BEIJING (AP) ? At least two people were killed Saturday when a powerful earthquake jolted China's Sichuan province near the same area where a devastating quake struck five years ago, with state media warning the casualty toll could climb sharply.
The government's seismological bureau said the quake hit shortly after 8 a.m. in Lushan county in the city of Ya'an, home to China's famous pandas.
The news office for the Sichuan provincial government said on its official microblog account that two people were reported killed in Lushan and that two townships had suffered severe damages.
A state-run China News Service, quoting unnamed local media, said more than 100 people may have been killed or hurt in the earthquake.
The seismological bureau initially measured the quake at magnitude-7, while the U.S. Geological Survey recorded it at 6.6-magnitude, powerful enough to cause severe damage. Its depth was shallow, less than 13 kilometers or 8 miles, which could magnify the impact.
The official Xinhua News Agency said that the quake rattled buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu 115 kilometers, or 70 miles, to the east.
There are reports that the airport in Chengdu was closed shortly after the earthquake, and
State-run China Central Television reported the Chengdu airport was temporarily closed, and that delays and flight cancellations were expected.
Social media users who said they were in Lushan county posted photos of collapsed buildings and reported that water and electricity had been cut off.
A man who answered the phone at the Ya'an city government said telecommunications were cut and that medical and rescue teams are on the way to the area.
"I felt the strong quake this morning in my office. All drawers of the desk opened and some stuff on the table fell on the floor," said the man, who refused to give his name, as is usual with low-ranking Chinese government officials.
The epicenter lies along the same Longmenshan fault where the devastating 7.9-magnitude quake struck in May 2008, leaving more than 90,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead.
An older man performs exercises in Mumbai, India. Research suggests that moderate physical exercise may be the best way to keep our brains healthy as we age.
Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP
An older man performs exercises in Mumbai, India. Research suggests that moderate physical exercise may be the best way to keep our brains healthy as we age.
Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP
The numbers are pretty grim: More than half of all 85-year-olds suffer some form of dementia.
But here's the good news: Brain researchers say there are ways to boost brain power and stave off problems in memory and thinking.
In other words, brain decline is not necessarily an inevitable part of aging. "It's simply not pre-destined for all human beings," Bryan James tells Shots. He's an epidemiologist at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago. "Lots of people live into their 90s and even 100s with no symptoms of dementia."
So what can you do to increase the odds? Neuroscientist Art Kramer, who directs the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, has a number of suggestions. First and foremost, Kramer says, is to exercise. Research shows it's the best thing you can do for your brain.
Kramer did a study in which he scanned the brains of 120 older adults, half of whom started a program of moderate aerobic exercise ? just 45 minutes, three days a week, mostly walking. After a year, the MRI scans showed that for the aerobic group, the volume of their brains actually increased.
What's more, individuals in the control group lost about 1.5 percent of their brain volume, adding up to a 3.5 percent difference between individuals who took part in aerobic exercise and those who did not. Further tests showed that increased brain volume translated into better memory.
The findings support earlier animal research in which rodents that were exercised had a number of favorable physiological changes, Kramer says. They had more new neurons, stronger connections between neurons, and increased blood supply to a number of regions in the brain.
Rachel Whitmer, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, agrees that it's important to exercise your body to ensure the health of your brain. It's not just getting adequate exercise, Whitmer says, it's also "maintaining good blood pressure, levels of cholesterol and a healthy weight," and remembering that "what's good for the heart is good for the brain."
What about mental exercises? Kramer says the evidence isn't nearly as conclusive, but keeping your brain active can't hurt.
The brain loves novelty, so if you do crossword puzzles, try shifting to a different type of puzzle ? Sudoku, for example, he says. Or learn a new language. Play a new instrument.
And go out with friends. James recently published a study looking at the social lives of about 1,100 adults over 80. He asked them about going to restaurants and sporting events, playing bingo, doing volunteer work and other activities.
Individuals were followed for up to 12 years. Those with busy social lives were half as likely to develop dementia, compared with those with minimal social activities.
In another study, James looked at a different measure of activity ? something he calls "life space." He added up how often people got out of their bedroom, went out of their house, traveled out of their neighborhood or out of town. "The people who never left their home ? even though they didn't seem to have any cognitive problems when we started following them ? were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease" over five years, James says.
And finally, there's the popular notion of brain food. There's some evidence suggesting that omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, and antioxidants, like vitamins C and E, found in vegetables, may help nourish the brain.
Putting it all together, Kramer jokingly suggests that the best advice might be to join a book group that walks and drinks red wine while talking about the book. Red wine contains antioxidants, Kramer notes. You'd be discussing a stimulating topic with good friends while exercising your body. "How can you beat it?" he says. "It's got all four!"
Browse > Home / / Massive Solar Flare May Disru... 2013-04-14 14:17:00 (GMT) (Caymanmama.com - News Providers News)
/EINPresswire.com/ April 12, 2013 /EIN News/?A massive solar flare has fired particles toward earth that may disrupt radio communications and GPS signals over the next few days. This event can result in a geomagnetic storm as it collides with the magnetosphere. Harmful radiation also results, but will be blocked by the atmosphere. See the article here:
-Massive Solar Flare Article?http://energy.einnews.com/article/145899847
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Ok, So technically this program works. My problem is my error message is also displayed when I print the information. Can someone help me figure out how to prevent this from happening?
/***************************************** Phone Number List ******************************************/ # include <iostream> // i/o stream header # include <cstring> // header file needed to use strstr function using namespace std; /****************** Function Main ******************/ int main () { const int num = 11; // num holds 11 contacts const int length = 100; // Maximum allowable charactersfor each line is 100 // Array contacts[][] holds 11 contacts with phone numbers char contacts[num][length] = { "Becky Warren, 555-1223", "Joe Looney, 555-0097", "Geri Palmer, 555-8787", "Lynn Presnell, 555-1212", "Holly Gaddis, 555-8878", "Sam Wiggins, 555-0998", "Bob Kain, 555-8712", "Tim Haynes, 555-7676", "Warren Gaddis, 555-9037", "Jean James, 555-4949", "Ron Palmer, 555-2783"}; char search[length]; //Array search[] holds user's input //and searches inside the array contacts[][] char *IdContact = NULL; // IdContact points to the user's query inside array contacts[][] int index; // loop counter //Prompts user to search for contacts cout << "To search for your contact's number please enter a name or partial name of the person.\n"; cin.getline(search, length); //user's input //Searches array for matching substring for (index = 0; index < num; index++) { IdContact = strstr(contacts[index], search); if (IdContact != NULL) { cout << contacts[index]; //prints all possible contacts with in the string } } //if no matches are found, display error message; if (IdContact == NULL) cout << "Sorry, No matches were found!"; return 0; }
Is This A Good Question/Topic? 0
Replies To: Phone number List issues.
#2 Skydiver ?
Reputation: 1779
Posts:5,304
Joined:05-May 12
Re: Phone number List issues.
Posted Yesterday, 06:37 PM
Your condition on line 52 is incorrect. You should remember between lines 45-47 that you printed out at least one match.
#3 solemnservant ?
Reputation: 0
Posts:8
Joined:10-March 13
Re: Phone number List issues.
Posted Yesterday, 06:44 PM
Ok thanks, I check it out. I also got help on another board and it seems like after adding a bool flag during the search it fixed my problems.
#4 Skydiver ?
Reputation: 1779
Posts:5,304
Joined:05-May 12
Re: Phone number List issues.
Posted Yesterday, 06:46 PM
Yup. Use of a bool flag is one way of remembering that you found a match.
#5 solemnservant ?
Reputation: 0
Posts:8
Joined:10-March 13
Re: Phone number List issues.
Posted Yesterday, 06:46 PM
This is what got it to work:
/***************************************** A D.I.C Head 4/14/13 Phone Number List ******************************************/ # include <iostream> // i/o stream header # include <cstring> // header file needed to use strstr function using namespace std; /****************** Function Main ******************/ int main () { bool found = false; // flag to find if contact was found const int num = 11; // num holds 11 contacts const int length = 100; // Maximum allowable charactersfor each line is 100 // Array contacts[][] holds 11 contacts with phone numbers char contacts[num][length] = { "Becky Warren, 555-1223", "Joe Looney, 555-0097", "Geri Palmer, 555-8787", "Lynn Presnell, 555-1212", "Holly Gaddis, 555-8878", "Sam Wiggins, 555-0998", "Bob Kain, 555-8712", "Tim Haynes, 555-7676", "Warren Gaddis, 555-9037", "Jean James, 555-4949", "Ron Palmer, 555-2783"}; char search[length]; //Array search[] holds user's input //and searches inside the array contacts[][] char *IdContact = NULL; // IdContact points to the user's query inside array contacts[][] int index; // loop counter //Prompts user to search for contacts cout << "To search for your contact's number please enter a name or partial name of\nthe person.\n"; cin.getline(search, length); //user's input //Searches array for matching substring for (index = 0; index < num; index++) { IdContact = strstr(contacts[index], search); if (IdContact != NULL) { cout << contacts[index] <<endl; //prints all possible contacts with in the string found = true; //set the flag } } //if flagged as false, no matches are found and error message is displayed; if (!found) cout << "Sorry, No matches were found!"; return 0; }
This post has been edited by Skydiver: Yesterday, 07:54 PM Reason for edit:: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
The 13 soldiers killed were members of Afghanistan's Third Battalion, one of only a small number of Afghan Army units rated as fully self-sufficient by the US military.
By Ryan Lenora Brown,?Correspondent / April 12, 2013
Pigeons surround Afghan men kneeling down for Friday payers near the Pul-e Khishti mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday. Taliban militants attacked an Afghan army outpost near the eastern border with Pakistan on Friday, killing over a dozen Afghan National Army soldiers, the Defense Ministry said.
Ahmad Jamshid/AP
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?A Taliban attack killed 13 Afghan soldiers Friday at a remote Army outpost in the eastern province of Kunar, underscoring the rising challenges that face the country?s Army as foreign troops withdraw over the coming year.
Skip to next paragraph Ryan Lenora Brown
Correspondent
Ryan Brown edits the Africa Monitor blog and contributes to the national and international news desks of the Monitor. She is a former Fulbright fellow to South Africa and holds a degree in history from Duke University.?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Some 200 Taliban fighters ambushed the soldiers around 5 a.m., attacking the outpost before setting it on fire, The New York Times reports. Every soldier present at the base was killed, making the attack was the deadliest in the region in six months, according to local officials.
The soldiers killed were members of the Army?s Third Battalion, one of only a small number of Afghan Army units rated as fully self-sufficient by the US military. They patrolled a mountainous district on the Pakistani border that serves as a major gateway for insurgents from that country.?
The attack is part of a rising tide of violence in the region as winter thaws, easing passage across the mountainous terrain.
?We know the enemy?s going to come out hard this summer, so the [casualty] numbers are going to go up,? Col. Thomas Collins, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition, told the Times.
There has been a steady uptick in the number of Afghan soldiers and police officers killed in recent years as they have grown their ranks and gradually assumed greater responsibility from NATO forces.
In 2012, the Afghan government estimated that some 1,000 soldiers and 1,400 police officers were killed. By the end of the year, a military spokesman estimated that 110 soldiers and 200 policemen were dying every month, the Times reports.
By contrast, 32 NATO soldiers have been killed in the first three months of 2013, according to the monitoring group casualties.?
Currently about 100,000 international troops are based in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. That number is expected to drop by half by early 2014, with most of the remaining forces moving back into support and training positions.?
Within the next few months, Afghan forces are expected to be responsible for security across the entire country.
A contingent of Australian lawmakers visiting Afghanistan this week praised the ?enormous progress? that Afghan security forces had made toward that goal.?
''The Afghan National Security Forces are bigger than the insurgency, they are significantly more capable, they are better war fighters and they are more well resourced,'' said Member of Parliament Wyatt Roy in an interview with an Australian news site.
But the unstable border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains a major source of concern for Afghan security. As the Lebanese newspaper Naharnet reports:
The border region between?Afghanistan?and Pakistan is a key battleground in the fight against the militants, many of whom use safe havens inside Pakistan to launch attacks against Afghan soldiers and the U.S.-led military coalition.
For years, leaders in Kabul and Islamabad have traded accusations of blame over the Islamist extremists who pose a threat to security in both countries and criss-cross the porous border with impunity?.
[R]ebel bases in Pakistan infuriate Afghan President Hamid Karzai and remain a major obstacle to peace as U.S.-led troops prepare to pull out of?Afghanistan?by the end of 2014.
A pro-government campaign slogan ahead of Sunday's presidential election underscores the focus on a key constituency of former president Ch?vez, who said there could be no socialism without feminism.?
By Whitney Eulich,?Staff writer / April 13, 2013
A pregnant woman displays the slogan "My future is safe with Maduro" at a rally for acting Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday, April 9 in the run-up for Sunday's election.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
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Caracas, Venezuela; and Boston
If you vote for the opposition, you don?t love your mother ? at least according to one bold pro-government slogan in the leadup to Venezuela?s presidential election tomorrow.
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What may sound like a schoolyard jab in fact touches on an important legacy of former President Hugo Ch?vez?s 14-year administration: Poor women were some of the main beneficiaries of the charismatic socialist leader?s welfare programs. Mr. Ch?vez created scores of social missions, which brought services like adult literacy education, subsidized food, and free healthcare into many low-income neighborhoods ? and, in the process, gave many women more influence and even political power.
?There is a before and after Ch?vez when it comes to women in Venezuela,? says Mercedes Chac?n, editor-in-chief of CCS, a Caracas-based pro-Ch?vez daily.
?The awakening of [poor] women started under chavismo,? she says.
Although the ?mama? slogan implies that?voting for someone other than Ch?vez?s handpicked successor, Nicol?s Maduro, could put these programs at risk, both Mr. Maduro and opposition candidate Henrique Capriles say they don?t plan to dismantle Ch?vez?s social missions, which were created by presidential decree and funded by petrodollars. But high inflation, lagging oil production, and issues of cash flow?could mean changes may be unavoidable.
'Central protagonists'
Ch?vez?s Bolivarian revolution emphasized grassroots political change, and social programs like the missions were an attempt not only?to lift up the poor, but also to engage them in the political process. The execution was often far from perfect ? many programs were thrown together on the fly or left underfunded. At times Bolivarian missions were redundant and added a layer of bureaucracy or space for corruption.
Trusted government statistics and program impact evaluations are difficult to come by, but to communities that for generations had felt excluded or ignored, the acknowledgement of their existence and needs was a tide change.
Mothers exchange ideas
Every Tuesday afternoon in El Valle, a poor barrio in the southern part of Venezuela?s capital Caracas, some 200 women gather to discuss everything from access to healthcare and clean water to dealing with sewage. They are beneficiaries of the Madres del Barrio mission, which provides financial support and a space to share concerns for mothers living in extreme poverty.
?My life changed socially, economically, politically [under Ch?vez],? says Nancy Contreras, a mother of two.
?Now I can talk in public, I can say what I feel. Before I couldn?t,? she says.
Ms. Contreras says she and her neighbors are ordinary women and housewives turned community leaders. Whatever issues come up in the barrio, they discuss them during the meeting and find solutions.
?We all share our thoughts. We talk of what we need and what we can improve in our neighborhoods,? says another mother, Nancy Hern?ndez.
?Ch?vez made popular women central protagonists in his politics,? says Sujatha Fernandes, an associate professor of sociology at Queens College in New York and author of ?Barrio Women and Popular Politics in Ch?vez?s Venezuela.? The government put up billboards representing mostly poor and mixed race women as social workers and doctors, for example. ?It was really important in giving women a sense of what they could achieve in life.?
He tapped into established feminist movements in 1999 when rewriting the Constitution, including articles that guaranteed equal treatment for men and women and recognized domestic labor as an economic contribution. He even famously said there could be no socialism without feminism.
Targeting low-income women wasn?t an accident under chavismo. For starters, women tend to outvote men in Venezuela, says Rachel Elfenbein, a scholar at Canada?s Simon Fraser University. Ms. Elfenbein has spent the last year and a half studying an article in Venezuela?s Constitution that recognizes unpaid housework as economic activity, entitling citizens to social security.
And Ch?vez was wildly popular with the poor and working classes, who were long excluded by the two parties that dominated politics. Through this base, Ch?vez was able to clinch four presidential election victories in 14 years. Just under half of Venezuela?s poorest people are women, according to the World Bank, and this share of the population stood to gain the most from welfare changes.
?In the absence of the state it is often women who take on social responsibilities? like searching for water, caring for the health and education of family members, and putting food on the table, says Elfenbein.
?[Poor] women and men experienced chavismo differently because of the different gender roles in society,? she says.
Decisionmaking
Poor women not only benefited from missions, but served as their vital backbone. The government was able to engage neighborhood women in the distribution of services and rolling out missions, and in return, often received free labor.
?In a lot of communities it?s women holding these programs up,? says Elfenbein, while noting that their involvement has not necessarily created pathways into the formal labor force, or toward greater gender equality.
?I think the difficulty is that the political empowerment hasn?t necessarily been accompanied by providing other means of real economic empowerment,? says Claudia Piras, an economist at the Inter-American Development Bank who focuses on gender, labor markets, and entrepreneurship in Latin America. ?Like increasing not only their rights but their means to really be able to participate in the labor force and have better jobs and a more decent living.?
For example, Venezuela has one of the largest gaps between men and women with bank accounts at formal financial institutions. There is a 16.9 percent difference in the number of female and male account holders, compared to the average of 9 percent in Latin American and Caribbean countries as a whole, according to the World Bank.?
Though female participation in government programs was noticeably high under chavismo ? take the 200-woman turnout a week for Madres del Barrio in El Valle ? the inherent locus of decisionmaking power did not noticeably shift.
?I would sit in on a health committee meeting in the barrio San Agustin, and there would be 35 women and two men,? says Ms. Fernandes. But??the two men were the [ones] making the big decisions.??
?The structure of the patriarchy is still present,? she says.?
And Elfenbein points out that despite the chorus of chavista women celebrating their increased voice during the Ch?vez era, there is a built-in hurdle to being critical of the government.?
?When you?re reliant on the government for social benefits for the survival or your household, how free are you going to feel? ? Would they feel free to discuss how the government isn?t meeting their needs in front of government authorities? I don?t know.?
On a national level, the image of a male-controlled society is visible in the national assembly, where less than 20 percent of the elected representatives are female. And only four of Venezuela?s 24 states have female governors. But three out of the five branches of government have female appointees heading the judicial, electoral, and so-called citizen branches. Several women also direct ministries, including Edm?e Bentacourt, the minister of trade, and Nancy P?rez, who heads the ministry of women, created in 2009.
An opportunity?
Maduro, Ch?vez's choice to succeed him, is believed to have a leg up in tomorrow's election with a strong sympathy vote and access to state media reflected in his average 16-point lead, calculated in early April. But neither he nor Capriles has Ch?vez?s charisma.
Maduro might create an initiative, says Fernandes, ?but without Ch?vez there to inspire and motivate the masses, participation could drop.?
There?s another lens through which to view the future, however. Without Ch?vez dominating the conversation, a new political sphere may yield fresh opportunities at the community level, Fernandes says:??A new kind of decisionmaking could open up.? ?
The next administration could present ?a real opportunity,? says Elfenbein. ?Chavez was an amazing catalyst for the Bolivarian process, but he was also the Achilles heel.?
It?s unclear, she says, to what extent women were ?participating in political decisionmaking versus showing up at marches, rolling out social programs, and filling a seat.?
?This is an opportunity not to rely on the president, but to rely on their own power and their own organizing to achieve political change.?
? Irene Caselli contributed reporting from Caracas.
About a month ago I picked up an LG Nexus 4. I've known Android for some time, but until buying the Nexus 4 I'd yet to actually own an Android handset. While Android has surprised me in some areas and frustrated me in others, that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Nope, I'm here to talk about the Nexus 4 Wireless Charger and how much I hate it.
The photo above was taken approximately five minutes after I'd carefully and deliberately set my Nexus 4 onto the Wireless Charger to, well, wirelessly charge. And it did. The move to get from being positioned centered on the charger to resting on its side with the charger as a glorified kickstand was smooth and quiet. It went entirely unnoticed as I sat not two feet away, working on my computer. Not until I looked over to see if it had stayed in position did I discover that it in fact had not.
Normally my Nexus 4 just slips down half an inch or so until it's no longer optimally positioned on the charger and no longer taking a charge through the ether. Sometimes it also lists slightly to the right, but only by ten degrees or so. After I took that photo, rolled my eyes, and posted it to Twitter, I carried on with my work, curious to see where the Nexus 4 would slide to next. Five minutes later, my typing was interrupted by a soft thunk - gravity had finally conspired to pull the phone entirely off the charger and it was now resting flat on its back on my desk.
