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Oil firms on MidEast, North African unrest

Oil steadied on Wednesday due to concerns that unrest in Yemen may spill over into neighboring countries in the oil rich Middle East Gulf region, while an expected increase in U.S. crude inventories capped gains prices.

Brent crude futures rose 9 cents to $115.76 a barrel at 0855 GMT (4:55 a.m. ET). Prices have risen four out of the past five sessions but fallen from the near $120 hit in late February.

U.S. crude futures inched by 8 cents to $105.05.

Volume for both contracts were moderate as high volatility in the recent weeks on the oil market has sent some investors to sidelines and others into safer havens.

In Yemen, a small oil and gas producer, opposition groups called on protesters to march on President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Sanaa palace on Friday to demand he step down, hoping to end a crisis that his allies abroad fear will benefit Islamic militants.

Seven weeks of street protests against Saleh's 32-year rule of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state has raised alarm in

Western capitals at the prospect of a country where al Qaeda has entrenched itself falling apart.

"While this transition is going on, it can only threaten oil supplies and increase uncertainty - both things that will keep oil prices strong," Christopher Bellew with Bache Commodities said.

Yemen's neighbor Saudi Arabia is the world's top oil exporter and the only OPEC member nation with enough spare capacity to compensate for supply disruptions elsewhere.

The civil unrest have been spreading across oil rich North Africa and the Middle East, such as Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain and it has lead to shutting in bulk of Libya's oil output.

Western powers attacking Libya will end up in the dustbin of history, Muammar Gaddafi said as his troops held back poorly equipped rebel forces despite four nights of coalition air strikes.

Some lid on prices came from the United States, the world's second-largest energy consumer. Analysts expected government data to show a 1.6 million barrel increase in the week to March 18 when it is released later in the day.

Global markets were also watching a key vote on austerity measures in Portugal that could see the country's government brought down.

FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares opened lower then turned positive by 0943 GMT.

Euro dipped broadly against other currencies.

(Reporting by Ikuko Kurahone in London and Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by Jason Neely)

UMD B-School's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Hosts Sixth Annual Cupid's Cup Business Competition

COLLEGE PARK, Md., March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business will host the UMD Entrepreneurship Invitational, featuring the Sixth Annual Cupid's Cup business competition, on Friday, April 1, at the university's College Park campus. The event kicks off with the BB&T Business Invitational, a showcase of University of Maryland and Washington-Baltimore region start-ups, entrepreneurship groups and economic development organizations. Four finalist entrepreneurs will compete for $25,000 in prizes in the Cupid's Cup Business Competition, where contestants will be judged on their business pitch presentations and evaluated by a panel of judges including competition sponsor and alumnus Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour. Presentations from other regional entrepreneurs will also be included. Plank will give a keynote address, along with alumnus Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor. The competition will kick off with a keynote from Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, chairman and CEO of Revolution Inc. and the Case Foundation, and chair of the White House's Startup America Partnership to stimulate emerging companies. The event is free and open to the public. Additional information, including a full agenda, is available at .

What: UMD Entrepreneurship Invitational featuring Cupid's Cup business plan competition

When: Friday, April 1, 2011

BB&T Business Invitational Showcase: 1 to 3 p.m., Grand BallroomCupid's Cup Business Competition, 3 to 5 p.m., Hoff TheaterWhere: Stamp Student Union

University of Maryland, College Park

Keynote speakers:

3:30 p.m. Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL, Chairman and CEO of Revolution Inc., Chairman of the Case Foundation, Chair of the White House's Startup America Partnership

4 p.m. Ed Snider '55, Chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, parent company of the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team, Philadelphia 76ers NBA basketball team, and Comcast Sports-Net

4:40 p.m. Kevin Plank '96, Founder and CEO of Under Armour

Event host: Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Event website:

Media Contact:Carrie Handwerker, PR Manager; office phone: 301-405-5833; mobile: 240-839-0982

SOURCERobert H. Smith School of Business

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Exploded Star's 'Stripes' Hold Clue to Cosmic Mystery

stripes" in the remains of an exploded star may help astronomers learn how some of the highest-energy particles in our galaxy reach their incredible speeds, a new study suggests.

NASA'sspacecraft detected a suprisingly regular pattern of X-rays in a well-known supernova remnant called Tycho. The new observations provide the first direct evidence that a cosmic event can rocket particles to energies 100 times higher than those achieved by Earth's most powerful accelerators, researchers said.

The find may also help scientists figure out how some of those super-speedy particles — which are known as cosmic rays, and constantly bombard Earth— are produced, they added.

"We’ve seen lots of intriguing structures in supernova remnants, but we’ve never seen stripes before," said study leader Kristoffer Eriksen of Rutgers University in a statement. "This made us think very hard about what’s happening in the blast wave of this powerful explosion." []

Staring at an exploded star

Theremnantis located in our own Milky Way galaxy, about 13,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.

It's named for the , who reported observing the supernova in 1572. The event likely occurred when a white dwarf star grew so much in mass that it eventually exploded in a so-called Type Ia supernova, researchers said.

Chandra peered at the supernova remnant for more than 200 hours back in 2009. Over these extended observations, the spacecraft picked up some strange X-ray stripes in Tycho.

These stripes provide support for a theory about how exploding starsto incredible energies, researchers said.

A supernova shock wave

When a star explodes, it creates a fast-moving shock wave that spreads through space. High-energy charged particles — such as protons and electrons — can bounce back and forth across this shock wave repeatedly, gaining energy with each crossing.

One theory predicts that, near this ever-expanding shock wave, magnetic fields become highly tangled and the motions of the charged particles extremely chaotic. This creates a messy network of X-rays, with some "holes" of little emission and some "walls" with lots of the stuff.

Researchers think Tycho's stripes are evidence that this is happening.

The stripes are likely the "walls" of theory — regions where the magnetic fields are more tangled than surrounding areas, and where particle movement is more turbulent. In these areas, protons and electrons become trapped and spiral around the magnetic field lines; the electrons emit lots of X-rays in the process, researchers said.

However, the regular and almost periodic pattern of the X-ray stripes was unexpected. It wasn't predicted by theory, researchers said.

"It was a big surprise to find such a neatly arranged set of stripes,"said co-author Jack Hughes of Rutgers. "We were not expecting so much order to appear in so much chaos. It could mean that the theory is incomplete, or that there’s something else we don’t understand."

The researchers published their results last month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Spawning speedy cosmic rays

The stripes could also help researchers understand how some of the highest-energy cosmic rays— which are mostly protons — are spawned. []

The spacing of the X-ray stripes likely indicates proton energies about 100 times higher than those reached in Earth's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider — and they're equivalent to the highest-energy cosmic rays thought to be produced in our galaxy, researchers said.

That result also supports previous theory, as supernova remnants have long been considered a good candidate for producing the Milky Way's most energetic cosmic rays.

Protons can reach energies hundreds of times higher than the highest-energy electrons, but since they do not radiate X-rays efficiently like electrons do, direct evidence for the acceleration of cosmic ray protons in supernova remnants has been lacking, researchers said.

The new results also support the prediction that magnetic fields in interstellar space are greatly amplified in supernova remnants. The difference between the observed and predicted structures, however, means that other interpretations cannot be ruled out.

"We were excited to discover these stripes because they might allow us to directly track, for the first time, the origin of the most energetic particles produced in our galaxy,"Eriksen said. "But we’re not claiming victory yet."

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitterand on .

Stephen R. Synnott, Syntelligent Analytic Solutions, LLC President/CEO on DIA Acquisition Conference 2011 Small Business Panel

Small Business Challenges in Open Competition” at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Acquisition Conference 2011 held March 14-17, 2011 in Miami, FL.

Falls Church, VA (PRWEB) March 25, 2011

Stephen R. Synnott, President/CEO of Syntelligent Analytic Solutions, LLC participated in the panel discussion “Small Business Challenges in Open Competition” at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Acquisition Conference 2011 held March 14-17, 2011 in Miami, FL.The theme of the conference was “Leveraging Efficiencies for Operational Effectiveness”.

The panel discussion explored a number of challenges small businesses face in a full and open competitive environment.Mr. Synnott shared his views that small businesses face challenges in gaining facility clearances, responding to key personnel requirements and opportunity identification.Mr. Synnott made a number of recommendations DIA Acquisition authorities might consider when developing future solicitations.

Syntelligent Analytic Solutions, LLC, a Services Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), is a professional services and consulting firm catering to U.S. national security customers. Syntelligent specializes in supporting all intelligence disciplines and is capable of providing a wide range of Intelligence Operations, Information Technology and Cyber Operations services to the Defense and Intelligence Communities worldwide.For more information on Syntelligent Analytic Solutions, LLC’s services and offerings please visit: .

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StephenSynnottSyntelligent Analytic Solutions,LLC571-268-3686Email Information

Ultra-Slim Samsung Series 9 Laptop Gets $1149 Pre-order Price

s Series 9 ultraportable 11.6-inch notebook goes on sale this week for a $1149 pre-order price atand other retailers. Like its largersibling ($1600 MSRP), this Series 9 challenges the MacBook Air for ultra-thin supremacy.

Samsung's newshows this 11.6-inch model sharing the same design features as the 13.3-inch Series 9, with a few key differences. The 11.6-inch model has a Core i3 (rather than i5) processor, 64GB (rather than 128GB) SSD, and, rather disappointingly, maxes out at 2GB of memory. In return, though, the Series 9 11.6-inch model sheds some weight (2.31 pounds vs. 2.88 pounds) and a little more than an inch in width and diameter - making the super slim laptop even more portable. With an $1199.99 MSRP (pre-order and shave $50), the more compact model is also $400 cheaper.

Of course, the big question: how does the 11.6-inch Series 9 stack up against the 11-inch MacBook Air? The smaller Series 9 model is even closer in comparison than the 13.3-inch version was, since both 11.6-inch models have a native 1366x768 resolution (the 13.3-inch MacBook Air had a better screen resolution than the 13.3-inch Series 9). The Series 9 11-inch model also maintains its slight advantage over the MacBook Air in thinness: 0.65 inches versus the Air's 0.68 inches.

The 11-inch MacBook Air, however, comes in more configurations, with a $999 model offering 64GB of flash storage and an $1199 version offering double that - twice the space offered by the 11-inch Series 9 as well. The MacBook Air also is capable of up to 4GB of memory.

Competition is wonderful. If you were interested in the Series 9 before but balked at the premium price tag, this 11.1-inch version is much friendlier on your wallet and even easier to carry to boot.