text:
In every child lie the seeds of endless creativity. With support and a bit of guidance that creativity can flourish and grow in beautiful ways. In our modern lives it's all too easy to get swept up in the busyness of our day to make space for creative expression with our children. We know it can be tricky to provide these experiences at home – so that's why we're here! Our exciting and educationally-based workshops are tailored to your child. And for you, there's no stress or mess to worry about. The end result: essential quality time with your child in a safe and friendly environment. The best way to find out more is to come along and experience the hands on fun with your own child. These experiences help to build essential and desirable life skills, and the best bit – children LOVE arts and craft!
To reserve a place for your child please RSVP here with the number you are coming with and transfer payment (7.50 euros per child; parents are free of charge) to:
SE Pendrick
Please note due to preparation needed before each class refunds can only be given for non-attendance with 48 hours notice. Thanks for your understanding!


text:
Translation Disclaimer
The Berkeley Fire Academy consists of rigorous classroom and manipulative training. Topics in the academy include but are not limited to:
Hazardous Materials
Wildland Firefighting
Confined Space Operations
Auto Extrication
Live Fire Training
Rope Rescue
Berkeley Geography
The Academy lasts between twelve to sixteen weeks.
Recruitment Quick Links
Testing Process
Department Selection Process
How To Prepare
Career Overview

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Mick Box still leads the band, and is as animated and exciting a guitarist as he was the first time Uriah Heep played in Dayton, back on April 1, 1976. By then, the Heep had been gigging for six years, longer than the lifespan of most rock bands. If you have ever wondered where the name Uriah Heep came from, he is a famous character from Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield, whose signature phrase, "very 'umble," led to the title of the band's first album, Very 'eavy, Very 'umble, back in 1970. Box has been on board since the beginning, and shows no sign whatsoever of slowing down.
"We're gonna spend the next few hours playing some of our new album, and some of our classics, some new, some old, some new, some old...."
Shaw is still seen by many as the new guy in the band, but make no mistake - Bernie is a pro's pro - a great voice, a confident front-man, and a great entertainer. His voice is powerful and crystal clear, not missing a note all evening, nor shying away from even the highest peaks in the band's catalog. The passion that Shaw brings to the table is palpable, as he utilizes every skill he has learned over a long career, including a tremendous amount of sheer horsepower, and a soulful vibrato that rivals the best of the classic British hard rock royalty.
The sound of Uriah Heep has remained pretty consistent over the years. Couched upon the thick and sophisticated mix of Box's trademark guitar tone, tasty keyboards, and thundering drums are the band's great harmony vocals, which so wonderfully support the ever melodic efforts of their lead singer. This band is as tight as it gets, an amazingly well oiled machine. This show was the third concert of a tour that will see Box and company play across America for most of the summer.
Bolder also supplies a good deal of the classic Heep harmonies, and he hits every note, every time. My only regret was that the bassist did not sing his song from the new album, Trail Of Diamonds. This song makes me ache for a Bolder solo record. It is a great tune in the UH mold, with the veteran singing as well as any lead vocalist out there, and is reason enough for you to buy Into The Wild, which is as good an album as any in the band's catalog.
"Uriah Heep were the best band that we've ever toured with, either as a headline or support, because there was no ego, no pretentious kind of stuff. They were great, and we learned a lot from them"
"After tonight, we've a thousand miles to drive for the next show, but the sound of this crowd will ring in our ears the whole way."
The adoration was being passed around like a bottle of Ripple at a hobo's ball - it gets passed, but each party partakes sweetly. I'm not sure who got the better deal, but everybody came away a winner.
After going off to thunderous applause, the band returns for their encores, which include 1977's Free 'n' Easy, a song which sees the band invite some 20 people on to the stage for some old school headbanging. 'Til the very end Heep delivers the goods, giving their fans what they want - a great night of rock and roll by any measure.


text:
Finland is a Northern European nation bordering Sweden, Norway and Russia. Its capital, Helsinki, occupies a peninsula and surrounding islands in the Baltic Sea. Helsinki is home to the 18th-century sea fortress Suomenlinna, the fashionable Design District and diverse museums. The Northern Lights can be seen from the country's Arctic Lapland province, a vast wilderness with national parks and ski resorts.
Art and history
Art influences society and history by changing opinions, instilling values and translating experiences across space and time. Research has shown art affects the fundamental sense of self. Painting, sculpture, music, literature and the other arts are often considered to be the repository of a society's collective memory. Whenever you want to combine History with Art, these are the tours for you!
Cooking Lessons
A cooking vacation is a trip based on the idea that food is one of the most important parts of a trip, and that encountering a destination through its cuisine provides an authentic experience unlike many standard sightseeing tours.
Would you like to spend a week in the Tuscan countryside learning to cook the Tuscan way from a warm and enthusiastic Italian chef? Or pass a few days at a Provencal B&B visiting the local produce markets and bakeries, enjoying your meals al fresco with a glass of excellent French wine? Or perhaps you would prefer a cooking trip to sunny Portugal where you can fully immerse yourself in the local cuisine and way of life? These are just a few of the types of cooking vacations we can offer.
From the Olympics to Mardi Gras, events are always worth traveling for. Looking to plan a trip around a weekend festival or a few worldly events? Let travel-for-All plan an accessible vacation for your next trip.
Think of a festival like a giant themed party. It's a place where thousands of like-minded travelers get together to celebrate the thing they love most, from electronic music to classical theater, contemporary art, beer, and even movies. The exhilarating, shared experience of a festival helps travelers connect to new people, new sights, and new sounds, familiarizing them with a place.
Festivals are one of the biggest excuses for visiting a destination during peak season—that's usually when a town or city is in full bloom, teeming with an irresistible mix of locals, visiting performers, high-brow art connoisseurs, and curious tourists.
Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits facing forward, legs in front, using a double-bladed paddle to pull front-to-back on one side and then the other in rotation. Most kayaks have closed decks, although sit-on-top and inflatable kayaks are growing in popularity as well.
Kayaks were created thousands of years ago by the Inuit, formerly known as Eskimos, of the northern Arctic regions. They used driftwood and sometimes the skeleton of whale, to construct the frame of the kayak, and animal skin, particularly seal skin was used to create the body. The main purpose for creating the kayak, which literally translates to "hunter's boat" was for hunting and fishing. The kayak's stealth capabilities, allowed for the hunter to sneak up behind animals on the shoreline, and successfully catch their prey. By the mid-1800s the kayak became increasingly popular and the Europeans became interested. German and French men began kayaking for sport. In 1931, a man named Adolf Anderle became the first person to kayak down the Salzachofen Gorge, this is where the birthplace of modern-day white-water kayaking is believed to have begun. Kayak races were introduced in the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936.
In the 1950s fiberglass kayaks were developed and commonly used, until 1980s when polyethylene plastic kayaks came about. Kayaking progressed as a fringe sport in the U.S. until the 1970s, when it became a mainstream popular sport. Now, more than 10 white water kayaking events are featured in the Olympics.While kayaking represents a key international watersport, few academic studies have been conducted on the role kayaking plays in the lives and activities of the public .
Meet the Locals
Meet the Locals is a chance for tourists around the world to experience a more unique, personal and authentic local experience while travelling.
Here you can join the local people, who will cook up a homemade dish for you, while you learn more about each other as well as the culture and lifestyle. We are sure they have some tales to tell you.
You will be invited inside to Meet the Locals in their own cosy homes to share dinner and great conversation together.
Museum Tours
Docent-led tours are an excellent way to see the highlights of any Museum. Many museums have regular free tours for visitors. Groups of 10 or more visitors generally need to schedule in advance to guarantee availability. Self-guided tours, school field trips, and guided tours for walk-in visitors are also available.
Sign language, oral interpreters, assisted listening devices, and descriptive guide experiences for the visually impaired may be requested with advance notice for tours and events. One week advance notice is recommended.
Rafting and white water rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk and the need for teamwork is often a part of the experience.
An adventure is an exciting or unusual experience. It may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. Adventures may be activities with some potential for physical danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting or participating in extreme sports.
The term also broadly refers to any enterprise that is potentially fraught with physical, financial or psychological risk, such as a business venture, or other major life undertakings.
A safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa or South America. In the past, the trip was often a big-game hunt, but today, safari often refers to trips to observe and photograph wildlife—or hiking and sightseeing, as well.
The Swahili word safari means journey, originally from the Arabic meaning a journey; the verb for "to travel" in Swahili is kusafiri. These words are used for any type of journey, e.g. by bus from Nairobi to Mombasa or by ferry from Dar es Salaam to Unguja.
In 1836 William Cornwallis Harris led an expedition purely to observe and record wildlife and landscapes by the expedition's members. Harris established the safari style of journey, starting with a not too strenuous rising at first light, an energetic day walking, an afternoon rest then concluding with a formal dinner and telling stories in the evening over drinks and tobacco.
Want to squeeze in a few hours of quality retail therapy on your trip? Our guides to the best shopping will tell you which spots are worth your time—and why. With our team of experts covering all the major cities, as well as far-flung spots like Maui, Bali, and Portland, Oregon, we've mapped out the best shopping around the world, whether you've got a few hours or a few days to peruse.
Sightseeing is the activity of travelling around a city or region to see the interesting places that tourists usually visit. This can be a two-week tour, allowing some time in all the major cities for sightseeing. Sightseeing tours are available around the world, and can be customized to your exact specifications.
Travel-for-All can plan spectacular, accessible sightseeing vacations just for you!
Accessible skiing is quite simply a caring, therapeutic happening between individuals who enjoy adventure. It just seems to bring out the best of the student, the instructor and their supportive friends. This activity allows an excitement and fluidity of motion, rarely accessible to persons with a disability.
Skiing can be a means of transport, a recreational activity or a competitive winter sport in which the participant uses skis to glide on snow.
Modern skiing has evolved from beginnings in Scandinavia, it may have been practiced more than 100 centuries ago in what is now China, according to an interpretation of ancient paintings.
The word "ski" is one of a handful of words Norway has exported to the international community. It comes from the Old Norse word "skíð" which means "split piece of wood or firewood".


text:
Said By Tweak The Uber BitchIt was a pretty good movie, but a little too overhyped. Then again, what isn't overhyped these days?
Johnny Depp is an awesome actor, but I'll always say he was lots better (looking) in Edward Scissorhands.
Said By JenovaI thought he was great as Captain Jack Sparrow. And what was that one movie, it was a tear jerker... the one where the mom was sick?
He's plays alot of rogueish characters.


text:
Core Business
SiCrystal produces and supplies high-quality single crystalline silicon carbide (SiC) wafers for customers worldwide. We are a reliable business partner for all our customers and vendors. Our commitment to advanced techniques, quality and most rapid service is essential for our customers' success.
SiCrystals expertise includes the whole process of manufacturing SiC-wafers such as:
- numerical simulation
- crystal growth
- wafering
- characterization
- quality control
"Of course, each process step is based on advanced methods which are subject to continuous improvement. To ensure stable processes, we installed the ISO 9001 system, that has been granted in 1999. Quality on a stable basis is the philosophy of our highly skilled and motivated staff that enables us to meet the demands of our customers in industry and research."
(CEO Dr. Robert Eckstein)


text:
US movie viewers make sudden shift to net
More films watched online this year than on disc
Lovefilm subscribers in the UK are already streaming more content over the net than they're receiving on disc through the post, and now it's been claimed that folk in the US will acquire more paid video content online this year than on physical media.
According to IHS Screen Digest, a market watcher, Americans will this year pay to watch 3.4bn net-sourced movies, be they downloads or streams. They'll only buy 2.4bn DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.
Screen Digest's numbers show online movie viewing has rocketed from next to nothing in 2007, 2008 and 2009, to a small mark on the graph in 2010, and thence to more than a billion transactions in 2011.
Yet the decline in physical disc sales has been slow during this period and, Screen Digest's forecast suggests, after a bigger but by no means extreme dip over the next couple of years, will continue a slow decline.
US Movie transactions: online vs disc
Units: billions
Data source: IHS Screen Digest
The bottom line: though Americans may be watching more online video than ever through 2016, they'll still be buying a heck of a lot of discs too.
One medium, then, does not entirely displace the other. And it suggests that while online will become viewers' main source for movies and shows they haven't seen before, they will still want to maintain disc collections of material they anticipate watching again and again.
Plenty of folk won't have access to online sources too.
Although online will account for the majority of transactions in 2012, it is set to attract a far lower share of revenue, Display Search said. Online spending will total $1.7bn, rather less than the $11.1bn spent on (far fewer) discs.
Come 2016, online will still account for just 17 per cent of sales revenue, with pay TV yielding eight per cent and sales of physical media 75 per cent. ®


text:
Obama's State of the Union: Aggressive
President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech will be less a presidential olive branch than a congressional cattle prod.
Emboldened by electoral victory and convinced the GOP is unwilling to cut deals, Obama plans to use his big prime-time address Tuesday night to issue another broad challenge at a Republican Party he regards as vulnerable and divided, Democrats close to Obama say.
Story Continued Below
He'll pay lip service to bipartisanship, but don't expect anything like the call for peaceful collaboration that defined his first address to a joint session of Congress in 2009, they say.
( Full coverage: State of the Union 2013)
That strategy has its dangers: If Americans perceive Obama as too partisan, he'll lose a serious share of his personal popularity. Yet he needs to burn political capital — and keep the GOP on the defensive — to force the opposition into accepting more taxes and fewer budget cuts as part of a deal to avert the $1.2 trillion-dollar sequester cuts looming on March 1.
When POLITICO asked how Obama is approaching the speech compared with his previous State of the Union addresses, a person close to the process of drafting the speech replied with a 2,500-year-old quote from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu:
"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across."
( Also on POLITICO: Which Obama will speak on climate?)
The anodyne, stage-managed West Wing leaks have the State of the Union speech focusing on "jobs creation," poll-tested paeans to the "middle class" and a new slate of infrastructure projects that will have a tough time passing Congress. Privately, administration officials see it as an extension of Obama's unabashedly provocative and progressive Jan. 21 inaugural address, their latest attempt to leverage favorable deals on the sequester and the debt ceiling comparable to the watershed deal Obama secured on increasing taxes on the wealthy.
Obama now hopes to use his post-election popularity to force new tax increases and fewer budget cuts on Republicans as part of any deal to avert a $1.2 trillion menu of automatic cuts increasingly likely to kick in on March 1.
( PHOTOS: 10 famous lines from SOTU history)
"There are a surprising number of Republicans who seem to think that elections don't matter, who are ready to block widely popular agenda items that the American people voted for in November," former Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said, underscoring the elections-have-consequences attitude of the president's brain trust.
"Change isn't going to happen behind closed doors — it'll require continued use of the bully pulpit and the reengagement of the millions of Americans who volunteered for the campaign," he added.
Obama's campaign-style efforts on health care and the 2011 jobs bill were met with initial buzz, indifferent follow-through and ambiguous results. With House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying he won't even sit down with Obama to talk about the big issues now, the president has hit the road again, this time with the force of his 2012 campaign organization behind him, barnstorming for his gun control measures, immigration reform and economic fairness.
At a retreat for Democratic House members last week, he sounded more like the 2012 presidential candidate than the 2009 Obama, who pined publicly for bipartisanship.
"My governing philosophy and my interest in public service grows out of how we make that union more perfect for more people day in, day out. And that starts with an economy that works for everybody," he told the group, using language refined through relentless road tests and focus groups during the election campaign.


text:
More than 50 grant requests totaling $450,000 poured into the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority for the coming year. But with only $225,000 to go around, most will only get a fraction of what they ask for and a few will get nothing at all.
The criteria for doling out money seems obvious enough: which ones are more likely to land "heads in beds?"
It's a long-standing catchphrase in tourism circles. But figuring out the festivals and niche campaigns with the most alluring calling card — one that will nudge prospective tourists to pack their bags and head to Haywood County — isn't an exact science.
SEE ALSO: Folkmoot and Haywood tourism authority do annual tango over grant funding
Is the festival mostly a local affair? Do tourists attend, but only because they happen to be visiting here anyway? If out-of-towners do come expressly for a festival, are they day-trippers, weekend warriors, or staying a whole week?
These are some of the questions tourism board members and grant funding subcommittees wrestled with in recent weeks as they met to hash out who would get what.
The Haywood County Fair won't be getting the $14,000 it asked for, but instead will get a token $250 after being deemed local, not touristy.
Most festivals were given some portion, but not all, of what they asked for. The Labor Day festival in Canton, the Waynesville Apple Harvest Festival, Church Street Arts and Crafts fair, the Whole Bloomin' Thing garden festival and the Western Carolina Dog Fanciers Association competition, to name a few, all got half of their request, seemingly a nice compromise, with awards ranging from $1,500 to $4,000.
But a few lucky festivals got the whole shabang, like the WNC BBQ Festival in Maggie or the Melange in the Mountains culinary weekend.
A strike often cited against a festival that got denied is how long it's been around. Long-running festivals, however big they may be, can become victims of their own success when it comes to landing grants year after year.
"The original intent of the money was seed money to get new things off the ground and then wean them off to free up funding for other new things," Collins said. "Sometimes it is just hard to get rid of."
Indeed, there were plenty of big grants given out to tenacious events that have been around for years: the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, Art After Dark strolls in Waynesville, Maggie Valley Fall Days, the Lake Logan Multi-Sport Festival and the Fines Creek Bluegrass Jam showed no sign of funding trouble despite their tenure.
But, the tourism authority has shown preference for brand-new events with promise over old standards. The Shining Rock River Fest got $2,000 for the first time as a startup event, a new farmer's market in Canton got $1,500 and a new half-marathon race got $3,500.
One of these new initiatives that came out a winner is a feasibility study to market Haywood County as a road cycling destination, which landed $5,000.
"We know this is a cycling destination. We just don't have a specific plan," said Jennifer Jacobson, a representative from the Bicycle Haywood club.
Laura Leatherwood, a tourism board member, said the gamble of going after cyclists could have real payoff down the road.
"The question you have to ask is 'Does this help us reach the goal of where we want to be?' You can't get toward your goal if you don't fund projects that help get you there," Leatherwood said.
Another relatively new initiative to score grant funding is the Buy Haywood campaign that promotes agritourism — from farm-to-table restaurants to farms that welcome visitors on-site. It got $4,000 to publish a brochure.
"It is an invitation to explore a community through its culinary delights," said Tina Mascarelli, the director of Buy Haywood. "This guide says 'Pack your bags. We are going to go and have a really wonderful experience and do something special,'"
But then came the kicker.
"How do you know if it has brought in tourists?" asked Ken Howle, a tourism board member.
Adding it up
In the end, it comes down to guesswork. And that's something the tourism authority hopes to change. Starting this year, festivals applying for tourism dollars will have to quantify their impact on the tourism scene.
"In the past, we asked them to do a final narrative report, but that was basically how good you could B.S.," Collins said. "We need better data to track this stuff with."
This year, festival organizers will have to survey a sample of the crowd during the event, asking them where they are from, what brought them here, how long they're here for, the number in their party, how much they're spending each day, how they learned about the festival they're at and so on.
"They will tell you if they found out about it once they got here or learned about it before they came or if they found out about it once they got here and extended their stay."
Collins said festival organizers should also consult with other lodging owners to see if people booked their stay here because of the event.
The lodging business is only part of the tourism picture, however. There is some value in day-trippers who may still shop and eat while they are here, even if they don't stay the night, and festivals will get some credit if they can show that.
There's one variable that proves even more elusive, yet shouldn't be discounted: the "I-had-such-a-good-time-I-will-come-back-next-year-and-tell-all-my-friends" factor.
For tourists who merely stumble upon a festival during their visit, if it enhances their experience enough to bring them back again sometime, that should count for something.
But Collins said the new criteria this year for measuring impact of a festival is a starting place.
"Any information we can gather is better than no information, which we had before," Collins said.
Bang for the buck
Not all the grant requests are for festivals.
Some are for niche marketing campaigns for specific attractions.
Grants were given out to advertise the live music series at The Strand at 38 Main theater and Classic Wineseller in downtown Waynesville or the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre. Some are for campaigns, like a winter lights initiative to make Maggie Valley more festive during the holidays or money to pay a costumed Miss Maggie to stroll the sidewalks and wave at passing motorists in the summer and fall.
Yet other grants are for ad campaigns geared at niche demographics or destinations. Two lodging associations in Maggie Valley got a $8,700 grant for an ad campaign specifically targeting the military market.
Meanwhile, the Downtown Waynesville Association also got advertising money to showcase its unique Main Street shopping destination that may be overlooked in the master marketing campaigns the tourism authority does on behalf of the county as a whole.
A sizeable niche marketing campaign of $54,000 was awarded to four tourism entities in Maggie Valley to advertise it as a vacation spot. The Maggie chamber and various lodging associations there used to apply for their own separate pots for their own separate niche ads.
"The fact those groups got together is huge," Collins said. "They came together and developed a marketing plan to make better use of these dollars."
Their dollars can go so much further and have a bigger impact than a fragmented, scatter-gun approach, Collins said.
How it works
The Haywood County Tourism Authority brings in around $1 million annually, collected through a 4 percent tax on overnight lodging. The tax, paid by tourists, is pumped back into tourism marketing, promotions and initiatives, from visitor guides and visitor center operations to travel web sites and magazine ads.
Of its total $1 million budget, roughly a quarter is reserved for mini-grants for niche marketing campaigns and festivals.
The roughly $250,000 of grant money is divvied up into six pots. Five of the funding pools are earmarked for specific geographic areas of the county — namely Waynesville, Lake Junaluska, Maggie Valley, Canton and Clyde.
Each of the five areas has their own subcommittee that vets grant applications and dolls out money accordingly.
A sixth funding pool is earmarked for events or tourism projects with a countywide focus, and is decided by the county tourism authority itself.


text:
My Sunday ride took me up Hwy 9, north on Skyline Blvd., down Alpine Road to the Haul Road, south on Wurr Road to Pescadero Road, Stage Road, Hwy 1, up Tunitas Creek Road, down Kings Mountain Road and then home.
You couldn't have asked for better weather. Hwy 9 has two road repairs underway — at the sagging Saratoga Creek bridge next to the Sanborn Road turnoff and farther up at an exposed rock face that looks ready to give way.
Pescadero townies turned out in droves to greet my passing, hanging colorful flags over the road. They didn't have to do that. My how the stores have changed over the decades. So hip and trendy today.
Stage Road never looked so nice with yellow flowers lining the road and green fields of hay ripening in the noon sun.
I headed up Tunitas Creek Road and remembered the old days when we hammered all the way. The last three miles was always fun after the stiff lower climb.


text:
Report: Kinect Sensor Already Hacked
Adafruit Industries has offered a $2,000 reward for creating an open-source hack for the sensor. Phillip Torrone, one of the heads of Adafruit, told CNET that Kinect is "amazing hardware that shouldn't just be locked up for Xbox 360. Its 'radar camera' being able to get video and distance as a sensor input from commodity hardware is huge."
While it is unclear if these videos are legitimate, Microsoft's response is what you'd expect:
Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.
Hacking videogame motion hardware for other uses is nothing new. The Wii remote and sensor bar were hacked to allow for spatial control in a virtual 3D space. If the Kinect sensor has truly been hacked, it will be interesting to see what can be done with the hardware.


text:
The end of the 'Still Growing Up' tour is approaching, with the
Wembley shows being the last opportunity to see the full 'in the
round' production of this tour. Peter wants the show to go out with
a bang and so is offering you the chance to come and join the
Peter has opened up his own ticket allocation to this competition.
If you would like to join the us at Wembley next Monday 7th or
Tuesday 8th of June just fill in the simple form at
https://petergabriel.com/win/ and
there's a good chance we'll be welcoming you to the show next week.


text:
Autodesk University 2011, Part 3: BIM Is Everywhere8 Dec, 2011 By: Cyrena Respini-Irwin
With the help of the cloud, Autodesk is extending building information modeling in new directions.
Autodesk University (AU) is an annual conference that caters to all of the company's varied users, providing education and inspiration for architects, automotive designers, and animated filmmakers alike. During AU 2011, held last week in Las Vegas, Nevada, the big news for those of the AEC persuasion was the confluence of BIM (building information modeling) and the cloud.
During a press briefing, Jim Lynch, vice-president of AEC solutions for Autodesk, pointed out some key trends that are influencing the AEC industry: BIM is gathering momentum, especially in the infrastructure space. Owners are becoming more interested in the technology, and Autodesk is working to expand BIM across the building lifecycle, extending it into operations and maintenance. And of course, the combination of the cloud and mobile devices is making BIM tools accessible in new ways. "Let's face it — BIM is everywhere," said Lynch.
Although BIM adoption is accelerating around the world, Lynch acknowledged that the company isn't seeing much movement at the low end of the market. That's the motivation behind Autodesk Labs' Project Spark, a technology preview of a simplified 3D BIM solution. The attempt to create a lower-end BIM tool has roused interest among price-sensitive customers, Lynch reported.
Mark Strassman, vice-president of the Construction Solutions Business Unit, commented on the notable BIM uptake among builders, who benefit from the insights it provides about costs, schedules, and the like. He also noted that 75% of AEC workers perform their jobs in the field, not behind a desk — a number that makes mobile solutions even more resonant.
Paul McRoberts, vice-president of the Infrastructure Product Line Group, clarified that Autodesk does not have plans to move back into the facilities management (FM) space in the near term, but will continue to provide FM solutions through its partners, including FM:Systems. For Autodesk, the priority in the short term is not FM but asset management, and McRoberts indicated that a solution that connects Revit models with asset management is in the works.
Collaboration and Data Management in the Cloud
AU served as the debut venue for Autodesk 360 for BIM, a project collaboration software collection that takes BIM into the cloud. Intended to help AEC project team members better collaborate on, and communicate about, building projects, the solution manages multidiscipline models, drawings, and other project information.
Autodesk 360 for BIM comprises existing and new capabilities, including:
- Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC. The heart of the package, this on-premise data management solution enables project teams to manage and track digital models without leaving their BIM design tools.
- Autodesk Buzzsaw. Enabled by Autodesk Cloud technology, the project collaboration solution enables secure exchanges of designs and documents with external partners and distributed teams. Buzzsaw has a mobile version, and integrates with AutoCAD WS. According to Autodesk, "By selectively and automatically mirroring data between the network-based Autodesk Vault and the Autodesk Buzzsaw cloud, project teams can more securely share information and better maintain accountability beyond the enterprise."
- Autodesk 360 Nexus. Although Autodesk 360 Nexus was introduced initially for the manufacturing industry, Autodesk also intends it to support configurable AEC workflow and business process management needs.
Autodesk also announced that it will acquire Horizontal Systems, a global provider of cloud-based BIM collaboration solutions for the AEC industry, and integrate its offerings into Autodesk 360 for BIM. Horizontal's web streaming BIM technology unites project stakeholders in a live, collaborative 3D environment.
"Horizontal Systems technology will help accelerate our Autodesk 360 for BIM capabilities by allowing multidiscipline teams to more easily communicate and synchronize information — helping reduce waste and errors during the design and construction of AEC projects and leading to faster, more efficient project delivery," said Lynch.
AEC Apps and More on the Show Floor
A visit to the build site via VIMtrek. Software developer SMARTBIM and 3D technology company Vizerra showcased VIMtrek, a Revit plug-in that enables users to create architectural renderings in a matter of minutes, with no special skills needed. First, VIMtrek Producer converts Revit design files into interactive 3D environments and applies environmental conditions; then, the files are exported to VIMtrek Viewer for in-house or client review. While navigating the rendered file with a keyboard and mouse, reviewers can add markers and notes for other users to see.
SMARTBIM CEO Arol Wolford explained that the model is similar to Adobe Acrobat — it's a read-only way to share a Revit model, so people are more comfortable sharing their files — but objects retain their property information from Revit. VIMtrek is currently available through web browser, PC, and Mac platforms; the company is currently working on a mobile version.
Astacus opens Revit app outlet. Astacus Labs of Sweden, a developer of CAD, GIS, and BIM technologies and processes, was on hand in the exhibit hall to promote its Revit ApplicationStore. The company encourages Revit users to submit ideas for tools they'd like to see developed (and if the idea reaches fruition, the user would receive the tool for free), and it is looking for application developers who wish to partner with the company to create and market Revit apps.
BuildEdge showcases tools for Revit users. Newcomer BuildEdge launched the first of a series of new building software tools, BuildEdge Roof for Revit 2011 and 2012 ($199). The add-in enhances Revit's roof-design functionality by allowing designers to create roofs in seconds, the company reports. A free trial version is available.
HP provides cloud printing capability for AutoCAD WS. Earlier this year, HP launched its free ePrint & Share application, which enables users to interact with web-enabled HP printers such as the Designjet T2300 eMFP, and also to organize and share documents via a cloud storage space. In October, the company launched a mobile version of the app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Now, HP has announced remote printing support for the AutoCAD WS CAD editing app. After initiating a print with the app's plot feature, users simply choose from a list of projects and select a web-connected HP printer. The print-ready file is transferred from the Autodesk cloud to the HP cloud, then to the printer. Users can scan marked-up documents to the cloud as well.
Emre Ozguc, worldwide marketing director for HP's Designjet business, explained that HP is trying to adapt to the changing behaviors and collaboration schemes of its customers. "The AEC community is very mobile, relying more and more on tools that are in the cloud," he said.
Contex continues to multiply printing options. Hardware provider Contex touted its newest wide-format scanners at the show, including the lightweight, 36" SD3600 and its new HD Ultra Professional line, which automatically detects the length and width of the document being scanned and can accommodate materials ranging from flimsy tracing paper up to 1/2" thick rigid stock. The company has also released NextImage v2.0, its scanning and archiving software that can also keeps track of accounting information for charging customers.
More from AU 2011
- Autodesk University 2011, Part 1: Surfing the Waves of Disruption
- Autodesk University 2011, Part 2: The Promise of the Cloud
- Autodesk University 2011, Part 4: Autodesk Takes the Plunge into PLM
- Autodesk University 2011, Part 5: More Product News and General Goings-On (Coming Soon)


text:
- Health
Patient Care
I Want To...
I Want To...
Find Research Faculty
Enter the last name, specialty or keyword for your search below.
School of Medicine
I Want to...
Apply for Admission
Or find a doctor at another Johns Hopkins Medicine Member Hospital:
Adrian Sandra Dobs, M.D., M.H.S.
Director, Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network
Professor of Medicine
Expertise: Diabetes Mellitus, Endocrinology, HIV-Associated Metabolic Abnormalities, Hyperlipidemia, Male Testosterone Disorders, Polycystic Ovarian Disease, Sex Hormone Disorders ...read more
Research Interests: Endocrinology, Gonadal dysfunction, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus
Request an Appointment
I live in Maryland
Request an appointment through My
I live outside of Maryland
Request Appointment
I live outside of the United States
Request Appointment
The Johns Hopkins Hospital
600 N. Wolfe Street Sheikh Zayed Tower Suite 328 Baltimore, MD 21287
Phone: 410-502-6888 | Fax: 410-367-2042
Dr. Dobs is presently an active investigator in the field of male gonadal function. She is particularly interested in new forms of male hormone replacement therapy and has published extensively in the area of hormonal changes with aging. her clinical practice focused on sex hormone disorders in both men and women. As Director of the Clinical Trials Unit, she oversees a team of individuals dedicated to facilitating clinical research within an academic medical center environment.Her other administrative roles include Director of the Johns Hopkins SYSU (China) Collaboration in Clinical Research and Director of the NCI-funded Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities.
- Director, Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network
- Director, Johns Hopkins - SYSU (China) Collaboration
- Director - Johns Hopkins Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities
- Professor of Medicine
- Professor of Oncology
Departments / Divisions
Centers & Institutes
- Klinefelter Syndrome Center
- Metabolism and Obesity Research, Center for
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Transgender Health, Center for
- Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network (JHCRN)
- MD, Albany Medical College of Union University (1978)
- Montefiore Medical Center / Internal Medicine (1982)
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine / Endocrinology (1984)
Board Certifications
- American Board of Internal Medicine / Endocrinology and Metabolism (1987)
- American Board of Internal Medicine / Internal Medicine (1981)
Research & Publications
Research Summary
Dr. Dobs is presently an active investigator in the field of sex hormone disorders and a clinical investigator who has published extensively in HIV-related endocrinopathies and risks and benefits of testosterone replacement therapies.
Lab Website: Adrian Dobs Lab
Core Facility: Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network (JHCRN)
Clinical Trial KeywordsHormone replacement therapy men and women, hyperlipidemia, diabetes
Selected Publications
Research Support.
Ongoing Research Support:
RO1 DA1409801 (Dobs AS) 06/15/03 05/31/09
NIDA/NIH Cognitive Consequences of Endocrine Dysfunction in Injection Drug Users
Role: Principal Investigator
The major goal of this project is to investigate the consequences of hypogonadal endocrine dysfunction in injection drug users with and without HIV.
2U01 AI35042-07 (Margolick JB) 04/01/04 03/31/11
NIAID/NIH Multi-Center AIDS Cohorts
Role: Co-Investigator
The major goal of this project is to determine metabolic abnormalities of HIV disease.
Serum Sex Hormones and Cardiovascular Risk in the MACS
The major goal of this project is to study the relationship of sex steroids to heart disease
Principal Investigator
1. Paller CJ, Shiels MS,Rohrmann S, Basaria S, Rifai N, Nelson W, Platz EA, Dobs A, Relationship of Sex Streriod Hormones with Bone Mineral Density in a Nationally-Representative Sample of Men, Clin Endocrinol (Oxf) May 2008 (E-pub ahead of print) PMID 18485120
2. Wohl D, Scherzer R, Heymensfield S, Simberkoff M, Sidney S, Bacchetti P, Grunfeld C:FRAM Study Investigators (including Dobs A), The Associations of Regional Adipose Tissue with Lipid and Lipoprotein Levels in HIV Infected Men, J Aquir Immune Defic Syndr. , May 2008 48 (1):44-52.
3. Brown T, Jacobson L, Xu X, Tang Y, Qaqish R, Kingsley L, Palella F, Witt M, Visscher B, Dobs A, The Relationship Between Inflammatory Markers, the Metabolic Syndrome and Body Composition Among HIV Seropositive and Seronegative Men: Two Nested Case-Control Studies from the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, Conference on Retroviruses and Oppurtunistic Infections.
4. Dobs A, Mortgentaler A, Does Testosterone Therapy Increase the Risk of Prostate Cancer?Endocr.Prac.,2008,14,7,904-911 PMID 18996823
Eckman A, Dobs A, Drug-Induced Gynecomastia,Expert Opin.Drug Saf..,2008,7,6,691-702, England PMID 18983216
5. Mortgentaler A, Dobs AS, Kaufman JM, Miner MM, Shsbsigh R, Swerdloff, RS, Wang C. Long Acting Testosterone Therapyin Men with Hypogonadism: Results of a Pharmacokinetic Clinical Study, JUrol.,2008,180,6,2307-2313,United States, PMID 18930255
6. Ouyang P, Vaidya D, Dobs A, Golden S, Szklo M, Heckbert S, Kopp P, Gapstur S, Sex Hormone Levels and Subclinical Atherosclerosis , Atherosclerosis, 2008 PMID 18849030
7. Andrade A, Hendrix C, Parsons T, Caballero B, Yuan C, Flexner C, Dobs A, Brown T, BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine.,2008,8,50,England, PMID 18713456
8. Vaidya D, Dobs A, Gapstur S, Golden S, Hankinson A, Liu K, Ouyang P, The Association of Endogenous Sex Hormones with Lipoprotein Subfraction Profile in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atheroschlerosis, Metabolism, 2008,57,6,782-790, United States, PMID 18502260
9. Pfeil E., Dobs A, Current and Future Testosterone Delivery Systems for Treatment of the Hypogonadal Male, Expert Opin. Drug Deliv., 2008 5,4,471-481, England, PMID 18426387
10. Cofrancesco J, Scherzer R, Tien P, Gilbert C, Southwell H, Sidney S, Dobs A, Grunfeld C, Illicit Drug Use and HIV Treatment Outcomes in a US Cohort, AIDS,2008,22,3,357-365, England, PMID 18195562
Journal Citations
Basaria, S.; Muller, D.C.; Carducci, M.A.; Egan, J.; Dobs, A.S. Hyperglycemia and insulin resistance in men with prostate carcinoma who receive androgen-deprivation therapy. Cancer. 2006 Feb 1;106(3):581-588.
Braga-Basaria, M.; Dobs, A.S.; Muller, D.C.; Carducci, M.A.; John, M.; Egan, J.; Basaria, S. Metabolic syndrome in men with prostate cancer undergoing long-term androgen-deprivation therapy. J Clin Oncol. 2006 Aug 20;24(24):3979-3983.
Braga-Basaria, M.; Muller, D.C.; Carducci, M.A.; Dobs, A.S.; Basaria, S. Lipoprotein profile in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy. International journal of impotence research. 2006 Sep-Oct;18(5):494-498.
Levinson, N.M.; Kuchment, O.; Shen, K.; Young, M.A.; Koldobskiy, M.; Karplus, M.; Cole, P.A.; Kuriyan, J. A Src-like inactive conformation in the abl tyrosine kinase domain. PLoS Biol. 2006 May;4(5):e144.
Maggio, M.; Blackford, A.; Taub, D.; Carducci, M.; Ble, A.; Metter, E.J.; Braga-Basaria, M.; Dobs, A.; Basaria, S. Circulating inflammatory cytokine expression in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy. J Androl. 2006 Nov-Dec;27(6):725-728.
Basaria, S.; Muller, D.C.; Carducci, M.A.; Egan, J.; Dobs, A.S. Relation between duration of androgen deprivation therapy and degree of insulin resistance in men with prostate cancer. Archives of internal medicine. 2007 Mar 26;167(6):612-613.
Rohrmann, S.; Nelson, W.G.; Rifai, N.; Brown, T.R.; Dobs, A.; Kanarek, N.; Yager, J.D.; Platz, E.A. Serum estrogen, but not testosterone, levels differ between black and white men in a nationally representative sample of Americans. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2007 Jul;92(7):2519-2525.
Selvin, E.; Feinleib, M.; Zhang, L.; Rohrmann, S.; Rifai, N.; Nelson, W.G.; Dobs, A.; Basaria, S.; Golden, S.H.; Platz, E.A. Androgens and diabetes in men: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). Diabetes Care. 2007 Feb;30(2):234-238.
Paller, C.J.; Shiels, M.S.; Rohrmann, S.; Basaria, S.; Rifai, N.; Nelson, W.; Platz, E.A.; Dobs, A. Relationship of sex steroid hormones with bone mineral density (BMD) in a nationally representative sample of men. Clinical endocrinology. 2009 Jan;70(1):26-34.
Sharma, P.; Wisniewski, A.; Braga-Basaria, M.; Xu, X.; Yep, M.; Denmeade, S.; Dobs, A.S.; DeWeese, T.; Carducci, M.; Basaria, S. Lack of an effect of high dose isoflavones in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy. J Urol. 2009 Nov;182(5):2265-2272.
Shiels, M.S.; Rohrmann, S.; Menke, A.; Selvin, E.; Crespo, C.J.; Rifai, N.; Dobs, A.; Feinleib, M.; Guallar, E.; Platz, E.A. Association of cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity with sex steroid hormone levels in US men. Cancer Causes Control. 2009 Aug;20(6):877-886.
Menke, A.; Guallar, E.; Rohrmann, S.; Nelson, W.G.; Rifai, N.; Kanarek, N.; Feinleib, M.; Michos, E.D.; Dobs, A.; Platz, E.A. Sex steroid hormone concentrations and risk of death in US men. Am J Epidemiol. 2010 Mar 1;171(5):583-592.
Mondul, A.M.; Selvin, E.; Rohrmann, S.; Menke, A.; Feinleib, M.; Kanarek, N.; Rifai, N.; Dobs, A.S.; Platz, E.A. Association of serum cholesterol and cholesterol-lowering drug use with serum sex steroid hormones in men in NHANES III. Cancer Causes Control. 2010 Oct;21(10):1575-1583.
Contact for Research Inquiries
Phone: 443-287-4000
Activities & Honors
- American Andrology Society, 1994
- Institute of Medicine Roundtable in Clinical Research, 2000
- The Endocrine Society, 1987
Professional Activities
- Director, Clinical Trials Unit of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 1998
- Director, NCI-funded Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities, 2012
- Director, JHU-SYSU (China) Clinical Research Collaboration, 2011
- Medical Residency, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1978
- Vice-Chair, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1996
- Vice-Chair, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2001
Patient Ratings & Comments
The Patient Rating score is an average of all responses to physician related questions on the national CG-CAHPS Medical Practice patient experience survey through Press Ganey. Responses are measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best score. Comments are also gathered from our CG-CAHPS Medical Practice Survey through Press Ganey and displayed in their entirety. Patients are de-identified for confidentiality and patient privacy.
- ...Loading ratings...
- ...
- ...
- ...
- ...
- ...


text:
Sign up
Powered by Operation Military Family, the Military Veterans Promotions network (coordinated by Operation Military Family and VAPP, the Veteran's App), allows merchants to easily offer a year-round discount or promotion to Veterans and service members as a way to thank them for their service to our country. By registering online for the MVP network and printing an MVP sign to place in their store windows, merchants offer Veterans and service members an easy way to recognize participating MVP members. Merchants can also describe their unique discounts or promotions for customers to see online. Check out the MVP program on Facebook
In short, the MVP network connects those who served with those now wanting to better serve them.
Sign in Forgot your password?


text:
In the birthplace of some of hip hop's biggest names, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Quoc "Q" Pham set out to change the musical experience. With a keen ear for sound quality, Pham spent a year redefining the boom box with a handcrafted five-level sound system. This short documentary from Moonshot Productions gives an up-close look at the resulting "Tower of Sound." For Pham the project is about musical heritage as much as anything else; "it's connecting with the past — the musical culture through the system," he says.
New Yorkers documentary series explores the different boroughs of the city through the characters that define it, from a locksmith to a cartoonist, and more. The creators of the series discuss the project in an interview with the Atlantic Video channel here and you can watch more episodes here.
For more work by Moonshot Productions, visit http://moonshot-productions.com/.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Schmooze Com Inc. is Now Part of the Sangoma Family
Note: This page will eventually go away and the functionality you are used to will be integrated into the Sangoma site or be available at http://FreePBX.org
The FreePBX Portal is your one stop shop for telephony service, hardware, licensing and support.
FreePBX is a web-based open source GUI (graphical user interface) that controls and manages Asterisk (PBX), an open source communication server.
Sangoma VoIP telephones are so smart they are quickly and easily connected right out of the box.
We can help with everything from implementation assistance to upgrades and production down emergencies.
The PBXact phone system is designed for organizations needing a fully featured, commercially supported, business communications turnkey solution.
Provide your customers with outstanding VoIP and Unified Communications products that deliver industry-leading quality and value.
More Resources to Discover
Join the FreePBX Community and share your passion and insights with thousands of other FreePBX users.
Stay up to date with the latest news about FreePBX and Sangoma announcements on the FreePBX blog.
Discover dozens of videos ranging from helpful how-to guides on Commercial Modules to the latest product overviews, webinars and much more!


text:
Shaping the Workforce of the Future Through Collaboration
Generally, supply chain managers agree that the right talent is some combination of technical skills, industry-specific understanding, real-world business experience, and various soft skills. Finding those candidates can be a challenge though.
Most supply chain managers are acutely aware of the talent deficit they must overcome as they attempt to address the evolutionary needs of their value chains. This deficit spans both dimensions -- the number of people as well as the required skill sets, and is not limited to any specific industry. As industries compete for talent, employee turnover and retention issues abound. In absence of the right talent, value creation becomes increasingly difficult.
To address the shortage of supply chain professionals at the front end of the talent pool, industry and universities are collaborating at multiple levels. (Read more about the talent pinch in EBN's recent Velocity e-mag.)
Universities are creating new curriculum and educational models in response to the higher complexity of the business environment. The curriculum is no longer limited to technical skills such as forecasting, procurement, inventory, logistics, regulatory compliance, process and network design, and operations management. Education related to communication skills and leadership traits is now an integral part of the curriculum.
In response to the rapid globalization of supply chains, most universities now include global awareness or human diversity courses. Deeper industry-university collaboration has led to interaction between students and senior supply chain executives, specifically around challenges brought about by globalization of supply and demand. As companies make internship opportunities available, students and universities have attempted to leverage them to gain real world business exposure.
A rigorous curriculum combined with the experiential component creates significantly higher skills and prepares the students as they launch their careers. As companies recruit new talent, most recognize that finding a perfect fit may be difficult, and that they need to invest in this talent by way of trainings and development programs. My conversations with senior supply chain professionals across a broad group of industries, as well as the faculty members at several supply chain schools, appear to indicate that in most cases, companies find that students have good functional understanding of the supply chain disciplines. Yet, the same students find it difficult to orchestrate complex business processes that span across the functional disciplines.
My interactions with students lead me to believe that additional investments by students, universities, and industry, in the following three soft skill dimensions, can help bridge the gap and make top supply chain talent at universities move closer to industry requirements. These skills assume significant importance due to globalization and fragmentation of the value chains:
Any internship should include specific conversations and trainings around these skills. If you work closely with supply-chain students, I invite you to share your insights and ideas.
Related posts:
Organizations used to have little real usable direction in making important decisions. However, big data and analytics begin to offer a solution.
Big-data initiatives allow procurement organizations to transform planning, procurement, inventory management, and supply risk management by leveraging supply side analytics.
Technology plays a critical role in assimilating large and complex data sets from upstream and downstream members of the value chain, analyzing it and modeling it to optimize the supply chain.
What is the total cost of providing your company's products and services, and is the supply chain success measured on this basis?
EBN Newswire
Newark Celebrates Women in Engineering
Resourcessponsored content
Latest Poll
EBN Dialogue / LIVE CHAT
EBN Dialogue enables you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Open to the entire EBN community of electronics supply chain experts, these conversations see ideas shared, comments made, and questions asked and answered in real time. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats. Stay tuned and join in!
Archived Dialogues
Live Chat 01/15: CPOs Re-Shape Their Business Roles
Increasingly chief procurement officers (CPOs) are re-shaping their organizational role to focus on creating results far beyond cost controls. A new IBM survey explores how.
Live Chat 11/12: Examining the Cyberthreat to Supply Chains
The number of cyberattacks is on the rise and hackers are targeting the supply chain. Drew Smith, founder and CEO of InfoArmor, will be on hand to discuss the reality of today's threat landscape and what to do about it.


text:
The Ford Focus Electric is the industry's first car to feature 100 percent sustainable clean technologies in interior materials, including seat fabrics with Unifi's REPREVE®-branded fiber made from recycled plastic bottles. Ford, through the use of REPREVE, plans to divert about 2 million post-consumer plastic bottles for use in the new Focus Electric and other new vehicles for this model year. The Focus Electric contains REPREVE-based fabrics that are made from the equivalent of about 22 recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles in each car.
The REPREVE seat fabric is a polyester fiber made from a hybrid blend of recycled materials, including post-industrial fiber waste and post-consumer waste such as the plastic water bottles made of PET. Using REPREVE also reduces energy consumption by offsetting the need to use newly refined crude oil for production. The technology meets all Ford design and comfort requirements.
Currently, Ford vehicles are approximately 85 percent recyclable at end of life. Ford's goal is to have its vehicles be 100 percent recyclable. In 2009, Ford mandated that fabric suppliers use a minimum of 25 percent recycled content for all 2009 and beyond model year vehicles. Since then, 37 different fabrics meeting the requirements have been developed and incorporated into Ford vehicles.
Examples include soy foam seat cushions and head restraints, wheat straw-filled plastic, castor oil foam in instrument panels, recycled resins for underbody systems, recycled yarns on seat covers, and naturalfiber plastic for interior components.
Learn more here.
Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles
Delphi is developing a wireless charging system that will automatically transfer power to a vehicle. The system was developed in cooperation with WiTricity Corp., a wireless energy transfer technology provider. It will enable an electric vehicle's battery to be recharged without the hassle of cords or connections. This hands-free charging technology is based on highly resonant magnetic coupling, which transfers electric power over short distances without physical contact, allowing for safer and more convenient charging options for electric vehicles.
The high-efficiency wireless energy transfer technology will require no plugs or charging cords. Instead, a magnetic field from a source resonator on the ground is aligned with a capture resonator mounted underneath a vehicle. The source of the power can be located on a garage floor or embedded in a paved parking spot. The energy receiver will be located under the vehicle.
The wireless charging system is comprised of a vehicle-mounted capture resonator and interface electronics fitted to the bottom of the vehicle, vehicle power and signal distribution systems, stationary source resonator pad mounted on the ground, and the stationary charging controller.
Compared to inductive systems, this highly resonant magnetic coupling technology will efficiently transfer power over significantly larger distances. The system can fully charge an electric vehicle at a rate comparable to most residential plug-in chargers, which can be as fast as four hours.
Learn more here.


text: We have been dedicated to manufacturing and exporting all IT accessories for more than 10 years. Our main products are mobile phone accessories (such as accessories compatible for iphone and iPad), game accessories, computer accessories, promotional gifts, etc. Our aim is to fulfill more and more rigorous requirements of customers. Customers who place orders with us will get the biggest advantages which differ from other suppliers: 1. One-stop purchasing is easy for customers to mix different items into one container and there is no MOQ limit. 2. It's easy for customers to arrange payment, inspection and customs clearance. Our company saves quite a lot purchasing cost. 3. Our bulk material purchasing will lower the cost absolutely, which enables us to offer very competitive price to customers. 4. Due to our strong R&D team, we always follow the fashion trend of IT field. Customers benefit from our new products and new ideas to compete their rivals. 5. Most of our products have CE, FCC and RoHS certificates. The quality is strictly controlled by our QC & QA departments. Therefore, customers don't worry about the quality and after-sales service when they place orders. "Quality first, Price lowest, and Service best" is the spirit of our company. We sincerely welcome you to visit our company and negotiate business with us!


text:
Every one of our customers are very important to us, and they are often very excited about us, too. We strive to provide the kind of service that you will want to rave about. We understand that you love your devices, and we care for them with that love in mind. Read what some of our customers have to say about us.
Our technicians are experienced in providing diagnostics services and are able to identify the root of the problem on desktops, laptops, and network systems.
We are able to establish a plan to help slow running machines get back to peak performance, while making sure your devices are protected and backed up.


text:
Federal grant program moved under Dept. of Commerce
SNOW HILL � Greene County's technology may begin to be probed.
The county is one of a few that may be part of a telecommunication infrastructure inventory project provided by N.C. Broadband, a division of the N.C. Department of Commerce.
The program, funded by a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will include collecting data on broadband availability across the state and planning efforts.
That program was once under the e-NC Authority, according to a summary to the State Broadband Data and Development grant program updated application for Jan. 1, 2012 � Oct. 1, 2014.
The e-NC Authority was awarded more than $6.6 million to implement the program. But the legislature didn�t extend the sunset date, so the authority ceased to exist after Dec. 31, 2011.
The Appropriations Act directed the state�s broadband authority to transfer the grant to the Department of Commerce. The transfer did not change the goals and activities of the program.
Interim County Manager Richard Hicks explained the program to the county board this week after meeting with Keith Conover, the technical assistance director for NC Broadband.
�They�ve got a program,� Hicks said, �where they want to do a complete inventory of about 11 or 12 counties to see what is available in each county, and our county was selected as one of the possible alternatives.�
Potential counties are selected based on their broadband connectivity levels, high unemployment and geographic diversity � basically, counties that could benefit the most from the planning resource.
�And once they do the inventory,� he said, �that kind of tells you where your gaps are and what your needs are.�
The unmet needs of both business and residential areas will be assessed, as well as assets � such as towers and tall buildings � that could be used to encourage broadband providers to serve those areas, especially to increase economic development.
The inventories will provide verification on the collected data for future planning and funding and will be used for planning purposes under the program through the federal grant.
�Staff time would be the cost to the county,� Hicks said.
Besides Internet capabilities, cable and satellite would be included, he said.
The board unanimously accepted the offer to potentially be included in the project.
The inventory process is expected to take up to three months and doesn�t guarantee an immediate solution for broadband installation.
N.C. Broadband expects to release the requests for proposals in the near future and the timeline for awarding contracts to vendors in the fall. Inventories will be completed as late as the spring.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.
Breakout box:
The remaining funds from the State Broadband Data and Development grant program are to be used in 2012-14 as follows:
Source: Summary of North Carolina�s SBDD Grant Program Updated Application for Jan. 1, 2012� Oct. 1, 2014


text: My 1994 325is.. Here is my older car that i still love. Had her now for 2 years, changed the front seats and console and did the headliner. I hope you all like it. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do with the black trim around the windows? Thank You.


text:
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
"Audio Panton, Cogito Singularis, Listen to everything, think for yourself."
¨A nation cannot become free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations. ¨ Engles
¨I came,I saw, I rejected.¨ David Perlman (Poppa Neutrino)
And it is not our object to destroy civilization. We do not desire to "divide up," as people are in the habit of saying; we do not wish to throw humanity back into barbarism; on the contrary, we desire to lift the whole of humanity to the highest thinkable plane of civilization. We wish every individual without exception to have a share in the means of culture and education according to his capacities and his needs. This is the loftiest ideal that the human race can set before itself; and this ideal is possible today because it is only now that, in consequence of the thousands of years of progress towards civilization and of the tremendous acquisitions which man has gained in this age of culture; because only now are all the means and possibilities given through which we may realize this ideal condition in the way that the majority of men desire to realize it.
August Bebel, Socialism and the Student (1905)
Word of the Day
- brandishMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 19, 2019 is: brandish \BRAN-dish\ verb 1 : to shake or wave (something, such as a weapon) menacingly 2 : to exhibit in an ostentatious or aggressive manner Examples: Michael appeared before the town council brandishing a petition signed by 500 people asking the town to increase funding for the […]
- hiatusMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 18, 2019 is: hiatus \hye-AY-tus\ noun 1 a : a break in or as if in a material object : gap b biology : a gap or passage in an anatomical part or organ 2 a : an interruption in time or continuity : break; especially : a period when something (as a program or activity) is suspended or interrupted […]
- brandish
Buy my Little Book!
My Zazzle Creations
- TV rots the senses in the head! It kills the imagination dead! It clogs and clutters up the mind! It makes a child so dull and blind. He can no longer understand a fantasy, A fairyland! His brain becomes as soft as cheese! His powers of thinking rust and freeze! An excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, By Roald Dahl, 1964
News of My Death has been Greatly Exaggerated
Topics & Tags
- back to school
- beauty
- Birds
- birth
- blessing
- blog carnival
- Carnival of Chaos
- censorship
- Chavez
- chemicals
- children
- civil rights
- college
- corporatism
- coup
- daughter
- ducks
- education
- Elaine Brown
- environment
- expectations
- family
- FirstAmendment
- flex your rights
- garden
- Georgia prison protests
- grateful
- Gulf of Mexico
- high school
- history
- Home
- home school
- humanrights
- hummingbirds
- humor
- Imperialism
- Islam.CAIR
- kids
- Labor Day
- laundry
- learning
- life
- midwife
- music
- natural
- nature
- neighbors
- oil
- outdoors
- parenting
- peers
- PeteSeeger
- photo contest
- poetry
- police
- postaday
- Project Censored
- protests
- rights
- science
- Socialism
- socialization
- son
- truth
- Turnitoff
- Unions
- Unjust
- unschool
- violence
- Weekly photo challenge
- Wikileaks
- workers
Visitors & Friends
Get us on RSS!
Tag Archives: parenting
One Down! Five to Go
Home schooling six kids can be nerve racking to say the least. There are many "What ifs?" in the picture. What if I can't teach? What if they don't learn to read? What if they need more help? What if … Continue reading
Super Lice or Super Stupid?
Today in the Huffington Post I read about 'super lice' and it's resistance to 'traditional treatment'. What a load of crap! And I say that in the most disgusted manner. Why are we amazed at creation's ability to evolve to … Continue reading
Lead: Not Just a Poor Peoples' Problem. What can you do ?
America's Real Criminal Element: Lead New research finds Pb is the hidden villain behind violent crime, lower IQs, and even the ADHD epidemic. And fixing the problem is a lot cheaper than doing nothing. "High childhood exposure damages a part … Continue reading
Weekly Photo Challenge ~ Delicate
There are many elements of this shot that are delicate. If you look closely there are bits of pollen on the petals. These are my beautiful bees filling their new comb with soon to be honey.
Weekly Photo Challenge ~ Changing Seasons
Ladybugs mating in my December Garden. A changing season? It is still quite warm and apparently a romantic setting!
Kids, Cops and Courts OH MY!
Boys will be boys This statement has probably gotten more boys into trouble than out. I, myself have used it but it really should be stripped from our colloquialisms. My house is the house where all the kids go. You … Continue reading


text:
Noblesville, Indianaby Gary James '10 • October 8, 2007 Share:
Wabash men not only try to live humanely, but help others do so as well.
Six Wabash alumni traveled to Noblesville Saturday to assist with the renovation of a facility for pregnant and parenting teens organized by the Hamilton Centers Youth Service Bureau (HCYSB). The project was part of the third annual Wabash Day community service project in which alumni all over the country participate in their communities. See Noblesville photo album here.
The HCYSB is a private, non-profit agency founded in the 1970s to provide shelter and support for abandoned, abused, homeless, or pre-delinquent youth in Hamilton County, Indiana. Its initiatives address the physical, social, emotional, and educational needs of troubled and at risk youth and families. The Pregnant and Parenting Teens Program offers a residence assuring a structured, supportive, and safe environment for the teenager to learn and grow.
Wabash Group Leader Greg Estell '85 organized the event with the help of his wife, who is a HCYSB board member, and HCYSB Executive Director Stephanie Lyons.
"We provide positive adolescent development and delinquency prevention programs for youth in Hamilton County and the surrounding area," said Lyons. "The alumni are helping us prepare a home to house pregnant and parenting teens that will open in January. It means a lot. We're actually doing a full renovation on the house, utilizing volunteer labor. And to be able to do a full remodeling is time-extensive. So we need all the volunteers we can get, and having the Wabash alumni here is great help."
With a Wabash flag hanging from the porch, passersbys could see the men sweeping, painting, staining, and all manner of home improvement activities. Kevin Pastore '95 and Scott Quick '88 were working on painting the formerly blue window trims tan. Brad Johnson '71 focused on staining the outdoor staircase to the second floor. Inside, Jared Stark '94 sanded walls to prepare them for paint.
The house was built in the 1920s and functioned as the home for a residential program for status-offending youth. It is full with toys, bathroom equipment, pipe fixtures, and paint.
"When this gets done, this will be a home for pregnant and parenting teenage mothers," said Greg Estell, Fishers. "It's important to provide service back to our community. And if we can pull Wabash men together to have some fun and do some good, we can't go wrong."
"[Wabash Day] is really a phenomenal idea," said Scott Quick, Zionsville. "I know Jon Pactor was one of the driving forces. Jon and I have been on the local Indianapolis Association of Wabash Men board for ages, and Jon also serves on the National Association of Wabash Men (NAWM) where this idea kind of came back down to us. It's a really inspirational thing to see alums all around the country banding together today to make somebody's life –some stranger's life- a little better. We're giving this place a thorough makeover and hopefully make it a nicer place for some women who need some help."
"Wabash day is a great opportunity," said Brad Johnson, Indianapolis. "Particularly with the NAWM to have a project focused on community service. It's consistent with the college mission. It's what we try to train young men to do. Alumni are trying to do it every year to demonstrate it."
"This is my first one," said Kevin Pastore, Fishers. "It's because of the emails that have been out in the past about previous Wabash days that I got involved with this one, just to see what it's like and all the different groups around the country that are able to come out one day and represent Wabash and do something good for the community. Anything that can help teach survival skills for single parents, especially young single parents; anything that's going to help them to get by and help kids thrive is well worth the effort.
"I think it's great," said Jared Stark, Westfield. "It's a great opportunity to get the name of Wabash out in the community, but also give back to the community in which we live. It's certainly a worthy cause."


text:
U.S. Senate Confirms Three Bush Appointees to Advisory Council of National Endowment for the Humanities
The U.S. Senate on Friday, March 15, confirmed three of President's Bush's appointees to the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The new members are:
Amy A. Kass is senior lecturer in the Humanities Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago. For more than 25 years, she has taught courses in classic literature and philosophy. Her books include American Lives: Cultural Differences, Individual Distinction (1995) and Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (2000). She has a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in the history of ideas from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of education from Johns Hopkins University.
Andrew Ladis is Franklin Professor of Art History at the University of Georgia. An expert in Italian Renaissance art, he has written numerous articles and reviews and seven books, including Italian Renaissance Maiolica from Southern Collections (1989), The Brancacci Chapel (1993), The Craft of Art: Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop (1995) and Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art: An Anthology of Literature, 4 vols. (1998). He has B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia.
Wright L. Lassiter, Jr. is president of El Centro College in Dallas, Texas. He previously held the presidencies of Bishop College in Dallas and Schenectady County Community College in Schenectady, N.Y. He serves on the boards of the Texas Council on the Humanities, the African American Museum in Dallas and the Dallas Urban League. He has a B.S. from Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss., an M.B.A. from Indiana University at Bloomington and an Ed.D. in higher education finance from Auburn University in Alabama.
The National Council on the Humanities consists of 26 presidentially appointed distinguished citizens, who serve staggered six-year terms.


text:
Fire Marshall stresses heating safety
Heaters are a hot topic. The number of fires caused by heating appliances each winter is a constant problem.
Park City Fire District Fire Marshall Scott Adams says they see at least one or two fires a month caused by electric heaters.
Fortunately, he added, many owners are able to control the fires before they get too large.
"People should take precautions that when the temperature drops, they don't put their space heaters close to the couch, draperies or clothes they just washed," he said. "The nice thing about the newer ones is that if you tip them over, they have a device that senses it so they shut off."
The Fire District also recommends residents purchase space heaters only from nationally recognized companies and to plug them directly into an outlet and not into an extension cord or power strip. It's also recommended they remain unplugged when not in use. Additionally, residents should refrain from drying clothes on space heaters or from placing any objects on them.
According to the Fire District, 18,300 Americans receive fire-related injuries every year, and 3,500 die from fire. Those living in rural areas are twice as likely to die in a fire than those living in cities or the suburbs.
"And a lot of that is attributed to wood burning stoves," Adams said.
Wood stoves cause 4,000 fires a year nationally.
Adams cautioned people from over-stoking the fire on wood burning stoves by putting in too much wood or accelerant.
"It can cause fires by making it too hot," he said.
As with space heaters, the Fire District recommends residents purchase quality wood stoves with solid construction and no cracks. Residents should only use seasoned wood for fuel; not trash, recently cut wood or artificial logs.
Kerosene heaters should be used in a well-ventilated room, and be filled with only clear K-1 kerosene, and not with gasoline or camp stove fuel, which flare up easily. Kerosene heaters should be refueled outside when cool.
Fireplaces should be cleaned out frequently from built-up creosote, a combustible material resulting from wood smoke. Trash, paper and recently cut wood should not be used because of the heavy creosote buildup and the difficulty in controlling the flame.
Adams recommends residents regularly check smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
"And if they don't have a carbon monoxide detector, they should get one, because this is the time of year when we can get the 'incomplete combustion,'" he said.
Incomplete combustion is when a fuel does not have enough oxygen to produce carbon dioxide and water. It will instead produce toxic gases such as carbon monoxide.
"Just be safe and use precautions," Adams said.
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.
South Summit will seek $87M bond for new high school
The South Summit Board of Education voted 4-1 to put a bond measure on November's ballot asking for $87 million to build a new high school.


text:
Tel Aviv (MarketWatch) -- Baker Hughes Inc., BHI, -0.72% the Houston oilfield- services and equipment major, was downgraded to neutral from buy at Sterne Agee, where analyst Stephen Gengaro has a $46 price target on the shares. Baker Hughes shares closed Monday at $43.01. The shares are relatively cheap, but the analyst sees "limited near-term catalysts" for them. And he's concerned about profitability in Latin America, uncertain profit margins in the U.S. and Canada, a cloudy outlook in the Eastern Hemisphere, and better risk-reward propositions among rival companies.
Sterne Agee cuts Baker Hughes to neutral from buy
Quote References
-0.50 -0.72%


text:
ULS Wiki Home > About
What is the University Libraries Section?
Nearly 5,000 librarians from a wide variety of university libraries make up the University Libraries Section (ULS) of the Association of College and research Libraries. ULS is one of three type-of-library sections of ACRL.
Since its establishment in 1937, ULS has been actively involved in shaping the future of our library and university environments. ULS advances university librarianship, university library service, and the development of university libraries in institutions with graduate programs. In addition, ULS fosters cooperation both locally with university administrators and teaching faculty, and among colleges and universities on issues of mutual concern.
ULS member benefits include opportunities to participate in discussions and programs on issues that transcend the boundaries of traditional library functions. We work together to understand and influence the new directions in our library and university environments.
Another important member benefit includes the opportunity to participate in the development of standards and guidelines for various aspects of the staffing and operation of university libraries, such as the Standards for University Libraries and Guidelines for Branch Libraries.
ULS Organization and Leadership
Leadership and coordination of section activities are provided by the ULS Executive Committee, which includes the Chair, Vice Chair, Past Chair, Secretary, and six Members at Large. The Executive committee establishes section committees, task forces, or working groups to assist its work. See a list of ULS Chairs since 1994.
New committee chair? You are invited to review and/or contribute to our FAQ for Committee Chairs.


text:
EAU CLAIRE, WI--(Marketwire - Mar 22, 2013) - Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. (
Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. (
Citizens Community Federal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc., is a full-service bank based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, serving more than 50,000 customers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan through 25 branch locations, including 17 locations in Walmart Supercenters. The Company's stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "CZWI." More information about Citizens Community Federal is available at www.ccf.us.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this news release are considered "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "expect," "intend," "may," "planned," "potential," "should," "will," "would" or the negative of those terms or other words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements in this news release are inherently subject to many uncertainties arising in the Company's operations and business environment. These uncertainties include general economic conditions, in particular, relating to consumer demand for the Bank's products and services; the Bank's ability to maintain current deposit and loan levels at current interest rates; competitive and technological developments; deteriorating credit quality, including changes in the interest rate environment reducing interest margins; prepayment speeds, loan origination and sale volumes, charge-offs and loan loss provisions; the Bank's ability to maintain required capital levels and adequate sources of funding and liquidity; maintaining capital requirements may limit the Bank's operations and potential growth; changes and trends in capital markets; competitive pressures among depository institutions; effects of critical accounting estimates and judgments; changes in accounting policies or procedures as may be required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) or other regulatory agencies overseeing the Bank; further write-downs in the Bank's mortgage-backed securities portfolio; the Bank's ability to implement its cost-savings and revenue enhancement initiatives; legislative or regulatory changes or actions or significant litigation adversely affecting the Bank; fluctuation of the Company's stock price; the Bank's ability to attract and retain key personnel; the Bank's ability to secure confidential information through the use of computer systems and telecommunications networks; and the impact of reputational risk created by these developments on such matters as business generation and retention, funding and liquidity. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and other risks that may affect the Company's performance are discussed further in Part I, Item 1A, "Risk Factors," in the Company's Form 10-K, for the year ended September 30, 2012 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 10, 2012. The Company undertakes no obligation to make any revisions to the forward-looking statements contained in this news release or to update them to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this report.
Contact Information:
Mark Oldenberg


text:
HARTSVILLE, S.C. - Authorities say four children have died in a fire that swept through a mobile home in the South Carolina city of Hartsville.
A spokesman for the city, Russell Cox, said firefighters found the bodies Wednesday afternoon after taking about 10 minutes to put out the blaze. Cox says a local coroner has not yet released the names or ages of the victims.
A photograph taken by the Darlington County sheriff showed the charred interior of the mobile home while the outside appeared to be relatively undamaged. A tricycle and another children's toy could be seen in the yard.
Investigators have just begun to look through the home's charred interior and had no immediate report on a possible cause.


text:
Find Nashville Personal Trainers
Are you trying to Locate a Nashville Fitness Trainer
for In Home or Studio Personal Training Services?
Now you can Find Nashville, Tennessee Personal Trainers Fast
and get REAL FITNESS RESULTS
from our Find My Nashville Fitness Trainers
Network of Certified Fitness Professionals within the Nashville area.
Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, and Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Find Nashville Fitness Trainers really delivers with a powerful Online Personal Trainer search engine that helps you quickly locate a certified fitness trainer in the Nashville, Tennessee local area that matches your personal fitness, health & lifestyle needs .
In just a few short minutes, after completing our Find a Nashville Personal Trainer request form, our team of Fitness Specialists will begin the process of matching you up with a Top Rated Certified Fitness Trainer.
We don't just find any Personal Trainer for YOU! We match you with a Tennessee Fitness Trainer that meets ALL your needs when it comes to hitting your personal fitness & health targets. WE DELIVER, Top Rated Certified Personal Trainers that will work with you where you want, when you want, providing the support and motivation YOU NEED, focused all the time on your Fitness & Health Goals.
Start on your Road to Better Health & Fitness Today!
"Get Fit & Stay Fit" - from The Find My Nashville Fitness Trainer Team


text:
Remember me?
Be part of a community of designers to explore and share vector & PSD freebies.
Enter your username or email address below, if you remember either of them.
An email message with instructions to reset your password will be sent to the email address provided on your registration.


text:
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- A federal hearing that could decide the future of an Entergy Corp. nuclear plant in the New York City suburbs began Monday on a less-than-dramatic note.
The hearing was dominated by a highly technical discussion about how to predict where corrosion might occur in the miles of piping at the Indian Point nuclear plant.
With references to "void fraction," `'enthalpy" and "wall thinning," experts quickly bored the 100 or so people who had come to show support for or opposition to new licenses for the plant.
Public comment was not permitted.
Plant owner Entergy Nuclear wants to run the two reactors at Indian Point for 20 years past their upcoming expiration dates. About 17 million people live within 50 miles of the plant, and blocking the licenses has long been the focus of environmentalists and politicians who have campaigned against it.
Anxiety climbed after the 9/11 attacks, when one of the hijacked planes flew over Indian Point on its way to the World Trade Center, and again after the 2011 quake-and-tsunami nuclear disaster in Japan.
Opponents including Gov. Andrew Cuomo have argued that the threat of terrorism or accident is too great at a nuclear plant so close to the nation's largest city.
"My point has always been safety first, and the reward doesn't justify the risk," Cuomo said last year.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found repeatedly that Indian Point operates safely.
The administrative judge running Monday's hearing, Lawrence McDade of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, warned the crowd in advance that he and two other judges had already waded through thousands of pages of evidence and 1,400 exhibits.
He said attending Monday's session would be "like coming into `Lost' at Season 3."
The session began with a dispute over the effectiveness of a computer program used by Entergy that is designed to forecast where pipe corrosion might occur. Rival experts disagreed about its accuracy.
The argument pertained to the first issue before the judges: whether corrosion in pipes and elsewhere can be safely managed for 20 more years.
The eight other issues to be argued into December include decontamination after an accident, the cost of human exposure to radiation and the effect of Indian Point on property values. The durability of inaccessible cables and electrical transformers is also on the agenda.
One issue _ involving leaks of radioactive water from spent fuel pools _ was tentatively settled just before the hearings. Two environmental groups and Entergy announced that Entergy will establish a third sampling station in the Hudson River and post sampling data on a public website.
Not on the agenda are plant security and the difficulty of evacuating such a densely populated area _ "the issues people really care about," says Phillip Musegaas, a program director at the environmental group Riverkeeper.
The NRC says those topics are continually studied and are not germane to relicensing.
Nevertheless, the challengers have high hopes, although the NRC has never refused a plant's renewal license.
"I think this really spells the end of Indian Point," said Robert F. Kennedy, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, one of the groups challenging the licenses. "The noose is closing."
Entergy is confident the licenses will be approved.
"We feel we have a sound technical basis on each issue," spokesman Jerry Nappi said.
Besides Indian Point, eight other plants with 11 reactors are currently seeking renewals. They include the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, which was shut down for two years because of what the NRC called the most extensive corrosion ever found at a U.S. nuclear reactor.
Last year, the NRC approved a new license for the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, also owned by Entergy. The state tried to shut it down, but a federal judge ruled for the company. Vermont is appealing.
The two reactors at issue in New York _ Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 (Indian Point 1 was mothballed in the 1970s) _ have 30-year licenses that expire in 2013 and 2015. But both sides agree that the first date, and possibly the second, will come and go before the new licenses are settled.
That's because these hearings will stretch into next year, judges usually take months to rule, appeals are inevitable and the NRC declared in June that it will make no final decisions on licenses until after a two-year study of its nuclear waste rules.
No matter how long it takes, under NRC regulations, Indian Point can keep running until there's a final decision, expired licenses or not.
The plant's opponents may have an ace in the hole unrelated to the federal hearings. The state has denied Indian Point a water quality permit, saying that by drawing in Hudson River water for cooling, it kills billions of fish and eggs.
The NRC has said it cannot issue a new license unless Indian Point has the water permit. Entergy says the alternative, building cooling towers, would cost it $1.5 billion. It is appealing the state decision.
The potential closing of Indian Point, which provides about a quarter of the power used in New York City and Westchester County, has fostered a succession of studies on how its 2,000 megawatts would be replaced.
The industry warns of brownouts, pollution, job cuts and higher electric bills. Environmentalists see an opportunity for turning to renewable sources.


text:
Venu Nightclub :: Venu Fridays
Friday, Aug 30, 2019 @ 11:00PM
Event Description
For the clubbing conscious, Venu is THE place to be on Friday night. The longest running night in Boston history, the International clientele is comprised of the cities jet-xsetters, weekend warriors, young professionals looking to let loose and generations of friends and family. DJ JC works the crowd with funky House and sexy Latin.
Contact your VIP Host for tables! Don't have one? 617-631-7202
Dress Code: Men Jeans, Collared Shirt, Dress Shoes | Ladies Dress to Impress
Management reserves all rights*
21+ ID Required
Share Venu Nightclub Presents :: Venu Fridays
Friday, Aug 30 | Doors: 11:00PM (ends at 2:00AM)
Venu Nightclub
100 Warrenton Street, Boston MA, 02116Show Map


text:
In contrast to Washington law, the open-meetings provision of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) does not define "meetings" that are subject to the Act's requirements. Here, the Arkansas Supreme Court concludes that submitting a draft ordinance and a memorandum in support of that ordinance does not constitute a meeting subject to the FOIA's requirements.
In McCutchen v. City of Fort Smith, City Administrator Kelly circulated a draft ordinance expanding his hiring-firing authority, a memorandum supporting the ordinance, and other documents to five of seven members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors in advance of a Board study session. Plaintiff McCutchen sued the City, alleging that Kelly violated the open-meetings provision of the FOIA by engaging in a series of private one-on-one meetings with Board members.
Although some Board members expressed support (and others opposition) to the proposed ordinance, the Arkansas Supreme Court held that Kelly did not violate the FOIA because he did not solicit specific responses from Board members. Moreover, McCutchen failed to produce evidence that the proposed ordinance was discussed or debated prior to the study session or that Board members exchanged any correspondence about the memorandum.
The Court distinguished the prior case Harris v. City of Fort Smith, where a city administrator violated the FOIA by holding one-on-one meetings with Board members in order to obtain approval to acquire property at auction. The administrator sought secret approval, and later ratification by Board resolution, in order to avoid making public the city's maximum bid prior to the auction. There, the administrator violated the FOIA because the individual contacts to seek Board approval constituted an informal meeting subject to the FOIA's open-meetings provision. City Administrator Kelly did not seek similar pre-approval, here.


text:
12-14 March 2001, Rio de Janeiro
The first OECD Conference on Private Pensions in Brazil was held on 12-14 March 2001 in Rio de Janeiro under the aegis of the OECD Centre for Co-operation with Non-Members. The conference was organised with the support of the Brazilian government and Brazilian private pension fund associations and was co-sponsored by the International Pension Foundation, United States. There were seventy participants including delegates from both OECD and non-OECD countries as well as governmental, business community representatives and academics from Brazil and other Latin American countries.
The main purpose of the conference was to promote high-level policy dialogue on private pension reform in Brazil with a view to strengthen the private pension system in that country through an efficient regulatory and supervisory system, as well as through the promotion of competition in the pensions market.
Major regulatory and supervisory issues related to Brazilian private pension system and specific policy issues such as tax treatment, investment regulation, pension funds governance, solvency protection, vesting rights and portability have been thoroughly examined.
The meeting was opened by the Chair of the OECD Working Party on Private Pensions, Mr Richard Hinz, the Acting Head of Financial Affairs Division, OECD, Mr André Laboul and the Minister of Finance of Brazil, Mr Pedro Malan. In his introductory speech, the Minister confirmed the priority of the current government to encourage long-term personal savings accumulation in Brazil through the granting of tax advantages to private pension plans and individual life insurance. In this respect, the Minister highlighted the significance and timeliness of the OECD conference on private pensions for his country, where the reform of the pension system was identified as one of the core concerns of policymakers.
Related Documents


text: Find this wine Find this wine La Cuvee Mythique 2010 Nice longedoc wine for less then 20€ At coop Pin It Tweet 6 years ago by Toengi More posts La Cuvee Mythique 2009 Decent. Light and fruity. 7.99 Euro 6 years ago by Nutmcdonald La Cuvee Mythique Wine 2009 Eckige Taninen, braucht Luft. Grosse komplexität. 6 years ago by Buchlijan La Cuvee Mythique 2005 Съедобно 2005 5/10 6 years ago by menandrku Mythique La Cuvee 2006 Fruity. Strong. Good year. Has an owl on it. 8 years ago by David W.


text:
|Mirror [#1]
|Found It.pdf
|37,627 KB/Sec
|Mirror [#2]
|Found It.pdf
|22,284 KB/Sec
|Mirror [#3]
|Found It.pdf
|28,968 KB/Sec
"Found It Volume 3" is a collaborative search and find book. This book has been created by Jason Sand and students from his Grade 12 Graphic Arts class. Each page has the illustrator's name beneath the "Found It" items. To hear the illustrator narration for each object just click on the speaker icon beside each object. We hope you enjoy finding all of the wonderful images.