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Friday, February 1, 2013

In a recent article by Ashley Lauren at care2.com she asks, ?Why Aren?t People Adopting?? She goes through some reasons that deserve further elaboration?.

The first has to do with cost. Lauren writes that the cost of adoption ?is incredibly prohibitive.? Adoption.com states, ?Adopting from the U.S. foster care system is generally the least expensive type of adoption, usually involving little or no cost, and states often provide subsidies to adoptive parents?Agency and private adoptions can range from $5,000 to $40,000 or more depending on a variety of factors including services provided, travel expenses, birthmother expenses, requirements in the state, and other factors. International adoptions can range from $7,000 to $30,000. This can be especially prohibitive considering many insurance carriers cover fertility treatments as well as doctors appointments leading up to and including the birth of the child.?

Hope for Orphans also has indicated that the cost can range ?nothing upwards of $30,000.? Now, that is a lot of money. However, what many people don?t realize is how much assistance is available for parents who adopt. There are federal adoption tax credits and grants for sizeable amounts to assist families wanting to adopt. There are also fee reductions for special needs children, and financial assistance is often offered through churches. The way Hope for Orphans sees it, adoption can be made ?affordable for almost anyone willing to pursue the options available.?

What if this was the mindset!

Other issues have to do with wait time and legalities. Lauren writes that ?with tighter restrictions, hopeful parents often have to wait years before they can bring their child home.? While it has been common to believe that it takes a long time to complete the adoption process, recent polls indicate otherwise; according to adoption expert and founder of Lifetime Adoption Center Mardie Caldwell, the process generally takes about a year.

But the biggest reason why more people don?t adopt has to do with wanting newborns. Lauren writes, ?Many partners who want children want newborn babies so they can experience those cute baby years, but oftentimes the heartbreak associated with trying to adopt a newborn is too much to bear as birth mothers can, and do, change their minds about adoptions when they see their babies.?

Caldwell might very well disagree ? that in reality, there are tens of thousands of families each year that adopt healthy, newborn babies through adoption. Many of them are through open adoption, where the biological mother, often called the birth mother, may have chosen the family herself. And today?s adoption laws protect against birth parents being able to take the child back. Hope for Orphans suggests that adoptive parents work with attorneys who have expertise in this area and can make sure all legal papers are signed. This will ?nearly eliminate this possibility.?

Beyond the myths and true reasons, there is a deeper reason why more people who want children do not adopt.? It boils down to the pronatalist assumption that ?biology is best.? Pronatalist dogma has stressed that having your own child is the way to have a child. Somehow you are not a ?real? woman, a true mother, if you don?t have your own biological child.

What if we dumped this thinking, and instead valued adoption as the first choice, not as the last resort? Women who are having a hard time conceiving not feel something is ?wrong? and that the only solution is an expensive procedure like in vitro fertilization, and they could more readily decide to put that money toward adopting a child.? Children in need of loving homes would clearly greatly benefit. Foster homes could decrease, and the adoption process would become even more effective-because we more highly value it. Want-to-be-parents would get to have the experience of parenting.? The world would not bring another person onto an already crowded planet.? With? each adopted child, the world would be saved from the carbon wake that comes with every new biological child.

So many benefits would come from changing mindsets away from having to feel the need to have a biological child in order to fulfill one?s desire to be a parent!

Source: http://lauracarroll.com/changing-mindsets-on-adoption/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=changing-mindsets-on-adoption

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Why Monster Hunter Is So Popular In Japan (And Struggles Everywhere Else)

The Monster Hunter series wasn't always the "monster" (heh heh) hit it is currently. Originally released for the PS2, the first game, Monster Hunter, and its sequel, Monster Hunter G, sold less than a million copies each. It wasn't until the game went hand-held to the PSP with Monster Hunter Portable (Monster Hunter Freedom in the west) that Capcom scored their first million seller with the series.

There is, however, something to be said about the fact that the game series helped cement the PSP's popularity in Japan among the previous generation of handhelds (so much so that the PSP continues to outsell the PS Vita) as well as establish the popularity of the 3DS in the current generation of handhelds in Japan. Why does the series garner such popularity mainly in Japan?

The game's system itself is not unique. It largely echoes the Phantasy Star Online quest/mission model. Still, with Capcom's action game and graphics knowhow mixed with a more relatable semi-realistic game world (i.e. all players are human, no level system, heavy emphasis on action, all attacks are physical with no real magic other than buffs in the form of potions or meat? (Although, show me a real life video of a man whirling around a ship anchor to fight a sperm whale and I might concede that Monster Hunter is "realistic.")), and a Skinner-box reward system, you've got yourself a well-put-together game. Add a dash of cute cat-like mascot and you've got a winner. Capcom was also able to make the game more accessible to players by having the multi-player be, for the most part, free (The original games for the PS2 required a monthly ?900 (US$10.19) service provider subscription and the Wii versions require the purchase of 30 day, 60 day, or 90 day tickets? Another argument for why the portable versions are more popular).

Another, and perhaps the biggest factor in the strength of the Monster Hunter series, is Japan's sense of community. Due to the nature of the game's multi-player system, particularly with the PSP and 3DS, when playing with others, you will almost invariably be playing with someone you know?more often than not, a friend. Most people seem to get their introduction to the game from the people around them. "My boss talked me into playing [Monster Hunter 3rd]" says Ryouhei, a 24 year-old clerk who would spend hours after work huddled together with his co-workers. "It's fun to work together with friends towards a mutual goal."

Why Monster Hunter Is So Popular In Japan (And Struggles Everywhere Else) The fact that friends are playing the game acts as an incentive for people to join in as well as keep playing. In Japan, a country with imperial origins, there is often enormous pressure to fit in in communities. When something is popular among one's peers, it's best to get in on the action, or at the very least know what all the hubbub is about. While this mindset has lessened in the years of democratic rule, it remains embedded in a large part of society. "On a trip with 15 or so colleagues, everyone but me was playing Monster Hunter on their PSPs." Kenji, a 25 year-old actor recalls, "I sat in the corner playing Final Fantasy on my PSP, while everybody else sat in circles of 3 or 4 laughing and having fun? It was terrible. When I got home, the first thing I did was get a copy of the game."

Monster Hunter is pretty much tailor-made for hand-held consoles. This could be part of the reason why it has not caught on as strongly outside of Japan. Portable systems are much stronger sellers in Japan than in other regions. This could be attributed to several factors; the dense population leading to the development of smaller consoles with equal, if not higher performance levels than older, larger versions, and the abundance of mass transit, leaving large portions of the population with very little to do during the long train/bus rides to and from school/work.

Another part of why the game is more popular in Japan probably has once again to do with the sociological aspects of the game's multi-player. In Japan, playing multi-player Monster Hunter is a form of social interaction. You're not playing to get better equipment, you're playing to have fun and to socialize with the people you're playing with. I asked several people about their experiences with Monster Hunter while preparing to write this article, and a couple of interesting points crept up. Firstly, I could not find a single person who started the series on their own. Everyone seemed to have been introduced to the game series through someone else, be it a colleague or friend's suggestion, or simple peer pressure from watching friends enjoying the game. While I'm sure there are people who picked up the game on their own, they seem to be quite rare. The second point of interest was when I asked people what they enjoyed about the game. No matter what reason was given, invariably, the words, "-with my friends/colleagues" came at the end. Everyone had their varying basic reasons for liking the games, but the crux of their enjoyment came from playing with someone else.

Why Monster Hunter Is So Popular In Japan (And Struggles Everywhere Else) Now, there are many games out there that are basically multi-player games with brief single-player campaigns tacked on, but Monster Hunter is a true chameleon in this respect: the game doesn't sell itself as a multi-player game. Looking over the promotional videos for most of the games in the series, very little screen time is ever devoted to the multi-player. Ratio-wise I'd say less than 10% of the imagery shows more than one player in action at the same time. From a distance, most of the game series' promotional material seems to almost downplay the multi-player. Even the cover of the games all show a lone hunter standing up against a giant monster that towers over them (The only game that goes counter to this formula is the online game Monster Hunter Frontier Online). Focus on graphics and single-player for a game that is crippled without its multi-player? I don't know if it's on purpose, but it seems counter-intuitively genius.

With Monster Hunter, the goal is multi-player.

While most non-competitive multi-player games have multi-player as a means to achieve a mutual goal, with Monster Hunter the goal IS multi-player, cloaked in the superficial objective of fighting giant monsters to hopefully get ingredients for better equipment. Monster Hunter is a truly "social" game (or rather, a "social interaction" game) in the guise of an action game. Playing alone, the game feels aimless. Sure, the gameplay is well-designed and solid, but without someone to share it with, the experience feels hollow. This is why the game's single-player is so weak, and this was the reason why I initially stopped playing the game shortly after first picking it up with no one to play with (I started back up when I found a group of friends to play with). This is also pretty much why the game struggles outside of Japan. Like it or not, gaming is still largely viewed as a solitary pastime with interactions between people only occurring over the internet (You won't find groups of friends sitting around a table in a restaurant or fast food joint playing hand-held video games together in many other countries outside of Japan). This, and the fact that most of the Monster Hunter games for hand-held consoles released outside of Japan have been for the PSP, a console that gets half of its sales numbers from Japan alone, is a formula for trouble. The upcoming western release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the 3DS in March could hopefully change that, however (Although the need for the Circle Pad Pro to fully exploit the game's potential worries me).

Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. Why Monster Hunter Is So Popular In Japan (And Struggles Everywhere Else)

Source: http://kotaku.com/5980436/why-monster-hunter-is-so-popular-in-japan-and-struggles-everywhere-else

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US economy contracts for the first time in 3-1/2 years

1 day

John Schoen , NBC News

The U.S. economy stopped dead in its tracks in the last three months of the year, according to the latest government data, as the halting recovery was slammed by Superstorm Sandy and fiscal cliff political gridlock.

But economists said the surprise 0.1 percent contraction in the fourth quarter's annual growth rate was likely a brief pause in an otherwise halting, four-year recovery from the 2007 recession.

??This isn't the start of a new recession,? said Paul Ashworth chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

The Commerce Department's report on fourth quarter gross domestic product, the first of several that are typically revised as more data becomes available, followed a stronger-than-expected 3.1 bounce in growth during the preceding three months.Forecasters had been expecting a weak performance of about 1.1 percent growth in the final quarter of 2012 after Sandy shuttered millions of businesses and factories in early November.?

Besides the storm, the weakness appeared to be the result of other one-time factors, including the biggest defense spending cuts in 40 years and a slow build in company stockpiles. Those two factors alone slashed 2.6 percentage points from growth.

The big contraction in defense spending, which reversed an upswing in the third quarter, came as Congress remained deadlocked over compromise needed to avert across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester. The ??fiscal cliff? compromise reached at the end of the year?postponed those cuts until March 1.?

A top Defense Dept. official said last week that the Pentagon already is eliminating all 46,000 of its temporary civilian workers in anticipation of budget cuts. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that if Congress fails to head off mandatory budget cuts by March 1, some 800,000 Pentagon civilian employees will face furloughs and reduced paychecks by April, cutting spending by about $5 billion.?

The other big drag on third quarter growth, the draw-down in business inventories, followed a backup in merchandise in late summer after a slowdown in China and Europe left many U.S. manufacturers with unsold goods. As businesses sold off their backlogs by year-end, the sharp drop in inventories lopped off?1.3 percentage points in GDP growth.

Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar, Inc. said this week that it reduced its inventories by $2 billion in the fourth quarter as global sales declined from a year earlier.?

The?draw-down?means manufacturers are well-positioned for a pick-up in demand this year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics.?

?That augurs very well going into the first quarter,? he said. ?You can feel things started to pick up again."

That pickup has been reflected in fresher data on the economy?s performance in December, including upbeat reports on home and car sales, business investment and manufacturing orders.??Those reports have raised hopes that the ongoing move to balance the federal budget with tax increases and spending cuts won?t dampen the emerging recovery.

Signs?of?strength
Ironically, the gloomy headline on Wednesday?s GDP report masked two additional signs of economic strength.?

Businesses and consumers were big spenders in the fourth quarter - despite worries that the ongoing budget gridlock had prompted both to sit on the sidelines until the standoff was resolved.??Consumer spending ? which accounts for roughly 70 percent of GDP ? was also up sharply, adding 1.5 percent to GDP.?The recovering housing market added 3-tenths of a percent to growth.

Business investment in new equipment and software jumped 12.4 percent from the preceding three months, adding 9-tenths of a?percent to the economy?s overall expansion rate.?

?The collapse in government spending and cautious inventory controls hide the simple fact that households are spending, businesses are investing and the housing market is expanding,? said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.

The strength in consumer and business spending helps support the idea that the economy?s long-term trend of a fairly tepid 2 percent growth rate remains intact. The initial tally for all of 2012 showed the economy grew by 2.2 percent, a bit better than 2011's growth of 1.8 percent.

?The reality is that the economy is growing between 2 to 2.5 percent,? said Zandi. ?That?s how fast it?s been growing since the recovery started two-and-a-half years ago.?

That growth pace is slower than typical recoveries in the last half century, which is why the unemployment remains stuck at painfully high levels. The economy has created roughly 150,000 jobs a month, on average, for the past two years, barely enough to keep up with population growth. As a result, the unemployment rate has been falling slowly and has remained stuck at 7.8 percent for the past two months.

Economists expect the government?s January jobs report Friday to show the unemployment rate remained at that level again this month.?That tepid pace of growth and hiring is expected to continue into this year, due in part to the year-end budget deal that ended a two-year Social Security ?tax holiday.??

The increase will cost wage earners about two percent of their take-home pay (until they reach this year?s $113,700 income limit.)?That means a household earning the median $50,000 a year will have about $1,000 less to spend. A household with two highly-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less. ?

A key measure of consumer confidence plummeted this month after Americans noticed the reduction in their paychecks, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.

With growth historically weak and unemployment high, the Federal Reserve has promised to keep interest rates near zero, despite the potential long-term risk of inflation. Central bank Chairman Ben Bernanke has answered critics by saying that the Fed is ready to begin raising rates if price increases begin creeping back into the economy.

Though prices are rising in the housing and stock markets, there is little sign of inflation at the consumer or producer price level. Wage growth has also been flat since the recovery began.?

Still, the risk remains that the Fed?s ?exit strategy," whenever it comes, will put another damper on the economy.?

?I?m afraid that house prices could get to depend on the extremely low mortgage rates which will turn around when the Fed stops its (low interest rate) policy,? said Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, who served as chief economic advisor to President Reagan. ?At some point the Fed is going to have to start raising long term interest rates.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/us-economy-contracts-first-time-3-1-2-years-1B8174851

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Personal Loans to Help Australians in Need: FSO

Queensland, Australia, 29th January 2013. / Financial Services Online.

?As Australia enters cleanup mode following a series of devastating fires and floods, Financial Services Online CEO, Andrew Clark, has announced a package of secured and unsecured personal finance solutions designed to help affected Australians get their lives back together, irrespective of their credit history or employment status.?

?Financial Services Online (FSO) is an online finance and insurance portal providing free, direct access to a referral network of over 1,000 financial specialists and loan providers throughout Australia.?

?When a customer applies online at FSO, their enquiry is directed immediately to the financial specialist in the best position to help with the enquiry and to provide the most appropriate advice.?

?Specialties include:

? Fast cash advances for amounts from $500 up to $3,000 for short term relief.

? Bad credit debt consolidation loans for amounts from $10,000 up to $100,000.

? Medium term unsecured loans for amounts up to $5,000 irrespective of credit or employment history.

? Traditional unsecured personal loans for any worthwhile purpose,

? Secured loans including car loans, home loans, business loans, boat loans and more?

?Irrespective of whether someone has insurance to cover their home, contents and other property losses, natural disasters inevitably leave people with a range of financial issues caused by displacement and the interruption to their lives, businesses and employment.?

?Meeting existing finance and loan commitments can become increasingly difficult for individuals and families when their incomes are impacted through temporary interruption to their income.?

?Many Aussies will also be looking to replace uninsured cars, boats and other personal items. The FSO broker referral network aims to make this happen for customers in this situation ... good credit or bad.?

?Consolidation of existing debts into a single, smaller and more manageable monthly repayment is a good example of how we can reduce financial pressure.?

?FSO has already assisted thousands of personal loan customers wanting to consolidate existing debts, even with past or current defaults on their credit file.?

?A personal loan solution from FSO might just be the perfect tool to relieve the financial stress.?

Financial Services Online (est 2001) provides a free service, connecting people directly with specialist financial advice based on the location and specific requirements of each individual consumer across a range of financial products and services including life insurance, income protection, public liability, professional indemnity, health insurance, superannuation, home loans, car loans, unsecured personal loans, debt consolidation loans, credit repair and more.

For more information kindly visit: http://www.financialservicesonline.com.au

PO Box 1183, Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia, 4221

Contact: Andrew Clark, +61 419429754, andrew@financialservicesonline.com.au

Source: http://www.freeprnow.com/pr/personal-loans-to-help-australians-in-need-fso

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Grateful Letter to Mitch from College Student ? Sight & Sound Insights

Hello Mitch;

I am pleased to have found out my mother has contacted you, she is always
looking to help me any way she can. This all begin from me asking her the
other day if she could clip some coupons for me (because she is the coupon
queen) for hearing aid batteries so I can try and save some money when it
comes to buying new ones. I currently am a student at SUNY Cortland
attending my last semester on campus doing a full time unpaid internship. My
internship runs Monday through Friday 8:30am-4:30 pm along with after hour
campus activities that we have to attend. My job involves working in the
health promotion office for the university planning, organizing, attending,
and educating different health related functions for the students on campus. An
example of this would be our upcoming body application week. I am very
lucky to have landed this internship because I am doing what I love, helping
people and educating a healthy life style.
Along with working my internship I also work at the campus fitness center
usually 6am-8am then 5pm-7pm. I currently live on my own making my financial
situation tight so saving every penny helps.

Words cannot describe how grateful I am to have your help with donating
hearing aid batteries to me. I cannot thank you enough and your help well
never be forgotten.

I have been attending college for 6 years receiving my associate?s degree in
liberal arts, and I will be receiving my bachelor?s degree in community
health with a concentration in wellness and promotion this May. College has
been a struggle for me, having 14 surgeries for my ears in high school due
to cholesteatoma is a battle that I will never forget. My hearing
impairment kind of left me as an outcast, I never heard whispers, was not
allowed to play sports, and could barely hear teachers. I felt alone in my
own quite world. I always remember calling my mother in the high school
bathroom crying asking her to come pick me up because I could not hear.
After 14 surgeries I have found myself cholesteatoma free for about 5 years.
The battle I struggle with now is maintaining my hearing. Recently, over the
summer by hearing loss became pretty bad and the discussion of a hearing aid
was once in my life again. I remember the first time speaking to a hearing
aid specialist back in high school, she asked what ones I wanted to try on
and I said that I did not want to try any of them on. Nervous scared anxious
I made an appointment.

My main fear came from how I was going to look, like you said in your video
I will now be different on the outside but the same on the inside. This was
a hard reality for me because during that time I was preparing for my 2nd &
3rd body bodybuilding bikini competition. These competitions involve a
tremendous amount of self-discipline, dedication, and hard work. My biggest
fear then became my appearance on stage. I feared working my hardest and
loosing because I had an ugly device strapped to my ear.

With all my worries in mind I made an appointment and tried on a hearing aid
for the first time. Again, words can?t describe the feeling I had for the
first time I COULD HEAR. I heard the receptionist in the other room, my
little brother sliding his foot, my own voice, and my mother so clearly; I
had never felt so much joy in my life. So the decision was made and I was to
be receiving my very first hearing aid.

On a side note: I would just like to add that the fact that hearing aids are
not covered under insurance blows my mind. Working and learning the health
care field I know how many individuals need assistance that has very little
covered under insurance. Which makes me respect you and what you do so much
more knowing you are literally giving the people the ability to hear again.

Back to my story, at first I was shy with my hearing aid I did not want anyone to know but I slowly became more comfortable with it. When it came to my
competition time I was nervous as ever, afraid I was going to lose because
my hearing aid would make me less beautiful as everyone else. So I took a
risk and competed using my hearing aid, on stage in front of about one
hundred people I threw my fears out the window. That competition I placed
4th. Still motivated I competed the next weekend even informing some of the
staff that I was hearing impaired and to please assist me by making sure I
know when it is my turn to enter the stage. That competition I was more
confident and I feel the judges knew it. I finally placed 1st winning my
NABBA Pro Bikini Competitor Card. I also placed first in the couples
division with my boyfriend.

I feel like I faced my biggest fear and beat it. Now I am no longer ashamed
of my hearing aid because it has changed my life so much. My whole experience
with a hearing disability has made me who I am today. I am more
understanding of others with disabilities and I try to make everyone I meet
smile. Even though I no longer wish to compete as a bikini competitor I
still enjoy working out and lifting weights and will be competing in the
school weight lifting meet this semester.

Some days it?s a struggle and in the past I used to wonder ?why me? but I
understand now I have been given this gift because I am strong enough to
handle it. I am given this gift to help others to help make the world a
better place one person at a time. I would not change the life that was
given to me for a million dollars because this struggle has shown me that
my disability does not own me I own my disability.

Thank you so much again for your help! Also, thank you for sharing your
struggles, videos and creating this foundation. This foundation that you
have created has now personally touched my life and the lives of many others
you are truly a great man. Thank you

Jessica Dashnaw

Source: http://www.foundationforsightandsound.org/wordpress/?p=343

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US regulator asks Boeing for full battery history

FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 photo provided by the Japan Transport Safety Board shows the distorted main lithium-ion battery, left, and an undamaged auxiliary battery of the All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 which made an emergency landing on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013 at Takamatsu airport in Takamatsu, western Japan. Japan's transport safety agency says a lithium ion battery on a Boeing 787 that overheated during an All Nippon Airways flight earlier this month, prompting an emergency landing, was not overcharged. (AP Photo/Japan Transport Safety Board) EDITORIAL USE ONLY, NO SALES

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 18, 2013 file photo, an All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 "the Dreamliner" parks on the tarmac as a Japan Airlines' Boeing 767 airplane takes off at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. ANA and JAL said they replaced lithium-ion batteries in their Boeing 787 Dreamliners on multiple occasions before a battery overheating incident led to the worldwide grounding of the jets. ANA said Wednesday, Jan. 30, it replaced batteries on its 787 aircraft some 10 times because they failed to charge properly or showed other problems, and informed Boeing about the swaps. JAL said it had also replaced lithium-ion batteries on its 787 jets but couldn't immediately give details. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

TOKYO (AP) ? U.S. regulators said Wednesday they asked Boeing Co. to provide a full operating history of lithium-ion batteries used in its grounded 787 Dreamliners after Japan's All Nippon Airways revealed it had repeatedly replaced the batteries even before overheating problems surfaced.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said the agency made the request after recently becoming aware of battery problems at ANA that occurred before a Jan. 7 battery fire in a 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport. Boeing has already collected some of the information, he said.

ANA said it had replaced batteries on its 787 aircraft some 10 times because they didn't charge properly or connections with electrical systems failed, and informed Boeing about the swaps. Japan Airlines also said it had replaced 787 batteries. It described the number involved as a few but couldn't immediately give further details.

All 50 of the Boeing 787s in use around the world remain grounded after an ANA flight on Jan. 16 made an emergency landing in Japan when its main battery overheated.

The 787 is the first airliner to make wide use of lithium-ion batteries. They are prone to overheating and require additional safeguards to prevent fires. However, ANA spokeswoman Megumi Tezuka said the airline was not required to report the battery replacements to Japan's Transport Ministry because they did not interfere with flights and did not raise safety concerns.

Having to replace batteries on aircraft is not uncommon and was not considered out of the ordinary, she said.

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said in Washington that the agency was checking whether the previous battery incidents had been reported by Boeing.

Boeing in Japan said it couldn't comment while the NSTB investigation is underway. GS Yuasa, the Kyoto, Japan-based manufacturer of the batteries, said it could not comment.

With 17 of the jets, ANA was Boeing's launch customer for the technologically advanced airliner. The airline has had to cancel hundreds of flights, affecting tens of thousands of people, but has sought to minimize disruptions by switching to other aircraft as much as possible. ANA and Japan Airlines are among the biggest customers for the 787 and Japanese manufacturers make about 35 percent of the aircraft.

The battery problems experienced by ANA before the emergency landing were first reported by The New York Times.

Japanese and U.S. investigators looking into the Boeing 787's battery problems shifted their attention this week from GS Yuasa to the manufacturer of a monitoring system. That company, Kanto Aircraft Instrument Co., makes a system that monitors voltage, charging and temperature of the lithium-ion batteries.

On Tuesday, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was conducting a chemical analysis of internal short circuiting and thermal damage of the battery that caught fire in Boston.

The probe is also analyzing data from flight data recorders on the aircraft, the NTSB said in a statement on its website.

___

Joan Lowy reported from Washington.

___

Follow Elaine Kurtenbach on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ekurtenbach

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-30-Japan-Boeing%20787/id-e76034e6aecd42bf8005914fa617dd3e

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