Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:13:29 GMT

Nicole: I Owe This Baby My Life

Over the past year, Nicole Richie has gone from "bad decision to bad decision" to blessed event.

After days of hype, the starlet's sit-down with Diane Sawyer finally aired Thursday morning, with the expectant Richie not only apologetic over her ill-fated driving-under-the-influence excursion last December but crediting it for turning her life around.

"I literally thought I was okay to drive, and clearly wasn't," the 25-year-old said on Good Morning America. "It was bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. It's been a pattern in my life. When I get into trouble, I try to get out of it....ever since I was little."

Hence her original not-guilty plea to the DUI charge, something she ultimately changed to guilty after reassessing her responsibilities and watching a particularly disturbing report on the news about children who had been killed by drunk drivers.

"At that moment, I literally felt like the worst person in the world for even trying to get out of the situation.

"I really wasn't learning anything from that," she said of her penchant for getting out of trouble first, learning lessons later. She added that her behavior pattern had simply led to her to make "mistake after mistake after mistake."

Of her exploits over the last year, Richie, who was accompanied during the interview by rocker beau Joel Madden, said she simply "wasn't growing, I wasn't going anywhere, and I saw myself going down that road again with this particular situation."

While in the past, Richie has openly admitted to taking drugs and, in 2003, attended court-ordered rehab after cops found her with a balloon of heroin, she told Sawyer that on Dec. 11, she had smoked marijuana and taken a Vicodin, for which she didn't have a prescription, to treat menstrual cramps-though had done nothing else.

"Just marijuana," she said. "I had Vicodin in my system from that day. I never in my head thought that could play a part in your driving. Like, never did I think that."

Richie also explained how exactly she found herself heading the wrong way down a Los Angeles freeway, before simply parking in the HOV lane.

"I got confused," she said of her orientation. "It was a new neighborhood for me....I just stopped."

Of how she felt when the police arrived, Richie said, "Scared would be the core word."

For his part, Madden, who lives the sort of rock lifestyle that involves studying the Bible, he said Richie's bust was a make-or-break situation for the couple.

"This is a great time to walk away," he says he remembered thinking at the time, adding that he had already come up with an exit strategy. "Nicole, it's been great, but you just freaked me out."

Madden, however, opted to "go my gut, and you know, my gut with Nicole has always been she's a great woman."

As for whether a repeat of the situation may occur down the line, both responded in the negative.

"There would no question, 'cause I don't have time for that," Madden said. "I bet on her. And I won."

As for Richie, four months along in her pregnancy, she said there is "absolutely no way" she would fall. When pressed by Sawyer as to how she could be so sure she'd stick to the straight and narrow, she admitted it was "because I never took it seriously before."

"I owe this baby my life. I owe this baby everything, and I have a responsibility now for someone else. I have to set the right examples. I want to be the best parent I can be. I would really want to be someone my child would look up to."

As for the child, the couple does not yet know whether they're expecting a boy or a girl, and Richie said they're "going to try and hold out" on finding out for as long as possible.

She said she discovered she was pregnant after taking five home-pregnancy tests.

"I didn't believe it," she said. "It was my best friend and I, and we were at her house. And she was like, 'You're definitely pregnant.' I actually didn't even really believe it until I heard the heartbeat."

Madden recalled breaking the news to Lionel Richie, the baby's soon-to-be grandfather.

"He was really quiet," he said, adding that the Grammy winner at first thought the call was to inform him Richie had gotten into trouble. Finally, the elder Richie composed himself and told the couple, "Now you're going to get to experience everything I have!"

Madden and Richie have begun keeping a video diary of the pregnancy, which they hope to one day share with their offspring. However, the twosome is more than aware that there will be a four-day gap in the recording.

Richie has been ordered to spend four days in jail before Sept. 28.

"She's doing what she has to do. She's paying her debt," Madden said.

Richie said she's "afraid of the unknown" but "not really afraid of jail."

As for criticism that's cropped up about the sentence possibly not being harsh enough punishment for the severity of her crime, Richie simply said, "That's not really up to me." Posted by: Melissa      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:10:36 GMT

True Value: Start Right, Start Here

True Value had launched an extensive integrated campaign to boost its brand name in the US. The Company, headquartered in Chicago, is one of the worlds largest retailer-owned hardware cooperatives with approximately 5,800 independent retail locations worldwide. The print advertisement campaign revolves around the concept of Start Right Start here as the firm guarantees complete hardware solution for homes. The advertisements are showing different situations in homes in order to illustrate the hardware needs and solution offered by the firm.

The presentation of the campaign is extremely dull and ineffective as it struggles to convey the message clearly. The campaign also seems to be falling short in communicating the product benefit. The punch line of the campaign reads, we have been there. The main strength of the campaign is its copy, which is a bit lengthy but it gives information about the range of products of the firm. The campaign was created by MARC, US.

Via Duncans Print Posted by: Balendu      Read more     Source

August 2, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Exposure to war crimes may stymie efforts to achieve peace

People who have been traumatized by exposure to war crimes have a tendency to choose violent means and reject nonviolent means to achieve peace, says a joint Tulane University/University of California-Berkeley study in the August 1 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.

Since the late 1980s, the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group, has waged war in northern Uganda, killing and mutilating countless civilians and abducting tens of thousands of adults and children. Up to a million and a half people have been displaced in refugee camps.

The Tulane/Berkeley team of scientists surveyed 2,585 adults 18 years or older in villages and camps in northern Uganda in April and May 2005. The survey, conducted with questionnaires, was designed to assess the level of exposure to war-related violence and the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms, and to determine how these variables are related with respondents views about peace.

War-related violence has had a major impact on the psychological well-being of the people in the region, the scientists found. About three-quarters of the respondents reported symptoms of PTSD and almost half met depression criteria. Scientists further observed that respondents with symptoms of PSTD and/or depression were less likely to identify nonviolent means and more likely to identify violent means as a way to achieve peace......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 9:54 PM CT

Farmers unhappiest of all self-employed workers

Self employment is good for productivity, except for farmers, who score badly on every measure of health and quality of life, reveals a study published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Finnish scientists used validated survey data to assess factors affecting productivity, as well according toceived health and quality of life among a random sample of 5000 adults aged between 30 and 64.

All the participants had already taken part in the national Health 2000 survey.

Of the 3536 people who worked full time, around 90% completed the questionnaires designed to measure perceived productivity, health status, and quality of life.

Of those working full time, almost 10% were self-employed entrepreneurs of whom 3.5% were farmers.

The farmers and entrepreneurs tended to be older than the salaried workers, and all the self employed who were sole traders tended to have lower levels of educational attainment and incomes than their peers with staff and salaried workers.

Self employed entrepreneurs with staff scored the highest on all the measures assessed. Farmers scored the lowest.

When productivity was assessed separately, more than a third of farmers achieved low or average scores. This compares with 16% of salaried workers and sole traders and 12% of entrepreneurs with staff......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 9:39 PM CT

Better baseball

How a number of games does it take to ensure that the best team in a sports league ends up with the best record" As per a research studyby a pair of physicists at the Los Alamos national Laboratory in New Mexico, the answer is an astounding 256 games per team in the case of baseball's National League, well beyond the 162 games each team currently plays in the regular season.

As per the physicists' analysis and simulations of league play, there¿s always at least some chance that a lesser team can prevail in any given game. The randomness of outcomes means that it takes a large number of games to guarantee that the best team accumulates the most wins. Specifically, it requires that the total number of games played in a season should be roughly the cube of the number of teams involved. For the 16 team National League, that means 4096 regular season games altogether and 2744 games for the 14 team American League.

Some fans might prefer things the way they are, with underdogs like the 2003 Florida Marlins having a shot at winning the Word Series. For those who would rather the title only go to the very best team in any given year, a modified schedule could get the job done with a number of fewer games, as per the physicists.

By adding a preliminary round to the season, and eliminating the weakest teams before regular league play begins, the physicists showed that the best team in the National League would be virtually guaranteed to be among the top two or three teams with the best records, even with a significantly reduced number of games. Eventhough the very best team may not always end up in the lead, a preliminary round or two would at least ensure that the top teams aren't eliminated from the playoffs through simple bad luck......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 7:42 PM CT

Review Finds Potential Flaws in Voting Systems

Flaws that leave electronic voting machines vulnerable to security attacks were discovered by University of California scientists as part of an unprecedented "Top-to-Bottom Review" of the systems commissioned by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

The review, begun May 31, was designed to restore the public's confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and to ensure that California voters are being asked to cast their ballots on machines that are secure, accurate, reliable and accessible. Bowen released key findings of the "Red Team" part of the review on July 27. Other sections of the review dealing with source code, voting system documentation and accessibility are to be made public later.

The red teams were able to compromise the physical and software security of all three systems tested. The scientists noted, however, that protecting the security of the voting process entails more than ensuring the security of the voting machines.

"Our task was to analyze the machines, but those machines are just one piece of what makes an election secure," said Matt Bishop, professor of computer science at UC Davis, who led the Red Team review. "In my 30 years in this field, I've never seen a system that waccording tofectly secure, but proper policies and procedures can substantially improve the security of systems. Paper ballots aren't perfect, either, but we've been working with them longer so we know more about how to control the weaknesses in a paper-based system"......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

July 26, 2007, 5:02 AM CT

How to manipulate perceptual focus in advertisements

In a new study from the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, scientists from Northwestern University demonstrate how advertisements can be manipulated to cause overemphasis of a particular feature and increase the likelihood that a certain product is chosen. Their finding runs contrary to economic models, which assume that choices are based on stable preferences and should not be influenced by the inclusion of inferior options.

By showing the impact of perceptual focus on consumer preferences, this research demonstrates that in addition to the a number of overt ways companies can draw attention to products, the visual arrangement of alternatives can also have a significant influence on their relative choice shares, explain Ryan Hamilton, Jiewen Hong, and Alexander Chernev.

In a series of fascinating experiments, the authors show how grouping together options with similar characteristics can emphasize dissimilar options and help them pop-out. For example, consider a comparison of two sofas, A and B. Sofa A has softer cushions; Sofa B is more durable. In a head-to-head comparison, sofa A is preferred by less than half of the survey participants 42.3 percent.

However, if sofas A and B are grouped with three other sofas, all of which have a low rating for cushion softness, then preference for sofa A jumps to 77.4 percent. One of these things is not like the others, and that apparently makes it more desirable a phenomenon the authors term perceptual focus effect......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

July 26, 2007, 4:51 AM CT

When off-target is right on

All organisms perform intricate molecular computations to survive. Unlike man-made computer components that are meticulously ordered on a chip, the molecules that make up biological 'computers' are diffuse within the cell. Yet these must pinpoint and then bind to specific counterparts while swimming in the cells thick, erratic molecular stew something like finding a friend in a Tokyo subway station during rush hour.

In the classical view of molecular recognition, the binding molecules fit each other like a lock and key. Half a century of research has shown, however, that in numerous cases, the molecules need to deform in order to bind, as the key is not an exact fit for the molecular lock. Why would evolution choose such an inexact system".

The work of and Dr. Tsvi Tlusty and research student Yonatan Savir of the Weizmann Institutes Physics of Complex Systems Department suggests a possible answer. A simple biophysical model they developed indicates that in picking out the target molecule from a crowd of look-alikes, the recognizer has an advantage if its slightly off-target. This may appear to be counterintuitive: Why search for a key that does not match its lock exactly, and then require that the imperfect key warp its shape to fit the lock" .

The scientists model shows that the keys deformation actually helps in discerning the right target. Eventhough the energy mandatory to deform the molecular key slightly lowers the probability of its binding to the right target, it also reduces the probability that it will bind to a wrong one by quite a bit. Thus, the quality of recognition i.e. the ratio of the right to wrong binding probabilities increases......... Posted by: Jaison      Read more         Source

July 26, 2007, 4:48 AM CT

NanoWaste needs attention of EPA

he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must make key decisions about how to apply the two major end-of-life statutes to nanotechnology waste in order to ensure adequate oversight for these technologies, concludes a new report from the Wilson Centers Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. However, the report notes that the Agency lacks much of the data on human health and eco-toxicity that form the basis for such determinations, creating some tough challenges ahead in EPAs decision-making process.

In addition, firms that manufacture nanomaterials, investors, and insurers should consider the new kinds of liabilities and environmental risks that may emerge as a result of the release and disposal of waste nanomaterials into the environment. The report, Where Does the Nano Go" End-of Life Regulation of Nanotechnologies, written by environmental law experts Linda Breggin and John Pendergrass of the Environmental Law Institute, was commissioned by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, an initiative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The report is available online at: www.nanotechproject.org/132.

The report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of two key EPA-administered laws that regulate the end-of-life management strategies for nanotechnology materials and products. These are the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund statute......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

July 25, 2007, 5:22 AM CT

Immediate license suspension for DWI saves 800 lives each year

State laws that require immediate suspension of the drivers license for failing an alcohol breath test have had a deterrent effect on drunk driving and saved 800 lives from fatal crashes each year, new research shows. However, laws that suspend licenses or impose fines or jail sentences after conviction have little noticeable deterrent effect, as per one of the most comprehensive studies on the impact of drunk driving laws in the United States.

The threat of immediate suspension of the drivers license is a larger deterrent than the threat of more severe penalties that may occur at a later date. It has reduced fatalities from car crashes involving light, moderate and heavy drinkers, as per study lead author Alexander C. Wagenaar, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida, College of Medicine.

Wagenaars study, reported in the August 2007 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations Substance Abuse Research Program (SAPRP). The study looked at monthly fatal alcohol-related car crashes from January 1976 to December 2002 across 46 states that changed their laws on driving while intoxicated (DWI). The study compared effects on fatal crashes of immediate suspensions with post-conviction suspensions of drivers licenses......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source