UC Davis Tied For 15th Following Day One Of NCAA Championship

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Source: http://www.bigwest.org//story.asp?SPORT_ID=&STORY_ID=17104

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Bee and wild flower biodiversity loss slows

May 22, 2013 ? Declines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years, according to a new study.

Researchers led by the University of Leeds and the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands found evidence of dramatic reductions in the diversity of species in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands between the 1950s and 1980s.

But the picture brightened markedly after 1990, with a slowdown in local and national biodiversity losses among bees, hoverflies and wild plants.

Professor Bill Kunin, Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds, said: "Most observers have been saying that the 1992 Rio Earth Summit targets to slow biodiversity loss by 2010 failed, but what we are seeing is a significant slowing or reversal of the declines for wild plants and their insect pollinators.

"These species are important to us. About a third of our food production, including most of our fruit and vegetables, depends on animal pollination and we know that most crop pollination is done by wild pollinators. Biodiversity is important to ensuring we don't lose that service. Relying on a few species could be risky in a changing environment," he added.

The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, found a 30 per cent fall in local bumblebee biodiversity in all three countries between the 1950s and the 1980s. However, that decline slowed to an estimated 10 per cent in Britain by 2010, while in Belgium and the Netherlands bumblebee diversity had stabilised.

The picture was better for other wild bees, with an 8 per cent reduction in diversity in the Netherlands and a stable picture in Great Britain turning into significant increases (7 per cent in the Netherlands and 10 per cent in Britain) over the past 20 years. While these solitary bees continued to decline in Belgium, hoverfly diversity improved there, shifting from stable diversity in the 1980s to significant (20 per cent) increases in recent decades. British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s, but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.

Not all groups fared so well. Butterfly diversity continued to fall in all three countries at roughly the same rates as in the past.

Dr Luisa Carvalheiro, lead author on the paper, said: "It is possible that by 1990 the most sensitive species had already gone. However, that's probably not the whole story, as there are still plenty of rare and vulnerable species present in recent records.

"There is a much more encouraging possibility: the conservation work and agri-environment programs paying farmers to encourage biodiversity may be having an effect. We may also be seeing a slowdown of the drivers of decline. The postwar emphasis on getting land into production and on more intensive farming has given way to a more stable situation in which the rate of landscape change has slowed and in which agrichemical excesses are regulated.

Dr Carvalheiro said: "If what we take from the Rio targets is that the investment in conservation gave us no results, then that is a counsel of despair. This study brings a positive message for conservation. But some important groups are undoubtedly still declining, so continued and increased investment in conservation practices is essential for guaranteeing the persistence of a diverse assemblage of species."

Co-author Professor Koos Biesmeijer, who works both at the University of Leeds and Naturalis, said: "This paper builds on a widely-publicised study we published in 2006 that established that the diversity of bees and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods, and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.

"However, while we can use biodiversity records to measure changes in the diversity of pollinators, we can't tell what's happening to their overall abundance or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops. To study these issues would require a long-term monitoring programme."

The research team, including scientists from 18 institutions in Europe and the United States, used historical and contemporary records of species' presence held by organizations including the European Invertebrate Survey, Butterfly Conservation, the Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society, the INBO Research Institute for Nature and Forest in Belgium and the University of Mons, Belgium.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/VKYXGo4-0rY/130522085438.htm

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Dollar firms before Bernanke, inflation dip hits sterling

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar firmed, gold fell and shares slipped off five-year highs on Tuesday as investors postioned for an update on the future of the U.S. Federal Reserve's stimulus programme.

A slowdown in British inflation sent sterling to a 7-week low on the view it could give the Bank of England more leeway to support the UK economy, and the yen lost ground after a Japanese minister rowed back on remarks suggesting the currency had weakened enough.

The constant drip of global central bank stimulus during the financial crisis has pushed many financial markets to their highest levels in years, but in recent weeks Fed officials have started talking more openly about scaling back the bank's support.

That has made Wednesday's release of minutes from the central bank's last meeting and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony in Congress the main focus for markets waiting for the first signs of a clear shift change in attitude.

The usually dovish Chicago policymaker Charles Evans said on Monday that while the pickup in the U.S. jobs market continued he was "open-minded" about slowing the bank's bond-buying, and mentioned the idea of simply halting it.

The dollar <.dxy> was up 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies at midday in Europe, comfortably below its recent three-year high. U.S. stock futures pointed to steady open on Wall Street.

Economists expect Bernanke to deliver a steady message on the bank's policy when he speaks to Congress. But any hint that it plans to scale back its support could unsettle markets.

Having hit a five-year high on Monday, top European shares <.fteu3> were 0.4 percent lower by 1130 GMT as traders took the uncertainty as a cue to lock in some of the recent sharp gains.

"With the economic numbers being pretty good in the States, there may be an easing back of QE (bond-buying stimulus) sooner rather than later," said Berkeley Futures associate director Richard Griffiths.

"The DAX and Euro STOXX 50 have moved ahead a lot more than the UK, so in the event of any profit-taking in the U.S., the European markets may drop just that little bit more."

GREECE LIGHTENING

If the Fed does tighten policy by slowing its bond-buying, benchmark bond yields would be pushed up, and in the debt market, safe-haven German Bund futures lost ground.

In Greece, 10-year yields fell below 30-year ones for the first time in three years - popping its bond curve back into a more normal shape in a sign that some are starting to believe the worst may be over for the euro zone's most troubled economy.

"The perception of investors has changed," said ING strategist Alessandro Giansanti in Amsterdam. "There has been a change in trend in public finance policies. If the trend of reduction in the deficit continues we cannot rule out that even next year (Greece) can come back to the market."

YEN, METALS YO-YO

Earlier in the day, Japan's Nikkei share index crept to a 5-1/2 year high. The yen shed some of Monday's gains after Japan's economy minister said his comments the previous day that the government was satisfied with the level of the currency had been misinterpreted.

A recent downward slide in precious metals also resumed. Gold was down 1 percent at $1,376 an ounce as the stronger dollar left it facing its eighth fall in nine sessions.

Silver dropped as much as 2.2 percent to trade near the 2-1/2-year lows hit during a 6 percent slide on Monday, when an unidentified investor sold off a large holding.

While low inflation prospects has dulled demand for traditional hedge gold, silver has fallen out of favour with investors recently as demand from the solar energy sector has also sagged and mining of the metal has increased.

"The market was caught horribly short yesterday, so there was some buying this morning. But the dollar started to get stronger and gold didn't manage to break above $1,400, so sales started again," Marex Spectron head trader David Govett said.

(Editing by Hugh Lawson, John Stonestreet)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dollar-index-off-three-high-asian-shares-ease-011721149.html

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Early-life traffic-related air pollution exposure linked to hyperactivity

May 21, 2013 ? Early-life exposure to traffic-related air pollution was significantly associated with higher hyperactivity scores at age 7, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The research is detailed in a study being published Tuesday, May 21, in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), an institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The research was conducted by faculty members from the UC College of Medicine's Department of Environmental Health in collaboration with Cincinnati Children's. Nicholas Newman, DO, director of the Pediatric Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at Cincinnati Children's, was the study's first author.

"There is increasing concern about the potential effects of traffic-related air pollution on the developing brain," Newman says. "This impact is not fully understood due to limited epidemiological studies.

"To our knowledge, this is the largest prospective cohort with the longest follow-up investigating early life exposure to traffic-related air pollution and neurobehavioral outcomes at school age." Scientists believe that early life exposures to a variety of toxic substances are important in the development of problems later in life.

Newman and his colleagues collected data on traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) from the Cincinnati Childhood Allergy and Air Pollution Study (CCAAPS), a long-term epidemiological study examining the effects of traffic particulates on childhood respiratory health and allergy development. Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, CCAAPS is led by Grace LeMasters, PhD, of the environmental health department. Study participants -- newborns in the Cincinnati metropolitan area from 2001 through 2003 -- were chosen based on family history and their residence being either near or far from a major highway or bus route.

Children were followed from infancy to age 7, when parents completed the Behavioral Assessment System for Children, 2nd Edition (BASC-2), assessing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and related symptoms including attention problems, aggression, conduct problems and atypical behavior. Of the 762 children initially enrolled in the study, 576 were included in the final analysis at 7 years of age.

Results showed that children who were exposed to the highest third amount of TRAP during the first year of life were more likely to have hyperactivity scores in the "at risk" range when they were 7 years old. The "at risk" range for hyperactivity in children means that they need to be monitored carefully because they are at risk for developing clinically important symptoms.

"Several biological mechanisms could explain the association between hyperactive behaviors and traffic-related air pollution," Newman says, including narrowed blood vessels in the body and toxicity in the brain's frontal cortex.

Newman notes that the higher air pollution exposure was associated with a significant increase in hyperactivity only among those children whose mothers had greater than a high school education. Mothers with higher education may expect higher achievement, he says, affecting the parental report of behavioral concerns.

"The observed association between traffic-related air pollution and hyperactivity may have far-reaching implications for public health," Newman says, noting that studies have shown that approximately 11 percent of the U.S. population lives within 100 meters of a four-lane highway and that 40 percent of children attend school within 400 meters of a major highway.

"Traffic-related air pollution is one of many factors associated with changes in neurodevelopment, but it is one that is potentially preventable."

LeMasters, Patrick Ryan, PhD, Linda Levin, PhD, David Bernstein, MD, Gurjit Khurana Hershey, MD, PhD, James Lockey, PhD, Manuel Villareal, MD, Tiina Reponen, PhD, Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, Heidi Sucharew, PhD, and Kim Dietrich, PhD, were co-authors of the study.

Funding was provided by NIEHS and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/puxdw3mCYNE/130521011234.htm

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Justin Bieber To "Take Some Time"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/justin-bieber-to-take-some-time/

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JPMorgan shareholders urged to reject three directors

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co shareholders should vote against the re-election of three board members because they failed to properly oversee risk-taking that led to $6.2 billion of losses on the so-called "London Whale" trades, an influential proxy advisory firm said.

ISS Proxy Advisory Services said in a report released late Friday that directors David Cote, James Crown and Ellen Flutter should not be re-elected at the company's annual meeting this month because of "material failures of stewardship and risk oversight."

The report by ISS ratchets up pressure on directors to reduce Dimon's power at JPMorgan, the biggest bank based in the United States, as some stockholders push for more supervision of the outspoken executive.

A statement from JPMorgan spokeswoman Kristin Lemkau on Saturday said: "The company strongly endorses the re-election of its current directors and disagrees with ISS's position."

ISS also renewed its recommendation from a year ago that CEO and Chairman of the Board Jamie Dimon give up one of those two titles. ISS said investigations of the derivatives loss, which surfaced right before last year's shareholder meeting, showed that JPMorgan executives need more independent oversight and that the company is too big and too complex for one person to be able to do both jobs.

Shareholders will meet on May 21 in Tampa, Florida. They will vote on the re-election of the company's 11 directors and on a non-binding proposal from four institutional shareholders calling on the board to have a chairman who is independent from management. A similar advisory proposal failed to pass last year, receiving only 40 percent of the vote. That vote was five percentage points more than similar proposals at other companies that year.

The independent chair vote is developing into a major test for Dimon, 57. It comes as criticism, and sanctions from regulators, over poor risk management have piled up since the "London Whale" losses surfaced at the bank, which has $2.39 trillion in assets, the most of any U.S. bank.

The trading debacle has picked up the same "London Whale" nickname that hedge funds gave to a JPMorgan trader for the outsized derivatives bets he placed for the company.

The ISS recommendations on the re-election of directors shows the shareholder debate over governance of the company is broadening beyond Dimon.

The three directors who ISS singled out for replacement were members of the board's risk policy committee in December 2010 when the committee was shown a presentation by management that highlighted large profits from trading strategies in the firm's Chief Investment Office, where the derivative losses later occurred.

The presentation said the CIO strategies had contributed $2.8 billion of "economic value" since inception, with an average annualized return of 100 percent, according to a report released earlier this year by the board on its review of the matter.

ISS said the large profits showed that the CIO had changed from a unit that hedged risks to "what was essentially a proprietary trading desk" and should have prompted the committee to act against the practice.

The company statement added: "While the company has acknowledged a number of mistakes relating to its losses in CIO, an independent review committee of the board determined that those mistakes were not attributable to the risk committee."

In its proxy statement for the coming meeting, the board said that the actions taken by the company after the "London Whale" debacle show it to be strong and independent.

After the loss, the board added a member to the risk policy committee - new director Timothy Flynn, a retired chairman of auditor KPMG International.

ISS, which researches proxy issues and makes voting recommendations to institutional investors, praised the company for putting Flynn on the panel and recommended that shareholders re-elect him as well as seven other directors.

Last year, ISS recommended that all director candidates nominated by the board be elected.

The advisory firm said the JPMorgan board needs "refreshment" and the panel should search "for seasoned directors with financial and risk expertise" to replace Cote, Crown and Futter.

Cote is chief executive and board chairman of technology and aerospace company Honeywell International Inc ; Crown is president of investment firm Henry Crown and Co, and Futter is president of the American Museum of Natural History.

The company's statement on Saturday also said: "The members of the board's risk committee have a diversity and breadth of experiences that have served the company well."

ISS said it had discussed the board's independence and the qualifications of the risk policy committee members with the board's presiding director, Lee Raymond, on April 26 before reaching its conclusions. Raymond is a former CEO and chairman of the board of Exxon Mobil Corp.

ISS criticized the board for deferring to management and said the panel "appears to have been largely reactive, making changes only when it was clear that it could no longer maintain the status quo."

(Reporting by David Henry in New York; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jpmorgan-shareholders-urged-reject-three-directors-155157228.html

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