Egypt's opposing parties argue over judiciary

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's main opposition group and judges vowed Monday to step up their fight against plans by the Islamist-dominated legislature to debate a bill critics say aims to impose Muslim Brotherhood control over the courts.

The judiciary has become the latest battleground between supporters and opponents of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The bill, expected to reduce retirement age for judges, has already sparked violence between opponents and supporters.

On Monday, Morsi met with members of the top judicial body, the Supreme Judicial Council, in an attempt to contain the situation. Morsi said in a statement he "doesn't accept any encroaching on the judiciary or judges" and urged judges to stay clear of media debates and political interference over the issue to reaffirm respect of the judiciary in people's mind.

As for the controversial bill, Morsi said he trusts every authority is carrying out its duty as it sees fit, and that he respects separation of authorities, signaling he won't interfere in the legislature's work.

The Judges Club, a union of 9,500 members, met Monday and pledged to escalate its fight against what its chairman Ahmed el-Zind called "aggression against the judiciary."

The bill, presented to parliament by the Islamist al-Wasat party, is expected to drop the retirement age to 60 from 70. That would force out nearly a quarter of Egypt's 13,000 judges and prosecution officials, according to experts, including some of the most senior judges.

Opponents see this as a way for Islamists force out judges in high courts, including the Supreme Constitutional Court. The two elements have been at odds since the Islamist-dominated parliament was dissolved last year by a court order. The Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's parent movement, counters that many judges are holdovers from the era of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and they must be removed.

The judges argue that they should have the right to approve changes to the law regulating their profession.

"They aim with this devilish proposal to empty out the judiciary of its seniors," el-Zind said. "The judiciary's young members will put up a fierce battle" against such plans. They plan more meetings this week.

The judiciary is the sole branch of government not dominated by Morsi's Islamist allies, although he does have some backers among the judges.

The opposition, the National Salvation Front, called for demonstrations to begin when the bill is discussed in the Islamist-dominated legislature. Last week the head of the legislature asked a committee to review the bill, but no date for a debate was set.

The NSF said it will defend people's right "to an independent judiciary that is not dominated by a tyrannical executive."

Atef Awad, a member of al-Wasat party, told the private ONTV station that judges should be treated like all other public officials, expected to retire at 60.

Supporters of Morsi held a rally on Friday calling for "cleansing the judiciary," in support of the bill. It degenerated into clashes between supporters and opponents of the measure.

Brotherhood leaders criticized the courts this week over several recent acquittals of former Mubarak officials. They charged that Mubarak supporters in the courts are blocking Morsi and derailing Egypt's transition to democracy.

Secretary General Hussein Ibrahim of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Brotherhood, said the judiciary is not immune to demands for reform, insisting that judges responsible for rigging elections under the former regime or those who accepted bribes should be held to account.

"I know that the majority of judges are fine," wrote Ibrahim on his official Facebook page, while warning that a few corrupt judges are "an imminent danger that is a blow to the demands and goals of the revolution."

___

AP writer Amir Makar contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-opposing-parties-argue-over-judiciary-172751099.html

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New keyboard for touchscreens

Public release date: 17-Apr-2013
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Contact: Dr. Antti Oulasvirta
antti.oulasvirta@mpii.de
0049-681-302-71927
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Typing on today's mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with the thumbs. Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. It has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are limited to typing at a rate of around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rates achieved on physical keyboards. The researchers set out to create an alternative to QWERTY that offers substantial performance advantages for users. The researchers incorporated models of thumb movement into a computational optimization algorithm.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and colleagues from the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech quickly realized that slight changes to the layout, like exchanging a few keys, would not be sufficient for a significant improvement. Words like "on, see, you, read, dear, immune, based", frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only, making the typing burdensome. This initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry with the goal of improving typing performance and minimizing the strain for the thumbs.

Antti Oulasvirta says "The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method."

The computational optimization process had two goals: To minimize the moving time of the thumbs and to approximate alternating sides as well as possible. The result achieved by computational optimization was rather unexpected. In the new keyboard KALQ, all vowels, with the exception of the letter "y", are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. To fully benefit from this layout, the users were trained to move their thumbs simultaneously. While one thumb is typing, the other one can move to its next target.

Per Ola Kristensson says "The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices. However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to give users the incentive to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing."

Finally, the authors developed probabilistic error correction methods that took into account how thumbs move and also statistical knowledge about the texts users type. Their error correction method enabled trained users to type more quickly while retaining an acceptable level of errors. With these improvements, users were able to reach 37 words per minute, which is the best ever reported for two-thumb typing on touch-screen devices, significantly more than the approximate 20 words on a split QWERTY that regular users can achieve.

The researchers will present their work at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris on May 1st. CHI is the principal international forum for outstanding research and development in human-computer interaction.

###

KALQ will be made available as a free app for Android-based smart-phones at the beginning of May. For more information, including illustrations and a video, visit the project page: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~oantti/KALQ/

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 17-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Antti Oulasvirta
antti.oulasvirta@mpii.de
0049-681-302-71927
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Typing on today's mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with the thumbs. Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. It has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are limited to typing at a rate of around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rates achieved on physical keyboards. The researchers set out to create an alternative to QWERTY that offers substantial performance advantages for users. The researchers incorporated models of thumb movement into a computational optimization algorithm.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and colleagues from the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech quickly realized that slight changes to the layout, like exchanging a few keys, would not be sufficient for a significant improvement. Words like "on, see, you, read, dear, immune, based", frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only, making the typing burdensome. This initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry with the goal of improving typing performance and minimizing the strain for the thumbs.

Antti Oulasvirta says "The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method."

The computational optimization process had two goals: To minimize the moving time of the thumbs and to approximate alternating sides as well as possible. The result achieved by computational optimization was rather unexpected. In the new keyboard KALQ, all vowels, with the exception of the letter "y", are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. To fully benefit from this layout, the users were trained to move their thumbs simultaneously. While one thumb is typing, the other one can move to its next target.

Per Ola Kristensson says "The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices. However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to give users the incentive to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing."

Finally, the authors developed probabilistic error correction methods that took into account how thumbs move and also statistical knowledge about the texts users type. Their error correction method enabled trained users to type more quickly while retaining an acceptable level of errors. With these improvements, users were able to reach 37 words per minute, which is the best ever reported for two-thumb typing on touch-screen devices, significantly more than the approximate 20 words on a split QWERTY that regular users can achieve.

The researchers will present their work at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris on May 1st. CHI is the principal international forum for outstanding research and development in human-computer interaction.

###

KALQ will be made available as a free app for Android-based smart-phones at the beginning of May. For more information, including illustrations and a video, visit the project page: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~oantti/KALQ/

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/m-nkf041713.php

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Rockies-Mets game delayed due to snow on field

DENVER (AP) ? Dick Monfort was quite formidable on the mound ? of snow, that is.

Shovel in hand, the Colorado Rockies owner joined a crew of team employees helping to dig out snow-covered Coors Field, clearing the way for the Rockies and New York Mets to finally play ball.

This is one assignment that didn't give him cold feet, just a sore back.

Well worth it, though, to try and squeeze in a doubleheader against the New York Mets on Tuesday. Although the game was scheduled to start at 5:10 p.m. EDT, first pitch had been pushed back two hours to finish clearing the field. At the scheduled game time, there were still piles of snow in front of the Rockies dugout and along the right-field line.

Now, there's hardly a trace of snow around.

Monfort had plenty of company removing the snow, as vice president Bill Geivett ? wearing a heavy Montreal Expos jacket ? and chief baseball officer Dan O'Dowd also scooped snow off the turf as well.

Even Sandy Alderson, the GM for the Mets, pitched in on a bank of snow near the team's dugout.

"It looks like they want to see a game today," Monfort said.

Especially the Mets, who haven't played since Saturday after having two straight games wiped out by weather. Wintry conditions in Minneapolis on Sunday forced the game against the Twins to be called off. The game Monday also was postponed due to a heavy spring snow storm passing through the area.

"We're pretty tired of sitting at the hotel," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "Everybody wants to get going. This is what they're here for ? to go out and play. To have two days in a row off is unheard of."

Not that the players are overly thrilled about playing in chilly conditions.

And it definitely will be frigid.

The temperature for the afternoon game will be around 44 degrees. The second game of the doubleheader ? still tentatively scheduled to start at 8:40 p.m. ? will see the temperature dip into the 30s. The record game-time temp at Coors Field is 28 degrees on April 12, 1997, against Montreal.

"In general terms, the game wasn't made to be played in conditions like this," Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. "It's such a game of feel. It's tough to execute certain aspects of the game in cold weather. That will be a challenge."

Justin Turner has a plan to stay warm ? keep near the heaters in the dugout. Being from Long Beach, Calif., he's not used to this weather.

Although, he has the shaggy beard for it.

"I intentionally didn't shave all spring training because I knew this first road trip was going to be pretty cold," Turner said, laughing. "I don't mind the cold. I just don't like playing baseball in it."

He still painfully remembers playing in the snow during a Single-A game in 2007.

"I got hit in the elbow and felt like it was shattered into a million pieces," Turner said. "You just layer up and use hot packs, put them in your back pocket. The worst part is coming in and sitting in the dugout where the heaters are and then having to go back out where it's freezing. You've just got to keep moving."

The weather on Wednesday could be worse, with more snow expected.

Not that the starter that day, Jon Garland, minds too much.

"I'll pitch anywhere if I'm getting outs," said Garland, who's finding his form after missing all of last year following shoulder surgery. "This weather is not comfortable by any means. For the most part, you're out there miserable. It's not fun at all."

Simply wear more clothing?

"You don't want to go out of the norm to where it's comfortable for you to get that range of motion, get that fluid pitching," Garland said. "But yeah, you try to layer up as much as you can."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rockies-mets-game-delayed-due-snow-field-185554560--mlb.html

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