Obama opens his Chicago home to supporters

CHICAGO (AP) ? The red-brick Georgian Revival home was gleaming: An American flag extended from the porch, the evergreen trees surrounding the yard were pruned and the red impatiens and begonias were blooming. Guests mingled at tables covered with stylish lime-colored tablecloths and listened to light jazz before their host said a few words.

Just a nice summertime garden party on a Sunday ? along with beefy Secret Service agents, the buzz of a motorcade waiting outside, and a black pole extending high over the corner of the property, dotted with surveillance equipment and cameras.

"Welcome to my house!" said President Barack Obama, greeting donors at his South Side home. "I have to say, the lawn hasn't looked this good in a while. But I figured, but at least Michelle figured, that if everyone was coming over we ought to neaten up a little bit."

Obama opened up his home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood for a marquee fundraiser, welcoming about 75 of his top donors who wished the president a belated happy birthday ? No. 51 ? and gave big bucks to his re-election campaign. It was part of a full day of hometown fundraising for Obama, who was expected to haul in $3.5 million to $4 million to fuel his campaign against Republican Mitt Romney.

The president was among friends, noting that many in the audience knew him "when I barely owned a suit," a reference to his time as a community organizer during the mid-1980s. "This place is where I learned about the importance of bringing communities together to solve problems."

Michelle Obama wasn't there, instead raising money for her husband's campaign at events in Los Angeles. But the president reminded guests that she was born and raised in Chicago, where they met and started a family. "I think it's fair to say I'm an adopted son of the South Side."

Obama's weekend fundraising trip had all the trappings of a local homecoming, right down to the crowds gathered by the nearby Pancake House to cheer on his motorcade on Saturday night and a banner hanging on a fence a few blocks from his home that said, "Happy Birthday President Obama."

The weekend offered a rare two-night stay for Obama at his house. The president stayed at a hotel during NATO meetings in June because of security concerns. He arrived on Saturday afternoon and met advisers at his Chicago campaign headquarters, then grabbed dinner with friends at a local eatery called Piccolo Sogno Due, which means "Little Dream 2" in Italian.

During his Chicago sojourn, his motorcade swept past Grant Park several times, letting him look at the park where throngs of supporters cheered his victory on election night in 2008. He could look out the window and see Soldier Field, home of his beloved Chicago Bears, and watch the final day of the Olympic Games on television.

Making his own Olympic analogy, Obama told his donors ? most of whom paid $40,000 per person to attend ? that the 2012 election wasn't going to turn out like a Usain Bolt race, referring to the dominant Jamaican sprinter who was so fast he could jog to the finish line. "We're going to have to run through the tape. But we're really well positioned to not just win but to keep America moving forward."

By dusk, with temperatures in the mid-70s, the president was ready for an evening stroll.

His next fundraiser was at the home of Marty Nesbitt, one of his closest friends, followed by another at the home of Barbara Bowman, the mother of Valerie Jarrett, a longtime adviser and friend.

Nesbitt's home was so close that the president decided to walk, slinging his black blazer over his left shoulder while he was trailed by Secret Service agents and his entourage. He shook hands with cheering neighbors and gave a local TV crew a presidential shout-out for his favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox.

"Nice to be home?" shouted a member of the press corps.

"It's always nice to be home," Obama said. "A little cooler than Washington, isn't it?"

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-opens-chicago-home-supporters-225156646.html

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Video: Norquist: The broad center-right accepts Ryan approach

NYT: Sick doc is surprising face of assisted suicide

When several states legalized assisted suicide, critics feared the poor without health insurance would feel pressured and that who qualified would be a slippery slope. But those who actually choose it are like Dr. Richard Wesley, educated and financially comfortable.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/48631134#48631134

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Boudia's gold shows Chinese are beatable in diving

LONDON (AP) ? China is still the powerhouse of Olympic diving.

But ever so slowly, the rest of the world is catching up.

Just ask American David Boudia, who's leaving London with a gold medal around his neck.

Showing the Chinese can be defeated, Boudia pulled off a stunning upset of Qiu Bo in 10-meter platform Saturday on the final night of competition at the Olympic Aquatics Centre, giving the United States its first diving gold since the 2000 Sydney Games.

"This shows the world is coming after China," Boudia said. "They're not as dominant anymore."

Still better than anyone else, for sure. The Chinese captured six of the eight diving golds in London, but that was actually a dropoff from their seven golds in 2008. Again, they were denied a sweep of every event, which has become their daunting standard.

"Pressure is a strange thing," said Lin Yue, who finished sixth on the platform. "You can't really see it, but sometimes you do feel it."

Boudia was as calm as can be. Flipping and twisting off the big tower on his final dive, Boudia ripped through the water and received the best total score of any dive in the competition, just enough to edge Qiu by 1.80 points.

It was the closest finish in men's platform since Greg Louganis won the last of his gold medals in 1988, and the first diving gold for an American man since the late Mark Lenzi won on springboard in Barcelona ? two long decades ago.

"This is so surreal right now," Boudia said. "I'm in disbelief."

So was Qiu, who pulled off a final dive that was nearly as brilliant as Boudia's, but only good enough for silver. The defending world champion and overwhelming Olympic favorite turned his back to the scoreboard when he saw the final standings, hiding his face ? and clear disappointment ? against the wall.

"I am still young," the 19-year-old silver medalist said. "I will be back in four years time."

Qiu dismissed any suggestion that the Chinese are slipping.

"The result today will not affect our plan for the future," he said through an interpreter. "I believe the Chinese diving team is the best. Nothing could challenge me, nothing could challenge the Chinese team. We are the strongest diving team."

Louganis, who was estranged from USA Diving for years, has come back on board as an athlete mentor, passing along the wisdom and experience of a four-time gold medalist, not to mention being a very visible reminder of an era when the U.S. ? not China ? dominated the sport.

"We're headed in the right direction," Louganis said. "We still have a long way to go."

China won a total of 10 medals, more than twice as many as the U.S., the next country on the list with four. But the Americans were giddy about their performance after being shut out in both Athens and Beijing. Their new high-performance director, Steve Foley, put an increased focus on the synchronized events, a strategy that paid off with a silver and two bronzes.

Then came a finale that no one could've expected, especially when Boudia barely squeaked through the preliminaries in 18th place.

He was at his best when it really counted, hardly looking like a guy who was once "completely petrified" to dive off the big tower.

"After Beijing, I finally told myself, 'All right, this isn't so hard,'" Boudia said. "It's only three stories up. Having more practice and more training on the 10-meter, and just having that peace, it doesn't faze me now. It's cool."

He sure looked cool in the final round.

The crowd favorite, Tom Daley of Britain, led Boudia and Qiu by a scant 0.15 points going to the final round. But Daley knew it would be hard to hold them both off, since the degree of difficulty on his last dive wasn't as high as the others.

"I was just diving for a medal," he said.

Daley had the place rockin' when he received a perfect 10 from one judge, and 9.0 to 9.5 from the others. But, as it turned out, he was right about the outcome. Boudia's marks were nearly as good on his back 2? somersault with 2? twists in a pike position, leaving him with 102.60 points for the round and 568.65 overall.

Assured of at least a silver, the American had to sweat it out with Qiu going last. The final dive of the competition was stunning as well, but a slight splash on the entry left Qiu with 100.80 points for his dive ? and 566.85 total.

Mobbed by his teammates and coaches, Boudia kept mouthing the word, "Wow." As he stepped up on the podium to receive his gold, he wiped his brow and said, "Whew."

Yes, it was that close.

Boudia didn't know how close until he saw the final scores.

Good thing.

"If I had known the margin, my heart would've been pounding and the pressure would've been building," he said. "I just went up there for the last dive like I did for the first five."

Daley settled for bronze with 556.95, but he sure felt like a winner. His teammates threw him into the pool and jumped right in with him, splashing the first British diver to win an individual medal since 1960.

He smiled as he thought of his father, who died last year at age 40 after a battle with brain cancer.

"It's really tough not having him here," Daley said. "I know if he was here, he would be very proud."

Boudia is getting married in October, a reminder that there are more important things in life than gold. He plans to take at least four months off, then will decide what the future holds in diving.

"Who knows?" he said, breaking into a big smile. "I still can't even believe I'm the gold medalist right now. Let's take it one step at a time."

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boudias-gold-shows-chinese-beatable-diving-041351706--oly.html

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Montreal Convention: Legal Recourse Available for International Air ...

08/11/12

In this August 7, 2012, article by Cadie Carroll of Digital Journal, Slack & Davis attorney Ladd Sanger comments on the Montreal Convention with regard to international travel.

???

Let?s say someone drops a bag on your head as they pull their luggage out of an overhead compartment on a jetliner. Or you get thrown around like a ragdoll in the lavatory as the jetliner experiences some unanticipated turbulence.

If you are on an international flight plan, there may be a silver lining. It?s called the Montreal Convention.

The Convention, successor to the highly out dated Warsaw Convention, allows passengers who have suffered everything from an inconvenience to an injury, or even death, to receive fair and just compensation for their suffering.

?Unfortunately, many passengers are unaware of the Montreal Convention,? said aviation law expert Michael Slack of Slack & Davis, L.L.P., in Austin, Texas. ?They endure the pain and suffering that come after the incident, and then, depending on the circumstances, may think they have little or no recourse.?

Ladd Sanger, also of Slack & Davis, has represented many individuals in international airline accident cases. He has spent extensive time studying the Montreal Convention and is one of few air crash litigation attorneys in the country who is familiar with its intricate provisions.

According to Sanger, the following are just a few scenarios where an injured passenger could receive compensation under the Montreal Convention: turbulence, meal service (contaminants in food such as glass, needles), malfunctioning seats, lost luggage, death or injury due to a crash and damaged belongings.

Sanger explained to the Digital Journal some of the basic provisions of the Montreal Convention.

He said that it works under a two tier liability system that references monetary compensation in terms of special drawing rights (SDRs), a national reserve asset that can be exchanged for usable currency worldwide.

The first tier states that the carrier is liable for up to 100,000 SDRs (roughly $152,000) of damages unless they can prove negligence by the passenger. The second tier states the injured passenger (or their heir) can receive full compensation for damages past 100,000 SDRs unless, again, the carrier can prove they were not negligent or that the accident stemmed from an unaffiliated third party such as another passenger.

The Montreal Convention also protects lost or damaged luggage or belongings up to 1,000 SDRs (roughly $1,500).

Another important aspect of the Convention, Sanger noted, was the ?international? component of the passenger?s itinerary. If any part of the flight plan includes a stop, transfer or layover outside of the initial country, the Montreal Convention still applies, even if the accident occurred during a domestic flight part of the international itinerary.

Lastly, the final provision of the Convention, which was added after its enactment, allows passengers to make claims and engage in litigation in their home country, regardless of where the accident occurred. This was to make matters more convenient so passengers could return home and still fight their case.

There are restrictions of each provision, and as Sanger said himself, one could go on for hours explaining and interpreting the great details and slight limitations of the Convention.

A few things are very clear, however: the Montreal Convention was created to provide victims with compensation after an airline tragedy occurred that they could not control.

Secondly, according to Sanger, not enough people are aware of the Convention or that they have any sort of legal recourse at all in a situation like this.

Finally, it is without doubt that with increased awareness of the Convention will come more and more injured passengers seeking what is lawfully theirs, as well as an increase in the practice of international law.

Click here to read article online. If you would like to know more about the Montreal Convention, check out Ladd Sanger?s article: Litigating Accidents and Injuries Under the Montreal Convention.

? Back to News Releases

Source: http://www.slackdavis.com/legal-recourse-international-air-travelers/

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Citigroup's odd foreclosure rental program - The ... - Fortune Finance

rent vs buy

FORTUNE -- Citigroup is getting into the rental business, at least it says it is.

On Wednesday, the bank launched a program to rent out 500 homes to homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgage, rather than put the loans in foreclosure and kick the owners out. Homeowner advocacy groups and liberal economists have been pushing banks to offer the option to rent to borrowers nearing foreclosure. So the fact that Citi (C) was becoming the second large bank - Bank of America launched a similar program in March - to try out a rental program that would alleviate some of the pain of foreclosure seemed like good news.

MORE: Mortgage applications up, mortgages not so much

"It's another step in the right direction," says Dean Baker, an economist who has been a proponent of the rental programs.

The only problem is that Citi isn't actually renting out any homes. Why is that? Well, you know those 500 homes Citi is going to generously try to rent back to their former owners? It doesn't own those homes anymore.

In fact, Citi's "Home Rental Program," which is capitalized in its press release for extra branding power, is not really a rental program at all for the bank. For Citi, it's a sales program.

MORE: The downside of rising house prices

As part of the deal, Citi sold $158 million worth of mortgages to an investor group of Carrington Capital Management and Oaktree Capital Management. In fact, this deal isn't all that different from ones banks have been striking with investors for some time now. Like in other deals, Citi has no remaining stake in the homes, or really much say in what happens to the mortgages or homeowners.

The only difference is that Carrington and Oaktree have agreed in this instance to offer the borrower the right to hand over their home in return for getting the right to rent it back. And if they do, how long will those people be able to stay? Who knows? There's nothing in the deal that requires the investors to wait a minimum period of time before flipping the houses or evicting the former homeowners. Carrington, which is managing the homes for the partnership, says it's preference is to offer 3-year leases.

"Without Citi requiring a minimum three-to-five year time frame for the lease at a fair price, I'm not sure that this program will be very helpful to anyone other than the investors," says John Taylor, who is chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

So borrowers might actually be getting a worse deal in this instance. Often, investors are willing to offer more generous modifications than banks because they have bought the loans at a discount. Citi isn't saying how much it got for the loans, but you can guess that Carrington and Oaktree paid even less than usual. Why else would they have agreed to the restriction they had to try to rent out the homes before proceeding with a foreclosure. But even with the discount, it appears Carrington is eager to rent out the homes, rather than modify the mortgages.

What's more, since Citi no longer owns the mortgages, those borrowers are no longer eligible to get a modification under the $25 billion settlement agreement. Carrington could still decide to modify those loans instead of trying to rent them in lieu of foreclosure, but it won't have the added incentive to modify the loans that the banks who signed the AG settlement have. So if you are one of the homeowners whose loan just got sold there is that much less of a chance that your loan will be modified.

So why didn't Citi hang on to these homes and rent them out itself? Robert Cushman, a senior director of customer management at CitiMortgage said the bank's regulators wouldn't let it. But the Federal Reserve recently wrote a white paper advocating so called deed-for-lease programs as a way to help the housing market and alleviate the foreclosure crisis. So it seems at least one important regulator would be all for rental programs. What's more, Bank of America's rental program involves mortgages it still owns. Bank of America may end up selling those houses to investors, but it said it will only do so after they are rented back to the former owners.

So who cares if Citi is the one that is renting the homes, as long as they do end up as former-owner occupied rentals and not abandoned foreclosure blights? It might not matter. But it adds accountability. If Citi were doing the renting itself it would have more at stake to make sure homeowners are not abused.

And that may not happened, but Carrington hasn't had the best record working with troubled homeowners. In May, in an article titled "Meet Your Hedge Fund Landlord" Mother Jones detailed a number of cases in which borrowers claim they were charged dubious fees by Carrington. The state of Ohio twice hauled Carrington into court because officials believed the company was not offering good faith loan modifications to borrowers who were eligible.

Rick Sharga of Carrington, though, says the firm has a growing business of renting out homes and wants to grow that business. "Our objective is to rent out these homes," says Sharga. "If this works, Citi is inclined to ramp up the program so we would like to get as many people participating as possible." Sharga says in most cases Carrington will be able to offer rents that are significantly less than what the former owner was paying on their mortgage.

And that might be the case. But if that happens it should be Carrington's reputation that gets the boost for doing so, not Citi's.

Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/10/citigroups-odd-foreclosure-rental-program/

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Autonomous robotic plane flies indoors

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 10-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Caroline McCall, MIT Media Relations
cmccall5@mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

New algorithms allow an autonomous robotic plane to dodge obstacles in a subterranean parking garage, without the use of GPS

CAMBRDIGE, Mass. For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. Dozens of research teams have competed in a series of autonomous-helicopter challenges posed by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI); progress has been so rapid that the last two challenges have involved indoor navigation without the use of GPS.

But MIT's Robust Robotics Group which fielded the team that won the last AUVSI contest has set itself an even tougher challenge: developing autonomous-control algorithms for the indoor flight of GPS-denied airplanes. At the 2011 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), a team of researchers from the group described an algorithm for calculating a plane's trajectory; in 2012, at the same conference, they presented an algorithm for determining its "state" its location, physical orientation, velocity and acceleration. Now, the MIT researchers have completed a series of flight tests in which an autonomous robotic plane running their state-estimation algorithm successfully threaded its way among pillars in the parking garage under MIT's Stata Center.

"The reason that we switched from the helicopter to the fixed-wing vehicle is that the fixed-wing vehicle is a more complicated and interesting problem, but also that it has a much longer flight time," says Nick Roy, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and head of the Robust Robotics Group. "The helicopter is working very hard just to keep itself in the air, and we wanted to be able to fly longer distances for longer periods of time."

With the plane, the problem is more complicated because "it's going much faster, and it can't do arbitrary motions," Roy says. "They can't go sideways, they can't hover, they have a stall speed."

Found in translation

To buy a little extra time for their algorithms to execute, and to ensure maneuverability in close quarters, the MIT researchers built their own plane from scratch. Adam Bry, a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and lead author on both ICRA papers, consulted with AeroAstro professor Mark Drela about the plane's design. "He's a guy who can design you a complete airplane in 10 minutes," Bry says. "He probably doesn't remember that he did it." The plane that resulted has unusually short and broad wings, which allow it to fly at relatively low speeds and make tight turns but still afford it the cargo capacity to carry the electronics that run the researchers' algorithms.

Because the problem of autonomous plane navigation in confined spaces is so difficult, and because it's such a new area of research, the MIT team is initially giving its plane a leg up by providing it with an accurate digital map of its environment. That's something that the helicopters in the AUVSI challenges don't have: They have to build a map as they go.

But the plane still has to determine where it is on the map in real time, using data from a laser rangefinder and inertial sensors accelerometers and gyroscopes that it carries on board. It also has to deduce its orientation how much it's tilted in any direction its velocity, and its acceleration. Because many of those properties are multidimensional, to determine its state at any moment, the plane has to calculate 15 different values.

That's a massive computational challenge, but Bry, Roy and Abraham Bachrach a grad student in electrical engineering and computer science who's also in Roy's group solved it by combining two different types of state-estimation algorithms. One, called a particle filter, is very accurate but time consuming; the other, called a Kalman filter, is accurate only under certain limiting assumptions, but it's very efficient. Algorithmically, the trick was to use the particle filter for only those variables that required it and then translate the results back into the language of the Kalman filter.

Confronting doubt

To plot the plane's trajectory, Bry and Roy adapted extremely efficient motion-planning algorithms developed by AeroAstro professor Emilio Frazzoli's Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems (ARES) Laboratory. The ARES algorithms, however, are designed to work with more reliable state information than a plane in flight can provide, so Bry and Roy had to add an extra variable to describe the probability that a state estimation was reliable, which made the geometry of the problem more complicated.

Paul Newman, a professor of information engineering at the University of Oxford and leader of Oxford's Mobile Robotics Group, says that because autonomous plane navigation in confined spaces is such a new research area, the MIT team's work is as valuable for the questions it raises as the answers it provides. "Looking beyond the obvious excellence in systems," Newman says, the work "raises interesting questions which cannot be easily bypassed."

But the answers are interesting, too, Newman says. "Navigation of lightweight, dynamic vehicles against rough prior 3-D structural maps is hard, important, timely and, I believe, will find exploitation in many, many fields," he says. "Not many groups can pull it all together on a single platform."

The MIT researchers' next step will be to develop algorithms that can build a map of the plane's environment on the fly. Roy says that the addition of visual information to the rangefinder's measurements and the inertial data could make the problem more tractable. "There are definitely significant challenges to be solved," Bry says. "But I think that it's certainly possible."

###

Written by: Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 10-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Caroline McCall, MIT Media Relations
cmccall5@mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

New algorithms allow an autonomous robotic plane to dodge obstacles in a subterranean parking garage, without the use of GPS

CAMBRDIGE, Mass. For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. Dozens of research teams have competed in a series of autonomous-helicopter challenges posed by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI); progress has been so rapid that the last two challenges have involved indoor navigation without the use of GPS.

But MIT's Robust Robotics Group which fielded the team that won the last AUVSI contest has set itself an even tougher challenge: developing autonomous-control algorithms for the indoor flight of GPS-denied airplanes. At the 2011 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), a team of researchers from the group described an algorithm for calculating a plane's trajectory; in 2012, at the same conference, they presented an algorithm for determining its "state" its location, physical orientation, velocity and acceleration. Now, the MIT researchers have completed a series of flight tests in which an autonomous robotic plane running their state-estimation algorithm successfully threaded its way among pillars in the parking garage under MIT's Stata Center.

"The reason that we switched from the helicopter to the fixed-wing vehicle is that the fixed-wing vehicle is a more complicated and interesting problem, but also that it has a much longer flight time," says Nick Roy, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and head of the Robust Robotics Group. "The helicopter is working very hard just to keep itself in the air, and we wanted to be able to fly longer distances for longer periods of time."

With the plane, the problem is more complicated because "it's going much faster, and it can't do arbitrary motions," Roy says. "They can't go sideways, they can't hover, they have a stall speed."

Found in translation

To buy a little extra time for their algorithms to execute, and to ensure maneuverability in close quarters, the MIT researchers built their own plane from scratch. Adam Bry, a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and lead author on both ICRA papers, consulted with AeroAstro professor Mark Drela about the plane's design. "He's a guy who can design you a complete airplane in 10 minutes," Bry says. "He probably doesn't remember that he did it." The plane that resulted has unusually short and broad wings, which allow it to fly at relatively low speeds and make tight turns but still afford it the cargo capacity to carry the electronics that run the researchers' algorithms.

Because the problem of autonomous plane navigation in confined spaces is so difficult, and because it's such a new area of research, the MIT team is initially giving its plane a leg up by providing it with an accurate digital map of its environment. That's something that the helicopters in the AUVSI challenges don't have: They have to build a map as they go.

But the plane still has to determine where it is on the map in real time, using data from a laser rangefinder and inertial sensors accelerometers and gyroscopes that it carries on board. It also has to deduce its orientation how much it's tilted in any direction its velocity, and its acceleration. Because many of those properties are multidimensional, to determine its state at any moment, the plane has to calculate 15 different values.

That's a massive computational challenge, but Bry, Roy and Abraham Bachrach a grad student in electrical engineering and computer science who's also in Roy's group solved it by combining two different types of state-estimation algorithms. One, called a particle filter, is very accurate but time consuming; the other, called a Kalman filter, is accurate only under certain limiting assumptions, but it's very efficient. Algorithmically, the trick was to use the particle filter for only those variables that required it and then translate the results back into the language of the Kalman filter.

Confronting doubt

To plot the plane's trajectory, Bry and Roy adapted extremely efficient motion-planning algorithms developed by AeroAstro professor Emilio Frazzoli's Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems (ARES) Laboratory. The ARES algorithms, however, are designed to work with more reliable state information than a plane in flight can provide, so Bry and Roy had to add an extra variable to describe the probability that a state estimation was reliable, which made the geometry of the problem more complicated.

Paul Newman, a professor of information engineering at the University of Oxford and leader of Oxford's Mobile Robotics Group, says that because autonomous plane navigation in confined spaces is such a new research area, the MIT team's work is as valuable for the questions it raises as the answers it provides. "Looking beyond the obvious excellence in systems," Newman says, the work "raises interesting questions which cannot be easily bypassed."

But the answers are interesting, too, Newman says. "Navigation of lightweight, dynamic vehicles against rough prior 3-D structural maps is hard, important, timely and, I believe, will find exploitation in many, many fields," he says. "Not many groups can pull it all together on a single platform."

The MIT researchers' next step will be to develop algorithms that can build a map of the plane's environment on the fly. Roy says that the addition of visual information to the rangefinder's measurements and the inertial data could make the problem more tractable. "There are definitely significant challenges to be solved," Bry says. "But I think that it's certainly possible."

###

Written by: Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/miot-arp081012.php

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How Ratings Could Dramatically Change the Single Family Rental ...

Investors large and small are closely following on the efforts to convert blocks of single family rentals into securities and sell them to securities investors, similar to the way mortgages are securitized into mortgage-backed securities by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and leading banks.? If successful, SFR-based securities will become a huge new source of financing and will transform single family rentals and residential real estate investing, just as the secondary mortgage markets changed mortgage finance forever.

One of the most important ways that Fannie and Freddie, who together securitize about half the nation?s mortgages, impact mortgage lending is the rules they set for mortgage originators who want to do business with them.? For example, the huge battle over appraisal standards a couple of years ago, known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), was essential a fight over appraisal standards proposed by Fannie Mae that every lender it bought would have to meet if it wanted to sell mortgages to Fannie to be securitized.

Fannie and Freddie won?t have that kind of power over securities based on single family rentals, but the ratings agencies that determine the quality of individual securities offerings will.? Ratings agencies carefully review and rate offerings, a function that involves not just price and yield but also risk.? Investors in SFR-backed securities, like those who buy mortgage-backed securities, are expected be a conservative lot, institutions largely interested in a safe return on their investments.? The higher the risk, the lower the quality, the lower the rating, the less demand there will be and the less an offering will realize.

The Fitch SFR Report

Yesterday Fitch Ratings, one of the world?s leading securities rating agencies, issued a fascinating report outlining the standards and criteria it will use to rate securities based on hundreds of single family rentals purchase from small investors and local real estate markets and bundled together by investment firms.?? Noting that interest is strong, Fitch said trading in SFR-backed securities could begin as soon as the end of this year or the first quarter of 2013.

Fitch made it clear that the entire class of SFR-backed securities poses some unique risks and that high investment grade ratings will be difficult to attain due to the lack of historical data and ?ambitious growth strategies by regional operators?.? From the starting line, Fitch is going to rate SFR-based securities conservatively, which could put them at disadvantage with other securities and investment options. ??It views the new asset class as a cross between commercial and residential properties, since rental cash flows and the underlying value of the property may both be needed to service and pay for the transaction.

Securities seeking a better rating are going to have to meet stringent requirements that look beyond price and yield.? The promise of a good or exceptional return will not be enough to win a higher rating.

Fitch outlined the factors that it will use to rate offerings.? First will be the local employment base and the desirability and quality of neighborhoods where rentals are located, since these will determine demand.? Next, the underlying quality of securities will involve property management quality and expertise. Durability of cash flow, stability of value over time, liquidity and other structural considerations will be important considerations.? Fitch will assess management company experience and operating capacity; market analysis; lease terms; tenant underwriting and property marketing; operative efficiency and management continuity.

Signaling the conservative approach Fitch will take to the asset class, it announced it will likely impose rating caps on SFR transactions based on several performance issues such as limited data for the sector and for individual management firms, historical data for market rents, rent roll histories, vacancy rates and supply and demand.

The New Rules: Quality and Track Record

Should the plans securitize SFRs become reality and succeed, how will the rules change of the game change for the SFR business?

First, these rules put pressure of property management firms to meet high standards of operating quality and to be able to prove the quality of the properties they manage with date.? Properties managed by individuals or management companies without a history will be at a disadvantage and will be worth less. ?Probably the larger management firms and those being established by the privately financed new entrants into the business to manage the large numbers of properties they are buying will have an advantage.? ?Fitch?s analysis will focus on management expertise and continuity, cash flow durability, value stability, and the transaction liquidity and structure,? the report said.

Second, the promise of a SFR securities market has already led to the development of a national market for SFRs as the hedge-fund financed investment companies look for properties coast-to-coast.? The new rules will add value to SFRs located in stronger tenant markets where local employment and the local economic outlook are strong.? Conversely, those located in weaker economies, even though they may be well managed and attractive properties, will be at a disadvantage.? Markets will large numbers of SFRs will not necessarily be more attractive. ?While many of the more notable states, such as California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada, have a significant volume of distressed and REO inventory, investment decisions are more driven by local employment conditions and neighborhood desirability,? Fitch said.

Third, the Fitch report suggests that securitizing SFRs will not as easy as some have thought.? ?Fitch Ratings said it is unlikely to grant the best credit grades to securities backed by single- family U.S. rental properties, a move that may curb potential sales of the debt if other ratings companies follow suit,? reported Bloomberg yesterday.? The Wall Street Journal said Fitch won?t rate the initial offerings at all, which will make them difficult to sell.


Author: Steve Cook

Steve's Website: http://Realestateeconomywatch.com

Steve has written 40 articles for us.


Source: http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2012/08/09/how-ratings-could-dramatically-change-the-single-family-rental-business/

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US women outlast Aussies to reach hoop final

Facing a major threat to their Olympic women's basketball dynasty, the United States shut down 2.03m centre Liz Cambage in the second half and beat Australia 86-73 on Thursday to reach the gold medal game.

The four-time defending champion Americans stretched their Olympic win streak to 40 games and will try to claim a fifth gold medal in a row Saturday against unbeaten France, which downed Russia 81-64 in the other semi-final.

"It is a great thing that we have another opportunity to win gold," US guard Sue Bird said. "It's harder to get there than it is to play the gold medal game."

The Aussies made sure of that, giving the US Women's NBA stars their hardest fight by shooting 20-of-33 from the field in the first half, 61 percent, and having Cambage strike for 19 points as the Opals led 47-43 at half-time.

"We took Australia's best shot and we were only down four," Bird said. "We didn't hang our heads or feel deterred. We knew it was going to be tough.

"We knew if we just tightened up our defence they weren't going to make those shots in the second half."

Cambage didn't score a point in the second half, the passing lines to her cut off by speedy guards and physical defence from Tina Charles and Candace Parker denying her the inside position that made her unstoppable early.

"We went down fighting," Cambage said. "They went to zone and I think that shook us up a little bit. They came out fighting and upped their defence.

"Yeah, they shut me down. They started double-teaming, going after the ball a lot more. It's hard. They are the elite of the basketball world."

Diana Taurasi hit two 3-pointers in an 8-1 US run to open the third quarter, putting the Americans up 51-48, and the Aussies led 56-55 late in the third hen the US women took command.

US guard Lindsay Whalen scored six points in a row and Charles added the net four in a 26-10 run that put the Americans ahead 81-66 with 3:25 to go, Cambage rendered a mere spectator.

"We couldn't allow her to get position," Parker said. "In the second half, we made it a lot harder to go to Liz."

"We had to stop Cambage," Charles added. "We weren't making it hard for her. We weren't using our quickness. We tried to get aggressive on defence. We took it more personal."

The US women, who have not lost at the Olympics since the 1992 semi-finals, improved to 16-0 against Australia in Olympic and world championship play. They are 8-1 against Russia and 6-1 against France in the same events.

Aussie 1.96m veteran Lauren Jackson, the all-time Olympic scorer whose 14 points gave her a career record 550, also was unable to solve the US defenders.

"In the second half we weren't able to adjust. They were just able to capitalize on our errors," Jackson said. "We did our best. We battled. We definitely showed strides but America are absolutely the best team here.

"We can hold our heads up high. We played hard right until the last minute. It was just one of those games where they pulled it back. We played our hearts out. Now we have to regroup and try and win the bronze medal."

Australia lost to the US women in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 finals but faced the Americans a round earlier this year after losing a group game to France.

Charles scored 14 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to spark the US women while Diana Taurasi added 14 points and Bird contributed 13.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-women-outlast-aussies-reach-hoop-final-174913466.html

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Texas executes man despite his claims of low IQ

FILE - This May 26, 2006 file photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate Marvin Wilson. Attorneys for the 54-year-old Wilson say he's mentally impaired and should be spared from lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, Tuesday evening. The high court has barred execution of mentally impaired people. (AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice, File)

FILE - This May 26, 2006 file photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate Marvin Wilson. Attorneys for the 54-year-old Wilson say he's mentally impaired and should be spared from lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, Tuesday evening. The high court has barred execution of mentally impaired people. (AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice, File)

(AP) ? A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant two decades ago was executed Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty.

Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville. Wilson's attorneys had argued that he should have been ineligible for capital punishment because of his low IQ.

Before the lethal drug was administered, Wilson smiled and raised his head from the death-chamber gurney, nodding to his three sisters and son as they watched through a window a few feet away. He told them several times that he loved them and asked that they give his mother "a big hug."

"Y'all do understand that I came here a sinner and leaving a saint," he said. "Take me home Jesus, take me home Lord, take me home Lord!"

He urged his son not to cry, told his family he would see them again, and then told the warden standing next to him that he was ready. He didn't acknowledge his victim's father, two brothers and an uncle who were watching through an adjacent window. They later declined comment.

As the drug took effect, Wilson quickly went to sleep. He briefly snored before his breathing became noticeably shallow. Then it stopped.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, Wilson's attorneys had pointed to a psychological test conducted in 2004 that pegged his IQ at 61, below the generally accepted minimum competency standard of 70. But lower courts agreed with state attorneys, who argued that Wilson's claim was based on a single possibly faulty test and that his mental impairment claim wasn't supported by other tests and assessments over the years.

The Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution less than two hours before his lethal injection began. Lead defense attorney Lee Kovarsky said he was "gravely disappointed and saddened" by the ruling, calling it "outrageous that the state of Texas continues to utilize unscientific guidelines ... to determine which citizens with intellectual disability are exempt from execution."

Wilson was convicted of murdering 21-year-old Jerry Williams in November 1992, several days after police seized 24 grams of cocaine from Wilson's apartment and arrested him. Witnesses testified that Wilson and another man, Andrew Lewis, beat Williams outside of a convenience store in Beaumont, about 80 miles east of Houston. Wilson, who was free on bond, accused Williams of snitching on him about the drugs, they said.

Witnesses said Wilson and Lewis abducted Williams, and neighborhood residents said they heard a gunshot a short time later. Williams was found dead on the side of a road the next day, wearing only socks, severely beaten and shot in the head and neck at close range.

Wilson was arrested the next day when he reported to his parole officer on a robbery conviction for which he served less than four years of a 20-year prison sentence. It was the second time he had been sent to prison for robbery.

At Wilson's capital murder trial, Lewis' wife testified that Wilson confessed to the killing in front of her, her husband and his own wife.

"Don't be mad at Andrew because Andrew did not do it," Lewis' wife said Wilson told them. "I did it."

Lewis received a life prison term for his involvement.

In Wilson's Supreme Court appeal, Kovarsky said Wilson's language and math skills "never progressed beyond an elementary school level," that he reads and writes below a second-grade level and that he was unable to manage his finances, pay bills or hold down a job.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2002 outlawing the execution of the mentally impaired, but left it to states to determine what constitutes mental impairment. Kovarsky argued that Texas was trying to skirt the ban by altering the generally accepted definitions of mental impairment to the point where gaining relief for an inmate is "virtually unobtainable."

"That neither the courts nor state officials have stopped this execution is not only a shocking failure of a once-promising constitutional commitment, it is also a reminder that, as a society, we haven't come quite that far in understanding how so many of those around us live with intellectual disabilities," Kovarsky said shortly after the court refused to stop Wilson's execution.

State attorneys say the court left it to states to develop appropriate standards for enforcing the ban and that Texas chose to incorporate a number of factors besides an inmate's IQ, including the inmate's adaptive behavior and functioning.

Edward Marshall, a Texas assistant attorney general, said records show Wilson habitually gave less than full effort and "was manipulative and deceitful when it suited his interest," and that the state considered his ability to show personal independence and social responsibility in making its determinations.

"Considering Wilson's drug-dealing, street-gambler, criminal lifestyle since an early age, he was obviously competent at managing money, and not having a 9-to-5 job is no critical failure," Marshall said. "Wilson created schemes using a decoy to screen his thefts, hustled for jobs in the community, and orchestrated the execution of the snitch, demonstrating inventiveness, drive and leadership."

Wilson's lawyers also had argued that additional DNA tests should be conducted on a gray hair from someone white that was found on Williams' body, suggesting someone else killed him. Wilson, Williams and Lewis are black.

Ed Shettle, the Jefferson County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Wilson, dismissed the theory of another killer as a "red herring."

"There was some testimony Marvin said: 'We're going to show you what happens to snitches around here,'" Shettle said.

Wilson was the seventh person executed by lethal injection in Texas this year. At least nine other prisoners in the nation's most active death penalty state have execution dates in the coming months, including one later this month.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-08-07-Texas%20Execution/id-76d2faa12233487ba883ee10f5098496

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BioMed Central presents Challenges in Malaria Research: Progress Towards Elimination

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 9-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Rebecca Fairbairn
rebecca.fairbairn@biomedcentral.com
44-020-319-22433
BioMed Central

In conjunction with its journals Malaria Journal and Parasites and Vectors, the open access publisher BioMed Central is proud to present its second malaria conference, "Challenges in Malaria Research: Progress towards elimination" at the University of Basel, Switzerland from 10-12 October 2012.

With steps being made towards better control of malaria, this conference focuses on the eventual goal of eradication. Although malaria elimination is currently a possibility in some regions, worldwide elimination is a much bigger challenge that will require further research and progress in many areas relevant to the transmission of the disease. Each of the 10 conference sessions will deal with different aspects of research for elimination with the aim of bringing different disciplines together to generate new tools and strategies for fighting malaria.

Keynote speakers include:

  • Pedro Alonso, Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Spain
  • Simon Hay, University of Oxford, UK
  • Robert Newman, Global Malaria Programme WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Nicholas J. White, University of Oxford, UK & Mahidol University, Thailand
  • Teun Bousema, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
Professor Marcel Tanner from the Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute, Basel, and co-chair of the conference Organizing Committee said "This meeting maintains the momentum towards malaria elimination/eradication through the presentation and discussion of innovative science to be applied in the different malaria endemic areas."

###

Registration for the conference is still open. Details of the conference, provisional program, and how to register can all be found on the conference website (http://www.challenges-in-malaria-research.com/)

Delegates are welcome to submit abstracts to be included within the program, for more information please also visit the conference website (http://www.challenges-in-malaria-research.com/)

Media Contact

Rebecca Fairbairn
Public Relations Manager, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2433
Mob: +44 (0) 7825 257423
Email: rebecca.fairbairn@biomedcentral.com

Notes to Editors

1. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral @MalariaConf



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 9-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Rebecca Fairbairn
rebecca.fairbairn@biomedcentral.com
44-020-319-22433
BioMed Central

In conjunction with its journals Malaria Journal and Parasites and Vectors, the open access publisher BioMed Central is proud to present its second malaria conference, "Challenges in Malaria Research: Progress towards elimination" at the University of Basel, Switzerland from 10-12 October 2012.

With steps being made towards better control of malaria, this conference focuses on the eventual goal of eradication. Although malaria elimination is currently a possibility in some regions, worldwide elimination is a much bigger challenge that will require further research and progress in many areas relevant to the transmission of the disease. Each of the 10 conference sessions will deal with different aspects of research for elimination with the aim of bringing different disciplines together to generate new tools and strategies for fighting malaria.

Keynote speakers include:

  • Pedro Alonso, Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Spain
  • Simon Hay, University of Oxford, UK
  • Robert Newman, Global Malaria Programme WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Nicholas J. White, University of Oxford, UK & Mahidol University, Thailand
  • Teun Bousema, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
Professor Marcel Tanner from the Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute, Basel, and co-chair of the conference Organizing Committee said "This meeting maintains the momentum towards malaria elimination/eradication through the presentation and discussion of innovative science to be applied in the different malaria endemic areas."

###

Registration for the conference is still open. Details of the conference, provisional program, and how to register can all be found on the conference website (http://www.challenges-in-malaria-research.com/)

Delegates are welcome to submit abstracts to be included within the program, for more information please also visit the conference website (http://www.challenges-in-malaria-research.com/)

Media Contact

Rebecca Fairbairn
Public Relations Manager, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2433
Mob: +44 (0) 7825 257423
Email: rebecca.fairbairn@biomedcentral.com

Notes to Editors

1. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral @MalariaConf



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/bc-bcp080912.php

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