вторник, 23 октября 2012 г.

Games

Games

League of Heroes - Screenshots

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:52 AM PDT

A NEVER-ENDING ADVENTURE
Hack your way through unlimited areas in the forest of Frognest.

GEAR UP AND CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHARACTER
Choose the best strategy to fight enemies and customize your character with countless armor options and weapons.

EVOLVE ALONG YOUR ADVENTURE
Gather experience and silver, find treasures, and unlock tons of unique items, including magic.

COMPLETE QUESTS
Complete over 60 quests, earn silver coins, and receive a higher ranking.

BEAUTIFUL HAND-DRAWN GRAPHICS AND ANIMATIONS
Enjoy spectacular-looking 2D visuals with top-notch animations.

REAL-LIFE WEATHER EFFECTS
Play the game and enjoy several weather and time effects based on real weather in your location. You will experience heavy rain with thunder, cloudiness, fogs, night time, etc.

Combat Arms - Screenshots

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 04:21 AM PDT

Nexon America Announces the Commercial Launch of its First-Person Shooter Combat Arms

New Female and Male Mercenaries Unveiled with the Grand Opening of "The Black Market"

September 30, 2008 – LOS ANGELES – Nexon America Inc. announces the commercial launch of its free-to-play, online, multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) thriller Combat Arms slated for October 1st. With the addition of the highly anticipated "Black Market," the new in-game cash item shop, gamers now have access to new female and male mercenaries, customized items and "fresh start" options to help fulfill missions. Combat Arms is available free for download at http://combatarms.nexon.net. Gamers can also experience Combat Arms at the E for All consumer show on Oct. 3-5 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Combat Arms incorporates character options and built-in clan and Web 2.0 community features into its fast-paced game play. Now, with the commercial launch and the game's Black Market, players have even more ways to personalize the game and further distinguish their look on the battlefield. New mercenaries, Mei, the first female character, and Deckland, can be hired for 30 days as an added character. Each comes with an allotment of 50,000 Gear Points for players to create their mercenary's own gear loadout. Players can also opt to use the same weapons for their mercenary as their base character. The game also introduces a revamped melee system with several new melee weapons, such as the Ninjato and the Machete. Gamers will have the option to purchase these new weapons with Nexon Cash. New aesthetic gear such as the FG-1 Fire Mask, Boonie Hat and the Tactical Backpack, will also now be available for purchase.

"Combat Arms had a great beta run, with players of all levels loving the ...

Call of Duty has the same effect on your sleep as March of the Penguins

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:09 AM PDT

Perhaps you've noticed that playing games immediately before you go to bed has an adverse effect on how well you sleep, the kinds of dreams you have and

Sound Byte – Meet The Composer: Ryan Shore

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 01:41 AM PDT

We talk to the man behind the score of the horror movie The Shrine on his recent work with the latest Spy Hunter game.

 

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Sound Byte – Meet The Composer: Ryan Shore" was posted by Jonathan Toyad on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:41:34 -0700

US judge dismisses majority of PSN class-action lawsuit

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:40 PM PDT

Judge Anthony Battaglia found that Sony did not violate consumer-protection laws in the class-action suit filed following the publisher's PSN outage and data breach in April 2011.

 

A US District judge has cleared Sony of any major wrongdoing in a class-action lawsuit filed over the publisher's response to the PSN outage and security breach in April 2011.

According to Courthouse News Service, Judge Anthony Battaglia filed a 36-page order dismissing a large proportion of the claims made against Sony in the class-action suit, including negligence, unjust enrichment, bailment, and violations of California consumer-protection statutes.

In addition, the judge found that Sony did not violate consumer-protection laws, because none of the named plaintiffs in the suit actually subscribed to premium PSN services, "and thus received the PSN services free of cost".

The suit was filed on behalf of PSN users who sought actual damages from Sony for its failure to protect the personal data of approximately 77 million PlayStation users during the April attack by hackers on the PlayStation Network, Qriocity, and Sony Online Entertainment.

The suit claimed that the security breach was caused by Sony's negligence in data security, including a failure to maintain a firewall and security systems, and a failure to properly encrypt data.

Sony later moved to dismiss the class action.

Battaglia said that users should have been well aware that Sony's security was not "perfect", finding that all users had signed a Sony Privacy Policy that included "clear admonitory language" detailing that Sony's security was the way it was, and thus "no reasonable consumer could have been deceived".

Battaglia also dismissed the bailment charge with prejudice, due to the fact that the plaintiffs admitted that their personal information was stolen as a result of a criminal data breach that had nothing to do with Sony.

The class-action suit has now been given leave to amend its claims.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"US judge dismisses majority of PSN class-action lawsuit" was posted by Laura Parker on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:40:16 -0700

Energies, Vol. 5, Pages 4209-4232: A Review on Waste to Energy Processes Using Microwave Pyrolysis

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

This paper presents an extensive review of the scientific literature associated with various microwave pyrolysis applications in waste to energy engineering. It was established that microwave-heated pyrolysis processes offer a number of advantages over other processes that use traditional thermal heat sources. In particular, microwave-heated processes show a distinct advantage in providing rapid and energy-efficient heating compared to conventional technologies, and thus facilitating increased production rates. It can also be established that the pyrolysis process offers an exciting way to recover both the energetic and chemical value of the waste materials by generating potentially useful pyrolysis products suitable for future reuse. Furthermore, this review has revealed good performance of the microwave pyrolysis process when compared to other more conventional methods of operation, indicating that it shows exceptional promise as a means for energy recovery from waste materials. Nonetheless, it was revealed that many important characteristics of the microwave pyrolysis process have yet to be raised or fully investigated. In addition, limited information is available concerning the characteristics of the microwave pyrolysis of waste materials. It was thus concluded that more work is needed to extend existing understanding of these aspects in order to develop improvements to the process to transform it into a commercially viable route to recover energy from waste materials in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Energies, Vol. 5, Pages 4186-4208: Parabolic Trough Photovoltaic/Thermal Collectors: Design and Simulation Model

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

This paper presents a design procedure and a simulation model of a novel concentrating PVT collector. The layout of the PVT system under investigation was derived from a prototype recently presented in literature and commercially available. The prototype consisted in a parabolic trough concentrator and a linear triangular receiver. In that prototype, the bottom surfaces of the receiver are equipped with mono-crystalline silicon cells whereas the top surface is covered by an absorbing surface. The aperture area of the parabola was covered by a glass in order to improve the thermal efficiency of the system. In the modified version of the collector considered in this paper, two changes are implemented: the cover glass was eliminated and the mono-crystalline silicon cells were replaced by triple-junction cells. In order to analyze PVT performance, a detailed mathematical model was implemented. This model is based on zero-dimensional energy balances. The simulation model calculates the temperatures of the main components of the system and the main energy flows Results showed that the performance of the system is excellent even when the fluid temperature is very high (>100 °C). Conversely, both electrical and thermal efficiencies dramatically decrease when the incident beam radiation decreases.

Crystals, Vol. 2, Pages 1460-1482: Pressure Effect on Organic Conductors

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Pressure is a powerful tool to unveil the profound nature of electronic properties in a variety of organic conductors. Starting from technology of high pressure, we plan to review what kind of physics or phenomena have previously been discussed.

Materials, Vol. 5, Pages 2003-2014: Investigation of Iron Oxide Morphology in a Cyclic Redox Water Splitting Process for Hydrogen Generation

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

A solar fuels generation research program is focused on hydrogen production by means of reactive metal water splitting in a cyclic iron-based redox process. Iron-based oxides are explored as an intermediary reactive material to dissociate water molecules at significantly reduced thermal energies. With a goal of studying the resulting oxide chemistry and morphology, chemical assistance via CO is used to complete the redox cycle. In order to exploit the unique characteristics of highly reactive materials at the solar reactor scale, a monolithic laboratory scale reactor has been designed to explore the redox cycle at temperatures ranging from 675 to 875 K. Using high resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), the oxide morphology and the oxide state are quantified, including spatial distributions. These images show the change of the oxide layers directly after oxidation and after reduction. The findings show a significant non-stoichiometric O/Fe gradient in the atomic ratio following oxidation, which is consistent with a previous kinetics model, and a relatively constant, non-stoichiometric O/Fe atomic ratio following reduction.

Materials, Vol. 5, Pages 1986-2002: Solvent Composition is Critical for Carbodiimide Cross-Linking of Hyaluronic Acid as an Ophthalmic Biomaterial

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is one of the most important ophthalmic biomaterials, while also being used for tissue engineering and drug delivery. Although chemical cross-linking is an effective way to improve the material performance, it may as a consequence be detrimental to the living cells/tissues. Given that the cross-linking efficiency is mediated by the solvent composition during the chemical modification, this study aims to explore the stability and biocompatibility of carbodiimide cross-linked HA in relation to material processing conditions by varying the acetone/water volume ratio (from 70:30 to 95:5) at a constant 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethyl aminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) concentration of 100 mM. Our results indicated that after the EDC treatment in the presence of an acetone/water mixture (85:15, v/v), the HA hydrogel membranes have the lowest equilibrium water content, the highest stress at break and the greatest resistance to hyaluronidase digestion. Live/Dead assays and pro-inflammatory cytokine expression analyses showed that the cross-linked HA hydrogel membranes, irrespective of the solvent composition, are compatible with human RPE cell lines without causing toxicity and inflammation. However, it should be noted that the test samples prepared by the cross-linking in the presence of acetone/water mixtures containing 70, 75, and 95 vol % of acetone slightly inhibit the metabolic activity of viable ARPE-19 cultures, probably due to the alteration in the ionic interaction between the medium nutrients and polysaccharide biomaterials. In summary, the water content, mechanical strength and RPE cell proliferative capacity strongly depends on the solvent composition for carbodiimide cross-linking of HA materials.

IJMS, Vol. 13, Pages 13737-13747: The Criteria to Confirm the Role of Epstein-Barr Virus in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Initiation

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), but it remains obscure whether EBV is a viral cause of, or only an accompaniment of, NPC. We will discuss the accumulated evidence pointing to the relationship between EBV infection and NPC initiation from epidemiologic, pathogenic, molecular oncogenic, and experimental animal studies. We believe that convincing evidence from these perspectives must be provided before we can ascertain the causal role of EBV infection in NPC. Specifically, (1) epidemiological studies should reveal EBV infection as a risk factor; (2) the introduction of EBV into an animal model should produce NPC; (3) in the animal model NPC, the main molecular event(s) or the involved signaling pathway(s) should be identical to that in human NPC; and (4) finally and most importantly, prevention of EBV infection or clearance of EBV from infected individuals must be able to reduce the incidence rate of NPC.

IJMS, Vol. 13, Pages 13726-13736: Synthesis and Characterization of Mesoporous Silica Functionalized with Calix[4]arene Derivatives

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

This work reports a new method to covalently attach calix[4]arene derivatives onto MCM-41, using a diisocyanate as a linker. The modified mesoporous silicates were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal analysis (TGA) and elemental analysis. The FTIR spectra and TGA analysis verified that the calix[4]arene derivates are covalently attached to the mesoporous silica. The preservation of the MCM-41 channel system was checked by X-ray diffraction and nitrogen adsorption analysis.

Viruses, Vol. 4, Pages 2379-2399: Hiding Lipid Presentation: Viral Interference with CD1d-Restricted Invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) Cell Activation

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The immune system plays a major role in protecting the host against viral infection. Rapid initial protection is conveyed by innate immune cells, while adaptive immunity (including T lymphocytes) requires several days to develop, yet provides high specificity and long-lasting memory. Invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells are an unusual subset of T lymphocytes, expressing a semi-invariant T cell receptor together with markers of the innate NK cell lineage. Activated iNKT cells can exert direct cytolysis and can rapidly release a variety of immune-polarizing cytokines, thereby regulating the ensuing adaptive immune response. iNKT cells recognize lipids in the context of the antigen-presenting molecule CD1d. Intriguingly, CD1d-restricted iNKT cells appear to play a critical role in anti-viral defense: increased susceptibility to disseminated viral infections is observed both in patients with iNKT cell deficiency as well as in CD1d- and iNKT cell-deficient mice. Moreover, viruses have recently been found to use sophisticated strategies to withstand iNKT cell-mediated elimination. This review focuses on CD1d-restricted lipid presentation and the strategies viruses deploy to subvert this pathway.

Viruses, Vol. 4, Pages 2359-2378: Perinatal Lamb Model of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Infection

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most frequent cause of bronchiolitis in infants and children worldwide. Many animal models are used to study RSV, but most studies investigate disease in adult animals which does not address the unique physiology and immunology that makes infants more susceptible. The perinatal (preterm and term) lamb is a useful model of infant RSV disease as lambs have similar pulmonary structure including airway branching, Clara and type II cells, submucosal glands and Duox/lactoperoxidase (LPO) oxidative system, and prenatal alveologenesis. Lambs can be born preterm (90% gestation) and survive for experimentation although both preterm and term lambs are susceptible to ovine, bovine and human strains of RSV and develop clinical symptoms including fever, tachypnea, and malaise as well as mild to moderate gross and histologic lesions including bronchiolitis with epithelial injury, neutrophil infiltration and syncytial cell formation. RSV disease in preterm lambs is more severe than in term lambs; disease is progressively less in adults and age-dependent susceptibility is a feature similar to humans. Innate and adaptive immune responses by perinatal lambs closely parallel those of infants. The model is used to test therapeutic regimens, risk factors such as maternal ethanol consumption, and formalin inactivated RSV vaccines.

Remote Sensing, Vol. 4, Pages 3244-3264: Enhancing Coral Health Detection Using Spectral Diversity Indices from WorldView-2 Imagery and Machine Learners

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The worldwide waning health of coral reefs implies an increasing need for monitoring them at colony scale over large areas. Relaying fieldwork considerably, the remote sensing approach can address this need in offering spectral information relevant for coral health detection with 0.5 m spatial accuracy. We investigated the potential of spectral diversity indices to achieve the discrimination of coral-dominated assemblages and health states from novel satellite imagery (WorldView-2, WV2). Both Equitability's (E) and Pielou's (P) operators were used to quantify the evenness of the corrected visible spectral bands (two times 26 combinations of five bands) corresponding to remotely sensed colonies. Three scleractinian corals (Porites lobata, P. rus and Acropora pulchra) that are primarily involved in Moorea's reef building (French Polynesia) were examined in respect to their health state (healthy or unhealthy, referring to both bleached and dead coral, hereinafter). Using four classifiers, we showed that the Support Vector Machine (SVM) greatly discerned among the six coral classes based upon the five WV2 spectral bands (93%), thus surpassing the classification issued from the three traditionally used bands (80%). Coupling the WV2 dataset with Egreen-red, Eyellow-red or E"coastal"-blue-green allowed the SVM performance to attain 96%. On the other hand, adding the E"coastal"-blue to the WV2-dataset contributed to a substantially increase of the classification accuracy derived from the Random Forest classifier, stepping from 64% to 77%. Significant contributions of spectral diversity indices to surveying coral health were further discussed in the light of spectral properties of coral-related pigments. These findings may play a major role for the extensive monitoring of coral health states at a fine scale, and for the management and restoration of damaged coral reefs.

Pharmaceuticals, Vol. 5, Pages 1128-1146: Advances in Drug Design Based on the Amino Acid Approach: Taurine Analogues for the Treatment of CNS Diseases

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Amino acids are well known to be an important class of compounds for the maintenance of body homeostasis and their deficit, even for the polar neuroactive aminoacids, can be controlled by supplementation. However, for the amino acid taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) this is not true. Due its special physicochemical properties, taurine is unable to cross the blood-brain barrier. In addition of injured taurine transport systems under pathological conditions, CNS supplementation of taurine is almost null. Taurine is a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory semi-essential amino acid extensively involved in neurological activities, acting as neurotrophic factor, binding to GABA A/glycine receptors and blocking the excitotoxicity glutamate-induced pathway leading to be a neuroprotective effect and neuromodulation. Taurine deficits have been implicated in several CNS diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, epilepsy and in the damage of retinal neurons. This review describes the  CNS physiological functions of taurine and the development of new derivatives based on its structure useful in CNS disease treatment.

JLPEA, Vol. 2, Pages 242-264: Power Scalable Radio Receiver Design Based on Signal and Interference Condition

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

A low power adaptive digital baseband architecture is presented for a low-IF receiver of IEEE 802.15.4-2006. The digital section's sampling frequency and bit width are used as knobs to reduce the power under favorable signal and interference scenarios, thus recovering the design margins introduced to handle the worst case conditions. We show that in a 0.13 μm CMOS technology, for an adaptive digital baseband section of the receiver, power saving can be up to 85% (0.49mW against 3.3mW) in favorable interference and signal conditions. The proposed concepts in the design are tested using a receiver test setup where the design is hosted on a FPGA.

Wii U

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:32 AM PDT

For "hard-core" gamers, the Wii was a cute family system with no real gaming experiences to be had.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

IJERPH, Vol. 9, Pages 3769: Correction: Lwanga, F., et al. Intestinal Helminth Infections and Nutritional Status of Children Attending Primary Schools in Wakiso District, Central Uganda. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2012, 9, 2910-2921

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The author wish to make the following correction to this paper [1]: The author name "Lwanga Francis" should be "Francis Lwanga".

Future Internet, Vol. 4, Pages 900-928: Creating Open Government Ecosystems: A Research and Development Agenda

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

In this paper, we propose to view the concept of open government from the perspective of an ecosystem, a metaphor often used by policy makers, scholars, and technology gurus to convey a sense of the interdependent social systems of actors, organizations, material infrastructures, and symbolic resources that can be created in technology-enabled, information-intensive social systems. We use the concept of an ecosystem to provide a framework for considering the outcomes of a workshop organized to generate a research and development agenda for open government. The agenda was produced in discussions among participants from the government (at the federal, state, and local levels), academic and civil sector communities at the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the University at Albany, SUNY in April 2011. The paper begins by discussing concepts central to understanding what is meant by an ecosystem and some principles that characterize its functioning. We then apply this metaphor more directly to government, proposing that policymakers engage in strategic ecosystems thinking, which means being guided by the goal of explicitly and purposefully constructing open government ecosystems. From there, we present the research agenda questions essential to the development of this new view of government's interaction with users and organizations. Our goal is to call attention to some of the fundamental ways in which government must change in order to evolve from outdated industrial bureaucratic forms to information age networked and interdependent systems.
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