C. African Republic leader OKs faster elections

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) ? A spokesman for Central African Republic's new government says the country's self-declared president is now willing to speed up the process of holding new elections.

Government spokesman Crepin Mboli-Goumba said Thursday that leader Michel Djotodia had accepted recommendations made by neighboring countries earlier this week.

Those suggestions include setting up an interim council that will lead the country though a political transition to democracy. Mboli-Goumba says a president will be chosen to lead that body soon.

Djotodia's rebel fighters seized control of the capital on March 24, overthrowing President Francois Bozize who had himself taken power after a rebellion a decade ago.

The African Union and the United States have condemned the action.

Thursday's commitment to a quicker political transition comes after Djotodia met with foreign ministers from neighboring countries.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/c-african-republic-leader-oks-faster-elections-175807751.html

austin rivers sweet home alabama etch a sketch the host hoodie hoosiers temperance

Catalyst for green chemistry: Amberlyst-15 can act as a catalyst for the acylation of phenols and alcohols

Apr. 4, 2013 ? Owing to the huge array of applications, catalysis has long been dubbed as one of the most significant areas of process and synthetic chemistry. In fact, the vast majority of all chemical industrial products -- be it in the field of pharmaceutical, agricultural or polymer chemistry -- involve catalysts at some stage of the manufacturing process.

Catalytic processes are generally conducted in homogeneous phase using anhydrous organic solvents (e.g. halogenated solvents, toluene, etc.) which are very toxic and hard to eliminate. The development of environmentally friendly and efficient catalytic systems continues to be a major challenge, with researchers and industry teaming up to come up with new solutions that would make catalytic reactions and catalysts not only more ecologically sound, but more efficient and cost-effective (i.e. recyclable). An increasing demand for sustainable catalysis in the last decade has produced a prolific research into Green Chemistry, with scientists investigating different aspects of applied catalysis.

In fact, the "Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry" address numerous concerns, such as the use of toxic solvents, expensive reagents and catalysts, the number of chemical steps and their reaction conditions and the atom-economy of these synthetic protocols. A diverse set of approaches can be employed to make this process green and sustainable. First and foremost, preventing or minimizing the use of organic solvents is a way to adopt -- this can be achieved either by replacing hazardous solvents with ones that have superior ecological health and safety properties or, better still, by using solvent-free processes. Another important approach concerns the development of catalysts that could be repeatedly recycled and reused with minimal effort.

That aspect, bearing in mind the feasibility of a process in an industrial application, may be of particular importance, as all too often catalysts are expensive and hence there is considerable pressure to reduce costs via recyclability. Now, Mumbai Researchers have developed an inexpensive and entirely green procedure, which enables catalytic acetylation of phenols and alcohols under solvent-free conditions.

In the paper: "Amberlyst-15 catalyzed acetylation of phenols and alcohols under solvent free conditions," released recently in Recyclable Catalysis, an open access journal by Versita, Prof. Manoj Pande and Prof. Shriniwas D. Samant from the University Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, India offer a novel and highly sustainable method for the acylation of phenols and alcohols. They found that Amberlyst-15 is an active catalyst for the acylation of phenols and alcohols by means of acetic anhydride as an acylating agent at room temperature under heterogeneous conditions. The scientists confirmed that applications of this catalyst allow mild and highly selective transformations and synthesis in a facile and environmentally friendly manner. Equally worth mentioning is the fact that the catalysts can be recovered by filtration and recycled several times without loss of activity and selectivity.

Pande and Simant set up a mild, efficient and simple method for the acetylation of phenols and alcohols using acetic anhydride as an acylating agent in the presence of a catalytic amount of Amberlyst-15. The acetylation procedure was extended to a variety of phenols and alcohols to obtain the corresponding acetates in good to excellent yields. They also tested the recyclability of Amberlyst-15 in the reaction of p-bromophenol with acetic anhydride: The catalyst performed outstandingly -- exhibiting excellent potential for sustainability -- it was reusable for four cycles with no decrease in its activity, giving almost quantitative yield in 4-bromophenylacetate in 20 min. at room temperature.

An inexpensive material, Amberlyst-15 possesses unique properties such as environmental compatibility, nontoxicity, reusability, non-corrosiveness and chemical and physical stability -- allowing for its versatile synthetic applications. It is also one of the most resistant catalysts and can be used over a prolonged period.

This cost-effective process proves uncomplicated, workable and generating minimal waste. Considering the sought after recyclability of the catalyst, the method bodes well as it can be potentially scaled up for industrial purposes. Usually, the organic chemists perform the acylation of alcohols with acid chlorides in the presence of Et3N or pyridine. In contrast to the current methodologies, additives are not needed -- which certainly offers significant economic and environmental benefits.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

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

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Manoj A. Pande, Shriniwas D. Samant. Amberlyst-15 catalyzed acetylation of phenols and alcohols under solvent free conditions. Recyclable Catalysis, 2012; 1 DOI: 10.2478/recat-2012-0002

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/biochemistry/~3/lCuv9Wkq-OQ/130404122415.htm

sears abercrombie abercrombie Aeropostale Jcpenny ohio state football cyber monday

Significant moments in computers and technology

Too often I hear about it being too quiet on this website to which I say the solution is to post a thread that would be of interest to many.

This thread, as per usual, has been inspired by news I've just heard. The news is that today it's the cell phone's birthday which this blurb gives some details on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobile...n_3007003.html.

This thread can easily build up in the following manner. Almost every day something comes up that relates to computers and technology. Maybe an invention, maybe an inventor's birthday, a company that started up, etc. Post it on here and discuss it if you like.

So what have you to say?

Source: http://www.computerforum.com/221384-significant-moments-computers-technology.html

crystal harris Texas A Texas A&m cotton bowl Fiscal cliff deal kathy griffin jadeveon clowney

Shooting reported at Fort Knox military post (Providence Journal)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/296539168?client_source=feed&format=rss

obama on jimmy fallon google drive pilar sanders andrew young real life barbie zipper armenian genocide

Monkey business ends: Trump drops Maher suit

Ethan Miller / Getty Images files; Reuters file

Donald Trump, an orangutan and Bill Maher.

By Bruna Nessif, E! Online

Finally, enough of this monkey business! E! News has confirmed that Donald Trump has dropped his $5 million lawsuit against Bill Maher over an orangutan joke (no really, we can't make this up).

But it may pop up again in the future.

NEWS: Trump sues Maher over monkey joke!

Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, tells E! News, "The lawsuit was withdrawn to be amended and refiled at a later date."

This all started when Maher and Trump reportedly put in writing that if the "Celebrity Apprentice" star can present a valid birth certificate to prove that he's not the product of his mother having sex with an orangutan, then Maher would write a check for $5 million to the charity of Trump's choice.

And, well, since Trump doesn't joke around and there's money involved, he did provide valid paperwork to show that he's all human (sigh), but Maher never forked over the $5 million.

Yes, that really happened.

PHOTOS: Check out the top 10 feuds of 2012

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/04/17597381-donald-trump-drops-5-million-orangutan-lawsuit-against-bill-maher?lite

paul mccartney Sandy Hook Victims new york times columbine breaking news Google News Newton

BrowserCheck Business Edition

Large companies have IT personnel responsible for tracking software users have on their computers. For the small business, the task generally falls to end-users and one IT person already burdened with a long to-do list. If the user doesn't keep up with updates and IT doesn't notice, that is a security risk. Considering the amount of Web-based threats out there, the free BrowserCheck scanner from Qualys is a quick way to ensure Web browsers and installed plug-ins are up-to-date.

Cyber-criminals have a choice between buying?or creating?attacks targeting either zero-day vulnerabilities or older security flaws. The latter type is much cheaper and readily available. ?Recent research has shown a significant number of computers run outdated software. Targeting older software can be pretty lucrative.

Qualys offers BrowserCheck (three stars) for personal use and BrowserCheck Business Edition, both for free. The personal version scans the end user's computer and generates a security profile right away. BrowserCheck Business Edition collects the scan results from each computer and displays them in a dashboard. At one glance, the administrator can tell what browsers and plug-ins have been installed. For Windows machines, administrators can also check the status of antivirus and firewall protection, as well as the latest security updates via Windows Update. Thanks to automated scanning, BrowserCheck Business Edition allows administrators to schedule future scans to monitor any changes to the computer's software security profile.

Getting Started
I signed up for a BrowserCheck Business Edition on the Qualys site with a non-webmail account, as Qualys does not accept addresses from Web providers such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Businesses that don't have their own domain name and rely on these email services are blocked from using the scanner, unless they have some other email address to use instead.

The dashboard's tables and graphs offer a bird's-eye view of how many insecure browsers and plug-ins are in the organization. I viewed detailed scanning results for each system and historic reports, as well as platform statistics, such as the most frequently installed plug-ins and browsers.

BrowserCheck supports server and desktop Windows versions all the way from Windows 2000 to Windows 8, Mac OS X, and Linux. I ran a basic scan using the stock Web browser for Android but not for Firefox, and I didn't test on iOS. Qualys can also analyze alternative Web browsers, such as Maxthon, Seamonkey, and Rockmelt.

BrowserCheck, Administrator
The administrator controls all the BrowserCheck settings, such as scanning all the browsers installed on the computer at the same time, checking if the antivirus, firewall, and Windows Update are turned on (Windows only), looking for missing Microsoft Security Updates (also Windows only), and setting up an automated scheduler.

The administrator can send the customized Quick Scan URL listed under account settings to users. When someone clicks on this link, BrowserCheck scans the computer and saves the results back to the dashboard. The no-install scanner can check the plug-ins and version number for that browser only. This is a nice and simple way for the administrator to see all the results of all the machines in one place. Even so, the BrowserCheck plug-in is the better option.

Administrators can email the link to the plug-in and ask users to install it manually, or push out the MSI agent onto the computers via a software distribution tool or a script. If the organization didn't already have a software distribution tool that can push out files to user computers, administrators would have to rely on users, or take the time to make the rounds and install the plug-in themselves.

BrowserCheck can also be silent, where the user doesn't get to see the results of the scan as it is sent directly to the dashboard.

BrowserCheck, User-Side
All the end-user has to worry about is clicking on the Quick Scan link from IT to run the no-install scanner or downloading and installing the plug-in. The administrator determines what to scan and how often, making the process really simple for the user.

The plug-in-based scanner collects machine information, such as the operating system and the machine name, and associates the scan results with the machine name in the dashboard. The no-install scanner results are saved without any machine-identifying information. It's more helpful to tell the administrator which computer has the outdated Java plug-in, rather than just saying one computer needed to be updated.

If "silent mode" wasn't on, the user would see the results, a list of all installed plug-ins and their statuses. BrowserCheck has 13 different types of statuses, such as Obsolete and Retired. Outdated ones appear first, with red "Insecure Version" and blue "Fix It" buttons, followed by yellow "Update Available" buttons to indicate the updates were non-security related. Up-to-date plug-ins have green buttons, and all the ones BrowserCheck doesn't recognize have gray "Unknown" buttons.

Clicking on "Fix It" or "Update Available" buttons downloads the latest versions, but there's no way to automate getting the latest updates.

The scan results page look very similar to Mozilla's own plugin check.?With BrowserCheck, though, I could view the status of the plugins for each browser, along with system-specific data for Windows machines. I was concerned that nearly half of the plug-ins were flagged as "unknown" by BrowserCheck. While great for Windows OS and for common plug-ins, there is quite a lot the scanner doesn't recognize.

BrowserCheck for Security
For small businesses falling behind on patch management and regular software updates, BrowserCheck Business Edition is a great first step. There is nothing worse in security than not doing anything at all, so being able to see which computers have unsafe browsers or are missing security updates is a positive move.

If you just want a quick system that will tell you the state of your browsers and operating systems across your Windows network, BrowserCheck is sufficient. If you don't have a way to automatically deploy the MSI across all the computers, BrowserCheck will not be as effective as you depend on the users to install the plug-in. BrowserCheck Business Edition is the easiest way to ensure browsers and plug-ins within your organization are up-to-date with the latest security patches. If you need a little bit more, such as automated patching, investing in a more robust platform such as Panorama9?may be the way to go.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/7Fd-YK4CUfI/0,2817,2417226,00.asp

daughtry lakers trade ann arbor news nick young elizabeth smart south dakota state long beach state

Richie Sambora Drops Out of Bon Jovi Tour for "Personal Issues"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/richie-sambora-drops-out-of-bon-jovi-tour-for-personal-issues/

white sox chuck colson ufc 145 results orrin hatch marlon byrd charles colson humber