Israel has already breached its own red line set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by acquiring "dozens of nuclear warheads," Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on Saturday, the AFP news agency reports.
"If having the atomic bomb is passing the red line, the Zionist regime, that possesses dozens of nuclear warheads and weapons of mass destruction, has passed the red line years ago, and it has to be stopped," he said, according to the ISNA news agency.
Vahidi was responding to a speech by Netanyahu to the UN General Assembly this week in which -- using a cartoon bomb diagram -- the Israeli leader called for a "clear red line" to be applied to Iran's nuclear activities, which he charged are aimed at developing atomic weapons.
"Is the occupying and aggressor Zionist regime that possesses nuclear weapons more dangerous? Or an Iran that doesn't have nuclear weapons and which insists more than anybody on nuclear disarmament, and seeks only to have peaceful nuclear energy abiding by international rules," Vahidi asked.
Israel has maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity, but is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons.
It is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency but has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and rejects Israel's accusations of military intent. However, Iranian leaders have repeatedly called to eliminate the Jewish state.
This is really about OnSIP and their collaboration with others who are sponsoring the All Conference Party for ITEXPO West 2012, but first check out their OnSIP customers at http://www.onsip.com/success-stories. It is a star-studded list that includes Mozilla, Tumblr, TaskRabbit, Pandora (my favorite radio streaming service) and Cloudera!
But hold on, veryone knows what an avid proponent of active conference and exhibition activities I am. You know, the ones that enable attendees to do more than just trading business cards, visiting booths, listening to lectures and staring at Power Point presentations. I'm talking about collaborative/competitive activities such as golf or bowling, All Conference Parties, receptions, Fun Runs, and city tours of unique and innovative technology in use. These activities help people to mix and talk! ITEXPO West 2012 in Austin has an "in-the-know" collection of All Conference Party sponsors who know this to be a fact: OnSIP, DIDX, Coredial, Taqua, and Conexiant.
Junction Networks' OnSIP CEO Mike Oeth is in agreement with me on the premise of being in-tune ?to event participants' need to really interact in entertaining ways while developing business. He agreed to let me record a short conversation with him that I would like to share with you.?
Click to hear audio podcast between Mike Oeth of OnSIP and Suzanne Bowen, public communications entrepreneur and DIDX co-founder.
Some highlights of our talk:
1. Listen to OnSIP IVR. It has a warm and welcoming voice. I liked it and wondered whose voice it is.
2. Some interesting trivia about Mike that I found via research:
a. He's a Harvard Economics graduate. I found that out through research. Pretty impressive!
b. OnSIP is headquartered in Manhattan.
c. Mr. Oeth is a popular speaker.
3. About OnSIP ... a hosted platform that completely replaces a PBX system, has over 15K SMB customers; most growth is through their reseller/VAR program.
4. Their VAR program does not charge per User per Phone per Extension (the most common method of VAR or even white label hosted platform services). Nice!
5. Around 05:27.9 point in the podcast, Mike explains how they work with VARs and resellers and how they are able to not charge per User per Phone per Extension like most other VoIP companies do.
6. The advantages of unified communications, voIP, and the like for educational systems such as universities and libraries, cutting cost up to 80 %. For example, why pay a higher price for unlimited calling when calls are only made from certain locations in an institution to other locations in the same institution physically or remotely. That's the beauty of SIP.
7. The power and control that unified communications gives users such as answering and making calls from many different devices and methods: cell phone, wired IP phone, soft phone on Internet device, or even web-browser based phone.
Listen to Mike share how MyOnSIP can change your work style to be more convenient and effective about the point of 14:11.7 in the podcast. It's all about "presence" when you need it to get things done efficiently.
?
Meet with OnSIP, DIDX and thousands of other ITEXPO West participants at the exhibition, conference, and All Conference Party.?Plus, Mike Oeth is a presenter on the?
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(A bit more about Mike Oeth ... He is the CEO of Junction Networks, creators of OnSIP and winner of a TMC 2011 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award. Mike graduated from Harvard College in 1991 with a degree in Economics and has since become a technology veteran. He has held multiple senior level positions throughout the industry in software, telecommunications managed services, and the Internet. Mr. Oeth has served as the CTO of LivePerson, Inc | Nasdaq: LPSN |. He's been featured in the InfoWorld Magazine and has presented at public gatherings such as the CTO Forum.
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Today, Mike and his team promote OnSIP, a leading hosted communications service used by over 15,000 smlpall and medium-sized businesses. Headquartered in Manhattan, OnSIP is one of the sponsors of ITEXPO West 2012 All Conference Party. )
AgriLife Research to participate in $3.3 million wheat disease studyPublic release date: 27-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Charlie Rush crush@ag.tamu.edu 806-354-5804 Texas A&M AgriLife Communications
AMARILLO Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Amarillo will participate in a $3.3 million grant to look at wheat diseases caused by mite-vectored viruses, according to Dr. Charlie Rush, plant pathologist.
The project, "A Predictive Model to Increase Adoption of IPM of a Mite-Virus Disease Complex in Wheat," is a Coordinated Agricultural Project, or CAP, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Rush and two others in his plant pathology unit Dr. Fekede Workneh and Jacob Price will be part of a 22-member team from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service.
According to the study outline, the Great Plains region of the U.S. from Montana south to Texas produces more than 1 billion bushels of wheat annually or 50 percent of U.S. wheat production. In the southern half of the region, the use of wheat to supplement forage for livestock adds significantly to the importance of the crop and the economic vitality of the region. And stakeholders have identified wheat viruses as a major priority that constrains wheat production.
Wheat streak mosaic virus will be the primary focus, Rush said, along with Triticum mosaic virus and High Plains virus. All three viruses are vectored by the wheat curl mite and cause similar disease symptoms on infected wheat plants. The mite can't fly but is carried by the wind from plant to plant, and there is no chemical control at this time.
"To control the diseases caused by these viruses, we really have to learn to control the mite," he said.
Dr. Gary Hein, a University of Nebraska entomologist, is the program director. Rush said he and Hein have been talking for years about this project and have finally pulled everything together.
The scientists plan to determine the impact of environmental conditions, alternate hosts and management tactics on mite populations and disease incidence, as well as the risk in geographically and environmentally diverse production regions across the Great Plains.
They will identify the primary interactions that occur in this wheat-mite-virus complex across the region and increase producer implementation of integrated management principles for managing the complex across the Great Plains, Rush said.
"We plan to develop an accurate forecasting model that will improve growers' ability to anticipate and take action," Rush said. "We plan to deploy that model through Extension and educational curricula."
Wheat streak commonly starts at the edge of a field and then the mite, which is carrying the virus, will move on the wind across the field, he said. When the mite begins feeding on a plant, the virus is transmitted and the plant becomes infected. Once the plant is infected, it takes about a week or two, depending on temperature, for the disease symptoms to appear.
One of the things the AgriLife Research scientists will study is the disease threshold for management purposes.
"We know in March and April that you can tell if wheat streak is in the field and how widespread it might be," Rush said. "At that time, we can determine if the producer needs to discontinue fertilizing and watering, which he might be applying extra of, if he thinks the field is yellow due to reasons other than wheat streak."
If it is yellow due to wheat streak, he said, it will not get better no matter how much water and fertilizer are added, so the producer is just wasting money on those inputs.
"Once wheat streak gets going in a field, there's really nothing a producer can do," Rush said. "We want to look at management practices that might keep it from getting that bad. We know planting date is a key factor. Planting late breaks the cycle, but in this region, dual-purpose wheat is the norm and leaves fields open to early infestation by the wheat curl mite."
Rush said this study will allow them to look at the problem from a Great Plains' perspective, instead of the state view previously used.
"We want to first understand the common areas, and once we understand the primary factors, we can develop a disease risk assessment model," he said.
This grant will take advantage of existing facilities and personnel, such as those associated with the Great Plains Diagnostic Network, which is already set up in all these states, Rush said. That group already coordinates diagnostics of diseases and trains first detectors.
"Being able to access those scientists' expertise made it simple to pull together a strong team to work on this issue," he said.
The team will replicate the same work from Texas to Montana, Rush said, planting and monitoring a common susceptible control wheat variety; varieties such as Ron L, Mace and TAM 112, each of which offers a different type of resistance; and local cultivars from each state.
"We will record weather data, cultural practices and even hail storms," Rush said. "Hail plays an important role on volunteer and wheat streak the following year. In our area and in Oklahoma, we will focus to a high degree on native pasture and Conservation Reserve Program grasses, because we think those are important to the vector and disease carryover."
Scientists will do individual studies and then group studies so the entire project will provide a tremendous amount of information over the five years of the grant, Rush said.
Helping guide the study will be a program advisory board made up of growers, industry and commodity representatives from each state who will help identify the areas that impact them the most.
"With their help, we will be able to identify the most important aspects of wheat diseases caused by mite-vectored viruses and get something that is useful and valuable to the producers," Rush said.
###
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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.
AgriLife Research to participate in $3.3 million wheat disease studyPublic release date: 27-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Charlie Rush crush@ag.tamu.edu 806-354-5804 Texas A&M AgriLife Communications
AMARILLO Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Amarillo will participate in a $3.3 million grant to look at wheat diseases caused by mite-vectored viruses, according to Dr. Charlie Rush, plant pathologist.
The project, "A Predictive Model to Increase Adoption of IPM of a Mite-Virus Disease Complex in Wheat," is a Coordinated Agricultural Project, or CAP, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Rush and two others in his plant pathology unit Dr. Fekede Workneh and Jacob Price will be part of a 22-member team from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service.
According to the study outline, the Great Plains region of the U.S. from Montana south to Texas produces more than 1 billion bushels of wheat annually or 50 percent of U.S. wheat production. In the southern half of the region, the use of wheat to supplement forage for livestock adds significantly to the importance of the crop and the economic vitality of the region. And stakeholders have identified wheat viruses as a major priority that constrains wheat production.
Wheat streak mosaic virus will be the primary focus, Rush said, along with Triticum mosaic virus and High Plains virus. All three viruses are vectored by the wheat curl mite and cause similar disease symptoms on infected wheat plants. The mite can't fly but is carried by the wind from plant to plant, and there is no chemical control at this time.
"To control the diseases caused by these viruses, we really have to learn to control the mite," he said.
Dr. Gary Hein, a University of Nebraska entomologist, is the program director. Rush said he and Hein have been talking for years about this project and have finally pulled everything together.
The scientists plan to determine the impact of environmental conditions, alternate hosts and management tactics on mite populations and disease incidence, as well as the risk in geographically and environmentally diverse production regions across the Great Plains.
They will identify the primary interactions that occur in this wheat-mite-virus complex across the region and increase producer implementation of integrated management principles for managing the complex across the Great Plains, Rush said.
"We plan to develop an accurate forecasting model that will improve growers' ability to anticipate and take action," Rush said. "We plan to deploy that model through Extension and educational curricula."
Wheat streak commonly starts at the edge of a field and then the mite, which is carrying the virus, will move on the wind across the field, he said. When the mite begins feeding on a plant, the virus is transmitted and the plant becomes infected. Once the plant is infected, it takes about a week or two, depending on temperature, for the disease symptoms to appear.
One of the things the AgriLife Research scientists will study is the disease threshold for management purposes.
"We know in March and April that you can tell if wheat streak is in the field and how widespread it might be," Rush said. "At that time, we can determine if the producer needs to discontinue fertilizing and watering, which he might be applying extra of, if he thinks the field is yellow due to reasons other than wheat streak."
If it is yellow due to wheat streak, he said, it will not get better no matter how much water and fertilizer are added, so the producer is just wasting money on those inputs.
"Once wheat streak gets going in a field, there's really nothing a producer can do," Rush said. "We want to look at management practices that might keep it from getting that bad. We know planting date is a key factor. Planting late breaks the cycle, but in this region, dual-purpose wheat is the norm and leaves fields open to early infestation by the wheat curl mite."
Rush said this study will allow them to look at the problem from a Great Plains' perspective, instead of the state view previously used.
"We want to first understand the common areas, and once we understand the primary factors, we can develop a disease risk assessment model," he said.
This grant will take advantage of existing facilities and personnel, such as those associated with the Great Plains Diagnostic Network, which is already set up in all these states, Rush said. That group already coordinates diagnostics of diseases and trains first detectors.
"Being able to access those scientists' expertise made it simple to pull together a strong team to work on this issue," he said.
The team will replicate the same work from Texas to Montana, Rush said, planting and monitoring a common susceptible control wheat variety; varieties such as Ron L, Mace and TAM 112, each of which offers a different type of resistance; and local cultivars from each state.
"We will record weather data, cultural practices and even hail storms," Rush said. "Hail plays an important role on volunteer and wheat streak the following year. In our area and in Oklahoma, we will focus to a high degree on native pasture and Conservation Reserve Program grasses, because we think those are important to the vector and disease carryover."
Scientists will do individual studies and then group studies so the entire project will provide a tremendous amount of information over the five years of the grant, Rush said.
Helping guide the study will be a program advisory board made up of growers, industry and commodity representatives from each state who will help identify the areas that impact them the most.
"With their help, we will be able to identify the most important aspects of wheat diseases caused by mite-vectored viruses and get something that is useful and valuable to the producers," Rush said.
###
[ | 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.
Intel outed just outed its new Atom SoC, and at its tablet event in San Francisco today, the company had a whole slew of slates packing the Clover Trail silicon on hand. Dell's Latitude 10, the ASUS Tablet 810, Acer's Iconia W510 and W700, Lenovo's ThinkPad 2, the HP Envy x2 and Samsung's Series 5 were all there. However, it was the handsome slice of Windows 8 from ZTE that really caught our attention. Called the V98, it has a 10.1-inch, 1366 x 768 LCD on top of an aluminum chassis with a beveled edge similar to what you'd find on a white iPhone 5. Beneath that handsome exterior is the aforementioned Intel Z2760 chipset, 64GB of ROM, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (plus a microSD slot if you need more digital space). There's 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, tri-band UMTS and quad-band GSM radios, plus NFC and LTE can be had as options. It's got an accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, a magnetometer and a gyro, too. An 8-megapixel camera is stuck in the back, while a 2-megapixel shooter resides round front. ZTE managed to stuff all that and a 7,000mAh battery inside a svelte 8.9mm-thin package.
We got to spend a little bit of time with a prototype ZTE model, and found the hardware to be solid for a hand-built unit. Its aluminum chassis makes for quite a rigid device in hand, and the machined and polished bevel gives the V98 a very high-end look. The chromed plastic volume rocker, power button and screen orientation lock switch nestled in the plastic radio reception strip at the top of the device are decidedly less luxurious, however -- the travel of each was shallow, and the finish on the plastic appeared a bit cheap to our eyes. That said, the rotating magnetic aluminum door that reveals the SD card and SIM slots is slick -- far easier to open and close than the plastic port covers found on most other slates. There's also a 30-pin docking port on the bottom edge of the tablet, but ZTE informed us it'd be another month or so before the dock is ready for public consumption. Unfortunately, the V98 won't be available for purchase until Q1 of next year, but you can see if its worth waiting for in our gallery of shots below.
??Grieving pet owners have started warning other consumers with fliers, cards and posters about potentially dangerous chicken jerky treats from China. After the death of her German shepherd, one Illinois woman gathered 60,000 signatures demanding retailers stop selling the treats.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday as renewed turbulence in the euro zone over financial bailouts led investors to book profits from recent gains as a strong third quarter nears an end.
Violent protests in Madrid against expected austerity measures and growing talk of secession in Catalonia increased pressure on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he maneuvers before asking euro zone policymakers for rescue money.
Meanwhile, Greece faced its biggest anti-austerity protest in more than a year as international lenders admitted to difficulty in working out how to solve Athens' debt crisis.
"There is still a real risk that Europe has to make some decisions that could hold the market together ... over the next few weeks as it relates to Greece and certainly Spain," said T. Doug Dale, chief investment officer for Security Ballew in Jackson, Mississippi.
"There are still enough unknowns out there that it doesn't take a whole lot to get the S&P back off."
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 11.25 points, or 0.08 percent, to 13,446.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 6.06 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,435.53. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 26.02 points, or 0.83 percent, to 3,091.71.
The S&P 500 is up more than 5 percent for the third quarter and nearly 2 percent for September, historically a weak month for equities, largely due to actions taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank to prop up their economies.
But the benchmark index has fallen 1.8 percent since the Fed's most recent stimulus plan on September 13 as earnings warnings from bellwethers such as FedEx Corp and Caterpillar Inc have sparked concerns about global growth.
Jabil Circuit tumbled 9.3 percent to $19.01 after the technology company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations and forecast weak first-quarter results.
Investors' sentiment was reflected in the session's best performing sectors, which were defensive plays such as utilities, telecoms and consumer staples.
Longer term, the equity outlook is positive. While the S&P 500 isn't expected to move much from its current level through to the end of the year, according to a Reuters poll of analysts, it is seen advancing in the first half of 2013, largely on central bank actions.
Stocks fell despite a government report that prices of new U.S. single-family home sales vaulted to their highest level in more than five years in August.
American Greetings Corp jumped 13.5 percent to $16.27 after the company said it received an offer to go private from a group led by its chief executive, valuing the greetings card company at about $580 million.
Yahoo Inc new Chief Executive Marissa Mayer laid out goals for the Internet company in her first company wide address Tuesday and chose a new chief financial officer. Shares slipped 0.3 percent to $15.63.
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Public release date: 27-Sep-2012
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