Iran hints at possible new delay in atom power plant's operation

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's first nuclear power plant will become fully operational by early 2013, its energy minister was quoted as saying, more than two months after Russia said it was up and running normally following decades of delay.

The plant near the town of Bushehr on Iran's Gulf coast is a symbol of what Tehran says is its peaceful nuclear ambitions. The West suspects the Islamic Republic is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability and imposed tough sanctions on it.

However, the Bushehr reactor is not considered a serious proliferation threat by nuclear inspectors. Their main concern is focused on sites where Iran enriches nuclear fuel, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding it stop.

The reason for the apparent discrepancy on the status of Bushehr was not made clear in the comments by Energy Minister Najid Namjou, in a report carried by the English-language Iran Daily on Thursday, or whether it meant any new delay for the Russian-built complex.

Russian builder NIAEP - part of state nuclear corporation Rosatom - last month said that Bushehr would be formally "handed over for use" to Iran in March 2013, whereas earlier officials had said that would happen by the end of this year.

It was plugged into Iran's national grid in September 2011, apparently ending a protracted delay and suspicions that Moscow was using the project as a diplomatic lever. In August this year, Rosatom said it was fully operational.

Namjou was quoted in a report by Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, published by Iran Daily, as saying the 1,000-megawatt plant would go "into operation with maximum power generation capacity" within the next two months.

"The final tests of the Bushehr nuclear power plant have been conducted," he added. Russian officials were not immediately available for comment on the report.

Last month, NIAEP director Valery Limarenko was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency: "We have taken a series of important technical engineering decisions which ... show that in order to do everything in a quality way, we have changed the (date of) the handover." He gave no details.

Iran, one of the world's biggest oil producers, says electricity generation to serve a rapidly growing population is the main motivation for its nuclear activity, which adversaries say is really aimed at developing the means to make atom bombs.

Bushehr's construction was started by Germany's Siemens before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was taken over by Russian engineers in the 1990s.

The United States for years urged Russia - one of six world powers seeking a diplomatic solution to the decade-old standoff over Iran's nuclear program - to abandon the project, fearing it could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

Those concerns were eased by an agreement under which Russia will supply enriched uranium for Bushehr and repatriate spent fuel that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium.

Refined uranium can be used to fuel power plants - Iran's stated purpose - or provide the explosive core of a nuclear bomb if processed further, which the West fears is the ultimate aim.

(Reporting by Marcus George in Dubai and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-hints-possible-delay-atom-power-plants-operation-135228689.html

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Video: Top Picks for Post-Eection Market: Pimco's Kashkari

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Mine your language: Software decodes company reports

COMPANY financial reports don't usually make for thrilling reading, but with the ability to make or break fortunes, they come under intense scrutiny. Now software that can extract information from the nuanced language of such reports could provide investors with the edge they need to stay ahead of the competition.

"Financial statements carry important information about the health of reporting companies," says Chao-Lin Liu at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan. But companies habitually downplay negative aspects by using ambiguous language and burying nuggets of information in pages of droning prose.

Text-mining techniques generally concentrate on single words: counting the number of negative or positive words in a body of text can give an indication of the overall tone, for example. But it is impossible to say whether certain words taken in isolation - such as "increased" - are positive or negative, says team member Yuan-Chen Chang. So the team designed an algorithm to recognise meaningful phrases instead (arxiv.org/abs/1210.3865).

To do this, Liu and his colleagues use statistical models to automatically identify what they call opinion patterns - subjective phrases paired with an opinion holder. For example, the sentence "The Company believes the profits could be adversely affected" contains the opinion holder "The Company" and the subjective phrases "believes" and "could be adversely affected".

"Computer linguistics and automated textual-information processing are one of the new frontiers in the world of finance," says Werner Antweiler of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "This technique adds another tool to our statistical toolbox of text-mining algorithms."

Trading algorithms mostly rely on quantitative information, says Liu, "but it is obvious that textual information should be considered as well". For example, the team's software could flag up phrases that don't appear to tally with a company's stated earnings, prompting a financial analyst to take a closer look. "Numbers can be used to convey a picture that does not correspond to reality," says Vincent Papa, director of financial-reporting policy at the CFA Institute in London. "They tend not to reveal what really keeps managers awake at night. The tone of a report is a very useful complementary piece of information."

Murray Frank at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis points out that sophisticated linguistic analysis is a very hard task. The software needs to learn which words are positive, which are negative and which are neither. Phrases need to appear often enough for a statistical-learning algorithm to accurately categorise them. Multi-word phrases might not occur often enough to help. "Bundles of words tend to be rare things," he says.

The whole point of the account reporting system is to release information in a way that is fair to all investors, says Frank. "But if you can guess correctly ahead of others, you can make a lot of money." If the team's system provides an edge, it could prove extremely valuable.

Mining text to monitor trends and opinions in the financial world is a rapidly growing field. "Some of the news-feed providers such as Reuters already use sentiment analysis," says Antweiler. But such technology shouldn't be relied on for automated decisions, he warns. "The simple truth is that text mining can be helpful, but it doesn't replace sound judgement and common sense."

Mining for a gaming smash

The success of video games could be predicted by data mining. Christian Bauckhage at the University of Bonn, Germany, and colleagues applied pattern recognition and statistical analysis techniques to data gathered from more than 250,000 players of five blockbuster games in the months after their release. They found that the decline in frequency and time people spent playing each game fit well-known mathematical models.

If similar monitoring was done during pre-release consumer testing, game publishers could use these models to predict the popularity and lifespan of a new game once it hits the market. The work was presented at the Game/AI conference in Vienna, Austria, last month.

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Mood of the Nation: Set back by the housing bust

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) ? On the eve of the 2012 elections, The Associated Press interviewed dozens of Americans to try to gauge the economic mood of the nation. People were asked about jobs, housing, gas prices, retirement and other issues. Among them were Amanda Folk and her husband, Chris, both 33, of Billings, Mont. The Folks have endured financial blows since the housing bubble burst five years ago. She's back in school. He's earning less money. They worry that their ability to regain financial security is blocked by corporations and their allies in Washington.

___

A home in foreclosure. Damaged credit. Vanished savings.

This isn't exactly how the Folks envisioned life would be like in 2012.

Until about five years ago, the Folks were living comfortably with their two children, now 6 and 9, outside Boise, Idaho. They owned a home. Chris made a good living as a self-employed flooring installer. Weekend trips out of town were a pleasurable routine.

Once Boise-area home prices collapsed, though, the Folks' lifestyle did, too. Work dried up for Chris. Amanda quit college. And they moved to Montana to be closer to her family.

An oil boom was boosting the eastern Montana economy, and Chris slowly rebuilt his flooring business. Amanda took a job as a nurse's assistant.

But during the transition, the family's income sank. They could no longer keep up with mortgage payments on their Idaho home. So for the past three years, the house has languished in foreclosure.

The family's credit is shot. They blew through nearly $30,000 in savings, mainly on mortgage payments. Attorneys tell them their only way out is bankruptcy protection.

"Everything I worked so hard for is just slipping away," Chris Folk says. "It just feels so far away to get back to where we were."

The Folks can't afford to save for retirement. They struggle to cover $1,280 in monthly rent. Gasoline expenses sometimes hit $600 a month to fuel Chris' van, so he can reach out-of-town flooring jobs.

They say the economy seems tilted: Big banks wield power. Legislators bow to corporate interests. The rich get richer while the working class fall further behind.

They're voting for President Barack Obama with no enthusiasm. Yet they say their discontent with his handling of the economy is outweighed by Mitt Romney's corporate ties.

Amanda Folk is pursuing a communications degree at Montana State University, Billings. She's "scared to death" she won't find a job in public relations or a related field after graduation to repay $25,000 in student loans.

She hasn't returned to their Idaho house in two years; she can't bear it. Vandals have broken in. A former neighbor has taken to mowing the lawn. The couple is reluctant to rent the house for fear that their lender would end up with whatever money they collected.

They've cancelled their home phone and Internet service. Amanda Folk no longer shops at an organic food co-op.

They're seeking a smaller place to rent. But they don't want to move far. Their daughter has cycled through four elementary schools in the past few years.

"The hardest part is the psychological part of it," Amanda Folk says. "Our kids don't have any sense of security. My daughter still asks, 'Are we going to be here next year?'"

___

For more on this topic, go to: http://bigstory.ap.org/topic/mood-of-the-nation

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mood-nation-set-back-housing-bust-040233007--finance.html

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Economy creates more jobs than expected

19 hrs.

NBC News staff and wire reports

Hiring sped up in October, showing a labor market that?picked up a bit of?steam in the waning days of the presidential campaign. ?

The Labor Department reported Friday?that non-farm payrolls increased by 171,000 last month?versus expectations of a 125,000 rise.?The government also said 84,000 more jobs were created in August and September than initially estimated.?

The unemployment rate was 7.9 percent, up slightly from the 7.8 percent reported in September.

The report comes just days before voters take to the polls to choose between incumbent President Barack Obama and his challenger, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.?

The sluggish economy has been a bone of contention between the two candidates.?Romney has made the nation's feeble jobs market, which has plagued Obama since he took office in 2009, the centerpiece of his campaign. The latest Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll showed Obama and Romney in a dead heat.

"Obviously, these are positive numbers. Overall, employment levels are still fairly low and this will keep us more or less at the same level. But it's favorable for the current administration ahead of the election," said Fabian Eliasson, vice president currency sales at Mizuho Corporate Bank in New York.

Still, the report could provide fodder for both candidates.?The unemployment rate rose largely because 578,000 people entered the workforce. That helped push the participation rate, a measure of the portion of the population in the labor force, up two tenths of a point to 63.8 percent.?

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney said in a statement. The White House said the report shows an economy that is continuing to heal.

Barring a sharp acceleration in hiring, the report could reinforce the idea that a full recovery from the 2007-09 recession remains distant. The jobless rate, which peaked during the recession at 10 percent, remains about 3 percentage points above its pre-recession level.

The Labor Department said Superstorm Sandy had no effect on the employment and unemployment data for October.?

Job gains in October were almost across the board, with the exception of government, where payrolls fell 13,000 after three months of increase. Temporary help jobs, often seen as a harbinger for permanent hiring, rebounded from two straight months of losses.

One shadow on the numbers:?The slack in the labor market has weighed heavily on earnings growth. Average hourly earnings for all employees rose only one cent and the workweek was steady.?

Over the past 12 months, hourly earnings for all workers are up just 1.6 percent, the lowest on records dating to early 2007. A measure with a longer track record that covers only production and non-supervisory employees was up only 1.1 percent -- the lowest on records dating to 1964

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/economy-creates-more-jobs-expected-jobless-rate-edges-1C6828418

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New genetic links for inflammatory bowel disease uncovered

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) ? inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract ? have puzzled the scientific community for decades. Ten years ago, researchers recognized that both genes and the environment contributed to these diseases but knew little about precisely how and why illness occurred. To begin to narrow in on the key pathways involved, they would need thousands of patients' samples, millions of data points, and the commitment of physicians and scientists at dozens of institutions.

Today, researchers from across the CD and UC communities have come together to share raw data as well as newly collected genetic information to dissect the biology of a group of conditions that affects millions of people worldwide. Their research centers on the two diseases, which are collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and suggests a fundamental connection between risk of IBD and genes involved in other immune-related diseases and the immune system's response to pathogens. The work by researchers from the Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale School of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and dozens of other organizations appears in a Nature paper this week.

"This study marks the first time we've acquired and combined the raw data from so many research studies around the world and also the first time we've jointly analyzed Crohn's with ulcerative colitis," said author Mark Daly, one of the senior authors of the work and senior associate member of the Broad Institute and co-director of its Program in Medical and Population Genetics. Daly is also chief of the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. "We've been able, with this study, to evaluate the evidence for both diseases simultaneously, and discovered that the majority of genetic risk factors are associated with both diseases."

"There's been a paradigm shift in our understanding of IBD. This gene discovery process offers an opportunity to begin identifying new targets for treatment, better diagnostic tools, and in the long-term, personalized care for patients," said co-author Ramnik Xavier, a senior associate member of the Broad Institute, Chief of Gastroenterology and Director of the Center for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease at MGH. "We now have the necessary starting material to understand the pathways that contribute to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and we also have a framework to better appreciate that they may not be two distinct diseases, but rather collections of many different diseases."

Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) share much in common ? both cause many of the same gastrointestinal symptoms and both are marked by an improper response by the body's immune system to harmless cells or bacteria. Over the last ten years, researchers have performed genome-wide association studies, looking across the genomes of thousands of patients with either CD or UC and compared them to genomes from people without these diseases to find significant genetic differences. The new study not only brings together the original data from those previous analyses, but also adds genetic information from another 40,000 people either with or without a form of IBD.

"If we want to get more hits but also dissect the differences between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis or understand the commonalities, we really need to share all of our genetic data," said co-first author Stephan Ripke, a researcher at the Broad Institute and MGH. Ripke worked closely with co-first author Luke Jostins of the Sanger Institute to combine and then analyze genetic information collected by researchers from many different institutions.

The new study identified 71 additional genetic associations for IBD, many of which have been previously implicated in other immune-related disorders, including ankylosing spondylitis and psoriasis. The new research also suggests a strong overlap between IBD susceptibility genes and genes tied to the immune system's response to mycobacterial infections, including tuberculosis and leprosy. Researchers have observed similarities between the immune response in CD and that seen in tuberculosis and hypothesize that CD could be an aberrant response to certain harmless organisms present in the gut that trigger a similar reaction.

In addition to drawing upon original data from previous studies, the work utilizes a relatively new tool known as the immunochip, which samples 200,000 sites in the genome previously tied to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

"As a research community, we designed this array to target genes involved in immune-mediated diseases of all kinds," said Daly. "This is one of our first studies using the immunochip, and there are many more results that will emerge from these studies ? within IBD and across immune diseases."

At the Broad Institute, researchers are already pursuing some of the pathways identified in previous studies of UC and CD, including autophagy, a process in which infected cells eat themselves to combat microbes.

"This work gives us additional leads to pursue," said Xavier. "It gives us an opportunity for high-quality, translational research, allowing us to identify core pathways involved in IBD and better understand how genes interact with each other and with the environment, illuminating new pathways that contribute to disease."

###

Jostins, L et al., Host-microbe interactions have shaped the genetic architecture of inflammatory bowel disease Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature11582

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard: http://www.broad.mit.edu

Thanks to Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124978/New_genetic_links_for_inflammatory_bowel_disease_uncovered

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5 year olds are generous only when they're watched

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Children as young as five are generous when others are aware of their actions, but antisocial when sharing with a recipient who can't see them, according to research published Oct. 31 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Kristin Lyn Leimgruber and colleagues from Yale University.

Adults are more likely to behave in ways that enhance their reputation when they are being watched or their actions are likely to be made public than when they are anonymous, but this study examines the origins of such behavior in young children for the first time. For their study, the researchers presented five year olds with stickers and gave them the option of sharing one or four stickers with another five year old. The authors found that children were more generous when they could see the recipient than when the recipient was hidden from view, and were also more generous when they had to give stickers in a transparent container rather than an opaque one (meaning the recipient could see what they were receiving). They also found that these behaviors were independent of how many stickers the children were given to keep for themselves.

According to the authors, these results show that children as young as five can make strategic choices about whether to be generous, depending on whether or not a recipient is aware of their actions. Leimgruber explains, "Although the frequency with which children acted antisocially is striking, the conditions under which they chose to act generously are even more interesting and suggest that children likely use much more sophisticated prosocial strategies than we previously assumed. Much like the patterns of charity we see in adults, donation tendencies in children appear to be driven by the amount of information available to others about their actions? for both adults and children, the more others know about their actions, the more likely they are to act generously."

###

Leimgruber KL, Shaw A, Santos LR, Olson KR (2012) Young Children Are More Generous when Others Are Aware of Their Actions. PLOS ONE 7(10):e48292. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048292

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 31 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124984/__year_olds_are_generous_only_when_they_re_watched

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CMAs celebrate music with Sandy on their mind

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? Handing out trophies isn't the only mission when country music's biggest stars take the stage Thursday night for the Country Music Association Awards: They'll be reaching out to help those affected by superstorm Sandy.

"Country fans are so amazing and so giving," co-host Carrie Underwood said. "To make sure everybody can pitch in, that's going to be really important."

Underwood and fellow host Brad Paisley said in a Wednesday interview there are plans to seek Red Cross donations during the broadcast, just three days after Sandy killed dozens and caused billions in damage in the northeastern U.S.

This year's ceremony is also reaching out to a younger-skewing audience with the faces that are helping shift country's fan base.

"I think it's great for the format because going forward you have this youth and vitality in the format, in the fan base," lead nominee Eric Church said. "It's a chance to grow a format that I don't think we've ever had in country. I don't know if it's ever been like it is now, especially with young people, in country music."

From Taylor Swift's army of empowered young women to the power-drinking party boys who prefer Church and Jason Aldean, country's audience is much different than it was 10 years ago and that's reflected in the awards. Church benefited with five nominations, including first-time appearances in the album and male vocalist of the year categories.

He's not the only one. Country performers who have tasted their most significant success within the last five years outnumber the more established stars who've counted hits for a decade or more. Those newer artists also received the lion's share of the nominations.

That may not be unusual in the pop, rock and hip-hop worlds. But country has long been a genre defined by listeners ? and often stars ? 35 and over.

The CMAs show that time may be over.

Swift and Aldean are nominated in the entertainer of the year category with Kenny Chesney, Paisley and Blake Shelton. Luke Bryan and Eric Church rewrote the script in two categories ? male vocalist where they elbowed out established stars like three-time winner Paisley and Chesney and album of the year. They join young acts Miranda Lambert and Lady A in that category with Dierks Bentley rounding it out.

The vocal group category also is stocked only with younger hitmakers ? Lady Antebellum, Zac Brown Band, The Band Perry and Eli Young Band join industry veterans Little Big Town. And new acts The Civil Wars, Love and Theft and Thompson Square join Big & Rich and Sugarland in the vocal duo category.

Whether that new wave will go home with a majority of trophies remains to be seen. Paisley and Underwood co-host the awards show at 8 p.m. EDT, live on ABC from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Winners were announced in two categories Thursday morning: Chesney and Tim McGraw's "Feel Like a Rock Star" won musical event of the year and Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" won video of the year.

___

AP writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://cmaworld.com

http://abc.go.com/shows/cma-awards

___

For the latest country music news from the Associated Press: http://twitter.com. Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cmas-celebrate-music-sandy-mind-161732755.html

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Maximizing Profit in a Bull Market Using Trigger Data Lists | The ...

?

Mortgage marketers use recent trigger data lists to target potential candidates

When the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lowered the Upfront Mortgage Insurance Premium to rock-bottom levels in June, the decision was extremely beneficial for the mortgage industry. HUD?s ruling uncovered a large, lucrative block of potential clients around the nation. Almost immediately, a deluge of solicitations swamped borrowers who, after being stuck in high interest rate loans for years, were now easily able to refinance.

?

Naturally, the Direct Marketing industry has benefited from this activity. Direct mail companies everywhere are reporting large boons in business. In fact, business has been so good that some mortgage clients actually reduced the number of direct mail advertisements they usually send due to high response rates. A recent modest drop of 10,000 pieces for a client produced ? in just two days ? 198 unique calls. They needed a week just to catch up. Business is definitely good, but just as there is a need to maximize leads when the market is down, profit maximization when the market is up is just as important. There is still money being left on the table.

?

In the past few months, the push by mortgage shops to market to FHA homeowners with seasoned loans prior to May 31, 2009 has been so intense that the marketplace has become oversaturated. Lending firms are advertising atop one another, sending mail pieces, directing calls, and emailing all of the same borrowers. While the influx of qualified borrowers still leaves plenty of room for mortgage shops to capitalize, the FHA?s decision seems to have dictated an over-emphasis on those specific homeowners. Even as HUD?s ruling went public I could sense what would be discussed in boardrooms across America ? ?We?ve got to get those seasoned loans prior to May 31^st, 2009! They?re itching to get out of those high-interest loans!? The thing is, they?re right. It?s an easy pitch and there?s real value for the consumer. But it?s important not to get distracted by what looks like a sure thing. If it?s a sure thing for you, everyone else thinks it?s a sure thing too, and all the mortgage firms end up going after the same clients. What many mortgage shops are failing to notice is that a large portion of the market is being ignored.

?

Mortgages in the 20- to 38-month seasoning window are excellent options for refinancing, namely loans from March of 2009 to November of 2010. Interest rates for these types of loans are still very low ? 2.5% for an ARM, 3.5% for a FIXED. Their original rate during the time of seasoning was in the 5.25%+ range. The net tangible benefit of refinancing to the consumer is viable, and the savings on the rate alone makes it worthwhile. So, even though borrowers in the older seasoning window are refinancing in droves, younger loans also offer a huge upside. The best part of going after those potential clients is that not many mortgage shops are choosing to target them right now; the competition is minimal. Targeting both these mortgage brackets in conjunction is a surefire way to boost your firm?s bottom line.

?

Another change occurring in the industry as a direct result of FHA?s ruling is an increase in the use of ?trigger leads.? Trigger data is generated when a potential borrower, re-fi, or purchaser has their credit pulled. With the excess of advertisements swirling around, there is a surplus of homeowners checking their credit. Mortgage marketers use recent trigger data lists to target potential candidates. These data lists are extremely time sensitive since the candidate is actively seeking a loan, and has already visited a mortgage broker and pulled a credit inquiry.

?

Therein lies the difficulty in using trigger leads. It places lending firms in direct competition. For the direct mail to be effective it must be attractive, personalized, and arrive before the consumer signs with another mortgage firm. While this may seem like too many variables for it to be an effective method of advertising, when trigger data is used correctly it is one of the most effective leads to use. The reason these leads are so useful is because you?re dealing with borrowers that have already shown a real interest in refinancing. The desire to move forward is there. With so many interested homeowners getting their credit pulled due to FHA?s new expanded guidelines, trigger inquiries have swelled.

?

With the increase of mortgage activity in recent months, the connection between the mortgage shop and the marketing company is changing. It is imperative that the marketing team the mortgage shop hires is able to guide the advertising campaign from concept to conception. The use of trigger data is accelerating this process. That means design, printing, and mailing need to be completed in-house, not sub-contracted to other agencies. With the competition as tough as it is now, there isn?t room for missteps from an advertising agency.

?

Business is up. Homeowners want to refinance. Direct advertising to these clients is working. But you have to remember this won?t last forever. It?s essential that you differentiate and streamline your advertising process so that you can make the most of a very lucrative time in the industry.

?

K. Justin Restaino

K. Justin Restaino is vice president at Titan List & Mailing Services Inc. For more than 13 years, he has led Titan?s Mortgage Division, helping lenders of all capacities grow their businesses utilizing targeted direct mail. With a specialized focus in refinance and purchase markets, Restaino has the insight for proper data and mail application for success. Reach him at (800) 544-8060, ext. 204, or [email?protected]. Visit www.TitanLists.com for more information.

Short URL: http://www.thenichereport.com/?p=11999

Source: http://www.thenichereport.com/articles/maximizing-profit-in-a-bull-market-using-trigger-data-lists/

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Evan Rachel Wood marries Jamie Bell

John Sciulli / Getty Images

Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell in Los Angeles on Oct. 27, three days before they married.

By Us Weekly

Another hush-hush Hollywood wedding -- this one courtesy of Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell.

The "True Blood" actress, 25, and the "Billy Elliot" star, 26, got married in California on Oct. 30, a rep for Wood confirms exclusively to? Us Weekly.?

PHOTOS: The biggest engagement rings in Hollywood?

The couple tied the knot in a small ceremony with close family and friends. The bride wore a custom dress by Carolina Herrera. ?

Bell popped the question to Wood in early 2012. (He was spotted shopping for engagement rings in late December).?

PHOTOS: Celebrity bridesmaids?

The pair met in 2005 as costars in Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" music video. They began dating, and even got matching tattoos back in 2006. Though they called it quits after one year together, they reunited in summer of 2011.?

PHOTOS: Over-the-top star weddings?

This was Wood's second engagement; she called off her wedding plans with rocker Marilyn Manson in 2010.

More in TODAY Entertainment:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2012/10/31/14838547-evan-rachel-wood-marries-jamie-bell?lite

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Testosterone regulates solo song of tropical birds

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2012) ? In male songbirds of the temperate zone, the concentration of sex hormones is rising in spring, which leads to an increase in song activity during the breeding season. In the tropics, there has been little evidence so far about such a clear relationship between hormonal action and behaviour, which is partly due to a lower degree of seasonal changes of the environment.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen have now discovered that in duetting African white-browed sparrow weavers, the solo song of dominant males is linked to elevated levels of testosterone. What is more, the male-typical solo song could be activated via testosterone treatment in female birds. The study thus shows a complex relationship between song behaviour and hormone concentration also in a tropical bird species.

In species of the temperate zone, circannual rhythms are triggered by seasonal fluctuations in day length. The longer days in spring are accompanied by an increase of steroid hormone levels that lead to the onset of breeding activities. Consequently, there are changes in behaviour and at least in male songbirds, there is a relationship between the incidence and complexity of songs and circulating testosterone concentrations. In the tropics, however, the situation is different. Birds often vocalise year-round, and there are suitable conditions for breeding during a more extended period compared to the temperate zone. In addition, in many species testosterone concentrations are at a low level throughout the year. The underlying mechanism responsible for the song changes of tropical birds therefore remains elusive.

Cornelia Voigt and Stefan Leitner from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology now showed that testosterone plays a crucial role in the regulation of song behaviour in African white-browed sparrow weavers (Plocepasser mahali). These birds live in groups of two to ten individuals and are characterized by a status-dependent song, where only the dominant male sings a so-called "solo song," whereas females and subordinate males sing an alternating duet song. In a long-term study of sparrow weaver colonies in Southwestern Zimbabwe, the researchers found a relationship between hormone levels and solo song in males. Dominant males had higher testosterone values than subordinate birds, both in the early breeding season from October until December and in the late breeding season from January until March.

However, these hormone concentrations were much lower compared to those responsible for song changes in temperate zone species. It could well be that the slightly higher values of dominant males only reflect the hierarchical status itself and are not responsible for the activation of solo song. That testosterone indeed plays a role in solo singing could be proved in an experiment in females that were kept in aviaries next to their natural habitat. These females received a testosterone implant. Within a week they started to sing the male-typical solo song that was fully developed after one month and differed only in a few features from male song. "With this study, we could show that a special type of song, the solo song, can be activated by testosterone in both sexes. Moreover, females remain receptive for the male hormone testosterone," says Cornelia Voigt.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

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. Cornelia Voigt, Stefan Leitner. Testosterone-dependency of male solo song in a duetting songbird ? Evidence from females. Hormones and Behavior, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2012.10.006

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/DXI23KXztmM/121031132750.htm

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Flavor and texture alter how full we expect a food to makes us feel

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2012) ? Low calorie foods may help people lose weight but there is often a problem that people using them do not feel full. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Flavour shows that subtle manipulations of texture and creamy flavour can increase the expectation that a fruit yoghurt drink will be filling and suppress hunger regardless of actual calorific content.

There is a currently a debate about satiety, how full low calorie foods and drinks make people feel and for how long, and whether or not they actually make people eat or drink more because the body is expecting more calories than are actually provided. Researchers from the University of Sussex designed an experiment to first see whether or not adding a thickening agent (tara gum) increased the sensation of thickness, stickiness and creaminess of a yoghurt drink, and then looked at how these affected expected fullness and expected satiety.

The results showed that even people who are not trained in food tasting were able to accurately pick up subtle differences in drink texture even though the taste remained the same.

In the second phase of the experiment subjects rated how filling they expected a drink to be by selecting a portion of pasta that they thought would have the same effect on their hunger as drinking a bottle of yoghurt. On average the thick drinks and the creamy drinks were expected to be more filling than the thin or non-creamy versions, and enhancing the creamy flavour of a thick drink further increased expected fullness. However their contributions to expected satiety were not equal -- only thickness (and not creaminess) had an effect on the expectation that a drink would suppress hunger over time.

Keri McCrickerd, who led this study, explained, "Hunger and fullness are complicated issues because it is not just the calories in a food or drink that make it filling. Signals from the stomach are important but so too is how the drink feels in the mouth. In our study both creamy flavour and texture affected expected fullness, but only thickness seemed to affect whether hunger was expected to be satisfied. This may be because thick texture is a characteristic of food that we associate with being full. Consumer expectations are important and our study shows that consumers are sensitive to subtle changes in oral sensory characteristics of a drink, and that thick texture and creamy flavour can be manipulated to enhance expectations of fullness and satiety regardless of calories."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central.

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Journal Reference:

1. K. McCrickerd, L. Chambers, J.M. Brunstrom, J.E. Norton, T. Mills, M.R. Yeomans. Subtle changes in the flavour and texture of a drink enhance expectations of satiety. Appetite, 2012; 59 (2): 632 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2012.05.087

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/FzgR1l8reCQ/121030210345.htm

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