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Strategic Materials Conference: a planning, forecasting, and business development necessity for the "advanced materials" enabled microelectronics industry
SAN JOSE, Calif. — July 31, 2014 — The SEMI Strategic Materials Conference, held September 30–October 1 in Santa Clara, Calif., will examine the drivers for new materials and how they impact material suppliers and the value chain they serve. The theme this year is "Materials Matter — Enabling the Future of IC Fabrication and Packaging," delving into the market opportunities, scaling challenges, and emerging solutions to meet the sub-20nm technology node production challenges. SMC is the only conference dedicated to exploring the synergies, trends and business opportunities in advanced electronic materials. The agenda includes presentations by market analysts, leading device manufacturers, as well as equipment and material suppliers.
The increasing semiconductor content in mobile, computing, entertainment, and transportation are driving demands for higher performance and lower power consumption. The IC industry today is moving beyond scaling as the primary driver and looking to new materials and architectures. Candidate materials span the spectrum from fabricating non-planar transistor structures to reducing interconnect RC delays. 3D interconnect and multi-chip bonding are facilitating form factors for use in phones, tablets and devices encompassing the internet of things. In this "Age of Materials," SMC will discuss market opportunities, scaling challenges, emerging solutions and more to meet the constantly growing demands.
Matt Nowak, senior director, Global Operations Group at Qualcomm, offers the conference's keynote with insights on the emergence of the Digital Sixth Sense: Opportunities that will drive consumer demand over the coming decades, and the associated adoption of new IC devices and electronic materials. Tim G. Hendry, VP, Technology & Manufacturing Group at Intel, will kick off the session "Supply Chain Challenges, Interdependence for Future Growth" with his keynote, " Delivering Complexity to Beyond the Leading Edge."
Other companies presenting include: Air Products & Chemicals, Air Liquide Electronics, Dow Chemical, Edwards Vacuum, Entegris, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Hilltop Economics, IBM, Intel, Linx Consulting, Lux Research, Matheson, Pall Corp, SAFC Hitech, Sandisk, Stanford University, Stifel Nicolaus, TechSearch International, TriQuint Semiconductor, and VLSI Research.
For the "advanced materials"-enabled microelectronics industry, the Strategic Materials Conference is a planning, forecasting, and business development necessity. Organized by the Chemical and Gas Manufacturers Group (CGMG), a SEMI Special Interest Group comprised of leading manufacturers, producers, packagers and distributors of chemicals and gases used in the microelectronics industry, SMC has provided valuable information and networking opportunities to materials and electronics industry professionals since 1995.
For the complete agenda, additional information and to register, visit the Strategic Materials Conference webpage at www.semi.org/smc. For information on SEMI, visit www.semi.org.
About SEMI
SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains. Our 1,900 member companies are the engine of the future, enabling smarter, faster and more economical products that improve our lives. Since 1970, SEMI has been committed to helping members grow more profitably, create new markets and meet common industry challenges. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit
Deborah Geiger
Phone: 1.408.943.7988
Email: Email Contact


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Diagnosis of Gallstones
]]>Main Page]]> | ]]>Risk Factors]]> | ]]>Symptoms]]> | Diagnosis | ]]>Treatment]]> | ]]>Screening]]> | ]]>Reducing Your Risk]]> | ]]>Talking to Your Doctor]]> | ]]>Resource Guide]]>
The doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history, and perform a physical exam.
Tests may include:
Blood tests —These tests may be used to find an infection, ]]>jaundice]]> , ]]>pancreatitis]]> , or an obstruction. For example, if bile flow is blocked, the bile will back up into the liver, which can be detected. Common tests include liver function tests, lipase, and amylase.
]]>Ultrasound]]> —A technician will hold a device over the abdomen that bounces sound waves off the organs and the stones. The sound waves make electrical impulses that create a picture of the organ on a video monitor.
Endoscopic ultrasound —A long, flexible, lighted tube is inserted via the mouth or the rectum to visualize the different parts of digestive tract. A small ultrasound transducer is installed at the tip of the endoscope, which allows the doctor to get the device much closer to the internal organs of the body. This in turn helps to obtain pictures of better quality and accuracy than those obtained through traditional ultrasound.
Cholecystogram —You will be asked to swallow some tablets containing contrast material. The contrast material is then absorbed into bile, which fills the gallbladder. X-rays are then taken. The x-rays can show movement of the gallbladder, presence of gallstones, and any blockage of the bile ducts.
]]>Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)]]> —The doctor guides an endoscope (long, flexible, lighted tube connected to a computer and monitor) through the stomach and into the small intestine. Dye is injected that stains the ducts in the biliary system. Once the stones are located, they can also be removed. This method is effective for stones that have entered the common bile duct.
Cholescintigraphy —This test can be used to diagnose abnormal contractions of the gallbladder. You will receive an injection of a medicine that includes radioisotopes, which are taken up in the gallbladder. The gallbladder is then stimulated to contract and is evaluated by a doctor using an x-ray procedure.
Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) —This is an imaging technique using MRI to let the doctor see the biliary and pancreatic ducts. Its purpose is to determine if there is a gallstone blocking any of these ducts. The test allows doctors to visualize the gall bladder, pancreas, and biliary ducts without the use of contrast dye, invasive procedures, or radiation exposure.
HIDA scan —This is an imaging test to check the function of the gallbladder. You will receive a "tracer" drug, which is taken up by the gallbladder. This test will help your doctor determine if the organ is functioning properly and the kind of disease you may have.
]]>CT scan]]> —This is an x-ray scan that uses a computer to produce cross-sectional images of the abdomen.
Adler DG, Baron TH, Davila RE, et al. ASGE guideline: the role of ERCP in diseases of the biliary tract and the pancreas. Gastrointest Endosc. 2005;62:1-8.
Ahmed A, Cheung RC, Keefe EB. Management of gallstones and their complications. Am Fam Physician. 2000;61:1673-1678.
American Gastroenterological Association website. Available at: http://www.gastro.org/ .
National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse website. Available at: http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ .
Portincasa P, Moschetta A, Petruzzelli M, et al. Gallstone disease: Symptoms and diagnosis of gallbladder stones. Best Pract Res Clin Gastroenterol. 2006;20:1017-1029.
Portincasa P, Moschetta A, Palasciano G. Cholesterol gallstone disease. Lancet. 2006;368:230-239.
Last reviewed November 2008 by ]]>Daus Mahnke, MD]]>
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2007 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


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NWS severe weather alerts to include impact warnings
The National Weather Service will be including new information in its severe weather warnings.
The Des Moines NWS office joins 37 other offices across the Midwest in using the new Impact Based Warnings, which started on April 1.
The new warnings are designed to better communicate threats during severe weather so people can take action faster.
The basic severe weather warnings we have seen for years in Iowa will remain the same, but now additional information about the expected impact of the storms will be added.
The new layout of the warnings is designed so people can find the most important information faster. It will feature bullets and show new "tags" at the bottom of the warning.
Look for the "tornado threat" and "tornado damage" tags on the warnings.
The tornado tags will look like this: "Tornado -- radar indicated" or "tornado -- observed." The tornado damage threat tags will look like this: "Tornado damage threat -- considerable" or "Tornado damage threat -- catastrophic."
The changes are due in part to a review of procedures during the massive EF-5 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri, in 2011 and other severe weather deaths that year.
The new warnings were tested last year in Missouri and Kansas. You can find examples of the warnings on the NOAA website here: http://www.crh.noaa.gov


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Sunday, June 12, 2011
Mug Rug Swaps
28 comments:
really really creative. love the fabric choices. who makes the spool fabric in the red, white aqua mugrug.ReplyDelete
Love the mug rugs. Like the little ball chasing dogs viewed through the sewing room windows. Hilde's reminds me of summer and fresh pineapple and oranges eaten under the gum trees at the swimming hole. Your Ziggity's are garden ones - orange for the day with opened flowers and partridges and blue/green for the evening with closed buds and stars as the zigzag pattern looks like a picket fence. I keep 'seeing' a cat on the blue/green picket fence :).ReplyDelete
Lol, all quilters are artists but we do our 'masterpieces' in fabric not paint!
Hey there, off to make a ziggity mug rug, and will pop pics up on Flickr when I'm done...if my computer/ISP complies that is! Hugs NaomiReplyDelete
I love making and receiving mug rugs. Such a quick and easy project to make.ReplyDelete
These are all beautiful! I love the spool fabric in the first picture. Very cute. Do you happen to know the designer?ReplyDelete
Ziggity MR is funky! Love it! Don't MRs make the best presents! JxoReplyDelete
- AnonymousJune 13, 2011 at 7:14 AM
Wow! You got some great stuff. Love the one with the white binding. Your's are awesome too. Mug Rug Swaps are so fun!ReplyDelete
Now all you need is the cookies.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJune 13, 2011 at 5:51 PM
I love mug rugs but for some reason I cant stand doing the binding on them! ps - i love how you used Kingdom.ReplyDelete
These are great! I plan on trying one when I have time. Thanks for sharing :-)ReplyDelete
Lovely they are!ReplyDelete
Happy Father's Day!ReplyDelete
You've turned me into a mug rug addict! Made 2 sets this week- string pieced, and wonky log cabin- for a church raffle, and a birthday gift. They're a hit!ReplyDelete
Various designs can be brought in quilting designs. Online is very much useful to acquire many information about quilting.ReplyDelete
I ADORE them all. So gorgeous.ReplyDelete
I love these designs. I need to rethink a couple of my projects now. And it's great to see guys quilting!ReplyDelete
Although I haven't MADE one I did WIN one in a giveaway. I totally adore and admit when I first heard about them I was like pfffffttt whaaadeva.. but I use it all the time.ReplyDelete
Madness. Genius madness.
I just gave a shout-out to your blog on the "Pay it Forward" meme. My post is here: http://www.careyfamily.org/adventures-in-quilting/ Thanks for all you do.ReplyDelete
The mug rugs are great! I'm really looking forward to the Kingdom line of fabric!ReplyDelete
So, somehow...I just now found this blog...AND I'm in love!!! Can you come over here and teach my husband to sew...for that matter ME! Your very talented! These little mug rugs are adorable! Gonna have to try a few of these out myself! Thanks for bloggin'!ReplyDelete
I just saw the post on google for these and they are awesome...Great work...ReplyDelete
Great! Thanks for sharing the information. That is very helpful for increasing my knowledge in this field.ReplyDelete
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Very helpful advice in this particular post! juegos kizi | happy wheels 2 | juegos kizi | agario | agar io | my little pony games | fireboy and watergirlReplyDelete
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Thanks for your post. Click to play Plants vs Zombies , Solitaire,Tom And Jerry Games, Brain Games, Happy Wheels , Five Nights At Freddy'sReplyDelete
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The machines are assembled and tested on 10 moving platforms with ANDON visual display of manufacturing status, quality checks and process times through an on-line computer system.The Moving Line was inaugurated on September 2, 2011, by J.P. Nayak, Advisor to the Chairman, L&T, along with S. Raghavan, Senior Vice-President & Business Head, MIP, S.R. Subramanian, Executive Vice-President, Industrial Machinery, and P. Kailas, Chief Executive, LTPML.uided by S.R. Subramanian and P. Kailas, the Moving Line concept was developed by M. Kumar, Head – Manufacturing, and a team consisting of Benny Mathew, G. Rajagopal, Prashant K.R., B. Ramesh, D.A. Premkumar, Alok Ghosh and Mohan Kumar. The project was executed economically within 6 months.
Follow @MACHINISTIN
Follow MACHINIST.IN on Facebook


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The Canisius Golden Griffins will visit the RAC Arena for the first time ever when they take on the UMBC Retrievers on Thurs., Nov. 29. The two teams met for the first-time ever in Buffalo last season, when the hosts edged UMBC, 73-66, in the Sears Bracket Buster game. Tipoff time is set for 7:00 p.m. (EST) and will be streamed on www.umbcretrievers.tv.
RETRIEVER UPDATE: Chase Plummer scored a team-high 12 points and the visiting Retrievers hung with the Big East's Marquette Golden Eagles for quite a while before falling, 79-46, at the Bradley Center on Nov. 26. UMBC held Marquette to its lowest first-half point total of the season and took a brief 31-30 second half lead, but MU scored 51 second-half points en route to victory. UMBC has dropped three in a row.
GRIFFINS UPDATE: Canisius, under the direction of first-year, but veteran head coach Jim Baron got off to a 3-0 start, before falling, 82-75 at America East's Stony Brook on Nov. 24. They opened the season with home wins over Boston U. (83-75), St. Bonaventure (72-69) and Buffalo (71-64). SR G Harold Washington and JR G Billy Baron, son of the bench boss, average 17.8 and 17.5 points per game respectively.
WHO'S UP NEXT: It's a quick turnaround for the Retrievers, who must face local foe Towson at the RAC Arena on Sat., Dec. 1. Tip-off time is set for 7:00 p.m.
*The loss to Penn was UMBC's fourth consecutive setback to start a season…The 48 first-half points scored by UMBC was the most in the first 20 minutes by the Retrieves since tallying 49 in a 91-54 win over Stevenson (Md.) on Nov. 15, 2008.
*UMBC snapped a three-game losing streak in home openers, when they defeate Eastern on Nov. 12.
*The Retrievers led the first two games at the half and have led three of the first four games with 10:00 remaining in regulation. They have led four of five games at some point in the second half.
*Brian Neller hit his first four 3-point field goals at Penn, missed his next 13 attempts before hitting four of his final nine vs. Central Connecticut.
*UMBC starting post players of Chase Plummer and Brett Roseboro combined total of one free throw attempted through two games. Plummer attempted 180 (6.0 per game) in 2011-12, the third-highest single-season figure in school history. He bounced back wtih an 8-of-11 effort at Loyola.
*Both Penn and Loyola hit 50.9 percent from the floor vs. the Retrievers.
*The Retrievers scored 70 points or more in each of the first four games of the season. The last time they accomplished that feat was in the championship season of 2007-08. The streak was snapped as UMBC tallied 46 points at Marquette.
*After enjoying healthy rebound margins vs. Penn and Eastern, UMBC was -17 at Loyola, although the Greyhounds were only +3 in second-chance points in the game. UMBC bounced back and was +12 vs. Central Connecticut.
*UMBC hit ten 3-point field goals (10-of-22) vs. Central Conn. State, burying double figures from behnid the arc for the first time since converting in double figures since Jan. 20, 2011 at Hartford. They made 12 in that game and the 10 vs. the Blue Devils halts a streak of 44 straight with single-digit treys.
* Ryan Cook and Chase Plummer both recorded double-doubles vs. CCSU, marking the first time a pair of UMBC players stuffed the stat sheet in that manner since Justin Fry and Laurence Joliceour did so vs. VMI on Nov. 14, 2010.
* Central Connecticut had the outright lead over UMBC in appoximately five minutes over the final 25 minutes of play.
* UMBC did manage to hold Marquette to a season-low 28 first-half points on Nov. 26 in Milwaukee.


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Your student's future is important to us. While family involvement is extremely valuable, we are here to help your student succeed.
We provide a comprehensive career development program, which includes the following services and programs:
- Handshake
- Career counseling and assessments
- Resume assistance and mock interview training
- Career resource library
- Electronic career exploration tools
- Career seminars and workshops
- Job search skill development
- Career panels and speakers
- Internship Program
- Externship Program - Explore the WOW!
- Career and graduate school expos
- On-campus student employment opportunities
- On-campus interview opportunities
We want to be your partner as we work together to empower your student for a lifetime of effective career decisions. For a more detailed description of services, visit the Students section.


text:
Boolean Expressions Interpreter
Project description
Booleano is an interpreter of boolean expressions, a library to define and run filters available as text (e.g., in a natural language) or in Python code.
In order to handle text-based filters, Booleano ships with a fully-featured parser whose grammar is adaptive: Its properties can be overridden using simple configuration directives.
On the other hand, the library exposes a pythonic API for filters written in pure Python. These filters are particularly useful to build reusable conditions from objects provided by a third party library.


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Try our new karaoke search engine:
"Thank you for responding so quickly..."Janice Royer, British Columbia, CANADA
A synthetic chamois of high quality conceived especially for a professional maintenance of your CD, CD+G, CD-ROM, DVD... This chamois is especially designed for a maintenance of high quality. A bottle of special liquid is included to eliminate the fatty and rebels spots, these famous spots that no other product succeeded in removing effectively!
Obtain this maintenance kit for your CD, CD+G, CD-ROM, DVD... by clicking now on the " Add to Cart " button.GIFT IDEA: Add a second FREE maintenance kit for your friend. Only shipping apply.


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Non-profit contemporary dance company, Keshet Chaim, has entertained audiences around the world since 1983. With melody, rhythm and ethnic contemporary movement, Artistic Director Eytan Avisar, draws from the timeless themes of Jewish culture to preserve tradition and bring our stories to the stage. With interactive educational programs the company inspires appreciation of diversity creating excitement and curiosity about our culture. The dynamic multi-faceted ensemble has been praised by international press for passion and originality.
"Powerful and Polished" LA Splash Magazine
"Outstanding Show" Eilat News
"Met with Critical Acclaim" Spotlight Magazine
Music: Avli Music Productions
Editing: Emmy Frevele
Voice: Gary Benson


text:
Welcome toThe SMJ Society
Sign Upor Sign In
Or sign in with:
Hello All,I found this item on ebay, although it's a model, what I'd like to know is, was it actually based on the real thing? As you can see it has the initials EWJR and return empty to Ettington, which all fits in with the real world.It was listed…Continue
Started by Jim Goodman. Last reply by Mark Reader Jun 11.
There seem to be several big questions about the SMJ.Tiffield station: did it exist, for how long and where exactly was it?Why build stations at Salcey Forest and Stoke Bruerne, and why such substantial buildings?But the biggest one seems to be the…Continue
Started by peter fleming. Last reply by Richard Denny May 19.
This query arises from a discussion on another site (Disused Railway and Stations around Northamptonshire).There has been recent reference to coaches stored on the SMJ and a statement in Bylines March 12th issue that there were over three hundred…Continue
Started by Alan Brant. Last reply by Alan Brant Apr 30.
Hi thereI hope you are all in good health.A question about passenger access to stations such as Fenny Compton.Apparently, these station buildings had no entrance doors and access was only from the platform side.I imagine passengers would come up…Continue
Started by Jack Freuville Mar 29.
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text: This splashguard is ideal for keeping the debris off of you or anything you're pulling behind. Splashguard comes complete with decorative show caps and an attractive gold embossed Wing emblem. Designed as an universal fit it can accommodate most bikes with 4-3/4 inch spacing between mounting holes. Dimension tapered 10-1/4"L x 8"W and 1/4" thick rubber.


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Other Kodiak 450 Models
This new 2019 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATV for sale has 0 miles. The color is . It is offered for sale by Water World Boat & Powersport and located in Medford, OR. The listing # is 89592.
For the fastest response send an email via the form above. This vehicle is SOLD.
2019 Yamaha Kodiak 450DO-IT-ALL KODIAK 450
With an Ultramatic automatic transmission, On-Command 2WD/4WD, and fuel injection, the Kodiak 450 packs big performance into a mid-size ATV.Features may include:
Kodiak 450 offers 9.6 inches of ground clearance and full-length composite skid plates to deliver maximum underbelly protection for a wide variety of terrain.Compact Chassis
Yamaha built the Kodiak 450 with a compact body design that is significantly less bulky than competitive models, for precise handling and a confidence-inspiring ride in a variety of terrain conditions.Smooth Fuel-Injected Engine
Kodiak 450 features a torquey 421cc SOHC engine designed to provide a balance of responsive power and smooth character for long riding days with minimal fatigue. Mikuni fuel injection means easy cold starts and flawless fuel delivery in nearly any condition, while liquid-cooling and a high-volume fan system ensure reliable, consistent performance for years to come.
Kodiak 450 offers a riding position with the same roomy feel as the larger Kodiak 700. With tall handlebars, a seat that is long and plush for improved rider comfort for extended work days, large textured floorboards, and an oversized thumb throttle, every aspect of the Kodiak 450 was designed to bring class-leading levels of refinement to the middleweight 4x4 ATV segment.Rubber Engine Mounts
Kodiak 450 features specifically developed rubber engine mounts that isolate vibrations from the engine bay and give the rider one of the smoothest rides ever offered in a utility ATV.Independent Front and Rear Suspension
The Kodiak 450 features independent double wishbone suspension for an optimized vehicle stance, light steering feel, and improved feeling from the shocks across the entire range of travel. With 6.7 inches of front wheel travel and 7.4 inches at the rear, Kodiak 450 provides excellent rider comfort even in the roughest terrain.
Yamaha's Ultramatic system earns its place as the most reliable transmission in the market. An automatic centrifugal clutch maintains constant belt tension for reduced belt wear and a sprag clutch provides Yamaha's renowned all-wheel engine braking.High-Mounted Air Intakes
Kodiak 450 features high-mounted air intakes to ensure that water and debris can't get into the drive system or engine air cleaner, with a reusable foam air filter for the engine side that is accessible without tools. These air channels provide plenty of cool, clean air for the engine and ensure that the V-belt remains cool in the toughest of working conditions.Marine-Grade Electrical System
Yamaha ATVs feature marine-grade waterproof connectors for maximum weather-proofing, maximizing durability and improving serviceability, too.
Cities close to Medford, OR:
Applegate 97530, Ashland 97520, Eagle Point 97524, Glendale 97442, Medford 97502, Merlin 97532, Trail 97541, White City 97503, Wilderville 97543, Wolf Creek 97497
The average price of a 2019 ATV for sale is $12528.37. This model is priced $6529.37 less.
The average price of a 2019 Yamaha ATV for sale is $8973.90. This model is priced $2974.90 less.
The average 2019 Yamaha ATV for sale has 111 miles. This model has 111 less miles.
There are 100 Yamaha ATVs for sale within 150 miles of Medford, OR.
If you looked at the average 2018 Yamaha ATV for sale it would cost $3464.87 more.
If you looked at the average 2020 Yamaha ATV for sale it would cost $3012.73 more.
Kodiak 450 Summary
The average price of a 2019 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATV for sale is $5888.85. This model is priced $110.15 more.
The average 2019 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATV for sale has 45 miles. This model has 45 less miles.
There are 4 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATVs for sale within 150 miles of Medford, OR.
If you looked at the average 2018 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATV for sale it would cost $466.27 less.
If you looked at the average 2020 Yamaha Kodiak 450 ATV for sale it would cost $194.84 more.
Other Kodiak 450 Models By Year


text:
Possible Duplicate:
Is there a usability reason for centring a website's content area on a page?
I'm facing a difficult problem that I can't seem to solve rationally.
I find that it that websites that have their content centered are more pleasing to use than those that have the content aligned to the left. This is even more noticeable when there is less content on the webpages.
My guess is that it's easier to read what's directly in front of your eyes than to move them to the left. But this is only a guess without any real scientific basis.
Is there any consensus, or has there been any research done on whether it's better to align content to the left or center it on websites?
UPD: Relevant IxDA discussion: http://www.ixda.org/node/23895


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Even though there's nothing wrong with him, Gary Prater swallows approximately 100 pills a day. In the past ten years, he hasn't even had a cold. And he'd like to keep it that way. He also wants to avoid contracting diseases such as cancer, hepatitis, and Lou Gehrig's. So every three to four hours, he pops about 15 pills -- a combination of dietary supplements, vitamins, and herbal extracts.
With the help of these pills, Prater expects to live to the age of 115. "Give or take five," he says without a trace of humor.
He's standing in front of bottles of "Jason Winters Intestinal Cleaner" and "Super Colon Cleanser" in a Hollywood vitamin store called the Life Extension Nutrition Center. On the colon-cleanser bottle is a crude black-and-white sketch of a large intestine.
"How old do you think I am?" Prater asks a visitor.
"Um, 40?"
"I'm 52," he boasts. "I don't look bad for 52."
A slight, soft-spoken man whose brown hair has a strand or two of silver streaking through, Prater is manager of the store, which is located in a grubby strip mall on State Road 84 in Fort Lauderdale. The store is owned by the Life Extension Foundation (LEF), a nonprofit alternative health care organization that claims it brought in $27 million in sales and donations last year and boasts an international membership of 40,000 people.
LEF's "headquarters" is a small set of offices accessed by a door in the vitamin shop. Inside, more than a dozen employees sit in cubicles and advise members and nonmembers over the phone. An advisor's job is to sell pills, dietary supplements, and "alternative" treatments LEF claims stave off just about every disease, including AIDS, hepatitis, and cancer.
While conventional health care companies putter along, waiting for approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for new drugs and treatments, LEF acts swiftly and effectively. This is the organization's claim. But there's more. By providing customers with dietary supplements and advice on how to acquire FDA-rejected medicines from overseas, LEF can help slow the aging process. The ultimate goal, one that should be achieved by the year 2020, is to develop technologies and medicines that will enable human beings to live forever.
"I don't like death," Prater says.
And, like his fellow LEF members, he doesn't like conventional medicine. But in effect LEF is practicing medicine -- and without a license. Its scientific director, Dr. E.K. Schandl, is a nutritionist. Yet he says he's developed a diagnostic test for cancer that a) measures cancer-causing chemical levels more accurately than any mainstream test and b) is capable of predicting the onset of cancer as far as 12 years in advance -- claims licensed oncologists say are absurd. But, using his test, Schandl makes diagnoses, then prescribes treatments.
Included in the treatments are "drugs" that have not been approved by the FDA but, because of loopholes in federal laws, may be used as alternatives. Dietary supplements top the list, and LEF admits that it advises members on how to legally obtain drugs from overseas. But this all comes at a cost: Prater, for instance, spends $4000 a year on his pills, and the typical LEF member is advised to submit to a blood-test and pill-taking regimen that costs, on average, $1500 a year.
The money, of course, goes to a nonprofit charitable organization, which claims to donate millions of dollars a year to universities and research centers for antiaging and immortality research. But LEF officials refused to share with New Times any financial data or IRS forms that, according to federal law, must be open to the public upon request. Bill Faloon, LEF's vice president and cofounder, says he would like to oblige but adds that LEF's financial situation is "too complicated to talk about."
More important, to him, is that LEF is simply doing what the FDA, which is investigating the organization, has failed to do: provide, as quickly as possible, the most comprehensive medical treatment to save and lengthen lives.
"Bullshit," retorts James Cerda, a University of Florida medical doctor and a member of the Florida Board of Medicine. "Pardon my French, but the FDA is slow. But the reason they're slow is because they don't want to kill you. That was the first thing imprinted in my mind in medical school. We have got to be conservative. Not everything has to be a breakthrough."
LEF's methods are anything but conservative. And that's fine with members, most of whom have had it with mainstream medicine.
George Baxas, an LEF member since 1990, is typical. Middle-aged and relatively healthy, he takes about 25 capsules a day of folic acid, vitamin E, and LEF's own "Life Extension Mix" -- a combination of food and vegetable extracts, minerals, and vitamins -- at a cost of roughly $150 a month.
In March he paid $95 for a blood test recommended by LEF and offered at the vitamin store. The test showed he had a high level of the amino acid homocysteine in his blood. Prater, who has no medical training, is also an LEF senior advisor. He told Baxas that high levels of homocysteine may irritate the interior linings of blood vessels and lead to a stroke or heart disease.
Baxas says he brought this information to his doctor, who didn't know anything about the amino acid. He then consulted with Prater, who suggested he take four tablets a day of Trimethylglycine (TMG), a dietary supplement derived from beets, to reduce the homocysteine level. The cost of a 180-capsule bottle of the nutrient is $20, but, because Baxas is an LEF member, he gets 25 percent off. Membership costs $75 a year, $1500 for life.
"Most doctors have no idea what this is," Baxas says, referring to the TMG. "My doctor told me it may be 25 years before we know if that's any good. That's a bunch of baloney."
To find out if the supplement worked, Baxas paid another $95 for a blood test two weeks ago to measure the homocysteine level. He is still waiting for the results.
Anyone off the street can have his or her blood tested at LEF. For the purposes of this article, a New Times reporter called to make an appointment. "You're going to want to become a member," Joann, an LEF advisor, said almost immediately after picking up the phone. "It's going to be so much cheaper for you." The offer was declined, and an appointment was made for the next day.
Blood is drawn at the vitamin store, in the back in a room the size of a broom closet. Hanging above the door is a bright red sign that reads: "FDA Museum." The "museum" is really just a display of two dozen or so panels depicting alleged FDA atrocities. One panel features the illustrated cover of a book titled Murder by Injection: The Story of the Medical Conspiracy Against Americans. On another panel is an illustration of a man in a blue suit -- an FDA bureaucrat -- throwing books on a fire. The book titles include Eating For Health and Scientific Data. A sign hanging over both panels reads: "Gestapo-Like Raids on Legitimate Companies" -- an allusion to the FDA's raid on LEF headquarters in 1987.
But neither Joann nor Melissa Garcia, a 26-year-old trained phlebotomist, comment on the museum. First they get a few questions out of the way -- name, address, age -- then ask for $55.
Made payable to the vitamin store, the fee covers a test that measures the level of more than three dozen chemicals, minerals, and sugars in the blood and indicates such problems as inflammation, hepatitis, and risk for heart disease. After the fee was paid, the visitor was handed a 14-page pamphlet entitled "Your Laboratory Test Results." On the back was the name of the Hollywood-based outfit to which the blood samples are sent for testing: American Metabolic Laboratories. The lab's owner-operator is also LEF's scientific director, Dr. E.K. Schandl. Schandl is licensed in Florida as a nutrition counselor and clinical laboratory director, but nothing on the pamphlet indicates that he's a medical doctor.
Joann insisted, however, that Schandl is an M.D. as well. Garcia then put on a pair of latex gloves and a yellow smock, pulled out a sterile needle and began to draw blood.
State law demands that either a) a physician order a blood test or b) a physician give blanket approval for the administration of blood tests at a clinic. In the latter instance, that same physician must see the results of the blood test before making a diagnosis and prescribing treatment.
The man supposedly granting blanket approval at the vitamin store is Dr. Herbert Pardell, an Aventura-based osteopath who is also LEF's medical director. Dr. Pardell did not return phone calls for this article, but, according to his nurse, Diane Manet, he does not see the test results. That job is left to Schandl.
Before the blood test concluded, Joann suggested a visitor try Dr. Schandl's "Cancer Profile." At a cost of $310 for nonmembers, the test measures the levels of six different chemicals and hormones in a single blood sample and, according to Schandl, is capable of predicting the onset of cancer up to 12 years before it occurs.
"You should hear the calls [Joann] gets about it," Garcia said, enthusiastically. "She gets all these calls about it from all over the world."
If what Schandl claims about his test is true, he's the only person in the world capable of predicting the onset of cancer. But the half-dozen oncologists and health experts New Times interviewed said they'd never heard of Schandl or his test.
The only tests that even come close to predicting cancer are genetic tests for breast and ovarian cancers, according to Dr. Charles Vogel, the medical director for Columbia/ HCA Cancer Research Network in Aventura. And even if someone carries a "cancer gene," she will not necessary contract the disease, he said.
Oncologists use other blood tests to diagnose prostate and ovarian cancer in asymptomatic patients. A high level of prostate specific antigen (PSA) indicates prostate cancer, whereas a high level of CA-125 ("CA" stands for carcinoma) indicates ovarian cancer. Abnormal levels of such chemicals, including human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), are referred to as "tumor markers," which doctors use to monitor the treatment of cancer. But, with the exception of PSA and CA-125, most tumor markers, including hCG, show up only if a cancer is in an advanced stage, according to Vogel.
Schandl claims, however, that his cancer-profile test is so sensitive, it detects the presence of cancer much earlier than other tests. He's able to do so, he says, because he measures the levels of six -- not just one -- chemicals with each blood sample. And, aside from detecting the presence of cancer, the test provides Schandl with "early warning signs" that, 10 to 12 years from now, cancer may develop. Part of Schandl's methodology is that he looks for chemicals other doctors don't even consider. For instance, he tests for levels of PHI, an enzyme that regulates anaerobic metabolism. The higher the rate of anaerobic metabolism, the quicker a cancer spreads, Schandl claims. So if a high level of PHI exists, along with high levels of two or three other chemicals, including hCG, cancer very well may develop down the road.
"Most doctors don't even know what it is," Schandl says, referring to the enzyme.
In fact most doctors, Vogel included, think the cancer-profile test is bogus.
Cerda, the University of Florida researcher, wondered why he'd never heard of Schandl or his diagnostic tool. He called Schandl's claim that he could predict cancer "akin to crystal ball gazing."
"This is something we've been trying to do for a long, long time, and no one's been able to do it," Vogel argued. "[Schandl] says he's done this on thousands of patients, but, in terms of where he's published his data and how solid his data are, it becomes highly suspect."
Both Cerda and Vogel wondered why Schandl's test had never been published in a major, peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"I haven't had time," Schandl contends. He did, however, offer a list of fifteen research articles he's written for scientific journals, including three on the cancer profile. Two of the three were published in German journals, however, and Schandl said he couldn't find a copy of the third.
As soon as Schandl makes a diagnosis, he instructs a cancer patient to make lifestyle changes and begin taking dietary supplements and herbal ingredients, which, he says, "can reverse the malignancy process."
Typically he tells patients to take a tablet form of the hormone DHEA, which he calls an "immune enhancer." He also suggests high doses of vitamin C and the herbal supplement echinacea, which Schandl claims prevent inflammations caused by cancer. LEF also recommends cancer therapy, which costs thousands of dollars a year and includes a seven-step program consisting of monthly blood tests, 12 nutritional supplements, and hundreds of herbs and mineral pills.
Mainstream doctors warn that "all-natural" alternative therapies may sound harmless, but in some cases they're not. DHEA, for instance, can cause hormonal shifts in women with certain forms of cancer. And echinacea comes from a flower related to ragweed, to which many people are allergic.
As a licensed nutrition counselor, Schandl is legally allowed to recommend dietary supplements to his patients. He's also a state-certified lab director, which allows him to conduct blood tests. Neither of these distinctions, however, allows him to diagnose or treat physical problems, according to Florida law. That right is reserved for physicians.
Schandl himself admits he walks a fine line. His resume states, in fact, that he is an M.D. Pressed on the issue, he admits, however, that he's not licensed to practice in the United States. The degree, he says, came from a university in Sri Lanka. But he refers to his clients as "patients," and LEF literature refers to him as a "doctor" whose cancer profile serves as "an early diagnosis, made possible by biochemical testing."
At the age of 60, Schandl is a short, compact man with a neatly trimmed mustache and slicked-back, graying hair. Born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, he moved to California in 1956. In 1962, the year he began attending junior college, he received word from Budapest that his mother had died of leukemia.
Schandl says his mother's death is what inspired him to develop better diagnostic tools and treatment for cancer. He received a bachelor's degree in analytical biology from the University of California in Santa Barbara in 1965, and two years later he got his master's degree in biochemistry from San Diego State University.
Schandl was then invited to study molecular genetics at Florida State University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1970. Schandl claims that the following year he was hired as an assistant professor of biochemistry at Nova University in Davie. But the university has no record of his employment. With a tinge of sarcasm, Schandl admits that Nova's administrators have probably chosen to forget him. While at Nova, he says, he researched viruses in a university building that was also home to a kindergarten program. As a result, administrators did not renew his contract in 1974, he adds.
Schandl claims he later became the chief of clinical chemistry at the now-defunct Community Hospital of South Broward, where he began developing what would later become his cancer profile. In the mid-'70s he continued his work at the Howard Hughes Research Institute, which, he says, was a part of the University of Miami.
But the Maryland-based research group has no record of Schandl. A spokesman said the institute did once have an administrative office in Coconut Grove, but it never provided funds for research in South Florida or anyone affiliated with the University of Miami.
When told of this discrepancy, Schandl clarifies by saying that he simply rented space and materials owned by the institute.
Schandl says he perfected the cancer-profile test throughout the '80s, while working as laboratory director at several South Florida labs. In 1994 he founded American Metabolic Testing Laboratories and, around the same time, heard Faloon talking about the Life Extension Foundation on radio shows. Schandl had seen LEF advertisements in newspapers, and he started picking up copies of Life Extension magazine. Although he was impressed with some of LEF's innovations, he noticed repeated inaccuracies in interpretation in its literature.
Feeling he could lend some credibility to the organization, Schandl offered to help LEF out as an unpaid consultant. Faloon says he thought it was a great idea: Members with questions could consult someone with expertise. Schandl was soon named LEF's scientific director, and in turn LEF began promoting the cancer-profile test and throwing blood tests his way. On his end Schandl promotes LEF's treatments and supplements.
A cozy relationship, for sure. But Clara Lawhead, a licensed nutrition counselor and the president of the Florida Council Against Health Fraud, says the LEF tests and treatments play on people's fears about death and aging. Moreover, patients spend hundreds of dollars a year on blood tests, then thousands more on LEF-suggested supplements, increasing both Schandl's and LEF's bottom lines.
"Anytime you find both the practitioner who offers a diagnosis and the treatment in the same facility, the patient should be wary," she warns.
In LEF's early days, there was no bottom line. What is now an organization that brings in as much as $27 million a year began in 1973 as just a dozen strangers from South Florida interested in a a topic that had recently popped up on TV talk shows: cryonics. Cryonicists believe that if you freeze a body after death, you can preserve it until a cure comes along for whatever disease the person died of, then revive that person and bring him or her back to life with the new medicine.
Joe Cannon, a pioneer in cryonics, began getting phone calls after his talk show appearances, so he put some of those callers in touch with each other. A group formed in South Florida and held monthly meetings to discuss ways to raise money to help fund cryonics research.
"It was based on a fear of dying," Glen Tupler, one of LEF's founding members, says of the group's motivations. "You don't want life to end, and it's hard to face reality that it's going to end. So you do anything you can to extend it."
In 1976 the group invited Saul Kent, a former writer for science magazines and journals and the founder of the New York Cryonics Society, to meet with them. One of the group members was Bill Faloon, a mortician and funeral director originally from Pittsburgh, who, like Kent, was interested in turning immortality into a full-time job.
Kent asked Faloon to help form a foundation to encourage antiaging research and provide alternative health information to its members. Faloon agreed, and in 1982 the Life Extension Foundation was formed as a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization.
It wasn't long before LEF found itself in the public eye. In 1987 Kent's 83-year-old mother, Dora, lay in a vegetative state in a California nursing home. One December day he checked her out and brought her to a cryonics laboratory in Riverside, California. She died there a few days later, and cryonics researchers loaded her up with barbiturates to slow the decomposition process, according to press reports.
With Kent's approval researchers lowered his mother's body temperature to below freezing and severed her head. The head, Kent reasoned, would be stored in a Thermos-like container and eventually resuscitated and reattached to a cloned version of his mother's body. Storing just the head would also be cheaper, and Kent figured that by the time researchers developed the technology capable of resuscitating his mother they'd also be able to clone her body.
The Riverside County coroner had other ideas. He believed the researchers had killed Mrs. Kent by giving her a lethal dose of drugs before she'd actually died. An investigation, however, yielded no evidence to support the theory. No charges were filed, and Mrs. Kent's head is still stored in a cryonics facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.
While cryonics was the starting point for LEF, the group quickly branched into other areas, such as herbal- and dietary-supplement and vitamin sales. LEF's main goal, Faloon says, is to develop life-extension therapies.
Vitamin sales pay for the majority of LEF's expenses, and the money raised, Faloon says, goes to people like Dr. Roy Walford, a pathologist at UCLA who has studied the effect of calorie restriction on aging. Walford said LEF is the only vitamin company he knows of that puts money into research.
Verifying Walford's claim isn't easy. Federal law requires charitable nonprofit agencies to disclose, upon request, the past three years of completed IRS-990 forms. Each tax form lists the charity's assets, expenses, and total contributions made that year. Florida law requires that the form also be filed with the state. As soon as the form is filed, the organization is officially registered with the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Faloon, however, refused to share copies of the IRS forms. And LEF has never filed with the state.
"It's just too complicated to talk about," Faloon said of the company's financial situation.
Bernard Singer, LEF's tax attorney, said accountants are now working on the 990 form, which should be ready by September. At that time, he noted, LEF "may also file some past tax forms."
Dom LaPonzina, IRS chief of communications in Washington, D.C., said LEF is listed as a nonprofit charity, but he would not comment on the status of the 990 forms. He noted that charities sometimes receive legal filing extensions. And sometimes they don't bother to file.
"Trust me," Singer said, "there is no hanky-panky at this organization. I am dead serious on that. You just happened to call at a bad time."
This isn't the first time LEF has had problems with the federal government. On February 26, 1987, the FDA raided LEF headquarters in a search for drugs federal agents believed were being illegally imported and stored by the organization. FDA regulations allow individuals to buy small amounts of unapproved drugs from overseas for personal use. Drugs may be brought back after trips abroad or received in the mail, so long as they aren't resold or considered a health risk.
In 1987 the FDA alleged that Kent and Faloon had created fictitious health care companies in Panama and Vienna to promote and sell in the United States unapproved drugs for such diseases as AIDS, herpes, and Alzheimer's.
The two men denied the charges and said they were merely providing LEF members with information about the drugs. But in 1991 a federal grand jury indicted Faloon and Kent on more than two dozen counts of conspiracy, importing unapproved drugs, and dispensing drugs in packages labeled as dietary supplements. The case dragged on for years, with hundreds of motions filed. But by 1996 the U.S. Attorney's office admitted it was unable to build a case against LEF and dropped the charges.
While the FDA continues to investigate LEF, Brad Stone, the FDA public information director, said he could not comment on the investigation. Instead he faxed New Times a copy of a 1987 statement, saying that "it should give you some insight."
"An ongoing FDA investigation of Life Extension Products of Hollywood, Fla., has revealed that the company marketed a variety of drug products with medical claims that were allegedly false or misleading," the statement reads.
When it comes to outfits like LEF, the FDA has considerably less bite than it once did. Until 1994, federal law prohibited companies from claiming that herbal and dietary supplements offered specific health benefits. If a company made such a claim, the supplement would be considered a drug and thus be subject to FDA safety regulation.
For example, LEF sells a mineral supplement called "Bone-Up," a high-potency calcium product made by a company called Jarrow. Under the old rules, LEF's vitamin store could sell Bone-Up but could not claim that it offered any health benefit either verbally or in its literature. But in 1994 the U.S. Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which allows companies to make health-benefit claims. In fact, Jarrow does so on its package, stating "research shows" that Bone-Up "may reduce the risk of osteoporosis."
Vitamin-supply companies like LEF are still prohibited from using the word "cure" in their pitches. But state health regulators worry that, after seeing any health claim at all, consumers may assume that the supplement is safe, effective, and approved by the FDA. In fact, because of DSHEA, the FDA never tests dietary supplements. Nobody, in effect, is minding the vitamin store.
The state health department is trying. According to Gloria Henderson, director of the department's Medical Quality Assurance division, two options are being considered at the moment: establishing standards for alternative medicine in the state, and putting together an association of alternative practitioners for the purpose of self-regulation. The Florida Board of Medicine also plans to meet in August to discuss the dietary-supplement industry.
In the meantime DSHEA's limitations are amply demonstrated in LEF's literature, which makes health-benefit claims that are impossible for a consumer to verify. Virtually every month Life Extension magazine throws out headlines such as "Breakthrough Drug For Alzheimer's Disease," "Cancer Breakthrough," and "Herbal Breakthrough" (for prostate cancer victims). The article accompanying the last headline mentions four different prostate-cancer studies but only lists where one of them took place.
Clara Lawhead, of the health fraud council, reviewed the ten-page section on AIDS and HIV therapy in LEF's protocol book and found extensive references to published medical journals but no footnotes or citations.
"The fact that they don't source with a footnote makes this garbage, because there's no way anyone could go back and hold them accountable," she noted. "Unless you give everything a reference, it's bogus, it's phony, it's a fraud."
The folks at LEF couldn't care less what the medical establishment thinks of their operation. Faloon says foundation members enroll, for the most part, because they're tired of "official medicine" and governmental overregulation.
As proof of LEF's regard for safety, Faloon notes that unlike doctors, who fear malpractice suits, LEF has never been sued. Besides, LEF urges each member to see a physician if he or she has a serious medical problem.
Faloon maintains a tidy office at LEF headquarters. The shelves behind his desk are lined with medical books. Next to the books is a "helmet" that looks like a pillowcase with two mirrors stuck to it. The mirrors are actually opaque visors, and the foam-lined helmet is designed to withstand heat of up to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. Faloon wears it during airplane travel so that, in the event of a crash, his head will be protected and, if found, ready for freezing.
Faloon bounds into his office wearing a jet-black business suit and a pressed white shirt. At age 43, he appears fit and energetic and introduces himself with a singsong pronunciation of his name.
"This," he says, triumphantly holding up a stack of papers, "is the cure for cancer."
Earlier in the day, Faloon downloaded the material from Med-Line, a database of medical journals and scientific reports. The "cure" to which he's referring is the combination of the drugs Angiostatin and Endostatin, which can eliminate cancer in mice by restricting the amount of blood that flows toward a tumor. The drugs, developed by Judah Folkman, a Harvard University doctor, made national headlines back in May. But since then Dr. Folkman and others have warned against pinning too many hopes on the drugs. What works for mice will not necessarily work in humans.
That's of no consequence to Faloon, who refuses to wait the 12 to 18 months it takes the FDA to test new drugs. While he can't promise that the drugs won't harm humans, he points out that quite a few cancer victims don't have much time to live anyway.
"I don't believe it's a toxic substance," he says. "At this point the animals seem to do very well with it."
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To get the drug on the market quickly, Faloon has been urging LEF members to contact their congressmen and put pressure on the FDA. He also plans to meet with a group of chemists he claims may be able to replicate the two drugs. Once the bootleg versions are created, LEF will let its cancer patients know where they need to go to get them.
Is that legal?
Faloon says that if LEF is merely providing its members with information that could help them live to the age of 115, what's the problem?
But is it safe?
Again, it's too soon to say, but Faloon's not worried. The people creating the drugs are scientists with whom he has worked before.
"No one has ever died from anything they've done," he said. "I trust them.


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Thousands of screaming, cheering Giants fans wearing team gear and throwing confetti celebrated the Super Bowl champions in their second victory parade in four years up Manhattan's Canyon of Heroes Tuesday.
Players, coaches and dignitaries rode on floats as fans went wild below on the street and tossed confetti from up above, out the windows of office buildings. On one float, Eli Manning clutched the Vince Lombardi Trophy, hoisting it over his head at times.
Mike King, 16, of Wantagh, N.Y., and seven school friends got up at dawn to join the crowds packed behind police barricades lining Broadway. He attributed the Giants' win to the stellar performance of Manning and the hold-your-breath catch by Mario Manningham that led to the game-winning drive.
"It was one small step for the Giants, and one giant leap for the fans and the nation," King said.
U.S. & World
After the parade, the players received keys to the city at a City Hall ceremony open only to the lucky 500 people who received tickets through a lottery on Monday. The mayor handed the keys to the team members on stage, where Victor Cruz did his signature salsa before receiving his.
Running back Andre Brown reprised his now-famous song seen in a cell phone video taken on the Giants plane, singing "I got a ring" as fellow teammates joined him on stage.
Coach Tom Coughlin told the crowd that New York is the "greatest city in the world."
"And it's wonderful that we've returned the Lombardi Trophy to exactly where it belongs -- right here in New York," he said.
Three large screens set up around City Hall allowed members of the public to watch the ceremony. Streets are closed between Broadway and Church Street from Canal to Pearl streets.
Coughlin spoke with President Barack Obama by phone just before the parade, he said. The president sent his regards to the players and invited the team to the White House.
"He was very gracious -- he praised our football team, he praised our mental toughness, our resilience, our leadership," Coughlin said. "But the key thing was to remember this: that all things are possible for those who believe."
The Giants returned home Monday, welcomed by fans after another thrilling win over the Patriots, just four years after they accomplished the same feat.
About 1 million people were expected to witness the parade spectacle Tuesday. The procession started at Battery Place and Washington Street and continued up to Worth Street.
One fan from Brooklyn said the weather may be a little cold and windy, but added: "I have so much adrenaline pumping, I'm not feeling it."
A 3 p.m. rally is scheduled at Met Life stadium, where Gov. Chris Christie is expected to attend and Naughty By Nature is scheduled to perform.
New York has feted its public heroes since 1919, with the first parade for World War I General John Pershing and his victorious troops.
They were followed by more than 200 parades honoring everyone from aviator Charles Lindbergh to scientist Albert Einstein, Pope John Paul, South African leader Nelson Mandela and pianist Van Cliburn. Their names are chiseled into the Broadway sidewalks.
The Giants were showered with at least 30 tons of manufactured confetti from skyscrapers lining Broadway.
Sunday night's win was the Giants' fourth Super Bowl title.


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A literature review on family dining habits shows that children who seldom eat out consume less soda and more fruits and vegetables.
PROBLEM: Over 40 percent of the typical American family's food budget is spent on eating out, a trend that has time and again been linked to bad food choices, increased obesity risk, and poor nutritional status.
- Breastfeeding for 6 Months Is an Unrealistic Goal
- Diets High in Saturated Fats May Spoil Semen
- Eating Chocolate for Breakfast Is Good for Your Diet
METHODOLOGY: Rutgers researchers led by Jennifer Martin-Biggers reviewed 68 published studies that investigated the relationship between family mealtime and children's health. They looked at how frequency or atmosphere of family meals was related to consumption of both healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, and less desirable treats like soft drinks. The researchers also evaluated if the totality of scientific evidence thus far supports the claim that more frequent family meals decreases the risk of obesity.
RESULTS: Children who had frequent family meals tended to eat more fruits, vegetables, fiber, calcium-rich foods, and vitamins; and less dietary components thought to be harmful to one's health. Although the researchers found only a weak link between family meals and reduced obesity risk, kids in families with more family meals tended to have lower body mass indices than those who ate outside the home more often.
CONCLUSION: Eating as a family at home may lead to healthier food choices, but its relation to obesity remains a mystery.
SOURCE: The full study, "Benefits of Family Mealtime Across the Growing Years: A Conceptual Model," was presented at American Society for Nutrition's Experimental Biology 2012.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to email@example.com.


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We've recently seen a number of interesting photos from the set of two new films that director Terrence Malick has been shooting this year, but we now have word on when we might get to see the filmmaker's follow-up to 2011's The Tree of Life. Malick notoriously takes his time in the post-production process, and his most recent film To the Wonder (which was shot in 2010) finally premiered this past fall at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. The story revolves around a European woman (Olga Kurylenko) and her tumultuous relationship with an Oklahoman man (Ben Affleck), and following a mixed-to-negative response, Magnolia acquired the pic for distribution.
Now The Film Stage reports that Magnolia is eyeing an April 2013 release for the pic, following its February 22nd UK release. Despite the mixed reactions (read Matt's review right here), I'm eager to see the latest work from the reclusive auteur.


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You are here: Home ‹ Board index ‹ Movie Discussion ‹ All Other/Older Movies ‹ (2004) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Cast of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
Discuss this movie. Available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Victor Rasuk is this young guy from NYC. he stars in this movie called "Rasing Victor Vargas" you should check it out... its a good movie and iv meet the guy and he is really something

Victor Rasuk
I've seen that actor Victor Rasuk in quite a few performances when he was in high school. He's quite talented. Keep your eye on him because he truly is a rising star.

I dont know why, but the name of the actor "Michael Fewx" dont have anymore in the cast on IMDB and the one of "Victor Rasuk" still doesnt exist!

Somebody knows something about that actors?
And who is "Josh Flitter"?

Now the is like this:
Jim Carrey
Kate Winslet
Kirsten Dunst
Elijah Wood
Mark Ruffalo
Tom Wilkinson
David Cross
Ellen Pompeo
Lauren Adler
Josh Flitter
Ryan Whitney
Gerry Robert Byrne
Victor Rasuk
Michael Fewx ?

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Main News Page
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
A decade of "systemic" time-card fraud charged to a $2.6 billion nuclear tank cleaning contract will cost global engineering firm CH2M Hill Companies Ltd. $18.5 million in penalties and restitution, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.
CH2M Hill and subsidiary CH2M Hill Hanford Group Inc. (CHG) "have agreed that CHG committed federal criminal violations, defrauding the public by engaging in years of widespread time card fraud" at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State from 1999 to 2008, the Justice Department announced Thursday (March 7).
However, the companies will avoid criminal prosecution under a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington, authorities said.
At left, a CH2M Hill employee shows a new decontamination mobile unit in 2003 at Hanford. At right, a tank farm worker uses monitoring equipment. More than 500 workers were employed under the contract, which was tied to wages paid.
Eight employees have pleaded guilty to felony charges in the same fraud and conspiracy. One of the eight was an employee who blew the whistle on the scheme.
CH2M Hill did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.
Financial Settlement
Under the federal settlement, CH2M Hill will:
Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and one of the largest and most complex hazardous waste sites in the world.
Tank Farms Contract
The case stems from a Department of Energy contract to manage and clean 177 large underground storage tanks containing mixed radioactive and hazardous waste at the Hanford site, located on the Columbia River in southeastern Washington.
The Hanford site was used to produce weapons-grade nuclear material during World War II and the Cold War. Most of the site has been decommissioned, but tens of millions of tons of radioactive waste remain. The DOE assumed control of the site in 1977.
The cleanup contract was originally signed with Lockheed Martin Hanford Corp., which was later taken over by CH2M Hill.
Now mostly decommissioned, the Hanford site (shown here in 1960) is one of the largest and most complex hazardous-waste sites in the world.
Court records show that CH2M employed 500 hourly-wage workers at Hanford, plus administrative and supervisory personnel, under a contract that tied the company's fees to the wages it paid.
The time-card fraud involved both employees and management, the CH2M Hill admits:
Contract Tied to Wages
Details of the scam were laid out in a statement of fact agreed to by CH2M Hill and the Justice Department.
Basically, the statement describes a scheme in which some members of upper management signed off on what they knew to be inflated overtime claims in order to attract employees to meet production benchmarks required for executive bonuses and greater profits.
Representatives from the Department of Energy and CH2M Hill sign a congratulatory banner at a 2004 celebration of a Hanford tank cleanup milestone.
Unlike traditional cost-plus contracts, which include a base fee, CH2M earned its fees under the contract only by performing specified fee-bearing work, court records show.
Under the contract, the company paid employees and then billed DOE for those expenses, plus overhead, incidental expenses and profit. The more wages billed by employees, the more fees paid to the company under the contract.
Executive Bonuses Threatened
The statement says that CHG's hourly workers "consistently refuse[d] to perform any overtime work" unless the work was offered in eight-hour blocks.
Management's inability to secure enough overtime workers for various jobs "threatened CHG's ability to complete various projects linked to the Tank Farms Contract performance incentives," the statement of fact said.
"This, in turn, threatened CHG's ability to earn certain fees, and therefore profits under the Tank Farms Contract."
Those incentives also "directly impacted the personal corporate bonuses of certain members of CHG's upper management," the statement said.
Therefore, the statement said, "certain members of CHG's upper management, certain direct supervisors of the hourly workers, and certain other supervisory personnel accepted the practice of hourly workers only working until the particular overtime job was completed, leaving Hanford, and falsely claiming a full 8 hours even when the job took less than 8 hours."
Facilitating Fraud
Direct supervisors of the employees furthered the scheme by engaging "in patterns designed to avoid the detection of the routine time card fraud by law enforcement and internal auditors."
CHG "knowingly, willfully, and with intent to defraud, facilitated CHG's hourly workers routinely getting paid for hours they did not work and combined, conspired, and agreed with CHG hourly workers to accomplish the same, all at the sole expense of the citizens of the United States," the parties said.
There's more.
The time-card fraud "was not limited to overtime abuse and had occurred for many years, in some instances even pre-dating the Tank Farms Contact," the statement of fact reported.
Court records in the case indicate, for example, that routine work that should have been done during regular shifts was pushed to overtime shifts where employees earned time-and-a-half or double time. In some cases, personal work was done on company time.
Whistleblower Complaint
The fraud unraveled after a complaint by employee Carl Schroeder. According to a whistleblower lawsuit eventually filed by the U.S. on Schroeder's behalf, Schroeder's supervisor order him in May 2008 to go to the supervisor's home with another manager to repair the supervisor's home air conditioner.
After fixing that air conditioner, the supervisor drove Schroeder to a friend's house and told him to fix the friend's air conditioner.
Schroeder bought a part for the supervisor's friend's air conditioner, fixed it, returned to the work site, "and was paid for his time at work that day as if he had never left the site," said the suit, filed under the False Claims Act.
Later, Schroeder complained about the incident to the company and to the DOE Inspector General. When the Inspector General began to investigate, CH2M Hill fired Schroeder. In September 2012, the Justice Department joined the whistleblower suit (United States ex rel. Schroeder v. CH2M Hill, No. 09-cv-5038, E.D. Wash.).
That suit values the contract between CH2M and DOE as $2,652,092,374.76 between Oct. 1, 1999, and Sept. 30, 2006.
The D reactor at Hanford is decommissioned in this undated photo.
On May 29, 2008, a new joint venture called Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) was awarded a $7 billion contract to complete the tank cleanup and waste management.
Scapegoating vs. 'Official Employment Policy'
According to the U.S. suit, CH2M Hill made Schroeder "a scapegoat for its policy of upcharging hourly work, falsely and wrongfully climing that the problem was limited to a few 'bad apples' when in fact the upcharging was the result of a deliberate and persistent policy whereby Defendants used more than 400 hourly workers to defraud the United States...."
"Virtually all" of CH2M Hill's nearly 500 employees at Hanford were engaged in "upcharging and overtime abuse with the knowledge and consent of the supervisors and other management," the suit said. "These practices were known, condoned, and encouraged by the hourly workers' supervsiors, managers, and directors at CH2.
"The practices were so widespread that they can only be characterized as the official employment policy of CH2."
The suit said the practices had been going on for more than 10 years.
'Appalling Abuse'
A federal prosecutor criticized CH2M Hill's behavior but commended its cooperation in the investigation.
"This sort of systemic fraud is an appalling abuse of the trust we place in our contractors at Hanford, and it simply will not be tolerated," said Michal C. Ormsby, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington.
"However, we are pleased that CH2M Hill has stepped up and admitted to the criminal conduct of its subsidiary and has agreed to pay back a good faith estimate of what was taken, including criminal proceeds from the conspiracy."
Another CH2M subsidiary, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company, is still working at the Hanford site.
A 2003 photo shows the bottom of an underground Hanford tank with less than an inch of highly radioactive waste remaining after the waste has been pumped out. DOE's Office of River Protection and CH2M Hill "are Considering the Tank as Empty as it May Ever Be!" according to photo information on DOE's website.
"Under this global resolution, CH2M Hill will continue its commendable cooperation and help ensure that all individuals who participated in this conspiracy and profited from it will be brought to justice as well."
Last week, the Ethisphere Insitute named CH2M Hill to its 2013 list of "World's Most Ethical Companies." It was the Denver-based company's fifth consecutive year on the list.
Ethisphere describes itself as a "leading international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability."
Comment from Gail Alario, (3/12/2013, 7:08 AM)
How does fraud of this magnitude go on for 9 years at a nuclear site without being caught sooner? More of the fox watching the hen house
Comment from Thomas Matlock, (3/12/2013, 3:45 PM)
How long does it have to go on until the company and its management is actually criminally charged? You would think they were a bank...
Comment from James Albertoni, (3/13/2013, 11:02 AM)
I used to work for CH2M Hill. From what I heard from inside the company, some of these people did get jail time.
Comment from Chuck Pease, (3/13/2013, 11:10 AM)
Why is there a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington? I know if you or I defrauded someone we would be in prison for a very long time. What system is in place to keep others from doing this again? Seems like "WE the People" continue to be bilked with absolutley no real consequences for this type of behavoir. Remember the 08 financial meltdown? Not one upper level manager has seen any jail time or conviction for what was one of the biggest robberies ever commited against the American people. Can you say the "Fleecing of America"
Comment from M. Halliwell, (3/14/2013, 10:48 AM)
Chuck, it looks like the corporate version of a plea bargain to me. I see far too many cases in the news of individuals getting away with killing others in different ways and being able to plea bargain it away to something piddly. In this case, CH2M Hill admits its subsidiary's wrong doing and repays the money....probably saving the US at least the same amount in legal fees for trying to prosecute it....The US "gets its man" so to speak, a couple folks get some jail time, CH2M gets to quitely purge certain individuals and the whole matter gets nicely wrapped up. Hopefully this will lead to a little more diligence and oversight at the project.
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Northwest Folklife Festival at Seattle Center
- Friday, 5/26-Monday, 5/29
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- Routes 5, 26E, 28E, 40, 62 and the RapidRide E Line travel to within walking distance of Seattle Center.
Sounders FC match
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Long-term Construction Reroutes
S 2nd St is closed at Main St in Renton
- Through Saturday, 7/1 – at all times;
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May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
~ An Irish Blessing
This is just a wee post of some flowers in our garden and some from on our street.
|crabapple blossoms {not in our garden}
|common comfrey
|white columbine
|lily of the valley
|forget me nots
|mystery wildflowers
|blue columbine
|bleeding hearts


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Apparently, the sky isn't the only thing...
...that's falling...
"The state of air quality in Canada has improved significantly since the 1970s, in most regions, with respect to all major pollutant types," said Joel Wood, Fraser Institute senior research economist and author of Canadian Environmental Indicators – Air Quality.Just something else to ponder while you're glorying in the midst of your excess houses & offspring.
"Yet environmental and health care organizations continue to scare people into thinking that air pollution is increasing and that this presents a serious health risk in Canada. These claims are exaggerated or outright wrong."
As an example, the study highlights a pair of recent reports from the Canadian Medical Association and Suzuki Foundation which argued for stricter air-pollution regulations in Canada, based on assumptions that air pollution was increasing or remaining constant.
Both studies received extensive media coverage despite the fact they provided no historical context and arrived at their conclusions based on false assumptions.
"And the CBC host has two sizeable homes, despite calling it "disgusting" that the average Canadian's home (most have just one) is larger than that of our grandparents."**********
RELATED: Hang on a second...
...didn't Dr "I haz rainbows & unicorns"... run out & start a second family? That's what... five kids?
I guess rules are for little people.


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Besigye Address to the Media after Release from Police Custody (Youtube – Interview!)
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Posted in Africa, Civil Service, Development, Election, Ethics, Governance, Government, Law, Politics and tagged 1966, ABA, Activities, Amama Mbabazi, Anti-Besigye Act, Arrest, Backward, BBC, Besieged Home, Black Peasents, Bond Forms, Bond Papers, Britain, Cell, Central Executive Committee, CID, Citizens, Civilized, Code of Law, Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, Colonial Government, Colonial Master, Commerically By, Complainance, Constituency, Consultant Meeting, Control, Custody, Deathbed, Defyence, Democracy, Deny Me, Dictator, Dictators, Dictatorship, Disobey, Disobidience, District, Dr, Dr Badru Kiggundu, Dreamers, EC, Electiion Commission Road Map for 2016, Electoral Commission, Electoral Reform, Eng. Dr. Badru M. Kiggundu, Fairness, FDC, FDC Flag-Bearer, FDC Headquarter in Kirekka, FDC Nominations, FDC Presidential Candidate, FDC Programs, Fear, Forum for Democratic Change, Free and Fair Election, Freedom, Gang, Gen. Kale Kayihura, Gentleman, Government of Uganda, H. E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Hon. Amama Mbabazi, Hon. Ibrahim Nganda Ssemujju, Ibrahim Nganda Ssemujju, IGP Kale Kayihura, Intercept Communaction, Investment, JPAM, Justice, Kampala, Kasangati, Kasangati Police Post, Kiira Road Police Station, Kirekka, Kizza Besigye, Lawful, Leader of Opposition, Liberty, Lock-Up, Lodge, Lodging, M7, Manifestos, Mbabazi, Message, Military Equipment, Multi-Party Democracy, Murder, Nagalama Police Station, National Resistance Movement, National Security, Nomination Days, Not Regulated, NRM, NRM Branches, NRM CEC, NRM Electoral Commission, NRM Regime, NRM Spying Machine, Orders, Parliament of Uganda, Parliamentary Election Bill, Peasentary Societies, People, People of Uganda, Police State, Political Work, Poltical Party, POMA, Power, Power Shifts, Prententive Arrest, President Election 2016, Presidential Election 2016 Uganda, Prison, Privacy International, Public, Public Meeting, Public Order Management Act, Reason, Resources, Robbing, Safety, Senior Police Officer, Sieged House, Spy, Spying, Statement, System, System of Spying Technology, Taping, TDA, The Democratic Alliance, The Democratic Alliance Uganda, Uganda, Uganda Parliament, Uganda Police Force, UK, UPF, Wakiso, Wire Tap, YKM, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni | Leave a comment


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The Special Collections Department is lucky to have some wonderful students working here, and they do a lot of work processing our collections. Rachel Kleinschmidt, a graduate student in History, recently processed the Henry Montgomery and Bernice Bernard Black Family Papers (RS 21/8/12) and has written the blog posting below. Since the 68th anniversary of D-Day is coming up in a few weeks on June 6, and Memorial Day is today, we thought this would be a good time to highlight this collection.
On Memorial Day, we think about the sacrifices that men and women have made by serving in the military. The Special Collections Department is home to the collections of many important ISU alumni and veterans, including Henry M. Black.
Henry M. Black (above), member of VII Corps Headquarters, 9th U.S. Army, receives oak leaf cluster to his bronze star medal from Lt. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, commanding general, VII Corps, at a ceremony in Leipzig, Germany (photograph from Box 16, Folder 4).
Henry Montgomery Black was an Iowa native, born in Reinbeck, Iowa in 1907. He attended Iowa State University (then Iowa State College) from 1925-1929, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He then furthered his education with a Master's degree from Harvard University in 1934.
Following his time in college, Henry Black served in the United States Army. His experience as an engineer was put to use by the Army Corps of Engineers, and Henry served as the chief engineer of the Utah Beach landing during the Normandy invasion in 1944. His service was rewarded with a Bronze Star, a Legion of Merit, and a Croix de Guerre (pictured below).
Henry Black's Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, and Croix de Guerre (Artifact number 2010-214.001-003)
Henry would eventually retire from the army at the rank of Colonel. In the meantime, he returned to his alma mater (Iowa State) to serve as the Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department from 1946-1972. Because of his impact on the Iowa State Engineering Department and campus (he was instrumental in helping build the university's mechanical engineering program into one of national prominence), a building was named in his honor. Black Engineering Building was named in 1987.
Henry Black in front of Black Engineering Building (photograph from Box 18, Folder 1)
Henry Black was not the only member of his extended family to have a distinguished military career. His father-in-law, Ransom Drips Bernard, served in World War I in the Army medical corps, eventually attaining the rank of Captain. Ransom was not an Iowa State graduate, but his wife, Bernice Corlette Bernard graduated with the class of 1904.
Ransom Drips Bernard (photograph from Box 40, Folder 10)
Both Henry and Ransom documented their service through letters to family back home. These letters, along with many photographs and artifacts like those mentioned above, can be found in the Henry Montgomery Black and Bernice Bernard Black Family Papers, RS 21/8/12, in the Special Collections Department. The collection documents several generations of the Black and Bernard families through artifacts, photographs, scrapbooks, and correspondence.
Bernice Black Durand (left) and Rachel Kleinschmidt (right) going through the Henry Montgomery Black and Bernice Bernard Black Family Papers (RS 21/8/12), which Bernice donated to the department and Rachel processed.
Rachel (right) showing Bernice (right) the processed Henry Montgomery Black and Bernice Bernard Black Family Papers in the storage area.
Interested in finding out more about the collection? You can read the finding aid online, and then come visit the Special Collections Department (open M-F, 9-4) and let us know which boxes you would like to see!


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|System: X360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP
|Review Rating Legend
|Dev: EA Tiburon
|1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
|4.0 - 4.4 = Great
|Pub: EA Sports
|2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
|4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
|Release: Jul. 15, 2008
|2.5 - 2.9 = Average
|5.0 = The Best
|Players: 1-4
|3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
|ESRB Rating: Everyone
|3.5 - 3.9 = Good
by Jonathan Marx
It's that time of year again. The leaves are changing color, there's a nip in the air wait a minute, it's mid-July! Nevertheless, college football is already underway on your favorite home console. This year's NCAA Football by EA Sports brings everything we loved from last year's edition and throws in several touches that help bring the spirit and excitement of game day home. Of course, if you absolutely love the college football game you already own, there may not be a truly compelling reason to pick up this year's version. That said, I'm ecstatic that I've upgraded to NCAA Football 2009 (NCAA 09).
Veterans of EA Sports football titles will feel right at home with the control scheme and gameplay of NCAA 09. Establishing the run, finding open receivers, blitzing the QB, and picking off floaters are executed with the greatest of ease. A few interesting changes have been made, however. For starters, the new feinting and juking system feels much more realistic and fluid. Instead of being shackled to a frustrating move animation, players can now change direction and link moves together mid-stride in response to closing defenders and open holes. As a result, running the option, using draw plays, and hitting receivers on the numbers are even more devastating than ever before.
Second, calling a timeout doesn't just stop the clock. This year's interactive timeouts actually allow for a bit of simplified coaching to be done in the huddle on the sideline. After calling a timeout, a list of several coaching options will fire up specific players. In other words, if you know the opposition is going to run, you can tell your linemen to get a solid push at the line and they will actually get an ability boost when play resumes. Along those lines, you can also ice the opposition's kicker by calling a timeout in the waning minutes of the second and fourth quarters. This is loads of fun against buddies at home because the camera angle goes haywire, the controller starts vibrating, and the sound of a freshman heartbeat starts to thump. As fun as this was for me, I could see how some people would find it a bit gimmicky, as it can be a near controller-throwing affair when it happens to you.
I also really liked the new formation audible function. Like other years, players can change the play at the line if they think the defense has a read on their offense. What's different now is players can change the play without changing the formation. The result is that the opponent thinks they still have you read, but you've been able to completely change the tactic. Furthermore, bluff play art can be initiated at the line by accessing the Coach Cam. By pressing to the right, left, or up, dummy play schemes will be ghosted on the screen to try and throw off your opponent. If you do find yourself making bonehead offensive plays anyway (i.e. throwing floaters into double coverage), you will be subject to the all-new Quarterback Quiz. For example, after throwing an INT, a text dialog and graphics will pop up on the HUD and have you decide what play the defense called. If you choose correctly, then your QB will regain his confidence. If not, he'll feel rattled. These three new mechanics definitely enhance the football experience by making it a bit more rounded.
In addition to the new features, classic modes of play including Dynasty Mode, Campus Legend, Mini-Games, and even the Mascot Mash-Up are back and well accounted for. Subtle changes to these modes along with the improved environments and settings also help separate this title from its predecessors.
Dynasty Mode still allows players to take on their school(s) of choice as head coach and guide them to victory via deep recruiting tools, team management, and on-field prowess. This year's iteration of Dynasty Mode is essentially unchanged from last year's except for the enhanced recruiting features and the ability to take your dynasty online. Now, players can set an overall recruiting strategy by letting assistants handle the process and also make quicker, more streamlined calls to prospects in order to entice them to come to their program. These features definitely help to speed up the recruiting process while still giving players a somewhat hands-on feel.