Liberty scholarships get more attractive

Posted on by

Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - Football teams usually like to have a running back with a downhill style, but on the FCS level, all of the teams are not moving along a level playing field.

The number of football scholarships offered vary up to the maximum of 63, and some are partial scholarships and some are not. The Ivy and Pioneer leagues are two conferences that don't have scholarships but play scholarship programs, and Georgetown even refuses to offer them while playing in a Patriot League in which the other programs have them.

The next advantage has arrived, too. Liberty University reportedly will become the first FCS program to provide "cost of attendance" dollars to their student-athletes. FootballScoop.com said the Big South Conference university, located in Lynchburg, Virginia, has begun to inform them the decision will be implemented this year.

Under the NCAA measure approved in January and set to begin Aug. 1, the cost of attendance of a scholarship will go beyond tuition, fees, books and room and board to include expenses such as academic-related supplies, transportation and other similar items. The value of those benefits can differ by the school, but at the five power conferences that pushed for them - the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences - they have been estimated up to about $2,000 annually per full scholarship.

The cost of attendance dollars are becoming an attractive recruiting tool, especially for a program like Liberty, which would be an exception on the FCS level because most schools are not expected to provide the incentive, at least not initially.

It is not surprising, however, that Liberty would be looking more like an FBS program. The private evangelical university, founded by the late Jerry Falwell Sr., is pursuing a move up from the FCS level, although neither of the FBS conferences that appear to be the best fit, Conference USA and the Sun Belt, have yet to extend an invitation.

Liberty ranked first in the Big South and fifth in the FCS in attendance average last season, drawing an average of 17,016 to six home games. The Flames, under former Kansas and Buffalo head coach Turner Gill, who was brought to Liberty to help guide it to the higher level, appeared in the FCS playoffs for the first time, beating James Madison in the first round, and finishing 9-5 as the Big South co-champ.

Continue reading here:

Liberty scholarships get more attractive

North Liberty police officer spots burning home

Posted on by

North Liberty police officer spots burning home

April 13, 2015 | 12:41 pm

NORTH LIBERTY Quick actions and a little luck may have saved a North Liberty home after it was struck by lightning early Monday morning.

According to the North Liberty Fire Department, a police officer spotted the burning home, 395 Carlyle Dr., moments after departing from a different fire call at a home one block away.

North Liberty fire officials said they were on scene within one minute.

First arriving units found flames and smoke coming from the front of the home from the roof eaves, a news release stated.

It was a great save, said North Liberty Fire Department Captain Chris Kochanny.

Officials said everyone inside the house made it out safely, and the house sustained only minor damage as firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the fire.

Firefighters had originally been called out to the 400 block of Carlyle Drive after a homeowner reported hearing a large boom followed by their smoke detectors going off around 1:30 a.m. Monday. No fire was found at that home, according to fire officials.

Here is the original post:

North Liberty police officer spots burning home

Liberty beats La Salle to snap losing streak, increase confidence: Softball

Posted on by

Liberty senior Chandie Perez hit a double and had two RBIs in her team's win over La Salle last week. (Andrew Nemec/Staff)

During a lengthy postgame meeting in the outfield at Hillsboro last week, Liberty softball coach Nolan Meeuwsen did his best to find the right motivational words.

The Falcons, who had just lost 7-6 to rival Hillsboro for their fifth defeat in a row, are a perennial playoff team not accustomed to losing streaks.

What were contending with because of our inconsistency is a confidence issue, said Meeuwsen, whose team has reached the OSAA Class 5A softball quarterfinals for the past five seasons. But one of the players actually said it best: If we find heart, then that leads to confidence and Im not sure what comes after confidence, but I know its a pretty good place.

A day after that message was delivered, Liberty beat La Salle 5-4 to snap that five-game losing streak and potentially start a winning streak.

We have the talent, Meeuwsen said. We have quality seniors and quality leaders. Weve just got to start doing things on a consistent basis.

The Northwest Oregon Conference victory over La Salle on April 8 was a better example of the type of team that Meeuwsen believes he has this spring.

Sophomore Riley Driscoll went 2 for 3 and senior Chandie Perez hit a double and had two RBIs to lead Liberty to the much-needed victory. Sophomore Maija Sands also had a hit, a walk and scored a run for Liberty (5-6, 1-1 NWOC).

La Salle took an early 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning, but Liberty answered with a four-run bottom of the third. Liberty then extended its lead to 5-2 in the fifth and held La Salle to two runs in the sixth inning to hold on for the one-run victory in the matchup of the NWOCs two Falcons.

Freshman Emily Cundall earned the victory in the circle for Liberty, which is playing this season without star senior Kelly Meeuwsen because of a shoulder injury that required reconstructive surgery.

Read the original post:

Liberty beats La Salle to snap losing streak, increase confidence: Softball

The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom

Posted on by

Libertarianism the philosophy of personal and economic freedom has deep roots in Western civilization and in American history, and its growing stronger. Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the campaigns of Ron Paul and Rand Paul, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses have pushed millions more Americans in a libertarian direction. The Libertarian Mind, by David Boaz, the longtime executive vice president of the Cato Institute, is the best available guide to the history, ideas, and growth of this increasingly important political movement.

Boaz has updated the book with new information on the threat of government surveillance; the policies that led up to and stemmed from the 2008 financial crisis; corruption in Washington; and the unsustainable welfare state. The Libertarian Mind is the ultimate resource for the current, burgeoning libertarian movement.

He is a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz is the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. The earlier edition of The Libertarian Mind, titled Libertarianism: A Primer, was described by the Los Angeles Times as a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas. His other books include The Politics of Freedom and the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.

His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate, and he wrote the entry on libertarianism at the Encyclopedia Britannica. He is a frequent guest on national television and radio shows, and has appeared on ABCs Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CNNs Crossfire, NPRs Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, The McLaughlin Group, Stossel, The Independents, Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media.

Virginia: April 16 Hampden-Sydney College: The Libertarian Mind with Author David Boaz April 18 Young Americans for Liberty state convention, Blacksburg: http://www.yaliberty.org/convention/state/2015/va

Texas: April 22 Southern Methodist University: http://oneil.cox.smu.edu/events April 22 Americas Future Foundation, Dallas, TX: https://www.facebook.com/events/433923173452893/

Missouri April 30 St. Louis http://www.cato.org/events/cato-institute-policy-forum-st-louis-april July 7 or 8 Kansas City Public Library

Nevada July 8-11 FreedomFest, Las Vegas

Washington D.C. July 26 31 Washington D.C. Cato University http://www.cato.org/cato-university/2015

See the original post:

The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom

SURF’S UP! At Josiah’s Bay on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, CARIBBEAN! – Video

Posted on by


SURF #39;S UP! At Josiah #39;s Bay on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, CARIBBEAN!
Yes, surfs up at Josiah #39;s Bay on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, Caribbean! Good friend Alex Dick-Reid started a new surfing school on the beach in Josiah #39;s Bay, and all are welcome...

By: Rick Moore

Read the original:

SURF'S UP! At Josiah's Bay on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, CARIBBEAN! - Video

Japan approves controversial textbooks that claim disputed islands – Video

Posted on by


Japan approves controversial textbooks that claim disputed islands
Japan has approved new textbooks for its junior and middle schools, all of which claim sovereignty over disputed islands in the East China Sea. 18 different textbooks now say the disputed territori...

By: CCTV News

See the original post here:

Japan approves controversial textbooks that claim disputed islands - Video

Secure Islands Turbo Charges Performance and Delivers 100% Accurate Classification and Protection With IQProtector 5.0

Posted on by

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 14, 2015

Secure Islands today announced general availability of IQProtector 5.0, the industrys leading Information Protection and Control (IPC) solution. Version 5.0 breaks new ground with its Data Interception Architecture, an open framework that enables more data to be immunized faster with 100% accuracy, based on enterprise-wide policies, independently of users, devices or platforms. Other enhancements include secure collaboration capabilities and a customizable user interface. With this release, Secure Islands delivers an industry first - a single, scalable, policy driven platform that enables organizations to classify and protect data the moment it is created, and from any user, application, location or device.

Designed for use in todays highly distributed, mobile, and borderless enterprise computing environments, IQProtector enables organization to immunize data at the point of creation, with protection that persists throughout the entire lifecycle of the data. Secure Islands will be demonstrating IQProtector 5.0 at RSA Conference in San Francisco, California from April 20-23, 2015, Booth #127

Introducing Data Interception Data Interceptors can be implemented extremely close to any data source and inspect all files that are generated or in-transit through the source with minimum dependency on the end-user or the device that uses this data. Upon inspection, Interceptors instantly immunize the data based on the organizations classification and protection policy.

Secure Islands have made data interceptors available for:

Secure Collaboration Enhancements to Secure Islands secure collaboration capabilities include the ability for email users to apply protection to messages and attachments with ad-hoc permissions for recipients. Additionally, using the Exchange Interceptor and leveraging Azure Rights Management, Classification and Protection policies can be enforced outside the organization, without having to compromise or expose user identities or keys..

Enhanced Management, Improved User Experience Finally, the Secure Islands IQProtector 5.0 features a completely new user interface, delivering better usability and a vastly improved user experience. The interface can be customized with organizational background color and logo and allows organizations to customize security message text according to their needs.

Because our large enterprise customers have challenged us to support myriad use cases and requirements, IQProtector delivers powerful yet extremely manageable Information Protection purpose-built for todays borderless enterprises, said Yuval Eldar, Founder, Secure Islands. Credit Suisse was one of those customers, which chose to invest in Secure Islands once it became clear IQProtector makes data loss, leakage or theft irrelevant. While there will never be a single silver bullet for security, Secure Islands customers have quickly become are unappealing targets for cyber criminals.

Availability IQProtector 5.0 is now generally available. Secure Islands will demonstrate the capabilities of IQProtector 5.0 at RSA Conference in San Francisco, April 20-23, 2015, Stand #127.

About Secure Islands Secure Islands provides advanced Information Protection and Control (IPC) solutions for the borderless enterprise. Offering policy-driven classification and protection for unstructured data, Secure Islands lays the foundation enterprises to shift from network or perimeter-based defenses to persistent data protection. Secure Islands redefines data security and assists companies in regaining control by identifying, classifying and protecting sensitive information throughout its lifecycle. Founded in 2006, Secure islands is a privately held company is experiencing tremendous growth, fueled by the accelerated adoption of its solution by leading global corporations including a number of Global 2000 companies in the financial, manufacturing, government and telecommunication sectors. For more information, please visit. http://www.secureislands.com

Read more from the original source:

Secure Islands Turbo Charges Performance and Delivers 100% Accurate Classification and Protection With IQProtector 5.0

Oldest Neanderthal DNA

Posted on by

File photo - Hyperrealistic face of a neanderthal male is displayed in a cave in the new Neanderthal Museum in the northern Croatian town of Krapina Feb. 25, 2010.(REUTERS/Nikola Solic)

The calcite-encrusted skeleton of an ancient human, still embedded in rock deep inside a cave in Italy, has yielded the oldest Neanderthal DNA ever found.

These molecules, which could be up to 170,000 years old, could one day help yield the most complete picture yet of help paint a more complete picture of Neanderthal life, researchers say.

Although modern humans are the only remaining human lineage, many others once lived on Earth. The closest extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until they went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of today's Europeans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of anyone living outside Africa today is Neanderthal in origin. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]

In 1993, scientists found an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of the limestone cave of Lamalunga, near Altamura in southern Italy a discovery they said had the potential to reveal new clues about Neanderthals.

"The Altamura man represents the most complete skeleton of a single nonmodern human ever found," study co-author Fabio Di Vincenzo, a paleoanthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome, told Live Science. "Almost all the bony elements are preserved and undamaged."

The Altamura skeleton bears a number of Neanderthal traits, particularly in the face and the back of the skull. However, it also possesses features that usually aren't seen in Neanderthals for instance, its brow ridges were even more massive than those of Neanderthals.These differences made it difficult to tell which human lineage the Altamura man might have belonged to. Moreover, the Altamura skeleton remains partially embedded in rock, making it difficult to analyze.

Now, new research shows that DNA from a piece of the skeleton's right shoulder blade suggests the Altamura fossil was a Neanderthal. The shape of this piece of bone also looks Neanderthal, the researchers said.

In addition, the scientists dated the skeleton to about 130,000 to 170,000 years old. This makes it the oldest Neanderthal from which DNA has ever been extracted. (These bones are not the oldest known Neanderthal fossils the oldest ones ever found are about 200,000 years old. This isn't the oldest DNA ever extracted from a human, either; that accolade goes to 400,000-year-old DNA collected from relatives of Neanderthals.)

The bone is so old that its DNA is too degraded for the researchers to sequence the fossil's genome at least with current technology. However, they noted that next-generation DNA-sequencing technologies might be capable of such a task, which "could provide important results on the Neanderthal genome," study co-author David Caramelli, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy, told Live Science.

Continue reading here:

Oldest Neanderthal DNA

The genetics of psychiatric disorders

Posted on by

While it has long been recognized that genetics -- alongside environmental factors -- play a role in developing psychiatric disorders, the function of individual genes is still largely unknown. But an international, multi-disciplinary team led by Bournemouth University's Dr Kevin McGhee is aiming to uncover just that -- using fruit flies to isolate and examine the genes involved in the development of schizophrenia, with the hope of improving knowledge and treatments for the condition.

"In psychiatric genetics, a lot of time and money has been invested in large, genomewide studies to find the genes that are involved," said Dr McGhee, a Senior Lecturer in Health Sciences at Bournemouth University (BU). "Now, we want to find out what the functions of those genes are. If you can do that, the ultimate impact is that you can then design better treatments." Dr McGhee is the principal investigator of the year-long project, working alongside colleagues from the National University of Ireland, Galway and University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Students are also playing a part in the Bournemouth University funded project, with a number of dissertation students trained to carry out lab-based examinations of the fruit flies. They will isolate and switch off genes that human data has previously indicated play a role in schizophrenia, before examining the effect on the flies' nerve cells at different life stages.

"If we can prove that it works and can be applied to human psychiatric genetics, then it helps create a cheap and easy functional model that is beneficial to everyone," explained Dr McGhee. "I believe what we find out from these genetic studies will help infer what is going on biologically, and that will ultimately lead to better treatment."

Another strand of the research will help kickstart the use of psychiatric genetic counselling in the UK. Genetic counselling -- where patients and relatives are given advice and support around the probability of developing an inherited disorder -- has long been used to assess the risks around conditions like Down's Syndrome and certain cancers.

A psychiatric genetic counselling workshop -- the first of its kind -- is being held by the research team. It will explore how best to translate the increasing knowledge about the genetics of psychiatric disorders into educational and counselling-based interventions to improve outcomes for patients and their families.

"Genetic counselling will probably expand over the next ten or 20 years and we want to put BU at the forefront, as a UK leader in the field," said Dr McGhee, adding that the workshop has already attracted interest from around the world. "I think people having that education and training to be able to explain and support people through diagnosis will lead to better treatments and help reduce that sense of stigma and guilt around psychiatric disorders."

Open access publishing is another way in which Dr McGhee believes that the wider public can benefit and learn from research projects. "Impact is really important for research and open access really helps to achieve that -- as anyone can see it, whether they are students, doctors, charities, policy makers, whoever," he said. "I think, hopefully, another impact of this work will be to better show where we are with this research, which again goes back to open access -- helping people to see that there are hundreds of markers and hundreds of genes and they each have a very small effect.

"Ultimately, we want to educate the healthcare professionals, policy makers and eventually the public -- the patients and families who suffer from psychiatric diseases -- so that they are better informed."

Story Source:

Read this article:

The genetics of psychiatric disorders

3D Printing’s Potential for Personalized Care – Eugene Suyu’s Health Care Pecha Kucha – Video

Posted on by


3D Printing #39;s Potential for Personalized Care - Eugene Suyu #39;s Health Care Pecha Kucha
We asked Eugene Suyu to tell us (and a few hundred of our friends) about his hopes for health care. He did so through a Pecha Kucha presentation at Health Talks on February 18, 2015. Eugene...

By: BCPSQC

See the article here:

3D Printing's Potential for Personalized Care - Eugene Suyu's Health Care Pecha Kucha - Video