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Thursday, June 7, 2012

James' season on the brink in Boston _ again

Miami Heat's LeBron James warms up before the first half of Game 5 in their NBA basketball Eastern Conference finals playoffs series against the Boston Celtics, Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Miami Heat's LeBron James, center, is defended by Boston Celtics' Paul Pierce (34) and Kevin Garnett, right, during the second half of Game 5 in their NBA basketball Eastern Conference finals playoff series, Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Miami. The Celtics won 94-90. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) shows his mouth guard with the Roman numerals XVI, the number of games needed to win the NBA Championship, during the second half of Game 5 in their NBA basketball Eastern Conference Finals playoff series against the Boston Celtics, Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Miami. The Celtics defeated the Heat 94-90. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) shoots over Boston Celtics' Mickael Pietrus (28), of France, defends during the first half of Game 5 in their NBA basketball Eastern Conference finals playoffs series, Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

MIAMI (AP) ? LeBron James appreciates the irony.

Matching up against the Boston Celtics, on the road, with the season on the line. He faced it in 2008 and lost. He faced it in 2010 and lost, removing his Cleveland Cavaliers jersey for the final time as he left the floor that night.

And now in a championship-or-bust season for the Miami Heat, James heads back to Boston for another win-or-else game.

"It is fitting," James said.

The Celtics lead the Heat 3-2 in the Eastern Conference finals, and on Thursday night will look to clinch a third trip in five years to the NBA finals. If they succeed in Game 6 ? or Game 7, if it comes to that ? all three of those most recent Boston trips to the title round would come at James' expense.

His first five games at Boston resulted in three wins. His 19 games there since have also resulted in three wins.

No team, maybe no other building, has befuddled James as much as the Celtics and the arena they call home. He's had a 45-point effort there in a loss, a 42-point effort there in a loss, a 27-point, 19-rebound, 10-assist effort there in a loss. Another loss on Thursday, and his ninth season will end as the previous eight did ? without a championship.

"I know how much pain this team has given me over the years," James said. "So I guess it's only right that we would be going up there in an elimination game. In order for us to keep our season going, we've got to win in their building. So that's what it's about."

It's no secret that the expectation ? both internally and externally ? for the Heat is to win championships. That's what James famously vowed to get when he came to Miami in July 2010, and after losing in last season's finals to Dallas, it's been the only goal for the Heat in what the team has steadfastly referred to as a no-excuse season.

James won his third MVP award this season. He's averaging 29.9 points in the playoffs, six points better than his pace from a year ago and one-tenth of a point away from Kobe Bryant for the league's postseason lead in that department. And if Miami loses on Thursday night, the Heat season ? and James' ? will go down in most circles as a failure.

"We have to do this together," Heat forward Chris Bosh said. "He's going to do what he's supposed to do, and we're going to do what we're supposed to do. We're going to do it together. We live and die together. You can't just single him out. People have to stop doing that. It's a team sport. If he performs, he's going to perform, and he's going to do his job."

Even with the Heat down in the series after a 94-90 home loss the previous night, Wednesday's practice in Miami did not have a funereal mood.

James was chatting and laughing as he shot free throws with some teammates toward the end of the workout, not far from where Heat President Pat Riley sat at his customary table to watch the proceedings. Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem teased each other about how much the other read, or didn't read, while enrolled at Florida. Mario Chalmers and assistant coach David Fizdale were talking about nuances of Boston guard Ray Allen's game.

"I think we're all disciplined enough to compartmentalize and focus on the challenge that we have ahead of us," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "It never is easy on your journey to try to be an NBA champion. You'll always have these tough moments where you have to come together and go through that moment together. You can't skip it. There isn't an easy way."

There usually isn't an easy way against Boston, which is why this core of James, Bosh and Dwyane Wade came together in the first place. James wanted to increase his odds of winning a championship. Bosh wanted to get in the mix for one. When the Heat lost a first-round series to Boston in 2010, Wade vowed that Miami would get back to title-contending or he would go elsewhere.

"We got together, we want to compete for a championship, we want to win a championship every year," Wade said. "To us, it's not about outside expectations. It's our own expectations. You think if we lose, you guys are hurt by it? No. We are hurt by it.

"This is what we love to do," Wade added. "This is what our families love us to do. It's what we work all year for. We put a lot into it, obviously, as well as the other teams in the NBA. This is our job. So we're going to try to go out there and do our job and try to get a win."

That burden will largely fall on James, of course.

"No one said it was going to be easy," James said. "I'm looking forward to the challenge, me personally. I'm looking forward to it more than probably anyone on the team. So I'm going to lead these guys in the right direction, and hopefully it results in us winning."

Otherwise, it'll be another long summer.

"I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to come through for our team," James said. "(Tuesday) night I felt like I could have made a couple more plays, and I didn't. But at the end of the day, if you play hard, you go out there and lay it on the line, the numbers will take care of itself. And you can be happy with it."

___

Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

Associated Press

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Profs say NY gov can hike minimum wage on his own

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Watch the Space Shuttle Enterprise Float Merrily Up the Hudson River [Video]

Click here to read Watch the Space Shuttle Enterprise Float Merrily Up the Hudson River

Today, Space Shuttle Enterprise is making its way up the Hudson River towards the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. If you're on the west side of Manhattan, you might have caught a glimpse, otherwise you can see a snippet of the journey, which was rather fantastic, in the above video. More »

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Different Facets of Maintaining Security with Intercom Systems in NYC

New York City, the global power city of the United States, is the place where people come and live their dreams to new heights, following the significant impact of economic development with a blissful mixture of education, art, fashion, technology and entertainment. Being the most populous hub of the United States, New York City is surrounded with elegantly looking residential and commercial structures. Everyone has its own choice and set norms to live and enjoy here. There are penthouses, apartments, tenements, villas to accommodate people providing utmost safety and security.

To maintain the desired safety norms in the residential or commercial areas the installation of intercom system is always considered on higher perspective. In the pursuits of maintaining advanced security, intercoms are treated as the best solutions.

The amazing connectivity provided by these devices when installed by the best intercom systems NYC company helps in safeguarding the whole residential or commercial area with interlinking system offers direct communication with people present in other parts or rooms of the home or office place.

An intercom system become the effective solution to add the extra security buzz to the apartment of office building with minimal cost subjected to the installation of security system. It provides the desired protection to the home owners or office owners sealing the entire area both the interior and exterior one by reducing the assault, theft or break-in problems.

The intercom systems NYC companies give the room to room happenings while sitting in the one corner of the home. If you have a small kid at home or elder parents or grandparents giving them the full security with the intercom system offers the great sense of relief and joy to you. It keeps timely checking the movements of your child resting in other part of the room. Working on the verge of safe communication, it gives a great sense of relief to elder people or the one who are bedridden to be actively connected with the nurse for helping hand at the time of need.

Although there are several companies flourishing worldwide to provide the encrypted security of intercom systems NYC solutions varying from wired to wireless. According to the statistical data revelations, the people residing in the various parts of United States prefer to the wireless intercom system more than the wired ones. The unique facility of wireless intercom systems works on the same way as the cordless gadgets work. It has the capability of communicating within the range of 160MHz internally as well as externally depending on the installation process.

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Hands-on research: Neuroscientists show how brain responds to sensual caress

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A nuzzle of the neck, a stroke of the wrist, a brush of the knee?these caresses often signal a loving touch, but can also feel highly aversive, depending on who is delivering the touch, and to whom. Interested in how the brain makes connections between touch and emotion, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the association begins in the brain's primary somatosensory cortex, a region that, until now, was thought only to respond to basic touch, not to its emotional quality.

The new finding is described in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The team measured brain activation while self-identified heterosexual male subjects lay in a functional MRI scanner and were each caressed on the leg under two different conditions. In the first condition, they saw a video of an attractive female bending down to caress them; in the second, they saw a video of a masculine man doing the same thing. The men reported the experience as pleasurable when they thought the touch came from the woman, and aversive when they thought it came from the man. And their brains backed them up: this difference in experience was reflected in the activity measured in each man's primary somatosensory cortex.

"We demonstrated for the first time that the primary somatosensory cortex?the brain region encoding basic touch properties such as how rough or smooth an object is?also is sensitive to the social meaning of a touch," explains Michael Spezio, a visiting associate at Caltech who is also an assistant professor of psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, California. "It was generally thought that there are separate brain pathways for how we process the physical aspects of touch on the skin and for how we interpret that touch emotionally?that is, whether we feel it as pleasant, unpleasant, desired, or repulsive. Our study shows that, to the contrary, emotion is involved at the primary stages of social touch."

Unbeknownst to the subjects, the actual touches on their leg were always exactly the same?and always from a woman. Yet, it felt different to them when they believed a man versus a woman was doing the touching.

"The primary somatosensory cortex responded more to the 'female' touch than to the 'male' touch condition, even while subjects were only viewing a video showing a person approach their leg," says Ralph Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Caltech and director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, where the research was done. "We see responses in a part of the brain thought to process only basic touch that were elicited entirely by the emotional significance of social touch prior to the touch itself, simply in anticipation of the caress that our participants would receive."

The study was carried out in collaboration with the husband-and-wife team of Valeria Gazzola and Christian Keysers, who were visiting Caltech from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

"Intuitively, we all believe that when we are touched by someone, we first objectively perceive the physical properties of the touch?its speed, its gentleness, the roughness of the skin," says Gazzola. "Only thereafter, in a separable second step based on who touched us, do we believe we value this touch more or less."

The experiment showed that this two-step vision is incorrect, at least in terms of separation between brain regions, she says, and who we believe is touching us distorts even the supposedly objective representation of what the touch was like on the skin.

"Nothing in our brain is truly objective," adds Keysers. "Our perception is deeply and pervasively shaped by how we feel about the things we perceive."

One possible practical implication of the work is to help reshape social responses to touch in people with autism.

"Now that we have clear evidence that primary somatosensory cortex encodes emotional significance of touch, it may be possible to work with early sensory pathways to help children with autism respond more positively to the gentle touch of their parents and siblings," says Spezio.

The work also suggests that it may be possible to use film clips or virtual reality to reestablish positive responses to gentle touch in victims of sexual and physical abuse, and torture.

Next, the researchers hope to test whether the effect is as robust in women as in men, and in both sexes across sexual orientation. They also plan to explore how these sensory pathways might develop in infants or children.

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology 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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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

New ways to stretch DNA and other organic molecules

Public release date: 5-Jun-2012
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Contact: Catherine Meyers
cmeyers@aip.org
301-209-3088
American Institute of Physics

By taking advantage of the unique patterns generated when two immiscible fluids flow together, scientists have developed a new tool for studying tiny biomolecules.

Researchers at the National Taiwan University and the National Central University in Taiwan used a technique called two-phase microfluidics to stretch organic molecules in a systematic manner. The researchers created different types of flow patterns by controlling wall wettability of a microfluidic channel, the flow rate ratio of two fluids, and the Reynolds number, which is a ratio between the inertial and viscous forces in a fluid.

By systematically varying these three parameters, the researchers could control the extension of a polymer string suspended in the fluid flow. Stretching polymers, proteins, DNA, and other organic macromolecules can reveal clues about what the molecules are made of and how they interact with other substances.

###

TITLE: "Polymer stretch in two-phase microfluidics: Effect of wall wettability"
JOURNAL: Biomicrofluidics
AUTHORS: Ssu-Wei Hu (1), Yu-Jane Sheng (1), and Heng-Kwong Tsao (2)

(1) Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
(2) Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Department of Physics, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan

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

New ways to stretch DNA and other organic molecules Public release date: 5-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Catherine Meyers
cmeyers@aip.org
301-209-3088
American Institute of Physics

By taking advantage of the unique patterns generated when two immiscible fluids flow together, scientists have developed a new tool for studying tiny biomolecules.

Researchers at the National Taiwan University and the National Central University in Taiwan used a technique called two-phase microfluidics to stretch organic molecules in a systematic manner. The researchers created different types of flow patterns by controlling wall wettability of a microfluidic channel, the flow rate ratio of two fluids, and the Reynolds number, which is a ratio between the inertial and viscous forces in a fluid.

By systematically varying these three parameters, the researchers could control the extension of a polymer string suspended in the fluid flow. Stretching polymers, proteins, DNA, and other organic macromolecules can reveal clues about what the molecules are made of and how they interact with other substances.

###

TITLE: "Polymer stretch in two-phase microfluidics: Effect of wall wettability"
JOURNAL: Biomicrofluidics
AUTHORS: Ssu-Wei Hu (1), Yu-Jane Sheng (1), and Heng-Kwong Tsao (2)

(1) Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
(2) Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Department of Physics, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan

[ | E-mail | Share ]
?

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

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Toshiba outs Satellite U840W Ultrabook with 14.4-inch, 21:9 display (updated: U845W in the US, $999)

It's a shame we have to write headlines -- we would have invited you to guess what screen size you're looking at on that Ultrabook up there. Alas, though, you can read, and that funky-looking laptop is indeed the Toshiba Satellite U845W (or U840W in Europe). Its display measures an unusual 14.4 inches diagonally, which translates to a severe 21:9 aspect ratio (and 1792 x 768 resolution, in this case). All told, it's the first panel of its kind to be used in a PC. But who's it for, exactly? Toshiba reps said the aspect ratio is meant to mimic a movie theater screen, despite the fact there's no Blu-ray drive onboard. They also imagine people using that real estate for multitasking and getting work done in cramped airplane quarters.

It's also meant to get your attention. Everything about it seems designed to make a statement: the machined aluminum design, the soft-touch accents, the backlit keyboard, even the metal FCC plate and chrome-ringed feet. The machine's also decked out with Harman Kardon speakers, like other Toshiba laptops, along with amenities like sleep-and-charge and sleep-and-music ports. You'll also find an Ethernet jack, HDMI output and three USB 3.0 sockets. It's a bit ironic, then, that the weakest bit seems to be the display -- with a TN panel like that, we're not expecting jaw-dropping viewing angles.

On the inside, it runs your choice of Ivy Bridge processor, though the storage varies wildly depending on how much money you're willing to pay: at the entry level you get an HDD starting at $999, but the top-tier configuration nets you 256GB solid-state drive. The weight is also likely to vary depending on which you choose: though these specs aren't final, Toshiba is saying a machine with a spinning hard drive should weigh "just under" four pounds, while an SSD-packing machine should come in at about 3.5. The company is also staying mum on battery life for now, though we're hearing a tentative range of eight to ten hours, at the high end. The U840W is expected to go on sale in the next couple of months, and until then we've got hands-on galleries below and a video after the break.

Gallery: Toshiba Satellite U840W