Berlusconi sentenced to four years for tax evasion

MILAN (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to four years in jail on Friday for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset television company.

The 76-year-old billionaire, who was convicted three times during the 1990s in the first degree before being cleared by higher courts, has the right to appeal the ruling two more times before the sentence becomes definitive. He will not be jailed unless he loses the final appeal.

The ruling comes two days after Berlusconi confirmed he would not run in next year's elections as the leader of his People of Freedom (PDL) party, ending almost 19 years as the dominant politician of the center-right.

Milan judge Edoardo d'Avossa told a packed court that between 2000 and 2003, there had been "a very significant amount of tax evasion" and "an incredible mechanism of fraud" in place around the buying and selling of broadcast rights.

The court's written ruling said Berlusconi showed a "natural capacity for crime".

Berlusconi lawyers Piero Longo and Niccolo Ghedini said the ruling was "totally divorced from all judicial logic", adding that they hoped the "atmosphere" at the appeals courts would be different.

Berlusconi, one of Italy's richest men, became prime minister for a second time in 2001 after winning a landslide election victory. Even while he was prime minister, he remained in effective charge of Mediaset even though he had handed over control of day-to-day operations, the court said.

The four-time prime minister and other Mediaset executives stood accused of inflating the price paid for TV rights via offshore companies controlled by Berlusconi and skimming off part of the money to create illegal slush funds.

The investigation focused on television and cinema rights that Berlusconi's holding company Fininvest bought via offshore companies from Hollywood studios.

The court also ordered damages provisionally set at 10 million euros ($13 million) to be paid by Berlusconi and his co-defendants to tax authorities.

"POLITICAL HOMICIDE"

The flamboyant Berlusconi, who is still on trial in a separate prostitution case, resigned as prime minister a year ago as Italy faced a Greek-style debt crisis, handing the reins of government to economics professor Mario Monti.

Angelino Alfano, secretary of the PDL, said the ruling proved once again "judicial persecution" of the media magnate, while political rival Antonio Di Pietro, a former magistrate, hailed the decision, saying "the truth has been exposed".

Should the ruling be confirmed on appeal, Berlusconi would also be forbidden from holding public office for five years, and from being a company executive for three years.

"This is not a sentence, but an attempt at political homicide," Fabrizio Chicchito, the PDL's chief whip in the Chamber of Deputies, said referring to the ban from holding office.

Now that Berlusconi has said he will pull out of politics, he may be focusing more on his business empire, which includes Mediaset, AC Milan soccer club, and Internet bank Mediolanum.

Shares in Mediaset, Italy's biggest private broadcaster, fell as much as 3 percent after the ruling, and are down about 50 percent in the last year.

The broadcaster has been struggling against rivals like News Corp's broadcaster Sky Italia and a host of online media, while its core advertising revenues are feeling the pinch of the recession.

The court acquitted Mediaset chairman and long-term Berlusconi friend Fedele Confalonieri, for whom prosecutors had sought a sentence of three years and four months.

Berlusconi has owned AC Milan since 1986 and they have been European champions five times under his leadership. But the club's fortunes have dipped in the past couple of seasons amid cost cutting, prompting repeated rumors of its possible sale.

He also is still on trial in the separate "Rubygate" case in which he is accused of paying for sex with a teenaged nightclub dancer when she was under 18 and thus too young to be paid legally as a prostitute. He denies the charges.

(Additional reporting by Danilo Masoni. Writing by Lisa Jucca and Steve Scherer; Editing by James Mackenzie and Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlusconi-sentenced-jail-mediaset-trial-141843013--finance.html

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Video: Fey on GOP rhetoric about rape: ?I?m gonna lose my mind?

Dog debarking policy raises howls of protest

Sue Perry and Karen Mahmud, the owners of two debarked dogs, Porter and Lola, are demanding the American Veterinary Medical Association condemn the practice regarded as either barbaric mutilation or as the last resort of pet owners desperate to stop incessant noise.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49559507#49559507

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iRobot mission rolls to Tobyhanna Army Depot

Tobyhanna Army Depot's new robotics mission helps warfighters remotely search for improvised explosive devices using either a laptop computer or backpack control system.

The depot's System Integration and Support, Production Engineering, and Communication Systems directorates are involved in fabricating and upgrading several components of the iRobot unmanned ground vehicles.

"There is no doubt that this mission directly saves lives," said Chase Gardner, electronics engineer in the Production Engineering Directorate. "The work we do at the depot with the iRobots provides Soldiers a larger safety blanket and greater sense of security by extending the range of communications between the vehicle and the operator."

The requirement to upgrade two different robots came as part of a Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement asking for improved communication capabilities.

The larger iRobot 510 PackBot system features a front- and rear-facing camera, mechanical arm and two 'forks' that allow the robot to position itself in several different stances. The iRobot 310 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle is slightly smaller and is controlled using an optic lens. Both systems are operated using video game controllers.

Michael Murray, an electronics integrated systems mechanic in the Communication Systems Directorate, says the mission requires a wide range of knowledge and skills.

"This project uses hands-on skills like Soldering and manual troubleshooting but also incorporates software-based knowledge," he said. "Since it is such a new mission and requires a different type of thinking, a total team effort is required to pull all of our skills together and put out a quality product while adapting to customer requests."

Requests have included fixing a problem with the battery door latches. Increased temperatures would cause the latch to fail, leaving the door unsecured. Had the problem persisted, the robot may not have functioned properly, compromising the safety of the warfighter and his mission. Electronics Worker Nicholas Prehotsky's solution to replace the ineffective latches with snaps not only fixed the problem, but saved time and money.

Tactical Radio Branch chief Patrick Connolly said adapting to challenges and quickly finding solutions is an integral part of the mission.

"Problems are to be expected, but knowing that warfighters count on our work to keep them safe pushes us to be accountable," said Connolly. "I've never seen a team with so much enthusiasm, dedication and pride."

Prehotsky noted that his pride for the mission and for supporting the warfighter pressed him to find answers to several of the iRobot's problems.

"I know that I'm a part of something that directly supports our Soldiers and has the potential to bring even more modern technology to the depot," said Prehotsky.

To date, Tobyhanna has fielded more than 200 iRobot kits to both systems. Connolly said the response from warfighters has been extremely positive.

"From the reports we have received from the field, our customers are very happy about the work we are doing," he said. "In turn, that makes us work harder to maintain that level of success because we know this mission saves lives."

Tobyhanna Army Depot is the Defense Department's largest center for the repair, overhaul and fabrication of a wide variety of electronics systems and components, from tactical field radios to the ground terminals for the defense satellite communications network. Tobyhanna's missions support all branches of the Armed Forces.

About 5,400 personnel are employed at Tobyhanna, which is located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. Tobyhanna Army Depot is part of the U.S. Army CECOM.

Headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., the command's mission is to research, develop, acquire, field and sustain communications, command, control computer, intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors capabilities for the Armed Forces.

By Justin Eimers, CECOM

Source : US Army

Published on ASDNews: Oct 25, 2012
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Source: http://www.asdnews.com/news-45780/iRobot_mission_rolls_to_Tobyhanna_Army_Depot.htm

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Nanomaterials: Bringing crystals into line

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2012) ? The temperature-controlled alignment of tiny crystals could help harness their collective properties for nanotechnology applications.

The unique magnetic properties of cobalt phosphide nanowires stand them in good stead as future components of high-performance devices. Unlike bulk materials, these ultrasmall elongated crystals consist of single-domain structures that account for their superparamagnetism -- a temperature-induced magnetism that arises in a magnetic field. To maintain and fully exploit this behavior, scientists must generate materials composed of precisely positioned and oriented building blocks. Such superstructures are now available, thanks to the development of a method that uses temperature changes to align individual nanowires. Ming-Yong Han from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Sinapore, led the research.

Current nanocrystal self-assembly approaches involve depositing a crystal suspension on a solid surface, and then slowly evaporating the solvent. Theoretically, the evaporation enhances the relatively weak attraction forces that exist between the nanocrystals, forcing them to align. However, high degrees of alignment of anisotropic structures -- those exhibiting direction-dependent physical properties -- remain difficult to achieve.

"We took a distinct pathway from the slow evaporation approach," says Han. His team's strategy followed similar principles to those used in chemical synthesis. First, they reacted a cobalt derivative with the phosphide precursor trioctylphosphine (TOP) at high temperature. This produced TOP-coated nanowires. Next, they stored the solution in which the nanowires formed at various temperatures. These storage, or 'aging', temperatures produced larger, well-defined superstructures with different alignments.

Washing the nanowires without the latter step resulted in random arrangements or small assemblies (see image). After cooling and aging the reaction mixture at room temperature for two hours, the team observed superstructures composed of nearly one million vertically standing nanowires. In this arrangement, each nanowire was surrounded by six others in a honeycomb pattern. When cooled to room temperature and then refrigerated, the reaction mixture produced extended sheets of nanowires aligned side-by-side horizontally.

The superstructures resisted any high temperature, ultrasound, or organic solvent treatment, indicative of strong cohesive forces between the nanowires. Further investigations revealed that, during the self-assembly, the TOP molecules continually adsorbed and desorbed from the nanowires, bringing them in close contact. This caused irreversible chemical bonds to form between the nanocrystals, facilitating and enhancing their alignment.

The team is currently testing the performance of the superstructures against that of the randomly oriented nanowires to explore their potential use as sensors or electrical components called inductors. "We are also trying to extend this methodology to self-assemble other systems, with a hope to establish a more universal method for aligning anisotropic nanocrystals," adds Han.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), via ResearchSEA.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Shuang-Yuan Zhang, Enyi Ye, Shuhua Liu, Suo Hon Lim, Si Yin Tee, Zhili Dong, Ming-Yong Han. Temperature and Chemical Bonding-Directed Self-Assembly of Cobalt Phosphide Nanowires in Reaction Solutions into Vertical and Horizontal Alignments. Advanced Materials, 2012; 24 (32): 4369 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201201618

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/OwWhJcjSR_E/121025160853.htm

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Who's Your Ideal?

The ideal real estate agent is loyal, strong, cheerful and brave. No, wait, the ideal agent works full time, does open houses and goes door-knocking for fun. Scratch that, the ideal agent should buy 1000s of leads and make calls 12 hours a day to cherry pick buyers, all while frenetically cultivating his 100s of Facebook friends. And of course there are the myriad of personality traits an agent should possess: tenacious, patient, resilient, calm, orderly, creative, tech-savvy, relaxed, hyper-attentive.?

There sure is a lot of self-loathing and condemnation to go around. Even an hour on ActiveRain or on Facebook can be an onslaught of calls for more education, more supervision, more consciousness raising. But in my opinion, it's easy to insist that we raise the bar but really hard to describe how we should go about it.?

We better figure out where we want to end up while we're calling for revolution.?To do that, my friends, we have to do a much better job of describing what an agent should "do", what skills they should have, what personality attributes are necessary to succeed in our business??

More thoughtful recruiting, hiring and training could reduce some of the churn in brokerages.?After all, an agent who sold copiers to small businesses may need less training on sales and more training on technology. The newly-licensed computer programmer might be a whiz at creating a lead generation program but have no idea how to convert leads into client opportunities.?

Once you get past "serve the client" and "follow license law"?the paths skew off in a million directions on the profile of a great agent.?Education requirements vary tremendously from state-to-state. Some brokers provide extensive training programs, and of course there's the unending parade of (often expensive) seminars and workshops.

Of course no one agent will ever be perfect, but what do you think?is the profile and skill set of the ideal agent??Can you rank the attributes? And how do we line up education and training to fill the gaps?

Be detailed, be precise. Thank you for sharing your opinions.

?

This post was written by Leslie Ebersole of Baird & Warner Real Estate.
Use or reproduction of the material published on this site is expressly prohibited
without the express written permission of the author.

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Source: http://activerain.com/blogsview/3489847/who-s-your-ideal-

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The Basic Mathematics (Education) - iApper

The Basic Mathematics 1.0

Device: iOS iPhone
Category: Education
Price: $.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)


Description:

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as before could not be in any application, you can check results of your Division, multiplication, Reducing Fractions operations, he soon added many more.Check results or copy them!

The Basic Mathematics

Source: http://www.iapper.com/the-basic-mathematics-education/

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Fred Wilson on ed tech: 4 takeaways for educators and - GigaOM

As part of an open online course on entrepreneurship in education, Union Square Ventures managing partner Fred Wilson talks about the role of venture capital, potential business models in ed tech and a few areas that are most ripe for innovation.

Over the past couple of years, Union Square Ventures, already a leading investor in consumer tech startups, has been building up its portfolio in education. It made an early investment in education social network Edmodo in 2010 and, since then, it?s invested in Skillshare, Codecademy and Duolingo.

On Wednesday, Fred Wilson, a managing partner at the firm, gave a little insight into how he and USV view opportunities in education technology as part of an open online course on entrepreneurship in education, called Ed Startup 101. Speaking to a group of ed tech academics, researchers and entrepreneurs, Wilson talked about the role of venture capitalists, potential business models for freemium startups in education and a few areas that are most ripe for innovation.

Until recently, venture capitalists haven?t looked favorably at education, which is notorious for its bureaucracy and long sales cycles. But as startups have attempted ? and shown early success with ? new models that skip over institutional buyers to target teachers and students, investors have steadily warmed to the sector, including K-12 education.

According to GSV Advisors, a Chicago-based investment firm that specializes in education, transactions in K-12 education climbed to $389 million in 2011, which is up from just $13 million in 2005 and more than three times the investment in the sector in 2010. Funding has been so strong that some have already started asking the inevitable question about whether an ed tech bubble is brewing.

Wilson didn?t offer a position on the bubble question, but said, ?Investors think there?s a lot of money to be made at the intersection of education and technology. ? This will turn out to be a hyper-competitive market.?

The full video of the talk ? which was moderated by David Wiley, associate professor at Brigham Young University?s David O. McKay School of Education, and Richard Culatta, Deputy Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education ? is available here. But below are a few takeaways from the conversation.

Consumer tech offers plenty of models for freemium ed tech startups

It can be head-scratching for people outside the tech world (and even, sometimes, for those inside it) to watch venture capitalists pour money into startups without a clear business model. As one of the students in the course noted in a question for Wilson, ?It seems as though the revenue model for these startups ? for the time being at least ? is just to raise venture capital.?

But Wilson provided several examples in which consumer startups with a free service eventually found a path to profitability after years of venture backing, including Dropbox and Twitter. In those examples, he said, venture capital played a key role in helping them reach the scale that would make a freemium model work.

While Union Square Ventures isn?t an investor in Coursera, he speculated that the company could grow into a WordPress-style open software model that provides a basic service for free but charges for extra support. As the ed tech market expands, he expects models of all kinds ? from those supported by advertising to those with enterprise licensing models ? to emerge.

Sell to the learner first, not the institution

?We should compete with the existing education system as opposed to sell to it,? Wilson said. That doesn?t mean he thinks the startups in his portfolio are going to put Ivy League institutions out of business, but that entrepreneurs can make faster progress by bringing their tools straight to the learners and the teachers providing instruction. That?s the way Edmodo has gained its strong traction and the approach Codecademy has taken with its after school program targeting students in schools without computer science instruction.? As students and teachers adopt new platforms, Wilson said, the institutions will come around.

Vendor exclusivity is like teacher tenure ? it?s a bad thing

As more companies turn their attention to online learning and digital education, Wilson said universities shouldn?t standardize with just one vendor but support the range of tools that faculty members choose. Exclusivity, he said, makes vendors ?fat and happy? and less incentivized to innovate. ?Like tenure, I think it?s a bad thing in the education world because it makes people feel comfortable,? he said. ?I don?t think there?s any benefit anyone would get by standardizing on one platform.?

Credentialing, peer-to-peer networking and verticals are areas of opportunity

Now that plenty of platforms offer courses and instruction, the next step is figuring out whether students are actually mastering the skills and knowledge that they?re setting out to learn.? That credentialing and accreditation question (which we?ve touched on in posts about startups like LearningJar, Degreed and Smarterer) is one of the areas in which USV is most interested in, Wilson said.? He also said he thinks there are opportunities in peer-to-peer platforms, which leverage online communities to reduce the cost of creating curriculum and learning content, and vertically-focused startups, such as those similar to Codecademy and Duolingo.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2012/10/24/fred-wilson-on-ed-tech-4-takeaways-for-educators-and-entrepreneurs/

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Law Firm Comes Out With Comic Marketing - Business Insider

Legal comics strike again ? this time as part of a law firm's colorful marketing efforts.

The Thompson Coburn law firm has come out with a two-page comic called "Swept Away,"?which follows the misfortunes of a company that chooses to use someone else's sweepstakes rules instead of hiring a legal team to sort things out.

It seems absolutely ridiculous, and, well, it might be,?but the cartoon does its job.

Among the characters are a pair of Canadian mounties, the FBI, FTC, and a postal service inspector, to name a few.

Dale Joerling, a partner at the firm and the man behind the comic, writes on the Sweepstakes Law Blog that the idea came when he saw Bob Kohn's cartoon brief?last month in the Apple e-book price fixing case.

And if you aren't sure how this is an example of goofy, but perhaps functional marketing, the two lead characters conclude with: "Whew. Using someone else's rules can be expensive! We should have talked to Thompson Coburn."

Shameless self-promotion? Yes, but that's how marketing works, even for law firms.

Check out the full comic here.

SEE ALSO:?This Man Had To Learn To Survive In Prison When He Was 11 Years Old >

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/law-firm-comes-out-with-comic-marketing-2012-10

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