Thursday, February 28, 2013

New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systems

New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systems [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
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Contact: Colin Poitras
colin.poitras@uconn.edu
860-486-4656
University of Connecticut

Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays

A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.

For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.

But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.

The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.

It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.

The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.

Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.

Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.

"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."

The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.

"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.

"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."

The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.

The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.

Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.

"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."

###



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New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systems [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Colin Poitras
colin.poitras@uconn.edu
860-486-4656
University of Connecticut

Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays

A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.

For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.

But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.

The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.

It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.

The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.

Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.

Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.

"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."

The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.

"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.

"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."

The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.

The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.

Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.

"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."

###



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-02/uoc-nft022613.php

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Intramural Bowling | Intramural Sports | Purdue University Calumet

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://webs.purduecal.edu/intramurals/2013/02/26/intramural-bowling/

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

These fish migrate to stay off the menu

Niklas Liljeback

In the winter, thousands upon thousands of the common roach fish migrate to nearby streams throughout Europe.

By Joseph Castro
LiveScience

From birds to crustaceans, numerous animal species migrate each year to find more food, pleasant weather or the perfect place to breed. But at least one species ??a freshwater fish called the common roach ??migrates to avoid getting eaten, new research suggests.

Researchers used identifier tags to track the seasonal movements of the common roach (Rutilus rutilus) for four years. These fish live in freshwater lakes throughout Europe and are partially migratory ??that is, during winter, up to 80 percent of the fish migrate to nearby streams, while the rest stay put.

"It's a bit of an overwhelming sight to come across these streams in wintertime, and you suddenly realize that there are thousands upon thousands of fish in this restricting area," said lead researcher Christian Skov, a fish ecologist at the Technical University of Denmark.

Cormorant birds (Phalacrocorax carbo) are known to prey on roach living in both lakes and streams. However, 92.5 percent of the tags retrieved from cormorant pellets came from roach that last swam in lakes specifically, the researchers found. Moreover, the longer the fish stayed out of the lakes, the more likely they were to escape becoming bird food, suggesting that the fish reduce their predation risk from the birds by migrating into streams. [The 10 Most Incredible Animal Journeys]

Jes Dolby

Researchers attached passive integrated transponder tags to more than 2,200 roach fish living in two lakes in Denmark. Then they set up antennas (shown here) to pick up signals from the tags.

Lakes vs. streams
The idea that some animals migrate to escape predation isn't new, but evidence for this behavior is hard to come by. In 2010, scientists discovered predation was partially involved in the breeding migrations of Arctic shorebirds: birds that traveled farther north were less likely to have their nests ravaged by foxes and other predators. But little other evidence for this kind of phenomena exists.

In the new study, Skov, along with colleagues from Sweden and Switzerland, attached passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags to more than 2,200 roach living in two lakes in Denmark. Every tag had a unique identifier code, allowing the team to distinguish each individual fish. At the inlets and outlets of each stream, the researchers set up antennas, which picked up signals from the PIT tags. "We knew the position of all of these tagged fish, allowing us to calculate how many days they spent in the stream and how much time they spent in the lake," Skov told LiveScience.

The researchers also knew cormorants roosted and bred near the lakes, while preying on roach, among other fish. With a device not so different from a minesweeper, they combed the cormorants' habitat, searching for tags that were pooped out. [The 10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries]

Analyzing the data from the tags, they saw a large variation in the amount of time the fish spent out of the lakes. Some fish spent five months in the streams, while others would visit the streams four or five times in a single winter. "But there was a consistent pattern," Skov said. "The longer (the fish) spent in the stream, the smaller their probability of predation."

For example, in 2008, small fish that stayed in Lake Loldrup the entire winter had about a 20 percent chance of getting eaten, but this probability dropped to about 10 percent if they stayed out of the lake for 100 days. Large roach (around 10 inches, or 25 centimeters, in length or more) showed the same trend, but overall were more likely to get eaten than small fish ??they had a 40 percent chance of being preyed upon if they stayed in Lake Loldrup for the full 2008 winter.

Interestingly, the choice to migrate wasn't risk free. During winter food becomes scarce in the lakes, but there's practically nothing to eat in the streams, Skov said.

Why some, but not all?
Given how much safer the streams appear to be during the chilly months, one can't help but wonder why some roach stay behind in the lakes. The researchers don't have the full picture yet, but their previous research has uncovered clues.

In one study they found that physically fit fish were more likely to migrate than those in poor physical condition. The researchers also found that the fish's personality matters, as bold fish?are more likely to migrate than shy fish. "So it's pretty complicated why some fish stay behind," Skov said.

Skov thinks the research will help scientists understand what drives migration and how different migrations evolve. "Here's support for one of the most underexplored ideas as to why animals migrate," he said, adding that he's interested in seeing how adaptive the roach's behavior is and if the fish would continue to migrate when there's no cormorant threat.

Future research may even show that other animals migrate to escape predators. "I could easily imagine that's the case," Skov said.

The research was detailed online Tuesday?in the journal Biology Letters.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter?@livescience. We're also on Facebook?and Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17118241-these-fish-migrate-to-try-to-stay-off-the-menu-of-predators?lite

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How Physicists Separate Oreo Cookies

Separating Oreos is a serious business—especially for physicist David Neevel. In this video he explains how he designed and built perhaps the world's most intricate machine for separating cookie from cream. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/aMSv94Snnv4/how-physicists-separate-oreo-cookies

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Wasp transcriptome creates a buzz

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps. Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome ? or transcriptome ? of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the colony - transcriptionally speaking - leaving the queen with a somewhat restricted repertoire.

Studying primitively eusocial species - like these wasps - can tell us about how sociality evolves. Seirian Sumner and colleagues sequenced transcriptomes from the eusocial tropical paper wasps ? Polistes canadensis. All social species ultimately evolved from a solitary ancestor ? in this case a solitary wasp, who lays the eggs and feeds the brood. But how does this ancestral solitary phenotype split to produce specialised reproducers (queens) and brood carers (workers) when a species becomes social?

This paper gives a first insight into the secret lives of social insects. It shows that workers retain a highly active transcriptome, possibly expressing many of the ancestral genes that are required for our solitary wasp to be successful on her own. Conversely, queens appear to shut down a lot of their genes, presumably in order to be really good reproducers.

Long-standing analyses based on the fossil record holds ants and wasps in a clade known as Vespoidea, with bees as a sister group. The team reassess the relationships between the subfamilies of bees, wasps and ants and suggest that wasps are part of a separate clade from ants and bees, though further genome sequences and comparative data will help to resolve this controversy.

The dataset offers a first chance to analyse subfamily relationships across large numbers of genes, though further work is required before the term Vespoidia could be dropped, or reclassified. Sumner says: 'This finding would have important general implications for our understanding of eusociality as it would suggest that bees and ants shared an aculeate wasp-like ancestor, that ants are wingless wasps, and that bees are wasps that lost predacious behaviours.'

Their work suggests that novel genes play a much more important role in social behaviour than we previously thought.

###

BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com

Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 29 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127021/Wasp_transcriptome_creates_a_buzz

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Mark Wahlberg Was Almost Captain Kirk's Father In 'Star Trek'

As you know, J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot dealt with alternate timelines within the fictional universe, but did you know that the movie itself had an alternate timeline, one where Mark Wahlberg starred as George Kirk, father of James T.? When the actor spoke with Total Film recently about his latest film "Broken City," he [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/02/26/mark-wahlberg-star-trek/

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Explain It to Me Again, Computer

Karl Popper in the 1980s. Karl Popper in the 1980s.

Courtesy of the London School of Economics Library/Flickr/Wikipedia

This article arises from Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. On Feb. 28-March 2, Future Tense will be taking part in Emerge, an annual conference on ASU?s Tempe campus about what the future holds for humans. This year?s theme: the future of truth. Visit the Emerge website to learn more and to get your ticket.

When scientists think about truth, they often think about it in the context of their own work: the ability of scientific ideas to explain our world. These explanations can take many forms. On the simple end, we have basic empirical laws (such as how metals change their conductivity with temperature), in which we fit the world to some sort of experimentally derived curve. On the more complicated and more explanatory end of the scale, we have grand theories for our surroundings. From evolution by natural selection to quantum mechanics and Newton?s law of gravitation, these types of theories can unify a variety of phenomena that we see in the world, describe the mechanisms of the universe beyond what we can see with our own eyes, and yield incredible predictions about how the world should work.

The details of how exactly these theories describe our world?and what consists of a proper theory?are more properly left to philosophers of science. But adhering to philosophical realism, as many scientists do, implies that we think these theories actually describe our universe and can help us improve our surroundings or create impressive new technologies.

That being said, scientists always understand that our view of the world is in draft form. What we think the world looks like is constantly subject to refinement and even sometimes a complete overhaul. This leads us to what is known by the delightful, if somewhat unwieldy, phrase of pessimistic meta-induction. It?s true that we think we understand the world really well right now, but so has every previous generation, and they also got it wrong. This is why scientists love Karl Popper, who says we can never prove a theory correct, only attempt to overturn it via falsification. So we must never be too optimistic that we are completely correct this time. In other words, we think our theories are true but still subject to potential overhaul. Which sounds a bit odd.

But when properly internalized, this can be wonderfully exciting. A professor of mine once taught a class on a Tuesday, only to read a paper the next day that invalidated what he had taught. So he went into class on Thursday and told the class, ?Remember what I told you on Tuesday? It?s wrong. And if that worries you, you need to get out of science.? Science is always in this draft form and this is most clear at the frontier: where scientists work and why they find their inquiry so exciting.

As I discuss in my book The Half-Life of Facts, this is not always a process of completely forward progress, but overall we are improving our view of the world and reducing error in our understanding. This was delightfully encapsulated in a quote by Isaac Asimov: ?[W]hen people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.?

As we have improved our understanding of the shape of our planet, we have overhauled what we thought it looked like, moving from flat to perfectly spherical to an oblate spheroid. And along the way, we have reduced the amount of error in the measurement of our surroundings.

But whether or not science is always moving forward or whether we think we have the final view of how the world works (which we almost certainly do not), we pride ourselves on our ability to understand our universe. Whatever its complexity, we believe that we can write down equations that will articulate the universe in all its grandeur.

But what if this intuition is wrong? What if there are not only practical limits to our ability to understand the laws of nature, but theoretical ones?

On the practical side, it?s unsurprising to recognize that science might move less quickly than it should simply due to the massive size of what we know: A single individual can comb through only so much of the literature. For example, imagine there are two papers somewhere in the literature, one of which says that A implies B, and another that says B implies C. With the incredible growth of the scientific literature, it?s impossible for anyone to be familiar with all of the papers published in all scientific disciplines, let alone the new research in one?s own subfield. So these two papers remain uncombined, until a computer program finds some way to stitch these two ideas together, recognizing that A implies C, a discovery that was practically impossible due to the vast size of the literature.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=62d8f4194ede74b44f6017494d68c383

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Nokia Lumia 520 tries to arrive at FCC incognito, given away by codename

Nokia Lumia 520 tries to arrive at FCC incognito, given away by codename

Nokia just tried to hustle a certain RM-914 model through the FCC, but thanks to an earlier glance at the Fed's Indonesian counterpart POSTEL, we know we're actually looking at the Lumia 520. As the Finnish outfit just announced, that model represents the new low-end of its Windows Phone 8 line, though it's decently spec'd with a dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 4-inch 800 x 480 IPS display and 1,430mAh battery. While eschewing LTE, the device will pack various WCDMA and HSPA+ frequencies for 3G, though in this case, we're not looking at WCDMA 900 / 2100 bands, meaning it's indeed a US model. Its next stop ought to be store shelves later this quarter -- followed by your pocket, if the $183 or so WP8 handset rings your bell.

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Source: FCC

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Y-rG9bhI3NU/

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Monday, February 25, 2013

US stopping use of term 'Negro' for census surveys

This handout image obtained by The Associated Press shows question 9: "What is Person 1's race", on the first page of the 2010 Census form, with options for White: Black, African Am., or Negro. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern-day labels, ?black? or ?African-American?. (AP Photo)

This handout image obtained by The Associated Press shows question 9: "What is Person 1's race", on the first page of the 2010 Census form, with options for White: Black, African Am., or Negro. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern-day labels, ?black? or ?African-American?. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this April 14, 1964 black-and-white file photo, a man holds a Confederate flag at right, as demonstrators, including one carrying a sign saying: "More than 300,000 Negroes are Denied Vote in Ala", demonstrate in front of an Indianapolis hotel where then-Alabama Governor George Wallace was staying. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern-day labels, ?black? or ?African-American?. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File)

This handout image obtained by The Associated Press shows question 9: "What is Person 1's race", on the first page of the 2010 Census form, with options for White: Black, African Am., or Negro. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern-day labels, ?black? or ?African-American?. (AP Photo)

(AP) ? After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping its use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in surveys.

Instead of the term that came into use during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern labels "black" or "African-American".

The change will take effect next year when the Census Bureau distributes its annual American Community Survey to more than 3.5 million U.S. households, Nicholas Jones, chief of the bureau's racial statistics branch, said in an interview.

He pointed to months of public feedback and census research that concluded few black Americans still identify with being Negro and many view the term as "offensive and outdated."

"This is a reflection of changing times, changing vocabularies and changing understandings of what race means in this country," said Matthew Snipp, a sociology professor at Stanford University, who writes frequently on race and ethnicity. "For younger African-Americans, the term 'Negro' harkens back to the era when African-Americans were second-class citizens in this country."

First used in the census in 1900, "Negro" became the most common way of referring to black Americans through most of the early 20th century, during a time of racial inequality and segregation. "Negro" itself had taken the place of "colored." Starting with the 1960s civil rights movement, black activists began to reject the "Negro" label and came to identify themselves as black or African-American.

Still, the term has lingered, having been used by Martin Luther King Jr. in his speeches. It also remains in the names of some black empowerment groups that were established before the 1960s, such as the United Negro College Fund, now often referred to as UNCF.

For the 2010 census, the government briefly considered dropping the word "Negro" but ultimately decided against it, determining that a small segment, mostly older blacks living in the South, still identified with the term. But once census forms were mailed and some black groups protested, Robert Groves, the Census Bureau's director at the time, apologized and predicted the term would be dropped in future censuses.

When asked to mark their race, Americans are currently given a choice of five government-defined categories in census surveys, including one checkbox selection which is described as "black, African Am., or Negro." Beginning with the surveys next year, that selection will simply say "black" or "African American."

In the 2000 census, about 50,000 people specifically wrote in the word Negro when asked how they wished to be identified. By 2010, unpublished census data provided to the AP show that number had declined to roughly 36,000.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-25-Census-Negroes/id-12658a9d80f84189a7c195a40f72a2e6

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Boys? lack of effort in school tied to college gender gap

Boys lack of effort in school tied to college gender gap [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
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Contact: Claudia Buchmann
Buchmann.4@osu.edu
614-247-8363
Ohio State University

New book examines why women succeed more in college

COLUMBUS, Ohio When it comes to college education, men are falling behind by standing still.

The proportion of men receiving college degrees has stagnated, while women have thrived under the new economic and social realities in the United States and elsewhere, according to two sociologists who have written a new book on the subject.

"The world has changed around boys, and they have not adapted as well as girls," said Claudia Buchmann, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University and co-author of The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).

Buchmann and co-author Thomas DiPrete, professor of sociology at Columbia University, spent more than a decade researching the education gender gap. They wanted to find out why women are now getting more college degrees than ever before, while the proportion of young men doing so hasn't changed much in more than 50 years.

In 1960, 65 percent of all bachelor's degrees were awarded to men. By 2010, the gender positions reversed and women received 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees.

Some commentators blame schools and argue that schools have become too "feminized" and don't support the way that boys learn. Some have asserted that single-sex education is the best way to help improve boys' academic achievement.

But there's little evidence to support these arguments, Buchmann said.

"Schools haven't changed that much. Boys have long underachieved in school compared to girls, but it mattered less when they could get good blue-collar jobs without a college degree," Buchmann said.

"In the last few decades, as those good blue-collar jobs have declined, that boys' performance in school has become a bigger issue."

Meanwhile, new job opportunities have opened for women in our society, giving girls the incentive to use their better academic skills to earn college degrees.

Boys' underachievement compared to girls has nothing to do with intelligence. Study after study shows that boys and girls are very similar in terms of cognitive ability.

"But what is striking is that at every level of cognitive ability, boys are getting lower grades than girls. It is not about ability it is about effort and engagement," Buchmann said.

More girls than boys report that they like school and that good grades are important to them. They also study more than boys.

"Success in academics, like success in sports, requires time and effort. Because boys put forth less effort and are less engaged, they get lower grades and are less likely to get through college," Buchmann said.

Some of boys' underperformance is related to outdated views of masculinity that devalue hard work and effort in school, she said. This is particularly true for boys from blue-collar and lower-class families. Working class fathers may reinforce the idea that school is feminizing because, for them, masculinity is more about physical strength and manual labor than about getting good grades.

Many boys from middle-class families, whose fathers have managerial and white-collar jobs, often develop an "instrumental" approach to school, Buchmann said. Regardless of how much they like school, they have learned how to do well in school in order to get a well-paying job and achieve material success.

"For these boys, notions of what it means to be a man are much more in tune with what is required to be successful in today's economy," she said.

Buchmann said the best solution to the education gender gap is to focus efforts on the "middle third" of students many of whom are boys - who have the ability to go to college, but who are not honing the academic skills they will need to successfully graduate. These are generally students who are getting mostly "B" grades in their classes, with a few "C"s.

The top third of students are those, mostly from white-collar families, who are already on track to successfully finish college, while the bottom third don't have the resources and skills to realistically finish a four-year degree.

In order to reach these boys in the middle third, the answer isn't single-sex classrooms, or making schools more "boy-friendly," Buchmann said.

"This taps into those narrow notions of what boys and men are like. That is going to backfire," she said.

"Instead, we need schools to expect high levels of effort and academic achievement of all students, including boys. Schools need to break down the gendered stereotypes that say that real men don't work hard in school."

Schools also need to do a better job of teaching students about the pathways through college to a good job. They need to make clear what kinds of grades students will need, and what kind of classes they need to take, to get the job they want to have.

This should start in elementary school, but should be especially emphasized in middle and high schools.

"Many boys say they expect to go to college, and many will enroll, but their expectations about what it will take to succeed are way off. They underestimate the work and effort they need to put forth," she said.

In one survey, 65 percent of boys in 8th grade expected they would get at least a bachelor's degree.

"Not even half of the boys who think they are going to get a college degree will actually do so," Buchmann said.

"Those years from 7th to 12th grade are crucial for really learning good study skills, learning how to apply yourself to your studies, and how to stay motivated even when the schoolwork is not particularly fun."

The good news is that the same changes that will help more boys achieve college success will help girls as well.

"This is not a zero-sum game," Buchmann said. "Helping boys to succeed in school won't hurt girls. It is all about closing the gender gap."

###

Contact: Claudia Buchmann

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu


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Boys lack of effort in school tied to college gender gap [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
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Contact: Claudia Buchmann
Buchmann.4@osu.edu
614-247-8363
Ohio State University

New book examines why women succeed more in college

COLUMBUS, Ohio When it comes to college education, men are falling behind by standing still.

The proportion of men receiving college degrees has stagnated, while women have thrived under the new economic and social realities in the United States and elsewhere, according to two sociologists who have written a new book on the subject.

"The world has changed around boys, and they have not adapted as well as girls," said Claudia Buchmann, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University and co-author of The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).

Buchmann and co-author Thomas DiPrete, professor of sociology at Columbia University, spent more than a decade researching the education gender gap. They wanted to find out why women are now getting more college degrees than ever before, while the proportion of young men doing so hasn't changed much in more than 50 years.

In 1960, 65 percent of all bachelor's degrees were awarded to men. By 2010, the gender positions reversed and women received 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees.

Some commentators blame schools and argue that schools have become too "feminized" and don't support the way that boys learn. Some have asserted that single-sex education is the best way to help improve boys' academic achievement.

But there's little evidence to support these arguments, Buchmann said.

"Schools haven't changed that much. Boys have long underachieved in school compared to girls, but it mattered less when they could get good blue-collar jobs without a college degree," Buchmann said.

"In the last few decades, as those good blue-collar jobs have declined, that boys' performance in school has become a bigger issue."

Meanwhile, new job opportunities have opened for women in our society, giving girls the incentive to use their better academic skills to earn college degrees.

Boys' underachievement compared to girls has nothing to do with intelligence. Study after study shows that boys and girls are very similar in terms of cognitive ability.

"But what is striking is that at every level of cognitive ability, boys are getting lower grades than girls. It is not about ability it is about effort and engagement," Buchmann said.

More girls than boys report that they like school and that good grades are important to them. They also study more than boys.

"Success in academics, like success in sports, requires time and effort. Because boys put forth less effort and are less engaged, they get lower grades and are less likely to get through college," Buchmann said.

Some of boys' underperformance is related to outdated views of masculinity that devalue hard work and effort in school, she said. This is particularly true for boys from blue-collar and lower-class families. Working class fathers may reinforce the idea that school is feminizing because, for them, masculinity is more about physical strength and manual labor than about getting good grades.

Many boys from middle-class families, whose fathers have managerial and white-collar jobs, often develop an "instrumental" approach to school, Buchmann said. Regardless of how much they like school, they have learned how to do well in school in order to get a well-paying job and achieve material success.

"For these boys, notions of what it means to be a man are much more in tune with what is required to be successful in today's economy," she said.

Buchmann said the best solution to the education gender gap is to focus efforts on the "middle third" of students many of whom are boys - who have the ability to go to college, but who are not honing the academic skills they will need to successfully graduate. These are generally students who are getting mostly "B" grades in their classes, with a few "C"s.

The top third of students are those, mostly from white-collar families, who are already on track to successfully finish college, while the bottom third don't have the resources and skills to realistically finish a four-year degree.

In order to reach these boys in the middle third, the answer isn't single-sex classrooms, or making schools more "boy-friendly," Buchmann said.

"This taps into those narrow notions of what boys and men are like. That is going to backfire," she said.

"Instead, we need schools to expect high levels of effort and academic achievement of all students, including boys. Schools need to break down the gendered stereotypes that say that real men don't work hard in school."

Schools also need to do a better job of teaching students about the pathways through college to a good job. They need to make clear what kinds of grades students will need, and what kind of classes they need to take, to get the job they want to have.

This should start in elementary school, but should be especially emphasized in middle and high schools.

"Many boys say they expect to go to college, and many will enroll, but their expectations about what it will take to succeed are way off. They underestimate the work and effort they need to put forth," she said.

In one survey, 65 percent of boys in 8th grade expected they would get at least a bachelor's degree.

"Not even half of the boys who think they are going to get a college degree will actually do so," Buchmann said.

"Those years from 7th to 12th grade are crucial for really learning good study skills, learning how to apply yourself to your studies, and how to stay motivated even when the schoolwork is not particularly fun."

The good news is that the same changes that will help more boys achieve college success will help girls as well.

"This is not a zero-sum game," Buchmann said. "Helping boys to succeed in school won't hurt girls. It is all about closing the gender gap."

###

Contact: Claudia Buchmann

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-02/osu-blo022513.php

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

TIMELINE: Ford's 100 years in Louisville

Below is a timeline of Ford?s more than 100 years of vehicle production at Ford?s Louisville Assembly Plant, courtesy Ford Motor Company

Louisville Assembly Plant Timeline
1913:? Louisville Ford Sales and Service Branch at 931 South Third Street begins assembly of 12 Model T's per day.

1914:? Construction begun on a new plant at Third and Eastern Parkway.

Jan.? 2, 1916:? Production of Model T begins at new plant.? An average of 53 employees produce 7000 vehicles per year.

June 1918-March 1919:? Plant occupied by the U.S. Army Mechanical and Medical Corps.

April 1923:? An addition increases assembly capacity from 85 to 200 vehicles per day.

Feb. 2, 1925:? A new assembly plant is opened at 1400 Western Parkway.? It has a capacity of 400 cars per day.

1937:? A major flood of the Mississippi River closes the plant for two months when it is submerged under nine feet of water.

Feb. 15, 1942:? Production of GPW 4x4 army trucks begins.? Civilian car production is ceased on February 24 and civilian truck production on March 31.

Sept.? 1945:? Full-scale civilian production resumes.

1953:? Construction begins of the Louisville Assembly Plant on Fern Valley Road at Grade Lane.? The new plant is part of Ford Motor Company's $1.7 billion postwar expansion program.

April 13, 1955:? The last car is assembled at the old plant.? Transfer of more than 150 truckloads of tools, production equipment and office furniture begins.

April 18, 1955:? The first car produced at the Louisville Assembly Plant is received by Kentucky Governor Lawrence Weatherby.? The plant occupies more than 2 million square feet on a 180-acre site.? It has a capacity of 880 cars and trucks per day, on two shifts.

Oct. 18, 1955:? Louisville Assembly Plant is dedicated.? Ford Division general manager Robert S. McNamara delivers the dedication address.

June 1957:? Edsel production added.

Jan.? 1958:? Heavy truck production added.

Nov.? 15, 1961:? An expansion program to add 90,000 square feet to the Louisville Assembly Plant is announced.

July 30, 1963:? A dinner is held to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of Ford assembly in Louisville and the centennial of Henry Ford's birth.

Sept. 22, 1969:? The last heavy truck built at Louisville Assembly Plant is an ND-1000 diesel tractor.? Medium and heavy truck production is shifted to the newly-opened Kentucky Truck Plant .

April 16, 1973:? Light truck assembly added to car production at Louisville Assembly Plant.

June 12, 1981:? Car assembly ceases, leaving only light truck assembly.? The last car, a gold LTD, is the 3,433,660th passenger car assembled in Louisville since 1913.

September 1981:? Start of a formal Employee Involvement program.

Jan.? 18, 1982:? Ranger production begins.

January 1983:? Bronco II production begins.? A total of 820,931 Bronco II's are produced before the end of production in February 1990.

April 15-19, 1983:? Louisville Assembly Plant celebrates the 70th anniversary of Ford assembly in Louisville with an open house attended by over 55,000 visitors.

Aug. 22, 1984:? Louisville Assembly Plant is presented with a U.S. Senate Productivity Award.

May 1985:? Ford announces a new $78-million automated paint operation at Louisville Assembly Plant.

July 1985:? The 1-millionth Ranger is produced.

July 14, 1987:? Ford Motor Company announces a $260 million expansion to prepare for production of a new vehicle.? The vehicle is later revealed as the Explorer.

April 26, 1988:? The 2-millionth Ranger/Bronco II vehicle is produced at Louisville Assembly Plant.

June 13-17, 1988:? Louisville Assembly Plant celebrates the 75th anniversary of Ford in Louisville.

Feb.? 14, 1990:? The first Ford Explorer is produced at Louisville Assembly Plant.

May 1991:? Louisville Assembly Plant is awarded Ford Motor Company's prestigious Q1 award.

Aug.? 22, 1991:? A new UAW-Ford Education Center is dedicated at Louisville Assembly Plant.

1992:? Production begins of the redesigned Ranger.

November 1992:? A homologation center to modify vehicles for foreign export opens at Louisville Assembly Plant.

May 1993:? Q1 award is recertified.

Aug.? 27, 1993:? Louisville Assembly Plant produces the 1-millionth Ford Explorer.

Nov. 29, 1994:? The redesigned Ford Explorer is launched.

April 1996:? Mercury Mountaineer assembly added.

May 30, 1996:? 2-millionth Explorer produced.

1999:? The Harbour Report names Louisville Assembly Plant most efficient truck plant.

Feb. 3, 2000:? Louisville Assembly Plant hosts the launch of the Explorer Sport Trac.

Sept. 16, 2002:? The 5-millionth Explorer rolls off the line.

May 14, 2003:? Louisville is one of 100 cities on the Ford Centennial Tour.? The two-day celebration at the Louisville Zoo includes classic and modern vehicle displays.

Dec. 9, 2010:? Ford announces a plan to invest $600 million to modernize and re-tool the Louisville Assembly Plant for production of the new Escape

April 2012: Ford assembly teams prepare for all-new 2013 Escape production, training in simulated factory at Louisville plant.

June 13, 2012:? Ford Motor Company, its employees, dealers and suppliers celebrate production of the all-new Ford Escape at the company?s transformed Louisville Assembly Plant, one of several U.S. manufacturing sites where Ford adds jobs to meet strong customer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.

Source: http://www.whas11.com/news/local/TIMELINE-Fords-100-years-in-Louisville-192514531.html

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NRA uses Justice memo to accuse Obama on guns (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/286884737?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Sports & Outdoors : Tired Iron river games & vintage sled races

Description:

Saturday, Feb. 23rd: 2013 Spring Ping Fling! Ping Pong Ball Drop with select balls worth great prizes for kids 5-12.

Many other fun outdoor events during the 8th Annual Fairbanks Tired Iron river games & vintage sled races Feb. 23 & 24.

Events and time of events may change

Age Suitability: All Ages Ideal Weather: Any Weather
More upcoming dates:

Date

Time

Sunday, Feb 24, 2013

All Day

Source: http://explorefairbanks.com/events/detail/5364/tired-iron-river-games-and-vintage-sled-races

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

First look at Apple's new iWatch (Video)


Staff Puget Sound Business Journal

Bloomberg takes a look at Apple's plans to develop an "iWatch," which would connect to a smartphone and display maps, "points of interest," even tweets.

Blogger Mikey Campbell, who writes for Appleinsider.com, describes the device based on Apple's patent filings, saying it isn't likely the full design could be made within six months or a year, but farther into the future.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechFlash/~3/aCCENbjIldo/first-look-at-apples-new-iwatch.html

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Soldiers stole children during El Salvador's war

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) ? One of Gregoria Contreras' first childhood memories was the moment she last saw her parents.

Fighting between government troops and guerrillas had broken out around the 4-year-old girl's family home in the countryside of this Central American country. The soldiers took advantage of the confusion and seized Contreras and her two siblings, who were under the age of 2.

"We all fled the house and suddenly it all ended because they captured us and our parents disappeared," said Contreras, now 35 and living in neighboring Guatemala.

Contreras was just one of hundreds of children who disappeared under a variety of circumstances during El Salvador's brutal, 13-year civil war, which left some 75,000 people dead and thousands more missing. In most cases, the parents have yet to find out what happened to their children, while a few hundred of the missing have been identified after giving investigators DNA samples and other evidence.

Now, a human rights group, Probusqueda, is uncovering another macabre, and mostly unknown twist to the tragedy. In Contreras' and at least nine other cases, low-to-mid-ranking soldiers abducted children in what an international court says was a "systematic pattern of forced disappearances." Some of the soldiers raised the children as their own, while others gave them away or sold them to lucrative illegal adoption networks. In Contreras' case, an army private spirited her away, raped her and gave her his own surname.

The crimes make El Salvador the second Latin American country proven to engage in such child abductions during internal Cold War-era conflicts. Argentina's military kidnapped hundreds of children of political opponents, and the prosecution of those responsible three decades later led to the indictment of top officers, including army Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, then-head of Argentina's military junta.

No one has revealed the full scope of the child abductions in El Salvador. The number of confirmed abductions will likely rise if the country's Defense Department makes public files from the civil war era.

Contreras and the families of five other victims of military abductions successfully sued their government in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, demanding the military release more information. Three years later, the military hasn't turned over the requested files and the mostly retired officers suspected of adopting stolen children have refused DNA tests.

"Without those files we can't say this or that officer is responsible," said the country's attorney general, Oscar Luna.

President Mauricio Funes has tried to made amends for some civil war-era crimes, said Probusqueda director Maria Ester Alvarenga. The president belongs to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front party, which began as the guerrilla force battling El Salvador's U.S.-backed government, and could be expected to pursue such prosecutions.

"But it's surprising to me that he isn't making the military archives available," Alvarenga said. "I'm frustrated that nothing's been done at these levels."

Military officials refused to talk to The Associated Press about the cases, despite repeated requests for a meeting. Spokeswoman Vilma Quintanilla told the AP, "The request is in the hands of the chiefs, but still I don't have a response."

Several Latin American countries have hit stiff opposition from the military when they've tried to prosecute soldiers and officers for human rights abuses. In the cases of Argentina and Chile, prosecutors have succeeded in indicting and jailing top officials.

In El Salvador, Alvarenga said, the military "is a real power."

So far, the initial investigations have hinted at the possible enormity of the abuses.

Over the past 20 years, Probusqueda has received 921 reports of children who went missing during the war, with many killed in combat and others orphaned when their parents died. The human rights group has identified the parents of 382 of the missing through DNA tests, and of those, 235 have reunited with their families. Another 95 are waiting to meet their parents, while 52 have been found dead.

The majority of the cases, 529, remain unsolved.

A government missing-persons commission created in 2010 by order of the Inter-American court has also received 203 reports of missing children, with some of those cases likely duplicating Probusqueda's. Just last year, the commission investigated 124 cases and found 15 of the missing. Two of the children were located in Italy, and another was in the United States. Investigators found the corpses of eight children who had been killed and buried during the war.

According to Contreras and other sources, she, her siblings and nine other children were seized in 1982 as the U.S.-trained anti-guerrilla Atlacatl battalion clashed with rebels. A helicopter took away the boys, while the girls were driven away in trucks.

Army Pvt. Miguel Angel Molina ended up with Contreras and later registered her as his own daughter in the western Salvadoran town of Santa Ana, according to the Inter-American court, which also found that he had raped her.

"(The situation) put her in a state of extreme vulnerability that aggravated her suffering, acts of violence that she suffered during almost 10 years, that is to say, between the ages of 4 until 14 years," the court ruling says. Molina later committed suicide.

The court found the Salvadoran government was responsible for the abductions of not just Contreras but also of her two siblings ? Serapio Cristian, who was 20 months old at the time of his kidnapping, and Julia Ines Contreras, who was 4 months old. The court also found the government responsible for the abductions of three other children who were between the ages of 3 and 14.

"That soldier stole everything from me," Contreras said. "He took away my parents, he took away my siblings, he took away my identity. I couldn't live like a girl because he never gave me the love of a father and he was always abusing me, even raping me. I was only 10-years old and I couldn't do anything."

Victims and investigators said justice won't be completely served until El Salvador's government carries out the entirety of the court's orders.

That includes accepting responsibility for the abductions of Contreras and the five others mentioned in the court ruling, and investigating those believed responsible. El Salvador has also been ordered to locate the four in the group of missing still unaccounted for, provide medical and psychological support to the victims, issue a public apology, name schools after those abducted and open government archives about the history.

In an Oct. 29 ceremony attended by Contreras, then-Foreign Minister Martinez Hugo Martinez fulfilled part of the order. He asked for forgiveness from "hundreds of Salvadoran families who were victims of the forced disappearances of boys and girls" and "who suffered the infinite pain of being hit by the disappearances of their most beloved and vulnerable people."

Yet Contreras' sister has never been found, and despite promises by the country's Foreign Ministry to name schools after victims, it hasn't indicated when it will start doing that.

The armed forces remain the chief obstacle to justice, said Miguel Montenegro, director of the nonprofit Human Rights Commission.

"Here, there's a strong power, a power exercised by old members of the armed forces," Montenegro said.

For Contreras, the quest for truth has been long, bitter and incomplete.

She eventually escaped Molina and stayed with one of his relatives. With the help of another of Molina's relatives, Contreras settled in Guatemala.

Her parents found her in 2006 after they appealed to Guatemalan officials and Probusqueda. Just recently, she reunited with her brother, who was also abducted and given to a soldier's relative. She's started her own family.

But Contreras remains distant from her parents and has yet to find her sister.

"I recovered my identity," Contreras said. "The other Gregoria doesn't exist. I have my husband and my children. I don't want anything more."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soldiers-stole-children-during-el-salvadors-war-190230382.html

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