Atlanta Sales Excellence Director - GSD Job - GA, 30301

Job Category: Sales
Location: Atlanta, GA, US
Job ID: 829395-107528
Division: Sales

The Sales Excellence Manager role is responsible for processes, systems, tools, business planning, management frameworks, initiatives and programs that will optimize sales and provide the discipline for increases in sales force productivity.

The Sales Excellence Manager role drives towards these results by providing:
Sales productivity expertise in Relationship Management, Opportunity Management, and Business Management.
Process readiness and coaching.
Systems and tools requirements.
Planning and Business management frameworks such as Rhythm of the Business (ROB), three-year planning, pipeline management and forecasting support, budgeting management, commitments and quotas.
Ensuring sales model implementation through segment strategy, customer segmentation and role taxonomy.
Development of initiatives for annuities, customer/partner experience, and Cost of Sale (CoS).

The Sales Excellence Manager role affects Microsoft at the EPG sales organization level within a specified region or subsidiary. The Sales Excellence Manager role focuses on processes, systems, tools, organizational issues, financial, and communication processes that affect effective operations within the entire organization.
The Sales Excellence teams are considered to be the change leaders, providing business management expertise and driving sales productivity. This team functions as the execution engine in the field, which means they touch all levels of people and groups throughout the business. This role has significant importance in how we drive the vision for successful change management, business strategy, and sales optimization.

The key decisions made by the Sales Excellence Manager role are:
Strategic annual and three-year planning decisions
Key metrics to drive plan achievement
Rhythm of the Business (ROB) frameworks, processes and metrics
Budget investments and resource management

The Sales Excellence Manager role also makes recommendations and decisions with worldwide EPG and field Sales Excellence leadership on vision, direction and plans to roll out efforts to increase sales productivity, drive sales optimization efforts and lead Rhythm of the Business (ROB). The Sales Excellence Manager role is a strategic leader to a community that needs guiding principles to implement and execute against fiscal year Sales Priorities. The Sales Excellence Manager role partners with its manager (the EPG Lead) to develop the priorities and set the strategy accordingly.

The Sales Excellence Manager role works with the following internal resources:
EPG Lead (the Sales Excellence Manager functions as the COO for the EPG Lead).
ATU, STU, PTU, IU Leads (for driving adoption of sales processes, systems and tools discipline).
Finance (for all processes and data related to budgeting, Cost of Sales (CoS), and forecasting).
Human Resources (for all interactions related to resource requirements, resource planning, and compensation management).
M&O (for determining fiscal year Sales Priorities and investment requirements).

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

1) Essential Experience - Excellent verbal and written communication skills with equally good listening, team leadership and excellence in execution skills. 10+ years of proven solution sales and sales management experience in Enterprise accounts and a track record of working with a wide range of business partners. Extensive experience leading sales teams who had to rely on a range of internal individuals - account managers, partner account managers, services, marketing - to achieve their goals. Preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate knowledge of the business drivers within the lines of business of enterprise customer organizations.

2) Personal Attributes - Highly motivated leader with a mature and positive attitude, a passion for leading efforts for sales teams (both sales managers and sales professionals) and working with internal partners on driving the sales of Microsoft technologies.

4) Qualifications - Bachelor?s degree required, Master?s/MBA preferred), 10 or more years of related experience, management experience is required, experience with sales management being highly desirable.

Relocation is not available.

SMSG
SALES:EPG
MSUSJOB

Nearest Major Market: Atlanta
Job Segments: Sales Management, Sales, Manager, Field Sales, Business Manager, Management

Source: http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/Atlanta-Sales-Excellence-Director-GSD-Job-GA-30301/2520411/

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'Biotech Rider' In Budget Angers Opponents Of Genetically-Modified Crops

Hidden inside the massive federal budget that President Obama signed on Thursday is a small paragraph that has infuriated opponents of genetically-engineered crops. The provision is designed to protect those crops from court challenges. Audie Cornish talks to Dan Charles for more.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

AUDIE CORNISH HOST: Tucked away inside the new federal budget for this year, which President Obama signed yesterday, is one small paragraph dealing with genetically engineered scrops. That paragraph, actually one long complicated sentence, has the biotech industry smiling. But opponents of biotech crops are hopping mad. They say this biotech rider, as they call it, is a blatant attempt to shield biotech crops from all judicial oversight.

Joining me now to talk about this is NPR's Dan Charles. Welcome, Dan.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Nice to be here.

HOST: All right. So be patient with me here as I kind of read through this because it's complicated. It seems that this paragraph is saying that if the USDA approves a genetically engineered crop and then a court says that approval violates the law for some reason, the USDA is supposed to go ahead with temporary permits that let farmers keep growing the crops anyway. Is that right?

CHARLES: That is pretty much what it seems to say, if we all understand it correctly. And none of this has been litigated yet, and that may still be to come. But the thing is, this comes with a kind of a back story. There have been genetically engineered crops that have been challenged in court, specifically two cases got the sort of the Ag lobby really angry. In 2007, an alfalfa - genetically engineered alfalfa was taken off the market because of a court decision. And in 2009, sugar beets, which had been approved by the USDA were taken off the market because a court decided.

In both cases, the same court in San Francisco, decided that the USDA had not done all the environmental reviews that it should have done. So those crops went off the market for three or almost four years and then the USDA finished all their environmental reviews and they came back on the market again.

Farmers and the Biotech industry were, frankly, just outraged by these court decisions. It sort of played into their feeling that, you know, the courts, especially this court in San Francisco, just doesn't understand agriculture. So this law, you can see, it's kind of an attempt to basically tell the courts, you can't get in the way of these biotech crops.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

At the same time, I can imagine that it would raise some serious constitutional issues.

CHARLES: Yeah. It seems to, although it's a little unclear at this point. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has asked his general counsel to look at this provision. According to Vilsack, it seems to preempt a judicial review, and so it may be unenforceable. Some legal scholars that I've talked to say it's a little unclear. They say agencies do, in fact, have this authority to go ahead on an interim basis when a particular ruling has been struck down to come up with a temporary solution to a problem.

But the problem may be, for this provision, that Congress isn't saying the agency has the right to do this in its good judgment. Congress is saying the agency shall do this. The agency shall not allow a court to simply stop a biotech crop from being planted.

CORNISH: Give us a sense of the reaction here. I mean, how big is it?

CHARLES: Well, it's a controversial provision, obviously. Even when it was being considered in the Senate, Senator Jon Tester, who is a farmer, actually from Montana, he got up and was outraged, not just at this provision, but a couple of other provisions that that Ag lobby had been pushing.

SENATOR JON TESTER: These provisions are giveaways, pure and simple, and will be a boon worth millions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporations in this country.

CHARLES: Some other opponents call this provision the Monsanto Protection Act, referring to, you know, the big biotech company that sells a lot of genetically engineered crops. And on the other hand, some farm groups, the biotech industry was reacting to this law with satisfaction. In fact, they have a different name for the provision. They call it the Farmer Assurance Provision.

They say this simply makes sure that farmers, if a crop is approved and they plant it, that they'll be able to harvest it.

CORNISH: That's NPR's Dan Charles. Dan, thank you.

CHARLES: Nice to be here.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/29/175722015/biotech-rider-in-budget-angers-opponents-of-genetically-modified-crops?ft=1&f=1007

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Welcome to the new market - Howard Gold's No-Nonsense Investing ...

By Howard Gold

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) ? This past week, investors and talking heads looking for something to worry about cast their eyes eastward to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where a banking crisis threatened to unravel the euro zone?s fragile peace.

The final deal forced investors and big depositors to dig deeper in their wallets to liquidate one weak bank and save a stronger one. As of Thursday morning, banks had reopened and the Cypriot government imposed strict withdrawal limits.

Investors responded with a gigantic ho-hum as European markets rallied Thursday. The Italian election, which resulted in a stalemate and no new government, also has produced big yawns.

And have you heard anyone wringing their hands about the budget gridlock in Washington lately?

After 2-1/2 years in which political events repeatedly shook markets ? from the first Greek crisis in 2010 through the ?fiscal cliff? deal of New Year?s 2013 ? we?re finally at the point where politics don?t matter.

/conga/story/misc/europe_in_crisis.html 255413

The absence of big elections this year (except in Germany, which we?ll get to later) has combined with a calmer euro zone and a less crisis-prone Washington to produce a more ?normal? market environment in 2013.

That?s why economic growth, earnings, valuations, and seasonal trading patterns, not politics, will move markets for the rest of this year.

And, of course, the Federal Reserve?s loose monetary policy continues to support higher equity prices.

Read Gold?s view of why Marty Zweig?s ?don?t fight the Fed? still matters on MoneyShow.com.

It?s a stark contrast with where we?ve been.

In spring 2010, Greece requested a bailout and the European Union and International Monetary Fund eventually agreed to a ?110-billion rescue. The Standard & Poor?s 500 index /quotes/zigman/3870025 SPX +0.41% ?lost 16% from its April peak before rallying again after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a second round of ?quantitative easing? in late August.

Greece got a new bailout in 2011 ? just about when the debt ceiling crisis prompted S&P to lower the U.S.?s AAA credit rating. The S&P slid 19.4% from its late April high, and global markets lost even more in what may have been an abbreviated bear market.

A market free of politics would be a nice change, writes Howard R. Gold.

Then came 2012 with a French election that brought Socialists to power; a drawn-out U.S. presidential election campaign; a power struggle in China, and another outbreak of the European crisis, this time involving Italy and Spain, the euro zone?s third and fourth largest economies.

But in late July European Central Bank chairman Mario Draghi vowed to do ?whatever it takes? to save the euro, and global markets rallied. Since June 2012, the S&P has risen 22% and is now within a hair of its all-time high.

/quotes/zigman/3870025

US : S&P Base CME

Volume: 661.08M

March 28, 2013 4:35p

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/welcome-to-the-new-market-2013-03-29

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Christian Pilgrims Observe Good Friday in Jerusalem (Voice Of America)

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This week alone, GOP calls Latinos ?wetbacks? and gays ?filthy? NAMBLA? pedophiles? (Americablog)

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'Sponge' Drug Shows Promise For Treating Hepatitis C

Particles of the hepatitis C virus are imaged with an electron microscope.

James Cavallini/Science Source

Particles of the hepatitis C virus are imaged with an electron microscope.

James Cavallini/Science Source

With an estimated 2 million baby boomers infected with hepatitis C, the disease has reached epidemic levels among Americans age 48 to 68.

Doctors can now cure about 70 percent of hepatitis C cases, but the drugs' side effects can be severe. And many Americans are still left with a disease that can cause liver failure and cancer.

So doctors have been desperate for better treatment options.

One of the drugs in the pipeline, called miravirsen, may be able to stop the virus with little side effects, doctors from University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, reported Wednesday.

Their findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, are preliminary ? the doctors gave the drug to just 27 patients for about a month. (Another 9 patients in the study were given a placebo.) But the study is still drawing attention because it offers proof-of-concept for a whole new class of drugs, called RNA interference drugs.

RNAi drugs work differently than traditional antivirals and antibiotics. And some scientists think they may have the potential to treat many illnesses, including the big killers, cancer and heart disease.

Traditional drugs are small chemicals that bind directly to the pathogen's machinery. In contrast, RNAi drugs are little fragments of RNA (or DNA) that act like "sponges" inside the cell. They mop up other RNA molecules that a virus or cancer cell needs to survive.

The pharmaceutical industry has been working for decades to get RNAi drugs to work, says Dr. Judy Lieberman of Harvard Medical School, who wasn't involved in the current study.

"At first there was wild enthusiasm ? and billions of dollars," she tells Shots. "Hundreds of companies became involved because these drugs could be a whole new class of therapeutics for all kinds of diseases."

But enthusiasm and money waned over time, as companies realized it wasn't going to be easy to get these drugs to work.

Pharmaceutical giants, like Roche and Novartis, pulled the plug on million-dollar programs back in 2010, the journal Nature reported. But a few companies stayed the course. And, recently, there have been hints of success.

In January, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first RNAi drug, Kynamro (brand name mipomersen sodium), to help people with an extreme type of high cholesterol.

Now the current study on miravirsen offers hope for hepatitis C. "It's the first example of really strong clinical evidence" that the RNAi therapies are going to work in people, Lieberman says.

It's too soon to say how effective miravirsen is compared to current hepatitis C treatments, says Dr. Harry Janssen, who led the study. The goal of the current trial was to figure out how much miravirsen is needed to stop the virus temporarily ? not it's overall effectiveness. That will require a bigger study.

Four of the nine patients who got the highest dose of miravirsen temporarily cleared the virus after five injections. "That compares very well to current treatments," Janssen says.

But unlike many medications available now, the RNAi drug works on all types of hepatitis C, even those that are tough to treat. And the short-term side effects are minimal ? a rash and pain at the injection site.

Still, Janssen and his team don't know what the long-term effects could be and exactly how to combine miravirsen with other medications. And, he says, there are other hepatitis C drugs in the pipeline that are closer to getting approval.

"So I think our study is a big step forward for hepatitis C, but a bigger step forward for medicine in general," he says. "It opens big avenues for using this concept [RNAi drugs] in humans."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/27/175462370/sponge-drug-shows-promise-for-treating-hepatitis-c?ft=1&f=1007

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Mozilla And Epic Games Bring Unreal Engine 3 To The Web, No Plugin Needed

Back in 2011, Epic ported its popular Unreal Engine 3 technology to Flash and showed how relatively high-end 3D games could run in the browser. It’s 2013 now, however, and Flash isn’t exactly a hot topic anymore. So to show off what game developers can do with a modern browser and without plugins today, Mozilla and Epic teamed up a little while ago to port Unreal Engine 3 to the web, something that was unthinkable back in 2011. As Vladimir Vukicevic, Mozilla’s engineering director and the inventor of WebGL told me earlier this week, Mozilla wants to make the web a viable platform for modern games. About six months ago, Mozilla started to work on using its emscripten compiler to port C and C++ code to asm.js, a strict subset of JavaScript. This combination allows the JavaScript code to run at a speed within 2x of native performance and the latest versions of Firefox Nightly now support these optimizations. Given the complexities of modern game engines and games, getting relatively close to native performance is a necessity for running something like Epic’s well-known Citadel demo and Unreal Tournament, which Mozilla showed running natively in the browser at the Game Developers Conference today. Porting the whole Unreal 3 Engine to the web only took Epic four days and a few small adjustments, Vukicevic told me. It’s worth noting that Epic had already done some work on bringing its game engine to the web before, but that’s still a very impressive result. The actual demo will be available online in the coming weeks. Until then, you can always check out Mozilla’s own BananaBread demo running on the latest Firefox Nightly. It’s not clear if Epic plans to make Unreal Engine 3 for the web available commercially. All of this work, Mozilla’s games platform strategist Martin Best also told me, will flow into Mozilla’s mobile browser for Android and, of course, Firefox OS. On mobile, Mozilla also expects games to run within 2x of native performance and the team already has some in-house demos working, but isn’t quite ready to share these with the rest of the world yet. As for bringing actual commercial products to market that are based on these techniques, Best noted that Mozilla is already working with the likes of Disney, Electronic Arts and ZeptLab (which already brought an HTML5 version of Cut The Rope to the web after

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wNdRPvn1LL8/

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Hiker rescued after days pinned under rocks

By Olsen Ebright, NBCSanDiego.com

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Rescue workers saved a hiker who was trapped under rocks for as many as eight days without any food and water, according to firefighters.

Hiker Ramon Llamas and his German shepherd-mix "Mol?" discovered the man about 8:30 a.m. PT (11:30 a.m. ET) Monday on?Mount Rubidoux in Riverside, Calif.

"I said to the guy, 'You need help? Are you OK?' When he reacted, he says, 'Somebody there? Please don't leave me. Don't leave me,'" Llamas said. "'You got some water?' And I gave him water, and a minute later, he said, 'You got some more?' Are you by yourself? 'Yeah, I'm a tourist here. I'm hungry.'"

About an hour later, rescue workers were able to free the 44-year-old man whose foot was pinned under rocks. He was hospitalized with symptoms of dehydration.

More news from NBCSanDiego.com

The man -- who identified himself as Paul -- told firefighters he lived "back east" and was trapped for four to six days, although officials said it could have been as long as eight days because the victim was unconscious at times.

The man did not have any food or water with him, firefighters said.

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Pre-caffeine tech: Robot lizards, Doctor Who fan art!?

Helen A.S. Popkin ? ? ? 3 hrs.

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via io9.com

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.

Oh! This is cool!A camera trap has captured photos of two healthy tigers using a protected corridor in southwest India, evidence that the pathway could help populations of the endangered animals.

Meet the 6-legged robot lizards that may one day roam Mars!

Here's how the IRS turned employee training into a "Star Trek"spoof.

The drones are coming ... but our laws aren't ready

The thing about that new BlackBerry Z10 ... it's really easy to fix, apparently.

Meanwhile, HTC is no longer "Quietly Brilliant."

Hypocrisy alert: Child labor and blocked fire escapes are somehow too offensive to be allowed on an iPad.

Here's a bill that would ban wearing Google Glass while driving ... in West Virginia, anyway.

Another reason Google Reader died: Increased concern about privacy and compliance.

And in case you were wondering, here's how long Google lets projects and services live.

And most importantly: 13 brilliant pieces of Clara Oswin Oswald fan art to get you ready for new Doctor Who!

Compiled by Helen A.S. Popkin, who invites you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook.

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Knox awaits decision from Italy's highest court

ROME (AP) ? Amanda Knox was waiting anxiously Monday in Seattle to hear if she will face trial again as Italy's top criminal court considered whether to overturn her acquittal in the murder of her roommate in Italy.

Italian prosecutors have asked the high court to throw out the acquittals of Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend in the murder of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher and order a new trial.

"She's carefully paying attention to what will come out," attorney Luciano Ghirga said as he arrived at Italy's Court of Cassation in Rome. "This is a fundamental stage. The trial is very complex."

The court began deliberations in the evening after hearing six hours of arguments from both sides. A decision was expected later Monday.

Knox, now 25, and Raffaele Sollecito, who turns 29 on Tuesday, were arrested in 2007, shortly after Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood in her bedroom in the rented apartment she shared with the American and others in the university town of Perugia, where they were exchange students. Her throat had been slashed.

Prosecutors alleged that Kercher was the victim of a drug-fueled sexual assault.

Knox and Sollecito have both maintained their innocence, although they said that smoking marijuana the night Kercher was killed had clouded their recollections.

Knox and Sollecito were convicted and given long prison sentences: 26 years for Knox, 25 for Sollecito. But the appeals court acquitted them in 2011, criticizing virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors. The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and added that Knox and Sollecito had no motive to kill Kercher.

After nearly four years behind bars in Italy, Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle and Sollecito resumed his computer science studies. Knox is now a student at the University of Washington, according to her family spokesman, Dave Marriott.

In the second and final level of appeal, prosecutors are now seeking to overturn the acquittals, while defense attorneys say they should stand.

The court can decide to confirm the acquittal, making it final, or throw out the Perugia appellate court ruling entirely or partially, remanding the case to a new appeals court trial.

In that case, Italian law cannot compel Knox to return to Italy. The Italian appellate court hearing the case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties.

It is unclear what would happen if she was convicted in a new appeals trial.

"If the court orders another trial, if she is convicted at that trial and if the conviction is upheld by the highest court, then Italy could seek her extradition," Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said.

As a foreigner, Italy is not obliged to seek her extradition but it could decide to do so. Then it would be up to the United States to decide if it honors the request.

U.S. and Italian authorities could also come to a deal that would keep Knox in the United States.

Prosecutor general Luigi Riello argued before the court that there were ample reasons "not to bring down the curtain on the case."

Riello said the appellate court was too dismissive in casting aside DNA evidence that led to the conviction in the lower court, arguing that another trial could make way for more definitive testing.

Neither Knox nor Sollecito was in court for the hearing Monday, which opened with a summary of the gruesome murder, although Sollecito's father attended.

Defense attorneys said they were confident the acquittals would be upheld.

"We know Raffaele Sollecito is innocent," said his attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, who called the entire case "an absurd judicial process."

Before the court, Bongiorno argued there was an "unending series of errors by scientific police" in how they handled evidence in the case, including the fact that the crime scene had been disturbed "and possibly contaminated" during the investigation.

A young man from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence. Kercher's family has resisted theories that Guede acted alone.

The lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, said the family was likely to issue a statement when the decision is issued. They did not attend the arguments.

The court is also hearing Knox's appeal against a slander conviction for having accused a local pub owner of carrying out the killing. The man was held for two weeks based on her allegations, but was then released for lack of evidence.

Riello argued that conviction should stand because "you cannot drag in an innocent person while exercising your right to a defense."

Knox's lawyer Dalla Vedova said the slander verdict should be thrown out because Knox had not been advised that she was a suspect during the questioning.

"The girl was confused, worn out" after 14 hours of questioning by police that stretched overnight, Dalla Vedova said, adding that while Knox was alone, 36 investigators signed the interrogation sheet.

___

Associated Press writer Chris Grygiel contributed from Seattle.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/knox-awaits-decision-italys-highest-court-182226291.html

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Dialogue with the civil society Part I - Morocco World News

By Hamza Mounhi

Morocco World News

Ahmedabad, India, March 25, 2013

A few days ago, government officials announced the start of the National dialogue with the civil society. As members of the media sphere, we decided to start our own dialogue with our own means. The objective is to meet rising NGOs, understand their mission and try to grasp the main innovation they are bringing to the ground to solve social issues.

Today, we are introducing to you Teach4Morocco; ?a start-up NGO? with a holistic approach to improve the state of education in Morocco. Maha Laziri, the founder and the current president will explain to us the objectives and visions of Teach4Morocco.

MWN: Tell us a little bit more about Teach4Morocco?

Maha Laziri:Teach4Morocco is an NGO which has the mission to help making the Moroccan educational system better. As a start, we are focusing mainly on rural areas. We are a group of university students that are willing to make an impact on the ground as we firmly believe that education is the way forward.

MWN: What?s your track record so far, any achievements to date?

Maha Laziri: We decided to start our projects by targeting remote areas which suffer from insufficient schooling infrastructure. Our first project consisted of reconstructing a school and in the village of Ichbaken (the central Moroccan high atlas).

It was indeed a humbling experience as we went through tough days with intensive work but smoothened by the spirit of cooperation and team work between our volunteers, villagers and teachers. We noticed that at the end, there was a shift in the perception of ?school? from as a ?foreign? institution in the village to a more inclusive perception. The School of Ichbaken is more perceived now as a ?community? institution that the children, the young men and women and even the elders have participated in innovating. That is our biggest achievement.

MWN: That?s indeed a big achievement. Do you have any objectives for this year to keep up on this track?

Maha Laziri: We are a start-up NGO. As we go to the field, we discover new needs and try to expand our structure accordingly. This year, the village of Ait Hamza suggested working with us on a project to build new classrooms and sanitary infrastructure. We also have a French partner, Interface IEP, which accepted to participate with us on the project.

Last year, some volunteers organized pedagogical activities for the children. The children loved it. This year, we are going back to Ichbaken to organize the first full-time ?discovery camp.? The idea is to develop games that will trigger kids? curiosity in science, arts and sports. The organization of the discovery camp is in line with our philosophy of enabling access to equal opportunities and the expansion of choices for Moroccan kids. By making the learning experience friendly and enjoyable, we want to help these children discover their potential and better understand their future academic choices.

MWN: What?s the main issue you faced during the preparation of your summer camps and once on the ground?

Maha Laziri: Our projects are very small yet they require a lot of efforts from our side. It was not easy to prepare for Ichbaken as the toughest challenge was to transport construction materials to the village. The transport infrastructure is relatively hostile in the region and it is hard for any type of transportations to carry heavy cement bags all at once. It took a long time to transport all the construction material we needed.

We were however very happy of people?s engagement to our cause. To be honest with you, there are some people who helped us a lot and without them we would have never done it. I would like to warmly thank two teachers from the school of Ichbaken who stayed with us while they were on vacation and helped carrying heavy cement bags, stones, etc. We owe them so much and respect them for all they did.

MWN: You are a non-profit organization delivering free of charge services, I can assume that for all your activities you rely on donations, are Moroccan people generous when it comes to supporting education?

Maha Laziri: It is hard for us to judge based on our fundraising efforts for the first project. We were still new and had no significant track record. We didn?t apply for any aid or donations.We were lucky to find a like-minded partner Interface IEP, we cooperated together in the planning and financing of the project. The fundraising was done by Interface. This year, we are hoping to get in kind support from cement and paint companies.

MWN: As far as I understand, now you are focusing all your efforts on rebuilding the physical infrastructure. I assume that it is financially-intensive and time consuming yet essential. Could you tell us quickly about your long term vision?? Will there be any shift in the future?

Maha Laziri: There will be no shift but?rather an expansion. We are currently adding new?programs: ?Discovery camp? in the summer and ?my passport to school? for the younger kids joining school for the first time and who had no access to kindergarten. To sum it up, we aim at targeting the issues of: school infrastructure, pre-school education and interactive education. We are also working on adding an e-learning program, which will be launched soon, to address the urban population as well.

MWN: Your NGO is working with rural people in the very remote areas of Morocco; tell us more about their perception of education

Maha Laziri: It is hard however to give a simple one layer answer to your question as rural people don?t all have the same ideology and economic status. Yet, we noticed in the case of Ichbaken that no girl has ever had made it to junior high school in Toundout. Education is an investment and the parents are asking if it is worth the effort.

One day, we asked some kids about their future professional ambitions and were surprised to see that most of them want to become? Transit?/ van driver. With all the due respect to this profession, but we sensed that day the importance of social conditioning: for these kids, the example of the richest and most important person in the village is the young man with no education but a driving license. Therefore education is at some instances, perceived as a worthless investment.

MWN: Starting from your field experience, what?s the key issue that is stopping the development of rural education?

Maha Laziri: I am not sure. I have neither the authority nor the experience to answer this question from a large scale perspective. But given the fact that the whole system is on crisis, rural schools share the same challenges as urban public schools. In rural remote areas, these challenges are however transcended by the lack of adequate infrastructure, the issue of acceptance of the teachers among local communities and difficulties of pursuing education after primary school. Coming back to the example of Ichbaken, the school there is lucky because it has a team of very motivated teachers and the villagers trust them.

Teachers are easily accepted as members of the community, which might not be the case elsewhere. However, when kids make it to the 6th grade, only some of the rich go to junior high school. Our projects are still in infancy, I hope that as we grow up, our understanding of these matters will get more accurate as I believe it is the first step toward finding long lasting solutions for these complex issues.

MWN: You are absolutely right. Well Maha, on behalf of Morocco World News, I would like to thank you for your time and wish you all the best for your next projects

Maha Laziri: thank you.

To follow the updates of Teach4Morocco

Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/03/83997/dialogue-with-the-civil-society-part-i-interview-with-teach4-morocco/

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In gay marriage cases, Supreme Court may choose caution over boldness (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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New York Mayor Bloomberg to fund gun control ads: report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch advocate of tougher gun control laws, will bankroll a $12 million national advertising campaign aimed at key members in the U.S. Senate, the mayor said in an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday.

The commercials to be run by Mayors Against Illegal Guns feature a hunter with a rifle, vowing to protect the right to bear arms and voicing support for comprehensive background checks "so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can't buy guns."

The advertising campaign will run in 13 states to target specific members of the U.S. Senate during the upcoming Congressional recess, according to the organization, of which Bloomberg is a co-chairman.

Bloomberg, who leaves office in January after three terms as Mayor of New York, has championed gun control and been particularly outspoken since a gunman killed 20 students and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school in December.

Last week, he appeared at City Hall with parents of some of the Newtown victims and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is spearheading the Obama administration's efforts to curb gun violence.

The Times said Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, would bankroll the ad campaign. A spokesman for the mayor could not be immediately reached to comment.

The ad campaign marks a push back against the National Rifle Association, the mayor said in the Times interview. "The N.R.A. has just had this field to itself," Bloomberg said. "It's the only one that's been speaking out. It's time for another voice."

The Senate is set to begin considering gun legislation when Congress returns from its Easter recess in the second week of April.

"These ads bring the voices of Americans - who overwhelmingly support comprehensive and enforceable background checks - into the discussion to move Senators to immediately take action to prevent gun violence," said Bloomberg in a statement released by Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Targeted in the campaign are Arizona and Republican Senator Jeff Flake; Arkansas and Democrat Senator Mark Pryor; Georgia and Republican Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson; Indiana and Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly and Republican Senator Dan Coats; Iowa and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley; Louisiana and Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu; Maine and Republican Senator Susan Collins; New Hampshire and Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte; Nevada and Republican Senator Dean Heller; North Carolina and Democratic Senator Kay Hagan; North Dakota and Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp; Ohio and Republican Senator Rob Portman; and Pennsylvania and Republican Senator Pat Toomey, the group said.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/york-mayor-bloomberg-fund-gun-control-ads-report-035620113.html

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Drake Gets A Very Strange Tweet From Amanda Bynes | Music ...

Walking train wreck, former child star and current?Kiely Williams?impersonator?Amanda Bynes?has been on a pretty major self-destructive spiral into madness, hasn?t she? It?s the kind that?s absolutely riveting to watch, even as it fills the observer with the idle discomfort that arises when we don?t know whether it?s going to turn out like Britney Spears?(redemption!) or?Amy Winehouse?(tragedy!) or?Lindsay Lohan?(neither!), where we think, ?Oh, here?s a talented person who?s clearly suffering from a serious mental illness, but the spectacle is so funny that it?s hard not to laugh at, even though a time will probably come when we?ll feel terrible for having been so cruel to her.? Ah, well.?

Anyway, celebrity news isn?t really our beat here, but?music?news is (which means now we get to talk about Amanda Bynes, hey!) and last night, Bynes amped up the insanity with a disturbing and provocative tweet to?Drake, in which she asked him to murder her vagina. Yep! That?s what she said. Behold:

And then the seas dried up and the stars dropped out of the sky and the Internet melted into a hot tsunami of semiconductors and telephone wire and it was the end of the world, the end of everything. The End. Bye forever.

But no, okay, really. Of course this is hysterical, and also horrifying, and the sort of thing that we can?t?not?talk about, but also, maybe, let?s try and be compassionate to poor Amanda Bynes, the oddest celebrity curiosity who ever lived. She?s going through a rough patch! And if she wants Drake to murder her vagina, well ? sure, it?s a little explicit, and also gruesome, but who are we to judge? After all, it?s what a girl wants.

[via Popdust]

Source: http://idolator.com/7448074/amanda-bynes-drake-tweets-vagina-murder

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Powerball bounces back into the stratosphere with $320 million jackpot

Powerball players are going online to share their dreams about winning Saturday's jackpot. The odds of winning are long, at 175 million to 1.

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

The line forms here, or more likely out on the sidewalk and down the block. Wannabe millionaires were flocking to convenience stores, gas stations and other lottery outlets to get in on Saturday's Powerball drawing, the sixth-richest ever, at $320 million.

"While this is business as usual, we do expect our retail locations to see an increase in foot traffic over the weekend, as sales have already been brisk," Jeff Anderson, director of the Idaho Lottery, one of the 43 state lotteries that will take part in Saturday night's drawing, told NBC station KTVB of Boise, Idaho.

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Saturday's jackpot swelled after no one won Wednesday's top prize of $261.6 million ? the 12th straight drawing without a winner ? and players were streaming into New Orleans lottery sellers before dawn Friday in what officials called a "Powerball frenzy," NBC station WDSU of New Orleans reported.

The Multi-State Lottery Association, which administers Powerball, said the odds of hitting the precise combination of five numbers plus the Powerball multiplier were 175,223,510 to 1. Winners can take the full $320 million spread out over 30 years, or they can opt for an immediate one-time payout of $198.3 million.?

The biggest jackpot was handed out only four months ago, when two winners in Arizona and Missouri split $587.5 million. Here are the rest of the top five:

• $365 million: One winner in Nebraska on Feb. 18, 2006.
• $340 million: Two winners in Oregon on Oct. 19, 2005.
• $337 million: One winner on Aug. 15, 2012, in Michigan.
• $336.4 million: One winner in Rhode Island on Feb. 11, 2012.

Anderson of the Idaho lottery warned players to be careful, because the prospect of loot like that can lure them into trouble.

"Big Powerball jackpots are a lot of fun," he said. But "we want to remind everyone that when they do play to only spend what they can afford ? not to go overboard. It does only take one ticket to win."

Saturday's drawing is at 9:55 p.m. ET.

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/29e2fd21/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C220C174196140Epowerball0Ebounces0Eback0Einto0Ethe0Estratosphere0Ewith0E320A0Emillion0Ejackpot0Dlite/story01.htm

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Reward linked to image is enough to activate brain's visual cortex

Friday, March 22, 2013

Once rhesus monkeys learn to associate a picture with a reward, the reward by itself becomes enough to alter the activity in the monkeys' visual cortex. This finding was made by neurophysiologists Wim Vanduffel and John Arsenault (KU Leuven and Harvard Medical School) and American colleagues using functional brain scans and was published recently in the leading journal Neuron.

Our visual perception is not determined solely by retinal activity. Other factors also influence the processing of visual signals in the brain. "Selective attention is one such factor," says Professor Wim Vanduffel. "The more attention you pay to a stimulus, the better your visual perception is and the more effective your visual cortex is at processing that stimulus. Another factor is the reward value of a stimulus: when a visual signal becomes associated with a reward, it affects our processing of that visual signal. In this study, we wanted to investigate how a reward influences activity in the visual cortex."

To do this, the researchers used a variant of Pavlov's well-known conditioning experiment: "Think of Pavlov giving a dog a treat after ringing a bell. The bell is the stimulus and the food is the reward. Eventually the dogs learned to associate the bell with the food and salivated at the sound of the bell alone. Essentially, Pavlov removed the reward but kept the stimulus. In this study, we removed the stimulus but kept the reward."

In the study, the rhesus monkeys first encountered images projected on a screen followed by a juice reward (classical conditioning). Later, the monkeys received juice rewards while viewing a blank screen. fMRI brain scans taken during this experiment showed that the visual cortex of the monkeys was activated by being rewarded in the absence of any image.

Importantly, these activations were not spread throughout the whole visual system but were instead confined to the specific brain regions responsible for processing the exact stimulus used earlier during conditioning. This result shows that information about rewards is being sent to the visual cortex to indicate which stimuli have been associated with rewards.

Equally surprising, these reward-only trials were found to strengthen the cue-reward associations. This is more or less the equivalent to giving Pavlov's dog an extra treat after a conditioning session and noticing the next day that he salivates twice as much as before. More generally, this result suggests that rewards can be associated with stimuli over longer time scales than previously thought.

Why does the visual cortex react selectively in the absence of a visual stimulus on the retina? One potential explanation is dopamine. "Dopamine is a signalling chemical (neurotransmitter) in nerve cells and plays an important role in processing rewards, motivation, and motor functions. Dopamine's role in reward signalling is the reason some Parkinson's patients fall into gambling addiction after taking dopamine-increasing drugs. Aware of dopamine's role in reward, we re-ran our experiments after giving the monkeys a small dose of a drug that blocks dopamine signalling. We found that the activations in the visual cortex were reduced by the dopamine blocker. What's likely happening here is that a reward signal is being sent to the visual cortex via dopamine," says Professor Vanduffel.

The study used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans to visualise brain activity. fMRI scans map functional activity in the brain by detecting changes in blood flow. The oxygen content and the amount of blood in a given brain area vary according to the brain activity associated with a given task. In this way, task-specific activity can be tracked.

###

The full text of the study "Dopaminergic reward signals selectively decrease fMRI activity in primate visual cortex" is available on the Neuron website: http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(13)00052-4?utm_source=ECE001&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&bid=BKXPH4F:90EZ4

KU Leuven: http://www.kuleuven.be

Thanks to KU Leuven for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 73 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127410/Reward_linked_to_image_is_enough_to_activate_brain_s_visual_cortex

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Huawei's Ascend G700 exposed, may be Ascend D2's cheaper cousin

Watch out, Richard Yu! Not long after the China launch of the 6.1-inch Huawei Ascend Mate earlier today, the notorious @evleaks tweeted out the above two press shots of an Ascend G700, as well as referring to an old tweet from the often reliable @paopao0128 (of Blog of Mobile fame) who suggested the G700 will feature Android 4.2, a quad-core MediaTek MT6589 SoC (as opposed to the quad-core Huawei HiSilicon K3V2 chip on the Ascend Mate and the Ascend D2), an "HD" LCD (our money's on 720p only, like the leaked G710) and both WCDMA and TD-SCDMA flavors.

Another fresh G700 leak we found shows a hands-on photo obtained from Sina Weibo (which has since been deleted, but it's also right after the break), and it also mentions that the phone will have a 5-inch display plus 2GB of RAM. There's no info on pricing, but the careless leakster on Weibo reminded us that the budget-minded G series devices never go over ¥2,000 or about $320 unsubsidized. To put that into perspective, the quad-core, 5-inch full-HD D2 is currently available for almost twice as many yuans. Well, it shouldn't be long before Chinese consumers get yet another 5-inch device to stuff their pockets.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: @paopao0128 (Twitter), @evleaks (Twitter), Baidu Tieba

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/G5d_A9wSFp0/

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Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/9409918/device/rss/rss.xml

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Brain mapping reveals neurological basis of decision-making in rats

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Scientists at UC San Francisco have discovered how memory recall is linked to decision-making in rats, showing that measurable activity in one part of the brain occurs when rats in a maze are playing out memories that help them decide which way to turn. The more they play out these memories, the more likely they are to find their way correctly to the end of the maze.

In their study, reported this week in the journal Neuron, the UCSF researchers implanted electrodes directly on a region of the rat brain known as the hippocampus, which is already known to play a key role in the formation and recall of memory. This same region is active when animals are learning, and it is damaged in people who have Alzheimer's and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study showed that when the rats paused before an upcoming choice, sometimes the hippocampus was more active and sometimes it was less active. When it was more active it did a better job of recalling memories of places the animal could go next, and the animal was more likely to go to the right place.

"We know that considering possibilities is important for decision-making, but we haven't really known how this happens in the brain," said neuroscientist Loren Frank, PhD, who led the research. Frank is an associate professor of physiology and a member of the UCSF Center for Integrative Neuroscience at UCSF.

The work builds upon several years of investigations in Frank's laboratory that have shown how activity in the hippocampus is a fundamental constituent of memory retrieval. Their recent work shows that this activity is not just about remembering the past ? it is also important for thinking about the future. When the brain does a better job of thinking about future possibilities, it makes better decisions.

Next, the team wants to tease out why sometimes the hippocampus does not do a good job of playing out future options. Problems with memory and decision-making are central to age-related cognitive decline, and a deeper understanding of how this works could pave the way for interventions that make the brain work better.

###

The article, "Hippocampal SWR Activity Predicts Correct Decisions during the Initial Learning of an Alternation Task" is authored by Annabelle C. Singer, Margaret F. Carr, Mattias P. Karlsson, and Loren M. Frank. The work appears in the March 20, 2013 issue of the journal Neuron.

University of California - San Francisco: http://www.ucsf.edu

Thanks to University of California - San Francisco for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 65 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127385/Brain_mapping_reveals_neurological_basis_of_decision_making_in_rats

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SpaceX's Merlin 1D engine gets flight qualified, Musk expects launch this year (update)

It's been quite the eventful year for the team at SpaceX. A few weeks after sending a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, Elon Musk's company announced that its Merlin 1D engine managed to snag flight qualification, thanks to 1,970 seconds of testing time at its McGregor, Texas facility. That adds up to more than 10 full mission durations. The engine scored a ratio of 4:1 for critical engine life parameters, well above the industry's 2:1 standard. SpaceX will waste little time in getting it off the ground -- Musk said the engine will be taking off this year, as part of a Falcon 9 flight.

Update: Now with more video.

Filed under: Science

Comments

Source: SpaceX

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R? ? Laighl?is in Shannon Library for Seachtain Na Gaeilge

The author R? ? Laighl?is visited Se?n Lemass Public Library in Shannon on Friday 15th March and entertained 2nd Year students from both St. Patrick?s Comprehensive School and St. Caimin?s Community School. R? spoke with the students for well over an hour on such diverse subjects as publishing, creative writing, bullying and speaking Irish. R? encouraged the students to try to use their ?c?pla focail? every day even in a very small way and not just during Seachtain na Gaeilge. He gave examples where the teenagers could practise their Irish and explained that almost everyone has even a few words. R? also spoke about the books he has written and read from one of his novels. He explained that although his books were written primarily in Irish, they have still been very successful throughout the world, have been translated into many languages and have won many prestigious awards including the Bisto Book of the Year award. R? encouraged the students to put pen to paper by telling them about the recently published book ?Flying the Banner? a collection of short stories written by their fellow students in St. Patrick?s and St. Caimin?s schools. ?Flying the Banner? was compiled and edited by R? himself and he was full of praise for the talent of the young writers involved. The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed R??s visit to Shannon library and were really taken by R??s enthusiasm for the Irish language and for creative writing.

Source: http://clarelibrary.blogspot.com/2013/03/re-o-laighleis-in-shannon-library-for.html

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Under the skin, a tiny laboratory

Mar. 19, 2013 ? Humans are veritable chemical factories -- we manufacture thousands of substances and transport them, via our blood, throughout our bodies. Some of these substances can be used as indicators of our health status. A team of EPFL scientists has developed a tiny device that can analyze the concentration of these substances in the blood. Implanted just beneath the skin, it can detect up to five proteins and organic acids simultaneously, and then transmit the results directly to a doctor's computer. This method will allow a much more personalized level of care than traditional blood tests can provide. Health care providers will be better able to monitor patients, particularly those with chronic illness or those undergoing chemotherapy. The prototype, still in the experimental stages, has demonstrated that it can reliably detect several commonly traced substances.

The research results will be published and presented March 20, 2013 in Europe's largest electronics conference, DATE 13.

Three cubic millimeters of technology

The device was developed by a team led by EPFL scientists Giovanni de Micheli and Sandro Carrara. The implant, a real gem of concentrated technology, is only a few cubic millimeters in volume but includes five sensors, a radio transmitter and a power delivery system. Outside the body, a battery patch provides 1/10 watt of power, through the patient's skin -- thus there's no need to operate every time the battery needs changing.

Information is routed through a series of stages, from the patient's body to the doctor's computer screen. The implant emits radio waves over a safe frequency. The patch collects the data and transmits them via Bluetooth to a mobile phone, which then sends them to the doctor over the cellular network.

A system that can detect numerous substances

Great care was taken in developing the sensors. To capture the targeted substance in the body -- such as lactate, glucose, or ATP -- each sensor's surface is covered with an enzyme. "Potentially, we could detect just about anything," explains De Micheli. "But the enzymes have a limited lifespan, and we have to design them to last as long as possible." The enzymes currently being tested are good for about a month and a half; that's already long enough for many applications. "In addition, it's very easy to remove and replace the implant, since it's so small."

The electronics were a considerable challenge as well. "It was not easy to get a system like this to work on just a tenth of a watt," de Micheli explains. The researchers also struggled to design the minuscule electrical coil that receives the power from the patch.

Towards personalized chemotherapy

The implant could be particularly useful in chemotherapy applications. Currently, oncologists use occasional blood tests to evaluate their patients' tolerance to a particular treatment dosage. In these conditions, it is very difficult to administer the optimal dose. De Micheli is convinced his system will be an important step towards better, more personalized medicine. "It will allow direct and continuous monitoring based on a patient's individual tolerance, and not on age and weight charts or weekly blood tests."

In patients with chronic illness, the implants could send alerts even before symptoms emerge, and anticipate the need for medication. "In a general sense, our system has enormous potential in cases where the evolution of a pathology needs to be monitored or the tolerance to a treatment tested."

The prototype has already been tested in the laboratory for five different substances, and proved as reliable as traditional analysis methods. The project brought together eletronics experts, computer scientists, doctors and biologists from EPFL, the Istituto di Ricerca di Bellinzona, EMPA and ETHZ. It is part of the Swiss Nano-Tera program, whose goal is to encourage interdisciplinary research in the environmental and medical fields. Researchers hope the system will be commercially available within 4 years.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/HjbSJwuy0Hg/130319202151.htm

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