inside his home on White Street in Columbia.

Stovall, then 36, was developmentally disabled and worked with his brother Rolland Stovall as cafeteria aides at Highland Park Elementary School. The pair were known about town for walking together everywhere they went, and picking up trash from the road to keep the community clean.

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Brentwood arrest linked to Stovall slaying

Paul Bettany: 'Transcendence Technology Is Just Decades Away'

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Paul Bettany is convinced the eerie technology featured in his new movie Transcendence will be commonplace within his lifetime.

In the film, Johnny Depp plays a terminally ill scientist whose mind is uploaded to a computer, granting him power beyond his wildest dreams - and his 42-year-old co-star believes the story isn't as far fetched as some people think it is.

Bettany tells Wenn, "I spoke to a professor at Cal Tech (the California Institute of Technology). He's a brilliant man. When I walked into the room he was looking at a slice of the human brain whilst listening to Wagner.

"I asked him, 'How far fetched is this technology?' and he said, 'In 30 years'. I said, 'You mean we will be able to upload human consciousness - thoughts, feelings, history...?' And he said, 'Yes'. I said, 'But you're talking about immortality?' And he said, 'Yes!'

"That is what I remember from the meeting. It was a terrifying thought that they are unified in the opinion that we have always been on a collision course with technology and the next stage of our evolution will involve machinery. That's a hell of a thought."

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Paul Bettany: 'Transcendence Technology Is Just Decades Away'

Judge Napolitano: Nancy Pelosi ‘Dead Wrong’ That Framers Wanted Socialized Medicine – Video

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Judge Napolitano: Nancy Pelosi #39;Dead Wrong #39; That Framers Wanted Socialized Medicine
Air Date: April 3rd, 2014 This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a #39;fair use #39; of any such copyrighted...

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Judge Napolitano: Nancy Pelosi 'Dead Wrong' That Framers Wanted Socialized Medicine - Video

Four Addiction Medicine Fellowship Programs Accredited by The ABAM Foundation

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Newswise The American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) Foundation today announced the accreditation of four new addiction medicine fellowship programs, bringing the total number of accredited programs to 23.

The fellowship programs, which are modeled on the Foundations national guidelines, Program Requirements for Graduate Medical Education in Addiction Medicine, are based at leading medical institutions across the U.S. and Canada. Accreditation of these new programs means that there are now 58 addiction medicine fellowship slots available each year.

We now have accredited addiction medicine fellowships at leading institutions on both coasts and at a number of locales in between, as well as in two Canadian provinces, and plans for further expansion, said Patrick G. OConnor, MD, MPH, FACP, President of ABAM and The ABAM Foundation, and Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Section of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine. These fellowships train future addiction medicine leaders. Together with passage of our rigorous examination, this clinical training will help make evidence-based addiction treatment more readily available to those who need it.

The ABAM Foundation hopes to accredit 50 addiction medicine fellowship programs by 2020. The new fellowship programs are: The University of Colorado Addiction Medicine Fellowship (Aurora, CO); The Summa Addiction Medicine Fellowship (Akron, OH); The Swedish Medical Center Addiction Medicine Fellowship (Seattle, WA); and The Hines / Loyola Addiction Medicine Fellowship (Hines/Maywood, IL). (See table at end of this release for information on these programs, and detailed summaries of all ABAM Foundation fellowship programs at http://www.abamfoundation.org).

The ABAM Foundation-accredited fellowship programs provide subspecialty training, which is offered to physicians already trained in a specialty such as internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, emergency medicine, surgery, preventive medicine, or obstetrics and gynecology.

The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology offers its own fellowships in the psychiatry subspecialty of addiction psychiatry. There are 45 addiction psychiatry fellowship programs in the U.S.

The new training programs have been established at a time of increasing promise for addiction treatment, as well as an increased need for trained treatment providers. Recent scientific discoveries have confirmed that addiction is a chronic disease of the brain caused by biological and developmental factors, with unique vulnerabilities and pathology, and a predictable course, if not interrupted by effective treatment. An increasing number of medically based addiction treatments have recently become available. Expanded coverage and demand for addiction medicine physicians will increase, as 30 million formerly uninsured Americans become covered under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Accrediting these and future training programs will help to assure the American public that addiction physician specialists have the knowledge and skills to prevent, recognize and treat addiction. It will also help ensure that trained physicians are available to address common medical or psychiatric conditions related to the use of addictive substances.

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Four Addiction Medicine Fellowship Programs Accredited by The ABAM Foundation

Researchers show fruit flies have latent bioluminescence

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

10-Apr-2014

Contact: Jim Fessenden james.fessenden@umassmed.edu 508-856-2000 University of Massachusetts Medical School

WORCESTER, Mass. New research from scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows that fruit flies are secretly harboring the biochemistry needed to glow in the dark otherwise known as bioluminescence.

The key to activating this latent ability is a novel synthetic analog of D-luciferin developed at UMMS. The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the inherent biochemistry needed for bioluminescence is more common than previously thought. Synthetic luciferins can unmask latent enzymatic activity capable of producing light in animals not known for their luminescence. This expands the scope of bioluminescence imaging for research, and adds new tools for the noninvasive studying of ongoing biological processes.

Few animals can naturally glow in the dark. The best known example, the firefly, creates bioluminescence when the small molecule D-luciferin is oxidized by the enzyme luciferase, which is only found in beetles.

The luciferase enzyme is believed to have evolved from the fatty acyl-CoA synthetases (ACSLs) found in all insects. Both classes of enzymes are members of the adenylate-forming superfamily and can activate fatty acids. But only luciferase catalyzes light emission from D-luciferin. Stephen C Miller, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at UMass Medical School, had previously found that some mutations in the luciferase enzyme reduce light emission from the natural D-luciferin substrate, but improve light emission when using synthetic luciferins developed in his lab.

"This suggested to us that the failure of insect ACSLs to emit light with the beetle luciferase substrate D-luciferin didn't necessarily mean they weren't capable of the biochemistry needed to glow," said Dr. Miller, senior author of the PNAS study.

He hypothesized that ACSL enzymes in other insects are capable of a bioluminescent reaction similar to the firefly. The key was finding a small molecule to fill the role of D-luciferin, which is not a substrate for ACSLs, to kick start the biochemical reaction.

Suspecting that D-luciferin was in fact a poor substrate for ACSLs due to its shape, Miller and colleagues David Mofford, a fourth year doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and first author of the study and Randheer Gadarla, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow, tested a number of synthetic luciferins he had developed to see if they had the geometry necessary to initiate bioluminescence using the fatty acyl-CoA synthetase CG6178 found in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

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Researchers show fruit flies have latent bioluminescence

Grand Theft Auto 5 | GTA 3 "Liberty City Triads" Easter Egg! (GTA 5 Easter Eggs) – Video

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Grand Theft Auto 5 | GTA 3 "Liberty City Triads" Easter Egg! (GTA 5 Easter Eggs)
The triads from GTA 3 are back and referenced in this all new GTA 5 Easter Egg! To see this hidden Easter Egg, simply visit the location in the video in the ...

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Grand Theft Auto 5 | GTA 3 "Liberty City Triads" Easter Egg! (GTA 5 Easter Eggs) - Video