Online advertising and internet marketing ? Linked Data for Cultural ...

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Source: http://ldch.da.ulcc.ac.uk/index.php?title=Online_advertising_and_internet_marketing&diff=16452&oldid=0

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Congressional inaction could cost college students

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans.

The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses. The difference between the two rates adds up to $6 billion.

Just a year ago, lawmakers faced a similar deadline and dodged the rate increase amid the heated presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But that was with the White House up for grabs and before Washington was consumed by budget standoffs that now seem routine.

"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."

The new rates apply only to those who take new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' nonsubsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans from commercial lenders.

But it translates to real money for incoming college freshmen who could end up paying back $5,000 more for the same maxed-out student loans their older siblings have.

House Education Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and the committee's senior Democrat, George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.

Adding another perspective to the debate, Obama will release his budget proposal on April 10.

Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. The House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels, but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.

In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.

"Two ideas ... have been introduced so far ? neither of which is likely to go very far," said Terry Hartle, the top lobbyist for colleges at the American Council on Education.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.

Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health, Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan-rate fix down the road.

But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.

"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."

Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; 1 in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student-loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.

The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.

For some, though, the interest rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.

"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congressional-inaction-could-cost-college-students-070946508--finance.html

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Quarter of U.S. firms in China face data theft: business lobby

By Michael Martina

BEIJING (Reuters) - A quarter of firms that are members of a leading U.S. business lobby in China have been victims of data theft, a report by the group said on Friday, amid growing vitriol between Beijing and Washington over the threat of cyber attacks.

Twenty-six percent of members who responded to an annual survey said their proprietary data or trade secrets had been compromised or stolen from their China operations, the American Chamber of Commerce in China report said.

"This poses a substantial obstacle for business in China, especially when considered alongside the concerns over IPR (intellectual property rights) enforcement and de facto technology transfer requirements," the Chamber said.

A U.S. computer security company, Mandiant, said in February a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks that targeted the United States and stole data from more than 100 companies.

That set off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

U.S. Representative Dutch Ruppersberger said last month American companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $300 billion due to trade secret theft, much of it the result of Chinese hacking.

China says the accusations lack proof and that it is also a victim of hacking attacks, more than half of which originate from the United States.

The Chamber's survey was conducted among 325 members across China late last year, before the release of Mandiant's report.

Only 10 percent of companies in the survey said they would use China-based cloud computing services, with most citing cyber security concerns as a reason. Blocked Internet searches in China had impeded business for 62 percent of respondents.

U.S. officials have pressed China to address Internet attacks and cyber spying against American companies. U.S. President Barack Obama raised hacking concerns in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier in March.

A recent assessment by U.S. intelligence leaders said for the first time cyber attacks and cyber espionage had supplanted terrorism as the nation's top threat.

INVESTMENT STAGNATION

Most firms expressed optimism about the business outlook in China, with many reporting higher margins for their China units.

But companies gave lower expectations for investment and cited rising labor costs as a top concern. Perceptions that China's investment environment is stagnating are increasing, according to the survey.

"Members ... have not felt over the last four or five years that there have been commercially significant positive changes in the business environment or the investment environment," Chamber president Christian Murck told reporters.

"When you have an economy which is making a transition to a market economy, but which is not yet there, there is a feeling that if you are not moving forward with an indicated path of future policy that you are effectively moving backward," he said at a briefing on the survey.

The Chamber's survey also cited a steep rise in concerns over IPR enforcement, with 72 percent of respondents saying enforcement was ineffective or totally ineffective, an increase of 13 percentage points over last year.

Perceptions that technology transfer was increasingly a requirement for access to China's market also jumped 10 points to 37 percent, the Chamber said, with higher rates of concern reported in the aerospace, automotive, chemical in information technology sectors.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/quarter-u-firms-china-face-data-theft-business-050119247--business.html

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Clean fuel regulations: EPA, oil industry vie over effect on gas prices

The Obama administration proposed on Friday new ? and more costly ? regulations of the refining industry to produce cleaner gasoline and clearer skies.

If the new rules are implemented as scheduled in 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says, they will spare thousands of people from premature death and prevent respiratory problems in tens of thousands of children. The cost: on average less than a penny gallon.

Not so, says the oil industry, which has been battling the EPA over the proposed rules. The new rules will add as much as nine cents a gallon to the cost of making fuel and will produce ?ambiguous? results, says The American Petroleum Institute. API, the industry?s lobbying arm in Washington, refers to the proposed new rules as part of a ?tsunami of regulations? the industry faces this year that could add as much as 65 cents to the cost of producing a gallon of fuel in the future.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about gas prices? Take our quiz!

Gasoline prices are politically sensitive. Consumers often know how much they have paid for a gallon of gasoline compared with their prior fill-up. When pump prices are rising, consumers grumble and, if prices get high enough, cut back on other discretionary purchases. As a result, economists refer to rising fuel prices as a tax on the economy.

But will Americans pay more for fuel and smile about if they believe it will result in cleaner air?

?Some will, but the majority won?t,? answers Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at GasBuddy.com. ?There is a sense among a lot of people that we are entitled to cheaper fuel prices than the rest of the world.?

The proposed changes would make US standards the same as most of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, Mr. Kloza says. ?We would be joining 45 other countries with tougher fuel standards,? he says.

Republicans quickly attacked the proposed regulation. ?The Obama Administration is modeling our regulations after California, which has the worst economy in the nation, and today?s announcement is essentially a guaranteed energy tax hike and unfortunately is just one of many radical policies coming out of this Administration that will deal a heavy blow to middle-class families and small businesses,? said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement.

In January, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, often associated with Democratic issues, conducted what it termed a ?bipartisan survey? of 800 registered voters for the American Lung Association on whether Americans favored tougher fuel regulations and improved antipollution laws. It found 62 percent of voters supported new gasoline and vehicle standards, and 32 percent opposed them.

If the new rules are implemented as proposed, the EPA says, the new standards would cut smog-producing chemicals by 80 percent, cut down on particulate matter by 70 percent, and reduce vapor emissions to near zero.

In the case of sulfur, one culprit in producing smog, the new standard would cut the emission to 10 parts per million in 2017 compared with the current standard of 30 parts per million. Only eight years ago the standard was 300 parts per million.

Implementing the new standards will, by 2030, avoid 2,400 premature deaths per year, 23,000 cases of respiratory ailments in children, 3,200 hospital admissions, and 1.8 million lost school days, work days, and days when activities would be restricted due to air pollution, the EPA estimates. Total health-related benefits in 2030 would be between $8 billion and $23 billion annually, according to the agency.

One proponent of the new standard is the auto industry, which is under pressure to boost fuel mileage to meet tougher government regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy. In a background press release on Friday, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group, called the EPA announcement ?a big step forward.?

According to the alliance, cleaner fuel immediately reduces emissions from vehicles of any age. Sulfur damages catalytic converters over time, so the new regulation would be especially helpful in older vehicles.

?And, cleaner fuel allows for new energy-efficient technologies like lean-burn engines that are going to be necessary to comply with the challenging 2017-2025 greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards,? said the alliance in its release.

The auto industry would also like to see the EPA?s proposed new standards implemented because they would then be closer to those used in California. This would allow the auto companies to sell the same cars in all 50 states, says the EPA.

In fact, the EPA in its release mainly talked about the benefit to the auto industry, which the US government rescued during the height of the Great Recession.

?The Obama Administration has taken a series of steps to reinvigorate the auto industry and ensure that the cars of tomorrow are cleaner, more efficient and saving drivers money at the pump and these common-sense cleaner fuels and cars standards are another example of how we can protect the environment and public health in an affordable and practical way,? said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe, in a statement.

The proposed rules come at a time when refinery profit margins are relatively high, says GasBuddy.com's Kloza.

?Let?s just say the environment for refining is prosperous,? he says, noting that the cost of natural gas used to make gasoline is low, and that the price of oil produced in the US is lower than oil produced in other parts of the world. This gives the refineries a cost advantage.

However, he says, the industry can see a turnaround in a hurry. ?We know refining can go from a renaissance to the dark ages in a heartbeat,? he says.

The API says it is sees nothing but rising costs ahead because of proposed federal regulations. If the EPA adds an additional mandate to lower vapor pressure, that will cost an extra 25 cents a gallon to make gasoline, the API calculates. Moreover, the API says, gasoline costs during manufacturing will rise another 30 percent if federal mandates to use more ethanol by 2015 are not relaxed. The API also worries that the EPA will propose new ozone reduction standards at the end of the year.

?That?s why we call it a tsunami of regulations,? says Carlton Carroll, a spokesman for the API in Washington.

The EPA will take public comments on the new regulations before finalizing them, possibly by year's end.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clean-fuel-regulations-epa-oil-industry-vie-over-191558657.html

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New study aims to prevent sports-related brain injury in youngsters

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Ice hockey accounts for nearly half of all traumatic brain injuries among children and youth participating in organized sports who required a trip to an emergency department in Canada, according to a new study out of St. Michael's Hospital.

The results are part of a first-of-its-kind study led by Dr. Michael Cusimano that looked at causes of sports-related brain injuries in Canadian youth and also uncovered some prevention tactics that could be immediately implemented to make sports safer for kids.

"Unless we understand how children are getting hurt in sport, we can't develop ways to prevent these serious injuries from happening," said Dr. Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and the lead author of the study. "One would think that we know the reasons why kids are having brain injuries in sports, but until know, it was based mainly on anecdotes."

The study used data from The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program to look at the almost 13,000 children and youth aged 5-19 who had a sports-related brain injury between 1990 and 2009. The results appeared in the journal PLOS ONE today.

The researchers categorized injuries by players' ages, what sport they occurred in and what mechanisms had caused them -- "struck by player," "struck by object" (such as net or post), "struck by sport implement" (such as ball or stick), "struck by playing surface" and "other."

Hockey accounted for 44.3 per cent of all injuries and almost 70 per cent of them occurred in children over 10 as a result of player-to-player contact or being hit into the boards.

Dr. Cusimano said they expected to see high numbers in hockey because it's Canada's "national sport."

"This shows that body contact is still an area where we need to make major inroads to preventing brain injuries," Dr. Cusimano said. "For example, enforcing existing rules and making more effective incentives and disincentives about checking from behind could make huge improvements."

Nineteen per cent of the youth who suffered brain injuries got them during soccer, with most in the 10 to 14 or 15 to 19 age group. In these age ranges, the most common cause of injury was being struck by another player, kicks to the head or head-on-head collisions. In the younger group, age five to nine, players were more likely to suffer a traumatic brain injury from striking a surface or a goal post than those in older groups.

"There's a really straightforward solution here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Padding the goal posts could have potentially prevented a large number of these brain injuries in young children."

The results also found that the youngest age group was at the highest risk for getting seriously injured in baseball. Most of the 15.3 per cent of injuries occurred in children under the age of 14, with 45 per cent of them in children under nine.

Ball and bat injuries were most common, with the majority of injuries caused because the players stood too close to the batter or bat and were not supervised by an adult.

"These results give us a very specific prevention message for kids under nine who play baseball: make helmets and supervision a mandatory," said Dr. Cusimano. "The younger the child, the more supervision they need when using things like bats and balls. Simple rules around not being close to the batter can be taught to children and adults."

Football and rugby accounted for 12.9 per cent 5.6 per cent of injuries respectively, and the majority of them were caused by tackling.

Basketball made up 11.6 per cent of injuries, mostly caused by player-to-player elbowing, which increased as players got older.

"There is a real opportunity for prevention here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Having educational programs, proper equipment, rules and other incentives that support a culture of safety in sports should be a mandate of parents, coaches, players, sports organizations, schools, sports sponsors, and other groups like governments."

Funding for the research was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by St. Michael's Hospital, 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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Journal Reference:

1. Michael D. Cusimano, Newton Cho, Khizer Amin, Mariam Shirazi, Steven R. McFaull, Minh T. Do, Matthew C. Wong, Kelly Russell. Mechanisms of Team-Sport-Related Brain Injuries in Children 5 to 19 Years Old: Opportunities for Prevention. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58868 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058868

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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/~3/3M3mmJkKrl8/130329125301.htm

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Analysis: Austerity threatens EU's competitive edge in infrastructure

By Anthony Deutsch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe's carefully maintained autobahns, high-speed TGV trains and vast network of modern airports have long been the envy of the world.

But thanks to austerity budgets that are slashing infrastructure spending just as other parts of the world are ramping it up, that may not be true for much longer.

European infrastructure spending rose just 1.5 percent last year to $741 billion, compared to global growth of 4.5 percent and a 7.1 percent rise in the Asia-Pacific, according to data compiled by Marketline, a business information provider.

Spending in Europe will increase slightly over the next four years, to 4.3 percent growth by 2016, Marketline told Reuters, but will continue to significantly underperform the world average. Only the United States will do worse, with growth of just 1.8 percent seen in 2016.

Company executives, trade groups and even European Union officials themselves say the region is in danger of falling behind competitors, with possibly irreversible consequences.

"We are out of pace with other parts of the world. We are not rejoicing," said Harold Ruijters, who leads the Transport Commission's Trans European Network unit, which aims to connect Europe's fragmented railways, roads and airports.

Brussels' main infrastructure funding budget, the Connecting Europe Facility, was cut in the latest EU budget announced in February from an originally allocated 50 billion euros to 29.3 billion euros over the next seven years.

Broadband and digital infrastructure took the biggest hit, cut from 9.2 billion to just 1 billion euros.

The budget for spending on major transportation through 2020 was cut by 38 percent from 21 billion to 13 billion euros, forcing the Transport Commission to drop air and road projects, which will instead need to seek uncertain sources of commercial funding.

"We are dealing with a severely reduced budget. At the same time, during a time of crisis we are acknowledging that this was perhaps the best deal we could get," Ruijters told Reuters.

Several years of earlier austerity cuts in infrastructure have already started hurting Europe's competitive position, he said, citing railways and aviation as problem sectors.

Reduced budgets and the prospect of long-term weak economic growth in the bloc will make it virtually impossible to meet spending needs in the coming two decades, he said.

The financial reality is out of sync with the EU's long-term strategic goal of creating jobs, and increasing competitiveness and growth in a single European market, which the EU Commission had estimated would require 1.5 trillion euros of spending on transportation infrastructure by 2030.

"At the moment we have one of the best infrastructures in the world, but it is ageing and we have to invest billions just to keep it up. We are far away from completing the internal market, in all transportation modes," said Jurgen Thumann, head of Business Europe, a Brussels-based industrial lobby group.

"As other world regions are launching ambitious transport modernization and infrastructure investment programs, it is crucial that European transport continues to develop and invest to maintain its competitive position," Thumann told Reuters.

Currently 12 of the top 20 nations in a ranking by the World Economic Forum for 2012-2013 are in Europe.

But this year China will for the first time spend more on infrastructure than Europe, though per capita it is still a small fraction of what is spent in the United States and in Japan, Marketline said.

Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida, director of infrastructure studies at the World Economic Forum, concurred that even after the European economy recovers, which economists expect could happen as early as the second half of this year, essential spending will lag requirements for years to come.

"We will not recover the levels of construction expenditure that we had in 2007-2008, or just before the crisis, until around 2016. This is something that is going to take several years," he said.

WHERE'S THE MONEY

A decades-long trend of falling global public expenditure on infrastructure, from around 9.5 percent of gross domestic product in 1990 to 7 percent in 2005, has been driven by rising costs for pensions and health care, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Until the global financial crisis hit, the private sector had increasingly filled that gap.

Now, while there are plenty of investors such as pension funds or insurance companies who have money available, they are restricted in how that money can be invested to avoid too much risk and meet targets, meaning only a small percentage of their total funds may be allocated for infrastructure projects which often require billions over many years, if not decades.

The same applies for banks, which face tougher regulations over lending money.

The number of infrastructure projects to be financed fell eight percent last year, the first decline in a decade, the OECD said. Lending to European projects, including total debt and equity, slowed by nearly 39 percent to slightly more than $49 billion.

"The cost of Europe's infrastructure needs are so great they go beyond what is imaginable," an infrastructure investor who asked not to be named told Reuters.

"This will hurt Europe in the long run. It is inevitable."

STRUCTURAL UNDER-INVESTMENT

In Germany, which makes up 15 percent of total European infrastructure spending, 41.5 billion euros worth of projects will be started, continued or finished between 2011 and 2015, down from an initially budgeted 57 billion euros.

A spokesman for the German Ministry of Transport told Reuters the situation was one of "structural under-investment."

"There are so many projects waiting to be carried out, but there's no money there. We have succeeded in getting some more funding, but more is needed. We need it because this investment is important for jobs, the economy and prosperity of Germany."

A high-profile plan that may be dropped is the four-billion-euro French canal originally cited as one of 30 priority infrastructure projects backed by Brussels, which Paris has said it can now only afford if 30 percent is paid out of European funds.

The Seine-Nord canal is a 106-km, high-capacity waterway that will link Seine river to Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. It would relieve Europe's most congested transport corridor with more than 130 million tons of traffic per year.

Construction which was supposed to start next year was expected to create 4,500 jobs, with around 25,000 new permanent jobs between 2025 and 2030. Its future is highly uncertain as the French government reviews 245 billion euros worth of costly projects.

A Transport Ministry spokeswoman said two working groups were evaluating technical aspects, costs and financing options, with an outcome expected in April.

In Ireland, the transport budget for the period 2010-15 was reduced by almost 50 percent in just two years from 17.5 billion to eight billion euros.

Plans to give Dublin its first underground rail services - one to connect the airport to the city centre and another to link two existing rail lines - have been scrapped. The projects would have cost 2 billion euros, the government estimated.

Italy's parliament in December froze a 3.9-billion euro contract to build a road and rail bridge connecting Sicily to Italy's mainland, known as Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina.

Spain is budgeting 9.6 billion euros in public infrastructures in 2013, down 16 percent from a year earlier and down 36 percent from 2008, when 15 billion were targeted. Several major toll-road projects were pulled after going bankrupt due to over-spending.

That led to the halt of the construction of 14 luxury stations along the high-speed rail network, saving 3.5 billion euros, and the cancellation of a railway from Madrid to Lisbon.

TRANSPORT NETWORK

Trade within Europe, which has a population of more than 730 million and represents roughly 22 percent of the world's cargo by value, is expected to double in the coming decade.

Brussels said in a policy paper released before the recent budget cuts that 550 billion euros in high-priority projects were needed through 2020 to create a core transportation network to meet the increased demand.

The investment would connect 120 major ports and airports to rail, upgrade 15,000 km (9,300 miles) of rail tracks to high speed and remove 35 key cross-border bottlenecks. The region's railways use seven different gauges and only 20 major airports and 35 major ports are directly connected to the rail network.

The upgrades would not only make the distribution of goods faster and cheaper, but also be required to meet EU targets to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent, halve conventional car use and shift 50 percent of long distance freight onto trains and ships by 2050.

Airline executives have been among the most outspoken about concerns that Europe risks losing its competitive position if it fails to implement these plans.

Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport plans to spend 2.1 billion euros between 2011 and 2015 on new facilities, for example, while Dubai said last year it plans to invest six billion euros in airport expansion by 2018 to boost capacity by 50 percent.

"Europe was a leader in terms of quality infrastructure," Air France-KLM chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta told Reuters. "I am very concerned about the future, especially airports. The amount of investment in other regions is incredibly high."

(Additional reporting by Victoria Brian in Berlin, Elena Berton and Gilles Guillaume in Paris, Conor Humphries in Dublin, Danilo Masoni in Milan and Jose Elias Rodriguez in Madrid; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-austerity-threatens-eus-competitive-edge-infrastructure-071948211--finance.html

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Breathometer: A Tiny Breathalyzer That Plugs Into Your iPhone

It's always better to be safe than sorry if you've had too many drinks to get behind the wheel. Breathometer is a new breathalyzer that works with your smartphone to make absolutely sure you're clear. And it's a whole lot cheaper than a DUI. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/xvVcdBbMV-A/breathometer-a-tiny-breathalyzer-that-plugs-into-your-iphone

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Why You Actually Require Search Engine Optimization ...

By way of se?

Search engine optimization is some thing that no business that keeps a presence on the internet can afford to ignore. The world wide web is tough, if not entirely not possible to navigate without having the the use of a search engine like Google, and when you believe about all the traffic that filters by way of Google on a every day basis, it is apparent that search engine optimization can serve as an massive benefit to business that draw some or all of their clients by means of their webpage.

Via search engine optimization, you will take benefit of the folks who are coming by means of search engines like Google. The goal of search engine optimization is to guarantee that the hyperlink to your website is as close to the top of the list of natural search results as attainable when words relating to their enterprise are searched. Simply because more than fifty percent of all purchases on the internet are preceded by the use of a search engine and because folks seldom tend to look beneath the first 4 or five benefits of their search, it can be observed that search engine optimization is an critical component of getting the net site visitors that you need to have.

Search engine optimization offers numerous benefits over classic techniques of marketing. When you succeed in optimizing your web page for search engine benefits, you have also succeeded in making a page that is deemed to be relevant and useful to the search subject. 1 of the most important things about search engine optimization, nevertheless, is the fact that it is self-motivated, directed marketing. Essentially, no 1 desires to be bombarded with advertisements and links when they do not have time or aren?t in the mood. With search engine optimization, even so, your potential buyers are already looking for you, and when they discover your page, they will be pleased and grateful.

Whether you supply high tech networking options or you are an artist with a budding on the web gallery, it can?t be overstated that you require make certain that you can grab the interest of folks who may grow to be clients. If you are seeking to perform with search engine optimization methods, there are a lot of locations to start off. Taking into consideration creating your keyword density and making certain that you give plenty of context for those search phrases Google is definitely sophisticated adequate to choose up on sites that merely stuff their pages with lists of keywords. Think about developing an article archive or a glossary to assist you with this. You can also attempt to raise your position with Google through a concentrated effort at link constructing. By means of link creating, that is, generating sure that lots of internet sites link to you with out your offering a link in return, you can make confident that your standing with the search engine goes up.

If you are interested in search engine optimization but aren?t sure exactly where to start off, there are a lot of pros and consultants who can assist you out. These men and women carry out optimization projects on behalf of their consumers and their services can range from simple suggestions to functioning with the HTML code of your webpage. No matter how you do it, make sure that you don?t let this essential resource leave your internet site in the dust! Search Engine Placement An Vital Web Marketing and advertising Method - Trackpedia

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Source: http://culturapopulara.ro/?p=30531

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Reviewing Humble Bundle 5: Beat Hazard Ultra

Although a few of the games in Humble Bundle 5 are making their Android debut, Beat Hazard Ultra has been out on the Play Store for some time now. That doesn't mean that it isn't a worthwhile title though, as it still brings together the arcade shooter and music genres in an interesting way. The game will be different for every user too, because the gameplay changes based on your own local music collection.

Hang with us after the break to see a little bit more about Beat Hazard Ultra, one of the games in the Humble Bundle 5.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/563dnjdrdEY/story01.htm

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Venezuela's Capriles says "evaluating" election date ruling

KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia, March 10 (Reuters) - Ivica Kostelic used all his experience to win the men's World Cup slalom race in Kranjska Gora on Sunday, 10 years after his first victory in the Slovenian resort. Hampered by a lingering knee injury, the Croatian had not won a slalom race this season but the 33-year-old broke his duck in style to earn his 26th World Cup victory after clear first-leg leader Alexis Pinturault messed up his second run. The 33-year-old clocked a combined time of one minute 45. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-capriles-says-evaluating-election-date-ruling-222411422.html

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Gunmen kill protest organizer in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi officials say an anti-government protest organizer has been killed in a drive-by-shooting in the country's north.

Police Lt. Col. Wisam Abdullah says gunmen shot and killed Bunyan Sabar al-Obeidi Sunday morning as he was driving his car in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad.

A morgue official confirmed receiving the body of the organizer.

Police says al-Obeidi, who is also a spokesman for the Sunni protesters in Kirkuk, escaped an assassination attempt last week.

Last Friday, police opened fire on Sunni demonstrators in the northern city of Mosul, killing one protester and wounding five others.

Sunnis have been staging mass protests since last December following the arrest of bodyguards assigned to a Sunni minister.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-10-Iraq/id-c4a180a57faf498b99ece1245b2f7437

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Jamaican ?Harlem Shake? calls for pedophile, zoophile gays to be jailed (Americablog)

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Fab Sale Roundup: GILT Baby & Kids, Lakeshore Learning and More!

Check out our roundup of this week's best mommy and baby deals.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/4lPhXXQujpg/

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Bill Clinton says anti-gay marriage law he signed should be overturned (reuters)

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Costello, D'Angelo, more perform at Prince tribute

NEW YORK (AP) ? They partied like it was 1999 ? the audience and the musicians ? at a Prince tribute concert at Carnegie Hall.

More than 20 performers, including Elvis Costello, The Roots and the Waterboys, paid tribute to the pop icon in a two-hour-plus concert Thursday night. They all joined together onstage to close the show with "1999."

Singer D'Angelo took the lead while putting his arm around Bettye LaVette, Chris Rock and Costello clapped hands side-by-side, and comedian-actress-singers Maya Rudolph and Sandra Bernhard danced in a silly manner ? all while the crowd cheered on.

Many of the performers got into character as they sang signature Prince tunes. Soul singer Bilal was wild on "Sister," singing in various tones like a mad man and thrilling the crowd. Bernhard, in her leather pants, shimmery shirt and shiny shoes, impressed on "Little Red Corvette" as she skipped around onstage and belted high notes. And singer-songwriter Kat Edmonson captured the audience with "The Beautiful Ones," standing still and singing with only a pianist onstage.

It was one of the only times The Roots weren't backing up other performers throughout the concert, which raised $100,000 for music education programs.

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson jammed on the drums and even took photos of a pregnant Rudolph when she danced with one hand on her belly and the other stroking her hair. Rudolph, who sings Prince covers under the moniker PRINCEss with Gretchen Lieberum, screeched on "Darling Nikki" and didn't slow down while performing choreography in heels.

Few words were said to the audience, though Rock thanked the crowd "for coming" toward the end of the show.

He impersonated Prince, too, when reciting the lyrics to "If I Was Your Girlfriend" with sass. Comedian-actor Fred Armisen took on many roles: He recited lyrics from "Let's Go Crazy," played the drums while the Blind Boys of Alabama sang "The Cross" and offered light vocals during "It's Going to Be a Beautiful Night" alongside D'Angelo.

Most of the musicians wore black onstage, though LaVette rocked a purple blazer while singing "Kiss." Other performers included Eric Leeds, Nina Persson and Talib Kweli. Wendy Melvoin of the Revolution played guitar throughout the night, while St. Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin ? dancing wildly in a white suit ? performed "High Fashion/Mutiny."

Husband-and-wife Citizen Cope and Alice Smith sang a duet version of "Pop Life" and Booker T. Jones was joined by singer Diane Birch and members of the Young Audiences New York Youth Choir for "Raspberry Beret."

____

Online:

http://www.carnegieprince.com/

____

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/costello-dangelo-more-perform-prince-tribute-043500435.html

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Monte Paschi's spokesman was under pressure over bank probe: reports

MILAN (Reuters) - The spokesman of Monte Paschi di Siena found dead on Wednesday was under pressure over an investigation into alleged corruption and fraud that has rocked the world's oldest bank, reporters who knew him said.

David Rossi, born in 1961, was found dead at the bank's Siena headquarters on Thursday, lying beneath an open window overlooking a back street outside the building, a restored 14th century fortress.

Prosecutors in Siena are investigating whether Rossi, known as a reserved and serious professional, committed suicide, a judicial source said on Thursday.

"He was a very serious person, under pressure over a judicial probe which had touched on him through a recent police search, even if he was not under investigation," Andrea Greco, reporter at la Repubblica said on the newspaper's website.

"The death of David Rossi is a terrible tragedy," Monte dei Paschi said in a post on the bank's Facebook page, which carried a black stripe as a sign of mourning.

"This tragic event imposes first of all respect for his person, for the mourning of his family and for all of us, and calls on us to find the strength and the courage to go ahead and continue in our commitment."

Rossi, who was the head of the bank's communications unit, joined the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena's foundation, the bank's biggest shareholder, in 2001 as an assistant to then chairman Giuseppe Mussari.

When Mussari became chairman of the bank in 2006, Rossi remained his spokesman.

Rossi, who was not under investigation himself, was among several people whose homes and offices were searched last month as part of a probe into the lender's purchase of Antonveneta in 2007 and subsequent losses linked to complex derivatives deals.

"He surely lived through a situation of personal and professional stress," Greco said.

Mussari is under investigation in the probe on allegations of misleading regulators, market manipulation and false information in the prospectus of the Antonveneta deal.

"(David) was worried. We met on Thursday, he opened up a little, even though he was so reserved," David Taddei, a former partner of Rossi at a communication agency they founded in 1996, was quoted as saying in Il Corriere della Sera newspaper.

(Reporting by Antonella Ciancio; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/monte-paschis-spokesman-found-dead-sources-000711037--finance.html

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Pushing the boundaries: Study provides key insight into how cells fuse

Mar. 7, 2013 ? Researchers at Johns Hopkins have established a high-efficiency cell-cell fusion system, providing a new model to study how fusion works. The scientists showed that fusion between two cells is not equal and mutual as some assumed, but, rather, is initiated and driven by one of the fusion partners. The discovery, they say, could lead to improved treatments for muscular dystrophy, since muscle regeneration relies on cell fusion to make muscle fibers that contain hundreds or even thousands of nuclei.

The study reveals two critical components that have to be present for cell fusion to happen, explains Elizabeth Chen, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular biology and genetics in the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. Intriguingly, she says, one of these vital components actually changes the structure of one cell's scaffolding -- its cytoskeleton -- to form protrusions that push their way into the other cell to initiate fusion.

Chen's research group had seen this before; using very high-resolution electron microscopy, they showed in 2010 that in developing fly muscles, a muscle cell merges with another muscle cell by extending finger-like protrusions into its fusion partner. But cell fusion is not only behind muscle building, but also fertilization (sperm fuses with egg), placenta formation, bone development and immune response. Thus, Chen says, it wasn't clear whether the finger-like protrusions were present for fusion outside of muscles, or if protrusions really drove the fusion process.

To study fusion in a simple system designed to answer those questions, Chen and her group wanted to establish a culture of fusing cells, starting from a cell line made up of nonmuscle fly cells. These cultured cells weren't of a type that normally fuses, so the group tried modifying them with proteins that were thought to be important for muscle cell fusion in fruit flies. Alone and in combination, however, those proteins failed to entice the cells to fuse. The researchers were stuck, Chen said.

Then they learned about another group's finding in a tiny worm called C. elegans: a protein called Eff-1 that localized on the cell's outer skin, or membrane, and could induce cell-cell fusion not only in the worm, but also in cultured moth cells. When Chen's group introduced Eff-1 into their fly cells, only about 10 percent of the cells fused. But when they introduced both Eff-1 and a fly protein that could organize cytoskeleton remodeling, "almost 90 percent of the cells started to fuse," Chen said. "We had our system."

"Reconstructing high-efficiency cell fusion outside of a living organism allows us to observe the process in unprecedented detail and deduce general principles underlying cell-cell fusion," Chen notes. One of her group's first discoveries with the new system was that Eff-1 clusters along the finger-like protrusions, where the two fusion partners are in close contact. "This suggests to us that one of the purposes of the invasive fingers is to engage fusogenic proteins in both cells," Chen explains. "We are excited about this finding since it reveals, for the first time, an intimate coordination between the actin cytoskeleton-propelled membrane protrusions and fusogenic proteins, a principle that will likely apply to other types of cell fusion events as well."

The insights from this study raise many new questions, and Chen says the cell culture system will be a major help in her and other scientists' continued study of cell fusion. With enough knowledge of the process, researchers may be able to optimize cell-based treatments for muscular dystrophy, in which normal muscle cells are transplanted into a patient and then fuse to repair damaged muscle fibers.

The study was funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association to lead author Khurts Shilagardi, and by grants from the Packard Foundation and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant number R01 GM098816).

Other authors on the report were Shuo Li, Fengbao Luo, Faiz Marikar, Rui Duan, Peng Jin, Ji Hoon Kim and Katherine Murnen, all of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Khurts Shilagardi, Shuo Li, Fengbao Luo, Faiz Marikar, Rui Duan, Peng Jin, Ji Hoon Kim, Katherine Murnen, and Elizabeth H. Chen. Actin-Propelled Invasive Membrane Protrusions Promote Fusogenic Protein Engagement During Cell-Cell Fusion. Science, 7 March 2013 DOI: 10.1126/science.1234781

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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/top_health/~3/Iq6KmSssk-U/130307145107.htm

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Dow closes at record high, soaring past 14,200

JeeYeon Park , CNBC ? ? ? 14 hrs.

Riding a wave of optimism, the Dow Jones industrial average closed Tuesday above levels not seen since before the financial crisis and before the Great Recession.

It was a journey more than five years in the making, as investors slowly and then with greater urgency over that time, plowed money into stocks, mainly because there were few other places in the economy in which to make more money.

The blue-chip index, the best known and most widely followed measure of stock prices, rose 125.95 points, or 0.89 percent, to end at 14,253.77, led by Boeing and United Technologies. The Dow Jones Transportation Average also touched a record high.

More than 100 companies ranging from retailers to Internet giants, food makers and industrial companies rose to annual, multiyear or all-time highs. Since the Dow's last all-time high in 2007, Home Depot and IBM have been the biggest gainers, while Alcoa and Bank of America have been the worst performers.

So far, the Dow is up nearly 9 percent in 2013, surpassing the 7.3 percent gain for all of 2012.

The broader S&P 500 index closed up 14.59 points, or .96 percent, to 1,539.79. The tech-laden Nasdaq jumped 42.10 points, or 1.32 percent, to 3,224.13.

Stocks got a big boost Tuesday from upbeat economic data from Europe. China helped too, pledging to meet its growth targets.

But the main fuel for the record-setting climb has been near-zero interest rates from the Federal Reserve, which have spurred the housing market, but also made it difficult to make money buying bonds or holding money in savings accounts.

But what does the new high mean for the economy?

"It's meaningful in the sense it obviously has a lot of media potential - it's likely to move stories about the stock market to the front page from the financial section," said investor Hugh Johnson. "From that point of view it is good news in that it tends to lift spirits or raise confidence. There is the wealth effect of the fact that when you start to lift confidence it leads to stronger consumer spending. From that point of view it will have positive feedback on the economy," he added.

In Johnson's view, the gridlock in the nation's capital is unlikely to bring the market down.

"The question it is going to raise - which this market has raised continuously - is how is it this market is doing so well in the face of meaningful spending cuts coming out of Washington with the sequester? The message of the markets is although the sequester is likely to impact gross domestic product, it is not likely to end the current stock market business cycle, or the bull market expansion. It is not likely to interrupt the current cycle."

(Read More: Cramer: Near All-Time Highs, Should You Buy?)

On the economic front, the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) non-manufacturing index, which tracks monthly changes in the services sector, said the pace of growth in the vast U.S. services sector accelerated to its fastest pace in a year in February, helped by a rise in new orders and demand for exports.

ISM said its services index rose to 56 from 55.2 in January, exceeding economists' forecasts for 55. It was the highest level since February 2012. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector.

The new orders index jumped to 58.2 from 54.4, while orders for exports rose to their highest level since May 2007 with that gauge at 60.5, up from January's 55.5.

"This was no question a positive number," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon. "It reflects improvement in reinforces the view that the economy continues to improve and should contribute to gains that have driven the stock market to a new record."

European shares were boosted by the news that euro zone finance ministers have struck an agreement to bail out Cyprus by the end of March, although they have yet to work out the details of the 17 billion euro ($22.1 billion) financial aid package.

Shares in mainland China recovered 2 percent after hitting a six-week closing low in the previous session, as outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao set out a reform plan at the National People's Congress in order to achieve a 2013 growth target of 7.5 percent.

(Read More: Why China's Property Market Is Getting Scary)

The Senate Budget Committee is meeting to discuss reducing the fiscal deficit by eliminating wasteful spending in the tax code.

"We are seeing money going into the asset class," said Shawn Matthews, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, but at some time investors can expect a "pause," he added.

House Speaker John Boehner said President Barack Obama and he had made no headway on a deal to avoid sequestration over the weekend. Meanwhile, House Republicans are expected to introduce a bill to extend government funding through September, to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.

While stocks so far have largely ignored sequester concerns, analysts say signs the cuts are beginning to impact the economy could eventually move markets.

On Monday afternoon, Stephen King, chief global economist at HSBC, said that the U.S. was living in "a fantasy world" over the impact sequestration would have on growth.

"If you look at the projections from the Congressional Budget Office, they assume that growth goes back to between four to five percent in real terms between 2014 and 2018. Their numbers suggest that the U.S. will post the fastest rate of productivity growth of any decade in the last 50 or 60 years," King told CNBC Europe. "Even allowing for the fact that there's some debt reduction, coming through sequestration, there's still a degree of wishful thinking with regard to the economy which probably isn't going to come true."

Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.

? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/dow-skyrockets-sets-record-highest-close-1C8685444

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Nordic Nibbler: Maaemo, Oslo ? Restaurant Review (Jan '13)

Regular readers of my blog (hello, Mum) will know that I am more than somewhat enamoured by this utterly captivating restaurant. Indeed, Maaemo has been the location for some of the greatest meals of my life, and since it opened just over two years ago its food has unequivocally topped my annual list of the 10 Best Restaurant Dishes.
I've written at length about Maaemo from my previous visits to the restaurant, so I'll just try and focus on the food for this review. You can read a more comprehensive account of my meal from Starvefood, who kindly invited me to join him for this dinner.

Suffice it to say that the Maaemo team headed by chef Esben Holmboe Bang and sommelier Pontus Dahlstr?m are serving some of the most exciting food I've had, and their use of only organic, biodynamic, or wild produce that originates mostly from within 100km of Oslo has transformed the once staid Oslo dining scene. But if you want to read more about the restaurant and the people behind it then you can read my earlier posts from Feb '11, May '11, Aug '11, Oct '11, Mar '12, Apr '12, and Jun'12.

Amuse Bouche 1: Cooling pucks of frozen n?r (a fresh, acidic cream cheese) and salty orange pearls of l?yrom (Kalix bleak roe) ? a nice contrast of texture and temperature.

Amuse Bouche 2: Small batons of salsify lightly pickled in juniper arrived under a smoke-filled glass cloche, which was removed with great flourish at the table to release that warming evocative smell of the campfire.

Amuse Bouche 3: Smoked rygeost cheese from Fyn in Denmark, a soft sour milk cheese, was served with crisp pieces of chicken skin and some cress.

Amuse Bouche 4: Small pucks of sloe berry-filled biodymanic beetroot, which had a sweet earthy intensity to them.

Amuse Bouche 5: Nature at its finest in the form of a single pristine bite of raw sea urchin.?The urchins had been caught by Scotsman Roddie Sloan who dives for them in the icy waters off Nordskot in the Arctic Circle and they are about as good as it gets in my book ? a sweet, custard-like taste of the ocean itself. Just close your eyes and imagine you're snogging a mermaid.

Amuse Bouche 6: R?mmegr?t is a?traditional?Norwegian staple typically eaten around Christmas time. Here, the warm sour cream porridge was elevated to Michelin level, and its silky smooth texture was enhanced by the addition of brown butter and tiny cubes of cured reindeer heart. A bowl of pure soothing comfort.

Amuse Bouche 7: Crisp chanterelle-dusted cones filled with chicken liver mousse and topped with a sweet chanterelle gel.

Amuse Bouche 8: Prawns from Hvaler served with cucumber balls, lobster mayonnaise, horseradish and smoked parsley sauce. A dish as fresh and cooling as it was beautiful.

Amuse Bouche 9: This next course hardly needs any introduction. It's been a staple of the Maaemo menu since they opened and it's still every bit as stunning as when I first tried it.?Oysters from B?mlo are served as a creamy, voluptuous emulsion blanketed by a thin disc of mussel gel, while a light mussel and dill cream sauce is spooned over the top. Its taste is haunting: ethereal and fresh, a multi-layered burst of an ozone-rich sea breeze on a warm windy day.

Amuse Bouche 10: Bitter leaves of curly kale were served with a sweet caramelised onion sauce, cauliflower pur?e and a smoked cream sauce.

Course 1:?Gran Fra i Fjor & Sj?kreps fra Fr?ya (Last Year's Pine & Langoustine from Fr?ya).?Another Maaemo classic is this jaw-droppingly good dish. An enormous langoustine tail from Fr?ya has been lightly saut?ed in pine butter and brushed with a sweet rapeseed oil, pine and vinegar emulsion. A pine infusion was poured over dry ice hidden around the dish releasing clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table. If you've never tried a Norwegian langoustine in its prime before, then biting into the sweet, fresh tail will be one of those life-affirming moments. Incredible!

Drink pairing: A fruity and acidic 2011 Egon M?ller Riesling QbA Scharzhof that was a good foil to the sweetness of the shellfish.

Course 2:?Kamskjell & Gulrot (Scallops & Carrot).?Raw diver scallops from Fr?ya were served with scallop mousseline, seabuckthorn gel, pickled carrots and carrot vinaigrette. This was a light and fresh dish, with the fluffy mousseline and sweet scallops cut with the sharpness of the berries and pickled carrots.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Sydre Argelette from Eric Bordelet, a wine-like cider made from over 20 different varieties of apples, whose flavours echoed that of the seabuckthorn nicely.

Course 3: A surprise extra dish arrived next in the form of a nugget of flaky white cod that had been lightly torched and topped with a sliver of poached Arctic monkfish liver. A clear buttery rosehip vinaigrette sauce was spooned over the top. This was a gorgeous dish, with the monkfish liver tasting every bit as good as the best foie gras.

Course 4:?Hvete (Wheat).?Maaemo's separate bread course was next. Here, warm bread rolls made from wheat and wild emmer flours from Holli Mill in Spydeberg were served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with individual pots of whipped salted butter from R?ros.

Drink pairing: A refreshing wheat beer from the tiny B?gedal microbrewery in Vejle, Denmark, which had spicy notes of orange and coriander seed.

Course 5:?Sellerirot & Eple (Celeriac and Apple).?Celeriac pieces had been baked in salt for five hours and were served with caramelised celeriac cream, crystal clear apple flavoured sage pearls and juices from the baked celeriac.

Drink pairing:?2008 Silvaner Sp?tlese Trocken from Rudolf May, which lent a bitter freshness to the sweet vegetal grassiness of the celeriac.

Course 6:?L?k fra i Fjor med Aquavit (Onions from last year with Aquavit).?Pristine fillets of Arctic char came served with pickled onions filled with elderflower pur?e and topped with discs of red onion gel. An aquavit and wheatgrass sauce was poured over the top tableside. The slightly raw pungency of the pickled onions was tamed with the sweet pur?e and was a great match with the oily fish.

Drink pairing: A 1998 Riesling Auslese "?rziger W?rzgarten from Jos. Christoffel Jr. Typically quite sweet, the age of this Auslese took the edge off its sugariness and it was full of lively flavours of apples.

Course 7: Another surprise extra course was this little number of fenal?r baked potatoes served with grated dried egg yolk and a dollop of warm creamy cheese from the island of Hitra. A wonderfully warming dish, with a nice contrast in textures.

Drink pairing: A powerful and heady 2010 Vir?-Cless? from Les H?ritiers du Comte Lafon in Burgundy.

Course 8:?Brent Purre med Kalvetunge (Burnt?Leek and Veal Tongue).?An immaculate dish of burnt leeks topped with veal tongue and served with dots of apple-ramson gel, a poached quail egg yolk and an acidic ramson and bone marrow sauce.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Chateauneuf-du-pape from Ch?teau de Beaucastel ? a smooth and rich white made from 80% Roussanne and 20% Grenache Blanc, whose notes of flowers and honey brought out the sweetness of the leeks.

Course 9:?Reinsdyr & Jordskokk (Reindeer and Jerusalem Artichoke).?Red meat is something of a rarity at Maaemo yet I've never felt its absence. So this dish of reindeer seemed all the more striking for it. Medium rare medallions of reindeer from Mo i Rana, just south of the Arctic Circle, were ridiculously tender with a mild gamey flavour. They were served with Jerusalem artichokes (roast, pur?e, raw slivers) and a truffle sauce.

Drink pairing: A 2006 Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Prieur from Domaine Trapet ? a soft biodynamic wine full of the soft berry flavours of pinot noir.

Course 10:?Ost fra Eggen G?rdsysteri (Cheese from Eggen Farm).?A welcome return of a course I first had in October 2011. Fjellbl? blue cheese from Eggen Farm had been cooked with milk and then frozen in liquid nitrogen. It was served with a pur?e of lightly pickled black trumpet mushrooms and a sprinkling of black mushroom powder.

Drink pairing: A 1980 Mas Amiel Maury Mill?sime, an oxidative natural sweet wine made from 90% black grenache, 5% maccabeu, 5% carignan. A bold, yet surprisingly fresh sweet wine full of aromas of chocolate and figs that was a great match with the pungent cheese.

Course 11: Buttermilk sorbet served with brown butter and tea foam. A wonderful palate cleanser with a good contrast in textures. The cooling, fresh and slightly sour sorbet pairing really well with the sweetness and spice notes of the tea foam.

Course 12:?Hvete Eddik, Rug & Mj?d (Wheat Vinegar, Rye and Mead).?Ice cream made from wheat beer vinegar from Herslev brewery in Denmark was served with mead gel, burnt marzipan and a cr?me p?tissi?re made from rye bread. This, our first dessert proper, was a crazy combination of flavours that at first glance sounded a little too experimental. But what a spectacular combination of flavours! Tart, acidic ice cream, chewy nuttiness from the marzipan, sweetness from the mead, shards of rye and the soothing embrace of rye cream. Paired with a sour gueuze beer this proved to be a sensational blend of flavours.

Drink pairing: A 2012 Gueuze Tilquin, a sour lambic beer with a touch of sweetness and tart fruit flavours.

Course 13:?Sm?r fra R?ros (Butter from R?ros).?Ahhh, hello my old friend. A dish that's never been off the Maaemo menu and one that never ceases to make me smile. A smooth, light butter ice cream is served with hazelnut-butter crumble, coffee molasses and brown butter caramel. Yes, the earth did move!

Drink pairing: A special treat in the form of a 1949 Don Pedro Ximenez Reserva Especial from Toro Albal?. Shockingly dark in colour, it was smooth as silk with a long finish of dried fruits and caramel.

Coffee is never an afterthought at Maaemo. In fact it's one of the few restaurants that takes the coffee service every bit a seriously as the rest of the dining experience. At Maaemo, coffee from one of Norway's leading roasters, Tim Wendelboe, is steeped in the traditional kokekaffe (literally "boiled coffee") style over a gas camping stove so redolent of a trip in the mountains.

Maaemo usually use their own custom-roasted beans but here we were lucky to sample some award-winning Esmeralda Special from Panama. It's one of the most sought after (and therefore expensive) coffees in the world and had a complex taste of citrus, soft fruits, bergamot and flowers. One coffee reviewer describes it as "more like diving head first into a swimming pool filled with mixed fruits," and I can't say that I disagree. A glorious cup of coffee.

Petit Fours 1: Macarons infused with a subtle taste of birch.

Petit Fours 2: "Liquid waffle." As its name suggests, this one-bite wonder burst in the mouth releasing a sweet liquid tasting exactly of Norwegian waffles.

Petit Fours 3: Nitrogen-frozen granules of brunost (Norwegian brown cheese) and strawberries.

Petit Fours 4: In an echo of our first amuse bouche was this little bite of frozen n?r except this time it was sweetened with maple syrup and filled with a sweet and sour sea buckthorn gel. A cool and cleansing bite.

Petit Fours 5: Finally, some coffee ice cream made from Tim Wendelboe's espresso blend. I'm not usually a fan of coffee ice cream, finding it to be typically too sweet and creamy. Here the balance of flavours was just right and the lightly roasted espresso beans allowed the underlying citrus and berry flavours of the coffee to shine through. A wonderful way to finish the meal.

It's clear that the Maaemo team are far from content with sitting on their laurels. In fact, the team seem to have stepped up yet another gear over the winter, and this focus and precision resulted in perhaps the most comprehensive meal I've had to date at the restaurant. Each of the 28(!) courses was beautifully executed; an exercise in Nordic aesthetics and restrained luxury, full of the clean, vibrant favours that have come to characterise Esben's cooking.

On the 14th of March, Michelin's 'Main Cities of Europe 2013' guide will be published, which covers the Nordic capitals. As of writing, the Nordics have never been home to a three Michelin-starred restaurant, and the excitement is building as to what the latest guide will reveal. For what it's worth, I think Maaemo is certain to achieve Michelin's highest accolade. Having been awarded two Michelin stars a mere year or so after opening, it remains to be seen whether this gem of a restaurant will join the rare club of three Michelin starred restaurant this time round. I for one certainly hope they do, and it would be an achievement that's thoroughly deserved. But regardless of what the Guide Rouge brings, Maaemo remains one of the best restaurants I've ever been to.

Food: ? ? ? ? ?10 / 10
Service: ? ? ?10 / 10
Ambiance: ?10 / 10

Maaemo
Schweigaardsgate 15
0191 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 91 99 48 05

Source: http://www.nordicnibbler.com/2013/03/maaemo-oslo-restaurant-review-jan-13.html

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