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Man charged in unprovoked attack on sleeping passenger on flight

A man faces a felony assault charge after an unprovoked attack on a fellow passenger who was sleeping during a cross-country flight this week, according to authorities.




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Jones, Kolek lead No. 9 Marquette over Georgetown for sixth straight win

Kam Jones scored a career-high 31 points, Tyler Kolek had 17 points and eight assists and No. 9 Marquette won its sixth straight game, 91-57 over Georgetown on Saturday.




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Scheierman records No. 17 Creighton's first triple-double since 1985 in 94-72 win over Georgetown

Baylor Scheierman recorded Creighton's first triple-double since 1985, Trey Alexander made his first five 3-pointers and finished with 26 points, and the 17th-ranked Bluejays rolled past Georgetown 94-72 Tuesday night.




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Villanova hands Georgetown 12th straight defeat

TJ Bamba scored 14 points and Villanova beat Georgetown 70-54 on Friday night, handing the Hoyas their 12th straight loss.




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Georgetown upsets No. 21 Creighton, faces No. 9 UConn for Big East women's title

Kelsey Ransom scored 14 points to lead sixth-seeded Georgetown to a 55-46 upset of No. 21 Creighton in the Big East Tournament semifinals.




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Election Day is Tuesday, but winner might not be known Tuesday

"Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5 -- but that doesn't mean we'll know who won the election on that date. With each passing election, more and more Americans are casting mail-in ballots, which take longer to count than in-person votes because they need to be opened and verified. That means that finding out the winner on election night may be a thing of the past," advises ABC News in a brief analysis.




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Contain or confront: Former U.S. officials debate right approach to China

The Biden administration's strategy of seeking to manage geopolitical competition with China is not working and should be replaced with a policy of achieving victory, according to Matthew Pottinger, former White House deputy national security adviser.




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Cybercom warfighting system faulted in Pentagon report

The military command in charge of conducting cyber warfare lacks the tools to conduct successful offensive attacks and defend against digital strikes by China and other adversaries, according to a report by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board.




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Salzburg win in Champions League is 1st in eight games for Red Bull teams Jurgen Klopp will join

The Red Bull family of soccer clubs that will soon be overseen by Jurgen Klopp finally got a first win in the Champions League on Wednesday.




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Advanced Academy 2024 Additional Titanium Guest Wednesday night Only one payment of $299 USD

Advanced Academy 2024 Additional Titanium Guest Wednesday night Only one payment of $299 USD

Price: $299.00




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Bernhard Langer and his 18 straight years of winning one of golf's untouchable records

Winning doesn't get old. Neither, apparently, does Bernhard Langer.




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Zverev dispatches Humbert in straight sets to win Paris Masters

Alexander Zverev was imperious in dispatching Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-2, 6-2 to win the Paris Masters on Sunday.




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Maryland enshrines abortion rights in state constitution

Maryland voters overwhelmingly passed a sweeping proposal adding abortion rights to the state constitution.




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Jewish restaurant in D.C. vandalized on Kristallnacht anniversary raises antisemitic suspicions

Someone smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant in the District over the weekend in what the owner is calling an antisemitic attack, noting the vandalism occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.




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Religious Right-Christian Politics

Religious Right-Christian Politics offers a Biblical perspective on conservative political activism by followers of Jesus. A look at abortion, homosexuality and other political issues in light of our evangelical mission. How does what we're doing advance His kingdom?




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Envoy insists Taiwan has right to U.N. membership, counters China's claim from 1971 resolution

Taiwan's top diplomat in the United States tells The Washington Times in an exclusive interview that China's communist government is intensifying its campaign to pressure countries not to recognize the legitimacy of the island democracy and to block it from participating in the United Nations and other key international organizations.




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Sainz wins Mexico City Grand Prix as Norris tightens championship fight

Carlos Sainz Jr. won the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday and Lando Norris closed the gap in the Formula 1 championship race after another contentious battle with Max Verstappen.




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There's light on the horizon for American energy and our allies in Europe

President-elect Donald Trump's resounding victory may spell doom for the anti-freedom, anti-prosperity international movement that is the push for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.




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America voted for common sense, but fight for life continues

Last week, a majority of Americans voted for common sense. It was a repudiation of the outrageous - a call for the restoration of policies that serve families not the special interests of politicians.




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Flights between U.S., Haiti suspended amid gunfire striking passenger jets

Violence in Haiti led to the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport after gunfire struck a Spirit Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, trying to land Monday.




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Russia launches first missile attack on Kyiv in months as North Korean troops fight Ukraine in Kursk

Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with a sophisticated combination of missiles and drones for the first time in 73 days on Wednesday, authorities reported, as the Pentagon said most of the North Korean troops sent to help Moscow's war effort are fighting to drive Ukraine's army off Russian soil in the Kursk border region.




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Biden is sending aid to help Ukraine keep fighting next year, Blinken says

The Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off Russia's full-scale invasion next year, sending it as much aid as possible so that it might hold Russian forces at bay and possess a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.




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Setting abortion records straight for Trump and Harris

Perhaps no issue has motivated more Democratic voters than abortion access.




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Trump, Harris disagree on school choice as a civil rights issue

About half of Americans believe the public education system is headed in the wrong direction.




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No time to mope: Commanders prepare for Thursday night matchup with division-rival Eagles

The Washington Commanders woke up in second place in the NFC East on Monday morning. Sunday's loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Commanders' third of the season, allowed the rival Philadelphia Eagles to slip into the top spot in the division.




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Ohtani, Dodgers celebrate World Series victory with parade and stadium celebration

The Los Angeles Dodgers, including Shohei Ohtani and his dog, celebrated their eighth World Series championship with a downtown parade on Friday.




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LA Dodgers fan severely injures hands while lighting firework to celebrate World Series win

A Los Angeles Dodgers fan severely injured his hands after he lit a firework while celebrating the team's World Series victory over the New York Yankees.




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World Series averaged a record 12.9 million viewers in Japan with Ohtani and Yamamoto playing

With Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto making their first appearance, the World Series averaged 12.9 million viewers in Japan, making it the most-watched Fall Classic in the nation's history.




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Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani has surgery to repair labrum tear in shoulder after World Series injury

Shohei Ohtani had arthroscopic surgery on Tuesday to repair a labrum tear in his left shoulder, following an injury the Los Angeles Dodgers star suffered during Game 2 of the World Series on Oct. 26.




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Ohtani, Lindor and Marte are NL MVP finalists; Judge, Witt and Soto contend for AL honor

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is a finalist for his first National League MVP award after winning the AL honor twice, joined among the top three in NL voting by New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor and Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte.




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Max to fight password sharing

Streaming service Max will try harder to keep customers from sharing their passwords and hinted that price increases could follow.




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Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon expected to miss multiple weeks with right calf strain

Denver Nuggets power forward Aaron Gordon is expected to miss multiple weeks with a strained right calf, two people familiar with the injury told The Associated Press.




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Flight turns around as Auburn basketball players fight midair

The Auburn men's basketball team plane had to return to Auburn University Regional Airport Friday after two players scuffled midflight.




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Terrapins roll to third-straight 30-point victory in romp over Florida A&M

Behind Julian Reese's 21 points and 9 rebounds, Maryland won its 11th-straight non conference home game Monday night, surviving a rock fight of a first half before taking control and rolling over Florida A&M 84-53.




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NASA astronauts won't say which one of them got sick after almost eight months in space

Three NASA astronauts whose prolonged space station mission ended with a trip to the hospital last month declined to say Friday which one of them was sick.




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Sebastian Coe says his run to be IOC president might not be such a longshot after all

He's been tough on Russia, led the charge to put prize money in the pockets of athletes and pushed for a definitive but much-derided resolution in the longstanding debate over transgender athletes.




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Article Alert: Scientific names of organisms: attribution, rights, and licensing

Background: As biological disciplines extend into the ‘big data’ world, they will need a names-based infrastructure toindex and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. Those who compile lists of species hold different views as to the intellectual property rights that apply to the lists. This creates uncertainty that impedes the development of a much-needed infrastructure for sharing biological data in the digital world.
 
Findings: The laws in the United States of America and European Union are consistent with the position that scientific names of organisms and their compilation in checklists, classifications or taxonomic revisions are not subject to copyright. Compilations of names, such as classifications or checklists, are not creative in the sense of copyright law. Many content providers desire credit for their efforts.
 
Conclusions: A ‘blue list’ identifies elements of checklists, classifications and monographs to which intellectual property rights do not apply. To promote sharing, authors of taxonomic content, compilers, intermediaries, and aggregators should receive citable recognition for their contributions, with the greatest recognition being given to the originating authors. Mechanisms for achieving this are discussed.
 
Original Source:  Patterson et al. Scientific names of organisms: attribution, rights, and licensing, BMC Research Notes 2014, 7:79. doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-12-S15-S1 

Full article available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-12-S15-S1 

 





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2nd EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable: Citizen Science in the Spotlight

The second EU BON Roundtable took place on 27 November 2014 at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The workshop was dedicated to explore ways in which EU BON can support citizen science (CS) activities. EU BON is building a large integrated biodiversity information infrastructure in order to serve science, policy and administration as well as citizen scientists. Citizen scientists are important stakeholders, as they support the increase of knowledge in various aspects, they may debate research questions, most often they collect data, and they may interpret data and publish their results.

Many partners and interested stakeholders participated, coming from different European research institutions, Natural History Museums, SMEs or representatives from European Institutions like European Commission DG Research & Innovation, the European Environmental Agency or the JRC and EU-funded Citizen Science projects.

Participants at the 2nd EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable

The Citizen Science Roundtable started with a "Setting the scene" session where a welcome address was given by Katrin Vohland from the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN). In a brief introduction from a biodiversity data perspective, some gaps in current bio-diversity data were shown, for example the large data gaps in Eastern European data in plant datasets and the restricted access to many datasets. Christoph Häuser from the MfN outlined EU BON and its main activities in the field of Citizen Science.

As a representative from DG Research and Innovation from the European Commission, Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias showed the possibilities of Citizen Science as one option to improve the science-society bridge. Lucy Robinson (ECSA/NHM London) focused on citizen science in Europe, its impact and development. 

The next session targeted the question of how EU BON can possibly support data mobilization of and for citizen scientists. Antonio García Camacho from CSIC Donana showed, with a colleague from IBM, the prototype of the future EU BON data portal, to integrate biodiversity data/metadata sources into a single user interface. In another talk, Jaume Piera pointed out the requirements that exist in a CS portal, e.g. with regards to the role of citizen collaboration, the social media channels, and particularly the conceptual requirements. Important aspects here are for example that data access tracking has to be guaranteed, for giving credits to data producers and for keeping track of data use. Simao Belchior of the SME Simbiotica showed successful ways of visualizing georeferenced data, e.g. the mapping of pan-tropical forest clearing.

The next session called "A spotlight on some (meta)data provider" was started by Veljo Runnel who presented an assessment of Citizen Science involvement in biological research. Nils Valland described in his talk key success factors for citizen science and species occurrence data in Europe. Dirk Schmeller informed the audience about Volunteer Species Monitoring in Europe. He pointed out the need that governments should invest more to support and expand current monitoring initiatives. For example the EuMon project had documented 395 monitoring schemes for species, which represents a total annual cost of about €4 million, involving more than 46,000 persons devoting over 148,000 person-days/year to biodiversity monitoring activities.

In the "Synergies of European Citizen Science projects" session, presentations outlined of the main aims of several EU funded Citizen science projects (Citclops, COBWEB, Socientize). Pierre-Philippe Mathieu from the European Space Agency highlighted the new era for Earth Observation and links to Citizen Science projects. Siro Masinde from showed the Citizen Science activities of GBIF, which is one of the largest data providers of species occurrence records.

For more detailed information on the issues discussed, please see below the presentations from the meeting or contact us:

Dr. Katrin Vohland ( katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de)  

Dr. Florian Wetzel (florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de)

 

PRESENTATIONS

1.Rubio-Iglesias - Citizen Science as science-society bridge

2. Häuser - EU BON

3. Robinson - Citizen science in Europe

4. Camacho - EU BON biodiversity portal

5. Piera - Requirements for the EU BON biodiversity

6. Belchior - Fall of data portals and future of data workflows

7. Runnel - Assessing Citizen Schience involvement

8.  Arvanitidis - Crowdsourcing initiatives in the Mediterranean Basin

9.  Valland - Key success factors of citizen science

10. Schmeller - Volunteer Species Monitoring

11. Mathieu - Crowd Sourcing for Space Science

12. Sanz – Socientize

13. Ceccaroni – Citclops

14. Williams – COBWEB

15. Masinde - GBIF, plans for integrating Citizen Science data

Meeting agenda

 

Selection of pictures from the meeting:

       

      





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Northern lights and solar eclipse celebrate new data standards for biodiversity observation

EU BON and CETAF informatics groups had an astronomically successful meeting at Digitarium in Joensuu, Finland, 17-20 March 2015. The event coincided with solar eclipse and show of the decade for northern lights.

Major progress in data standards for information exchange took place during the week when the Biodiversity Information Standards TDWG organisation announced ratification of five new terms for quantitative biodiversity data, which had been proposed by the EU BON project one year earlier. The new terms include, in particular, organismQuantity and sampleSizeValue. This allows for exchange of ecological data in much wider scale than what has been possible until now. The participants of the meeting applauded for this occasion.

Northern lights over Joensuu Science Park 2015-03-18. Photo: Riitta Tegelberg

The meeting included a training workshop on new data sharing tools, and working sessions for designing the EU BON portal, which will allow using biodiversity observation data in research.

The 40 attendees came from 18 different countries.

Participants at the meeting.

During the meeting the attendees also were given presentations and demonstrations of Digitarium's equipment and methods for high-performance digitisation.

 





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Green Week: stakeholders put nature in the spotlight

Stakeholders from across Europe are coming together at Green Week to discuss biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) will present its latest findings, recently published in its reports 'State of nature in the EU' and 'The European Environment – state and outlook 2015'. 

The European Environment Agency's recent assessments, including The European environment – state and outlook 2015 and State of Nature in the EU, show that Europe's biodiversity is still being eroded, despite significant local improvements. To halt the loss of biodiversity, stabilise and restore degraded ecosystems, the European Union has adopted the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, which sets various targets and actions. An effective implementation of the strategy depends, among others, on the data and information available on biodiversity in Europe. Through its extensive network and close collaboration with partners, the EEA contributes extensively to the knowledge base on Europe's biodiversity.

Read the full original news story on the EEA website.





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Citizen science might be voluntary but results are not always open: Recommendations to improve data openness

Being voluntary, citizen science work is often automatically assumed to also be openly available. Contrary to the expectations, however, a recent study of the datasets available from volunteers on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) prove to be among the most restrictive in how they can be used.

There is a high demand for biodiversity observation data to inform conservation and environmental policy, and citizen scientists generate the vast majority of terrestrial biodiversity observations. The analysis on GBIF showed that citizen science datasets comprise 10% of datasets on GBIF, but actually account for the impressive 60% of all observations.

Invaluable as a resource for conservationists and biodiversity scientists, however, these resources unfortunately often come with restrictions for re-use. Although the vast majority of citizen science datasets did not include a license statement, as a whole, they ranked low on the openness of their data.

The assumption that voluntary data collection leads to data sharing is not only not reflecting the real situation, but also does not recognize the wishes and motivations of those who collect data, nor does it respects the crucial contributions of these data to long-term monitoring of biodiversity trends.

In a recent commentary paper, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, EU BON partners suggest ways to improve data openness. According to the researchers citizen scientists should be recognised in ways that correspond with their motivations, in addition its is advisable that organisations that manage these data should make their data sharing policies open and explicit.

Original Research:

Groom, Q., Weatherdon, L. & Geijzendorffer, I. (2016) Is citizen science an open science in the case of biodiversity observations? Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12767





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Jack’s Abby acquires Night Shift Brewing, making it the largest craft brewer in Mass.

“This expansion is not just about growth; it’s about building a stronger foundation for our teams and brands to thrive.”

The post Jack’s Abby acquires Night Shift Brewing, making it the largest craft brewer in Mass. appeared first on Boston.com.






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Abortion rights advocates win in 7 states and clear way to overturn Missouri ban but lose in 3

Until Tuesday, abortion rights advocates had prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared on statewide ballots since the fall of Roe.

The post Abortion rights advocates win in 7 states and clear way to overturn Missouri ban but lose in 3 appeared first on Boston.com.