Trade Policy: Atlanta's six-time All-Star catcher Brian McCann is ready to come off the disabled list on Monday when the Braves open a series in Cincinnati.     The punks, anti-establishment rebels that they were, still had a uniform of sorts.    â€œWar Witch” tells the story of orphaned African children who have been conscripted into a rebel army after their village has been attacked and their parents slain. Revlon says it is moving to an "agile" data infrastructure and turning its 3.6 petabytes of business data into a "business driver" through a private cloud architecture. The D.C. mayoral race is deeply split on most issues, but everyone agrees on one thing: We must reduce the achievement gap between minority and white students. It is too bad, then, that the gap is such a mindless measure of school progress. Back when heading east of 16th Street after dark felt risky, Adams Morgan was ground zero for Washington's nightlife scene. One of the city's most ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods, the community had a quirky vibe and a reputation for tolerance, and the area's spine, 18th Street NW, w... All 254 players drafted by N.F.L. teams in April have been invited to the Cleveland area for a rookie symposium.     Mark DeRosa hit a three-run homer, Melky Cabrera added a solo shot and the Toronto Blue Jays snapped a four-game losing streak by beating the Seattle Mariners 10-2 on Sunday.     President Obama sought to defuse criticism of the new health-care overhaul Monday by saying he is willing to give states an earlier opportunity to opt out of certain key requirements - but only if they can find their own ways to accomplish the law's goals. In an effort to bring a more human dimension to the online-education experience, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Associate Professor Rob Miller has developed a new computer system that will help provide students with feedback on their homework assignments and create more interaction between students, teachers and alumni.Called Caesar, the system was developed by Miller, a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), and two of his graduate students, Mason Tang and Elena Tatarchenko, to address the challenge of how to facilitate instructor feedback to the hundreds of students taking his introductory computer science course each semester. Many of the students taking the course, “Elements of Software Construction” (MIT course 6.005), are new to the subject matter, and Miller thought they would benefit from more hands-on guidance. In particular, he wanted to find a way to critique the thousands of lines of code that his students write as part of each of their homework assignments.Miller’s own research focuses on human-computer interaction and crowd computing — the process of distributing complex tasks to a group of people over the Internet, allowing them to tackle smaller, more specific portions of the overall task. Miller used this approach in developing Caesar, devising a system that allocates small chunks of code written by his students to a diverse group of computer science students, teaching assistants and 6.005 alumni, who then review the work. Several reviewers are assigned to look at each student’s work, so every student receives feedback from a variety of sources.“What we are trying to do is to learn how to use a crowd of people with mixed expertise in an intelligent way; one that helps students and ‘the crowd’ expand their knowledge and improve on their expertise,” Miller says.The Caesar system has three components: the code selector, the task router and the reviewing interface. Once students have turned in an assignment, the code selector divides their work into chunks and prioritizes the chunks that need review, based on features of the code that suggest it will need attention. The task router then assigns these chunks to a diverse group of reviewers.By distributing the evaluation process across a large pool of reviewers, Miller hopes to provide students with useful feedback that will improve their work. At the same time, he hopes that this type of crowd-sourced code reviewing can serve as a new learning platform for students at MIT and elsewhere.The reviewing process itself takes no more than three days, a much shorter timeframe than traditional methods for giving feedback on student assignments. The quick speed with which the evaluation is completed allows students to receive feedback before they tackle their next assignment.The code-reviewing process also teaches students a skill that could serve them well down the road, as software companies need developers who can track down bugs and other glitches in code.Like Facebook and other social networks, Caesar provides opportunities for other kinds of interaction among its users. Reviewers can agree or disagree with fellow reviewers’ comments via an “upvote” or “downvote,” a process similar to the “like” feature on Facebook, and can also leave comments for both students and other reviewers.Miller hopes that by linking students, alumni and TAs with different backgrounds and programming experience, he can increase learning opportunities for all parties. “Every time you interact with a new person, it’s an opportunity to learn, whether it’s a student demonstrating a new technique to a TA, or an alum providing a student with a valuable piece of industry advice,” Miller says.Looking to the future, Miller believes that crowd-sourcing tools such as Caesar will become increasingly important to the success of online education. “Such systems are able to draw on a diverse and multitalented pool of individuals, and could potentially make the online classroom a more vibrant, interactive place,” Miller says.Caesar is already being adopted in other MIT programming courses, and plans are in the works to use it in edX, the online-learning initiative founded by Harvard University and MIT. Miller believes that the system could also be adapted beyond academia to industry and other fields.“Ultimately, I believe that crowdsourcing is going to develop hand-in-hand with automatic mechanisms for making online education work, because there are so many aspects of learning that require a human touch,” Miller says. Jón Gnarr is one of Iceland's new politicians: alternative, engaged – and online. But now, as elections approach, the country's crowd-sourced constitution is in perilSitting aquaponics-4-you bright, minimalist office in the heart of Reykjavík, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up to reveal tattooed forearms, it is clear Jón Gnarr, the city mayor, is not a typical politician.The self-described anarchic clown came to power after Iceland's financial crash, promising nothing but to break his promises and procure a polar bear for the local zoo.But three years later, his zeal for direct – and digital – democracy is exciting reformers, who are looking to Iceland for a glimpse of how democracy might work for the Facebook generation.With two-thirds of its 320,000 population on Facebook, Iceland can be a petri dish for democratic ideas, according to the mayor."What we have here is a very small community, but there are so many ideas that can be tried out to see if they work, which can then be adopted in a bigger place," Gnarr said, during an interview in which he touched on anarchy, hallucinations and the tedium of Linguaphone conversations as well as democratic reform. "Reykjavík and Iceland are perfect places to experiment with democracy."The experiment will continue shortly when a politically engaged electorate takes to the polls for the first time since forcing its government to step down in 2009, following the implosion of Iceland's banking sector.So many new parties have been formed that a law was passed to change the format of the ballot paper, while in the background the future of the country's constitution – widely proclaimed as the first crowd-sourced constitution in history – hangs by a thread.After the crash, like many in the country, Gnarr was frustrated with conventional politics, but instead of "saying something sarcastic on Facebook", he formed the modestly named Best party. "I don't know if I believe in democracy, but in my opinion it's better than tyranny," he said."And if we want to maintain it, it is so important to find ways for people to participate. The reason we are in this mess is because people were careless and nonchalant about democracy."Since gaining power, Best party has worked with non-profit democracy reformers The Citizens Foundation to create Better Reykjavík, an award-winning platform that allows users to debate and suggest policies, "like" policy ideas, make budget decisions and vote on micro-issues affecting their neighbourhood. If a policy – those mooted by members of the municipal government or Reykjavík residents have equal weight – is "liked" enough times, it works its way to the top of the priorities list and action is taken.A new national party, Bright Future – a sister party to Best party, or the new-wave successors to Best party's punk, as Gnarr puts it – uses similar methods to create policy, and is running at about 10% in the polls. The Pirate party – which puts the internet at the heart of its policymaking – is on 7.8%.The parties are small, but some of their ideas are gaining traction. "People are discussing politics 24/7 online, but nobody turns up to meetings," said Bright Future leader Gudmundur Steingrímsson, who called it an attempt to create an online party for the 21st century.He described the party's homepage as a Facebook environment, with public debate around policy open to everyone. "It's a very open realm, the only rule is that you have to be polite," he said."People believe, quite rightfully, that politics is boring, and there is an incentive for politicians to keep politics boring so people don't question what they are doing. We want to open it up – not to say it's constantly fun, but show that politics does have a purpose."A combination of extraordinary circumstance and mass internet penetration has created a fertile environment for democratic reform in Iceland, said Dr Andy Williamson, a digital democracy consultant."It is definitely a country reformers should be watching," he said. "Other countries could learn that you can create a shared conversation, and trust people to input into the national process."But the stalling of Iceland's constitution revealed the challenges of digital reform, he added. "What Iceland shows us is that the internet can be an instrument for change, but it cannot break existing power structures."If Iceland demonstrates the possibilities of direct democracy, recent months have also exposed its limitations. A row still rages over the country's constitution, which was created after its economic collapse. When 950 Icelanders, randomly chosen from the national register, gathered for one day in 2010 to decide its founding principles it was hailed as the world's first "crowd-sourced" constitution.A 25-member constitutional council drew up the constitution in four months – despite Iceland's supreme court judging the election of the council void.The draft was not without controversy: it stipulated that Iceland's remaining unprivatised natural resources should remain in the hands of the state, a move unlikely to be supported by Iceland's powerful fishing industry, and called for freedom of information and greater accountability for politicians.Despite the fact that two-thirds of voters approved the document in a non-binding referendum in October 2012, the bill did not make it through parliament before it broke for elections, and several politicians told the Guardian it was unlikely to proceed in its current form.Bjarni Benediktsson, chairman of the Independence party that held power at the time of Iceland's economic crash, said the constitution had been rushed and created without experts."I have to admit I think people went way ahead of themselves here," he said. "You can call me conservative, but that's what I am and I think we should be conservative when it comes to the foundation of the entire legal system in Iceland."Now campaigners fear for the constitution's life. Any change to it must be approved by two successive parliaments, but outgoing prime minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir passed an amendment on her final day which means the constitution could be approved if it gains the support of two-thirds of parliament and 40% of the electorate in a further referendum. It is, campaigners say, a mammoth task."If the bill is killed, as many in parliament seem to hope – if the window of opportunity that opened up after the crash is closed – then it will open a wound trademiner any in history since Iceland joined Nato in 1949," said Thorvaldur Gylfason, professor of economics at the University of Iceland and a member of the constitutional committee."We want the world to know about this," he said. "A parliament ignores the will of its people at its peril."But whatever the fate of the constitution, the mayor of Reykjavík is confident that the march of direct democracy in Iceland will not easily be halted. "Best party is like the first little mammal in the land of the dinosaurs," he said."The dinosaurs don't know that their time is over yet. And the little guy, who is mostly in his hole for the moment, he's the future."IcelandEuropeDigital mediaAlexandra Toppingguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     BANGALORE, India — For the past three years, 32-year-old Jagadish Kumar has worked in India testing software systems before they are installed in slot machines in American casinos. Now the curly-haired, round-eyed Indian software engineer is weeks away from appearing for a U.S. Consulate visa interview — the final step in a process that could take him to the United States with a temporary work permit called an H-1B visa. Read full article >>     Almost overnight, thanks to posts finally resembling "news," the iOSphere has become an expert in industrial design, contemplating an iPhone 6 or 5S or something with a flatter, sleeker, cooler, starker, smoother, de-glitzed and overall just better-looking iOS 7.     • Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism • Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls• Company says it is legally compelled to complyMicrosoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.The documents show that:• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;• Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers' privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion.In a statement, Microsoft said: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers".In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have "direct access" through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.Since Prism's existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems.Microsoft's latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority."Similarly, Skype's privacy policy states: "Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content."But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.The latest documents come from the NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism.The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft's Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year.Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chatsA newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: "MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the issue. "These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012."Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal.Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook email. "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be natural vitiligo treatment Prism collects this data prior to encryption."Microsoft's co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked "for many months" with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive.The document describes how this access "means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about".The NSA explained that "this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response". It continued: "This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established."A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. "The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes."The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. "The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture'," it says.Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011.According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general.The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. "Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete," the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA teams and the FBI. "Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system."ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google."The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that "enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism". The document continues: "The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…" As a result, the author notes: "these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!"In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said:We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes. Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren't valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That's why we've argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said: The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company's efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy.They added: "In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate."–• This article was amended on 11 July 2013 to reflect information from Microsoft that it did not make any changes to Skype to allow Prism collection on or around July 2012.NSAMicrosoftSkypeSurveillanceData protectionEmailInternetUnited StatesPrivacyFisa courtEdward SnowdenFBICIAObama administrationThe NSA filesGlenn GreenwaldSpencer AckermanLaura PoitrasEwen MacAskillDominic Rusheguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     On Friday, Maryland became the sixth state in six years and the 18th state in the country to repeal the death penalty. Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) lobbied hard for the legislation and will soon sign it. The governor has framed the repeal in pragmatic terms, calling the death penalty an expensive policy that is "proven not to work." He's also hardly new to the issue; he wrote a Post op-ed back in 2007 called: "Why I Oppose the Death Penalty." But O'Malley is considered a very likely presidential candidate in 2016, and anything he does in office -- including this ban -- has implications for his political future. Read full article >> function flashPutHref(href) location.href = href; His first tinnitus miracle review in April 1963 and he would become the doyen of UK film critics. Having announced he will soon file his last column, he talks about meeting Chaplin, and Hollywood's greatest canine actorsPhilip French's international reputation as a film critic is unrivalled. As recently as February, after a career with the Observer that began in 1963, an American film journal rated him as Britain's "greatest living movie analyst". But at the end of August he is to file his last column as this newspaper's film critic. After an illustrious half century, French, who was honoured with an OBE in January, has decided to step down following his 80th birthday the same month.In his first column for the Observer, he bemoaned the lack of British films offering a believable picture of criminathe underworld. He noted "the tired vignettes of sub-Runyon characters" in The Small World of Sammy Lee starring Anthony Newley. Since then, there have been many more attempts at the genre, but his words still apply to most of them.The breadth and scope of French's criticism comes not just from his long service, but from a voracious interest in the history of cinema and the wider arts. That first column, fifty years ago, also mentioned Deanna Durbin. A huge star of the 1930s, Durbin died last week, her name now unknown to many. French's writing for this newspaper has always connected readers with the films of the past and kept alive a sense of their traditions.Speaking at the north London home he shares with his wife Kersti, he has been looking back at his time on the paper and picking out memorable moments from a life largely spent in a darkened auditorium. He was once introduced to Charlie Chaplin, he recalls, at a London screening of The Tramp in the 1970s. "He had a mask-like face, I remember, but it was quite extraordinary to sit behind him and watch his younger self on the screen."Observer editor John Mulholland accepts that many readers will find Sundays less rich without French's film column. "There are readers who will feel that his writings are simply irreplaceable," he says. Later this summer, French's long career will be celebrated, both in print and at a public event.In his resignation letter, he writes of his feeling for the Observer: "There is no daily or weekly newspaper of such distinction, and I count myself as extremely fortunate having had the opportunity to be part of such a tradition."Christine Langan, the head of BBC Films, spoke of her sadness at the news: "He is, of course, regarded as one of the heavyweights of criticism, but his writing, which takes you back through cinema, is so erudite and even-handed too."For French, the chief duty of the critic has always been to be honest. "From time to time you may pull your punches, but not in the next round," he says. "You have to be truthful."Crucial to his life experience, and perhaps to his appreciation of film, was the impact of the war on his early years. (On joining the Observer, he was particularly impressed by the service record of renowned literary editor Terence Kilmartin, although this was not unusual on Fleet Street at the time.) Educated at Bristol Grammar School, the young French volunteered and joined the Parachute Regiment, serving in the Middle East. To those who want to understand the second world war through film, he recommends In Which We Serve, The Way Ahead and The Way to the Stars.Another formative early experience was an "incredible double bill" of feature films at the Ritz cinema in Brislington, Bristol. Two of his favourite films, Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, starring Kirk Douglas, and the Marx Brothers' early hit Horse Feathers, were served up together and engendered a passionate interest in America. The films, he says, introduced him to the potent idea of the loser in a country supposedly all about success, and the wit of Jewish émigré culture.Next weekend, he will be speaking about his 50 years as an Observer critic, and his love of Ace in the Hole, at the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Other highlights of his career include serving on the Cannes film festival jury in 1986.French believes that alongside the growing ranks of online amateur film writers, there should still be a role for an experienced critic. A narrow understanding, he argues, can breed its own kind of arrogance: "No critic should ever say they are bored. It is not enough just to understand a film; you must try to say something of interest or value."It is important not to talk down to readers too. "You should assume your reader is intelligent, but not necessarily as well-informed, since they spend their days doing something else for a living."French's status as a repository of film knowledge means he has been asked to draw up many top 10 lists, from the best dogs on film (including Lassie, Toto from The Wizard of Oz and Asta from The Thin Man) to the best leading actors. In the latter he would place Michael Redgrave – star of an all-time favourite, Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes – Spencer Tracy, especially for Bad Day at Black Rock, Gary Cooper for High Noon and Henry Fonda for Twelve Angry Men. He also admires Lee Marvin, Al Pacino and Warren Oates. More recently, he salutes the talents of Ryan Gosling and of Leonardo DiCaprio, who, he says "has suddenly started to do it".Aside from writing on cinema, French has worked as an arts producer at the BBC and reviewed theatre for the New Statesman. Yet he is comfortable to have focused on film. After all, he says, his first experience of Dickens was David Lean's Great Expectations and his first experience of Graham Greene was John Boulting's Brighton Rock."Cinema was the great art form of the 20th century and this century is continuing the same way," he says. Commenting on the great directors, he adds "not all artists have a life-lease on their talent", and the same may apply to critics: "But at least I am giving forex growth bot while I still have my mind."Film criticismThe ObserverVanessa Thorpeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds The Production and Operations Management Society recently honored Professor David Simchi-Levi of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division with an article published in the January-February issue of the journal Production and Operations Management. The journal honors two to three researchers annually. Past honorees include MIT Sloan professors Jay Forrester and Stephen Graves. The article cites Simchi-Levi’s contributions to both the theoretical and practical aspects of supply-chain management as demonstrated by the quality and reach of his published research; the application of this research in corporate practice; his seven years as editor-in-chief of Operations Research; and the popularity of his second book as a graduate business education text.That book, "Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies" (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007) by Simchi-Levi, Philip Kaminsky and Edith Simchi-Levi, is now in its third edition. In 2000 it was named book of the year by the Institute of Industrial Engineering. Earlier this year, the blog Supply Chain Management (SCM) Operations listed the book on its “10 Greatest Supply Chain Management Books of All Time,” based on the number of citations for books found by Google Scholar.  After receiving  his Ph.D. from Tel-Aviv University, Simchi-Levi was on the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University (1986-1993), the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University (1993-2000) before joining the MIT faculty. At MIT he is co-director of the Leaders for Global Operations; co-director of the MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation; head of the new Accenture and MIT Alliance in Business Analytics’ leader of the MIT-Technion Postdoctoral Program; a member of the Operations Research Center and former co-director of the System Design and Management partnership.In 2009, he was awarded the Revenue Management and Pricing Section Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the world’s largest professional society for the field of operations research, management science and business analytics. INFORMS awarded the prize to Simchi-Levi for a series of three papers that made fundamental contributions to the field. Scholars are analyzing a three-foot-tall stone carving of an armless nude that surfaced during archaeological digs last summer below a Brooklyn overpass. Mr. Bernal’s work ignited a debate by arguing that the African and Semitic lineage of Western civilization had been scrubbed from the record of ancient Greece by 18th- and 19th-century historians.     Recent elections suggest that early presidential primary polls sometimes tell you more than you might expect. Frederick J. McGarry, professor emeritus of polymer engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) died March 27 after a long illness. He was 86. McGarry was associated with MIT for 52 years, first coming to the Institute as a student in a joint undergraduate degree program with Middlebury College. In 1950, he earned an AB in physics and math from Middlebury and an SB in mechanical engineering from MIT. He then received an SM in mechanical engineering/materials from MIT in 1953. Prof. McGarry’s first appointment at MIT was in the Materials of Construction Division in CEE, and he joined DMSE in 1975, as a direct result of MIT’s concentrating and strengthening its efforts in polymer education and research. He taught many subjects over the years, notably in polymer engineering, behavior of plastics and fracture of materials.Throughout his career, he had many research collaborations inside and outside MIT, including with colleagues at Dow Corning, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, American Cyanamid and BF Goodrich. His research centered on polymer engineering, including fiber-reinforced composites. Of his many pioneering contributions in this field, perhaps the most notable was the development of rubber toughening in thermosetting resins, a vital part of modern composites technology.In addition to his research and education roles, McGarry served as secretary of the faculty, director of the Program in Polymer Science and Technology, chair of the ROTC program, and director of the Summer Session (now the Professional Education Program). Over the course of his career, he participated in multiple international programs, including in the 1960s the MIT Inter-American Program in Civil Engineering, which examined a collaborative initiative to solve engineering problems common to the United States and Latin American countries. McGarry, who was born and raised in Vermont, lived for many years in Weston, Mass. He was widowed in 1971 when his wife and the mother of their six daughters, Alice R. McGarry, passed away. The couple had met and married when she was a graduate student at Harvard. He leaves his longtime partner, Norma Webb; his six daughters, Martha McGarry Miller of New York City, Alice Aldridge of Weston, Mass., Joan McGarry Cole of Newport Beach, Calif., Carol McGarry of Sherborn, Mass., Susan McGarry and Janet McGarry Bassett of San Francisco; four grandchildren; and his older brother, John J. McGarry of Scottsdale, Ariz.McGarry was a longtime member of the St. Botolph’s Club in Boston, where he had many friends. He loved skiing in Vermont, travel and classical music and held season tickets at Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Handel & Haydn Society for many years. After his retirement, he and Norma spent winters in Florida.A funeral service will be held on Saturday, April 6, at 11:30 a.m. at St Julia's Church in Weston. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to MIT for the Frederick J. McGarry (1950) Memorial Fund. Checks should be payable to MIT and mailed to Bonny Kellermann ’72, Director of Memorial Gifts; 600 Memorial Drive, W98-500; Cambridge, MA 02139. Please include a note stating that your gift is in memory of Frederick J. McGarry. With any decision about closing down the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, put on the back burner, inmates there have lost hope that they will ever be released. Launching a new product or business is hard. Sometimes, even computer nerds need a little tech

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