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Saturday, December 15, 2012

Schizophrenia linked to social inequality

Dec. 14, 2012 ? Higher rates of schizophrenia in urban areas can be attributed to increased deprivation, increased population density and an increase in inequality within a neighbourhood, new research reveals. The research, led by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, was published today in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Dr James Kirkbride, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said: "Although we already know that schizophrenia tends to be elevated in more urban communities, it was unclear why. Our research suggests that more densely populated, more deprived and less equal communities experience higher rates of schizophrenia and other similar disorders. This is important because other research has shown that many health and social outcomes also tend to be optimal when societies are more equal."

The scientists used data from a large population-based incidence study (the East London first-episode psychosis study directed by Professor Jeremy Coid at the East London NHS Foundation Trust and Queen Mary, University of London) conducted in three neighbouring inner city, ethnically diverse boroughs in East London: City & Hackney, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.

427 people aged 18-64 years old were included in the study, all of whom experienced a first episode of psychotic disorder in East London between 1996 and 2000. The researchers assessed their social environment through measures of the neighbourhood in which they lived at the time they first presented to mental health services because of a psychotic disorder. Using the 2001 census, they estimated the population aged 18-64 years old in each neighbourhood, and then compared the incidence rate between neighbourhoods.

The incidence of schizophrenia (and other similar disorders where hallucinations and delusions are the dominant feature) still showed variation between neighbourhoods after taking into account age, sex, ethnicity and social class. Three environmental factors predicted risk of schizophrenia -- increased deprivation (which includes employment, income, education and crime) increased population density, and an increase in inequality (the gap between the rich and poor).

Results from the study suggested that a percentage point increase in either neighbourhood inequality or deprivation was associated with an increase in the incidence of schizophrenia and other similar disorders of around 4%.

Dr Kirkbride added: "Our research adds to a wider and growing body of evidence that inequality seems to be important in affecting many health outcomes, now possibly including serious mental illness. Our data seems to suggest that both absolute and relative levels of deprivation predict the incidence of schizophrenia.

"East London has changed substantially over recent years, not least because of the Olympic regeneration. It would be interesting to repeat this work in the region to see if the same patterns were found."

The study also found that risk of schizophrenia in some migrant groups might depend on the ethnic composition of their neighbourhood. For black African people, the study found that rates tended to be lower in neighbourhoods where there were a greater proportion of other people of the same background. By contrast, rates of schizophrenia were lower for the black Caribbean group when they lived in more ethnically-integrated neighbourhoods. These findings support the possibility that the socio-cultural composition of our environment could positively or negatively influence risk of schizophrenia and other similar disorders.

Dr John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust said: "This research reminds us that we must understand the complex societal factors as well as the neural mechanisms that underpin the onset of mental illness, if we are to develop appropriate interventions."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Cambridge, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

J. B. Kirkbride, P. B. Jones, S. Ullrich, J. W. Coid. Social Deprivation, Inequality, and the Neighborhood-Level Incidence of Psychotic Syndromes in East London. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbs151

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/mental_health/~3/9JU9fYoVBic/121214102700.htm

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Real Estate Weekly - 12/14/12 | Maryland Daily Record

Nando?s to locate at 400 W. Baltimore St.

Nando?s Peri-Peri, an international fast-casual restaurant chain, will open its first location in Baltimore at 400 West Baltimore Street, a 17,000-square-foot retail development near Eutaw and Paca streets. Nando?s will occupy 3,785 square feet in the retail complex, and is the third fast-casual restaurant this year to open or announce its intention to lease space there. Panera Bread Co. opened a location at the project earlier this year, and the local franchise holder of the Pita Pit chain decided to locate there this past summer. Other retailers are PNC Bank, Samuelson?s Jewelers, and the State Employees Credit Union. Nando?s intends to be operational by March, offering a menu of Portuguese-style flamed-grilled chicken. The 400 West Baltimore Street project was developed by Balti West LLC and managed by Owings Mills-based David S. Brown Enterprises Ltd.

State housing indicators on the up-and-up

The key indicators measuring the health of Maryland?s housing market continued to show sustained improvement over last year, according to the latest edition of Maryland Housing Beat, a monthly profile of the state?s housing economy compiled by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. In October, home sales increased for the sixth consecutive month compared to October 2011, housing inventory declined for the 20th consecutive month, and the median home sales price rose for the ninth consecutive month. The December issue, reflecting statistical data from October, can be viewed at DHCD?s website at www.Mdhousing.org.

Leasehold interest in four floors of building sells for $21.75 million

A ?complicated? real estate transaction involving the sale of the leasehold interest in four floors of the Johnston Professional Building, an eight-story building located on the campus of Medstar Union Memorial Hospital at 3333 N. Calvert St. in Baltimore, has been successfully concluded, according to an announcement from Cassidy Turley. The first four floors of the building are owned and occupied by the hospital, with the top four floors subject to a long-term air rights lease. New York-based Promed Acquisition Inc. purchased the property for $21,750,000. The leasehold property is fully occupied with tenants that include MedStar Union Memorial Hospital and Greater Chesapeake Orthopedic Associates. Jonathan M. Carpenter and James S. Wellschlager of Cassidy Turley?s Capital Markets Group, along with Cassidy Turley?s Douglas Brinkley, represented the seller, Johnston Professional Limited Partnership.

C&W chosen to market office building in Laurel

Cushman & Wakefield announced it has been retained as the exclusive listing agent for 6151 Chevy Chase Drive in Laurel. The one-story, 69,000-square-foot office building was formerly a secured bank operations center. Previously occupied by a single tenant, the space can be easily transformed to accommodate two or more occupants. Among its features are an ultra-efficient and flexible open-floor plan, abundant ribbon-glass line, two loading docks and dual-feed electric service, each with its own backup generator, plenty of parking and lots of landscaping. The facility is move-in ready, and includes existing office furniture, data/telecom wiring, dual fiber optic service and workstations. Extensive exterior improvements to the building and interior renovations are planned and will be completed in 2013 by the new owner and landlord, Exeter Property Group. C&W?s Hayes Merkert, Karen Cherry, Niel Beggy and Peter Marcin are handling the marketing of the property, and are targeting corporate or government contractor tenants needing convenient access to both the Baltimore and Metro D.C. markets.

Ulman vetoes Howard?s growth tiers map

In his first veto since he was elected in 2006, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman on Thursday vetoed legislation passed by the Howard County Council earlier this month to define so-called ?growth tiers,? or levels of development that will be permitted in various areas of the county. Ulman said the growth tiers map adopted by the council was insufficient to protect the Chesapeake Bay and preserve the county?s agricultural heritage. He called for a collaborative effort to reshape the legislation. Four of the five council members voted to approve the law, and it will take that number to override Ulman?s veto.

Target to open new store on Boston Street

Target Corp., the Minneapolis-based department store chain, announced plans to open a new store in Baltimore in October 2013. The new store, in the Canton Crossing Shopping Center on Boston Street, will be Target?s second in Baltimore proper, and its sixth store in the Baltimore region. The new store will be approximately 135,000 square feet, and will employ about 200 persons. The company said it will host job fairs two months in advance of the new store opening, and will accept applications for available positions online at www.target.com/careers or at in-store kiosks approximately three months before the new store opens.

Bozzuto signs four D.C.-area projects

Bozzuto Construction Co., a division of the Greenbelt-based real estate firm The Bozzuto Group, announced Monday that it has signed four new projects totaling more than $107 million in contracts: Petworth Safeway and Tyler House Apartments in Northwest Washington, Pollin Memorial Community Development in Northeast Washington and Kingsview Village Apartments in Germantown. Kingsview Village Apartments is a $20 million construction project developed by Pleasants Development Inc. of Clarksburg. The 195-unit, garden-style community is located on Leaman Farm Road in Germantown.

PriceRite opens first store in Baltimore

PriceRite opened its first supermarket in Baltimore city this week. The store is located at 1205 W. Pratt St. in the Mount Clare Junction Shopping Center. The grand opening, featuring a ribbon-cutting, was scheduled for Wednesday morning. PriceRite?s cost-savings measures include limited advertising, and it encourages customers to bring their own bags by charging 10 cents to supply them. PriceRite?s other stores in Maryland are in Woodlawn and District Heights.

McShea & Co. closes Columbia warehouse sale

McShea & Company Inc., a Gaithersburg-based real estate services firm, announced it has closed the sale of a Columbia warehouse for nearly $7 million. The property is the Heathrow Business Center at 9176 Red Branch Road, an 81,067-square-foot small-bay flex/warehouse within the Oakland Ridge Business Park. Ben Epstein & Associates LLC of Silver Spring sold the building to a Maryland-based private investor for $6,925,000. Heathrow Business Center is 100 percent leased to a mix of tenants from several industries, including science, technology, business-to-business services, consumer goods and retail services.

Baltimore County sells bonds at low rates

Baltimore County sold $621 million in 30-year bonds at what officials described as record-low interest rates. Last week, the county sold $365 million in new and re-funded general obligation bonds at 2.05 percent interest, which officials said was the lowest interest rate in county history. The county also sold $256 million in pension obligation bonds at 3.43 percent, which officials said was significantly below the 4.25 percent rate the county projected it would pay. Officials said the low interest rates will save county taxpayers $360.5 million over the 30-year term of the bonds.

REIT acquires Montgomery retail space

Saul Centers Inc., of Bethesda, a real estate investment trust that owns shopping centers and office/mixed-use properties, primarily in the Baltimore-Washington area, said it acquired approximately 53,000 square feet of retail space on Rockville Pike, near the Twinbrook Metro Station in Montgomery County, for $23 million, including acquisition costs. The property, which is 91 percent leased to multiple tenants, is zoned for up to 700,000 square feet of rentable mixed-use space. The company said it does not anticipate redeveloping the property in the foreseeable future. Saul Centers funded the acquisition with borrowings under its revolving credit facility.

Saul Centers sells Baltimore retail site

Bethesda-based Saul Centers also announced the sale of Belvedere Gardens, a 55,000-square-foot neighborhood shopping center in the 5800 block of Hillen Road in Baltimore. The property was 34 percent leased and is debt-free. The asset was sold for $3.9 million, net of closing costs, and the company expects to report a gain on the sale of approximately $3.5 million during the fourth quarter of 2012. The buyer of the property was not identified.

LEASES

Merritt Properties LLC reported the following recently signed leases:

CRS, an appliance recycler, leased 2,000 square feet of warehouse space at Lansdowne Industrial Park, 26 Alco Place, in Baltimore County. Also, Kronos Systems Inc., a provider of workforce management services, leased 2,483 square feet of office space at 6021 University Blvd, Suite 540, in the Columbia Corporate Park 100, in Howard County. In the latter transaction, Andy Andrews of Cassidy Turley represented the tenant, and Merritt Properties? in-house leasing team of Jamie Campbell, Liz Tarran-Jones, Vince Bagli and Steve Shaw represented the landlord in both transactions.

Merritt Properties? in-housing leasing team of Pat Franklin, Whit Levering, Lou Boeri and Ashley Combs handled negotiations that resulted in leases being signed by Manik Muffler Inc. and Ciccarilli Moving & Installation LLC. Ciccarilli, a moving and general warehouse company, agreed to lease 1,463 square feet of warehouse space and 337 square feet of office space at the rear of 2034 Lord Baltimore Drive in Woodlawn. Also, Manik Muffler, a provider of automobile exhaust systems and general vehicle repairs, signed a lease for 3,100 square feet of space at 6431 Baltimore National Pike, Suites 104-106, in the Forty West Auto Park in Catonsville.

Merritt?s Pat Franklin, Whit Levering, Lou Boeri and Ashley Combs also represented the landlord in negotiations that brought Ricoh Americas Corp., a global technology company specializing in office imaging equipment, production print systems, document management systems and IT services, to 10055 Red Run Blvd., Suite 200, in Merritt?s Owings Mills Corporate Campus. Ricoh agreed to lease 12,676 square feet of office space at the property. Gail Chrzan of CBRE represented Ricoh in the transaction.

Source: http://thedailyrecord.com/2012/12/14/real-estate-weekly-121412/

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Friday, December 14, 2012

Historic camp discovered in Antarctica

More than 100 years after two groups of men raced each other to be the first to reach the South Pole, modern-day explorers have rediscovered what appears to be one of their camp sites on the slopes of the world's southernmost volcano.

Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Englishman Robert Falcon Scott were the explorers who led teams of their countrymen on grueling journeys across the frigid continent in an effort to be the first to go where no man had gone before. Amundsen won the race, reaching the pole on Dec. 14, 2011. Scott also made it there, on Jan. 17, 1912, but perished with the remainder of his crew on the arduous trek back to the edge of the continent.

Scott and his team camped on the slopes of Mount Erebus, the southernmost volcano, during their journey. The spot was known as "the highest camp," according to a National Science Foundation release.

Clive Oppenheimer, a volcanologist at Cambridge University in England and working at Erebus as part of an NSF team, found what he thinks is the same camp site using written accounts and historic images from the Scott Polar Research Institute in Great Britain, the NSF release said. (The institute was founded by one of the men from Scott's party who climbed Erebus as part of the 1912 Terra Nova expedition.)

The site Oppenheimer located features a ring of stones where a tent once stood and appears to match historic photos taken during the 1912 expedition. "Conservators from the New Zealand-based Antarctic Heritage Trust have been asked to verify the historic find," the NSF wrote.

The area will be recorded and searched to look for artifacts from the original expedition. Tents and other sites from early 20th century expeditions have also been found and preserved, some with a wealth of artifacts.

The team that climbed Mount Erebus in 1912 included geologist Raymond Priestley; they took geological specimens and mapped the area. Scott's expedition was more focused on gleaning scientific research from their mission than Amundsen's was.

The 1912 expedition was preceded at Erebus by the 1907-1909 Nimrod Expedition, mounted by explorer Ernest Shackleton, which failed to reach the South Pole.

The NSF team is studying the 14,500-foot Erebus, which is interesting geologically beyond being the southernmost volcano. It is also home to Earth's only long-lived lava lakes.

Reach Andrea Thompson at athompson@techmedianetwork.com and follow her on twitter @AndreaTOAP. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50192039/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Statement by the President on the School Shooting in Newtown, CT (TIME)

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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Fed ties rates to jobs recovery, adds to stimulus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve, announcing a new round of monetary stimulus, took the unprecedented step on Wednesday of indicating interest rates would remain near zero until unemployment falls to at least 6.5 percent.

It was the latest in a series of unorthodox measures taken by central banks around the world to battle erratic, sub-par recoveries from the financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009.

The Fed expects to hold rates steady until its new threshold on unemployment was reached as long as inflation does not threaten to break above 2.5 percent and inflation expectations are contained. It also replaced an expiring stimulus program with a fresh round of Treasury debt purchases.

The central bank previously said it expected to hold rates near zero through at least mid-2015, but policymakers were uncomfortable making a pledge based on the calendar rather than the economic goals they hope to achieve.

"By tying future monetary policy more explicitly to economic conditions, this formulation of our policy guidance should ... make monetary policy more transparent and predictable to the public," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told a news conference.

Importantly, in the eyes of Fed officials, the new framework should help financial markets assess incoming data in a way that helps them better guess were monetary policy is heading.

Right now, the Fed is engaged in an open-ended program of asset purchases, which it bolstered on Wednesday.

Officials committed to buy $45 billion in longer-term Treasuries each month on top of the $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds they started purchasing in September. They repeated a pledge to keep pumping money into the economy until the outlook for the labor market improves "substantially."

"The committee remains concerned that, without sufficient policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions," the Fed's policy-setting panel said after a two-day meeting.

BALANCE SHEET ACTION

The Fed will fund the new Treasury purchases with an expansion of its $2.8 trillion balance sheet. Under the expiring "Operation Twist" program, the Fed bought an identical amount, but paid for them with proceeds from sales and redemptions of short-term debt.

Some policymakers view actions that expand the Fed's balance sheet as economically more potent than actions that do not. However, Bernanke said the dose of stimulus would remain about the same, given that the central bank is still purchasing a combined $85 billion per month in longer-term securities.

"They see an anemic economy, and they're doing all they can to get any economic progress," said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates in Toledo, Ohio.

The Fed's decision initially gave a small lift to U.S. stock prices, but the major indexes closed mostly unchanged, while government bond prices fell. Oil prices rose and the dollar weakened against the euro.

Fed policymakers voted 11-1 to back the new plan. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, dissented, as he has at every meeting this year, expressing opposition both to the bond buying and the new economic thresholds.

SWEATING A WEAK RECOVERY

The newly unveiled numerical policy guidelines offered the most specific suggestion yet that the Fed is willing to tolerate slightly higher inflation as it tries to juice up a moribund economy and spur stronger job growth.

A drop in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent in November from 7.9 percent in October was driven by workers exiting the labor force, and therefore did not come close to satisfying the condition the Fed has set for trimming its stimulus.

In response to the financial crisis and recession, the Fed slashed overnight rates to zero almost exactly four years ago and bought some $2.4 trillion in mortgage and Treasury securities to keep long-term rates down.

Despite its unconventional and aggressive efforts, economic growth remains tepid. Gross domestic product grew at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter, but a Reuters poll published on Wednesday showed economists expect it to expand at just a 1.2 percent pace in the current quarter.

Businesses have hunkered down, fearful of a tightening of fiscal policy as politicians in Washington wrangle over ways to avoid a $600 billion mix of spending reductions and expiring tax cuts set to take hold at the start of 2013.

Bernanke has warned that running over this "fiscal cliff" would lead to a new recession. He told reporters the Fed could ramp up its bond buying "a bit," but emphasized that monetary policy has limits and could not fully offset the impact.

NEW TACK ON RATES

He said the central bank would look at a range of indicators, not just the rates of unemployment and inflation, in determining when to finally push overnight borrowing costs higher, adding that the Fed was not on "auto pilot."

"Reaching the thresholds will not immediately trigger a reduction in policy accommodation," Bernanke said. "No single indicator provides a complete assessment of the state of the labor market."

Bernanke said the new framework was consistent with the earlier calendar guidance, because officials do not expect the jobless rate to reach 6.5 percent until sometime in 2015.

Indeed, a fresh set of economic projections from the Fed put the rate in a 6 percent to 6.6 percent range in the fourth quarter of 2015. At the same time, the projections showed that at no point over that forecast horizon does the central bank see inflation topping its 2 percent target.

Officials held to their assessment that they could eventually push the unemployment rate down to a 5.2 percent to 6 percent range without sparking inflation, although Bernanke cautioned that policy would have to start tightening before it fell so low. In its statement, the Fed said its long-term asset purchase program would end well before any rate increase.

Fed policymakers see GDP expanding between 2.3 percent and 3.0 percent next year. That is down from the 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent they forecast in September, but is still a bit more optimistic than most private forecasters. The Reuters poll of economists found a median U.S. growth estimate of 2.1 percent for next year.

(Writing by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann, Leslie Adler and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-ties-rate-pledge-threshold-stimulus-set-001338283--business.html

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Adele Faces Fine For Not Registering Baby

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/12/adele-faces-fine-for-not-registering-baby/

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Social ties help drive user content generation that leads to online ad revenue growth

Dec. 11, 2012 ? A research study on online social networks reveals that networking sites can drive advertising revenue by encouraging the density of social ties, or boosting the level of friendship or social connections between users. According to the findings, in a forthcoming paper in Management Science, more connected users prompt increases in visitation and browsing on the site, which helps stimulate online advertising revenue growth.

The research co-authored by Scott Shriver, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, Harikesh Nair, associate professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Reto Hofstetter of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland introduces new techniques to determine whether more connected users generate more content and vice versa. The researchers examined the history of social tie formation and content creation on? Soulrider.com, an online community of windsurfers based in Switzerland. "Prior work in this area has reported a correlational relationship between social ties and user-generated content," said Professor Shriver. "Our work attempts to go further by establishing and measuring causal effects."

To address the question of causality, the authors leveraged the fact that users often post blogs about wind speeds at their preferred surfing locations. After merging the Soulrider.com data with wind speed information from the Swiss meteorological office, the researchers were able to establish that wind speeds correlated with content production but not social tie formation. The team was then able to explain observed content production in terms of factors independent of social ties, which in turn allowed them to separately identify the causal effects of interest.

"One of the main issues that site operators like Facebook deal with is how to monetize the content that is created on their sites," said Professor Shriver. "Our research finds that the density of the links between users on the network is critical for the ultimate success of the social network. It's not sufficient to just get people to join the site -- increasing the strength of the relationships is key to increasing page views and therefore ad revenue."

Ultimately, the research shows that being more connected has a stronger effect on content generation than the reverse. And, establishing more user connections generates more content on the network, which leads to a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle that helps sustain the growth of the network site.

The research suggests that online social networks should give users incentives to connect with friends in order to maintain network and revenue growth. The study proposes that offering better content generation tools, such as facilitating tie-formation activity like "friending" functions and including tools that enable comments and photo tagging, will help increase user interaction on networking sites. The other option for networking sites is to generate artificial content by paying users to post content, but the incentives approach may be preferable as artificial content generation runs the risk of alienating users if it is discovered.

Study data also shows that 80 percent of the content was generated by 10 percent of users. Based on this finding, Professor Shriver noted, "Targeting ads specifically towards the most productive users in this 10 percent group may be a more viable way of generating additional page views, increasing click-through rates, and thereby boosting ad revenues."