Saturday, January 5, 2013

Foreign investors cautiously optimistic about Africa, says risk expert


Despite a general consensus that Africa?s business environment is improving, political risk ? whether perceived or real ? continues to play an important role in foreign investment decisions. Alkan Shenyuz, managing director at UK-based firm Veventis, makes a living from providing emerging market investors with risk management solutions. How we made it in Africa recently spoke to Shenyuz about risk and foreign investment into the continent. Here are some edited excerpts:

Your company deals with many foreign investors with interests in Africa. Give us some insight into the things that pop up in conversations with these investors when it comes to doing business on the continent.

My clients are cautiously optimistic. They seem more and more informed than ever when it comes to issues of political and cultural diversity in Africa. They also seem more conscious of the need to work alongside the communities where they invest as part of their overall risk management structure. They tend to take a long-term perspective ? not just [regarding] the rewards of doing business, but also risks of doing business. I think this carefully balanced approach will be enormously beneficial to all sides ? whether it?s the investor, the people in these countries, the host governments and everybody else involved.

At the end of the day, Africa is often referred to as the final frontier. As long as people are educated about the risks, they can take a balanced approach.

Which African countries, in your opinion, have high levels of political risk?

I think the answer depends on whether you look at it in the short term or the long term? Today, I?m particularly concerned with events in Mali. Until recently the south of that country appeared to be relatively unaffected by the separatist threat coming from the north. But events seem to be moving very fast, and we?ve recently seen an influx of calls from clients with mining interests in the south looking for advice.

The Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo also appear to be in serious difficulties and they are ones to watch in the short term.

In the longer term, however, the situation is less clear. I would like countries such as Nigeria and Tanzania to increase the pace of development? The reason why I single these two countries out is because I see them as critical to the improvement of the overall business environment in Africa because they are so resource rich, and the fundamentals are already in place, and any sort of slowing down of the rate of progress in these countries would, to a large extent, actually be a step backwards.

A company like Veventis clearly has an interest in Africa being portrayed as a risky place to do business. However, would you say that the risks associated with doing business on the continent have been exaggerated by the international media?

I would say risk, especially political risk, is a question of perception. At the end of the day, Africa is not a single marketplace ? it is actually a vast continent of diverse people, cultures, geographies and systems of governance.

I?m actually quite surprised to hear how frequently commentators bundle the risks associated with one region with [that] of another, or they focus on one variant of risk in favour of another. The reason why there has been a steady growth in risk management services supporting inward investment over the last few years is because no two projects are the same. Each project comes with its own set of risks.

Investors often [need to establish] whether their own corporate culture or approach is likely to create potential risks in itself when entering markets in Africa. The question they need to ask themselves is whether they have addressed local concerns. Have they considered the environmental or social impact of their commercial decisions?

Commentators, the media, sometimes discount certain factors? And often the picture which results from that is one which?doesn?t?do justice to the situation.

Do you think the risks associated with Africa are worse than other emerging markets?

I don?t necessarily think so? I can probably think of a number of frontier markets outside Africa which present considerably risky environments to operate in.

Is it only the extractive industries that should be worried about political risk in Africa?

No long term project for investment is properly conceived unless the management of political risk is factored in. From infrastructure projects to fast-moving consumer goods ? political risk in its wider sense doesn?t discriminate. Political risk can range from worker strikes to sudden changes in taxation, or changes to ownership rights. It can affect businesses in different ways. In recent months, strikes and violence in the South African mining industry has made investors in other sectors give political risk due consideration.

The answer for any foreign investment project in Africa is to anticipate risk ? make sure you have a system of risk management in place to deal with [risk] when it arises.



Related articles:
  • Influx of foreign investors pushes demand for office space in Accra
  • Inflation more a worry for Africa than political risk
  • Can investors look beyond Africa?s short-term turmoil?
  • Four reasons why foreign investors fail in Africa
  • South African exchange controls ? still relevant to foreign investors
  • Africa still a frontier market for foreign private equity players
  • Source: http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/foreign-investors-cautiously-optimistic-about-africa-says-risk-expert/23067/

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    Spotted: Reese Witherspoon Snaps a Family Shot

    The actress was spotted in Hawaii with husband Jim Toth, their newborn son Tennessee James, 3 months, and her elder children Deacon, 9, and Ava, 13.

    Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/s-g6fkjvZAg/

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    GREEN DESIGN: A green builder guts his own home as a passion ...

    By Tony Palermo; Photography by Christian Lalonde ? Photolux Studio

    A self-confessed ?green geek,? Scott Demark has an extreme passion for green building ? specifically Passive House. He?s also a partner with BuildGreen Solutions, where one of his specialties is dramatically reducing carbon footprints. In late 2010, Demark decided to put his ideals to the test, announcing that he and his family planned to purchase an energy- and water-guzzling 1920s house on Third Avenue in the Glebe. The goal: to turn it into a 2,000-square-foot model of sustainability. To do so, Demark set out to incorporate two of the most ambitious sustainability strategies in the world ? Passive House and the One Planet Communities program. After several construction delays and a disastrous fire toward the end of the project, Demark and his family finally moved in at the end of last year.

    The open-concept living and dining room features a south-facing folding glass wall that opens up to a terrace overlooking the street. The folding wall allows for a seamless transition between the indoor and outdoor living spaces ? when weather permits. Among the many green features in the kitchen: custom concrete counters with embedded recycled glass, remilled pine over the island, and energy-efficient appliances. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    What was the goal of the One Planet Reno Project?
    I wanted to take our lifestyle and make it as low-carbon as possible. That meant we had to reduce our energy consumption by making the house super-insulated and by producing electricity and heat from the sun. But it also meant that in the process, we wouldn?t use materials and supplies that weren?t sustainable. So we tried to use items that had a lower carbon footprint in the construction of the house and a lot of reused materials ? basically stuff that was salvaged and reused.

    You said you ?tried to use items that had a lower carbon footprint.? What?s an example where this wasn?t possible??
    In the walls in the old part of the house, we had to use spray-foam insulation because it was the only way we could get the performance we need. But we didn?t use spray-foam anywhere we could use a lower-carbon alternative.

    The original house was a two-storey structure, while the new house has a third level, with deck and solar panels perched on top. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    What lower-carbon insulation alternatives did you use when possible?
    Most of the house is Roxul insulation (a premium-quality insulation that combines natural basalt rock and recycled material) and other forms that can be recycled or reclaimed. We used a tonne of used XPS (extruded polystyrene foam insulation) taken from a big, old commercial roof that was being renovated. By purchasing some of that old XPS insulation and using it in the house, we diverted it from the dump.

    Why did you purchase an old house in the Glebe for such an ambitious project?
    Location is extremely important when you?re looking at your overall carbon footprint. You can have the greenest house in the world, but if you drive an hour to work every day, it doesn?t really compute, right? So we wanted to be close to all of the amenities, close to the bus routes, close enough that my wife, Jenny, and I could both bike most of the time, have the kids? school nearby, and all of that kind of stuff. Location was really key in our decision.

    There isn?t a lot of space between the houses in this neighbourhood. Did that cause challenges during the renovation?
    Infill development or renovation on a tight city lot like we have is inherently more expensive and more challenging. We have shared driveways on both sides. On one side is a driveway that is shared with one neighbour where we own half of the lot. On the other side is a laneway that three houses share as a driveway. On that driveway, we have zero lot line. At no time during construction could we close off either driveway entirely. So instead of scaffolding to do work, we had to use mobile lifts.

    The Demark family poses beside the solar panels on their rooftop deck. The deck features gardens and provides the family with an extended outdoor living space ? a particularly welcome feature in an urban neighbourhood. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    How did using lifts affect the process?
    Well, you have to rent those, of course, so there?s a financial hit. By virtue of the way we designed the house, we had a lot of exterior work to do. We essentially have a big blanket of insulation around the outside of the house, and all of that had to be done in pieces. So imagine doing all that work from a lift. It was extremely challenging ? challenging for the workers, challenging for the neighbours, and definitely challenging from a cost perspective.

    How about the City of Ottawa? Any issues there?
    There were a few, but a big one was on the sustainability side. The City has never permitted a single-family dwelling to have toilets flushed with rainwater. And that feature was really important to us ? we wanted to reduce our water footprint too. It doesn?t make any sense to wash our bikes, water the gardens, and flush toilets with potable water. [The house is equipped with a large cistern that stores rainwater for this use.] So, definitely, it was a big challenge with the City. It took a long time and had to go up to fairly high levels of management in infrastructure to get that approval.?But we did ultimately get that approval.

    The stunning open-concept linear kitchen is designed to be at the centre of the family?s main living area. The cozy family room, with its red couch, is just visible. Situated at the back of the house, the family room boasts a wood stove. Here, and throughout the house, the warm softwood details (the slatted walls, bookshelves, and light ?fixture? over the island) were created with salvaged wood from the original house. The hardwood floors are remilled ash barn beams. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    What were some of the other specific green elements/features you knew you wanted?
    Let?s talk a bit about the construction and renovation process. We wanted to use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood and salvaged wood. We didn?t want to have this beautiful green home that destroyed the boreal forests that we love. We really couldn?t have the juxtaposition of beliefs, right? That was a key one to us.

    We also wanted to salvage as much of the old house as we could. If you look at our house, it?s very modern-lined, but it has an old finish. We salvaged the old red brick of Ottawa. It sits on the old foundation in the exact same spot that it sat for the past 100 years. There?s permanence with it. It?s the right feel for the street, and it still suits the neighbourhood. We didn?t want to change that fundamentally.

    We also saved all the softwood that you see inside. We saved the hemlock and pine interior boards, had them remilled and put back in, adding a lot of character and warmth to the interior. Those were key things to try to keep the footprint of the demo down.

    In terms of general waste from construction, we tried to keep as much out of the landfill as we could. And we succeeded. We were over 90 percent in terms of diversion.

    The couple?s two children share a spacious bedroom. Custom-built desk beds, designed by Demark and built with zero-VOC plywood, maximize floor space for two active boys. The room was designed with two separate doors so that as the children age, a dividing wall can be built to allow each his private space. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    How about a few must-have green systems of the house??
    Our goal was zero carbon. So we have a fairly unique system on the solar-thermal side. We take heat from the sun all year round by using a system of evacuated tubes. That heat gets taken down to a tank in the basement and stored. We can then take that heat out of the tank to preheat our domestic hot water and to heat the house. If there isn?t enough heat from the sun stored in the tank, then we have to boost that with electricity. We also have solar panels on the roof that produce electricity, so hopefully we can offset any shortfall. I?m keeping track of how much electricity we need versus how much we produce. It looks like we?re probably going to net purchase around 3,000 kWh per year from the grid. By comparison, a typical house in the Glebe uses somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 kWh a year. So we?re incredibly better. We?re not quite carbon neutral, but we?re pretty close.

    And then there?s the water footprint. We would like to live within our water footprint. You can?t drink rainwater in Ottawa. There are certainly technologies available to clean the water so that you can, but it would?ve required an official plan amendment that was beyond our scope and reason. So we drink city water and we shower in city water, but we use a large cistern to flush toilets and irrigate the gardens. That was another important element to us.

    Designed in Europe, the Wittus Twinfire-series wood stove is ultra-efficient. It also provides a compact and stylish focal point in the family room. Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Studio.

    Final thoughts??
    Despite some contractor problems and financial overages that we experienced, people shouldn?t be deterred from building greener. Energy won?t be cheap forever. Climate change is real and is here. Our house was a leading-edge project, but you can still do a little to achieve a lot. For example, if the walls are open, insulate them.

    Visit Scott Demark?s One Planet Reno Blog at www.build-green.com/blog/one-planet-reno.

    This article originally appeared in?the?September ?green design? edition?of Ottawa Magazine. Order your?online edition.

    Source: http://www.ottawamagazine.com/homes-gardens/2013/01/04/green-design-a-green-builder-guts-his-own-home-as-a-passion-project-with-spectacular-results/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=green-design-a-green-builder-guts-his-own-home-as-a-passion-project-with-spectacular-results

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    Friday, January 4, 2013

    New tax law packed with breaks for businesses (The Arizona Republic)

    Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

    Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/274642461?client_source=feed&format=rss

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    Kansas wants sperm donor pay child support

    William Marotta, who is being asked by the state of Kansas to pay child support after providing sperm to a same-sex couple, speaks about his ordeal at his attorney's office in Topeka, Kan. on Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. Angela Bauer told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Saturday that she and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, are "kind of at a loss" about the Kansas Department for Children and Families' recent decision to file a child support claim against William Marotta. Marotta provided sperm that was used to artificially inseminate Schreiner three years ago. (AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Jeff Davis)

    William Marotta, who is being asked by the state of Kansas to pay child support after providing sperm to a same-sex couple, speaks about his ordeal at his attorney's office in Topeka, Kan. on Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. Angela Bauer told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Saturday that she and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, are "kind of at a loss" about the Kansas Department for Children and Families' recent decision to file a child support claim against William Marotta. Marotta provided sperm that was used to artificially inseminate Schreiner three years ago. (AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Jeff Davis)

    William Marotta, who is being asked by the state of Kansas to pay child support after providing sperm to a same-sex couple, speaks about his ordeal at his attorney's office in Topeka, Kan. on Monday, Dec. 31, 2012. Angela Bauer told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Saturday that she and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, are "kind of at a loss" about the Kansas Department for Children and Families' recent decision to file a child support claim against William Marotta. Marotta provided sperm that was used to artificially inseminate Schreiner three years ago. (AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Jeff Davis)

    (AP) ? The state of Kansas is trying to force a man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple to pay child support, arguing that the agreement he and the women signed releasing him from all parental duties was invalid because they didn't go through a doctor.

    Under Kansas law, a doctor's involvement shields a man from being held responsible for a child conceived through artificial insemination. At least 10 other states have similar laws, including California, Illinois and Missouri, according to the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

    William Marotta and the couple he helped have a daughter didn't go through a doctor, so the department is asking a state court to hold him responsible for about $6,000 that the child's biological mother received through public assistance ? as well as future child support.

    The department also asked the court to appoint an attorney to represent the now 3-year-old girl, independently of her mother.

    Marotta is asking that the case be dismissed, arguing that he is not the child's legal father. A hearing is set for Tuesday.

    Department spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said Wednesday that when a single mother seeks benefits for a child, the department routinely tries to determine the child's paternity and require the father to make support payments to lessen the potential cost to taxpayers.

    She argued that the law regarding artificial insemination is an incentive for donors and prospective mothers to work with a doctor.

    "I believe that is the intent of the law, so that we don't end up with these ambiguous situations," she told The Associated Press.

    Marotta, a 46-year-old Topeka resident, answered an ad on Craigslist in 2009 from Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, a local couple who said they were seeking a sperm donor.

    After exchanging emails and meeting, Marotta and the couple signed an agreement in which the women agreed to "hold him harmless" financially. It also said the child's birth certificate would not list a father.

    But the state agency argues the agreement isn't valid, because instead of working with a doctor, Marotta agreed to drop off containers with his sperm at the couple's home, according to prepared court documents the department gave to the AP late Wednesday.

    The women handled the artificial insemination themselves using a syringe, and Schreiner eventually became pregnant, according to the documents. The couple broke up in 2010, and last year, Schreiner received public assistance from the state to help care for the girl.

    "My ex-partner and I wanted to have a baby," Schreiner said in a written statement to the department in January 2012, also included in the department's latest filing. "We were a gay couple so we had a sperm donor."

    Marotta told The Topeka-Capital Journal that he is "a little scared about where this is going to go, primarily for financial reasons." His attorney didn't return a phone message Wednesday from the AP, and there was no listing for his home phone number in Topeka.

    Phone numbers listed for Schreiner and Bauer were either incorrect or out of service, and Schreiner did not respond to a message sent by Facebook.

    The department first filed a petition against Marotta in Shawnee County District Court in October, asking that he be required to reimburse the state for the benefits and make future child support payments.

    Along with the 1994 law regarding artificial insemination, the department cited a 2007 Kansas Supreme Court ruling. In that case, the court decided that a sperm donor who works through a licensed physician can't legally be considered a child's father ? and doesn't have the right to visit or help raise the child ? absent a formal, written agreement.

    However, that case involved a sperm donor who was seeking access to a child but had only an informal, unwritten agreement with the child's mother. Marotta's attorneys contend the state is reading it incorrectly.

    Still, Linda Elrod, a law professor and director of Washburn University's Children and Family Law program, said the law seems clear: Sperm donors who don't want to be held liable for child support need to work with a doctor.

    "Other than that, the general rule is strict liability for sperm," said Elrod, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court case.

    ____

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter at www.twitter.com/apjdhanna

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-03-Sperm%20Donor-Child%20Support/id-5f6937619aff4c618e9b3c51076d2c66

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    Bloody protest: S. Korean stabs himself at airport

    Kim Hong-ji / Reuters

    Kim Chang-geun, right, 57, a member of an anti-Japan civic group, stabs himself in the stomach with a knife during a rally at Gimpo Airport in Seoul on Jan. 4, 2013. The rally was held to denounce Japan's conservative new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and demand an official apology for Japan's war crimes during the World War II.

    A South Korean protester stabbed himself in the stomach at an airport outside Seoul?on Friday during a demonstration ahead of the arrival of a Japanese government official, Reuters reports.?The injured protester was taken to hospital.

    South Korea's president-elect Park Geun-hye?said that Japan needed to come to terms with its colonial history as tension simmered over Japan's past rule of Korea and an island dispute.?

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a December 31 interview he wanted to issue a statement that would supersede a landmark 1995 apology for Japan's military aggression, a move bound to raise hackles in South Korea, ruled by Japan from 1910-1945, and in China, where bitter wartime memories run deep. Read the full story.

    Ahn Young-Joon / AP

    Bleeding protester Kim Chang-geun, center, who tried to hurt himself with a knife, is escorted to an ambulance by plain-clothes policemen during a protest against the visit of a special envoy sent by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. South Korean President elect Park Geun-hye will meet with the delegation on Friday in her first diplomatic test.

    ?Sign up for the NBCNews.com Photos Newsletter

    Source: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/04/16345898-south-korean-stabs-himself-in-protest-against-japan-officials-visit?lite

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    Publication - European Society for Comparative Legal History

    Crime, Courtrooms and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850, Edited by David Lemmings, University of Adelaide, Australia, Ashagte, December 2012.

    ?

    Modern criminal courts are characteristically the domain of lawyers, with trials conducted in an environment of formality and solemnity, where facts are found and legal rules are impartially applied to administer justice. Recent historical scholarship has shown that in England lawyers only began to appear in ordinary criminal trials during the eighteenth century, however, and earlier trials often took place in an atmosphere of noise and disorder, where the behaviour of the crowd - significant body language, meaningful looks, and audible comment - could influence decisively the decisions of jurors and judges. This collection of essays considers this transition from early scenes of popular participation to the much more orderly and professional legal proceedings typical of the nineteenth century, and links this with another important shift, the mushroom growth of popular news and comment about trials and punishments which occurred from the later seventeenth century. It hypothesizes that the popular participation which had been a feature of courtroom proceedings before the mid-eighteenth century was not stifled by ?lawyerization?, but rather partly relocated to the ?public sphere? of the press, partly because of some changes connected with the work of the lawyers....


    For more information click here

    Source: http://esclh.blogspot.com/2013/01/publication-crime-courtrooms-and-public.html

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    What Sounds Can Cause You to Fail a Hearing Test?

    Sounds are not all good for you and some, with prolonged exposure, can be the cause of a failed hearing test. Many people struggle with the loss of the ability to hear. This happens for many reasons, including just getting older. However, more often than not, prolonged exposure to noise or very loud sounds infrequently can cause the damage to the inner ear that can be lasting. If you have failed such a screening and are wondering why this happened to you, it pays to talk to your audiologist about it and what you can do about it. There is help available. It starts with understanding your risks.

    Some Sounds Are Okay

    Some types of sounds do not damage the ears in any way. These will not lead to any damage seen on a hearing test. For example, a very soft sound, like that of a whisper, has about 30 decibels of sound. Normal conversation is also okay as it has about 60 decibels of sound. If you were to stand next to the average washing machine, that comes in at about 70 decibels and it is still within the normal range where there is no risk present.

    Moderate Risk

    Anything more than 80 decibels is worrisome because even irregular sounds at this level can begin to cause damage to the inner ear. At the lowest end of this spectrum is the sound of a lawn mower, a hair dryer or heavy traffic. These sounds range from 85 to 90 decibels and while they do not cause instant damage to the ears, they do wear down on your ability to hear over a period of time. Prolonged exposure on an ongoing basis will cause damage here. A motorcycle, with 95 decibels of sound, a snowmobile, with 100 decibels of sound, and a chain saw, with 110 decibels of sound are all too high for regular use.

    Very High Sound

    Some sounds are classified as high risk or in the injury range. This means that just hearing this sound one time can do permanent damage to your ears if you are close enough to it. For example, an ambulance siren next to the ear is too high because it has about 120 decibels of sound. A jet engine taking off has about 140 decibels of sound. That is also the pain threshold, which means that at this level it is going to be painful.

    As you can see, sounds play an important role in your ability to hear. They can also cause you to have a failed hearing test if you are listening to those sounds for good long.

    A Reno, NV hearing test helps residents identify and address any pre-existing conditions or injuries to their inner ear canal. Find all the latest devices and methods at: http://www.miracle-ear-reno.com.

    Source: http://www.articlesrx.com/what-sounds-can-cause-you-to-fail-a-hearing-test/10474

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    Thursday, January 3, 2013

    Monkey see, monkey do: Visual feedback is necessary for imitating facial expressions

    Monkey see, monkey do: Visual feedback is necessary for imitating facial expressions

    Wednesday, January 2, 2013

    Research using new technology shows that our ability to imitate facial expressions depends on learning that occurs through visual feedback.

    Studies of the chameleon effect confirm what salespeople, tricksters, and Lotharios have long known: Imitating another person's postures and expressions is an important social lubricant. But how do we learn to imitate with any accuracy when we can't see our own facial expressions and we can't feel the facial expressions of others?

    Richard Cook of City University London, Alan Johnston of University College London, and Cecilia Heyes of the University of Oxford investigate possible mechanisms underlying our ability to imitate in two studies published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

    In the first experiment, the researchers videotaped participants as they recited jokes and then asked them to imitate four randomly selected facial expressions from their videos. When they achieved what they perceived to be the target expression, the participants recorded the attempt with the click of a computer mouse.

    A computer program evaluated the accuracy of participants' imitation attempts against a map of the target expression. In contrast to previous studies that relied on subjective assessments, this new technology allowed for automated and objective measurement of imitative accuracy.

    In one experiment, the researchers found that participants who were able to see their imitation attempts through visual feedback improved over successive attempts. But participants who had to rely solely on proprioception ? sensing the relative position of their facial features ? got progressively worse.

    These results are consistent with the associative sequence-learning model, which holds that our ability to imitate accurately depends on learned associations between what we see (in the mirror or through feedback from others) and what we feel.

    Cook and colleagues conclude that contingent visual feedback may be a useful component of rehabilitation and skill-training programs that are designed to improve individuals' ability to imitate facial gestures.

    ###

    Association for Psychological Science: http://www.psychologicalscience.org

    Thanks to Association for Psychological 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 51 time(s).

    Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126099/Monkey_see__monkey_do__Visual_feedback_is_necessary_for_imitating_facial_expressions

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    Wednesday, January 2, 2013

    Increasing Your Personal Worth Through Self Improvement |

    Tuesday, January 1st, 2013 at 4:56 pm ?

    Personal development is an ongoing process of making yourself into the best person you can be. It is reaching inside and pulling out your inner potential. Let this article inspire you to make those life-changing improvements. Some wonderful advice to get you started right now is contained in this article.

    There other uses for exercise besides weight loss. There are so many different physical and emotional reasons to exercise. As you work out, your body will release chemicals necessary to relieving your stress.

    Anytime you have the opportunity, take the time to speak with your pastor or a counselor. These professionals are trained and experienced in helping you understand and manage the issues you have. They can lend a sympathetic ear and help guide you on the right path. Taking the time to speak to a professional will help you to be a healthier and happier person.

    Look for pieces of writing or prose that were created for motivation. Such texts might include religious scripture, inspirational books, poetry and other forms of writing. These materials are a good source of support during stressful situations.

    Avoid shopping as a way to comfort yourself. Instead of shopping, spending money and adding more charges to your credit card bill, keep busy with a hobby. Not only will you have fewer debts to deal with, but your house will be less cluttered with stuff that you do not really need.

    Treat all people with respect and kindness. Treat people well, it says a lot about what kind of person you are.

    By using love, you can re-energize your faith and get closer to your self improvement goals. Love is a vital ingredient to faith. Using love and faith as foundations in your life makes you a happier person. In this way, you can be a living example to those around you.

    Personal-Development1

    It is essential to have a clearly outlined goal, when working toward improving personal development. Create specific goals. You will get better results when you define a specific goal.

    A good attitude is essential to personal growth. Negative thinking leads to negative results.

    A good attitude is essential to personal growth. Negative thinking leads to negative results.

    It is destructive to your personal growth. Stay positive and keep telling yourself that a pleasant, upbeat attitude is the way to reach your goals.

    It is important when you are working on your personal development that you know what you plan to do in your life. You need to set some goals for the long haul; they can put things into perspective.

    Try and find what is in the way of you becoming a success. Many people have problems doing this. However, when you can find out what your weaknesses are, this becomes the first step in dealing with them and, eventually, changing them. By eliminating problems, you can find your future path easier.

    Aim to make each day better than its predecessor. Strive for constant and unceasing improvement. Whatever you did yesterday, do it that much better today.

    Several people have difficulty meeting someone worthwhile to date. Have you considered online dating? Amazingly, meeting online is now how 40% of couples begin their relationship. There could be someone out there waiting to find you. There are both advantages and disadvantages to these sites.

    Recognize that the person you are now is not the person you want to be. In order to improve yourself, you first have to come to that realization. If you are unwilling to make this commitment, you are unlikely to reach your full potential.

    Ask others about their achievements instead of boasting about your own. This will help you to remain humble while giving you a picture of how people around you operate.

    Use one or all of these tips to accelerate your own personal development goals. It may be a lot of hard work, but you can undertake that work joyfully knowing that you have some sound advice to give you a hand.

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    Stock markets leap after 'fiscal cliff' compromise, but problems lurk

    The House of Representatives passed the budget bill late Tuesday night, a contentious exercise because many Republicans had wanted a deal that did more to cut government spending.

    By Christina Rexrode,?Associated Press / January 2, 2013

    Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Jan. 2. The 'fiscal cliff' compromise, for all its chaos and controversy, was enough to send the stock market shooting higher Wednesday, the first trading day of the new year.

    Seth Wenig/AP

    Enlarge

    The "fiscal?cliff" compromise, for all its chaos, controversy and unresolved questions, was enough to send the stock market shooting higher Wednesday, the first trading day of the new year.

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    All the major U.S. stock indexes swelled by at least 2 percent in early trading before trimming some of those gains. The Dow Jones industrial average briefly surged to its biggest gain in six months.

    Stocks around the world also leapt higher. The major indexes in Britain, France and Germany rose more than 2 percent. Markets in Greece and Spain were up more than 3 percent. Stocks in Asia also zoomed higher.

    In the U.S., the rally was extraordinarily broad. For every stock that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, roughly 10 rose.

    The Dow briefly surged as much as 273 points in early trading. At noon, it was up 229 points, or 1.8 percent, to 13,333.

    The Standard & Poor's 500 was up 25, or 1.8 percent, to 1,451. The Nasdaq composite was up 70, or 2.3 percent, to 3,089.

    Some investors cautioned that the euphoria can't last long.

    The market's big escalation, they said, was driven not so much because investors love the budget deal that Republicans and Democrats hammered out, but because they're grateful there was any deal at all.

    "Most people think that no deal would have been worse than a bad deal," said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities in San Francisco. He called the current package "not too Draconian."

    The U.S. House of Representatives passed the budget bill late Tuesday night, a contentious exercise because many Republicans had wanted a deal that did more to cut government spending. The Senate had already approved the bill, and it now needs the signature of President Barack Obama.

    Because lawmakers didn't have a budget compromise in place when the new year started on Tuesday, the U.S. technically did go over the "fiscal?cliff." That means that certain tax increases and government spending cuts automatically kicked in that day, a scenario that some analysts worried would boot the U.S. back into recession.

    The bill passed Tuesday night will prevent the "cliff" from taking hold. Still, it only postpones rather than solves many of the budget issues haunting the U.S.

    The deal doesn't include any significant deficit-cutting agreement, meaning the country still doesn't have a long-term game plan for how to rein in spending. Big cuts to defense and domestic programs, which were slated to kick in with the new year, are still overhanging the market but just delayed for two months. And the U.S. is still set to bump up against its borrowing limit, or "debt ceiling," in about two months.

    "There's definitely another drama coming down the road," said Lehmann. "That's the March?cliff."

    Others worry that more political bickering could cause the U.S. to get its debt rating downgraded by the ratings agencies. The stock market plunged in August 2011 after Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. government's credit rating.

    Wednesday's performance gave no hint of the dark clouds on the horizon.

    The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose sharply, to 1.84 percent from 1.75 percent, as investors dumped safe harbor investments like U.S. government bonds and plowed money into stocks. Prices for oil and key metals, including gold, copper and platinum, were up.

    Still, some investors also noted that the "fiscal?cliff," which has dominated headlines for weeks, is only masking serious problems punctuating the world economy, including middling growth for the U.S. economy and the still-unsolved European debt crisis.

    There were new reminders of those issues Wednesday: The government reported that U.S. builders spent less on construction projects in November, the first decline in eight months. The president of debt-wracked Cyprus said he'd refuse to sell government-owned companies, a provision that the country's bailout deal says it must at least consider.

    Among stocks making big moves, Zipcar shot up 48 percent, or $4, to $12.24 after the company said it had agreed to sell itself to Avis. Avis rose $1.02 to $20.84, about 5 percent.

    Zipcar has a business model that's popular with drivers, allowing them to rent cars for just a few hours at a time. The company has struggled to win over investors, however, and its stock plunged nearly 39 percent in 2012. Avis rose 84 percent in the same period.

    Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/iJhij1m727o/Stock-markets-leap-after-fiscal-cliff-compromise-but-problems-lurk

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    Newly discovered loris may be slow, but its bite is toxic

    A new slow loris species was discovered in Borneo, named Nycticebus kayan.?The little primate weighs less than a pound.

    By Jeanna Bryner,?LiveScience.com / December 14, 2012

    The newly discovered slow loris primate (Nycticebus kayan) has a furry "face mask" distinct from other slow loris species.

    Ch'ien C Lee

    Enlarge

    A new small primate with a toxic bite and distinctive facial fur markings has been discovered in the jungles of Borneo.

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    The new slow loris species is found in the highlands of the island of Borneo and has been named Nycticebus kayan, after a major river, the Kayan, flowing through the region. The trio of scientists also found that two species previously considered sub-species in the Nycticebus genus are officially unique species.

    "Historically, many species went unrecognized as they were falsely lumped together as one species," researcher Rachel Munds, of the University of Missouri Columbia, said in a statement.

    Closely related to lemurs, the slow loris is found across Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh and China's Yunnan province to Borneo. To distinguish between species, the researchers focused on the seeming face masks of Borneo's slow lorises; fur patches cover their eyes, while their heads are covered with differently shaped caps. The examined photographs and museum samples for eight face mask features, finding there were four species of Bornean lorises. [See Photos of the Slow Loris Primates]

    The new species to science, N. kayan, showed a dark, highly contrasting face mask, with dark patches around its eyes. From the specimen examined, the species is about 10.8 inches (273 millimeters) long and weighs about 14.5 ounces (411 grams). The other species include: N. menagensis, N. bancanus and N. borneanus. (N. menagensis had already been recognized as a species.)

    The newly identified species illustrate the breadth of biodiversity yet to be discovered in the jungles of Borneo and nearby islands, the researchers noted. The slow lorises, as with other animals on these islands, face threats from human activity.

    "The pet trade is a serious threat for slow lorises in Indonesia, and recognition of these new species raises issues regarding where to release confiscated Bornean slow lorises, as recognition by nonexperts can be difficult," said study researcher Anna Nekaris, of Oxford Brookes University in England, in a statement.

    Munds, Nekaris and co-author Susan Ford of Southern Illinois University also note this week in the American Journal of Primatology that their results confirm the use of fur color and pattern as a valid way of distinguishing between species of small primates. Some researchers, they wrote, had claimed that because Bornean slow lorises are not a diverse group because they share similar cranial features and all are lacking an upper second incisor. The new study suggests otherwise, the team added.

    Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook?& Google+.

    Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/vb7CefVcHKk/Newly-discovered-loris-may-be-slow-but-its-bite-is-toxic

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    Breast Cancer: What We Learned In 2012

    Side-by-side comparisons of a conventional mammogram in which a breast cancer is hidden, and a new 3-D mammogram of the same breast that reveals a malignant tumor.

    Side-by-side comparisons of a conventional mammogram in which a breast cancer is hidden, and a new 3-D mammogram of the same breast that reveals a malignant tumor.

    The past year has seen more debate about the best way to find breast cancers.

    A recent analysis concluded that regular mammograms haven't reduced the rate of advanced breast cancers but they have led more than a million women to be diagnosed with tumors that didn't need to be treated.

    "For mammography screening to work, it must take women who are destined to develop late-stage cancers and find them when they're early-stage," Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, co-author of that analysis, tells Shots. "Unfortunately, it looks like screening has had very little impact on the rate at which women present with late-stage cancer."

    Mammography's defenders say that analysis is deeply flawed.

    "They just used the wrong numbers," says Dr. Daniel Kopans of Massachusetts General Hospital. "Had they used the correct estimate, they would have found there's been a major decrease in advanced cancers."

    Kopans is promoting a new technology which he invented that promises to find even more and smaller breast tumors. We'll come back to that shortly.

    The 2012 mammography debate is a continuation of a controversy touched off three years ago when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said women under 50 don't need regular mammograms. That panel says the risks of needless biopsies and unnecessary treatment outweigh the benefits in lives saved.

    Faced with such conflicting claims, some women are forgoing regular mammograms. But the fear of breast cancer is so great that other women are doubling down. They're getting radical treatments, even double mastectomies, for precancerous tumors that some authorities think would never cause them harm.

    Health writer Shannon Brownlee of the New America Foundation says the issue is a prime example of what she calls American medicine's tendency to overdiagnose and overtreat disease. She's the author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.

    Currently, Brownlee says, most doctors present annual mammograms as a "got-to-do-it" thing, not an individual choice.

    Brownlee, who's 56, has made up her mind. She doesn't get regular mammograms. But she says it wasn't easy.

    "We have been told for, oh, almost a century now that catching cancer early is always a good thing," she tells Shots. "So when people come along and say, 'Well, maybe screening may not always be such a great thing,' it's very, very difficult to contemplate that."

    As she delved into the subject, Brownlee was impressed with the downside of routine mammograms.

    Otis Brawley, an oncologist and chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, tells Shots that 60 percent of women in their 40s who get yearly mammograms for 10 years will be told at some point that the test has found something suspicious requiring further tests. And 35 percent will be told they need a breast biopsy.

    In the end, about 0.5 percent of these women will have breast cancer. And, many experts believe some of those would never have caused a problem if they hadn't been diagnosed.

    When Brownlee decided she didn't want an annual mammogram, that put her at loggerheads with her doctor.

    "She would say, 'You have to get a mammogram,' and I would demur," Brownlee explains. "And she would say, 'Not a week goes by that a patient of mine didn't have her life saved by getting a mammogram.' And I wanted to say, 'How do you know?' Because you can't know after the fact."

    That, in fact, is true. While studies show routine mammograms do save lives overall, even their staunchest advocates acknowledge you can't know in a particular case.

    Eventually, Brownlee and her doctor worked it out. She said she'd get an occasional mammogram in her 50s, and promised the doctor that she'd get treated if an invasive cancer was found. (The doctor had assumed that she wouldn't.)

    Kopans, the mammography specialist in Boston, has an answer to those who lament the high rate of false positives from mammograms those indicating something suspicious that turns out not to be cancer. He's invented a 3-D mammogram called tomosynthesis.

    It uses a computer to create 3-D pictures of the breast. It subtracts a lot of the visual fuzziness, or noise, in 2-D mammograms that obscures many breast tumors.

    "With tomosynthesis, I can page through the breast as if it's the pages in a book," Kopans says, demonstrating the technology in a closet-sized room at Massachusetts General Hospital. "Now I'm pointing to a cancer that's much more easily seen because we've gotten what's in front and what's in back [of it] out of the way."

    Kopans, who says he has no financial stake in companies marketing tomosynthesis machines, says 3-D mammograms will drastically reduce the percentage of women who are called back after a routine mammogram for further tests, including biopsies.

    "It's pretty clear we detect more cancers with it," he says.

    But some, like Brawley, worry that as doctors find more and smaller breast tumors, they'll also increase the detection of breast cancers that probably don't need to be treated. Specialists call that overdiagnosis.

    "Some of the 3-D imaging machines are just spectacular in diagnosing small lesions," he tells Shots. "Now we don't know that they're diagnosing small lesions that need to be diagnosed and need to be treated."

    Brawley says research is under way to answer that important question.

    "We're on the verge of some tests to actually be able to say, 'Mrs. Smith, you've got breast cancer, but it's the kind we need to watch. Mrs. Jones, you've got breast cancer, it's the kind we need to treat.' "

    He thinks that's five to 10 years away. Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society recommends that women get regular mammograms, starting in their 40s as long as they understand it may lead them into difficult choices about what to do next.

    Copyright 2013 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

    Source: http://www.gpb.org/news/2013/01/01/breast-cancer-what-we-learned-in-2012

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    Tuesday, January 1, 2013

    Report details changes in Benghazi explanations

    Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, to discuss the committee's report on the security deficiencies at the temporary U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

    Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, to discuss the committee's report on the security deficiencies at the temporary U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

    Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, to discuss the committee's report on the security deficiencies at the temporary U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

    Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. listens at right, as the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, to discuss the committee's report on the security deficiencies at the temporary U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

    Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. listens at right, and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, arrive for a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, to discuss the committee's report on the security deficiencies at the temporary U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

    (AP) ? The FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies ? but not the White House ? made major changes in talking points that led to the Obama administration's confusing explanations of the attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, a Senate report concluded Monday.

    The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report said the White House was only responsible for a minor change. Some Republicans had questioned whether the presidential staff rewrote the talking points for political reasons.

    The committee, headed by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also said the director of national intelligence has been stonewalling the panel in holding back a promised timeline of the talking point changes.

    U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11 attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said she used the talking points to say in television interviews on Sept. 16 that it may have been a protest that got out of hand.

    Rice's incorrect explanation may have cost her a chance to be nominated as the next secretary of state, as Senate Republicans publicly said they would not vote to confirm her. President Barack Obama instead nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is expected to win easy confirmation.

    The State Department this month acknowledged major weaknesses in security and errors in judgment exposed in a scathing independent report on the assault. Two top State officials appealed to Congress to fully fund requests to ensure diplomats and embassies are safe.

    Testifying before two congressional committees, senior State Department officials acknowledged that serious management and leadership failures left the diplomatic mission in Benghazi woefully unprepared for the terrorist attack. The State Department review board's report led four department officials to resign.

    The Senate report said that on Sept. 19, eight days after the attack, National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen told the Homeland committee that the four Americans died "in the course of a terrorist attack."

    The same day, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department stood by the intelligence community's assessment. The next day, Sept. 20, presidential spokesman Jay Carney said, "It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also used the words "terrorist attack" on Sept. 21.

    Olsen's acknowledgement was important, the report said, because talking points prepared by intelligence officials the previous week had undergone major changes.

    A line saying "we know" that individuals associated with al-Qaida or its affiliates participated in the attacks was changed to say, "There are indications that extremists participated."

    The talking points dropped the reference to al-Qaida and its affiliates altogether. In addition, a reference to "attacks" was changed to "demonstrations."

    The committee said the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and representatives from the CIA, State Department, counterintelligence center and the FBI told the panel that the changes were made within the CIA and the intelligence community. The change from "we know" there was an al-Qaida connection to "indications" of connections to "extremists" was requested by the FBI.

    The report said the only White House change substituted a reference of "consulate" to "mission."

    Intelligence officials differed over whether the al-Qaida reference should remain classified, the report said. It added, however, that the analyst who drafted the original talking points was a veteran career analyst in the intelligence community who believed it was appropriate to include a reference to al-Qaida in the unclassified version.

    The analyst came to that conclusion because of claims of responsibility by a militant group, Ansar al-Sharia.

    The committee said Clapper offered to provide the committee a detailed timeline on the development of the talking points. Despite repeated requests, the committee said the information has not been provided.

    "According to a senior IC (intelligence community) official, the timeline has not been delivered as promised because the administration has spent weeks debating internally whether or not it should turn over information considered 'deliberative' to the Congress," the report said.

    The report added that if the administration had described the attack as a terrorist assault from the outset, "there would have been much less confusion and division in the public response to what happened there on Sept. 11, 2012."

    "The unnecessary confusion... should have ended much earlier than it did," the committee said.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-12-31-Benghazi%20Report/id-6d2146ca5f65491e9a385c8d00728006

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    Pediatricians say kids need recess during school

    NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of American pediatricians is telling school districts that children need recess and free time during the school day, and it should not even be taken away as punishment.

    "We consider it essentially the child's personal time and don't feel it should be taken away for academic or punitive reasons," said Dr. Robert Murray, who co-authored the new policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    The statement, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, says recess is a "crucial and necessary component of a child's development."

    Recess helps students develop communication skills, such as cooperation and sharing, and helps counteract the time they spend sitting in class, according to the statement.

    "The cognitive literature indicates that children are exactly as we are as adults. Whenever they're performing a complicated or complex task, they need time to process the information," said Murray, a professor at Ohio State University in Columbus.

    "Kids have to have that time scheduled. They're not given the opportunity to just get up and walk around for a few minutes," he added.

    Previous research, according to the statement's authors, found children pay closer attention and perform better mentally after recess.

    Last January, a review of 14 studies found kids who get more exercise from - among other things - recess and playing on sports teams tend to do better in school (see Reuters Health story of January 3, 2012 here:.)

    But a 2011 survey of 1,800 elementary schools found about a third were not offering recess to their third grade classes (see Reuters Health story of December 5, 2011 here:.)

    Murray told Reuters Health that schools in Japan offer children about 10 minutes of free time after every 50 minutes of class, which he said makes sense.

    "I think you can feel it if you go to a lecture that after 40 to 50 minutes of a concentrated activity you need to take a break," he said.

    Currently, the American Heart Association calls for at least 20 minutes of recess every day, but Murray said recess needs depend on the child.

    "Most schools - on average - are working on the framework of 15 to 30 minute bursts of recess once or twice a day," he said.

    There is, however, consensus on when in the day children's recess should take place.

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recommend schools schedule recess before lunch.

    Previous studies have found that children waste less food and behave better for the rest of the day when their recess is before their scheduled lunch, the pediatricians' statement notes.

    The statement also says schools should not substitute physical education classes for recess.

    "Those are completely different things and they offer completely different outcomes," said Murray. "(Physical education teachers are) trying to teach motor skills and the ability of those children to use those skills in a bunch of different scenarios. Recess is a child's free time."

    The pediatricians also warn against a recess that is too structured, such as having games led by adults.

    "I think it becomes structured to the point where you lose some of those developmental and social emotion benefits of free play," said Murray.

    "This is a very important and overlooked time of day for the child and we should not lose sight of the fact that it has very important benefits," he added.

    SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HjQ8dI Pediatrics, online December 31, 2012.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pediatricians-kids-recess-during-school-054737400.html

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