CANNES (Reuters) - An ultra-violent thriller set in the Bangkok underworld of brothels and fight clubs came under attack at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday for its bloodletting which Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn defended as art.
"Only God Forgives" by Refn, who won the best director award at Cannes two years ago, is the story of Julian, an American fugitive played by Canadian Ryan Gosling, who runs a boxing club in the Thai capital as a front for a drug business.
After his brother is murdered for killing a prostitute, his gangster mother played by a chain-smoking, peroxide blonde Kristin Scott Thomas arrives demanding the heads of his killers, including a mysterious policeman handy with a sword.
As the family seeks revenge, the God-like policeman decides their fate, with blood splattered throughout the film that is sparse on dialogue but heavy on imagery with many scenes set in claustrophobic corridors darkly lit in blood red.
In one scene a hitman is pinned to a chair with four skewers while his eyes are gauged out and in another a sword splits open a gunman's chest, blood gushing and ribs exposed.
The film sharply divided critics at Cannes. Some people walked out of a press screening and others booed at the end, while some critics described it as "aesthetically brilliant".
Refn, whose film "Drive" also starring Gosling received a standing ovation at Cannes in 2011 and won him the best director award, defended the violence in his film that is one of 20 competing for the main prize at the world's top cinema showcase.
"Art is an act of violence. Art is about penetration ... I approach things very much like a pornographer and it is about what arouses me," Refn told a news conference, without Gosling who was in Detroit working on his directorial debut.
"I don't consider myself a very violent man ... but I have a fetish for violent emotions, violent images and I can't explain where it comes from but I believe through art, it is way to exorcise certain things in you."
COMPETITION HEATS UP
Scott Thomas, 52, who made her name playing aristocratic British women in films such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "The English Patient", plays against type as the evil mother who struts through the movie in leopard print dresses and stilettos.
She said taking a role in "a hyper-violent, quite disturbing" movie was new for her, as was using the most vulgar language they could conjure up.
"This kind of film is really not my thing," she said, adding that the appeal of the film was working with 42-year-old Refn.
The film sharply divided critics.
Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian gave it a top five-star rating, but acknowledged it would have some people running for the exits due to its violence.
"But Winding Refn's bizarre infernal creation, an entire created world of fear, really is gripping. Every scene, every frame, is executed with pure formal brilliance," he wrote.
Sasha Stone from Awards Daily regretted spending 90 minutes watching the film, saying it did "not exist for any reason except to get people off on the artistry of killing".
Another film in the main competition at Cannes dealing with revenge also held its premiere on Wednesday, "Grigris", the fifth film from Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun who won the 2010 Cannes jury prize for "A Screaming Man".
It is the story of a partly crippled, dance-loving social outcast known as Grigris, who gets involved with a gasoline smuggling racket to raise money for his sick stepfather.
Grigris and his friend, mixed race prostitute Mimi, are forced to go on the run when he sells some gasoline and keeps the money and his boss sends henchman to kill him.
Critics described the film as geographically vivid but with characters that felt under-developed.
So far, 14 of 20 films competing for the Palme d'Or award that is presented on Sunday have been rated by critics.
An aggregate of critics' reviews, compiled by trade magazine Screen, put the Coen brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis" at the top of the table followed by China's "Tian Zhu Ding" (A Touch of Sin), Iran's "Le Passe" (The Past) and Italy's "La Grande Bellezza" (The Great Beauty).
Over the past few years, juicing has morphed from an exclusive trend in the healthy living community into a national obsession. These days, everyone's talking about cleansing (especially as beach season approaches), home juicer sales are skyrocketing, and stand-alone juiceries are spreading across the country like wildfire.
But if you thought you knew juice?you've been drinking it since before you could walk, after all?think again. Talk to any juicing devotee or check out any juice brand's website, and you'll come across terms like pasteurization, cold-pressing, and live enzymes. It can all get a little confusing, so we turned to Keri Glassman, R.D., a Konsyl spokesperson, to set us straight on the lingo, myths, and facts about juicing.
SHAPE: What's the difference between pasteurized and cold-pressed juices? Keri Glassmann (KG): There's a major distinction between pasteurized juice?like the OJ you'd find at the grocery store?and cold-pressed juice from your local juice bar or shipped fresh to your door.
When juice is pasteurized, it's heated at a very high temperature, which protects it against bacteria and prolongs shelf life. However this heating process also destroys live enzymes, minerals, and other beneficial nutrients.
Cold pressing, on the other hand, extracts juice by first crushing the fruits and vegetables, and then pressing them to squeeze out the highest juice yield, all without using heat. This produces a drink that's thicker and has about three to five times more nutrients than normal juice. The downside is that cold-pressed juices typically last for up to three days when refrigerated?if not, they develop harmful bacteria?so it's crucial to buy them fresh and drink them quickly.
RELATED: We shook and sipped to find the best-tasting green juices, whether you're a newbie or hardcore drinker.
SHAPE: What are the benefits of green juice? KG: Green juices are a great way to get in your recommended servings of fresh produce, especially if you have a hard time fitting in loads of broccoli, kale, collards, or cucumbers in your everyday diet. Most green juices pack two servings of fruits and veggies into each bottle, so they're a healthy way to sneak in nutrients if you've been slacking on salads lately. But keep in mind that juicing does strip produce of dietary fiber, which is found in the pulp and skin of produce and aids in digestion, regulates blood sugar levels, and keeps you feeling full longer. So whole foods are still the optimal way to ensure you're getting plenty of fiber in your diet.
SHAPE: What should I look for on the label of cold-pressed juice? KG: As a general rule, stick to green juices made mostly with leafy greens, which are much lower in sugar than fruit-based options. Take a good look at the nutrition stats: Some bottles are considered two servings, so keep that in mind when checking calories and sugar content. Also think about the purpose of your juice?is it part of a meal or just a snack? If I'm having a green juice for a snack, I like to enjoy half a bottle with a handful of nuts for some added fiber and protein.
RELATED: Bad skin? Always tired? Stressed? Find the best juice for what's bugging you.
SHAPE: What's the deal with juice cleanses? KG: A multiple-day, juice-only detox diet doesn't seem necessary for our bodies, which naturally detox through the liver, kidney, and GI tract. There's no scientific evidence to suggest that our bodies need help getting rid of waste products, and I wouldn't recommend a cleanse in place of a normal diet.
Anxious to try a cold-pressed green juice today? Visit Pressed Juice Directory, a comprehensive listing of over 700 locations across the country that sell organic pressed juices. The site, founded and curated by Max Goldberg, one of the nation's leading organic food experts, lets you search by city or state so you can find the freshest juices available in your area.
Tell us below or on Twitter @Shape_Magazine: Are you a fan of green juices? Do you buy yours from a store or make it at home?
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BEIRUT (AP) ? Despite recent rebel setbacks in Syria's civil war, the main opposition bloc signaled a tough line Tuesday on attending possible peace talks with President Bashar Assad's regime.
Two senior members of the Syrian National Coalition said the group first wants ironclad guarantees of Assad's departure as part of any transition deal and more weapons for rebel fighters. The group's final position is to be hashed out in a three-day meeting of its General Assembly in Istanbul, Turkey, later this week.
Tuesday's comments highlighted the wide gaps between many in the Syrian opposition and the regime just weeks before the U.S. and Russia hope to bring the sides together at an international conference in Geneva.
Over the weekend, Assad also presented a hard line, challenging the idea of transition talks and saying he won't step down before elections are held. Hours after those comments, his troops launched an offensive against a rebel-held town in western Syria, the latest in a series of military gains by the regime.
"There are many obstacles facing the conference," Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria and lead organizer of the gathering, acknowledged Tuesday, after meeting with the Arab League chief in Cairo.
Much about the conference remains up in the air, including the date, the agenda, timetable and list of participants. Brahimi said the conference, initially envisioned for late May, should be held in June at the latest.
The goal is to launch talks between the regime and the opposition on a transitional government in Syria ? an idea that was first adopted by the international community in Geneva a year ago but never got off the ground.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Russia decided to give diplomacy another try, even though they have been backing opposite sides in the 26-month-old conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people. The joint effort was quickly overshadowed by disagreements, particularly over Russian shipments of advanced missiles to Assad, deemed ill-timed and unhelpful by the U.S.
The latest signals from Assad and his Russian allies have left the Syrian National Coalition skeptical about the international conference, said Louay Safi, a member of the group's decision-making political office.
"We are serious about having negotiations that would lead to a political solution," Safi said. "But if Assad is not serious, we are not going there (to the conference) for a photo op."
One of the main sticking points is Assad's fate. At Russia's insistence, a compromise at last year's Geneva conference left open the door to Assad being part of a transitional government ? a non-starter for the SNC.
"We have been very clear that any transitional period must start with the departure of Assad and the heads of the security services," Khalid Saleh, the spokesman of the SNC, said Tuesday.
He said the Syrian opposition wants guarantees before the start of transition talks that Assad will go. Since the revival of the Geneva plan, the U.S. has remained vague, saying Assad can't be part of a transition, but stopping short of making that a condition for negotiations, as the SNC demands.
Saleh also said the Free Syrian Army, the main Western-backed umbrella group of fighters, must receive "major shipments of weapons" to counter the regime's current military gains. "The FSA must be able to control more areas of Syria before we start thinking about the conference," he said.
The West, particularly the U.S., has been reluctant to arm the rebels, amid concerns such weapons will fall into the hands of Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida network.
Britain and France have been breaking out of that consensus in recent weeks, arguing that Assad will only negotiate seriously if the rebels can pressure him militarily.
Arming the rebels should be considered if it becomes clear that Assad is not negotiating in good faith, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday. "We must make it clear that if the regime does not negotiate seriously at the Geneva conference, no option is off the table," he said.
Another sticking point is the list of participants.
The SNC's Safi said the coalition won't attend if many other opposition representatives do as well. The opposition remains fractured among rival groups, though the coalition has been recognized by its Western and Arab sponsors as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
Haitham Manna, a leader of one of the rival groups, the National Coordination Body, said the coalition should not attend peace talks alone. Unlike the still largely exile-based SNC, Manna's alliance of 16 groups has roots in Syria and is more open to compromise with members of the regime, though not with Assad.
"The military way is a dead end, there can be no winners," Manna said. "And if there is a winner, he will leave behind enough hatred to turn every loser into a suicide bomber."
A senior U.S. official said Tuesday that no opposition group has definitely decided to take part. He noted that as part of the SNC's meeting in Istanbul this week, the group will also choose a new leader, and that the U.S. hopes to persuade the new leadership to attend the conference.
The U.S. official spoke with reporters traveling with Kerry in Muscat, Oman, He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about Syria diplomacy ahead of Kerry's trip.
The U.S., Russia and several other nations will also participate in the conference, if it takes place. Obama administration officials have refused to rule out the participation of Assad's biggest military backer, Iran.
Kerry, meanwhile, will meet with 10 of America's closest Arab and European allies in Jordan on Wednesday.
One of the aims of the meeting is to find a way to change Assad's calculation, only fortified by his recent military successes, that he can win militarily, the U.S. official said.
He declined to say what the U.S. might include in its next package of nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels, which still has to be notified to Congress. He also didn't signal any imminent move by the Obama administration to provide lethal support.
In Syria, regime troops were trying for a third day Tuesday to wrest control of the western town of Qusair from the rebels. The town lies along a strategic land corridor linking the capital Damascus with the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect.
UNICEF said it was "extremely concerned" about the safety of civilians in Qusair. The U.N. child protection agency said up to 20,000 civilians, many of them women and children, could be trapped there by the fighting.
Also Tuesday, Israeli and Syrian troops exchanged fire across their tense cease-fire line in the Golan Heights, prompting an Israeli threat that Syria's leader will "bear the consequences" of further escalation and raising new concerns that the civil war could explode into a region-wide conflict.
The incident marked the first time the Syrian army has acknowledged firing intentionally at Israeli troops since the civil war began. Assad's regime appears to be trying to project toughness in response to recent Israeli airstrikes near Damascus.
In Geneva, U.N. officials said the number of Syrian refugees arriving in Jordan has suddenly fallen from an average of 2,500 a day to fewer than 20.
Millions of people have been displaced in the civil war, and Jordan has taken in hundreds of thousands of them. U.N. officials said they are unsure what has led to the drop in the flow of refugees to Jordan this week. They said they lack staff on the Syrian side of the border and cannot observe the situation there.
___
Klapper reported from Muscat, Oman. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut, Aya Batrawy in Cairo, John Heilprin in Geneva and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
Question by harlowtoo: Crockpot Cocktail Weiners Recipe? Does anyone know a good recipe for cocktail weiners (not little smokies) made in a crockpot? Do NOT want the ones using jelly of any kind, or bottled barbeque sauce. I used to have a good recipe for this, but cannot locate it now.
Best answer:
Answer by MAX G you are the gourmet Russ.
Give your answer to this question below!
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Adam Scott of Australia putts on the 15th green during the first round of The Players championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass, Thursday, May 9, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Adam Scott of Australia putts on the 15th green during the first round of The Players championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass, Thursday, May 9, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Golf's governing bodies approved a rule Tuesday that outlaws the putting stroke used by four of the last six major champions, a move opposed by two major golf organizations that contend long putters are not hurting the game.
The Royal & Ancient Golf Club and U.S. Golf Association said Rule 14-1b will take effect in 2016.
"We recognize this has been a divisive issue, but after thorough consideration, we remain convinced that this is the right decision for golf," R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said.
The new rule does not ban the long putters, only the way they commonly are used. Golfers no longer will be able to anchor the club against their bodies to create the effect of a hinge. Masters champion Adam Scott used a long putter he pressed against his chest. British Open champion Ernie Els and U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson used a belly putter, as did Keegan Bradley in the 2011 PGA Championship.
"We strongly believe that this rule is for the betterment of the game," USGA President Glen Nager said. "Rule 14-1b protects one of the important challenges in the game ? the free swing of the entire club."
The announcement followed six months of contentious debate, and it might not be over.
The next step is for the PGA Tour to follow the new rule or decide to establish its own condition of competition that would allow players to anchor the long putters. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said in February the USGA and R&A would be "making a mistake" to adopt the rule, though he also has stressed the importance of golf playing under one set of rules.
"I think it's really important that the PGA Tour ? and all the professional tours ? continue to follow one set of rules," USGA executive director Mike Davis said. "We have gotten very positive feedback from the tours around the world saying that they like one set of rules, they like the R&A and USGA governing those. So if there was some type of schism, we don't think that would be good for golf.
"And we are doing what we think is right for the long-term benefit of the game for all golfers, and we just can't write them for one group of elite players."
The tour said in a statement it would consult with its Player Advisory Council and policy board to determine "whether various provisions of Rule 14-1b will be implemented in our competitions, and if so, examine the process for implementation."
PGA of America President Ted Bishop, who had some of the sharpest comments over the last few months, also said his group would discuss the new rule ? and confer with the PGA Tour ? before deciding how to proceed.
"We are disappointed with this outcome," Bishop said. "As we have said publicly and repeatedly during the comment period, we do not believe 14-1b is in the best interest of recreational golfers and we are concerned about the negative impact it may have on both the enjoyment and growth of the game."
Some forms of anchoring have been around at least 40 years, and old photographs suggest it has been used even longer. It wasn't until after Bradley became the first major champion to use a belly putter that the USGA and R&A said it would take a new look at the putting style.
"It can never be too late to do the right thing," Nager said.
Those in favor of anchored putting argued that none of the top 20 players in the PGA Tour's most reliable putting statistic used a long putter, and if it was such an advantage, why wasn't everyone using it?
"Intentionally securing one end of the club against the body, and creating a point of physical attachment around which the club is swung, is a substantial departure from that traditional free swing," Nager said. "Anchoring creates potential advantages, such as making the stroke simpler and more repeatable, restricting the movement and rotation of the hands, arms and clubface, creating a fixed pivot point, and creating extra support and stability that may diminish the effects of nerves and pressure."
The governing bodies announced the proposed rule on Nov. 28, even though they had no data to show an advantage. What concerned them more was a spike in usage on the PGA Tour, more junior golfers using the long putters and comments from instructors that it was a better way to putt. There was concern the conventional putter would become obsolete over time.
The purpose of the new rule was simply to define what a putting stroke should be.
"The playing rules are not based on statistical studies," Nager said. "They are based on judgments that define the game and its intended challenge. One of those challenges is to control the entire club, and anchoring alters that challenge."
The topic was so sensitive that the USGA and R&A allowed for a 90-day comment period, an unprecedented move for the groups that set the rules of golf. The USGA said about 2,200 people offered feedback through its website, while the R&A said it had about 450 people from 17 countries go through its website.
Among those who spoke in favor of the ban were Tiger Woods, Brandt Snedeker and Steve Stricker.
"I've always felt that in golf you should have to swing the club, control your nerves and swing all 14 clubs, not just 13," Woods said Monday.
Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson have used the long putter as long as they have been on the PGA Tour. Scott switched to the broom-handle putter only in 2011, and he began contending in majors for the first time ? tied for third in 2011 Masters, runner-up at the 2012 British Open, his first major victory in the Masters last month.
"It was inevitable that big tournaments would be won with this equipment because these are the best players in the world, and they practice thousands of hours," Scott said after winning the Masters. "They are going to get good with whatever they are using."
It was Clark's dignified speech to a players-only meeting ? with Davis from the USGA in the room ? that helped sway the tour's opinion to oppose the ban.
Davis and Dawson said their research indicated the opposition to the new rule was mainly in America. The European Tour and other tours around the world all backed the ban.
Players can still use the putter, but it would have to be held away from the body to allow free swing. Mark Newell, head of the USGA's rules committee, said the rule would be enforced like so many others in golf ? players would have to call the penalty on themselves.
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Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, left, of Finland, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, center, of Spain and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel of Germany celebrate on the podium after the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, March 17, 2013. Raikonen won the race with Alonso second and Vettel third. (Andrew Brownbill / AP)
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JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israel's chief peace negotiator said Tuesday that the current stalemate with the Palestinians is harmful for Israel, days before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in Israel for his latest push to restart long-dormant talks.
Tzipi Livni told a parliamentary committee that resuming negotiations was "first and foremost an Israeli interest."
Direct negotiations have been largely frozen since the two sides were reportedly close to a deal in late 2008. The Palestinians demand a freeze in Jewish West Bank settlement construction before talks resume. Israel insists negotiations should take place without preconditions and that the matter of the settlements should be resolved along with all other issues through peace talks.
Livni said the stalemate delivers a blow both to Israel's legitimacy and its freedom to act militarily if needed. She warned that the Palestinian narrative of the conflict is gaining traction.
Kerry is due in Israel Thursday to try and restart the stalled talks.
Also Tuesday, Israel's military said soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian as he threw a firebomb in the West Bank during a violent protest. The teenager's family says he was not involved.
The military said dozens of Palestinians threw rocks at soldiers near a settlement Tuesday when troops noticed a protester aiming a firebomb at them. Soldiers called on him to stop, then fired warning shots and later fired at his lower extremities when he refused, it said.
The wounded Palestinian's family said Ata Sharaki was playing with a friend next to the fence of the settlement when he was shot. They said he is 13 years old.
PARIS (AP) ? The man charged with reviving France's shrinking economy and attracting businesses to invest there is gaining a reputation for doing the opposite.
As the country's first-ever minister for industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg has told the world's largest steelmaker it is not welcome in France; exchanged angry letters with the head of an American tire company he was supposedly wooing; and scuttled Yahoo's offer to buy the majority of a video-sharing website.
Montebourg, a 50-year-old lawyer from Burgundy, is the public face of President Francois Hollande's plan to revitalize Europe's second-largest economy, which is in recession and grappling with 11 percent unemployment. The plan is to make the French economy more competitive globally ? especially for manufacturers ? by making it easier to fire workers, offering a payroll tax credit and investing in small businesses.
Economists have praised the labor reforms as a step in the right direction. But mostly they say France's economic plan is all wrong: It is too complicated; it favors a top-down approach to innovation; and it ignores some of the most serious problems plaguing France's economy, such as high labor costs.
And then there is Montebourg, whose public spats with international companies and efforts to block layoffs are making France look like an unappealing place to do business.
In fairness to Montebourg, he's not so much the problem as he is the symbol of it, analysts say. Even if Hollande were to replace him ? and that's looking increasingly likely ? it's unclear whether the substance of the industrial renewal strategy would change.
The sheer size of France's economy has cushioned it somewhat from the worst of Europe's debt crisis, which has brought depression-level unemployment to countries like Spain and Greece. It is home to many huge industrial companies, like EADS, parent company to plane-maker Airbus; Total, the world's fifth-largest investor-owned oil company; and Sanofi, the world's fourth-largest pharmaceutical company. France is also a cradle for design, high fashion and fine wine, embodied by world leaders like LVMH and L'Oreal.
But make no mistake, analysts warn: The French economy, which had no growth in 2012 and shrank at an annualized rate of 0.8 percent in the first three months of 2013, is in slow-motion free fall.
Profit margins at French companies are the lowest they have been in 30 years. In the past decade, one in six industrial jobs has been lost. And economists forecast unemployment will rise to 11.6 percent next year.
Hollande says the decline in French manufacturing ? from 16 percent of gross domestic product in 1999 to 10.7 percent a decade later ? is at the heart of his country's stagnation. Many European economies have seen a similar trend, but France's slide has been more pronounced than most. Reverse the decline, Hollande believes, and you reverse the stagnation.
"The goal of reindustrialization is a perfectly legitimate goal. The only question to ask for France is ... whether it's too late," says Elie Cohen, an economist at Sciences Po university in Paris. "It's probably too late."
Serge Lelard, who started a plastics company called Microplast in 1984, feels the same way. Montebourg, who buzzes around France touring businesses on a near-weekly basis, recently visited Microplast's factory outside Paris. He held it up as an example of the kind of small manufacturing businesses that France needs to keep and attract.
But Lelard is dismissive of the government's reindustrialization plan. He says there is too much talk and not enough action that addresses the competitive disadvantages French companies face in the global marketplace.
Microplast, which sells plastic bits that connect the wires in cars, has struggled along with the French auto industry. Lelard is pessimistic about the company's chances of survival.
France's economic challenges are rooted in government policies that protect workers at the expense of their employers. It has the highest payroll taxes in the European Union to fund generous health and retirement benefits. It has the highest tax on capital, which discourages investment. It aggressively fights companies that try to outsource jobs. And it makes firing an employee expensive and difficult.
These problems have existed for decades, but a growing global economy and France's control over its own currency and spending policies masked them. Slowly, however, those masks have been removed.
First, the euro was introduced at the turn of the millennium. Europe's strongest economies, like Germany, gained a competitive advantage: The value of the euro, held down by the weaker nations that used it, made German exports more affordable overseas. By contrast, countries like France suffered because the euro was valued more highly than their own currency, making French exports more expensive for buyers outside the eurozone.
Then the global recession dried up demand for French products at home and around the world. Finally, Europe's debt crisis prompted the government to cut spending and raise some taxes to reduce its budget deficit.
With these crutches pulled away, France's industry was pushed to its breaking point.
But Hollande, a Socialist, came to power last year by promising more of the same: He vowed to spark growth without cutting generous benefits.
There are three main planks to Hollande's reindustrialization plan: up to a 6 percent rebate for companies on some payroll taxes, labor reforms that make it easier to fire employees or cut their salaries during hard times, and a public investment bank with 42 billion euros ($55 billion) to invest in small businesses.
But new programs are announced frequently. Millions in grants and other incentives have been promised for everything from spurring the construction of electric cars to bringing robots to factory floors.
"That's exactly what you should not do. They're ... complicating instead of simplifying," says Anders Aslund, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Aslund says the government should avoid giving grants for specific industries and instead help all industries ? with permanent tax breaks, for example.
Last year, Montebourg unveiled a plan to give several hundred million euros in grants and tax credits to car companies and subcontractors in an effort to encourage the development of electric cars and batteries.
But economists say the French government should not try to invent successful sectors. Never mind that France is an unlikely place to incubate an auto revolution. Its car industry can't compete with global rivals like Volkswagen and Hyundai that have lower labor costs and stronger cultures of innovation. For example, French research institutions lack the strong links to industry that allow entrepreneurs in other countries to quickly convert lab discoveries into products.
The flip side of France's efforts to create booming new industries is its aversion to letting struggling ones die out.
"A saved job is always a victory," Montebourg, who is on the far left of the Socialist party, said at a recent lunch with journalists. He declined to be interviewed for this story.
But that's not how many economists see it. Part of Germany's success is its willingness to let some lower-level manufacturing jobs move to other countries, says Christian Ketels, a researcher at Harvard Business School. That allows German companies to stay competitive and keep high-skilled, higher-paid jobs at home.
"To my knowledge, France is really the only country in Europe that is upset about outsourcing," says Aslund.
One of the most glaring examples of this no-job-left-behind policy has been France's campaign to block steelmaker ArcelorMittal from shuttering the two blast furnaces its plant in Lorraine, in eastern France ? in spite of the fact that local mines are used up, it's far from ports and its furnaces are out of date.
That plant is "a perfect example of what you should close down," says Aslund.
Instead, Montebourg took up the cause, threatening to nationalize the plant and declaring that the company wasn't welcome in France. It's unclear how much of this rhetoric was in line with government policy ? the suggestions of nationalization were quickly struck down by the prime minister ? but the affair deeply bruised France's reputation as a serious place for business. In the end, the company will shutter the furnaces but other operations at the plant will continue.
Montebourg also tried to save a Goodyear plant in northern France by asking American tire manufacturer Titan if it was willing to invest. The answer from Titan's CEO mocked France's work practices in an embarrassing public letter ? and Montebourg took the bait, shooting back an equally chest-thumping missive.
There looks to be little hope of saving the Goodyear plant, but litigation could drag on for months if not years.
Just this month, Montebourg vetoed Yahoo's attempt to take a 75 percent stake in video-sharing website, Dailymotion. Citing concerns about Yahoo's health as a company, Montebourg said the government, which owns a stake in Dailymotion's owner, France Telecom, would only approve a 50-50 deal. Yahoo walked away.
Business owners say that the government remains more of a hindrance than a help. There are too many regulations and too much paperwork even for mundane tasks.
But the fundamental problem French manufacturers face is simple: Workers get paid too much to make products that cost too little.
The French government argues that its hourly labor costs are not much higher than Germany's ? 34.20 euros per hour on average in 2012 versus 30.40 euros per hour, according to Eurostat. But France's range of products ? with some notable exceptions, like Chanel handbags or Moet & Chandon champagne ? is generally of a lower quality than Germany's.
In other words, if it costs the same to make a Peugeot as it does a BMW, guess which company is going to have more left over to reinvest in innovation? And investing in innovation is how you make a Peugeot more like a BMW.
And it's not even that France pays top dollar to attract the best workers. Its wages are above average, though not spectacularly so. But its payroll taxes are the highest in Europe.
The government's new "competitiveness tax credit," which will eventually give companies up to 6 percent back on some workers' salaries, is a step toward lessening this burden for a time. Early surveys, however, show few companies are taking advantage of it, according to study by consultancy Lowendalmasai.
How come? The paperwork is too complex.
___
Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://twitter.com/sdilorenzo.
Federal regulations on fracking barely apply because the states involved already have a say in the way drilling proceeds, Graeber writes. Perhaps, he adds, it's the energy industry that has a right to question why the government 'is moving forward with these requirements in the first place.'
By Daniel J. Graeber,?Guest blogger / May 20, 2013
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell talks to reporters after touring the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County, Fla. Jewell's proposed fracking regulations showcase her dual legacy by trying to win support of the energy industry and environmentalists alike, Graeber writes.
Alan Diaz/AP/File
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The U.S. Energy Department last week said it gave conditional authority for a facility in Texas to eventually export liquefied natural gas. New drilling technologies mean the United States could become a natural gas export leader, though opponents of LNG say that's likely to lead to more hydraulic fracturing.? Last week, the government published more than 100 pages of documents that spell out what it sees as the way forward for hydraulic fracturing. The Interior Department said it took a "common sense" approach to the debate, though both sides of the argument have expressed concern.
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So far only one company in the United States, Cheniere Energy, has the licenses necessary to ship natural gas to the global market.? The terminal at Sabine Pass was built originally for imports, but with the shale natural gas boom, that?situation?turned around a few years ago. The U.S. Energy Department now?said?it gave its preliminary approval for the export of LNG from a terminal at Quintana Island, Texas.? Combined, the two facilities would be able to export about 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, marking the U.S. debut in a global natural gas market dominated by the likes of Russia and Qatar.?(Related article:?Study Finds no Trace of Fracking Fluid in Arkansas Drinking Water)
Critics of LNG exports from the United States worry it will lead to more hydraulic fracturing, a controversial practice at the heart of the U.S. energy debate. Concerns over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, range from groundwater contamination by trace amounts of carcinogens to earthquakes. The U.S. Interior Department last week announced a "common sense" approach to fracking regulations on federal lands.? The new plans, all 171 pages of?them, give drillers the ability to use the industry-backed?FracFocus?to disclose what types of chemicals they use in the fracking process. That frustrated green groups who worried the government wasn't serious enough about the risks associated with the controversial procedure.?
Posted On: May 21, 2013 Posted In: C.E. Alexander, Lucille Redmond Comments: No Responses
In March 2012, at the urging of friends, award-winning writer and journalist Lucille Redmond published her first collection of short fiction. Titled Love (stories of love, Ireland, sex, sea, snow and money), the book?anthologizes previously-published material and three new works.
Love is a stunning debut, a humbling display of wit and weight, of process and voice.? ?The Sanctuary Keeper? strips a male friendship down to its events and filters them ruthlessly.? The best musical?comparison here is Brian Eno, no question, until the needle rips across the vinyl with a sudden crash into the fourth wall: ?Nothing further occurs.? At the opposite end of her?collection Redmond places??Wolf and Water,? which nods in more directions than she lets on. (Kant?? Nietzsche? Yeats? Keep reading.) If anything the book cover downplays the violence of the title story, although the brutal core of ?Elsewhen? is encased in startling tenderness.
Redmond is the granddaughter of Irish nationalist Thomas MacDonagh and the aunt of Clichy-based composer Laurent Redmond. Find her Twitter feed @Redmond_Lucille, her blog at Heatseekers, and her Amazon purchase page at LoveLucilleRedmondUS. We corresponded by email in early May, on the subjects of reading, teaching and the unraveling of an empire:
You?ve taught in prison, but as far as I can tell there is no word on who the inmates were or what subject. Do you care to elucidate?
In Ireland, the prison services run excellent courses for long-term prisoners, offering all kinds of skills training and personal development. Some of the courses offered are artistic training, and I used to teach ?creative writing? ? which is to say a basic course in fiction, prose and poetry ? along with other writers: Brendan Kennelly, Kate Cruise O?Brien and I generally worked in tandem.
The scheme was started by the Irish Writers? Co-Operative, which persuaded the Arts Council to come on board, and then the prison service took it up and formalised it. The Co-Op also started the Writers in Schools service, under which schools can get a small grant from the Arts Council to pay writers to go and talk to schoolkids and run workshops with them ? very useful for teachers, who can demonstrate (usually) that not all writers are dead, and often handy for those secret writers who discover that what they do isn?t so weird after all.
No comment on the types of prisons, or the prisoners you taught? Can we assume they weren?t all convicted of tax evasion or insider trading?
The Writers in Prisons scheme is part of the Irish prisons? training schemes, so you can be working with various different types of prisoners. My first group was towards the very beginning of the scheme, and while I obviously wouldn?t be rude enough to ask them what had brought them to this place, they were really helpful when I asked what kind of burglar alarm to get. (?A small, yappy dog? was the answer ? ?you just go and find somewhere easier, all other things being equal.?) Very funny, witty guys, at that age at the edge between the twenties and thirties when most people get sense and straighten out their lives ? usually because they meet someone who?s more important to them than whatever adventures they?d committed to when they were younger.
Later I did a brief stint in the women?s prison, though it was harder to teach there because most women prisoners are in jail for short sentences for things like prostitution and shoplifting, and they won?t be in a writing group long enough to get deeply into it. And their attention tends to be elsewhere, anyway ? they?re worried crazy about their children, and being in jail is causing trouble in their lives in all kinds of ways that civilians can?t imagine.
And I did a few sessions in a young offenders? centre, working with the poet Brendan Kennelly. Rather than get the lads to sit down and write, Brendan liked to get them telling stories and making poems in speech and action ? he?d give them a setup and have them work out a scenario, acting it as they went.
All of the prisoners we taught seemed to value the work a lot, and wrote deeply felt and thoughtful poems and prose ? often short, powerful fragments.
If you want a strange little fact about the prisons, I asked some guys who were serving long sentences if they found it strange when they were released. They said two things completely threw them: children, which they hadn?t seen throughout their sentence ? all these tiny people racing around screaming ? and the clatter of someone coming down a bus stairs fast, which sounded like they were back in jail and hearing feet clanging on the big spiral staircases of the prison.
You have taught creative writing in more traditional ways as well. With your own fiction, do you stick to what you teach, or do you find that all bets are off?
I have taught in various ways ? at one stage in Galway I was teaching a group of shy schoolgirls to write using the role-playing game Paranoia. They were dancing on the desks and screaming with laughter as one girl read out a line of a story composed by her group: ?The teacher walked into the smoke-filled hell of the staffroom?, when the door swung slowly open, the principal looked in and backed slowly out again.
Teaching adults, I currently do a beginners? course in my local college, with classes on narrative, voice, point of view, dialogue and so on. I?ll set up a blind maillist for each class, and then (if any individual student gives permission for any individual piece of work) send work around for pre-class reading. We generally have a lot of fun.
Do I stick to what I teach? Yes, because what I teach is ?follow your hero through adventures?. That?s what I like to do.
I also like to attend workshops given by writers I admire, to pick their brains and see what they have to add ? it?s something all writers should do.
You?re writing a short book about your grandfather Thomas MacDonagh. For any readers who might not be as familiar with the events of 1916, do you care to describe?
My grandfather and his friends made a small revolution that destroyed the greatest empire since Rome. The 1916 Rising began the Irish War of Independence, which lost Britain its first colony ? the others soon followed us out.
My grandfather was an unlikely revolutionary. He was an adoring husband and father, a poet, ran a scientific and literary magazine, was a professor (in the American sense) in University College Dublin, had published books of poetry and had plays performed in the Abbey Theatre; WB Yeats wrote two of his greatest poems ? ?Easter 1916? and ?Sixteen Dead Men? about his and his friends? execution by firing squad, and how it changed everything for Ireland. ?He might have won fame in the end, so daring and sweet his thought? was how Yeats wrote about MacDonagh.
Yeats knew him well, and had known my grandmother, Muriel, and her sister Grace and their ten siblings from childhood; their father, Frederick Gifford, was the Yeats family lawyer. Grace has become a kind of symbol of gloomy revolutionary romanticism because she married another of the 1916 leaders, Joseph Plunkett, an hour before he was executed. Another sister, Nellie, was a Citizen Army woman who smuggled James Larkin into William Martin Murphy?s Imperial Hotel to address the locked-out workers during the 1913 Dublin Lockout, inspiring syndicalists and socialists around the world.
Going back a bit, the Giffords? grandfather had been an idealistic Protestant clergyman, personal chaplain to Lady Harriet Kavanagh; he died in the Famine on Christmas Eve 1850; Thomas MacDonagh?s grandfather was a hedge schoolmaster in the west of Ireland ? but enough?
I cannot help but think of the final pages of ?And the Green Sea Ebbs Away? when I read Patrick Pearse?s quotation: ?They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half.? Do you agree? If so, was this intentional?
It was. ?And the Green Sea Ebbs Away? is set on a sea planet invaded by earth people who have themselves genetically engineered so they can live in the planet?s conditions. But the judicial murder at its centre is based on the murder of the Kearney family by the landlord Ponsonby Shaw in Gleann na Sm?l. I was intentionally writing about a society riven with political tension and inequality, which swings towards violent revolution because of an injustice. And the character I chose for the centre of it ? the person who is decent and kind and loving, but who is caught up in that destruction, was quite deliberate.
This makes it sound like a didactic work of propaganda, but I wasn?t writing at all for that purpose ? I was writing a story of hopeless love, like so many of the stories in the collection Love.
Speaking of, let?s take ?Elsewhen,? and specifically its lapses out of third-person. It feels almost more honest that way, an admission that the writer tries to keep herself out of the narrative, but often fails.
I used the varying person ? the third person for Omurchu, the well-off boy from a Moslem merchant family; the first person for the trafficked prostitute ? as a pair of lenses to shimmer your view of them as they fall in love and doom approaches.
Using both third-person and first-person narrators in this very short piece also allowed me to slow the speeding narrative. And to make it funnier.
?Wolf and Water? is alluring for its headstrong female character and timeless theme, but more than anything it?s a page-turner. Again, was this intentional? And which appeals to your more as a reader? As a writer?
Absolutely intentional. I don?t think I could say that I prefer page-turners; I?m greedy ? I want both. I love Tana French?s In the Woods, which has an absolutely weird story with a delightfully unrealised ending; I love Clare Keegan?s Foster, a novella that dives straight for its end, but you can absolutely taste every moment. At the moment I?m reading Nadeem Aslam?s The Blind Man?s Garden, about the war in Afghanistan, and I?m torn between greedily gobbling my way through the whole story as it rushes along, and stopping to breathe in fabulous details like a hidden herd of horses rising out of the ground.
I like a clear line of narrative ? no question about that.
That?s a fantastic opening paragraph to ?Green Sea Ebbs.? Your rewriting of a historical event and then plunging it underwater is easily my favorite plot device in the book. Do you care to comment on this particular choice?
I?m not sure why I did it. That first sentence: ?I was daydreaming of sex when I found the axe, on a baking day in August, on my knees weeding the beans at the end of the market garden.? I think it came from a friend of mine, a great-great-grandson of those Kearneys who were murdered in Gleann na Sm?l, telling me about the bloody axe being produced in a court where the landlord was both the accuser and the judge; he leaned across the woodstove to me and said: ?First time a man was ever shot with an axe.?
The person who tells the story had to be at its centre, yet be an outsider; so she was in love with the youngest of the boys accused by the great landowner. The original Kearneys were regarded by the Ascendancy as Fenian troublemakers. It wasn?t such a far leap.
It?s hard to get past Rose?s silence during the last pages of ?Love.? You even draw our attention to it: ?They were the last words she spoke.? Combined with Moriarty?s bizarre remarks and inaction, it seems like a comment on the silence surrounding all domestic violence. Do you agree?
I do. In fact, those words were taken from a news story; they were the reported words of a man explaining how he had killed his wife. And the refusal of the garda ? the village policeman ? to help Rose as she runs away from the murderous Coley is part of the silence on ?domestic? violence, but it?s also part of the sheer terror in the face of someone in a murderous state. Moriarty?s courage fails him, and he doesn?t dare to take on Coley. Oddly, when I wrote that, the Garda? ? an almost entirely unarmed police force whose motto is that they must maintain the law ?not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people? ? were facing heavily-armed IRA members with enormous courage.
In one case, an unarmed garda persuaded a homicidal maniac from one of the offshoots of the IRA, loaded down with submachine guns and the like, to get out of his getaway car and come back to the garda station with him; the man then escaped ? and the garda recaptured him and kept him, without any use of violence.
But I wanted Moriarty to be an ordinary man who is utterly cowed by insane violence, and simply pretends not to see it, as so many, so often, do.
[Days later I asked about her current listening, to tie the interview back to Fluid Radio. Pardon the indelicate segue.]
The album I played most recently ? oh, I?m such an old fogey I kind of keep playing the same stuff: albums like Clandestino by Manu Chao and Pirates? Choice by Orchestre Baobab and Smaointe by Deirbhile N? Bhrolch?in, with its stunning version of ?Liam ? Raghallaigh? ? and then there are single tracks. A joyous and inescapably catchy 1998 single by the British Indian band Cornershop, ?Brimful of Asha?, is going around and around in my head at the moment unstoppably. Brimful of Asha on the 45, Brimful of Asha on the 45?
-Interview by C.E. Alexander (@CAlexanderRun) for Fluid Radio. His fiction debut The Music and the Spires is available now through Zidi Publishing.
New study finds blind people have the potential to use their 'inner bat' to locate objectsPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Franklin p.franklin@soton.ac.uk 44-238-059-5457 University of Southampton
New research from the University of Southampton has shown that blind and visually impaired people have the potential to use echolocation, similar to that used by bats and dolphins, to determine the location of an object.
The study, which is published in the journal Hearing Research, examined how hearing, and particularly the hearing of echoes, could help blind people with spatial awareness and navigation. The study also examined the possible effects of hearing impairment and how to optimise echolocation ability in order to help improve the independence and quality of life of people with visual impairments.
Researchers from the University of Southampton's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) and University of Cyprus conducted a series of experiments with sighted and blind human listeners, using a 'virtual auditory space' technique, to investigate the effects of the distance and orientation of a reflective object on ability to identify the right-versus-left position of the object. They used sounds with different bandwidths and durations (from 10400 milliseconds) as well as various audio manipulations to investigate which aspects of the sounds were important. The virtual auditory space, which was created in ISVR's anechoic chamber, allowed researchers to remove positional clues unrelated to echoes, such as footsteps and the placement of an object, and to manipulate the sounds in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise (e.g. get rid of the emission and present the echo only).
Dr Daniel Rowan, Lecturer in Audiology in ISVR and lead author of the study, says: "We wanted to determine unambiguously whether blind people, and perhaps even sighted people, can use echoes from an object to determine roughly where the object is located. We also wanted to figure out what factors facilitate and restrict people's abilities to use echoes for this purpose in order to know how to enhance ability in the real world."
The results showed that both sighted and blind people with good hearing, even if completely inexperienced with echolocation, showed the potential to use echoes to tell where objects are. The researchers also found that hearing high-frequency sounds (above 2 kHz) is required for good performance, and so common forms of hearing impairment will probably cause major problems.
Dr Daniel Rowan adds: "Some people are better at this than others, and being blind doesn't automatically confer good echolocation ability, though we don't yet know why. Nevertheless, ability probably gets even better with extensive experience and feedback.
"We also found that our ability to use echoes to locate an object gets rapidly worse with increasing distance from the object, especially when the object is not directly facing us. While our experiments purposely removed any influence of head movement, doing so might help extend ability to farther distances. Furthermore, some echo-producing sounds are better for determining where an object is than others, and the best sounds for locating an object probably aren't the same as for detecting the object or determining what, and how far away, the object is."
The knowledge gained from this study will help researchers to develop training programmes and assistive devices for blind people and sighted people in low-vision situations. The team is also extending their research to investigate finding of objects in three-dimensional space and why some blind people seem to be able to outperform others, including sighted people.
###
The research was partly funded by a Research Council UK Basic Technology Programme grant to the Bio-Inspired Acoustical Systems project and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Vacation Bursaries.
Notes for editors:
1. The paper Rowan, D., Papadopoulos, T., Edwards, D., Holmes, H., Hollingdale, A., Evans, L., & Allen, R. (2013) 'Identification of the lateral position of a virtual object based on echoes by humans' is published in Hearing research, 300, 5665. doi:10.1016/j.heares.2013.03.005
The paper can be viewed at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595513000737
2. The research team:
Dr Daniel Rowan is a Lecturer in Audiology in the Hearing and Balance Centre, ISVR, University of Southampton.
Dr Timos Papadopoulos is a James Martin Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Biodiversity Institute, Department of Zoology and in the Machine Learning Research Group, Department of Engineering Science, both at the University of Oxford.
Professor Robert Allen is Emeritus Professor in Biodynamics and Control in ISVR, University of Southampton.
Dr David Edwards, Hannah Holmes, Anna Hollingdale and Leah Evans contributed to this project as part of their PhD, MSc and BSc programmes in Audiology in ISVR. Rebekah White carried out the data collection of one study on a summer research placement during her BSc Audiology.
3. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship across a wide range of subjects in engineering, science, social sciences, health and humanities.
With over 23,000 students, around 5,000 staff, and an annual turnover well in excess of 435 million, the University of Southampton is acknowledged as one of the country's top institutions for engineering, computer science and medicine. We combine academic excellence with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to research, supporting a culture that engages and challenges students and staff in their pursuit of learning.
The University is also home to a number of world-leading research centres including the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, the Optoelectronics Research Centre, the Institute for Life Sciences, the Web Science Trust and Doctoral training Centre, the Centre for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute and is a partner of the National Oceanography Centre at the Southampton waterfront campus.
For further information contact:
Glenn Harris, Media Relations, University of Southampton, Tel: 023 8059 3212, email: press@soton.ac.uk
http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/unisouthampton
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/unisouthampton
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New study finds blind people have the potential to use their 'inner bat' to locate objectsPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Franklin p.franklin@soton.ac.uk 44-238-059-5457 University of Southampton
New research from the University of Southampton has shown that blind and visually impaired people have the potential to use echolocation, similar to that used by bats and dolphins, to determine the location of an object.
The study, which is published in the journal Hearing Research, examined how hearing, and particularly the hearing of echoes, could help blind people with spatial awareness and navigation. The study also examined the possible effects of hearing impairment and how to optimise echolocation ability in order to help improve the independence and quality of life of people with visual impairments.
Researchers from the University of Southampton's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) and University of Cyprus conducted a series of experiments with sighted and blind human listeners, using a 'virtual auditory space' technique, to investigate the effects of the distance and orientation of a reflective object on ability to identify the right-versus-left position of the object. They used sounds with different bandwidths and durations (from 10400 milliseconds) as well as various audio manipulations to investigate which aspects of the sounds were important. The virtual auditory space, which was created in ISVR's anechoic chamber, allowed researchers to remove positional clues unrelated to echoes, such as footsteps and the placement of an object, and to manipulate the sounds in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise (e.g. get rid of the emission and present the echo only).
Dr Daniel Rowan, Lecturer in Audiology in ISVR and lead author of the study, says: "We wanted to determine unambiguously whether blind people, and perhaps even sighted people, can use echoes from an object to determine roughly where the object is located. We also wanted to figure out what factors facilitate and restrict people's abilities to use echoes for this purpose in order to know how to enhance ability in the real world."
The results showed that both sighted and blind people with good hearing, even if completely inexperienced with echolocation, showed the potential to use echoes to tell where objects are. The researchers also found that hearing high-frequency sounds (above 2 kHz) is required for good performance, and so common forms of hearing impairment will probably cause major problems.
Dr Daniel Rowan adds: "Some people are better at this than others, and being blind doesn't automatically confer good echolocation ability, though we don't yet know why. Nevertheless, ability probably gets even better with extensive experience and feedback.
"We also found that our ability to use echoes to locate an object gets rapidly worse with increasing distance from the object, especially when the object is not directly facing us. While our experiments purposely removed any influence of head movement, doing so might help extend ability to farther distances. Furthermore, some echo-producing sounds are better for determining where an object is than others, and the best sounds for locating an object probably aren't the same as for detecting the object or determining what, and how far away, the object is."
The knowledge gained from this study will help researchers to develop training programmes and assistive devices for blind people and sighted people in low-vision situations. The team is also extending their research to investigate finding of objects in three-dimensional space and why some blind people seem to be able to outperform others, including sighted people.
###
The research was partly funded by a Research Council UK Basic Technology Programme grant to the Bio-Inspired Acoustical Systems project and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Vacation Bursaries.
Notes for editors:
1. The paper Rowan, D., Papadopoulos, T., Edwards, D., Holmes, H., Hollingdale, A., Evans, L., & Allen, R. (2013) 'Identification of the lateral position of a virtual object based on echoes by humans' is published in Hearing research, 300, 5665. doi:10.1016/j.heares.2013.03.005
The paper can be viewed at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595513000737
2. The research team:
Dr Daniel Rowan is a Lecturer in Audiology in the Hearing and Balance Centre, ISVR, University of Southampton.
Dr Timos Papadopoulos is a James Martin Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Biodiversity Institute, Department of Zoology and in the Machine Learning Research Group, Department of Engineering Science, both at the University of Oxford.
Professor Robert Allen is Emeritus Professor in Biodynamics and Control in ISVR, University of Southampton.
Dr David Edwards, Hannah Holmes, Anna Hollingdale and Leah Evans contributed to this project as part of their PhD, MSc and BSc programmes in Audiology in ISVR. Rebekah White carried out the data collection of one study on a summer research placement during her BSc Audiology.
3. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship across a wide range of subjects in engineering, science, social sciences, health and humanities.
With over 23,000 students, around 5,000 staff, and an annual turnover well in excess of 435 million, the University of Southampton is acknowledged as one of the country's top institutions for engineering, computer science and medicine. We combine academic excellence with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to research, supporting a culture that engages and challenges students and staff in their pursuit of learning.
The University is also home to a number of world-leading research centres including the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, the Optoelectronics Research Centre, the Institute for Life Sciences, the Web Science Trust and Doctoral training Centre, the Centre for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute and is a partner of the National Oceanography Centre at the Southampton waterfront campus.
For further information contact:
Glenn Harris, Media Relations, University of Southampton, Tel: 023 8059 3212, email: press@soton.ac.uk
http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/unisouthampton
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/unisouthampton
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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