Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid posted a message on his Facebook page pertaining to chareidi fears that he wishes to destroy yeshivos. ?The chareidi parties are spreading rumors that I am plotting to harm the Torah community. This is utter nonsense. I have been calling to study Tanach my entire life. In my eyes, the study of Torah is a component of Israel?s existence. There are two rabbonim among the party?s MKs. Those who have dedicated their lives to the study of Torah are praiseworthy. I feel the study of Talmud should be part of the public school curriculum for the non-frum.?
Mr. Lapid continues. ?Torah study however cannot be a solution for an eight-year-old who does not learn math and English. 18-year-olds are not serving their homeland and 28-year-olds are not earning a livelihood. King David was a warrior and the Rambam learned secular subject matter. The Rambam and Rashi both worked. Are chareidi parties
Lapid?s comments are in response to statements primarily from chareidi MKs, who fear the agreement between Yesh Atid and Bayit HaYehudi, will spell devastation for the chareidi tzibur at large.?
Mr. Lapid continues, ?fulfilling one?s basic responsibilities is not contradictory to the study of Torah, i.e. sharing the burden and working to earn a living. Not everyone merits studying but learning cannot be a response for each individual who does not fulfill his obligations to the state, his family and the society in which he lives.?
?In addition, there are 70 faces to Torah so don?t let anyone tell you his way is the only way of the G-d of Israel.?
Joined in his effort to calm the chareidim, Bayit HaYehudi leader Mr. Naftali Bennett released his statement on the matter of Torah study. Bennett was addressing an assembly of directors of dati leumi mosdos. ?There are stories that we are planning to destroy the Torah world. I am telling you in uncertain terms that we will not only concern ourselves with the dati leumi Torah world, but the entire Torah world. We are not going to do harm.?
?Torah study is a national interest for the State of Israel. The chareidim are our brothers, not the enemy but the current situation may not be permitted to continue. One learning Torah will continue. One who is not will serve and integrate into Israeli society. In Israel?s history there has never been a disconnect between limud Torah and working.?
(YWN ? Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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What's New: The all-aluminum reengineered Range Rover shows the secondary effects of the virtuous circle of weight savings. Land Rover shaved a stupendous 700 pounds from the previous generation, eliminating the ponderous feeling that haunted Range Rovers until now. Maybe "nimble" isn't the right word for the 2013 Range Rover, but it is certainly more appropriate than before.
A new ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic transmission helps fuel economy, thanks to its extra ratios. Overall length grows just 1.1 inches, but a 1.7-inch wheelbase stretch contributes to nearly 5 inches of additional rear-seat legroom. And the back seat can now be configured with "business class" bucket seats to help make the Range Rover as appealing to chauffeured Russian oligarchs as to off-roading one-percenters.
Tech Tidbit: The latest all-wheel-drive system from Land Rover, called Terrain Response 2, now has an automatic mode in addition to the previous five settings that range from General to Rock Crawl. Supercharged models get the Dynamic Response active lean control system, which uses electrohydraulic actuators on the antiroll bars to provide flatter, more car-like cornering on pavement, so the Range Rover goes around bends without heeling over like a sailboat. Indeed, the vehicle can stay perfectly flat at up to 0.4 g of lateral acceleration. Off-road, the system releases the roll bars for maximum wheel articulation when climbing over obstacles. But when crossing the side of a hill with a slope of more than 11 degrees, the system helps keep the vehicle upright.
Driving Character: Despite its serious off-road credentials, the Range Rover famously doubles as a large luxury sedan for many owners. The new Range comes with even more refined on-road manners. Engineers focused on reducing cabin noise, achieving a 7 percent reduction in wind noise. They substituted sound-absorbing foam ducts for hard plastic ones to make the HVAC system quieter.
The reduced curb weight has a magic effect on acceleration. Not only does the supercharged Range Rover feel faster, but it should be able to keep up with faster versions of the Porsche Cayenne in a drag race. And going back to those off-road credentials, the Range Rover can cover terrain that most people would hesitate to walk over, all while keeping the occupants cosseted in leather-and-wood opulence.
Favorite Detail: The new eight-speed ZF automatic transmission operates invisibly. Those extra gears can pose a tricky programming challenge to engineers, but Range Rover's team did an excellent job. Some 8-speeds are so aggressive to shift to high gears that a sudden plunge of the accelerator results in hesitation; the Range Rover always feel ready to leap forward. And off-road, the transmission works in concert with the Terrain Response 2 system to correctly choose the right gear for the every situation.
Driver's Grievance: We can offer only the backhanded criticism that the Range Rover is a little isolated from its environment. It can be exhilarating to be out in the wilderness in an open off-roader, and you lose a bit of that feeling in the Range Rover, even with the panoramic sunroof open. The Terrain Response 2 and Dynamic Response systems combine with the various automatically locking differentials and other drivetrain hardware to create an off-road magic carpet that does all the work, which can leave the driver feeling more like an observer of the event than a participant. Otherwise, we can find little to complain about, which is nice considering the astronomical sticker price.
Bottom Line: The Range Rover has always occupied a niche as the ultra-luxury, ultra-capable SUV. With the new lightweight aluminum construction, more spacious back seat, and improved driving dynamics, the Range Rover stretches to a broader appeal. Merely in terms of on-road capability, the Range Rover is now a reasonable alternative to a large luxury sedan. Think of it as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class with extra ground clearance and you won't be too far off.
BERLIN (AP) ? German industrial orders increased in December, suggesting business is beginning to pick up in Europe's largest economy.
The Economy Ministry said Wednesday orders were up 0.8 percent over November, according to seasonally adjusted figures. That comes after a 1.8 percent decline in November.
Orders from within Germany dropped 1.2 percent, but orders from abroad were up 2.4 percent. Significantly, orders from the other 16 nations that use the euro currency were up 7 percent, despite the fact that several are in recession, while non-eurozone orders dropped 0.4 percent.
ING economist Carsten Brzeski says the data adds "clear evidence that the German industry has reached a turning point."
He says: "while the inventory reduction is still continuing, order books have started to fill again."
Programmes are free-of-charge for eligible jobseekers who have been unemployed for 12 months or more. Projects will include some on-the-job training in the form of work experience modules and the development of the workplace skills required to obtain and retain employment
WebActivate, a new digital skills training programme for jobseekers, has been launched.
The programme will be delivered by the Digital Skills Academy with Dublin Institute of Technology as the awarding body.
The idea is to ?support jobseekers to start new careers working in digital, while simultaneously supporting 2,000 businesses in Ireland to get web-activated?.
You must be unemployed for 12 months or more to qualify for one of the 6,500 training places.
?Our focus here is on moving people back into employment, by equipping them with the skills that are now in demand. The WebActivate programme aims to increase the supply of marketing-orientated web publishers and digital marketeers, which have been identified as occupations currently experiencing skills shortages,? says Paul Dunne, CEO of the Digital Skills Academy.
WebActivate, an eight month intensive programme in online publishing, digital marketing and entrepreneurship aims to: ? equip jobseekers, including those from a retail or construction background, to become self-employed web publishers and digital marketeers servicing businesses in their local area or to start new careers as digitally-skilled employees; ? help to address the skills shortage in the digital media sector; ? provide support to 2,000 businesses, including retail businesses, that need to increase their online activity to stimulate sales; ? provide graduates of the programme with access to a pool of businesses to work with on a fee-paying basis; ? provide participants with a HP laptop, software tools, 3G broadband, mobile account and smartphone, supplied by eircom, to help get their careers in digital started.
Interested applicants can find out how to apply for a place on the programme, by visiting www.webactivate.ie.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, with the Dow rising above 14,000, as earnings came in stronger than expected and investors sought bargains a day after the market's biggest drop since November.
Dell Inc's stock rose after the world's No. 3 computer maker agreed to be taken private in a $24.4 billion deal, the largest leveraged buyout since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The stock gained 0.8 percent to $13.39 after a delayed open.
Major stock indexes fell about 1 percent in Monday's selloff, pressured by renewed worries over the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis. Still, equities have been strong performers recently, with the benchmark S&P 500 index up about 5 percent for 2013.
Wall Street has advanced on strong fourth-quarter earnings and signs of improved economic growth, suggesting the market's longer-term trend remains higher.
"Yesterday was the first real down day of the year, which shows that we are in this strong bull market. Today we are back to the normal pattern. People are realizing that we've overreacted to Europe yesterday," said Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners in New York.
"Money in the euro, euro bonds and euro stocks are coming back to the good, old U.S. stock market and 1,545 (on the S&P 500) is the short-term target, probably in the first half of the year."
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 110.50 points, or 0.80 percent, at 13,990.58 after rising as high as 14,006. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 13.42 points, or 0.90 percent, at 1,509.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 30.96 points, or 0.99 percent, at 3,162.13.
Archer Daniels Midland reported revenue and adjusted fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations, boosted by strong global demand for oilseeds. Shares rose 3.4 percent to $29.40.
Est?e Lauder Cos Inc reported a higher quarterly profit on Tuesday and raised its full-year profit forecast. The stock rose to a new 52-week high of $66.07 earlier but traded at around $64 in afternoon.
According to Thomson Reuters data, of the 53 percent of S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings thus far, 69 percent have beaten profit expectations, over the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.
Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 4.5 percent, according to the data, above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season but well below the 9.9 percent forecast on October 1.
The S&P is less than 5 percent away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09, reached in October 2011.
McGraw-Hill slumped 5.4 percent to $47.55 after the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against it seeking $5 billion over mortgage bond ratings. Standard & Poor's, a McGraw Hill unit, was accused of inflated ratings and understated risks out of a desire to gain more business from investment banks.
The stock has dropped more than 20 percent over the past two days.
U.S. shares of BP Plc rose 1.1 percent to $44.07 after the company reported earnings that beat expectations and said underlying financial momentum would be "strongly evident" by 2014.
The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index was 55.2 in January, as expected and down slightly from the previous month.
(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Feb. 5, 2013 ? Ever since Austrian scientist Erwin Schrodinger put his unfortunate cat in a box, his fellow physicists have been using something called quantum theory to explain and understand the nature of waves and particles.
But a new paper by physics professor Andreas Albrecht and graduate student Dan Phillips at the University of California, Davis, makes the case that these quantum fluctuations actually are responsible for the probability of all actions, with far-reaching implications for theories of the universe.
Quantum theory is a branch of theoretical physics that strives to understand and predict the properties and behavior of atoms and particles. Without it, we would not be able to build transistors and computers, for example. One aspect of the theory is that the precise properties of a particle are not determined until you observe them and "collapse the wave function" in physics parlance.
Schrodinger's famous thought experiment extends this idea to our scale. A cat is trapped in a box with a vial of poison that is released when a radioactive atom randomly decays. You cannot tell if the cat is alive or dead without opening the box. Schrodinger argued that until you open the box and look inside, the cat is neither alive nor dead but in an indeterminate state.
For many people, that is a tough concept to accept. But Albrecht says that, as a theoretical physicist, he concluded some years ago that this is how probability works at all scales, although until recently, he did not see it as something with a crucial impact on research. That changed with a 2009 paper by Don Page at the University of Alberta, Canada.
"I realized that how we think about quantum fluctuations and probability affects how we think about our theories of the universe," said Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist.
One of the consequences of quantum fluctuations is that every collapsing wave function spits out different realities: one where the cat lives and one where it dies, for example. Reality as we experience it picks its way through this near-infinity of possible alternatives. Multiple universes could be embedded in a vast "multiverse" like so many pockets on a pool table.
There are basically two ways theorists have tried to approach the problem of adapting quantum physics to the "real world," Albrecht said: You can accept it and the reality of many worlds or multiple universes, or you can assume that there is something wrong or missing from the theory.
Albrecht falls firmly in the first camp.
"Our theories of cosmology say that quantum physics works across the universe," he said. For example, quantum fluctuations in the early universe explain why galaxies form as they did -- a prediction that can be confirmed with direct observations.
The problem with multiple universes, Albrecht said, is that it if there are a huge number of different pocket universes, it becomes very hard to get simple answers to questions from quantum physics, such as the mass of a neutrino, an electrically neutral subatomic particle.
"Don Page showed that the quantum rules of probability simply cannot answer key questions in a large multiverse where we are not sure in which pocket universe we actually reside," Albrecht said.
One answer to this problem has been to add a new ingredient to the theory: a set of numbers that tells us the probability that we are in each pocket universe. This information can be combined with the quantum theory, and you can get your math (and your calculation of the mass of a neutrino) back on track.
Not so fast, say Albrecht and Phillips. While the probabilities assigned to each pocket universe may seem like just more of the usual thing, they are in fact a radical departure from everyday uses of probabilities because, unlike any other application of probability, these have already been shown to have no basis in the quantum theory.
"If all probability is really quantum theory, then it can't be done," Albrecht said. "Pocket universes are much, much more of a departure from current theory than people had assumed."
The paper is currently posted on the ArXiv.org preprint server and submitted for publication and has already stimulated considerable discussion, Albrecht said.
"It forces us to think about the different kinds of probability, which often get confused, and perhaps can help draw a line between them," he said.
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Andreas Albrecht, Daniel Phillips. Origin of probabilities and their application to the multiverse. arxiv.org, submitted on 5 Dec 2012 [link]
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Contact: Jim Sliwa jsliwa@asmusa.org 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology
A pair of commentaries to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy highlight a debate within the public health community surrounding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for treatment of exposed individuals during last year's fungal meningitis outbreak. Manuscripts of the commentaries were published ahead of print today on the journal's webpage.
"I will try to offer sufficient documentation to show there are alternative approaches worthy of consideration," writes David A Stevens of Stanford University Medical School, the author of the first commentary which questions the CDC recommendations.
In late 2012 the United States experienced its largest reported healthcare-associated outbreak when some patients who had received contaminated steroid shots developed fungal meningitis. As of January 14, 2013 there have been 678 cases and 44 deaths reported. Approximately 14,000 people were potentially exposed to the contaminated steroids. During the outbreak the CDC recommended that clinicians closely monitor individuals who had been exposed but specifically recommended against the use of preventative (prophylactic) use of antifungal drugs in asymptomatic patients in the absence of a clinical diagnosis of meningitis infection.
In his commentary, Stevens puts forth a detailed argument concluding that the CDC should have recommended prophylactic treatment with oral antifungal drugs for all exposed individuals. He also voiced other concerns with the CDC recommendations including the focus on only two specific drugs for treatment.
"If I were advising any patient who had been injected intrathecally or into a space adjacent to the intrathecal sac with material from one of the known contaminated lots, I would recommend taking chances with the known, uncommon and usually inconsequential side effects of the oral drugsand try to prevent onset of a serious and lethal disease," writes Stevens.
In the second commentary, a rebuttal of the Stevens' commentary, a group of scientists including one CDC official defend the CDC's recommendation against prophylactic antifungal therapy, describing the CDC's decision analysis model.
"Most of these cases resulted from epidural injections; these patients did not intentionally receive intrathecal injections, as suggested by Stevens," write the scientists. "Clinicians must carefully weigh the benefit of treatment of asymptomatic patients with the significant expense associated with drug acquisition, monitoring drug levels and substantial drug-drug interactions. For this reason, CDC chose to recommend careful clinical evaluation and imaging for high risk patients, independent of symptoms, with the goal of finding early indications of infection."
The manuscripts of the commentaries are available online at http://bit.ly/asmpr0205a and http://bit.ly/asmpr0205b. Formal publication is scheduled for the April 2013 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
###
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy is a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The ASM is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. Its mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.
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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.
Contact: Jim Sliwa jsliwa@asmusa.org 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology
A pair of commentaries to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy highlight a debate within the public health community surrounding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for treatment of exposed individuals during last year's fungal meningitis outbreak. Manuscripts of the commentaries were published ahead of print today on the journal's webpage.
"I will try to offer sufficient documentation to show there are alternative approaches worthy of consideration," writes David A Stevens of Stanford University Medical School, the author of the first commentary which questions the CDC recommendations.
In late 2012 the United States experienced its largest reported healthcare-associated outbreak when some patients who had received contaminated steroid shots developed fungal meningitis. As of January 14, 2013 there have been 678 cases and 44 deaths reported. Approximately 14,000 people were potentially exposed to the contaminated steroids. During the outbreak the CDC recommended that clinicians closely monitor individuals who had been exposed but specifically recommended against the use of preventative (prophylactic) use of antifungal drugs in asymptomatic patients in the absence of a clinical diagnosis of meningitis infection.
In his commentary, Stevens puts forth a detailed argument concluding that the CDC should have recommended prophylactic treatment with oral antifungal drugs for all exposed individuals. He also voiced other concerns with the CDC recommendations including the focus on only two specific drugs for treatment.
"If I were advising any patient who had been injected intrathecally or into a space adjacent to the intrathecal sac with material from one of the known contaminated lots, I would recommend taking chances with the known, uncommon and usually inconsequential side effects of the oral drugsand try to prevent onset of a serious and lethal disease," writes Stevens.
In the second commentary, a rebuttal of the Stevens' commentary, a group of scientists including one CDC official defend the CDC's recommendation against prophylactic antifungal therapy, describing the CDC's decision analysis model.
"Most of these cases resulted from epidural injections; these patients did not intentionally receive intrathecal injections, as suggested by Stevens," write the scientists. "Clinicians must carefully weigh the benefit of treatment of asymptomatic patients with the significant expense associated with drug acquisition, monitoring drug levels and substantial drug-drug interactions. For this reason, CDC chose to recommend careful clinical evaluation and imaging for high risk patients, independent of symptoms, with the goal of finding early indications of infection."
The manuscripts of the commentaries are available online at http://bit.ly/asmpr0205a and http://bit.ly/asmpr0205b. Formal publication is scheduled for the April 2013 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
###
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy is a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The ASM is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. Its mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.
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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.
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Public release date: 5-Feb-2013
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