SPRINGFIELD, Mass. --?Police say a Massachusetts man left his girlfriend's 2-year-old son in a car while he went shopping for Black Friday bargains, then went home with his new 51-inch flat screen television and left the toddler behind.
Police, alerted by store security, found the boy asleep in the vehicle in a Kmart parking lot at about 1:30 a.m. Friday.
They forced their way into the car and took the boy to the hospital as a precaution.
Meanwhile, they tracked the man to his Springfield home.
Hordes of shoppers hit the stores on Black Friday
Though Black Friday officially kicked off the holiday shopping season this morning, many shoppers were already bargain-hunting before Thanksgiving dinner had a chance to settle. CNBC's Courtney Reagan reports from the Black Friday frenzy in Dayton, Ohio.
He told police he lost the boy while shopping, panicked and called someone else for a ride. The boy's mother was working.
The 34-year-old man was not arrested and not immediately charged, but police say they expect to charge him with reckless endangerment to a child.
More content from NBCNews.com:
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
?
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Real Madrid and AC Milan have advanced to the knockout stage of the Champions League. Borussia Dortmund and Schalke also progressed to make it three out of three teams from Germany.
Nine-time champion Madrid held on Wednesday for a 1-1 draw at Manchester City with 10 men, eliminating the Premier League champions. Also in Group D, Dortmund beat Ajax 4-1 to go through as the top team.
Seven-time winner Milan won 3-1 at Anderlecht and Malaga drew 2-2 at Zenit St. Petersburg for both to advance in Group C.
Schalke defeated Olympiakos 1-0 and Arsenal beat Montpellier 2-0 in Group B. Paris Saint-German won 2-0 at Dynamo Kiev to move on from Group A with FC Porto, which beat Dinamo Zagreb 3-0.
Bayern Munich is also in the last 16.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
advertisement
More news
What's next for Beckham?
??SportsTalk: The MLS Cup will be the last game David Beckham plays for the L.A. Galaxy. What's his next move?
Mark Kolbe / Getty Images
PST: Tons of tentacles in Beckham departure
PST: David Beckham splitting amicably with the Galaxy after six strong seasons is hardly the checkered flag at the finish line. There are tons of tentacles branching out on this one.
Ocean currents play a role in predicting extent of Arctic sea icePublic release date: 21-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Discovery of feedback between sea ice and ocean improves Arctic ice extent forecast
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Each winter, wide swaths of the Arctic Ocean freeze to form sheets of sea ice that spread over millions of square miles. This ice acts as a massive sun visor for the Earth, reflecting solar radiation and shielding the planet from excessive warming.
The Arctic ice cover reaches its peak each year in mid-March, before shrinking with warmer spring temperatures. But over the last three decades, this winter ice cap has shrunk: Its annual maximum reached record lows, according to satellite observations, in 2007 and again in 2011.
Understanding the processes that drive sea-ice formation and advancement can help scientists predict the future extent of Arctic ice coverage an essential factor in detecting climate fluctuations and change. But existing models vary in their predictions for how sea ice will evolve.
Now researchers at MIT have developed a new method for optimally combining models and observations to accurately simulate the seasonal extent of Arctic sea ice and the ocean circulation beneath. The team applied its synthesis method to produce a simulation of the Labrador Sea, off the southern coast of Greenland, that matched actual satellite and ship-based observations in the area.
Through their model, the researchers identified an interaction between sea ice and ocean currents that is important for determining what's called "sea ice extent" where, in winter, winds and ocean currents push newly formed ice into warmer waters, growing the ice sheet. Furthermore, springtime ice melt may form a "bath" of fresh seawater more conducive for ice to survive the following winter.
Accounting for this feedback phenomenon is an important piece in the puzzle to precisely predict sea-ice extent, says Patrick Heimbach, a principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
"Until a few years ago, people thought we might have a seasonal ice-free Arctic by 2050," Heimbach says. "But recent observations of sustained ice loss make scientists wonder whether this ice-free Arctic might occur much sooner than any models predict and people want to understand what physical processes are implicated in sea-ice growth and decline."
Heimbach and former MIT graduate student Ian Fenty, now a postdoc at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have published the results from their study in the Journal of Physical Oceanography.
An icy forecast
As Arctic temperatures drop each winter, seawater turns to ice starting as thin, snowflake-like crystals on the ocean surface that gradually accumulate to form larger, pancake-shaped sheets. These ice sheets eventually collide and fuse to create massive ice floes that can span hundreds of miles.
When seawater freezes, it leaches salt, which mixes with deeper waters to create a dense, briny ocean layer. The overlying ice is fresh and light in comparison, with very little salt in its composition. As ice melts in the spring, it creates a freshwater layer on the ocean surface, setting up ideal conditions for sea ice to form the following winter.
Heimbach and Fenty constructed a model to simulate ice cover, thickness and transport in response to atmospheric and ocean circulation. In a novel approach, they developed a method known in computational science and engineering as "optimal state and parameter estimation" to plug in a variety of observations to improve the simulations.
A tight fit
The researchers tested their approach on data originally taken in 1996 and 1997 in the Labrador Sea, an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean that lies between Greenland and Canada. They included satellite observations of ice cover, as well as local readings of wind speed, water and air temperature, and water salinity. The approach produced a tight fit between simulated and observed sea-ice and ocean conditions in the Labrador Sea a large improvement over existing models.
The optimal synthesis of model and observations revealed not just where ice forms, but also how ocean currents transport ice floes within and between seasons. From its simulations, the team found that, as new ice forms in northern regions of the Arctic, ocean currents push this ice to the south in a process called advection. The ice migrates further south, into unfrozen waters, where it melts, creating a fresh layer of ocean water that eventually insulates more incoming ice from warmer subsurface waters of subtropical Atlantic origin.
Knowing that this model fits with observations suggests to Heimbach that researchers may use the method of model-data synthesis to predict sea-ice growth and transport in the future a valuable tool for climate scientists, as well as oil and shipping industries.
"The Northwest Passage has for centuries been considered a shortcut shipping route between Asia and North America if it was navigable," Heimbach says. "But it's very difficult to predict. You can just change the wind pattern a bit and push ice, and suddenly it's closed. So it's a tricky business, and needs to be better understood."
As part of the "Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean" (ECCO) project, Heimbach and his colleagues are now applying their model to larger regions in the Arctic.
###
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Ocean currents play a role in predicting extent of Arctic sea icePublic release date: 21-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Discovery of feedback between sea ice and ocean improves Arctic ice extent forecast
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Each winter, wide swaths of the Arctic Ocean freeze to form sheets of sea ice that spread over millions of square miles. This ice acts as a massive sun visor for the Earth, reflecting solar radiation and shielding the planet from excessive warming.
The Arctic ice cover reaches its peak each year in mid-March, before shrinking with warmer spring temperatures. But over the last three decades, this winter ice cap has shrunk: Its annual maximum reached record lows, according to satellite observations, in 2007 and again in 2011.
Understanding the processes that drive sea-ice formation and advancement can help scientists predict the future extent of Arctic ice coverage an essential factor in detecting climate fluctuations and change. But existing models vary in their predictions for how sea ice will evolve.
Now researchers at MIT have developed a new method for optimally combining models and observations to accurately simulate the seasonal extent of Arctic sea ice and the ocean circulation beneath. The team applied its synthesis method to produce a simulation of the Labrador Sea, off the southern coast of Greenland, that matched actual satellite and ship-based observations in the area.
Through their model, the researchers identified an interaction between sea ice and ocean currents that is important for determining what's called "sea ice extent" where, in winter, winds and ocean currents push newly formed ice into warmer waters, growing the ice sheet. Furthermore, springtime ice melt may form a "bath" of fresh seawater more conducive for ice to survive the following winter.
Accounting for this feedback phenomenon is an important piece in the puzzle to precisely predict sea-ice extent, says Patrick Heimbach, a principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
"Until a few years ago, people thought we might have a seasonal ice-free Arctic by 2050," Heimbach says. "But recent observations of sustained ice loss make scientists wonder whether this ice-free Arctic might occur much sooner than any models predict and people want to understand what physical processes are implicated in sea-ice growth and decline."
Heimbach and former MIT graduate student Ian Fenty, now a postdoc at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, have published the results from their study in the Journal of Physical Oceanography.
An icy forecast
As Arctic temperatures drop each winter, seawater turns to ice starting as thin, snowflake-like crystals on the ocean surface that gradually accumulate to form larger, pancake-shaped sheets. These ice sheets eventually collide and fuse to create massive ice floes that can span hundreds of miles.
When seawater freezes, it leaches salt, which mixes with deeper waters to create a dense, briny ocean layer. The overlying ice is fresh and light in comparison, with very little salt in its composition. As ice melts in the spring, it creates a freshwater layer on the ocean surface, setting up ideal conditions for sea ice to form the following winter.
Heimbach and Fenty constructed a model to simulate ice cover, thickness and transport in response to atmospheric and ocean circulation. In a novel approach, they developed a method known in computational science and engineering as "optimal state and parameter estimation" to plug in a variety of observations to improve the simulations.
A tight fit
The researchers tested their approach on data originally taken in 1996 and 1997 in the Labrador Sea, an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean that lies between Greenland and Canada. They included satellite observations of ice cover, as well as local readings of wind speed, water and air temperature, and water salinity. The approach produced a tight fit between simulated and observed sea-ice and ocean conditions in the Labrador Sea a large improvement over existing models.
The optimal synthesis of model and observations revealed not just where ice forms, but also how ocean currents transport ice floes within and between seasons. From its simulations, the team found that, as new ice forms in northern regions of the Arctic, ocean currents push this ice to the south in a process called advection. The ice migrates further south, into unfrozen waters, where it melts, creating a fresh layer of ocean water that eventually insulates more incoming ice from warmer subsurface waters of subtropical Atlantic origin.
Knowing that this model fits with observations suggests to Heimbach that researchers may use the method of model-data synthesis to predict sea-ice growth and transport in the future a valuable tool for climate scientists, as well as oil and shipping industries.
"The Northwest Passage has for centuries been considered a shortcut shipping route between Asia and North America if it was navigable," Heimbach says. "But it's very difficult to predict. You can just change the wind pattern a bit and push ice, and suddenly it's closed. So it's a tricky business, and needs to be better understood."
As part of the "Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean" (ECCO) project, Heimbach and his colleagues are now applying their model to larger regions in the Arctic.
###
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A massive plume of ash billows up into the sky as Mount Tongariro erupts in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand on November 21, 2012. The volcano previously erupted in August this year, the first time in more than a century.
The Associated Press reports?? A New Zealand volcano erupted with a brief blast of dark ash Wednesday, canceling flights but causing no significant damage. Schoolchildren and dozens of other hikers who were walking on trails along the mountain's base were safe.
The eruption of Mount Tongariro, its second in less than four months, sent a dark ash plume about 1.9 miles into the sky. Authorities issued a no-fly alert above the mountain located in the sparsely populated area of central North Island.
Tongariro National Park, which has three active volcanoes, was the backdrop for many scenes in "The Lord of the Rings" movies.?Read the full story.
Air New Zealand already has hobbits instructing passengers on how to fly safely. Now, you can soon see the creatures soaring over the Pacific and the Atlantic as well.
The airline has transformed a Boeing 777-300ER into a ?flying billboard? for ?The Hobbit:?An Unexpected Journey,? the first installment in Peter Jackson?s series?adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien?s book and a prequel to the blockbuster ?Lord of the Rings? saga.
A ?massive? decal inspired by the new movie covers the length of the plane, the largest graphic ever to be applied to an aircraft, said Jodi Williams, head of international marketing for Air New Zealand. It took about six days and 400 man hours to install the decal.
The airline has been secretive about the exact design, revealing only that it worked with Jackson?s Weta Workshop to create the motif, which features imagery from the film. The world will get its first glimpse of the aircraft on Saturday morning New Zealand time (Friday afternoon U.S. Eastern time), when it is unveiled in Auckland. The plane will then head to Los Angeles, where it is scheduled to land Saturday afternoon. The aircraft will fly primarily to L.A. and London.
Both markets are very important to Air New Zealand, which is hoping its partnership with the makers of ?The Hobbit? will help attract visitors from North America and Europe.
?It puts us out there and creates more awareness. And it gives people more of a reason to actually select New Zealand to travel,? Williams said.
?It?s very challenging for Air New Zealand to get that brand presence and that awareness because we don?t have a significant marketing budget, so by actually working in partnership with a movie that?s shot in New Zealand and shows New Zealand, it makes perfect sense.?
The airline?s first ?Hobbit?-themed effort ? a special flight safety video that features all kinds of creatures from Middle Earth ? is already a hit, with global media attention and more than 9 million views on YouTube since it was released on Halloween.?
The production is the first movie-aligned safety video for Air New Zealand, although the airline is known for its fun and quirky lessons on how to stay safe at 35,000 feet. Past videos have featured hunky rugby players, flight attendants wearing only body paint, and exercise enthusiast Richard Simmons.
Air New Zealand also likes to experiment with the look of its aircraft, introducing several planes painted black from nose to tail in recent months.
But it is Tolkien?s fantasy that?s putting the self-proclaimed ?airline of Middle Earth? in the spotlight right now.
Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt said Air New Zealand's "Hobbit" efforts are the most impressive movie marketing tie-ins he?s seen any airline do.
?Short-term, this will probably benefit the movie more than the airline, at least as far as North American passengers are concerned,? said Harteveldt, co-founder of the Atmosphere Research Group.
?Long-term, this marketing tie-in should help Air New Zealand successfully increase interest in visiting the country among travelers.?
The airline?s biggest challenge is the physical distance between the U.S. and New Zealand, he added. Travelers often balk at such a long and expensive flight, but ?Hobbit? fans inspired to book movie-related tours may be undaunted by those factors, Harteveldt said. New Zealand?s tourism industry is eager to repeat the boost in visitors it saw after the ?Lord of the Rings? trilogy.
Wellington, New Zealand, will host the global premiere of ?The Hobbit:?An Unexpected Journey? on Nov. 28. The movie debuts in the U.S. on Dec. 14.
Azizi Yahaya, 2003. Factors Contributing Towards Excellence Academic Performance. University Technology Malaysia
?
Baxter, M. Young J.L. (1982). What do employers expect from high school graduates? NASSP Bulletin, 66, 93-98.
Cambridge
University
Reporter. (2003). Indicators of academic performance. Retrieved on August 8, 2007 from http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2002-3/weekly/5913/
Chang, M. (2004, July). Why some graduates are more marketable than others: Employers? perspective. Paper presented in a Workshop on Enhancing Graduate Employability in aGlobalised Economy, Economic Planning Unit, Malaysia.
Chapman, K. (2010, march 7). Earning a place. Retrieves September 17, 2010, from the Star Online: http://thestar.com.my?education/story.asp?file=/2010/3/7/education/5782565&sec=education Claessens, Amy, Greg Duncan, and Mimi Engel. 2009. ?Kindergarten Skills and Fifth-grade Achievement: Evidence from the ECLS-K,? Economics of Education Review 28(4): 415-427. Duncan, GregJ., Chantelle J. Dowsett, Amy Claessens., Katherine Magnuson., Aletha C. Huston,, Pamela Klebanov, Linda S. Pagani, Leon Feinstein, Mimi Engel, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Holly Sexton, Kathryn Duckworth, and Crista Japel. 2007. ?School Readiness and Later Achievement.? Developmental Psychology, 43(6): 428-46. Dutton, M. (1996). Tech/prep/school-to-work: Career Paths for All. Education Digest,61(5), 56-69. Higgins, D.M., Peerson, J. B., Pihl, R. O., & Lee, A. G. (2007). Prefrontal Cognitive Ability, Inteligence, Big Five Personality, and the Prediction of Advanced Academic and Workplace Performace. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Hoyle, E. (1986). Policies of School Management, Suffolk. The press ltd.
Jailani, Wan Mohd Rashid, Noraini & Wahid (2005). Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) from Malaysia Perspective. Paper presented at 2ndInternational TT-TVET EU-Asia-Link Project Meeting, VEDC Malang.
Kyoshaba Martha, 2009. Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students at UgandaChristianUniversity.
Lleras, Christy. 2008. ?Do Skills and Behaviors in High School Matter? The Contribution of Noncognitive Factors in Explaining Differences in Educational Attainment and Earnings.? SocialScience Research 37 (3): 888-902.
Malaysia
has 60,000 graduates unemployed. (2005). Retrieved from http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2005/11/malaysia-has-60000-undergraduates.htm
Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. (2006). Development of soft skills for Institutions of Higher Learning. Universiti Putra, Malaysia.
Nabi, G. R. and Bagley, D. (1998) Graduates? perceptions of transferable personal skills and future career preparation in the UK, CareerDevelopment International, 3(1), 31-39. Bennett, N., Dunne, E. and Carr?, C. (2000) Skills Development in Higher Education and Employment. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Nathan, S. and Dunn, K.A. (1997). Business Press Articles and Higher Level Learning Skills in Accounting Courses. Education & Training. 39, 4/5, 189-194 Noorlaila Yunus, Salina Noranee and Rohana Ehsan, 2004.The Perception of Employer towards Office Management (OM) Industrial Trainees? Performance during the Internship: A Case Study of Public/Private Organizations in Klang Valley.
Secretary?s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. (1992, April). Learning a Living: A blueprint for High Performance. Executive Summary. A SCANS Report for America 2000.Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor.
O?Connor, M. C. & Paunonen, S. V. (2007). Big Five personality predictors of post-secondary academic performance. Personality and Individual Differences. Raymond Young and Chadi Aoun, 2008. Generic Skills to Reduce Failure Rates in an Undergraduate Accounting Information System Course. Asian Social Science, Vol. 4, 10, October 2008. www.ccsenet.prg/journal.html
Santrock, J. W. (2006). Educational Psychology (rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thelma Young Monk, 1998. Variables Associated with Academic Achievement of African-American Males in Four-year Undergraduate Educational Institutions: A Synthesis is Studies. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversity.
The New Straits Times. (2006, March 21). Experts: Go back to drawing board. Kuala Lumpur
Usoff, C. & Feldmann, D. (1998). Accounting Students? Perceptions of Important Skills For Career Success. Journal of Education for Business. 73, 4, 215-220
Worthington, R. L., & Juntunen, C. L. (1997). Vocational Development of Non-College-bound??
Youth: Counseling Psychology and the School-to-Work Transition of Movement. The Counseling Psychologist, 25(2), 23-24. 30,000 grads in unsuitable jobs (2012,May 10). New Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.mohr.gov.my/mygoveg/extras/isunov05.htm#nst101105
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
They?ve remade the 1984 movie Red Dawn, a Cold War fantasy about a group of American teenagers who fight to save their hometown from a Soviet invasion. Of course, that premise was a little unrealistic, so in the new film the teenagers fight to save their town from a North Korean invasion. However ? for old time?s sake, plus the screenplay?s tacit assumption that North Korea couldn?t find its own butt with two hands ? they have Russian advisers.
Otherwise, we?re back in middle America (Spokane, Wash., this time) where the members of the local high school football team, the Wolverines, awake one morning to find enemy airplanes strafing suburban streets and parachutes blooming like a survivalist wet dream in the sky. The bad guys are here! At last!
This befuddles Matt Eckert (Josh Peck), the talented but selfish Wolverines quarterback who will, one imagines, have to learn some lessons about teamwork if he is going to vanquish anyone, even North Korea. Happily, his big brother Jed (Chris Hemsworth), a U.S. Marine, is in town on leave and ? as someone reminds us later ? ?a marine and his rifle. That?s the baddest (poop)-kickin? weapon in the world,? although I don?t know how much consideration they?ve given to the (poop)-kickin? possibilities of a Hollywood screenwriter with a big budget and an agenda of paranoid patriotism.
Matt, Jed and more Wolverines high-tail it to the Eckert cabin in the woods to organize a guerrilla force that will overcome the exotic new enemy. It was China in the original script until the realpolitik of trade and film distribution got in the way ? the movie was shot in 2009 but its release was delayed and China has become a major economic force.
However, North Korea is handy because it has no oil or strategic value, nor does it have much of a movie market. It can, however, unleash an electromagnetic pulse to disable all our computers and bring us to our weakling knees. Thank goodness for the Wolverines, who stand on burned-out buildings shouting their slogan (?Wolverines!?) with the fervour of demented cheerleaders.
Meanwhile, though, there are family wounds to heal, the Eckerts being motherless children who are soon to lose dad to the casual atrocities of Captain Lo, which is a good name for him.
Plus, there are the burgeoning romances, mostly between Matt and Erica (Isabel Lucas), his blond pillow-lipped girlfriend who has been captured by the Koreans and is being held in ? ironically ? the old football stadium. He must rescue her, even if it endangers his commitment to team play. Her lips alone are worth several lives.
However, there?s little time for lovey-dovey stuff. Jed has to teach everyone to be a resistance fighter ? it takes about 10 minutes before the bewildered adolescents evolve into a combination of Minutemen and Rambo ? and then they have to arm themselves.
Fortunately there?s no shortage of automatic weapons in and around Spokane, Wash. They?re kind of crappy, but they?re good enough to ambush the enemy and steal their good, North Korean ones.
The fun in Red Dawn is in trying to decipher the political subtext. For instance, Jed ? a man who realizes the truth in the old expression, ?Never get involved in a land war in the Pacific Northwest? ? creates his heroic guerrilla force while acknowledging that this is the opposite of what has happened in recent American history. This time the terrorists are the good guys, and he admits he has learned lessons from the Viet Cong and the mujahedeen.
The result is America as the feisty underdog. ?For them, this is just a place, but for us, this is home,? he says, as the Wolverines ambush the enemy in battles staged by director Dan Bradley with more gung-ho spirit than coherence. By the end, we appreciate the wisdom of the character who says, ?Dude, we?re living Call of Duty. And it sucks.? That?s a big 10-4, soldier.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uqgnR11BK8hvzCeXjhrCGNRNQ_XcdMep8OedhvAztmTE0LuKt_bLe1bblmRomBv-HvbGhkyAEVxgj9ifK5m9FEDuN39yMz_tXFzfu8ZxY=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-Nov-2012
Share ] 
