DaNGeROuS KiLLeR

On an early June morning in 2014, University of Missouri students Alexander Lindley and Danny Kerth learned that their childhood friend and fellow Mizzou classmate Ryan Candice had died by suicide. Candice was the type of person anyone would want to have in their corner, his friends said. Loved ones remember him as kind. A rock. Someone people could connect with instantly. At least a dozen people said he was their best friend -- and they were all right. "He was so inclusive and open to everyone, which made it incredibly easy for him to make friends," Lindley explained. When he died, Candice was only 20 years old, just three weeks shy of his 21st birthday. Lindley and Kerth described waking up to a string of missed phone calls from friends and feeling dumbfounded by the news. The last time Kerth saw Candice was just a couple of weeks before; their group of friends had hung out, staying up until 3 a.m. just chatting and catching up. "That was something special about Ryan -- you could have gone months without seeing him and still, every time you were with him, it was as if not a moment was lost," Kerth recalled. "That was a special trait that very few have." Their friend never let on that he was struggling, they said, an unfortunately common occurrence with mental health issues. Suicide was the second-leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds globally in 2012. And approximately one person every 40 seconds will die by suicide worldwide -- a frightening statistic of which many people are unaware. "You start to think, 'Why would he do this to us?'" Lindley said. "It dawned on me that it was the stigma surrounding mental illness -- especially for guys on college campuses -- that keeps someone from reaching out." Candice's death wasn't the first time this group of friends experienced the loss of someone to a mental health issue. Another childhood friend, Carolyn Dolan, died by suicide two years earlier. The loss of two young people so close together felt earth-shattering, but it also served as a wakeup call to the serious and devastating effects of mental illness. "I'd been through two eulogies by the age of 21," said Lindley, now 23. "Something had to change." Lindley, Kerth and their friends decided to make a documentary called "Wake Up," and not just as a way to heal: they viewed it as a platform for awareness. And clearly they weren't the only ones who felt such a film was necessary: Within 24 hours of launching a three-minute PSA and a crowdfunding campaign for the project, the group had raised $10,000 and were able to hire a director and make a 12-minute short. What's more, before graduating, Candice's friends helped found the Missouri Suicide Prevention Coalition, an on-campus organization designed to inform students and faculty about mental health issues. "Freshmen year in college, in particular, is probably one of the most stressful times in any young adult's life. It's very high pressure," Kerth explained. "Sometimes your friends need a little nudge that's it okay to reach out for help." Men, specifically young college men, often believe they're supposed to act "strong" and therefore mental health issues are considered a "weakness." Lindley believes this facade may have prevented Candice from reaching out to his closest friends, and research proves it's a problem: A recent mental health analysis found that men are more likely not to speak up if they’re having suicidal thoughts. What's more, many young people don't know the signs of mental health issues and suicide. Harmful self talk, social withdrawal and changes in sleep patterns are all potential red flags, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. While the conversation on mental illness still has a long way to go before stigma is eradicated, efforts like the "Wake Up" project are certainly invoking positive change by challenging the negative stereotypes that plague sufferers of mental illness and often prevent them from seeking proper treatment. Lindley and Kerth said that the process of creating the film taught them more about mental illness and the massive impact it has on society. "Before this project, I don't think I possessed the empathy that I do now," Kerth said. "I know that mental illness isn't in someone's control, it's a disease." The pair's next goal, Kerth says, is to raise enough money to create a full-length film that will put a lens to an under-addressed problem in the mental health community by showcasing how mental illness affects men. They hope to show the film across college campuses to help educate students on mental health disorders and banish the stigma surrounding them. "Mental illness is an affliction, just like any other disease," Lindley said. "It's time for people to be able to receive the treatment they need and to feel comfortable to ask for that help. They're not alone in this."

With its reign of terror in the Middle East, its claim to have brought down a Russian passenger jet and now, the atrocities in Paris, ISIS has commanded global headlines as the world's most dangerous terror group. But another militant Islamist organization overtook ISIS to become the world's deadliest terrorist group last year, according to a new report. Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group based mainly in Nigeria's northern states, was responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, an increase of 317% from the previous year, according to the Global Terrorism Index, released Tuesday. By contrast, ISIS, the terror group to which Boko Haram reportedly pledged allegiance in March of this year, was responsible for 6,073 deaths. Between them, the two groups were responsible for more than half (51%) the deaths attributed to terrorism, in the deadliest year on record for terror, according to the report. Internationally, deaths from terrorism experienced a "dramatic rise" in 2014, increasing by 80% from the previous year, according to the study by the Institute for Economics and Peace. There were 32,658 people killed in terrorist attacks last year -- nine times more victims than there were in 2000, it says. School kidnappings, market bombings Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa dialect, gained international notoriety for its raids on schools, in which hundreds of girls have been kidnapped. An estimated 276 teenage girls were snatched from a boarding school in Chibok in Nigeria's Borno state in April of last year, sparking the #bringbackourgirls campaign on social media. The group -- whose elusive leader, Abubakar Shekau, has a $7 million U.S. government bounty on his head -- has also pursued a ruthless campaign of bombing marketplaces throughout Nigeria. The country was rocked by two such blasts within 24 hours this week, with at least 31 people killed Tuesday in the northeastern city of Yola, according to a local Red Cross official, and 15 killed in Kano, about 400 miles (645 kilometers) to the northwest, according to police. An 11-year-old girl was a bomber in one of the attacks. Boko Haram's campaign of terror, combined with the rise of Fulani militants operating in the country's central belt, has led to Nigeria experiencing the biggest year-on-year increase of deaths from terrorism ever recorded, with 7,512 fatalities in 2014, up more than 300% since the previous year. Fulani militants, hailing from a pastoralist ethnic group engaged in conflict with farming communities, were responsible for 1,229 deaths last year, making them the world's fourth deadliest terror group, according to the report. Where is terror happening? Iraq continues to be the country most impacted by terrorism, with 9,929 terrorist fatalities last year, the highest ever recorded in a single country, according to the report. The next most affected countries were Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. Nearly four-fifths -- 78% -- of deaths from terrorism occurred in these countries, according to the report, although terrorism was spreading, with more countries recording attacks and deaths than previously. The number of countries experiencing more than 500 terrorism deaths increased from five to 11 in 2013. The six new countries on the list are Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Cameroon. The report adds that Ukraine entered the list because of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by a missile in a rebel-controlled area in the east of the country, killing all 289 people on board. Most deaths from terrorism are not taking place in the West. Excluding the 9/11 attacks, since 2000, only 0.5% of deaths from terrorism have occurred on Western soil. Of the attacks that did take place in the West, "lone wolf" attackers are the main perpetrators, causing 70% of all deaths since 2006. How do we stop 'lone wolf' attacks? The majority of "lone wolf" attackers are a mixture of political extremists, nationalists, racial, religious and white supremacists and, to a lesser degree, Islamic fundamentalists. Economic impact The report, which was compiled using data from the University of Maryland, says the global economic cost of terrorism last year reached an all-time high of $52.9 billion. This cost was 61% higher than 2013, when the economic cost of terrorism reached $32.9 billion, and over a tenfold increase since 2000. The vast majority of the costs stem from injury and death. "Terrorist activity is a significant driver of forced migration," the report says. "Ten of the 11 countries most affected by terrorism also have the highest rates of refugees and internal displacement. This highlights the strong connection between the current refugee crisis, terrorism and conflict." What is driving terrorism? Political violence and conflict are the two factors most closely linked to terrorism. Between 1989 and 2014, 92% of all terrorist attacks took place in countries where state-funded political violence was widespread. Drivers of terrorism differ, however. In developed countries, socioeconomic factors such as lack of opportunity and low social cohesion are significantly linked to terrorism. In less-developed countries, internal conflicts, political factors and corruption are strongly linked to terrorism. Since there are clear sociopolitical factors that foster terrorism, it is important to implement policies addressing these associated causes, said Steve Killelea, founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace. "This includes reducing state-sponsored violence, defusing group grievances, and improving respect for human rights and religious freedoms, while considering cultural nuances," wrote Killelea. The rise of ISIS has been significant. The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria since 2011 is the largest influx in modern times, with current estimates now ranging from 25,000 to 30,000 fighters from 100 countries. This flow of foreign fighters does not appear to be diminishing, the report says, with over 7,000 arriving in the first six months of 2015 alone. Homicides are still deadlier While terrorism is undoubtedly a major concern for safety and security, the report also highlights the fact that global homicide accounts for more deaths annually than terrorism. The global homicide rate is 13 times the global terrorism rate, with 437,000 people dying from homicides, compared with 32,658 from terrorism in 2014. The deadliest city in the world for terrorism is Baghdad. There were 2,454 deaths in Baghdad in 2014, with a death rate from terrorism of 43 per 100,000 people. Many cities in the world have higher homicide rates than the highest terrorist rates. Caracas, for example, holds the highest homicide rate in the world at 111 per 100,000 for the decade starting in 2000.

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Abstract Brain-Computer Interfaces are systems that translate the user's intention coded by brain activity measures into a control signal without using activity of any muscles or peripheral nerves. These control signals can potentially be employed to substitute motor capabilities (e.g. brain-controlled prosthetics for amputees or patients with spinal cord injuries, brain-controlled wheel chair); to help in the restoration of such functions (e.g. as a tool for stroke rehabilitation), to enable alternative communication (e.g. virtual keyboard, speller etc.) for those who are disabled or otherwise unable to communicate, and other applications such as serious games for enhancing cognition skills. The first part of the tutorial will provide an overview of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), applications, methods for brain signal acquisition and their comparison, relevant Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal features for BCI and signal processing & machine learning tools for BCI. Further, we will focus on a potential BCI research topic, i.e., BCI based neurofeedback games for improving the attention and cognitive skills. Recently BCI based neurofeedback games have attained much attention in research because of its great potential for enhancing brain’s cognitive skills. Neurofeedback allows an individual to self-regulate his brain signal in response to its real-time visual or auditory feedback. We will present design of EEG-based neurofeedback games and discuss some interesting results. Some of our recent work using low cost commercially available EMOTIV EEG system (which has only fewer electrodes compared to conventionally used EEG systems) for decoding motor imagery directions, and detection of familiarity (possible applications in psychology, criminal investigation etc.) will also be discussed. The second part of the tutorial will focus on the use of neural correlates of cognitive processes for brain-computer interfacing. In this approach the BCI instead of using surrogate, arbitrary mental tasks to control a device, will exploit onto electrophysiological responses that are naturally elicited during human-machine interaction. We will present several examples showing the feasibility of decoding correlates of error processing, anticipation and visual attention in realistic tasks. Furthermore, we will discuss how these signals can be exploited in tasks such as robot control, driving support in intelligent cars and neurorehabilitation. BiographiesVinod Prasad received his B. Tech. degree in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from University of Calicut, India in 1993 and the Master of Engineering (By Research) and Ph.D. degrees from School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2000 and 2004 respectively. He has spent the first 5 years of his career in industry as an automation engineer at Kirloskar, Bangalore, Tata Honeywell, Pune and Shell Singapore. From September 2000 to September 2002, he was a Lecturer in Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore. He joined NTU as a Lecturer in the School of Computer Engineering in September 2002; became an Assistant Professor in December 2004, and since September 2010 he is a tenured Associate Professor in NTU. He also served as a Visiting Associate Professor in Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, during June – July 2013. Vinod’s research interests include digital signal processing, low power, reconfigurable circuits & systems for wireless communications, BCI and its applications in neurofeedback, neurorehabilitation, neuroprosthetics and assistive technology devices, computer arithmetic and residue number system (RNS). He has published 186 papers in refereed international journals and conferences, supervised and graduated 9 PhDs, secured research grants amounting over $2.3 million as principal investigator from various funding agencies such as Singapore Ministry of Education, Ministry of Defence, DSO National Labs, European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company (EADS), Embassy of France in Singapore, Singapore Millennium Foundation and Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, Associate Editor of Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing Journal (Springer), and Technical Committee Co-Chair of Brain-Machine Interface Systems of IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society. He has won the Nanyang Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009, the highest recognition conferred by NTU to individual faculty for teaching. Website: www.ntu.edu.sg/home/asvinod Ricardo Chavarriaga is a senior researcher at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He received an engineering degree in electronics from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Cali, Colombia) in 1998, and a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from the EPFL in 2005. He co-chairs the IEEE SMC technical committee in BMI systems and is in the editorial board of the journals Brain-Computer interfaces, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems and Frontiers in Neurorobotics. In the past he has organized BCI-related Tutorials at the IEEE conference on Cybernetics 2013, the IEEE/ACM Human-Robot interaction conference 2009 and the IEEE SMC conference 2014; as well as workshops at the International BCI conference 2013, and the IEEE SMC conferences in 2011 and 2014. His research focuses on robust brain-machine interfaces and multimodal human-machine interaction. Specifically, decoding of cortical potentials that convey information about the user's cognitive processes. In particular error recognition, anticipation of [CENSORED]ure events and decision-making. Furthermore, He investigates on how the exploitation of such processes can be integrated with shared control principles and hybrid approaches for BMI control of complex devices.

What will it take for brain implants to become standard-issue tools for people who are paralyzed? When will they be able to use neural commands to type words or drive motorized wheelchairs? Research published today the journal Science Translational Medicine might point the way. Scientists and engineers who are part of the BrainGate project reveal that they have designed a better decoder to make sense of electric signals from the brain. Their crucial advance: software that compensates for the irregular nature of those neural signals. The team is working to make their neural implant not only a functional mind-reading device, but also a practical one that paralyzed people could use in their homes. The system's electrodes are implanted in the motor cortex, where they pick up electric signals from neurons involved in issuing movement commands to the body. In experiments over the last decade, the project’s volunteers have imagined moving their paralyzed arms to control external devices like a robotic arm and a computer cursor. In the newest set of experiments, the researchers showed off their improved decoding software that turns the brain’s electrical signals into commands. Previously, researchers had to stop their experiments frequently to recalibrate the software, because the electrical signals that the electrodes pick up can vary dramatically over the course of an hours-long session. In prior sessions using the old software, the researchers would spend the first 10 to 30 minutes calibrating the system, essentially teaching it which neural signals translated into which movement commands. “Then we’d let the participant use it for something practical for 30 minutes or maybe an hour, but then the signal would degrade,” explains Beata Jarosiewicz, lead author of the new paper and an assistant professor at Brown University. The researchers would then have to make a decision: Should they spend another 10 to 30 minutes recalibrating the system, or call a halt? For BrainGate to become a practical home-use technology, clearly it can’t require users to stop what they’re doing every half hour for recalibration, says Jarosiewicz. The electrical signals change during a session for two main reasons. Here’s the first reason in highly technical terms: “The brain is kinda squishy,” Jarosiewicz says. Neural tissue shifts slightly when people move their bodies and even as their hearts beat, so stiff electrodes implanted in the tissue come into contact with different brain cells, which are producing different electrical signals. “Even movements on the order of a few microns is enough to change the signal that we’re recording,” says Jarosiewicz. Signal instabilty also stems from the environment in which recording takes place. The BrainGate team often conducts experiments in participants’ homes to see how their gear functions in real-world settings, so the system can pick up electromagnetic noise from nearby electronics. “Someone might turn on the vacuum cleaner in the other room,” Jarosiewicz says. Suddenly, a signal that used to indicate a certain cursor movement could be obscured. The primary trick behind the improved decoding software: Each time the user pauses—say at the end of a sentence—the system recalibrates itself, matching the words and letters selected in the sentence to the set of neural recordings from that time span. With this technique, called “retrospective target inference,” it’s constantly relearning which signals translate into which commands. As the signals change, it adjusts accordingly. The video below gives a brief explanation and demonstration. One participant with Lou Gehrig’s disease used this improved decoder with the typing interface, and showed that it provided good control over the course of six sessions spaced out over 42 days. Jarosiewicz says the next step is to use the decoder not just to control a cursor for the typing program, but to control a computer mouse. With that ability, users could control just about anything that’s connected to the internet. They could find autonomy thanks to the Internet of Things. There’s still one big stumbling block before someone who’s locked-in can use the BrainGate system to communicate freely or operate robotic assistants. The current implant must be physically connected via cables to a computer, so a technician has to help the user get jacked in. But Jarosiewicz notes that another neural engineer at Brown is now working on a wireless system. “We want people to have the system available 24-7,” she says.

It’s that time of the year again: TOP500 published its twice-annual list of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world today, and it looks like China’s Tianhe-2 is still on top — and for the sixth consecutive time. There are two new systems in the top 10: At number six is Cray’s Trinity, jointly developed by the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, and at number eight is Hazel-Hen, also built by Cray and residing at the HLRS – Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart in Germany. More telling is what constitutes the rest of the group. The U.S. has the lowest number of systems in the top 500 since the latter was first created in 1993, while China now has almost three times as many systems on the list as it did before. Six of the top 10 systems were installed in 2011 or 2012, the report said, while Tianhe-2 fired up in 2013. So, onto the results: Tianhe-2 sits on top of the Linpack benchmark with 33.86 petaflops/s (or quadrillions of calculations per second, or Pflop/s). Next up is the Cray XK7 system Titan (pictured below), located at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S., with 17.59 Pflop/s on the Linpack benchmark. Trinity, the Cray XC system landing at number six, scored 8.1 Pflop/s with its 301,056 cores, while the 185,088-core Hazel-Han in Germany scored 5.6 Pflop/s. Cray is on a bit of a tear lately, after having previously fallen from favor; it now has 24.9 percent of installed total performance across the TOP500, up from 24 percent, and is the leading vendor in this benchmark overall. IBM is in second place with 14.9 percent, down from 23 (see below as to why), while HP is at third with 12.9 percent (down from 14.2). Breaking down the list further, the U.S. now contains just 200 of the 500 systems, down from 231 in July and as mentioned the lowest since the list was first created 22 years ago. Next up is now China, leapfrogging all of Europe with 109 systems; the latter now has just 108 in total, down from 141. China can count part of its success to a rebranding of machines from IBM to either IBM/Lenovo or Lenovo/IBM, while the Chinese vendor Sugon has a total of 49 systems in the list. Another key change: The growth rate is lagging, with a new normal of a 55 percent improvement in performance year-over-year for the past six years, compared with 90 percent year-over-year jumps before that time. Eighty of the 500 systems are faster than 1 Pflop/s. Within the top 10, Tianhe-2 (#1) and Stampede (#10) use Intel Xeon Phi processors, while Titan (#2) and Piz Daint (#7) use Nvidia GPUs to improve computational speeds. Here’s the current list: 1. Tianhe-2: TH-IVB-FEP Cluster; National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, China; 3.12 million cores (33.86 petaflop/s). 2. Titan: A Cray XK7 system at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (17.59 petaflop/s). 3. Sequoia: An IBM BlueGene/Q system located at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California, with 1.57 million cores. 4. K Computer: A SPARC64 system with 705k cores at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Japan. 5. Mira: IBM BlueGene/Q; DOE/SC/Argonne National Laboratory, US; 786k custom IBM cores. 6. Trinity: Cray XC40; DOE/NNSA/LANL/SNL, US; 301,056 Xeon E5-2698v3 cores. 7. Piz Daint: Cray XC30 with 116k Xeon and Nvidia cores; located at the Swiss National Computing Centre in Switzerland. 8. Hazel Hen: Cray XC40; HRLS-Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart, Germany; 185k Xeon E5-2680v3 cores. 9. Shaheen II: A Cray XC40 at King Abdullah’s University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, marking the first appearance of a Middle East supercomputer in the top 10 (5.536 petaflop/s). 10. Stampede: A Dell PowerEdge C8220 system with 462k Xeon Phi cores at the Texas Advanced Computing Center/University of Texas in the US. The next step is whether anyone can figure out how to build a real quantum computer. IBM has previously said that if someone can build one with just 50 quantum bits (qubits), and that can detect both types of errors and scale to large systems, no combination of today’s TOP500 supercomputers could successfully outperform it.”

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Being wary of Friday the 13th is much more than a quaint superstition observed by a few uneducated people in distant, unreachable towns and hamlets. In the United States alone, it is estimated that between 17 and 21 million people dread that date to the extent that it can be officially classified as a phobia. So why is Friday the 13th considered such an “evil” day? The origins aren’t perfectly clear, but we do know that both Friday and, separately, the number 13 have long been considered unlucky and it was around the late 19th century that the first documented instances started popping up of people putting the two together to form the unluckiest day of all. To start with, the most po[CENSORED]r theory as to why Friday is considered unlucky or an evil day is thought to spring from Christianity. By tradition, Friday is considered the day that Eve gave Adam the “apple” and they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden- of course, “Friday” wouldn’t have been around yet. (Note: The notion that it was an apple is a second century invention and contrary to what is stated in Genesis.) Also by tradition, Adam and Eve were purported to have died on the then nonexistent “Friday”. The Temple of Solomon was said to have been destroyed on Friday. And Jesus was traditionally considered to have been crucified on a Friday, the day we refer to now as Good Friday. That said, there are several references in somewhat recent history of Good Friday being considered the one exception to Fridays being bad luck. Such as this reference from 1857: Others theorize that Friday being unlucky predated Christianity. The name “Friday” was chosen in honor of the Norse goddess Frigg, also known as Freyja, who was the multitalented goddess of love, beauty, wisdom, war, death, and magic. Teutonic people are thought to have considered the day extremely unlucky, especially for weddings, due in part to the lovely goddess the day was named for. Later, the Christian church attempted to demonize the goddess, so that may or may not be a contributing factor as well. Whatever the case, despite these quite old origin theories, well documented instances of the notion that Friday was po[CENSORED]rly considered unlucky among the masses don’t seem to have popped up until around the mid-17th century. Within the next two centuries after that, the idea continued to spread and by the 19th century was nearly ubiquitous in certain cultures. As for the unluckiness of the number 13, as with Friday, there are numerous possibilities for the origin, the most po[CENSORED]r of which also stems from Christianity. It is considered incredibly bad luck to have 13 people sitting at a table for dinner, which supposedly is due to the fact that Judas Iscariot was by tradition the 13th person to be seated to dine at the Last Supper. However, the Hindus also believed that it was bad luck for 13 people to gather together for any purpose at the same time. Far away in northern Europe, the Vikings of ancient times told a very similar story. According to the old Norse myth, 12 gods were feasting at the banquet hall at Valhalla, when Loki, the god of Mischief, showed up uninvited. This, of course, brought the count of gods up to the dreaded number of 13. Loki then encouraged Hod, the blind god of winter and darkness, to murder Balder the Good with a spear of mistletoe, throwing all of Valhalla into mourning, and once again providing another example of a story in history that congregating with 13 for dinner is a bad idea. So why all these separate religions having such a similar tradition of demonizing the number 13? There are those that theorize the number 13 may have been purposely denigrated by the founders of the patriarchal religions to eradicate the influence of the Mother Goddess. In goddess worshipping cultures, the number 13 was often revered, as it represented the number of lunar and menstrual cycles that occur annually. It is believed by those who adhere to this theory that as the 12-month solar calendar came into use over the 13-month lunar calendar, the number 13 itself became suspect. It should be noted, though, that not all cultures in the ancient world recoiled at the number 13. The Ancient Egyptians believed life was a spiritual journey that unfolded in stages. They believed that 12 of those stages occurred in this life, but last, the 13th, was a joyous transformative ascension to an eternal afterlife. So the number 13 represented death to the Egyptians, but not death as in decay and fear, but as acknowledgement of a glorious eternal life. Of course, it’s always possible the association with death from Egyptian tradition later morphed into death in an unlucky sense later by cultures influenced by Egypt. As with the notion of Friday being unlucky, “13” being po[CENSORED]rly considered unlucky really seemed to gain steam around the 17th-18th centuries, and by the 19th century in the Western world was likewise extremely widespread in several different cultures. So when did Friday and the number 13 join forces like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bad luck to terrorize the masses? You’ll often read that it’s when the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307. However, that origin story is a modern notion with no basis in any documented history. Others point to the last day of King Harold II’s reign on Friday, October 13, 1066. William of Normandy gave him the opportunity to relinquish his crown, which he refused. The next day William took it by force at the Battle of Hastings, causing Harold’s demise. Again, it is a modern idea that this is where the first “Friday the 13th is the ultimate unlucky day” notion came about. It perhaps isn’t surprising, given that both Friday and “13” as unlucky didn’t reach their zenith in po[CENSORED]rity until the 19th century, that it wasn’t until around the mid to late 19th century that the two were put together as the ultimate unlucky day. One of the earliest references of this comes from a club formed by William Fowler. Fowler set out to prove that these sorts of superstitions are baseless. He thus formed a club known as “The Thirteen Club” in which club members would meet in groups of 13 to dine, with their first ever get together occurring, of course, on the unluckiest day of the week- Friday the 13th in January of 1881. To thumb their noses even further at the fates, they had club members walk under a ladder before sitting down to a table in room 13 of the building they were in. They also made sure there was plenty of spilled salt on the table before they dined. A slightly earlier documented reference comes from 1869, in the biography of Gioachino Rossini where the author, Henry Sutherland Edwards notes: (Interestingly, traditionally in Italy, Friday the 13th was not considered unlucky, with 13 being often considered a lucky number there until extremely recently when Western European and American influence started to change that. For Italians, classically, 17 was the unlucky number and thus Friday the 17th became the Italian version of Friday the 13th. Nevertheless, Henry Sutherland Edwards was British so, though he was writing about an Italian composer, applied his own superstition to Gioachino Rossini.) The notion of Friday the 13th being the unluckiest of the unlucky picked up steam from around this point and once we get into the early 20th century, there are numerous documented instances of people referencing it in this way, such as the 1907 novel by stockbroker Thomas W. Lawson called Friday the Thirteenth, which told of a stockbroker’s efforts to destroy the market on that ominous date. So, aside from the po[CENSORED]r “Friday the 13th” film franchise, what makes the Friday the 13th superstition stick so stubbornly in our collective consciousness? Psychologists point to the fact that if anything negative happens on that specific date, people make a permanent association between the event and the date in their minds, conveniently forgetting all those times Friday the 13th has passed uneventfully. In short, it is a classic example of confirmation bias. If you liked this article, you might also enjoy: Why the Seasons are Called Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring The Origin of “Say Cheese” and When People Started Smiling in Photographs How the “Black Friday” Tradition Got Started Why Black Cats are Considered Bad Luck The Origin of Wedding Rings and Why They’re Worn on the 4th Finger of the Left Hand Bonus Facts: The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics in 2008 attempted to prove that Friday the 13th was no different than any other day. They ended up demonstrating the opposite. From their results, they found Friday the 13th is actually a slightly safer day to drive than other days, at least using two years’ worth of data from 2006-2008 in the Netherlands. In that span, there were an average of 7,500 traffic accidents on days that were both Friday and the 13th of the month. On Fridays that didn’t line up with the 13th, there were only an average of 7,800 accidents each day. Their theory is simply that, due to the phobia, less people drive on Friday the 13th and people are more careful when they have to. They also found similar trends with reported fires and crimes, with less happening on Fridays that coincide with the 13th day of the month. In many nations where Spanish influence is prevalent, rather than Friday the 13th being unlucky, it is Tuesday the 13th that holds that honor.

The government subsidy for health insurance will shrink to just 25 per cent next year, which means premium rises will burn an even bigger hole in your pocket. Originally worth 30 per cent of health fund premiums, the subsidy fell to 28 per cent this year and is on track to fall to 25 per cent next year in a cut that will cost families with top cover more than $200, and singles $100. A family on medium cover will pay $159 extra as a result and singles $78. Health Minister Sussan Ley said the “true pain” of Labor’s cuts to the value of the rebate were only now being felt. “We saw half-a-million top cover policies dumped or downgraded last year and no matter how you look at it, consumers are currently the losers,” Ms Ley said. “Fiddling with the rebate alone won’t improve the value of private health insurance for consumers, as we’ve seen from Labor’s cuts. We need a balanced reform package.” Highlighting growing consumer anger with health funds, the minster revealed more than 20,000 Australians have responded to the government’s online survey on health insurance reform in just five days. The community revolt comes as health funds asked the government on Friday to approve average premium rises of up to 7 per cent next year, a rise that would be more than four times the inflation rate. And some health fund members warn actual premium rises may end up being even higher than the “average” figure used when they take effect in April. Many were slugged with rises nearly three times the average increase in April this year when the annual premium rise took effect. The average rise in April was 6.18 per cent but HCF’s Top Plus cover increased by 13.8 per cent, Medibank’s Blue Ribbon Hospital cover by 11 per cent, and BUPA’s Top Hospital with everyday extras by 9.2 per cent. Health Minister Sussan Ley is asking consumers to respond to an online survey on possible reforms to health cover as she prepares to change the government’s health insurance policy. On Friday she released a discussion paper ahead of meetings with funds, doctors and private hospitals next week on reforms to the industry. Among issues to be discussed are whether health insurers should be able to cover emergency department care, dialysis, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. The minister wants to know whether health fund products that only cover people in a public hospital should be banned. She’ll discuss changes to the way prices for hip, knee and other medical devices are set to cut the price. And consider whether the government should still have a role in approving annual health fund premium rises. Raising concerns about US-style managed care she will also look at whether “insurers should be financial organisations or service providers”. Australian Medical Association president Professor Brian Owler said he would not be attending the meeting which had been called at such short notice he already had a theatre full of patient booked. He described the consultation as “last minute” “I haven’t seen the discussion paper, I haven’t seen an agenda or the terms of reference for this consultation yet, this is not the way to sort out policy,” he said. The government’s online survey is asking Australians whether older people, women, smokers and people with health problems should pay higher premiums to reflect their higher health costs. News Corp has revealed older Australians could face premiums of over $6,300 a year if insurance was risk-rated, women of child bearing age could also have to pay more. The Minister revealed 20,291 people had already responded to the survey. “Continuing to chip away at the private health rebate like Labor did without looking at the bigger picture will only see more people dump or downgrade their policies,” Ms Ley said. “We need to be open in our thinking if we’re to deliver long-term improvements to private health that not only benefit consumers, but also maintain the integrity of Medicare and our public hospital system.” “Doing the same will ensure nothing changes,” she said. Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King says at a time when health insurers have made a record $1.4 billion in profits, it’s hard to see how a rise four times the inflation rate can now be justified on top of this. She says the Coalition has downgraded all specialist oversight of health insurance and waved through successive above six per cent increases. And says if the minister is concerned about the 30 per cent rebate being eroded “she’s had two years to do something about it” “All the government has done instead is deliver the two highest premium rises in a decade,” she said. The subsidy cut to 25 per cent is the result of a policy change by the previous Labor government which sees the rebate increase only in line with official inflation, 1.5 per cent, while health fund premiums are forecast to rise by up 6-7 per cent. Head of health fund BUPA Dwayne Crombie has told News Corp he forecasts the rebate will be worth just 25 per cent next year. The Coalition Government pledged to overturn the policy at the 2013 election but has not done so. Health Minister Sussan Ley said the “true pain” of Labor’s cuts to the value of the rebate were only now being felt. “We saw half-a-million top cover policies dumped or downgraded last year and no matter how you look at it, consumers are currently the losers,” Ms Ley said. “Fiddling with the rebate alone won’t improve the value of private health insurance for consumers, as we’ve seen from Labor’s cuts. We need a balanced reform package.”

For more than a year, "Jihadi John" has been something of a nightmare for the West. But now the masked public face of ISIS may be gone, possibly the victim of a U.S. drone strike, the Pentagon announced. It wasn't immediately clear whether the strike was successful. But a senior U.S. official said authorities are confident the strike killed him. This is what we know about the man behind the mask. Middle-class upbringingMohammed Emwazi is a Kuwaiti-born Londoner. He is believed to have traveled to Syria in 2012 and later joined ISIS there. Emwazi was born in Kuwait in 1988 and he moved to the UK with his parents, Jasem and Ghaneya, and sister when he was 6, according to CAGE, an advocacy group for those affected by terrorism investigations. The family settled in west London. Emwazi's father is reported to have worked as a taxi driver while his mother stayed at home to look after Emwazi and his siblings. Many of those who grew up with him have told British news organizations they remember Emwazi much differently: as the typical "boy next door," a po[CENSORED]r kid who loved football, pop music and The Simpsons. He is reported to have attended St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School, in the Maida Vale distict in west London. After leaving St. Mary Magdalene, he is believed to have moved on to the Quintin Kynaston Academy, in neighboring St. John's Wood. A former teacher told Britain's Channel 4 News that Emwazi was "a diligent, hardworking, lovely young man. Responsible, polite, quiet. He was everything that you'd want a student to be." He studied at the University of Westminster in London, graduating in 2009 with a degree in computer programming, according to CAGE. Emwazi in London terror network before becoming 'Jihadi John' Why ISIS?With so much going for him, what inspired Emwazi to join ISIS? Guesses depend on whom you ask. Some terrorism experts said Emwazi's history shows someone who'd been on a path toward extremism for years. But CAGE said that, if he is the man who has appeared in ISIS videos, it shows that the tactics of British authorities radicalized him. Friends of Emwazi said they believed he started down the road to radicalization when he traveled to the east African nation of Tanzania in 2009, the Washington Post reported this year. He was supposed to be going on safari but he was reportedly detained on arrival, held overnight and then deported. He was also detained by counterterrorism officials in Britain in 2010, the Post said. Authorities have not disclosed the reasons for those reported detentions. Alienation to ISIS?There are "striking similarities" between Emwazi and the man known as "Jihadi John," according to Asim Qureshi, CAGE's research director. If Emwazi is indeed Jihadi John, Qureshi said, that makes him sad. But in some ways, he said, it's not surprising. Many Muslims feel alienated in their society, as did Emwazi, Qureshi said. "When are we going to finally learn if we treat people as if they're outsiders ... they will look for belonging elsewhere?" Qureshi asked. "Our entire national security strategy for the last 13 years has only increased alienation." The Washington Post's report includes emails Emwazi purportedly wrote after British counterterrorism officials detained him and stopped him from flying to Kuwait. "I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started," he wrote in a June 2010 email to Qureshi, the Post reported. But now "I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London. A person imprisoned & controlled by security service men, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace & country, Kuwait," the email said. CAGE points the finger at British security services, which it says have "systematically engaged in the harassment of young Muslims, rendering their lives impossible and leaving them with no legal avenue to redress their situation." Only half of the story?Haras Rafiq, managing director of the Quilliam Foundation, a UK-based counter-extremism think tank, said CAGE was pointing in the wrong direction. It's clear Emwazi had been radicalized before 2010, Rafiq said. And he said the intelligence agencies that stopped Emwazi from traveling to Tanzania believed there was evidence he intended to join the extremist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Haras said it was "very upsetting that an organization like CAGE would spin this in the way that they've done," by blaming intelligence agencies. Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd told CNN that blaming radicalization on alienation was oversimplifying Emwazi's case. "We're only seeing half of this story," he said. "The government doesn't spend the resources and take the risk, the legal risk of pulling somebody aside, preventing them from traveling, searching through their luggage, just because somebody looks funny. There is something else going on here, in terms of whatever triggered the government to undertake this investigation, that we're missing here." 'Notorious celebrity'The masked, black-clad figure believed to be Jihadi John appeared to be the ISIS militant shown in a January video, demanding a $200 million ransom to spare the lives of two Japanese journalists. A similar figure appeared in at least five previous hostage videos. The man's reported background offers some clues as to why he might have been recruited, said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the Asia Pacific Foundation. "We know that ISIS recruits a lot of Westerners who are skilled in new media, understanding of the Internet, because they use that as their platform as an oxygen of publicity," Gohel said. But by not revealing his name for operational reasons, one expert said, officials may have created another problem. "It created more speculation in the media," he said. "In some ways, the nom de guerre of Jihadi John gave this individual a form of notorious celebrity." Emwazi, who speaks English, was frequently seen in hooded hostage videos carrying out violent beheadings. For periods at a time this year, Emwazi was not seen in hostage videos, though U.S. officials told CNN in July that they had learned that he was alive and hiding near Raqqa. Analysts describe him as grotesque and fond of sadistic torture techniques, with one former hostage recounting last month how his captor made him dance the tango with him.

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Windows is an operating system designed by Microsoft. The operating system is what allows you to use a computer. Windows comes preloaded on most new personal computers (PCs), which helps to make it the most po[CENSORED]r operating system in the world. Windows makes it possible to complete all kinds of everyday tasks on your computer—for example, you can use Windows to browse the Internet, check your email, edit digital photos, listen to music, play games, and do much more. Windows is also used in many offices because it gives you access to productivity tools such as calendars, word processors, and spreadsheets. Microsoft released the first version of Windows in the mid-1980s. There have been many versions of Windows since then, but the most recent ones include Windows 10 (released in 2015), Windows 8 (2012), Windows 7 (2009), Windows Vista (2007), and Windows XP (2001). About this tutorialThis tutorial is designed to show you the absolute basics of using a Windows computer, including how to use the desktop, how to open different files and applications, and how to move and resize windows. The information in this tutorial will apply to more recent versions of Windows, including the ones mentioned above. However, once you've learned the basics, you may also want to review one of our version-specific Windows tutorials—just select the version of Windows that's installed on your computer: Windows 10 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows XP

An estimated quarter trillion dollars a year is wasted on unused software. Here's how software asset management (SAM) tools can prevent the software overspend. If you took all the money wasted on poorly managed software, you'd have enough money to run a small but prosperous nation. Starting bottom-up, your enterprise probably pays around $1.25 for every $1 worth of third-party software. If you're lucky, you don't get dinged too badly by vendor audits at true-up time. In that case, you're only spending on maintenance and support for software that’s long since been wiped from the workstation it sat on. And on license renewal for a server that was scrapped two years ago in the latest round of virtualization or consolidation. Or maybe you're paying an enterprise license for a package that has only one user. Maybe you're buying two competing packages with exactly the same functionality, or software that never gets taken out of the shrink-wrap. And you probably suspect that some shadow IT practitioners, operating in stealth or unaware of their company's enterprise subscription might have just bought a second copy of the same software. The process of controlling these ephemera is called software asset management, or SAM. Nobody knows precisely how much money is hemorrhaged each year due to shoddy SAM, but here's how Tom’s IT Pro modeled that headline figure: Start with the broadly accepted figure of $600 billion per year spent on software worldwide, then back out the one-third which is developed by contractors and consultants (this custom work might also include stacks of wasted money, but that’s another article). That's $400 billion in over-the-counter software. If we're only realizing $1 for every $1.25 spent, then we’re getting $320 billion in value. Of course, some enterprises have active, fit-for-purpose, SAM tools -- and here’s the critical part -- that are actually being used. According to a not-terribly-scientific survey by CME Group (PDF available here), it looks like that’s maybe one-fourth of the marketplace. So in essence we have a $240 billion hole in our pocket. That’s roughly the GDP of Ireland, Hong Kong or Chile. Calculating Software OverspendSoftware waste might well be the most expensive problem in IT that nobody talks about. So maybe it’s time to start the discussion. The CME survey suffers from being predicated on a small, self-reporting sample, but it raises some points of discussion. Only 27 percent of respondents were sure they paid a reduced fee for non-production, on-premises environments; that should be close to 100 percent. Similarly, 27 percent own a software tracking tool, an equal number use spreadsheets and the rest report no tool at all. The picture is a little brighter when the topic is desktop software, but even there 36 percent of organizations say they don’t keep track. Most tellingly, more than 45 percent of respondents have the SAM tools embedded in their service management suites but haven’t gotten around to turning them on. Solving The Software Waste With SAM Tools And ProceduresThere's a two-pronged attack to dealing with the problem: tools and procedures. Just like any other IT program. A SAM tool should accomplish the following, according Peter Alderson, SAM practice leader at British consulting firm Computacenter: Discover all IT assets on the network; Provide accurate hardware and software inventory; Reconcile purchases against actual purchasing data for the number of licenses installed or in use; Meter software usage; Advise on which users have not installed required security patches or updates; Provide comprehensive reporting. So a SAM tool is part sniffer, CMDB (configuration management database), accounting package, chargeback tool, security system and dashboard. If you have ServiceNow, BMC Remedy or some other IT Service Management (ITSM) suite, SAM capability is baked in. If you’re looking for a pure-play SAM tool, the market leaders, according to ITAM Review, are Express Metrix, Snow Software and Remedy’s SAM-focused cousin BMC FrontRange Solutions. The procedures to use these tools are actually well-defined if anyone would care to act on them. It all stems from ISO 19770 and ITIL. The ISO standard “establishes a baseline for an integrated set of processes for Software Asset Management (SAM), divided into tiers to allow for incremental implementation, assessment and recognition,” according to the standard-setting body. It prescribes software identification tagging and, although the standard doesn’t get into the stepwise detail of how to implement it, it’s largely an automated process. ITIL is thick with SAM references, mainly in the Service Asset and Configuration Management process within the Service Transition lifecycle step. But a report from BCS, the august body once called the British Computer Society Ltd., points out that many organizations don’t even consider SAM part of service management, and how that leads to inefficiencies. As evidenced by this map to nowhere, there are savings to be had from SAM. Some are obvious; others have nothing to do with sending smaller payments to software vendors. Licensure and maintenance are obvious places to begin the search for savings. A team from the German-based SAM consultancy OMTCO suggests further benefits from reduced payments related to compliance issues and migration complexity. According to a paper promulgated by Express Metrix, proper SAM could also lead to eliminating the time and trouble of conducting manual inventories and reducing help desk costs. The Cost Of SAM ToolsAlthough this is not a business case how-to, our article on How To Build A Successful Business Case For An IT Project can help you with the basics of putting together a quantitative case for change. But let's be clear: You might already have all the tools you need to effect SAM through your ITSM suite, so there might be no incremental investment needed. And, if there is, and as long as it's less than 20 percent of your whole software budget, it's probably at least a breakeven. Prices for SAM tools -- like prices for the assets they manage -- are a matter of negotiation. Still, a quick Web scan revealed street prices from around $130,000 down to less than $10,000. Assume, as a rough estimate, it'll cost as much in contractor time to implement a SAM tool. But money isn't the issue; skills are. Do you have people in your organization who understand SAM? Can you find others in your market who can? It's not glamorous work but, if your IT organization is squeezed to provide more service for the same budget year after year after year, you might soon be compelled to look at software overspend.

Five years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPad and kicked off a sea change in how people gamed, browsed the Internet, and watched video. While the iPad and the Android tablets that shipped afterwards didn’t single-handedly wreck the PC market, they definitely played a role in the decline in total sales. Now, Tim Cook thinks the iPad Pro could hammer the corporate PC the same way that the original iPad cannibalized mainstream PC sales. In an interview with The Telegraph, Cook states that he thinks the iPad Pro obviates any need to own a corporate PC at all, saying “No, really, why would you buy one?” He continues: “Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones.” Is this realistic? I think not, for multiple reasons. First, the iPad Pro starts at $799 for a 32GB model and $949 for a 128GB model with WiFi only. That’s far more expensive than the typical laptops and desktops that are mainstays in corporate America. Cook believes that the iPad Pro will appeal primarily to creative types, who will fall in love with the stylus, and music and movie consumers, who will love the powerful audio that apparently makes the iPad Pro “appear to pulsate.” Whether any movie buffs want a device that offers sonic antialiasing is an open question, and I can’t comment on whether the iPad Pro’s stylus will compare with, say, a Wacom tablet. The Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil both cost more, at $169 and $99 respectively. That puts the baseline price for an iPad Pro at $1067 for just 32GB of storage and $1217 for a 128GB version. Microsoft’s recently launched Surface Pro 4 offers 128GB of storage, pen, and keyboard at a price of $1057, though we’ll have to wait and see how the devices’ compare in performance tests. When the iPad debuted in 2010, there were no comparable Windows or Android devices. Now, there are — and that’s going to blunt some of the potential disruption from Apple’s new hardware. That’s not to say there’s no market for the iPad Pro — it’s going to appeal to certain customers and Apple faithful who want a device that’s big enough to serve as a PC replacement, with a larger 12.9-inch screen than what you find on a traditional iPad. I suspect, however, that this will ultimately come down to IT support and corporate management tools. If the requisite software exists to integrate iPad Pros into existing corporate ecosystems and manage them appropriately, than we may see increased uptake. Otherwise, as Cook has said, the device will be more limited, appealing mainly to creative types. There’s a reason that Apple is talking up the iPad Pro as a machine designed to appeal to consumers and that elusively defined “creative” audience — it wants to reinvigorate iPad sales. Apple year-on-year iPad sales This graph shows how iPad sales have slumped in recent years as consumers upgrade the devices less frequently the phones. 2014 started with a bang, but sales fell every other quarter compared to 2014. 2015 has been even worse, with first quarter sales below 2013 levels. Last quarter, Apple sold fewer iPads than in any year since 2011. None of this is to say that the iPad is in any kind of danger, but Cook would obviously like to show steady growth for the company’s tablet division, not a meandering decline. Will it work, in the face of more determined opposition from the PC space and multiple vendors already offering hardware with similar specs? We’ll see.