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Exclusive: Petronas considers $1 billion stake sale in offshore gas project – sources – Reuters

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

By Anshuman Daga | SINGAPORE

SINGAPORE Malaysian state-owned oil and gas firm Petronas is aiming to sell a large minority stake in a prized upstream local gas project for up to $1 billion as it seeks to raise cash and cut development costs, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is looking to sell a stake of as much as 49 percent in the SK316 offshore gas block in Malaysia's Sarawak state, the sources told Reuters, a move that would be among its first major recent sales as it grapples with oil prices that have slumped by half over two-and-a-half years.

That slide has squeezed the cash flows of Petronas [PETR.UL], hurt its earnings and forced it a year ago to announce a 50 billion ringgit ($11.2 billion) cut in capital expenditure over four years.

Petronas, which accounts for a third of Malaysia's oil and gas revenue, has also cut its dividend. Sources had told Reuters in September it is considering selling its majority stake in a $27 billion Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, although the company denied it.

It is now working with an investment bank on the SK316 gas block stake sale and kicked off the process this month, one of the sources said. Petronas did not respond to a request for comment.

Petronas is currently gauging interest from potential buyers, said the sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak about the matter.

Gas from the NC3 field in the SK316 block feeds Malaysia's LNG export project, known as LNG 9, Petronas' joint venture with JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp that started commercial production in January.

The sources said the stake is expected to include a combination of the producing NC3 gas field, the potential development of the Kasawari field in the same block and other exploration acreage in the block.

The funds raised could contribute to the future development of the Kasawari field, one of the largest non-associated gas fields in Malaysia, which has an estimated recoverable hydrocarbon resource of about three trillion standard cubic feet.

Petronas put on hold plans to develop the field in 2015 after oil and gas prices fell, according to media reports.

Prasanth Kakaraparthi, senior upstream research analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie said overall capital expenditure for the 316 block is estimated at around $4 billion, of which the upcoming phase of development accounts for nearly 50 to 60 percent.

"Given that the second phase of development will involve a significant amount of capital commitment, it's not completely out of the question to think that they might want to bring in some partners to sort of share some of that burden," he said.

The stake could appeal to firms such as Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina, Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL and some Japanese companies, the sources said. They said it might also appeal to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company, which snapped up Royal Dutch Shell's stake in Thailand's Bongkot gas field for $900 million last month.

A PTTEP official said the company is keen to invest in Southeast Asia but did not specify if it will invest in the SK316 block. Pertamina did not immediately provide a comment.

As huge production comes online in Australia and the United States, LNG markets are oversupplied, resulting in an almost 70 percent slump in Asian spot LNG prices since 2014.

Despite this, Malaysia's LNG assets are viewed as attractive thanks to comparatively low production costs and due to their proximity to North Asia's big consumption hubs of Japan, China, and South Korea.

($1 = 4.4560 ringgit)

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Additional reporting by Florence Tan and Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE, Praveen Menon in KUALA LUMPUR, Manunphattr Dhanananphorn in BANGKOK and Wilda Asmarini in JAKARTA; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

NEW YORK Oil prices inched higher on Monday, as investor optimism over the effectiveness of producer cuts encouraged record bets on a sustained rally, although growing U.S. output and stubbornly high stockpiles kept price gains in check.

SINGAPORE/HOUSTON Chinese independent, or teapot, refiners are bringing in rare cargoes of North American heavy crude in a new long-distance flow that traders say has only been made possible by OPEC's output cuts and ample supplies in Canada and the United States.

SANTIAGO Striking workers at Chilean copper mine Escondida and mine owner BHP Billiton will go ahead with a meeting on Monday afternoon, the union told Reuters.

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Exclusive: Petronas considers $1 billion stake sale in offshore gas project - sources - Reuters

An offshore deal for Indigenous people? – Policy Options (registration)

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

If I had to count the number of times I have heard that we need to lift Indigenous people out of poverty and make Indigenous people equal and productive partners in Canadas social and economic fabric, I just would not know where or when to begin. It seems I have been hearing similar sentiments going back more than 45 years.

We heard it from politicians dating back to the Supreme Courts decision in Calder in 1973.

We heard it from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996.

We heard it from Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the governments apology on residential schools on June 11, 2008.

We heard it during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process and in the commissions calls to action in 2015.

And we are especially hearing it now in what appears to be the Liberal governments desire to open nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples and to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This is just a smattering of what has, up to now, proven to be nothing more than lip service.

Indigenous people still lag behind the rest of the country in educational achievements. Many Indigenous people live in overcrowded homes in communities that lack the infrastructure to provide safe drinking water to their people. It is a well-known fact that the rate of incarceration of Indigenous persons in our prisons far exceeds that of the non-Indigenous population, as does the proportion of Indigenous children in foster homes.

It is time we recognized that poverty is at the root of the social malaise in which many of our Indigenous people find themselves. Most Indigenous people in this country are not as lucky as some of their western First Nations cousins, who are sitting on oil and gas reserves and have found themselves in a bargaining position that would be the envy of many. And more power to them. The result in places like Fort McKay First Nation in Alberta which is prospering from the oil sands service businesses it has built is perhaps what meaningful partnerships are supposed to look like looking at it from a distance.

It is time to take a new approach to how we create wealth in Indigenous communities. Despite the many efforts to roll out various government economic development programs, which support projects like building service stations and hotels, what we as a country need to do is turn our minds to how we attract new investment to Indigenous communities.

The federal government has a policy that deals with addressing past wrongs: cases where First Nations have lost land through, among other things, the unlawful surrender of reserve land. Many of the events that gave rise to todays land claims happened well over a century ago. The policy deals with the settlement of specific claims. In the Atlantic region of Canada, the process tends to take years, sometimes decades, to resolve and usually involves financial compensation determined by actuarial calculations. It also often involves the replacement of lost land by allowing the First Nations to acquire new land to add to their reserves.

Canadas offshore hydrocarbon resources hold huge potential for growth, which up to now has been the domain of the oil companies. Canadians should start thinking about the ownership of those lands and the benefits that flow from them in a different way, starting with the creation of a new deal for First Nations.

I can hear the arguments before a discussion like this even gets started. People will say that the offshore areas are not traditional Indian lands, nor have Indigenous people traditionally played a role in the development of offshore oil and gas. Lets look at it another way. The whole industry of offshore oil exploration and production is anything but traditional and is a new economic driver, particularly in eastern Canada. What long traditional history of activity does Canada or its provinces have in the offshore that entitles the government to control land leases and choose who has access to them? Canada was not involved in offshore oil and gas at the time of contact that is, when Euro-immigrants landed on the shores of North America, 500 years ago.

The place to start is to set aside lands in the offshore known to hold significant resources for willing Indigenous communities to control.

We need to consider how to involve more Indigenous communities in the benefits associated with oil exploration and production. The place to start is to set aside lands in the offshore known to hold significant resources for willing Indigenous communities to control so that they become the authorities negotiating with the oil companies for exploration and drilling rights. What could possibly be wrong with that idea?

Today the government tells First Nations that they are free to find land for economic development purposes, adjacent to their reserves. (Often that is difficult. Try finding high-potential land in New Brunswick that is not already controlled by a major entity!) Rather than that approach, lets see how the government can work with Indigenous communities to acquire land in the offshore so they can work with the oil companies to develop arrangements that will see revenue-sharing, employment and other benefits. This approach would create sustainable, lasting resources for their communities. It is a way to share the wealth.

In 1978, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Romo LeBlanc reserved three deep-sea shrimp fishing licences for fishermens organizations in Labrador. Much of the newly discovered resource was off the Labrador coast. New entities were born in Labrador, owned and controlled by the fishermen, and the early days saw a plethora of foreign and domestic interests travelling to Labrador to meet with fishermen to make deals. And many deals were made. People new to this fishery became trained and employed on the vessels in the offshore fishery. Money began flowing to the companies that the fishermen owned, by way of licence fees, and that allowed the community-based companies to invest in other ventures in the community.

In southern Labrador, for example, new fish plants were built, new resources harvested and new jobs created. Additionally, as a result of those licence fees, the people created their own credit union, which has been highly successful. So with the stroke of a pen, and not insignificant vision, LeBlanc transformed many coastal communities by creating these new opportunities and diversifying an economy that benefited Indigenous people.

Yet there were those voices that said to Indigenous fishermen, You people have no place in this fishery. You have no tradition in it. You are babes in the woods. Leave this to the big boys! Well, Labrador fishermen were persistent and held onto LeBlancs vision. They continue to be players in this offshore fishery, whether the big boys like it or not.

To help lift Indigenous people out of poverty, Canada can do something similar with respect to the management of offshore oil lands and resources. All it takes is political guts, visionary leadership and an open mind, as Romo LeBlanc demonstrated in the late 1970s.

Photo:Verena Matthew/Shutterstock.com

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Congress says won’t renew liquor licenses of offshore casinos in Goa – Times of India

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

PANAJI: The opposition Congress on Monday said it would not renew the liquor licences of offshore casinos after March 31 if voted to power on March 11, the day of counting of votes for the February 4 Assembly elections. "Once we form the government, I assure you we will not renew the excise licences of the offshore casino vessels once they expire on March 31," AICC secretary Girish Chodankar told reporters. Banning the offshore casinos in Mandovi river was one of the prominent promises made by the Congress in its election manifesto. "The Congress party will take appropriate legal remedies to insulate its decision to ban the sale of liquor on offshore casinos from any legal implications. We will have to make sure that the casino operators don't challenge our decision in the court," he said. As the casinos currently operating in Mandovi river are 800 metres away from national highway, they do not fall under the purview of a recent Supreme Court order under which the liquor outlets located within 500 metres of state or national highways will have to shut down.

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Congress says won't renew liquor licenses of offshore casinos in Goa - Times of India

J Mase III of #BlackTransMagick seeks to redistribute resources – Daily Illini

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

J Mase III and Vita E partnered up to create #BlackTransMagick in 2015, and have traveled around the country performing on college campuses and for community organizations since then.

The duo is scheduled to perform at 12 p.m. on Monday at the Womens Resources Center as part of the Office of Inclusion & Intercultural Relations Lunch on Us weekly discussion series.

The Daily Illini talked to J Mase III over the weekend about the importance of inclusionary spaces on college campuses.

J Mase III: #BlackTransMagick originated through myself and Vita, we are part of the administrative team for an organization called awQward. awQward is a trans and queer people of color specific talent agency we use the acronym TQPOC. Were both performers and we had an opportunity that kind of showed up through us doing some outreach and talking about the organization in probably June of 2015, so about two years ago. I was scheduled to perform with another awQward artist who fell sick. Vita was still new to the (organization) and we had never performed together. We put it together fairly quickly and had only about one hour to rehearse. We just started creating material from that.

JM: Primarily we perform at colleges and universities. We also do some community organizations and things like that. I think for us, what our major goal is with #BlackTransMagick, as well as with awQward, is really about the redistribution of resources from larger institutions to black and brown trans, queer folks. We use art as a way to create space for cooperative economics, so thats part of it. We also try to provide our work free to smaller black and brown organizations and institutions, or at a low cost, so that we can still be in the communities that know us and help to facilitate our work.

JM: I think whats important for most people, especially on college campuses to recognize, is that the resources in colleges and universities are very much stolen from communities of color. Even in spaces doing LGBTQ work and/or other social justice-centered practices. The institution as a whole when we talk about the land that institutions take up, when we talk about the money that institutions have theres no such thing as creating wealth in the United States of America without taking that from black and brown people through our bodies and labor. And so its important because its a redistribution of those resources back to the spaces from which they were stolen. Its also when we talk about being inclusive of LGBTQ folks, the people in the LGBTQ community most likely to be impacted by violence, lack of access to education, lack of access to jobs, are trans and queer people of color. So its being more honest about who is impacted by these situations. So it behooves people to be honest when they say theyre trying to create intersectional spaces that are rooted in social justice.

JM: I dont know that its something that cant be accomplished through (either) platform, I think that we tend to take different routes of understanding based on the medium. So theres something that I can explain to you intellectually, so you know it. But, through art we actually feel something and were compelled to do something about it. Intellectually, I know that my life as a black person and a trans person is important, but its through art that I actually felt that it mattered.

JM: Everyone is welcome, but what we do specifically is center the experiences of black and brown trans, queer folks of color. I think for me, and I cant speak for Vita, I know for myself a lot of times, people try to tell me Oh, your work is to help people who are not like you learn how to accept you. Thats not what my work is about. My work is Im a black, trans, Muslim person on this planet, and for a long time, I didnt know I had a right to space. So my commitment is to create space for myself and for people in my community, to take up intentional space and take back resources from institutions that seek to erase us. So I encourage TQPOC folks to come, I encourage folks who want to be in solidarity with TQPOC folks to come.

mhwagnr2@dailyillini.com

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J Mase III of #BlackTransMagick seeks to redistribute resources - Daily Illini

The roots of technological singularity can be traced backed to the Stone Age – Wired.co.uk

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Jon Fox

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Four thousand years BCE in the ancient Near East, a region we have come to describe as the cradle of civilisation, Sumerian scribes made replicas of their minds in mud and created the clay tablet - the world's first silicate chip.

Five thousand years later, silicon semiconductors, ferromagnetic films and floating gate transistors have amplified the recording power of clay a quintillion times. Trends in processing and storage technology suggest to futurists that before too long, human thought, as the Babylonian mythology Enma Eli described so presciently, "shall be bound" and "to a unity brought together".

The technological singularity - that moment when humanity is surpassed by intelligent machines and absorbed by them - was first described by the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, as a defining moment when "the ever accelerating progress of technology" leads to a point "beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue". For the engineer Ray Kurzweil, this event marks overcoming the limitations of biological brains.

There is a tendency to view one's own time as uniquely sophisticated, to conceive of the past as primitive. Yet with clay tablets, humans overcame the limitations of their brains 5,000 years ago. The first singularity took place in the Stone Age. It is only recently that we have grasped what it means for individual brains to extend into the world of culture, fuse with the thoughts of society through the properties of physical artefacts and technologies, and then reabsorb the experience of the collective by accessing these technologies.

And what we have learnt is that the evolution of human intelligence is a continuous process of alternating outsourcing and reintegration, an endless series of fusions and fissions among individuals and collectives. To make this organic-inorganic narrative clear, let's consider numbers.

In the western world, we have grown complacent about our Indian-Arabic number system. These numbers possess both a zero and a place-based value. One might assume that previous number systems were less able and that our decimal numerals are a late and highly evolved means of representing magnitude and relation. This is far from the case. The two earliest number systems were Egyptian and Sumerian. The ancient Egyptian numbers were also base ten, and each power of ten was represented by a different hieroglyph - from strokes (one), to cattle (ten), ropes (100), and lotus flowers (1,000). The Sumerians used base 60, written in cuneiform characters, one for units and one for powers of ten. A legacy of the sexagesimal base persists in our units of time - 60 seconds to the minute and 60 minutes to the hour. Cultures are swimming in unfamiliar number systems: base 27 among the Oksapmin people of New Guinea; base 20 among the Yoruba of West Africa; and base 12 among the Nimbi of Nigeria.

In all of these culturally evolved instances, numbers were inscribed upon suitable physical materials to encode matters of great value and where the constraints of time and space would necessitate outsourcing of arithmetical and mathematical ideas. Numbers have evolved as a means of achieving long-lasting consensus. By being placed in the "public domain" these numbers have achieved incredible exponential returns through the collective deliberation of generations. Whereas thoughts restricted to individual brains depend entirely upon the knowledge and ability of one brain, ideas in the world can be manipulated across time and space by countless minds, and achieve through collective consideration a significant non-linear increase in stored knowledge.

It is, therefore, the combined memory (stored solutions that span generations) and computational (worked on by many individuals) representational powers of the silicate chip, and its many subsequent Stone-Age cousins, that make their realisation in history as candidate singularities.

It is true there is something about our contemporary solid-state artefacts that suggests a form of independence or autonomy from humans which merits special consideration. Whereas silicate chips need to be modified by hand, silicon chips can be modified by current. And although silicate chips can be transmitted across vast distances, they do so slowly, unlike calculations in silicon that travel at near light speed. On the other hand, silicate chips have successfully stored information for more than 5,000 years, whereas digital media is considered resilient if it can store information for more than a decade.

The evolution of human intelligence has always been about overcoming the constraints of soft organic matter. The adaptability of cells and tissues, their ability to perpetuate through replication, comes at a cost of fragility, limited scale and the needs of the generalist. Specialist tasks can be better served by more restrictive materials. And collective performance can be facilitated by platforms that support the combined activity of populations.

Our earliest cognitive platform was the silicate chip of the Sumerians - clay tablets upon which humanity achieved its primal, introductory singularity.

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The roots of technological singularity can be traced backed to the Stone Age - Wired.co.uk

Ascension Parish Crime Briefs – News – Plaquemine Post South … – Post South

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Former APSO deputy arrested for Simple Battery

James Atkins II, 34, a former Ascension Parish Sheriffs Deputy, was arrested on Feb. 14 and booked into the Ascension Parish Prison on one count of Simple Battery. The charges stem from an investigation, which was conducted into a report taken by Gonzales Patrol Officers from Feb. 8, where officers responded to a disturbance call made by Atkins at his residence located at 910 Janice Ave.

On Feb. 9, one of the parties involved in the altercation at his residence, whom was gone prior to officers arrival on Feb. 8, came into the police department and reported additional information, which lead to the arrest of Atkins.

He voluntarily surrendered in compliance with the warrant, which was issued for his arrest by the Gonzales Police Department.

Prairieville man indicted on charges including First Degree Rape

On Feb. 13, an Ascension Parish Grand Jury returned a True Bill of Indictment on Stephen Janis, 55, of Prairieville, on the charges of First Degree Rape, False Imprisonment with a Dangerous Weapon, Aggravated Assault with a Firearm and Second Degree Battery.

Janis is accused of raping, beating and holding a woman against her will in November 2016. Investigators with the Ascension Parish Sheriffs Office were dispatched to a local hospital where they made contact with the victim who advised them of the incident.

Assistant District Attorney Shawn Bush is the lead prosecutor on this case.

Gonzales man receives sentence after 2015 burglary

On Feb. 14, David Holcombe of Gonzales, age 25, pled guilty to the charge of Simple Burglary. Holcombe was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Phil Maples, and presiding over this matter was the Honorable Judge Thomas Kliebert. The guilty plea was the result of a plea agreement with prosecutors following a 2015 burglary.

On Oct. 19, 2015, Ascension Parish Sheriffs Deputies were dispatched to a residence on Bayou Narcisse Road in Gonzales in reference to a burglary. Upon arrival, deputies made contact with the homeowner who advised that some items were missing from two vehicles parked under the car port. The homeowner advised that the home is equipped with security cameras.

Investigators reviewed the video surveillance and were able to view the suspect entering the two unlocked vehicles and gaining entry into the garage through a side door. The homeowner noted several miscellaneous items that were missing. Investigators released a portion of the video surveillance to the media and shortly after received a Crime Stoppers tip that the individual in the video Holcombe.

Investigators also located a DNA sample on the scene that was consistent with Holcomes DNA profile. Holcombe was arrested and transported to the Ascension Parish Jail where he confessed to the burglary and was booked accordingly.

Upon entering a guilty plea to the above charge, as per the plea agreement with prosecutors, Judge Kliebert ordered that Holcombe be committed to the Louisiana Department of Corrections for a period of 10 years with credit for time served.

New Orleans man pleads guilty to Ascension bank fraud

On Feb. 15, Frank Nelson of 7543 Tricia Court, New Orleans, 60, pled guilty to Bank Fraud. Nelson was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Phil Maples, and presiding over the matter was the Honorable Judge Thomas Kliebert.

On June 3, 2015, deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriffs Office were dispatched to a Prairieville bank regarding the cashing of a fraudulent check. Upon arrival, deputies made contact with an employee who advised that on May 5, 2015, a black male subject entered the bank and cashed a check in an amount exceeding $2,000. The check appeared to be issued by a Baton Rouge business to a subject by the name of Frank Nelson.

It was later determined that the checks were homemade. Investigators viewed surveillance video and were able to positively identify the individual cashing the check as Nelson. An arrest warrant was issued, and he was subsequently arrested on May 17, 2016. Nelson was transported to the Ascension Parish Jail where he was booked accordingly.

Per Judge Kliebert, sentencing was deferred pending a Pre-Sentence Investigation. Nelson faces up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Gonzales Man Pleads Guilty to Burglary of Local Church Storage Building

On Feb. 15, Michael Duplessis, 34, of 43017 Weber City Road, Gonzales, pled guilty to Simple Burglary. Duplessis was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Phil Maples, and presiding over this matter was the Honorable Judge Thomas Kliebert. The guilty plea was the result of a plea agreement with prosecutors following a 2016 burglary.

On July 13, 2016, Ascension Parish Sheriffs Deputies were dispatched to Holy Rosary Church in St. Amant regarding a burglary. Upon arrival, deputies made contact with a church employee who advised that he was doing maintenance around the church when he made contact with an unknown white male subject.

The subject advised that he was looking for the food bank. The employee continued to work around the church after directing the subject to the food bank. A short while later, the employee went to the storage shed where he observed that a tool box containing miscellaneous tools was missing.

Deputies were able to identify the unknown subject as Duplessis. Deputies were able to make contact with a relative of Duplessis who advised that he was in possession of the tool box in question and had gotten it at the church.

He was subsequently arrested and booked into the Ascension Parish Jail. It should be noted that Duplessis has two prior burglary convictions.

Upon entering a plea of guilty to the above charge, as per the plea agreement with prosecutors, Judge Kliebert ordered that Duplessis be committed to the Louisiana Department of Corrections for a period of 10 years with credit for time served.

Gonzales Man Pleads Guilty to Burglary and Theft Charges

On Feb. 13, Bret Millet, 52, of 14490 Lake Crossing Drive Gonzales, pled guilty to Simple Burglary, Theft of Goods Valued at $1500 or more, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Millet was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Amy Colby, and presiding over this matter was the Honorable Judge Jason Verdigets. This guilty plea was the result of a plea agreement with prosecutors following a 2015 residential burglary.

On July 6, 2015, Ascension Parish Sheriffs Deputies were dispatched to a residence on Stafford Estates Subdivision Road, Gonzales, in reference to a residential burglary. Upon arrival, deputies made contact with the complainant who advised that when he arrived at his fathers residence, he observed that the front door was wide open.

The complainant also advised that there were multiple miscellaneous items missing from throughout the residence. Investigators dusted for fingerprints and were able to swab a small amount of blood on a piece of glass that had been broken during the burglary. The blood sample was sent to the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab where it was analyzed for potential DNA. The blood sample matched the DNA composition of Bret Millet. Deputies also located Millets identification card on the ground near the residence.

An arrest warrant was then issued for Millet. On July 7, 2015, sheriffs deputies made contact with Millet at his residence and advised him of the arrest warrant. While Millet was being placed into handcuffs, deputies observed that Millet was holding a crack pipe, or device commonly used for smoking crack cocaine. He was arrested and transported to the Ascension Parish jail where he was booked accordingly.

Guilty Pleas

During the week of Feb. 13 to Feb. 17, the following defendants pled guilty to various charges and were sentenced in the 23rd Judicial District Court, parishes of Ascension, Assumption and St. James.

Ascension Parish

Cyril Ezumezu, 1223 N. Coolidge Ave., Gonzales, 30, pled guilty to Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon and Possession with Intent to Distribute a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance. Sentencing was deferred pending a Pre-Sentence Investigation.

Morris Miles, 502 Front St. Donaldsonville, 24, pled guilty to Aggravated Battery and was sentenced to two years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served.

Travis Parent, 32588 Jasmin Lane, Denham Springs, 27, pled guilty to Negligent Homicide. Sentencing was deferred pending a Pre-Sentence Investigation.

David Holcombe, 12386 Cleo Road, Gonzales, 25, pled guilty to Simple Burglary and was sentenced to 10 years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served.

Grayln Leduff, 2444 Valley St., Baton Rouge, 45, pled guilty to Simple Burglary. Sentencing is set for March 27.

Delynn Ricks, 909 S Abe Ave., Gonzales, 24, pled guilty to Possession with Intent to Distribute a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance. Sentencing was deferred pending a Pre-Sentence Investigation.

Santos Torrez, 40436 Kathy St., Gonzales, 53, pled guilty on Nov. 28, 2016, to the charge of DWI Third Offense. On Feb. 14, Torrez was sentenced to one year with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served.

Frank Nelson, 7543 Tricia Court, New Orleans, 60, pled guilty to Bank Fraud. Sentencing was deferred pending a Pre-Sentence Investigation.

Michael Duplessis, 43017 Weber City Road, Gonzales, 34, pled guilty to Simple Burglary and was sentenced to 10 years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served.

Jerome Bougere, 133 Palm St., Donaldsonville, 39, pled guilty to Simple Kidnapping, Domestic Abuse Aggravated Assault and Domestic Abuse. The defendant was sentenced to five years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served. He is to serve three years of the imposed sentence, and the remaining two years are to be suspended. Upon release, the defendant is to be placed on two years supervised probation.

The above cases were prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Shawn Bush and Phil Maples. Presiding over these matters was the Honorable Judge Thomas Kliebert.

Takeisha Scott, 42421 La., 30 Gonzales, 28, pled guilty to Unauthorized Entry of an Inhabited Dwelling and Simple Battery. On the charge of Unauthorized Entry of an Inhabited Dwelling, the defendant was sentenced to two years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served, to be suspended, and placed on one year supervised probation. On the charge of Simple Battery, the defendant was sentenced to six months supervised probation. The imposed sentences are to run concurrent with one another.

Aquindice Garrison, 408 St. Patrick St., Donaldsonville, 26, pled guilty to Second Degree Battery and was sentenced to four years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served, to be suspended, and placed on two years supervised probation.

Jesse Collins, 411 Blue Bird St., Gonzales, 41, pled guilty to Possession of a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance and was sentenced to five years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served, to be suspended, and placed on five years supervised probation.

Bret Millet, 14490 Lake Crossing Drive, Gonzales, age 52, pled guilty to Simple Burglary, Theft of Goods Valued at $1500 or More, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. On the charge of Simple Burglary, the defendant was sentenced to six years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served. On the charge of Theft of Goods Valued at $1500 or more, the defendant was sentenced to five years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served. On the charge of Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, the defendant was sentenced to six months in the parish jail with credit for time served. All of the imposed sentences are to run concurrent with one another.

John Porteous, 14446 Lake Crossing Drive Gonzales, 40, pled guilty to Simple Arson and was sentenced to five years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections with credit for time served, to be suspended, and placed on two years supervised probation.

The above cases were prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Joni Buquoi and Amy Colby. Presiding over these matters was the Honorable Judge Jason Verdigets.

Ascension Parish Crime Briefs - News - Plaquemine Post South ... - Post South

ACHS seeking another state tournament run – Donaldsonville Chief

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Ascension Catholic will have a new head coach in 2017, but he's no stranger to leading the Lady Bulldogs to championships.

Ascension Catholic will have a new head coach in 2017, but hes no stranger to leading the Lady Bulldogs to championships.

After a hiatus from coaching, Don Henry returned over the summer to begin his second stint as Ascension Catholic head coach.

Henry coached the Lady Bulldogs for 14 years. In that time, he led them to 11 state tournament appearances and 11 district titles.

Under his leadership, Ascension Catholic won three state titles (1995, 1999 and 2000), and they finished as state runner-up in 2004.

He now returns to lead the program after his former player Brandi Manry resigned during the offseason.

Manry had led Ascension Catholic for three seasons. They made it to the Fast Pitch 56 in all three years of her tenure.

In 2014, they finished as state runners-up, and last season, they reached the state semifinals, before losing to eventual state champion Catholic of Pointe Coupee.

When Henry was first hired, he said, Its a great fit. I still have a lot of friends in the area. There are a lot of great people and great kids at the school. It was also a great honor for me to follow Brandi Manrywho was one of my former players. She did so many great things for the program in the three years that she was the coach. Ill definitely have some big shoes to fill, but Im excited to try to continue the great tradition that the program has built over the last few years.

Henrys biggest challenge in his quest for a fourth state title will be replacing pitcher Julia Beck and outfielder RaeShaun Melancon. Both players were instrumental in the teams run to four straight state tournament appearances.

Beck established herself as one of the best pitchers in the state.

Last season, Beck was named the LSWA Class 1A Outstanding Player. She was also named the parishs Pitcher of the Year, and she was first-team all-district.

Melancon was the Lady Bulldogs most dangerous hitter as she hit .534 with 10 home runs en route to being named District 6-1A MVP and first-team All-State.

She is an LSU-Eunice signee.

Behind Beck and Melancon, Ascension Catholic went 18-9 and won another district title.

Though losing both players are huge losses, the fortunate thing for Ascension Catholic is that everyone else will be back in 2017.

The Lady Bulldogs had six other players make the all-district squad last year.

Ascension Catholic returns first-baseman Abigail Landry, short stop Alicia Canatella and outfielder Carson Dunn. Landry was first-team all-district in 2016.

Utility player Meredith Medine made first-team all-district as a freshman last season. She will return with fellow all-district outfielder Bailey Acosta.

Lauren Landry was another all-district player that will be returning.

Other notable Lady Bulldog standouts from last year include catcher Ceily Grasiffe and third-baseman Isabelle Abadie.

The wealth of talent on the roster is one of the things that excited Henry when he took the job.

Brandi and her coaching staff have done a terrific job, and they definitely didnt leave the cupboard bare. They have some great players returning, and theyre all well coached, Henry said. Im walking into a great situation with a great group of kids, and from what Brandi has told me, theyre dedicated. Theyll go through walls for you, so Im confident well do some great things.

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ACHS seeking another state tournament run - Donaldsonville Chief

How reusable rockets are paving the way for the next phase of space exploration – Mirror.co.uk

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

SpaceX has just announced another successful landing of one of its reusable rockets.

The Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 9:38am local time on Sunday morning, and landed back in the same spot nine minutes later.

SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, shared a photo of the rocket touching down on Instagram, with the caption "Baby came back".

This was the third SpaceX rocket to be successfully landed on solid ground, and the first to do so in daylight. Five other successful landings have been made on sea-based platforms.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos ,has successfully launched and landed four of its New Shepard reusable rockets.

But space companies have been sending rockets into space for decades, so why the sudden interest in bringing them back to Earth?

The main argument for developing reusable rockets is cost.

At the moment, sending a rocket to the International Space Station costs over $60 million (48 million) - and each rocket can only be used once.

Bezos has compared this to using a Boeing 747 to fly across the country once and then throwing the plane away.

Musk claims that recycling a rocket over and over and learning to fly it like a plane could reduce the cost of access to space "by as much as a factor of a hundred".

This is because the only cost per launch would be a few replacement parts and about $200,000 for rocket fuel.

For Bezos, developing reusable rockets is about making space tourism a reality.

The idea is to take paying customers on joyrides to the edge of space, where they can experience zero gravity for a few minutes, before returning safely to Earth.

It's a slightly different approach to Richard Branson, whose spaceflight company Virgin Galactic is also developing commercial spacecraft with the aim of providing suborbital flights to space tourists.

Virgin Galactic's space tourism project was dealt a major blow after an in-air explosion killed one of the company's pilots on a test flight in 2014.

However, the company has since unveiled a new spacecraft called SpaceShipTwo, which looks more like an aeroplane than a rocket.

Rather than launching vertically, the spacecraft is carried to its launch altitude by a jet-powered cargo aircraft, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine.

It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing.

As well as tourism, reducing the cost of space travel could make it possible for scientists to conduct experiments outside the Earth's atsmosphere.

Blue Origin is already working with the University of Central Florida to build experiments for flight aboard the commercial space company's new spacecraft.

Physics Professor Joshua Colwell and his team are working on the Microgravity Experiment on Dust Environments in Astrophysics project, which aims to shed light on the process by which space dust builds up to form planets.

"The UCF team is tackling deep questions about the early solar system and asteroids, questions that simply cant be answered back on Earth," said Dr. Erika Wagner, Blue Origin head of payload programs.

Further afield, reusable rockets can massively reduce the cost of operating in space.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets are already being used to deliver supplies to the International Space Station and launch satellites for paying customers.

Blue Origin also recently unveiled a reusable rocket called New Glenn, which is designed to launch commercial satellites.

Bezos has outlined a madcap plan to save the planet from a global energy crisis by moving heavy industries off the Earth entirely, and building giant factories and solar farms in space.

"Energy is limited here. In at least a few hundred years ... all of our heavy industry will be moved off-planet," Bezos said.

"Our vision is millions of people living and working in space."

Ultimately, the hope is that reusable rockets will make it possible for humans to explore deep space, and colonise other planets.

SpaceX recently unveiled a design for its Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) - a system that involves using reusable rockets to propel spaceships filled with hundreds of passengers to Mars.

Musk claims that each of these rockets will be reused up to 1,000 times. After taking off and delivering the spaceship into orbit, the rocket will return to Earth, where it will land safely.

It will then be fitted with a fuelling tank, before flying back into space to fuel the spaceship for its trip to Mars. The rocket will then land a second time.

By making the rocket reusable instead of discarding it after every launch, Musk said SpaceX hopes to some day make the cost of going to Mars about the same as buying a house.

He envisions 1,000 passenger ships flying en masse to the red planet within the next century, with one million people living on Mars by the mid-2060s.

Musk claims the system could even be used to explore further afield, allowing humans to travel as far as the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto.

"I think Earth will be a good place for a long time, but the probable lifespan of human civilisation will be much greater if we're a multiplanetary species," he said.

"This system really gives you freedom to go anywhere you want in the greater solar system."

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How reusable rockets are paving the way for the next phase of space exploration - Mirror.co.uk

Global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales Market 2016 Buhler, Nanogate, Surfix, CIMA Nanotech, P2I Ltd … – SwiftNary

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales Market 2016, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market globally, providing basic overview of Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure, Thermochromic Smart Window Sales Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.

Global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales Industry 2016 is an analytical research report that delves into the dynamics of the global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales industry.It presents an executive-level blueprint of the market with key focus on its operations in globe. In a lucid chapter-wise format, the report presents the historical statistics of the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market in addition to studying the competitive landscape. The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive overview of the market for industry participants. Key findings of this report will help companies operating in the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market to identify the opportunities that they can capitalize on to propel growth.

The study analyzes the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales industry in detail. To begin with, it enumerates the primary market operations, evaluating the nature and specific characteristics of products and services it provides. In the following chapters, the study classifies the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market in terms of its varied product types, applications, network of supply chain, and geography. Based on the market segmentation, the report analyzes the competitive landscape of the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market and lays down the development status of key regions in globally.

The study progresses with a detailed, incisive analysis of the strategies and trends common in the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market, and how the same is likely to impact the future course of action of players in the market and the growth trajectory of the market. Region-wise market share for the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales industry is analyzed for the purpose of which the prominent players are profiled and their respective market share is calculated. Growth drivers, restraints, and opportunities are studied in detail with the help of industry-leading tools, based on which the report presents insightful growth forecasts for the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market. Key findings of the study will help stakeholders gauge the growth prospects and understand the investment feasibility.

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The Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market research study has been composed using key inputs from industry experts. Furthermore, the extensive primary and secondary research data with which the report has been composed helps deliver the key statistical forecasts, in terms of both revenue and volume. In addition to this, the trends and revenue analysis of the global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market has been mentioned in this report. This will give a clear perspective to the readers how the Thermochromic Smart Window Sales market will fare in globe.

This report also presents product specification, manufacturing process, and product cost structure etc.Production is separated by regions, technology and applications. Analysis also covers upstream raw materials, equipment, downstream client survey, marketing channels, industry development trend and proposals. In the end, the report includes Thermochromic Smart Window Sales new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, investment return analysis, and development trend analysis. In conclusion, it is a deep research report on Global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales industry. Here, we express our thanks for the support and assistance from Thermochromic Smart Window Sales industry chain related technical experts and marketing engineers during Research Teams survey and interviews

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Global Thermochromic Smart Window Sales Market 2016 Buhler, Nanogate, Surfix, CIMA Nanotech, P2I Ltd ... - SwiftNary

The Nootropics Guy | Testing and Reviewing Nootropics

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Comments Off on The Best Nootropics for Focus and Memory

Although nootropics by their very nature generally have a positive impact on the users cognitive performance, it is important to be aware that different types focus on various factors. For example, some nootropics are more likely to make people feel energized while improving their memory, but others can have a sedative effect that makes them a good choice for people ... Read More

Comments Off on Phenylpiracetam 101

Phenylpiracetam is a nootropic (substance that improves mental function) that is very similar to, but 30 to 60 times stronger than, piracetam. Oddly enough, piracetam has been banned for use as a dietary supplement by the FDA, but phenylpiracetam is still available. Forms Phenylpiracetam takes three basic forms: the R-isomer (effective for stimulatory and mental improvement), the S-isomer, which is ... Read More

Comments Off on Brain Stack Review

I was contacted by one of the foundersof Maven Labs, wanting to know if Id be interested in trying their new product/new formula of Brain Stack. Of course, I accepted the offer. While I waitingfor the product to ship, I exchanged some emails with Paul(co-founderof Maven Labs). During these exchanges it gave me sometime to pick his brain about ... Read More

Comments Off on Shroom Tech Sport Review

Today I will be reviewing a slightly different product. Although it is not technically a nootropic by standard definition, it is something worth at least trying. ShroomTech Sport was formulated to help in the energy department. It is made by Onnit Labs, the same company that makes Alpha Brain(read that review here). Before I go into all the details of ... Read More

Comments Off on Focus Factor Review

Im sure most of you if not all of you have heard of Focus Factor. It has been around for quite a while now and was one of the first things that got me into Nootropics, and learning more about supplements to help improve memory and concentration. Focus Factor is labeled as Americas #1 Brain Health Supplement. Now that is ... Read More

Comments Off on Phenibut Review

*I would like to start off by saying that this product was provided free of charge by Health Supplement Wholesalers. They carry a wide variety of different supplements.* Phenibut was on my list of products to try for awhile now. Mainly because I have a lot of anxiety and stress, and this product is suppose to help with this. Ive ... Read More

Comments Off on Noopept Review

I started taking noopept a couple weeks back and I feel that now that I can make an accurate assumption how this product worked for ME. Please, keep in mind that this review is MY experience and yours may be different. The funny thing about nootropics is that certain ones seems to effect people differently. If you are not familiar ... Read More

Comments Off on Phenibut 101

Introduction Phenibut was developed back in the 1960s in Russia. It is a unique product and some will say that it is not technically a nootropic. It is primarily used for its calming effects rather than as a cognitive enhancer. Though some claim that it does havecognition enhancing/nootropic effects. It is often used in stacks alongside other nootropics. How Does ... Read More

Comments Off on Noopept 101

Introduction Noopept is a white powdery substance that is in a class of its own. Although it is very similar to racetam nootropics, it is not technically a racetam. It was first developed in Russia, where it was prescribed to protect brain neurons and to help improvecognitive function. How Does it Work Through research and studies it was found that ... Read More

Comments Off on Alpha Brain Review Part 2

Well it has been about 30 days since I started to taking Alpha Brain. If you havent done so yet, I suggest starting and reading part 1 of this review first. My dosage was 2 capsules for the first 15 days, then I upped it to 4 capsules for the next 15 days. I will come right out and say ... Read More

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The Nootropics Guy | Testing and Reviewing Nootropics

Elevacity Introduces Smart Coffee: Elevate – Satellite PR News (press release)

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Submit the press release

Dallas, TX (ReleaseWire) 02/20/2017 Elevate coffee is the latest breakthrough product to be introduced to Elevacitys unique health and wellness line. Elevate coffee is a delicious dark roast, Colombian instant coffee infused with a proprietary formula of nootropics, focusing on weight loss and cognitive functions.

Most weight loss coffees are typically the same, using only ingredients intended to promote a thermogenic response (speed up metabolism to burn fat). They fail to address a root cause of overeating due to uncontrolled cravings. Elevate was crafted to work differently. It is formulated to replace that feel-good feeling people experience when eating unhealthy foods, often referred to as comfort foods, by triggering positive brain responses with nootropics.

Elevacitys nootropic ingredients are powerful cognitive enhancers and stimulants that elicit neuro-positive chemical responses in the brain, which elevate your mood and clarity, increase energy, and boost your memory and overall mood. These nootropic stimulants help you skip the foods you crave to get there. Additional natural ingredients are also included to promote fat burning effects and can lead to weight loss.

Were excited to launch the first nootropic coffee in the direct selling industry. Says Donna Valdes, President of Elevacity. Having marketed coffee products for almost 10 years, I can tell you I have never seen a response or results like this. Within minutes, youre clear-headed, laser focused, and the hunger is gone! People actually feel this coffee working and they get results fast. Thats what matters.

You can learn more here: http://www.elevatebrew.com or watch this video.

About Elevacity Elevacity is a social selling company distributing cutting edge nutritionals and skin care including Elevate, the worlds smartest weight loss coffee infused with nootropics. The company is headquartered in Plano, TX with offices in Largo, FL.

For more information about Elevacitys products or opportunity, visit http://www.elevacity.com or contact info@elevacity.com

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Elevacity Introduces Smart Coffee: Elevate - Satellite PR News (press release)

Black Country driver tasered by police during diabetic trance after … – Halesowen News

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Black Country driver tasered by police during diabetic trance after losing control

POLICE tasered a Rowley Regis driver after he lost control of his car in Dudley in a diabetic trance.

Gareth Davies narrowly missed hitting workmen and a pedestrian whilst just avoiding a head on crash with a bus.

The 55-year-old later told police he was in "something like a dreamlike state" as he drove through traffic lights on red and clipped the kerb during the ten minute pursuit.

He admitted to the officers he was diabetic and he had been "feeling funny."

Geoffrey, Dann prosecuting, said: "The manner of his driving was entirely consistent with a hypoglycemic attack."

Wolverhampton Crown Court Recorder Jacqueline Carey told Davies, of Union Street, she had given serious consideration to sending him straight into custody because of his "seriously bad driving."

She added: "After hearing about you and your ill health I do not think it would be in the public interest to put you in prison immediately."

Davies admitted dangerous driving and he was given a 12 month jail term suspended for two years and disqualified from driving for two years.

Mr Dann said the manner of Davies' driving so alarmed another motorist that he called the police after seeing his Vauxhall Vectra veer along New Rowley Road, Dudley.

He said: "The car was travelling in an erratic manner and hitting the kerb."

"The man who was following the Vectra assumed its driver was either drunk or high on drugs."

Police then took up the chase and an officer told Davies to stop but he ignored the order and went through to more sets of lights on red around Castle Hill.

The chase finally ended when Davies was trapped in a cul-de-sac but he then had to be tasered before he could be detained.

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Black Country driver tasered by police during diabetic trance after ... - Halesowen News

Investors in a Trance as Stocks Shuffle Higher – MarketPulse – MarketPulse (blog)

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

European equity markets are expected to open higher on Monday, although trading is likely to be relatively light given the US bank holiday which helped drive similar conditions in Asia overnight.

It would appear were still in a kind of trance at the moment whereby equity markets continue to shuffle higher in the hope that Donald Trump will deliver on his fiscal stimulus, tax and deregulation plans and yet, theres no conviction in the rallys. This isnt overly surprising given the amount of political risk at the moment but you wonder how much longer we can remain in this state before we wake up.

Risk Aversion Percolates

Thats not necessarily to say markets are going to collapse or even enter correction but I think were nearing the point at which investors may start demanding something a little more concrete. Its difficult to ignore the moves in Gold and the yen alongside this which typically accompany more risk averse conditions. Perhaps it just reflects underlying uncertainty which is a concern.

Gold is actually trading a little lower so far today having interestingly failed to break above the high from 8 August, despite coming very close. The next big test for Gold will now come around $1,216.73, last weeks lows, with a break through here possibly triggering a move back below $1,200 towards $1,180.63.

OANDA fxTrade Advanced Charting Platform

As mentioned above, with it being a bank holiday in the US today, we could be looking at a slightly quieter session. We have some scatterings of low level data throughout the day but nothing that I would expect will cause too much of a jolt in the markets. The Reserve Bank of Australia minutes from its recent meeting, released overnight, will likely be the next event of note.

For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar.

This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all.You could lose all of your deposited funds.

Based in London, England, Craig Erlam joined OANDA in 2015 as a Market Analyst. With more than five years' experience as a financial market analyst and trader, he focuses on both fundamental and technical analysis while conducting macroeconomic commentary. He has been published by The Financial Times, Reuters, the BBC and The Telegraph, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on Bloomberg TV, CNBC, FOX Business and BNN. Craig holds a full membership to the Society of Technical Analysts and he is recognized as a Certified Financial Technician by the International Federation of Technical Analysts.

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Investors in a Trance as Stocks Shuffle Higher - MarketPulse - MarketPulse (blog)

Review of Price Trends: EDAP TMS SA (NASDAQ:EDAP) – Is stories

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

EDAP TMS S.A.s (EDAP) witnessed a gain of 0.32% in recent trading period with closing price of $3.10. The companys last traded volume of 0.09 million shares as compared to its an average volume of 0.06 million shares.

The stocks price switched up -2.89% 20-Days Simple Moving Average, dropped -4.40% from 50-Days Simple Moving Average and fell -0.55% from 200 Days Simple Moving Average. The company has PEG ratio of 2.56.

In the profitability analysis, net profit margin of the firm was recorded at 27.90% and operating profit margin was calculated at 4.40% while gross profit margin was measured as 45.00%. Beta factor, which measures the riskiness of the security, was registered at 1.07.

The short ratio in the companys stock is documented at 8.37 and the short float is around of 3.74%. The average true range of the stock is observed at 0.12 and the relative strength index of the stock is recorded at 42.30.

Analyst recommendation for this stock stands at 2.00. The P/E ratio was recorded at 7.69.The volatility in the previous week has experienced by 2.94% and observed of 3.60% in the previous month. 8.10% ownership is held by institutional investors while Insiders hold ownership of 6.00%.

Looking about the past performance history, EDAP TMS S.A.s (EDAP) plunged -1.74% in past week and declined -5.78% in one month. During the past three month period the stock dropped -7.19% and increased 2.31% in past six month. During the twelve month it lost -16.44% and year to date performance of -5.49%.

In the trailing 12 months period, return on investment ratio was -1.20%. The stock as of last trading session moved 27.57% up from its 52 week low and was -35.42% behind its 52 week high.

EPS growth for this year is -207.10% and EPS growth for next year is expected to reach at -41.55%. EPS growth in past five years was 41.60% while EPS growth in next five years is projected to arrive at 3.00%. Sales growth past 5 years was measured at 6.30%.

In the liquidity ratio analysis; current ratio for time period was 2.80.

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Review of Price Trends: EDAP TMS SA (NASDAQ:EDAP) - Is stories

Blog – NEUROHACKER COLLECTIVE

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Forrest Landry has a wide-ranging output of brilliance to offer the world, from large scale software systems design employed by various agencies of government, to engineering and master woodworking. But perhaps his most compelling contribution is his insights in... Last year, over 1 million human beings killed themselves. Surrounding this intense dot of suffering were approximately 20 million attempted suicides or acts of severe physical self-harm. Human suffering then has a 3rd concentric circle warding off these... Dr. Zachary Stein, philosopher of education and a research member of the Neurohacker Collective, begins a series on the ethics of neurohacking. This series is part of our commitment to engage our research community on the challenges and opportunities in... Overview Just about every civilization throughout history has practiced some form of neurohacking deliberately upgrading their physiologies to positively affect their mind and psyche. The consumption of probiotic rich and fermented foods, for example, goes... Supplement Police is a rank and review nutritional supplement website. They base their reviews off 6 elements they believe will tell you whether the product youre searching for will be a worthwhile investment. Theyve taken the time to review Qualia, and were... Thaddeus and Chris at ERISFIT are consummate biohackers. They focus on how they can modify their nutrition, exercise, sleep, movement, and mindset to maximize performance and achieve greater levels of wellbeing. Their goal is to bring these tools and practices into... In a previous post, we discussed the value of nootropics as a tool in the neurohackers toolbox. They can help get us dialed in with laser focus and get things done. They can aid with concentration, learning, and memory. But productivity isnt the only context for the... Neurohacking is timely In many ways, our contemporary technical prowess works against us. Yes, we have access to a level of information that would have seemed like pure magic to folks even a few centuries ago. But this doesnt come for free our always on... Neurohacking is all about using the right tool for the job. While racetams and transcranial stimulators more directly interface with our brain and neurochemistry, there are other less obvious ways to impact our psychological well-being and subjective experience.... Nootropics. You might have heard of them. The limitless pill that keeps Billionaires richer than you. The smart drugs that students are taking to help jack up their hyperfocus (Vice). The cognitive enhancers that give corporate executives an unfair advantage....

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Blog - NEUROHACKER COLLECTIVE

Political correctness on a downward spiral – NCC Linked

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Political correctness some call for it to be laid to rest. However, political correctness is not down, its stock value is.

Political correctness is definitely experiencing a decline. Looking at Donald Trumps Cabinet alone would make me sell my futures in political correctness. Trump fought political correctness throughout his campaign and cites saving time as a reason for not being politically correct. Recently on Face the Nation, Trump said that he thought America was being too politically correct on Muslims.

Political correctness in the chivalrous sense is dead, the attack on the politically correct has gone on even after the election. The alt-right are an easy target for examples of the death of political correctness.

After the Ghost Ship fire, there was an alt-right-linked call to hunt DIY spaces. Such spaces are known for being all-inclusive, but were labeled as liberal hideouts. Twelve spaces in total were shut down, Nashville being hard hit as well as California.

Chicagos scene had its casualties over the course of 2016 for unrelated reasons, but it remains a stronghold for the creative and the inclusive. The Oakland fire shined a light on an art scene in the midst of a housing crisis. The alt-right saw it as an opportunity to report all artspaces and illegal venues to crush the radical left.

Gabe Meline writes in an article for KQED Arts about the Oakland space: They dont understand why the floor is so rickety, the lamps dont have shades, the wall is painted three different colors and the table is made of scrap wood.

Meline says that those who criminalized the attendees of the Ghost Ship space asattendees of an illegal event dont understand why those spaces exist.

Often, spaces dont last. I remember seeing pictures of former Chicago venue The Keep being disassembled soon after attending one of its last shows. These venues are not often permanent fixtures. In recent years, the community has organized an annual poster listing the DIY venues and the deceased venues. The dead venue count and the currently active count are often close.

The Chicago DIY community reacted to the Oakland fire by calling for town halls to resume and for venues to have clearly labeled exits and fire extinguishers. While initially people tossed around ideas such as holding a benefit show to raise money for fire extinguishers for every DIY venue in the city, venues have already begun purchasing them on their own, if they did not already have them.

The reactionary witchhunting of safe spaces for dialogue and art is a sign of the downturn of political correctness. Ten days after the election, 867 hate crimes occurred, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 23 of which were anti-Trump.

In the defense of political correctness, the ACLU received record amounts of donations after the election, although Time magazine says this is because organizations like ACLU and Planned Parenthood may feel under threat from the Trump administration. Fear of retribution for not being politically correct may have driven some people in the past, however, fear of being politically obsolete may drive some people now.

Donald Trump tookoffice on Jan. 20, 2017. Whether or not this will result in even more hate crimes or donations to special interest organizations remains to be seen.

More lessons from Dolly the sheepis a clone really born at age … – Phys.Org

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

February 20, 2017 by Jos Cibelli, The Conversation More Dollies, cloned from the same cell line. Credit: Kevin Sinclair, University of Nottingham, CC BY-ND

In 1997 Dolly the sheep was introduced to the world by biologists Keith Campbell, Ian Wilmut and colleagues. Not just any lamb, Dolly was a clone. Rather than being made from a sperm and an egg, she originated from a mammary gland cell of another, no-longer-living, six-year-old Fynn Dorset ewe.

With her birth, a scientific and societal revolution was also born.

Some prominent scientists raised doubts; it was too good to be true. But more animals were cloned: first the laboratory mouse, then cows, goats, pigs, horses, even dogs, ferrets and camels. By early 2000, the issue was settled: Dolly was real and cloning adults was possible.

The implications of cloning animals in our society were self-evident from the start. Our advancing ability to reprogram adult, already specialized cells and start them over as something new may one day be the key to creating cells and organs that match the immune system of each individual patient in need of replacements.

But what somehow got lost was the fact that a clone was born at day zero created from the cell of another animal that was six years old. Researchers have spent the past 20 years trying to untangle the mysteries of how clones age. How old, biologically, are these animals born from other adult animals' cells?

Decades of cloning research

Dolly became an international celebrity, but she was not the first vertebrate to be cloned from a cell taken from the body of another animal. In 1962, developmental biologist John Gurdon cloned the first adult animal by taking a cell from the intestine of one frog and injecting it into an egg of another. Gurdon's work did not go unnoticed he went on to share the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. But it was Dolly who had captured our imagination. Was it because she was a warm-blooded animal, a mammal, much closer to human? If you could do it in a sheep, you could do it on us!

Dolly, along with Gurdon's frogs from 35 years earlier and all the other experiments in between, redirected our scientific studies. It was amazing to see a differentiated cell an adult cell specialized to do its particular job transform into an embryonic one that could go on to give rise to all the other cells of a normal body. We researchers wondered if we could go further: Could we in the lab make an adult cell once again undifferentiated, without needing to make a cloned embryo?

A decade after Dolly was announced, stem cell researcher Shynia Yamanaka's team did just that. He went on to be the Nobel corecipient with Gurdon for showing that mature cells could be reprogrammed to become pluripotent: able to develop into any specialized adult cell.

Now we have the possibility of making individualized replacement cells potentially any kind to replace tissue damaged due to injury, genetic disorders and degeneration. Not only cells; we may soon be able to have our own organs grown in a nonhuman host, ready to be transplanted when needed.

If Dolly was responsible for unleashing the events that culminate with new methods of making fully compatible cells and organs, then her legacy would be to improve the health of practically all human beings on this planet. And yet, I am convinced that there are even better things to come.

Dolly's secrets still unfolding

In the winter of 2013, I found myself driving on the wrong side of the road through the Nottingham countryside. In contrast to the luscious landscape, I was in a state gloom; I was on my way to see Keith Campbell's family after his sudden death a few weeks earlier. Keith was a smart, fun, loving friend who, along with Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute, had brought us Dolly 15 years earlier. We had met at a conference in the early 1990s, when we were both budding scientists playing around with cloning, Keith with sheep, me with cows. An extrovert by nature, he quickly dazzled me with his wit, self-deprecating humor and nonstop chat, all delivered in a thick West Midlands accent. Our friendship that began then continued until his death.

When I knocked at the door of his quaint farmhouse, my plan was to stay just a few minutes, pay my respects to his wife and leave. Five hours and several Guinnesses later, I left feeling grateful. Keith could do that to you, but this time it wasn't him, it was his latest work speaking for him. That's because his wife very generously told me the project Keith was working on at the time of his death. I couldn't hide my excitement: Could it be possible that after 20 years, the most striking aspect of Dolly's legacy was not yet revealed?

See, when Dolly was cloned, she was created using a cell from a six-year-old sheep. And she died at age six and a half, a premature death for a breed that lives an average of nine years or more. People assumed that an offspring cloned from an adult was starting at an age disadvantage; rather than truly being a "newborn," it seemed like a clone's internal age would be more advanced that the length of its own life would suggest. Thus the notion that clones' biological age and their chronological one were out of sync, and that "cloned animals will die young."

Some of us were convinced that if the cloning procedure was done properly, the biological clock should be reset a newborn clone would truly start at zero. We worked very hard to prove our point. We were not convinced by a single DNA analysis done in Dolly showing slightly shorter telomeres the repetitive DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that "count" how many times a cell divides. We presented strong scientific evidence showing that cloned cows had all the same molecular signs of aging as a nonclone, predicting a normal lifespan. Others showed the same in cloned mice. But we couldn't ignore reports from colleagues interpreting biological signs in cloned animals that they attributed to incomplete resetting of the biological clock. So the jury was out.

Aging studies are very hard to do because there are only two data points that really count: date of birth and date of death. If you want to know the lifespan of an individual you have to wait until its natural death. Little did I know, that is what Keith was doing back in 2012.

That Saturday afternoon I spent in Keith's house in Nottingham, I saw a photo of the animals in Keith's latest study: several cloned Dollies, all much older than Dolly at the time she had died, and they looked terrific. I was in awe.

The data were confidential, so I had to remain silent until late last year when the work was posthumously published. Keith's coauthors humbly said: "For those clones that survive beyond the perinatal period [] the emerging consensus, supported by the current data, is that they are healthy and seem to age normally."

These findings became even more relevant when last December researchers at the Scripps Research Institute found that induced pluripotent stem cells reprogrammed using the "Yamanaka factors" retain the aging epigenetic signature of the donor individual. In other words, using these four genes to attempt to reprogram the cells does not seem to reset the biological clock.

The new Dollies are now telling us that if we take a cell from an animal of any age, and we introduce its nucleus into a nonfertilized mature egg, we can have an individual born with its lifespan fully restored. They confirmed that all signs of biological and chronological age matched between cloned and noncloned sheep.

There seems to be a natural built-in mechanism in the eggs that can rejuvenate a cell. We don't know what it is yet, but it is there. Our group as well as others are hard at work, and as soon as someone finds it, the most astonishing legacy of Dolly will be realized.

Explore further: How much do you know about Dolly the Sheep?

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the birth of arguably the most famous sheep that ever chewed grass. Dolly was created at The Roslin Institute, Scotland, which receives long-term strategic funding from BBSRC.

It's now 20 years since the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned. This groundbreaking scientific achievement was accompanied by warnings that Dolly might age prematurely because she had been cloned from ...

(AP)Keith Campbell, a prominent biologist who worked on cloning Dolly the sheep, has died at 58, the University of Nottingham said Thursday.

Three weeks after the scientific world marked the 20th anniversary of the birth of Dolly the sheep new research, published by The University of Nottingham, in the academic journal Nature Communications has shown that four ...

There's a three- or four-way dispute among British scientists about who deserves the credit for Dolly, the first cloned sheep.

A petition has called on Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to take away the knighthood she bestowed on Ian Wilmut for his cloning of the sheep Dolly.

Forest elephant populations in one of Central Africa's largest and most important preserves have declined between 78 percent and 81 percent because of poaching, a new Duke University-led study finds.

The winter habits of Britain's basking sharks have been revealed for the first time.

What looks like a caterpillar chewing on a leaf or a beetle consuming fruit is likely a three-way battle that benefits most, if not all of the players involved, according to a Penn State entomologist.

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Climate change from political and ecological standpoints is a constant in the media and with good reason, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist, but proof of its impact is sometimes found in unlikely places.

At what point on the journey along the branches of the evolutionary tree does a population become its own, unique species? And is a species still distinct, if it mates with a different, but closely related species? Evolutionary ...

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Must reads: Populism, sexism, cloning, and rudeness – GlobalComment.com

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Good morning! This week were delving into longreads on the present and future of women, the groundwork for Trump, andcloning? Follow us down the rabbit hole, please drop your favourite reads of the week in comments, and stay tuned this week, because we have an exciting announcement coming up!

Some of the most astute predictions about the rise of Trump came not from leftist visionaries, but sharp conservative thinkers which is perhaps a sharp reminder that reading conservatives can provide valuable insight into preventable situations.

But unlike the old kind of populism that struck terror in the hearts of the Founding Fathers, the new populism, as Kristol dubbed it, was nothing to worry about. In his view, the sentiments of the people now represented a common sense reaction against the un-wisdom of the elites. What was needed, he believed, was a strong leader who could rally the masses to reclaim American democracy from the clutches of liberal intellectuals, institute a faith-based government, and bind the nation together by preaching an assertive nationalism.

Women militants are often dismissed, belittled, or treated as secondary to their male counterparts. Society rarely allows women to respond to oppression with violence, to consider violence as a rational and reasonable reaction, and Ensler challenges this notion through conversations with women fighters.

I have interviewed women guerillas in the mountains of the Philippines and the indigenous Lumads fighting back against the mining corporations stealing and poisoning their lands, women in US prisons involved in the Black Liberation movement in the US imprisoned for violent acts. It is clear in joining militant movements that women escaped traditional oppressive gender role assignments in every society. Every woman I spoke to talked about rage, rage and helplessness in the face of state power. For them, becoming an armed militant was a way of expressing political outrage and not being rolled over by the neoliberal, racist, capitalist patriarchy. It was a way of keeping dignity and fighting for their families and land and traditions and life itself. It was a way of surviving.

The social contract that governs our conduct is faded, disrupted, chaotic. What does that mean for the way we interact with each other, and the world? Can we reclaim an age of manners?

The social code remains unwritten, and it has always interested me how many problems this poses in the matter of ascertaining the truth. The truth often appears in the guise of a threat to the social code. It has this in common with rudeness. When people tell the truth, they can experience a feeling of release from pretense that is perhaps similar to the release of rudeness. It might follow that people can mistake truth for rudeness, and rudeness for truth. It may only be by examining the aftermath of each that it becomes possible to prove which was which.

The editorial team at Catapult are consistently developing some of my favourite longreads on a regular basis I stop by at least once a week for absolutely stunning work. This layered, complicated, lyrical piece about being a woman in a world that hates women is a superb read.

Now there is only one man in my office who will hold a conversation with me without looking self-conscious. We are at a happy hour after a work conference where we talk about being writers. The conversation means something to me; it is raining outside and the bar is crowded and loud and we have all come from the conference and I am happy to talk about the thing I love best. Then we talk about our office. It turns out that he knows the story already. It turns out everyone knows the story, just as I feared. Im so happy, I could kiss you right now. I drink. I drink so much that later I will have to walk past my car and keep walking. I ask, is it something, or is it nothing? He hates the boss, too. Everyone hates the boss, wants him out, wants this to be something.

I have a vivid memory of hearing a report about Dolly the sheep on Morning Edition and the series of conversations the earthshattering event sparked what would cloning mean for society? 20 years later, we still arent sure.

Instantly understandable to an excited Mrs WalkerI knew we had done what we had thought we had donethe fax had been kept terse and cryptic because the breakthrough was, at the time, hush-hush. The existence of Dolly the sheep would not be revealed to the world at large until the following February, when a scientific paper was published in Natureat which point a furore broke out that went far beyond the scientific world.

If you enjoy our work, please consider supporting us witha one time or recurring donation. We believe in paying writers, andwe rely on our readers to help us continue serving up interesting, dynamic, and engaging commentary every weekday. To make sure you dont miss any of that commentary, you can subscribe to our newsletter below and if youre interested in writing for us, check outour contributor guidelines.

Photo: Tuncay/Creative Commons

Originally posted here:

Must reads: Populism, sexism, cloning, and rudeness - GlobalComment.com

From Mercury to Starliner: The Evolution of the Spacesuit – NBCNews.com

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

10.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands on the moon on July 20, 1969. The plexiglass of his helmet reflects astronaut Neil Armstrong, taking his picture.

Walking on the Moon's surface a quarter million miles away from Earth presented a new set of problems to spacesuit designers. Not only did the moon explorers' spacesuits have to offer protection from jagged rocks, but the suits also had to be flexible enough to permit stooping and bending.

The suits had to provide protection from bombardment by micrometeoroids, tiny particles that constantly pelt the lunar surface from deep space, but also insulate the wearer from the temperature extremes of space.

Without the Earth's atmosphere to filter the sunlight, the side of a suit facing the Sun may be heated to a temperature as high as 250 degrees Fahrenheit; the other side, exposed to darkness of deep space, may get as cold as -250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Read the original here:

From Mercury to Starliner: The Evolution of the Spacesuit - NBCNews.com

Pokmon Go Sun Stone – evolve Gloom into Bellossom, Sunkern into Sunflora, and how to get the Sun Stone – Eurogamer.net

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Danzig

Evolution methods for new Gen II Pokmon Bellossom, Sunflora, and how to get the Sun Stone.

By Chris Tapsell Published 20/02/2017

Gen 2 is finally here and with it come not just new Pokmon like Bellossom and Sunflora, but new items like the Sun Stone, too.

That, in turn, means new methods for evolution: the Sun Stone was used for evolving Bellossom and Sunflora in the main Pokmon games by simply 'using' the evolution stones on them - a mechanic that's not been featured in Pokmon Go before now.

So with that in mind, how do you evolve Gloom into Bellossom, and evolve Sunkern into Sunflora, and likewise how do you get the Sun Stone in Pokmon Go?.

The answers to all that can be found below, but while you're here, it's worth noting that there are several other new, special items which work in precisely the same way: the Metal Coat for Steelix and Scizor, the Dragon Scale for Kingdra, the King's Rock for Slowking and Politoed, and the Up-Grade for Porygon2.

Over in the main series of Pokmon games, Gloom evolves into Bellossom - as opposed to Vileplume - in a kind of branching evolution chain. To get Vileplume, you'd need to use a Grass Stone on Gloom, whilst to get Bellossom you'd need to use a Sun Stone.

Evolution stones themselves haven't been in the game until the current update - in fact the originals, like the Grass Stone, still aren't in the game - and so the mechanic itself is new, too.

To evolve Gloom into Bellossom, then, you'll need to get yourself a Sun Stone, along with the required amount of Candy, and simply head to the normal section of the menu where you'd go for evolving the Pokmon and carry on with the usual steps from there.

This one was originally up for contention, as it wasn't clear whether Sunflora would follow the Raichu-style method of evolving, where evolution stones from the original games were replaced with Candy in Pokmon Go, or the Bellossom method which uses the evolution stone, as above.

It turns out you do indeed need the Sun Stone to evolve Sunkern into Sunflora, and that can be done in the usual way from the game's menus.

Want more help with Pokmon Go's Gen 2 update? Our list of new Gen 2 Johto Pokmon can teach you where to find each one, what you need to know about new Pokmon Go Berries, Special Items to evolve Pokmon such as King's Rock, Sun Stone, Up-Grade, Dragon Scale and Metal Coat, and how to get Eevee evolutions Umbreon, Espeon, and updated Egg distances and best Pokmon charts, as well as other Pokmon Go tips, tricks, cheats and guides.

Regardless of Sunflora's evolutionary method, you'll be needing the Sun Stone for Bellossom. To get it, you'll simply need to get spinning those Pokstop wheels, because so far that's the only way of acquring one for now.

Fortunately, there is some strategy here after all! A special evolution item is far more likely to drop on the seventh day of your PokStop Daily Bonus streak. There's no guaranteeing which evolution item you'll get, but with only five in the game at least you hopefully shouldn't have to wait too long to get a hold of all the items you need.

See the rest here:

Pokmon Go Sun Stone - evolve Gloom into Bellossom, Sunkern into Sunflora, and how to get the Sun Stone - Eurogamer.net

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